A Do[mess]tic Life

I understand that in marriage we agree to “in sickness and in health”.  But what happens when we’re both “in sickness”?

Answer:

A house full of complaining, coughing and snuggling.  And no nurse to take care of you! This whole “Two patients, no healthcare provider” thing leaves no room for the typical milking of the sickness.  It leaves no room for romance as well- my frequent usage of the neti pot has seemed to squelch any lovey feelings from my husband.

This may seem as though I am complaining, but I assure you I am not.  I mean, a couple who coughs together stays together.  It’s a bonding moment really.  The consensus from those who have been suffering from this quickly-spreading flu is that it lasts a good month- Kyle and I will be REALLY bonded.  ;)

The following to help along the way:

1. Cold, creamy Tropical Smoothie on sore throats!

2. Plenty of time to request some freebies! Including:

Garnier Fructis Pure Clean Clear 2in1 Shampoo and Conditioner

(Follow link under facebook pic!)

And

Simple Skin Care Face Wash

(watch short video then fill out form!)
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I am a bit concerned though- I have been sick once a month since November and had a 6-week run of a cold this summer (I’ve been checked for mono and it’s negative).  Need to work on building up that immune system!  I have been convicted that I need to go back to more of my hardcore healthy food and exercise.  At least spring is a good time to do that!

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I wonder why you can always read a doctor’s bill and you can never read his prescription. ~ Finley Peter Dunne  

I’ve had a lot of people ask me how I get my coupons. There are quite a few methods.

1. I print them from online (Krazy Coupon Lady has a “Print Coupons” section that is fabulous!)

2. I clip them from the paper (and ask for family member’s coupon insert leftovers)

3. I receive catalinas (the coupons that they give you at the cash register after you pay)

**Secret:  I also search through parked grocery carts for coupons because people often leave their Catalina coupons in the carts because they are too lazy to throw them away**

4. But my FAVORITE way to get coupons is to email brands directly.  There is absolutely no cost to shoot the companies an email asking for coupons, and most are pretty generous!

To contact the companies directly, I google the product, go to their site, and find their “contact us” tab.  I fill out all the information and then leave a comment in the box.  I go the positive route.  Some couponers complain in the comment boxes to get coupons.  However, I don’t want to make up fake complaints, and if it is a product that I truly have had issues with, I’m never going to buy it again anyway.

Typically I directly request a coupon with something like this:

“To whom it may concern:

My family and I love your (insert specific product).  It is so (healthy, delicous, quick and easy, etc.).  However, due to the downturn of the economy, we have had to down dramatically on our grocery spending.  I am hoping that you have coupons that you can send us to help us continue to be loyal customers.

Thank you”

….Or something of the sort.

NO paper cost.  NO ink cost.  NO newspaper cost.  Just a little time.

Of course, not all companies send coupons.  Recently I’ve had luck with these companies:

-Blue Bunny (Sent me 6 ice cream coupons)

-Tylenol (Sent me 3 coupons for $3 off!  If you purchase the small bottles, you can get Tylenol for under  60 cents)

-Bush’s (Sent coupons for both baked beans, and regular beans)

-Sara Lee (Only sent 1 coupon, and couldn’t use it for bread)

-Bird’s Eye (1 coupon for Steamfresh veggies)

-Q-tip (The company sent a whole coupon booklet!!!  With coupons including Dove and Axe Body Wash, Dreyer’s Ice Cream, Frozen meals, and pasta sauce)

-Dannon (Sent me 2 yogurt coupons)

-Jif (Sent me 2 coupons)

-Arnold bread (Sent me 2 coupons for bread thins)

Hope this helps!

I’m very happy to announce that Kyle and I will be moving into our new apartment on Saturday the 1st!

Here is our sad little ghetto pool

It will be hard for me to abstain from laying out in the middle of December with a pool like that!

This is our floorplan.  I don’t know what is more exciting- having an apartment or having an apartment with a walk-in closet almost as big as the guest bedroom!

Needless to say, we are very excited.  We want to have a house-warming, but not sure how to do that- it’s not necessarily a Kardashian mansion at 900 sq ft!

