From Cheetos to Lunges

When we moved to our new neighborhood, it was not long until I heard of the women who belonged to a group called Stroller Strides. It was not long after that when I saw these formidable ladies in action.

One day as I sat at my dining room table and looked out into the park I noticed a few women in a group pushing their strollers. And then they kept coming. One after another as far as the eye could see there were women pushing strollers with children ranging from newborn to around 4 years old. Its freezing outside, I thought to myself. And what time is it. 9am, hmm. And then the craziest thing happened. They started doing lunges. Now they had my undivided attention. What in the world are they doing? Not just one or two lunges mind you. At least a minute or two worth of lunges. There seemed to be a rather spry one in the front with a whistle? Oh gosh does she really have a whistle? (snicker snicker) They began running. You have to be kidding me. I stepped out onto my porch to take it all in. Not long after that they stopped along a group of park benches and began singing to their little ones as they did a round of crunches. Next came a delightful run of suicides. Grape vines, push ups, squats, etc.. They kept on like this until they were out of sight. I slumped down onto my couch, ate a bag of Cheetos, and laughed for a good long while. I.....would never stoop to this madness. They looked so silly. It would take a lot to get me to run around like a crazy lady behind my stroller. And if I did, how hard could it actually be?

A little while later a friend and I were on a walk. We decided we would go about three days a week. She couldn't make it the first two days but on day three off we went. About 20 minutes into our leisurely walk we came upon the Stroller Stride brigade. We laughed, poked fun and eventually settled in behind them about 50 yards back. We began mimicking each of their moves. Lunges, high knees, the works. Then they parked their strollers and sprinted up to the top of a hill and began doing push ups while looking down at the strollers below. Who are these women? I was not sure but I did know one thing. I could barely breath trying to keep up with them and I wanted more than anything to get in line and join in.

Monday was my first day and today was my third. The membership fee is $55 a month and the classes are 5 days a week and begin at 9am. These ladies are hard core and I love it. Day one as we all sang our ABC's while doing some horrific exercise that I have repressed, all the moms belted out the song to the delight of their children. All but me. As Adalyn stared at her crazy momma all she got was about every third letter. All of my other effort was going towards breathing and not passing out. When I found myself for the third day in a row at the back of the line, behind even the two prego women I realized I was in the right place. Love it, Love it, Love it. All the moms gather together at the end and talk and the children run off to the park, swings, sand box or fountains.

You can check out the website below. I would recommend this to anyone interested. They even have classes on Saturdays. www.strollerstrides.com

The Ultimate Funky Funk

Mortgage rates are at an all time low, housing prices are possibly at rock bottom and there are large tax incentives for individuals to buy homes that are either first time home buyers or have owned their home for a few years (the stimulus package probably does not apply but you get the point). Sounds like the perfect storm to purchase a property and rent it out doesn't it?

If I may be so bold, I would like to give my own experience as a landlord to persuade you otherwise.

So here they are in random order.

Amy's top 5 reasons to not rent out your fabulous, clean, lovely home :)

Exhibit A

Dogs, piranhas or small baseboard eating humans may inhabit your home without prior written approval?

Exhibit B

Those unauthorized furry or not so furry creatures may have some issues. This is the PG version. I didn't want to scare you too badly but all the carpet has been pulled up.

Exhibit C

This is what it looked like under the carpet so you can imagine what was on top. Convinced yet?

Exhibit D

Your tenants could consider all surfaces of your home fair game for table tennis, kickball or some other type of destructive sporting event.

Exhibit E

And you may soon believe that duct tape is an acceptable use for patching large holes in your drywall.

Happy Earth Day!

All right so at one point in our marriage, lets say for every year we were married until 2006, we did not recycle. For shame! How many tons of recyclable materials have we put in the landfill?

To give myself an idea of what would happen if we stopped recycling or went back in time and determined how much we were putting into the landfill, I did a little experiment. I collected everything that our family uses over a two week period and instead of putting it in the recycling bin, I collected the items for your viewing pleasure.

I know, I know. Who uses that much? Granted we had company in town for a few days out of the two week period but geez.

So where do we go from here?

