• Beware of Dried Up “Bananas”

    Four boys. Oh, the things that can mean to a mother that was raised with only 2 other sisters.  Boys, for whatever reason, seem to have a natural inclination to things we girls don’t think are pretty, lovely, nice.  Things that tend to be on the, shall we put it mildly(?), nasty side. Haven’t had a bath in a week – “What’s the sweat, mom?  I don’t care.” Sleeping on sheets for a month or two – “Who cares mom?” Know what I mean, mom’s? Boys Actually Become Civilized (well, not completely) Now things are some better now that they are older.  They do get more baths.  Thank goodness!  Hey they actually do grow up…

  • Found: Couch Just for You

    Lately I’ve found a few items that were left on the side of the road for the garbage man – left behind by tenants who had been renting from us.  Blame it on Thrifty Decor Chick,  Centsational Girl,  My Repurposed Life or a dozen others but they inspire me with their do it yourself techniques.  So, I’m going to try a few things on these little “treasures” or are they “junk”(?).  I suppose that remains to be determined but I’m excited about trying.    So yesterday I get a call from my son who just happens to be out in the woods bear hunting.  He said, “Mom,  we just seen a couch out here in…

  • Headed for the Antarctic with 80 Bags of Dryer Lint

    My Justus, who is 7,  started collecting dryer lint.  He had a handful that he put into a 13 gallon garbage bag, so you can imagine it was basically empty.  After having it set around for several weeks, I tossed the lint and used the bag.  Well you know how it is.  As soon as you toss something, they think of it.  Of course that is what happened with Justus – he went looking for it.  I had to tell him that I had thrown it away and since I thought he wanted it to build fires I told him that he could always just go and get some out…

  • 50,000 Books Anyone?

    We bought 50,000 books last week (gasp!) – but– not for our home library.   We sell used books online and we were informed about a couple of ladies getting out of the business and selling their books, so we purchased them.  Off to Colorado we went on Monday afternoon.  Russell had only got about a 1 1/2 hours of rest because of staying up all night to get taxes done so he started the 13 hour drive tired.  Travelling through Flagstaff we saw a highway sign stating that I-17 was closed further ahead for a few hours because of dust storms.  So our first stop became a place of…