Kyle and I have some very exciting news to share………..  No, not a little Baker spawn.  Believe me, when the time comes I will announce that with glowing neon lights, fireworks, dance line, and serenades by Josh Groban.  THIS news only deserves a blog post.

(drum roll please)

Kyle and I both opened up fortune cookies today—- and we received the SAME exact fortune.  Thus, there is no doubt in our minds that the inevitability of these fortunes is imminent.

Apparently we will be “GONING to take a vacation”  Yes, we’re goning.  I’m not sure what goning means (it kinda sounds dirty), so I will assume our amazingly similar fortunes are referring to the GOING on vacation.

We are choosing to ignore the obvious near-fatal flaw and only see the beauty behind it-  VACAY!   We are now awaiting the $4000 that needs to appear into our checking account.

We will name our first Baker spawn after the first person to make a donation to our “Goning on vacation” account.

Unless your name sucks, of course.  In that scenario, we will just give you our deepest and sincerest love and respect.

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On another (completely useless) note.  I have the REAL exciting news to share.

Holler for PUMPKIN FRIGGIN SPICE LATTES!!!  Pumpkin’s Back Baby!

Nothing like a hot Pumpkin-Spice-Soy latte on a brisk 95* afternoon to remind you that winter is coming. It’s practically time to take out our Christmas tree.

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How can a girl not be giddy after all of this?!?!?!

I don’t think I’ve ever had a more productively lazy day…and I loved it!

Kyle and I managed to do some homework, clean our cars, our bathroom, our bedroom and do WAY too many loads of laundry (hooray for us).

All the while we’ve watched a handful of Grey’s Anatomy, two movies -Hoosiers and Tangled…..YES, Tangled…..

And we had time to make some artwork:

(Reference to the prostitute in The Hangover.)

So basically, to sum it all up, Kyle and I acted like children today!

Hope everybody had a fabulous Labor Day weekend!

- and sometimes it’s just NOT!

Sometimes you end up in the ER at the most inconvenient times.  Sometimes you end up having to pay for damage to other people’s cars who are douche bags (pardon my French).  However, I pray that you never have to experience both in the same week…. it hurts (as in painfully ruins)  the pocket book!

But tonight will be a good night!

Because I’m going to hang out with this precious man:

Stuff my face (literally) with my fav Peanut Butter Cookies:

(1 cup of Peanut Butter, 1 cup of Sugar, 1 egg- 350 for 10 mins and you’ve got heaven!)

And top it all off with a few episodes of McDreamy and McSteamy!

And all is well in the world

When I have a daughter, I will tell her she is like the sun.

The sun isn’t just beautiful, it IS beauty.

Great photographers, great painters have captured not only the beauty of the sun, but how that beauty makes other things beautiful.

Poems and songs speak of the sun.

The sun is beauty and that beauty is celebrated.  It SHOULD be celebrated!

So celebrate your beauty- you ARE beauty.   Buy a dress that spins perfectly and borrow mommy’s pink lip gloss and have daddy take you out on a date to dinner and a Disney movie.  Celebrate what makes you intrinsically female, and celebrate what makes you uniquely YOU.

Never hide it and and never feel that you’ve lost your beauty- you can’t lose it because it is what you are.

Never ever forget that………………

But always ALWAYS remember that the sun has a job to do.

The sun works hard from sun-up to sun-down GIVING life.  God gave the sun a very important job to do, without it this world would cease to exist.

Make sure you always GIVE life like the sun and never take it away.   Give that life to the people you love, the people you like, and even the people that you find to be really difficult!  Bring life into your family and friends, to your school, to your workplace, to the new family that you create- and to everybody you encounter.

Don’t forget to stand up for the things that give life- even if people try to drag you down and break you for it. But they won’t- nothing, NOBODY can stop the sun from shining.

Work hard!  The sun doesn’t get to slack off- but the sun does get to rest.  Don’t forget to rest.

So this to say,

Never forget that you are beauty, but always remember that you have a job to do!

I am currently writing this blog with a box of kleenex by my side, because my congested sinuses decided to suddently all come out at once (the congestion, not the sinuses).  And my husband is right by me laughing himself into hysterics by reading slightly inappropriate, yet bust-your-side-open funny jokes online.  Apparently they are so funny he’s going to puke.  What a pair! Sinus-girl and puke-boy.  Obviously, we are married.  (TMI?!)