I found some very interesting sites that provide resources about recycling. I had no idea you could recycle so many things.

There is actually a Center for Hard to Recycle Items where I live. Who knew? Some items they charge you to recycle and some are for free. Check out this website. It is quite possibly the coolest website ever. Did you know you can recycle wire hangers, batteries, foam padding, carpet and foil. http://www.ecocycle.org

Here is another fantastic resource that I am using. http://www.officiency.com/recycling.html#eyeglasses

So a plan is now in place to solve the top recycling excuse our family has (if we are not sure if it is recyclable its easier to just throw it away). I have created a system where all potentially recyclable or give away items are placed. Those items that can go out each Friday in the "little purple box" are placed in one area and the other harder to recycle items (plastic bags, batteries) and give away items are placed in another and I will collect them until I make a trip to the local recycling or donation center.

A couple of ways we have decided to positively impact our contributions to the landfill/recycling center:

1) Buy in bulk whenever possible.

2) Invest in rechargeable batteries.

3) Bring our own hangers to the dry cleaners or return the hangers to the dry cleaner for them to reuse.

4) Bring our cloth shopping bags with us to all stores and not just to the grocery store (Babies R Us, Target, ect.).

5) Make use of Craigslist (under the free section) for items that can not be donated or recycled but may be of use to someone.

The Latest and Greatest in the World of Adalyn

So what has our little bundle of joy been up to these days?

She has started to say her own name pronounced "Ada". Some of her other new words include Happy, Gogurt for Yogurt, Man as learned by Mommies 007 t-shirt and Couscous.

Adalyn spent some quality time with Grandma Borosky and loved every minute.

Here she is reluctantly posing for her Easter picture mid nap time.

Adalyn or rather mommy or maybe both are absolutely loving her new teething ring aka celery :)

Adalyn is clearly enjoying running away from mommy and daddy ...

















and has a recent fascination with making funny faces and a love for shoes. Hmmm. We know where the funny faces comes from but shoes?? Can you say Auntie April or Grandma Miller?? Oh yeah.

She brings her new favorite shoes to me and says in her most endearing voice, "help me"



















We have 6 teeth total with 2 more on top making their debut.







And we can't forget her favorite hair bows. She brought them to me in bed this morning lowered her head and grunted so I would put them in her hair.

Just Between Friends

My MIL Carolyn turned me on to a wonderful organization called Just Between Friends http://www.jbfsale.com/home/. If you haven't been to a sale or heard of them I highly recommend checking out their website. This is a second hand children's sale where local parents all join together on one day and consign their items. There are fees associated with consigning and an entrance fee of $2 to attend but with a little creativity you can end up paying less. The Just Between Friends website advertises ways to lower your consignment fees and get in early on sales by volunteering for the event. You can even sign up in advance to receive free entrance into the sale. Which by the way I will be doing for the next sale I attend.

The event was held over two days and on the second day almost everything was half off. I decided to go on day number two because I planned on avoiding the temptation of buying something full price and wanted to save on gas by not driving twice (it was about 45 minutes from my house). I spent $42 in total and was able to buy a ton of items. In addition to all of the outfits seen in the pics I purchased a bag full of great children's books as well. Some for Adalyn and some for her cousin Ayden.

Here are some more examples of what I was able to find.

This outfit cost me .50 cents(minus the onesie she is wearing :)! I bought this one in a group with four other outfits for $2.50. What a bargain.

I splurged on this one for $3.00.

This one was only $1.00... :)



And here is all of my clothing loot.

Growing Tomatoes From Seed

So what is the best way to eat great organic veges all year long and slash the zeros on your grocery bill? Well growing your own food from seed is what I say. Have I ever tried it before? Well no. Do I know what I am doing? Certainly not! lol Here in lies the fabulous crux of the adventure. And here is where I begin.

