Sunday, April 30, 2006

Domestic Goddess? Why yes, I am.

Now that the school festivities are over, I've had time to turn my hand towards running the house again. For the freezer challenge, I think we bought food out only twice. Yay me! That was not so remarkable a feat on the face of it, because I had SOOO MUCH FOOD. But I was also still busy with other projects, and so cooking was not high on the to-do list. Still, I made quite a few meals and we made some room in the freezer. And I spent practically nothing on groceries except the basics this month. Double yay! I think grocery outlay was around $150 for the whole month, including stocking up on good deals like frozen chicken and Dr. Pepper. (Which is funny, because with 7-12 packs in the pantry, several of which I got free, everyone tells me they prefer Pepsi. In bottles.)

So I'm reading the message board at The Grocery Game, and they have a great section on product reviews. Several people raved about Mr. Clean Magic Eraser. Me, I don't like Mr. Clean cleaning fluid, so I was not about to try it. Except the reviews were so emphatic, and then a great clearance deal at Target was discovered, and I had 15 (yes, 15!) coupons, so I went down and picked up 4 of these babies for 38ยข each. Normally you can get a 2 pack for $2.89, so this was a steal for a single pack.

When I got home, I tackled the Little Critter's tennis shoes. They have reddish sand at school on the playground, and the white leather was decidedly orange. Not anymore! Then to a vase in the kitchen with ick crusted on. Clean! Then, the ultimate test... the shower.

When we moved in, the bathing facilities were, um, ick. I did what I could to get the ick out, but some of it was so old, I couldn't make a dent in it.The tile grout was mildewed, permanently I thought. And the shower stall leaked into the next bedroom with every shower. With that and a flooded backyard, we lost half the carpet in that room. (I hate the loss of use of that room!) So I decided to take on the ick in the shower. With the Magic Eraser.

Oh. My. Stars.

This thing is just a sponge! No chemicals or anything! But it started taking out the ick like you would not believe! Back I went for 11 more of these babies! Then, back into the shower.

So here I am on my hands and knees checking the grout, when I made a new discovery.

Some of the grout down there was awfully torn up. The shower wall shared with the flooded-bedroom wall had gaps in the grout at the bottom. Hmmmmm. The creaky wheels in the Fishbrain start to turn. Maybe the problem isn't a cracked drain pan, like the plumber said. Maybe the water is dripping from the grout gaps and running into the next room that way.

So Fish drags the mister off to Walmart at 10 Friday night (remind me to tell you about Walmart Baby Bingo one day) and we procure about $20 worth of caulk, caulk gun, putty knife, etc. to do this job.

Neither JJ nor I are in the least experienced in Home Improvement, Maintenance, and Repair. I must say that first. But between us we cleared out the old grout, scraped down the stubborn remains that were left, and recaulked that side. JJ is about to take a shower in there for the first time, and so we are moments away from the verdict. He's already calling me a genius for figuring this out. Which is nice, if not exactly true. Because if I were a real genius, I would have tackled that ick a long time ago, and found the problem then. But hey, if it saves us the cost of a new shower until we can afford to pay cash for it, I'll accept that.

Especially since the gratitude was extended to taking me to Baskin Robbins tonight!

(Baskin Robbins has a Buy One Get One Free Sundae deal next Sunday!)

UPDATE: The shower fix seems to have worked! This means we can finally get the wood replaced and the carpet replaced in the guest room! Woo hoo! Victory is mine! I am invinvible!

Tuesday, April 18, 2006

April Freezer Challenge

Here's the challenge.

Cook as many dinners as possible out of the freezer and pantry without restocking. We'll stick to dinner because it's the meal most often consumed together, but feel free to report your other meals as well.The (flexible) rules:

1) Main ingredients should come from the freezer. (eg. Meats, veggies, breads, etc)

2) Supplemental items may be purchased, but let's try to keep it to two per dinner (eg - pasta, fresh veggies, sour cream etc.) If you purchase supplemental items, try to report your spending.

3) Report how many items you used from the freezer. Pantry stockpile items may also be included.

4) We can try a point system. Three points for a complete meal without shopping, two points for purchasing only one item, one point for purchase of two items.

5) We'll start 4.18.06 and end 4.30.06 and tally points.

Friday, April 14, 2006

Frozen Fish Again

I checked the contents of the freezer as I was making room for leftover meat that needed to be stored somewhere. I think I'm ready for anything.

In there are:

a dozen bags of frozen veggies
three boxes of varied fish portions
eight pizza roll packs
four packages of dinner rolls
three pounds of margarine
three pounds of shredded cheese
a box of pierogies
three half-gallons of ice cream
four bags of frozen chicken
four packs of cinnamon rolls
eight packages lunchmeat
one bag homemade meatballs
six packages pepperoni
one bag homemade bread crumbs
one pie crust
one apple pie
various other things I can't recall like english muffins and bread loaves

and now:
One box hamburgers
1/2 box sausage.