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Regularity is apparently not my strong suit when it comes to blogging lately.  Mostly because I am such a blog fanatic and feel like my thoughts don’t easily mold into any of the major popular blog categories.  That should not surprise me, however, I seem to never fit into any mold.  And I like it.  So I should just jive with irregularity (not to be confused with the digestive problem). (WAIT! TMI again?!)

This past month has been filled with a lot of positives!  I landed a pretty stellar job and enjoy the women I work with tremendously. Also, Kyle and I have been house-sitting most of the month which has landed us plenty of extra cash to pay off some junk!  The concept of GETTING paid to have a place to yourself is just plain brilliant if you ask me.  I also painstakingly registered for my fall classes which I am stoked about. Ya know, some people doubt it, but I’m a little bit of an academic

These are a few other celebratory moments in my life this month:

- I have decided not to hate those who are difficult, but rather just ignore them entirely.  I find it to be convenient, though I wouldn’t suggest modeling after me if you have any desire to be a fully good human being.

- I have read the OH SO controversial “Love Wins” and decided that- Love Wins.  And so does Rob Bell.  I have this appreciation for geeky, quirky guys who stir the pot, I married one and he’s hot.

See?!  Now just picture him in side-splitting laughter and about to puke.

- I have decided that I’m really glad I’m not a feminist- I dearly like my husband and other male family members that I can’t imagine emasculating them.  But I still hold my position that I’m awfully glad my husband is the cook of our little family.  I so despise it.  Truly.

That’s all!

Man, I really am a hot or cold blogger- feast or famine.  I guess I’ll just roll with it.

Life update:

- My life is now complete because my mom and dad bought two cars with satellite radio and they have the “Coffeehouse” station. AWWHHHH! (to be read angelically).  This evening these songs came on on the way to Wally World:

1. Tracy Chapman “Fast Car”

2. Damien Rice “9 Crimes”

3. Sheryl Crow “Soak Up the Sun” Acoustic version

Well its 3 for 3 for me.  If you don’t know where I am at 3 am- I’ve gone to sleep in the new SUV while listening to Coffeehouse music.

- All I do is read Kristin Hannah novels now.  I get nothing out of them but beautiful stores.  But then, what more to life is there than stories.  MUST READ SUMMER NOVEL!

No exceptions.  GO. Read. Now.

- The Facebook game “Pawn Stars” should have never been invented because I love it.  Like chocolate frozen custard. I normally forbid facebook games, but this got through the cracks.  DO NOT FEAR!  I won’t be plastering your facebooks with Pawn Star requests.  I’m not that lame.

- I’ve decided that red meat and my body definitely do not mix well.  It’s really not pretty when I eat cow. I’ve always had my suspicions and limited it, but I’m thinking about going cow-free.  I already don’t do milk- might as well go all the way. (I don’t drink milk because it also doesn’t mix well with my body, but if you think about it, you’d never drink a human’s breast milk- so why would you drink the milk of a cow breast- that’s nasty)

Sorry, Bessy!

But look at this poor gal- she deserves women’s liberation too.

I was listening to that Brad Paisley song “Letter to Me” and I started wondering what I would tell myself at 15 knowing what I know now.

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- Be glad that Mom and Dad make you do your laundry and pay for your own car- it will pay off later.

- Don’t listen to all those girls who make fun of you for not dating and sleeping around.  They’re all single and you’re married to an awesome man.

- Obsessively counting calories doesn’t work and carbs are VERY necessary.

- Don’t be afraid to relax and enjoy.

- Never let people tell you you’re not doing enough- it will start messing with your mind and it will take you about 5 years to figure it all out.

- Remember to always stand up for people no matter who shoves you down.  It will be a continuing issue that you have to deal with.  But know it’s always worth it.

- Speak up. In one year, you’re going to read your Poli Sci professor’s hateful book and then tell him that he’s a racist- but somehow he ends up respecting you for it.  (By the way- He gives you an A+)

- Don’t stop practicing the piano.

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What would you go back and tell yourself at 15??