A-shopping we will go!

Miss Doxie has the new $10 and under holiday gift guide up!

And there is a surprise waiting as well!


**Boring grocery shopping update: Randalls has a $10 off 10 items promo. I traded coupons around with my group, did the math, and we four and our six kids went together.

11 pasta sauce jars
6 salad spritzers
9 tub margarine
4 mayo

Total cost: under $3
The panicked/shocked looks on the checkers'/manager's/customers faces?

Priceless.

Bullet to the Head

I did it.

I swore up and down that I wouldn't do it. Never have, never will. As recently as last week I was proclaiming that you'd NEVER catch me doing it, no matter what the enticement.

I lie like a dog, too, apparently.

Because at the Black Friday sale at Kohl's? Magic Bullet mixer sets? For $39.99? Im-freaking-possible to pass up. At Magic Bullet's own website they're selling 2 for $99.99, plus you have to pay $40 shipping and handling. J C Penney had them on for $59.99 today. I've hardly ever wanted an infomercial product more. When they start selling MaxiGlide hair straighteners at Kohl's I suppose I will be there too.

So at O'dark thirty (4:30 for people who don't sleep) I was out of bed and out the door. The parking lot was filled, the line went around the front and side of the store, several hundred people long. I had a short list, but was stupid enough to think I could carry all that I wanted around by myself. Luggage set? Forget it. People were a little rough in that corner of the store, so I didn't venture there. Crock pot? No way. How could I carry that with two Magic Bullets and no cart? So I got JJ some PJ bottoms, the Bigun a scarf and one of the MBs, and one teacher gift for the LC.

I'm glad I did it, even if it was a little scary at first. It was 45 minutes from parking to pulling out of there, and for what I got, I consider that an extremely successful mission.

However, in the future, here's what I would do differently:

* Take someone with. One person does not have the speed and number of appendages to get everything needed in one shot.

* Leave earlier. Had I been in line a half hour before opening, I'd have got the MBs AND the luggage AND a cart to push around.

* Pre-shop. A quick Wednesday trip to Kohl's beforehand would have verified pre-sale prices on a few things I wanted and confirmed the "deal-iness" of each. And I'd have avoided searching things out.

* Pick only one store, shop it, then go home. There will be decent sales the rest of the season, and shopping on Tuesday mornings usually avoids the crowds.

* Shop online. 'Nuff said.

But it wasn't nearly as bad as I thought, but then, I didn't try WalMart or TRU, either. Kohl's is about the limit of my patience and ability.

Happy shopping, everyone!

FLYing again

It's time to get back on the FLYLady bandwagon.

I've NEVER been an entertain-in-the-home kind of gal, mostly because we're still sporting borrowed furniture. OLD borrowed furniture that I couldn't ask anyone to actually sit on. Yes, we do plan to replace it, but currently braces, root canals, impending car purchases, air conditioner replacement, trips to boot camp graduation and life have kept us from shopping. I'm okay with that; I'd rather not finance the furniture anyway.

I've had people over the last few weeks taking them through Coupon Class, and it feels neat. Mostly I just cleared things out of the den and kitchen, added a folding table to store coupon/shopping things on, and cleaned the floors. Not so hard. Except that I feel as though I can still make the house look better. If I had a schedule for doing things, I might get more done. I know I work well off of lists, and I love that feeling when you cross off a job. It represents progress and accomplishment, which for a stay-at-home-mom can be fleeting. (I mean, do I really want the high point of my day to be my husband emerging from the bathroom exclaiming how clean the bowl is?)

I toyed around with FLYLady last year, and had a good start. Some of the principles I still adhere to in my lazy way, but I know I can do better. So this week I am kicking it off by making the following vows:

* I will tackle one old mess a day. A messy drawer, a paper pile on my bedside table, my closet floor; I will work on at least one a day.

* I will keep the dishes and laundry done. This means putting the dishes in the cabinets, not leaving them on the drying rack. It also means putting the clothes on hangers and folding towels.

* I will keep the kitchen counter clear.

* I will not go to bed until the den and kitchen are picked up.

* I will plan dinner for every night of the week, and use up what I have in the freezer. This includes not putting off asking the neighbor to smoke my two turkeys until February.

* I will keep a grocery list on the fridge and make people write down what they need.

Hopefully I can keep to all this. It doesn't seem to be too tough; it looks like a doable place to start. This list gets printed and posted on the bathroom mirror and the fridge now, and then we'll see.

But I must report, the bowl IS very clean.

Small Brag

Not much to report lately, except grocery shopping, so here's a progress report from today's shopping.

Walgreens:

2 hair highlight kits
1 high-end lip gloss
1 tomato sauce
1 pack feminine items
1 high-end shampoo
1 high-end conditioner
1 high-end defrizzer
2 peanut butters
2 jellies
1 bottle detergent
1 box dryer sheets

total: $21.05 after $11 in a gift card, $18.60 in coupons and $18.00 off due to Walgreens sales.
PLUS $12.99 comes back next month as a rebate, so final cost: $8.06.
PLUS a coupon for another free box of feminine products printed.

