Everyday Randomness

Growing up on a farm I often helped my Mom can and freeze just about anything that can be canned or frozen.  My parents almost never bought veggies, and we never bought jelly as my mom made grape, fig, and muscadine jelly each year.

I spent my summers breaking beans, shelling peas, and shucking corn in preparation for the canning and freezing sessions every few days when my Dad would harvest his gardens, that is when I wasn’t out in the garden helping my Dad with the harvest.  Before we were old enough to help in the kitchen we were always in the garden.  I remember rushing out to help my Dad because he would pay us a penny for every bean we picked.  He’d also pay us a nickel for every stink bug we pulled off his plants and squished since my Dad does everything the organic way.

You’d think that growing up around all this I would retain at least some of the information I needed to can and freeze my own food, but I must have spent more time in the garden than in the kitchen.  I can’t really remember any of it.  I found myself spending some time today looking online to find out how to prepare the massive amounts of okra we have this year for freezing.  My dad has so much the entire family could eat it everyday for the rest of the summer, pack our freezers full, and still have plenty left over.

I also have to start thinking about what I’m going to do with all the pears we’ll have this year.  Our tree that produces every other year was so full year before last that it broke.  This year it’s got even more baby pears hanging around waiting for fall to arrive.  I’m sure the tree will end up breaking again, and I’m going to have so many pears I won’t know what to do with them all.

Early I followed a link, HCG diet Austin, and started reading about a wellness clinic in Austin with weight loss programs. I was on my feeling fat kick again, and I was on the hunt for more weight loss stuff. That’s when it hit me. All I have to do is keep eating healthy, and I have plenty of healthy stuff around me. If I kicked all the junk food out of my life, although I really don’t eat a lot of junk, and lived off the small orchard growing in my back yard I’m sure I’d lose the rest of the weight I want to drop.

There’s still so much stuff in our mini orchard that I’ll never use it all, though. Maybe I should set myself up a little roadside stand in my front yard selling only healthy foods. People in this country would be a lot healthier if they’d choose the healthy options that are all around us instead of all the processed full of sugar, fat, and sodium stuff they find in the stores.

I’m not going to get into everything that’s been going on, but I will backtrack a little to the things I didn’t get to blog about with our busy schedule this past week. Ellie had her 9 month wellness exam on Thursday, and she’s growing like a weed. She may have only gained 13oz putting her at 17lb 13oz, but she gained 3″ in 4 weeks. Thanks to being on the move she’s slimming up, and the doctor joked that if she keeps gaining height at this rate she’ll pass me before I know it.

The doctor also confirmed that I have absolutely nothing to worry about with her weight gain. A month ago the nurse practitioner was concerned that Ellie was losing weight, but the doctor told me she didn’t understand why in the world the np thought that. All we can figure is that the np forgot that she was a preemie. Even without factoring that in she had moved up past the 25th percentile on the growth chart, so it baffles both of us. Right now she’s between 25th-35th percentile for a 9 month old, and she’s right below the 50th percentile with her adjusted age.

As for development, she’s right on target, so there’s nothing to worry about there either. I was worried about her iron levels because she is breastfed with only an occasional bottle of formula, she refuses to eat baby cereals, and my doc took me off of vitamins due to them constantly making me sick. Her hemoglobin was 13, so her iron levels are just fine. Now that she refuses most jarred baby foods I fully believe the table foods are contributing to her iron levels as I’m filling her full of iron rich foods. I never imagined there would be so many little things like that to worry over, but believe me I worry about them constantly and whether I’m doing things right or not. It’s reassuring to have the doctor tell me all is well and to keep doing what I’m doing.

Each time we go to a wellness check I feel a little sad. I’m happy to see how much she’s growing and developing, but it reminds me that she’s growing so fast. I can’t believe she’ll be a year old in 3 months! I guess it never really hit me how fast they do move out of the baby stage until I started experiencing it with my own child. The doctor reminded me of this even more when she mentioned that she thinks Ellie will be walking by 10 months. As happy as I am to see her hit a new milestone I’m not ready for her to be toddling all over the place. I would be perfectly happy if she refused to walk for another 6 months, and I’d cherish every minute of her little hands slapping across the floor as she crawled to me. I’m going to cherish those moments anyway because they’ll be gone before I know it.

I was so tired by the time we got home tonight that there’s no way I would have had the energy to make it to my reunion tonight even if I could have afforded it.  I had planned to spend the day inside relaxing with Hubby and the baby, but we ended up at a friend’s cookout instead.  I might have spent most of the day inside, but this heat still totally drained all my energy.  It didn’t help that even with the central AC on full blast our friend’s house was still so hot I found myself wiping sweat on a regular basis.  There were just too many people there and the outside temp was too hot for the AC to contend with.

By the time we left there I was hot, full of BBQ, and ready for a nap, but we had another stop to make.  My dad wanted us to meet him at his favorite restaurant so he could see the little one.  I was already stuffed, so I ordered a small plate that Ellie could eat from of mashed potatoes, chicken tenders, and cantaloupe.   She’s almost completely off jarred food now, and I’m not complaining about that one bit.  I spent most of my time sucking down what seemed like at least a gallon of tea by myself.  What Ellie didn’t eat came home with me for lunch tomorrow.  Hubby, on the other hand, may have eaten himself silly at the BBQ, but as usual he still found room to scarf down another cheeseburger at the restaurant.