It is week one and I have started off on my journey to grow these delicious antioxidant rich treats. I am using Burpee's Eco-friendly Seed Starting Kit. http://www.burpee.com Thanks Mom for the early Easter gift. I wasn't suppose to open it but I did, whoops. So whats great about this mini green house/seed starting kit is that the bamboo tray is 100% biodegradable after 6 months, the planting cells are compostable, the germination sheet (plastic doodad that you place on top until seeds germinate) is biodegradable and the fertilizer that comes with it is organic. Can you say rapture? Ok I will, rapture and pure bliss are all I can think of after opening this delightful Easter treasure. To boot she sent along the organic tomato seeds and marigolds so I can plant them next to the tomatoes and do a little companion planting.

Here is a link that gives examples of companion planting if you are interested in learning more. Just one small simple page of info put you will get the idea: http://www.ext.nodak.edu/county/cass/horticulture/vegetables/companion.htm

So enough about how excited I am. How is my progress and what have I learned?

Tip of the day:
So the little plastic doodad that I placed over top of my little precious almost germinating tomato seedlings to simulate a greenhouse effect as seen in the picture to the right.... Well, once you sow your seeds and thoroughly water them you are suppose to place this sheet over top and not remove it until you see the first signs of life. That means no watering.

So I watered once a day, did not leave the germination sheet on and I have quite a collection of a mold like substance all outside of the cells. I quickly removed the dangerous mold :) that is threatening to cause havoc on my yearly salsa supply, consulted my "Green Thumb Goddess" aka Mom, stopped my daily watering regimen and problem solved.

Aren't these little guys just adorable. More progress to follow but the steps to start your tomato plants from seeds using a seed starting kit are as follows:

1) Purchase your seed starting kit.

2) Add warm water to your "dirt balls".

3) Sow your seed into the dirt and water.

4) Cover with your germination sheet if one comes in your kit.

5) I placed mine in the window and under a desk lamp for about 16 hrs per day.

6) Once seeds have germinated water keep soil moist.

This is what has worked for me so far so we will see how it goes.

Ode to Roadside Assistance

Thank goodness for roadside assistance! One of the items on my list for 2009 is to keep better track of the families financial affairs and thereby save the family some mulla. We could definitely benefit from a better organizational system when it comes to the "papers" we have lying around in every nook and cranny in the house. So in January of this year I reevaluated our level of coverage for our auto insurance as my first act of thrifty financial responsibility. We were quoted $150 to have our poor little Saturn towed to our good friend Ray's place of business for repairs. With a quick check to our auto insurance policy we discovered that we pay $15 per year to have roadside assistance on our policy. This covers running out of gas, $100 per incident if you need to be towed and $30 a day for transportation if our vehicle is in an accident and is unfortunately unable to be among the living. So now that we saved ourselves the $150 we must decide if the $15 a year is worth it. Hmmm. For now we think it is great and are very thankful for the wise decision. Go mama!

As a side note... Thanks to taking our business to a friend we trust we saved a boat load of money by not making costly and unnecessary repairs and he also made sure we didn't pay three times extra to get a part quicker.

Here are some tips I learned from this experience:

1) Ask for a list of repairs that need to be made but ask for your mechanic to prioritize them in the following manner. Required Repairs (the ones you have to have to get good old Martha home), Strongly Recommended and Related to the Issue Repairs, Strongly Recommended but not Related to the Issue Repairs and Recommended as Preventative Maintenance.

2) Also ask if there will be a discount on labor if any of the repairs are paired together. For us we combined replacing our cooling system and replacing the timing belt and saved $300 on labor as opposed to if we would have waited to come back and have it replaced. We are at 120,000 miles so the timing belt was sure to go soon. Glad we took care of that one.

3) If you can afford to wait a day or two you may save money on parts. Let your mechanic know that you don't mind waiting for the least expensive way to get your part. Some mechanics will pay up to 3 or 4 times the amount a part would normally cost just to get your car fixed earlier. You may initially be pleased with the quick turn around but not so pleased with the bottom line.

4) Take advantage of public transportation instead of renting a vehicle. This can save you $30-$40 dollars a day.

5) Ask them for the bottom line and then tell them what you can afford. Bargain with the mechanic? Why yes, you heard me bargain with them. We do it almost everywhere else, why not at Firestone? You will be surprised how much money you will save yourself by just being honest. They will come up with all sorts of ways to cut the costs..just try it.