Randalls:

1 bag rice
4 pkgs corn muffin mix
1 pk mashed potatoes
1 pk gravy mix
4 boxes gelatin
6 boxes crackers
2 cans breadsticks
2 # steak

total: $11.49 after $28.77 in sales and coupons and a $6 instant rebate.

Now if I can figure out how to make money doing this for other people I'm set!

Vive la Dentist! Or else!

What a relief!

My appointment was for 2:45 and I got called in at 3:20. By 4:00 the doc and I had decided he'd pull the bad icky troublesome back tooth and temporarily fix the next one forward. Yes, there had been an exposed nerve all that time, but yes, it was still able to be saved with a root canal. Doc said he wanted to finish other patients up and then get my teeth taken care of before he left for the day. Can you believe it? A dentist willing to stay late? Really late?

Bonus: he had televisions in the exam rooms, so while I waited I got to nap and then watch CSI. I got engrossed in the episode and Doc came in halfway through to get started. His assistant got engrossed in the show too, so lucky it was him messing around in my mouth.

Now I have a small mouth (shut up; I heard you think that), so visits to the dentist are rather comical for everyone save the dentist and myself. This time the doc has so loaded me up on novocaine that the entire left side of my face was numb. Even my eyeballs were affected; my left eye wasn't tracking well at all. Now that's numb! And even weirder? My tongue was half numb as well, and it kept sliding down my throat. For once I understand that whole "move the tongue/clear the airway" spiel in CPR class. I was choking on my own tongue.

But the dentist I saw was a good dentist, and so I didn't die. He patched up the exposed nerve, pulled the other badun out of there, and sent me on my way about twenty minutes after he started. I downed a couple of Advil before getting on the road and made it home right at ten p.m.

The best part? I slept without pain! I ate without pain! I woke with only a little ache going on in there! I'm still in no pain! And the way Doc was tugging on that tooth, I thought he was going to have to brace himself with his shoe on my chest; it was a stubborn one. Highly traumatic to the mouth, but I'm amazed that I'm not hurting just a day later. Really! And the Vicodin scrip he gave me sits on the fridge, blissfully unneeded.

So the moral, finally, is take care of your damn teeth. Floss, brush, rinse with something antibacterial, and GET TO THE DENTIST for cleanings. I cannot stress this enough. When the teeth get messy, the gums get infected, and you may not even feel that. I sure didn't. When the gums remain infected, you start to lose bone mass in the jaw. Lose enough of that, and any hope of implants or keeping at least some teeth is greatly reduced. I have one tooth right now that isn't bothering me at all, but feels a little loose. The docs tell me there is nothing holding that tooth in but soft tissue. It's going to come out soon on its own, and I'll begin the wonderful journey of false teeth. But for now, they tell me that the longer I can keep these teeth in my head, the better off my gums will be in the long run.

There. Now I've warned you. Go make that appointment, or get that appointment for your kiddos. Spend that money, at least on a cleaning. Find the dental college and get it done on the cheap, but do it.

Now if you lose all your teeth, you can't bite my head off.

I Suck

I fully intended to participate in National Blog Posting Month. But just as with NaNoWriMo, I can't get my fecal material gathered in one place.

But there are reasons (excuses) for that!

For one, I have been in agony the past week and a half.

In August, my periodontist (whose office is 100 miles away, but worth the drive) told me "go get these two cavities filled." Yay, easy peasey, right? You'd think. You would also be wrong. Every damned dentist I see wants to pluck all the teeth in my head and replace them with shiny new dentures! Joy! Fun! So my regular dentist, whom I avoid because I already get my teeth cleaned four times a year, refused to fill the teeth. Instead, he wanted to send me to ANOTHER periodonist. Well, any periodontist that talks about teeth pulling is looking at my insurance coverage, and not at my mouth. I've kept these teeth in almost 5 years longer than they wanted them in, and they show no signs of falling out or anything. Loose, yes. In danger of spontaneously separating from my gums? Not even close.

So I made an appointment with a dentist MY periodontist works with. That dentist (also 100 miles away) believes in keeping teeth in the head as well. The appointment is for tomorrow, and not a minute too soon. In fact, a couple weeks too late.

The cavity that should have been filled back in September, but on which my dentist refused to work, has now worsened to (I think) an exposed nerve; either that or an infection. The entire left side of my face has been in pain over a week. I must have slept 10 hours in the past five days, and eaten maybe six meals. I've alternated Tylenol and Advil until I have to write down what I took when, because it would be so easy to take more. And those have merely taken the edge off. I've rinsed repeatedly with salt water and peroxide, and today for the first time I can actually have my upper and lower sets of teeth meet without pain.

It wasn't all bad, though. It's kept me from scarfing the Halloween candy (a record-breaking haul, let me tell you) and it allowed me to catch up with about 17 hours of CSI reruns. But let me tell you, consciousness at four-thirty a.m. is NOT a party under the best of circumstances. Come to think of it, it might have been better had someone brought over the whisky.

Where were you all when I needed you?