how to organize on a budget

i organized my linen closet this week. yes. it did take me an entire week. i was unpacking a few moving boxes the other day. yes. we moved 8 months ago and i still have unpacked boxes. inside, i found lots (and lots) of toiletries and bath stuff and towels and lotion. oh my the lotion. i try to put on lotion every day, but it turns out more often to be every week. at this rate, i have enough to last until i'm perimenopausal.

anyways, i did it. it's finished. after wanting to go to walmart (the poor man's container store), i decided that i was sure that i had enough bins and baskets laying around the house desperately desiring to be used. oh, they were used. all the lotion sits on the bottom of the linen closet in the open so i am fully aware that i am nearly drowning in it. the next shelf up has a bin and a basket containing the insane amount of extra toiletries (toothpaste, toothbrushes, soap bars, face wash, kleenex, q-tips, shavers, shampoo, conditioner, etc). i have my own freaking cvs pharmacy in my hallway. oh, it also contains my retainer which no longer fits my teeth since i refused to wear it in high school. believe me. my child will wear a retainer if i spend $4000 to get his teeth fancy. sorry mom.

and my crown and glory. under the sink in our bathroom. after fixing up the linen closet, this was my encore. apparently, if you grow up with a longaberger consultant for a mother, "on a budget" means using hundreds of dollars of baskets in a place no one will see them to contain your tampons and nair bikini cream. thanks mom.

i spent $28 on cookies and i don't care.

i know that eating too many cookies will increase the number of pounds i carry in my mid-section, but since we're trying to get pregnant, i figure i will end up fat in the next few months regardless. i'm just starting the process early.

sick? eat cheese.

this is not the diary of a good mother. this is me and all the choices i make and the fact that i don't really care whether they are right or wrong. finn had a fever and diarrhea for a couple days, so i decided to take him to the doctor to just make sure things were okay. i had also had a fever and was feeling like absolute crud, so i may or may not have been projecting my feelings onto finn as additional symptoms. i kept thinking 'how can this child be acting so fine when he feels like crud?' well, katie, it's because maybe he didn't feel like crud and your selfish mindset couldn't see past the abdominal cramps and head cramps and body aches and utter exhaustion that you were feeling. SELFISH.
anyways, the doctor said, well his diarrhea and fever could be because he caught a common bug that is going around or maybe it's because he's getting a tooth. i seriously need to stop going to the doctor whenever finn is getting a tooth. i'm not joking, this is the third time i've rushed him in to the md expecting they say 'take him to the hospital immediately' yet they tell me to give him a shot of tylenol. same diagnosis again. give him tylenol and maybe keep him away from dairy products for a couple days to stop the diarrhea.

next stop after the doctor was none other than moe's southwest grill for cheese quesadillas and a big glass of kid's milk. my selfish mindset could only think 'i need moes to boost my spirits' but the old-man-farts coming from finn afterwards may have pointed toward bad choice. ah, he seems fine today.

a valentine's day surprise

josh was busy all last week trying to get purdue work done before he left town for a week, so he was a little frazzled. in spite of this, he told me he wanted to plan our date night and surprise me since i had planned the childcare (finn's first night away from both parents---he stayed with my mom). i was so excited on friday getting finn packed and ready, drove him to meet my mom, started heading back home and called josh. i asked what he had planned for the night, and he said 'nothing'. i smiled and said 'okay' because i thought he was covering up a big master plan of romance and everything special. i got home and found out that when he said 'nothing' he meant nothing. the surprise was there was no surprise? it's true. to his credit, he tried to hide the 'no surprise' with flowers. after whining and maybe a little louder than normal talking, we ended up going to get indian food at bombay, reading magazines at borders, then going to see valentine's day at the theatre. not exactly romantic or out of our norm. and regardless of my incessant complaints of him not planning anything, it ended up being a pretty okay night. maybe even a 7 out of 10 night. i think josh would be pleased with a C.

brody has been left alone a little too much this week. our stuff has suffered from this. josh and i just started bragging about what a good dog he is. it only took us about 4 and a 1/2 years, but we finally thought we had bragging rights. then, josh left town and all of my attention was solely on our other child, so brody has been having a bit of a meltdown. thankfully, it's mostly been josh's belongings.

mini stud/baby mr rogers

um. how adorable is this little man? i had been eyeing this sweater from the gap for the longest time, but i am not going to spend $39.50 on a old man sweater for my 14-month old child. luckily, i follow sales and it went to an oh-my-gosh-can-you-believe-i'm-so-cheap-yet-still-so-adorable price. and i have to say, he looks cuter than ever.

dancing dave

my dad (aka twinkle toes) can get down. he participated in the marshall county neighborhood center's dancing with the stars last night. um. wow. that's all i can say. i cannot even begin to express how proud i am of him. and the only thing to top the performance of the year by any man over the age of 50 was the amount of money that was raised by the evening, somewhere in the neighborhood of $58,000.

love you papa. seriously, amazing job.