It was extremely hot in the restaurant as well, so I was super happy to get back home to my nice cool AC.  I cranked it up before we left and shut off most of the house hoping the living room, dining room, kitchen, and our bed room would be frigid by the time we returned.  It worked, but that left the rest of the house scorching hot.

I have a ton of work to do tonight, but my office was unbearable, so I opened the door to let it cool off, and after the baby finally settled down for the night I headed in here to work.  It’s still hot in here, but it’s nothing like I’ve been subjected to all day.  I really don’t have a choice right now, though.  I have a friend coming over in the morning to pick up an Acer Aspire I had in my parts pile.

It was one that someone gave me to use as a parts laptop because they didn’t want to bother having the power jack fixed when it broke off the motherboard. I’ve been planning to fix it for awhile, even ordered the part, but I didn’t feel like messing with the pain in the butt that a power jack can be until I needed to. My friend is working out of town for the next 3 months, so I offered to fix it and sell it to him cheap so he can have a way to video chat with his little girl while he’s away. It’s not the newest laptop, but it’ll get the job done for what he needs, so I’m selling it to him for a very cheap price. I can make a little cash on it, help a family out, and get it out of my office all at the same time.

While I had my soldering gear out I decided to take a crack at Hubby’s glasses as well. The first time he broke them he had them soldered at a jewelry store. This time the store refused to solder them again because they essentially broke in the same spot plus another spot. Since we still have another week to wait on Hubby’s glasses to come in I decided it couldn’t hurt to at least give it a shot as I felt bad watching him trying to tape them back together with packaging tape. Needless to say that wasn’t working very well. It’s not my prettiest soldering job ever, but I think they’ll hold together until his new ones arrive so he doesn’t have to be blind on the job.

Now I think I’ve had about enough of this heat tonight. It is still 85 in my office right now (it’s 83 outside). I have a few more jobs to do this weekend, but they aren’t critical and can wait until tomorrow.

My Grandma has been begging me for a new photo of Ellie.  She has always had a display lining her hallway with photos of all her grandchildren, and now her great grand children, and she expects updated photos to be provided regularly.  A couple weeks ago she started asking me for a new photo, and I explained to her that money has been tight recently, so she would have to wait until I could afford it if he wanted another professional photo.  I did print off a few I’ve taken for her, but she continued to ask me about updating Ellie’s professional photos.  A few days ago she gave me $20 and told me “Now this is so you can go have Ellie’s picture taken.”

When I got home that night I kind of giggled at the fact that she expected $20 to cover the cost of a professional photo session, so I tucked the $20 away to add to my order when I had the extra cash to have them made.  The last photos we had made cost us well over $100.

Fast forward to yesterday.  As I mentioned in my previous post Hubby had to make an appointment to get new glasses, and Ellie and I needed something to do while we waited on him.  Because I received a membership in the PictureMe! Portrait Studios Portrait Smiles Club when we ordered our last photo package I can get a free 8×10 any time, so I figured I’d take Ellie to get one for my Grandma.

I had forgotten about the $20 she gave me until Hubby mentioned it on the way to Walmart.  He told me to use some of it to buy the $7.99 one pose package, and that should be enough to hold the family over until we could afford to buy more online.  We figured it’d be too expensive to order other prints we wanted right now as we’re on a very tight budget this week.

Ellie had a great photo shoot, and I was very very pleased with the service.  We had a good experience with the PictureMe! Portrait Studio in the Central, SC Walmart the first time we used their services, but this time we had great service.  The photographer, Beki, knew exactly how to handle a baby, was very patient when she wouldn’t smile, and went above and beyond to make sure we got great photos.

When it was time to order our photos I sat down with my plan to get the one pose package and the extra 8×10.  It turns out I got way more than that.  Because there is a special right now I also got a free enhanced 10×13, and it didn’t have to be the same pose as the one post package. With my club card I also got buy 1 get 1 free on any additional sheets I ordered, so that worked in my favor.  I went ahead and ordered 1 sheet of another pose I loved with a 5×7 and 4 wallets, and with the B1G1 I got two of those for $9.99.

Recapping my order I received

• 1 FREE 8×10
• 1 FREE enhanced 10×13
• 2 sheets with 1 5×7 and 4 wallets each (1 sheet free)
• and the $7.99 one post package of 30 photos (1-8×10, 2-5×7s, 5-31/2×5s, 16 wallets, and 8 keepsakes)

all for a total price of $19.24 including tax.  I’d say it was a pretty good deal, and on top of that when our receipt printed it included another coupon for another free enhanced 10×13 online.  I have to use the coupon in 30 days, but all I have to pay is the $3.99 shipping charge, so essentially this free print (a $19.99 value) pays for my entire order!

Ellie’s photos turned out great.  You can the unedited proofs (including the bad shots) at their My Online Portraits photos album.

If you’re looking for a cheap alternative to the expensive portrait studios I definitely suggest PictureMe.  Of course there are expensive packages as well, but the service (in my experience) has been great, and there are cheaper alternatives for those of us who just don’t have a lot of extra cash to spare but want to capture the memories.  PictureMe! was my choice because they are convenient, and there are always specials running.  The PictureMe! club card costs $29.99/year and comes with freebies such as 10% off or free 8×10s and Buy 1 Get 1 free.  You don’t have to make a purchase to get the free 8×10, so anytime you feel like swinging by Walmart is a great time to grab yourself a free photo.  There is also no limit to the number of free photos you can receive in the one year period.