Who's coming for dinner?

Wednesday, April 12, 2006

In Which I am More Than Vindicated

School year 2004-2005:

Carnival Income: $9,811.10
Carnival Expenses: 5,554.66
Net Carnival: $4,256.44


School year 2005-2006:

Carnival Income: $9,670.00
Carnival Income Due: 485.00
Total Carnival Income: $10,155

Carnival Expenses: $5,556.28
Returns (Unused items) 250.00 (est)
Total Carnival Expenses : $5,306.28

Net Carnival: $4,848.72
Net 04-05: 4,256.44

Increase in Income: $592.28

(My goal was $500 more than last year)

Beating the ugly previous chair down with my mad carnival skillz: PRICELESS.

Saturday, April 08, 2006

The Noive!

We all survived, and that's all I can really report at this moment. I'm exhausted, my back hurts, my feet are aching, and I'm relieved it's over. One child was injured on an obstacle course, but other than that, nobody seems to have had any pressing distresses.

Everyone worked so hard and so wonderfully. Sure there was a shortage of people; there always is. But my friends knocked themselves out to make this happen. I'm so grateful. There was only one person that got my back up: the chair from last year.

Yes, the woman who spent maybe one whole hour giving me her notes about the carnival (orally, of course, because she didn't have a thing written down) and committed to do four things and did NONE of them. The woman who was never available for questions. The woman who never returned phone calls or e-mails. The woman who had exactly NOTHING to do with the carnival. The woman who I defended whenever everyone asked by reporting "She's sooooo busy right now, we'll have to work it out on our own."

She got in my face about how a parent was working a booth. After she got in the parent's face. Oh yes she did. The parent, I might add, who worked three shifts because not one other person from our class deigned to work that booth and she didn't want to abandon it. Over the number of prize tickets she was giving out, when the woman was following the rules of the game. Not that there was anyone who stepped up and TOOK OVER that area so these things wouldn't happen! There was me, and about eight dedicated PTA moms who were up at school every day to make sure things were getting done. Where was the former chair if it mattered so much to her?

How I longed to rip her open in front of everyone! When she wanted to argue about it, I told her "I don't have time to worry about it right now." And I didn't. For Pete's sake, I was on my feet putting out fires all night! Anywhere I went I had seven people needing me to solve their problems (food shortages, drink deliveries not materializing, ticket shortages, broken dunking booths, parking blockages, shifts not covered, you know, the usual) and this presumptuous wench had the gall to try to get me to fix a small ticket problem. So then she's in my face saying "I'm a grown woman; don't talk to me like I was a child."

Watch Fish simmer.

I pulled her aside, told her there wasn't anyone available to go around making a change, and that we would just have to deal with it.

I wanted to roast her. But I kept remembering how the principal had praised me for my optimism. How so many people had said how cool and collected I was, even when there were a hundred things to attend to. How the PTA president said it was a completely different mood this year; no panic, no stress, no craziness.

And I realized that to the people that count, it's already obvious. They've taken my measure, and they don't even bother to compare me with the former chair. She's irrelevant, and that speaks for me enough.

Wednesday, April 05, 2006

Late Onset Order Disorder

I've always lived somewhere in between Veruca Salt and Scarlett O'Hara. I want it NOW, but I'll think about it tomorrow.

Or better phrased, I've spent a lot of time at Procrastination Station.

But somehow, when you run a carnival, you can't do that. There are theoretical committees that don't ever make it into reality. There are task lists and organizational aids that get tossed out the window. There's the Grand Plan and then there's What We End Up Settling For Because We're Out of Time.

I never used to be like this. I couldn't find anything I needed when I wanted it. I never made my bed, cleaned my room unless under duress, thought ahead more than a day. Oh, yeah, I will think about it tomorrow. It doesn't mean I'll do anything about it.

But somewhere inbetween college and marriage, I was stricken with LOOD.

And so now I have a spiral full of notes about carnival. I have walked through the entire event, booth by booth, in my head and made lists of everything I know we need. I have confirmed the vendors, the volunteer fire department's hazard house, the food, the drinks. I've created 19 baskets of goodies out of stuff the kids donated. I've even held a meeting! To which actual people actually came! Which is a first, let me tell you.

And I've thought and I've thought, and there isn't one thing I think I am missing.

But the feeling is there. There's a vital detail I'm overlooking. It's something stealthily hidden deep in the carnival mechanism, and I didn't get it, order it, do it. And it's going to hit me like a ton of bricks first thing Friday evening when we open.

Miraculous offers of help have poured in at the last minute, people have walked through the procedures with me, I've made those hundred lists and checked off things as I got them, ordered them, did them. But because I'm so used to thinking about it tomorrow, and reaping the consequences of that Scarlett life, that even success sits uneasily with me. It just isn't possible.

So Saturday when the thing is done, I'll tell you whether I rocked the house or embarrassed myself totally. If it went well, we'll blame the Veruca side.