mawage. its what bwings us togethah today

I posted this

Nothing says "marital bliss" like trying to talk about money while you're both actually surfing the internet.

earlier in the day on facebook. The only use I generally aim to confer on facebook is sarcasm without bitterness, but I was So Tired this morning that I forsake both sarcasm and bitterness and posted something I really meant. Maybe it was the scare quotes around marital bliss that threw Matt off, causing him to say, "I don't think that was very nice".

But Really. We both hate coping with money. Its really nice sitting each with our own computer distracting ourselves as we cobble a budget into some kind of conciliarly agreed upon direction. How rotten if we had an actual focused meeting where we sat down and did only that. 

While we were budgeting I read this(heartbreaking), and this (helpful) and this (hysterical) and this and this.

Of course, we had to add it up three of four times because we, or rather I, got different numbers every time. But eventually it was twice the same thing. And the long morning bore the fruit of having enough to wander through the aisles of Wegmans buying fancy things for Thanksgiving dinner. Elphine, being too old to go in the play place, is turning out to be better company than I imagined. I do confess, I dreaded the time of having to shop with her for at least 6 months before she turned 9. Today she pushed a second cart through the chaos (I'm pretty sure the entire city of Binghamton was in Wegmans this afternoon) and weighed vegetables and she can't whistle, Bless the Lord, so there we are.

But the true moment of bliss, not only of today but of the last two weeks at least, was catching Matt's eye at the end of the cereal aisle as he took a package of hotdogs out of the mouth of Marigold and adjusted the hat of the baby so that she would fail at trying to hang herself and mouthing to him, "We don't have to make stuffing this year, do we?" and him mouthing back, "Oh absolutely."

I long for nothing else in this life. To be that unified in purpose, mission, heart, mind and soul, Well, I defy you to show me something more blissful. And I'm NOT being sarcastic. The sarcasm will be back another day, maybe, but don't count on it.

I'm going to dye

Because we're a little bit stupid, we painted another room yesterday instead of sitting around lazily as is we Should have done because the next two weeks are horribly horribly unrelentingly busy.

And the painting, which turned out beautifully, means that I HAVE to dye my curtains
1. because they are now very much the wrong color and
2. because I am too cheep to buy new ones.

They're raw silk. Somebody, PLEASE, advise me.

Also, Why Oh Why didn't we paint the whole house Before we began this long and delicate process of Marigold learning to go the lou? Gladys had been our easiest so far but I think Marigold is even easier. Why are those children with the worse personalities the best at this? and those that are nicest terrible at it? Is there some kind of correlation? Anyway, because she So Gets It, she constantly needed to be running past the paint, screaming and shouting. And then we discovered that we did need a second gallon which Matt unhappily went all the way back out to get, only to come back with a can that was a vaguely different color. After painting nearly a whole wall with it I, I'm very sorry to say, manipulated him into going back out a third time by opening my eyes very wide and saying innocently, "is it closed? Its only 6:30." He came home with a third color which was a little better than the second but not as perfect as the first. We had to cover all over the beautiful first color AND I had to apologize a whole lot for being picky and stupid about paint colors the difference of which one could barely notice.

Also, I'm still deeply troubled by the fact that we have no blog name for Baby. Maybe Dorcus? So many people have pointed out that Biblical names are nice, with a slight rise of the eyebrow, as if to say "what's wrong with you pagans that you can't give your children good biblical names?"

And now, I will arise and go to cook breakfast because Alouicious is certain to perish if he doesn't eat porridge RIGHT NOW!

The shoe saga continues

I have my tiny special shoe shelf in place. I intend to take a picture once I locate my camera. Just about everybody needs their picture taken in the next few days because they've all gone puffy and round and I can tell they're about to grow.

I've instructed Elphine and Alouiscious about the shelf--ordinary always worn shoes on the shelf, boots in the back room, everything else in your rooms. For the last 24 hours its worked beautifully. I'm astonished at how satisfying this shelf is. On the whole, despite the objections of my husband, I really like the hall/entrance way, and the fact that you can see the copper pots hanging over the sink directly as you walk in the door.

I know I'm supposed to be writing a sermon and thinking about Jesus, but I'm completely distracted by the fatness of this baby, the pleasantness of the shelf, and the skyping of my husband.

Shoes: an update

Matt now tells me that he 'can't believe I wrote a whole post about shoes', 'how utterly foolish' he says. To which I retort, if for one moment I stopped struggling with the shoe situation he would notice there was a grave problem and would no longer utter the words 'utterly foolish'.

So delighted am I with the suggestions of a shoe shelf that I am going to spend a portion of today appropriating a misused shelf for that purpose. We already have children's coats hung very low in the hallway and a shelf will fit nicely and neatly next to them. Now, if I could just get Matt to wildly start moving beds around....

I so enjoy these little reorganization projects.

Shoes

Instead of weeping and moaning about the health care vote last night (but believe me, I am weeping and moaning) I thought I would ask for some advice.

We've managed to get our laundry under control (I can't find the link--we moved all the kids dressers into the laundry room thereby simplifying everything) and our chore system means that the house is basically always reasonably picked up. However, I have no good, rational and decent way to deal with shoes.

I've tried keeping them lined up neatly in rows in various parts of the house, I've tried keeping them all in a huge basket, and now I'm making the kids constantly carry them up to their rooms every time I see a pair lying around. There always seems to be one critical shoe missing, and often I can't find my own shoes because Gladys has worn them to some remote part of the house.

So, surely some of you have something to suggest.
My only stipulation is that I can't spend any money. I can't go out and buy a fancy shoe rack or shoe bin or shoe storage unit or new room of my house for shoes (like the unbelievably blessed woman who has a whole barn for all her children's shoes). Whatever solution, it is will have to be completely free, although I'm willing to put in work to make it happen.

Please, I beg you, someone offer me some hope.

As If I Had Time

This is totally off topic, but yesterday I laboriously compared our shopping bill with Amazon's Subscribe and Save program, having heard that one can really save on Diapers particularly. There were many great prices BUT, EVERYthing that we normally buy was still cheaper at Wegmans, especially the Wegman's brand (except for Olive Oil, but whatever brand we bought was still cheaper than on Amazon). I can imagine that if we didn't live with Wegman's in proximity it would be a good deal. Just wanted to share that with all of you.