Random Ramblings

Just some random thoughts swirling around my brain this week!

We are by no means purists, but I do try and shop as healthfully as I know how and our budget allows. My dad’s grandfather name is “Pop” and today at the grocery store I bought Pop Tarts as a little token for him from the girls for Father’s Day, and it was 2 for $5 so of course I had to buy two because when Nick heard I was buying Pop Tarts for the first time in our marriage he put in his order. As my groceries were rolling down the conveyor belt, I was ashamed of this purchase and put a box of something organic on top to conceal the contraband. How ridiculous is that! Do you ever have grocery conveyor belt shame? Or on the other hand, pride? I once had a man remark to me how healthy all my items were and how unhealthy his were and I was so embarrassed!

Did you know it’s possible to burn something in the crockpot? I was making BBQ pulled chicken yesterday and must have cooked it too long/not added enough liquid, because the result was a burned mess. Eloise refused it, I choked it down, Amelia LOVED it and had seconds today (love that child), and Nick, in response to me musing that I burned dinner in a crockpot, said, “You sure did.” Husbands: If your wife ever admits to burning dinner, choose different words than those. The funny part is, if you know Nick you know he wasn’t being jerky—he was being earnest and matter of fact and completely unaware of the social ramifications of doing so. I believe it’s part of my mission on this earth to bring social skills to at least one engineer :)

Do you Ibotta? I’m not much of an app person, or a coupon person, but I am loving this. You unlock rebates before you go shopping at certain stores (grocery, pharmacy, liquor, restaurants, retail), and then when you get home you scan your corresponding barcodes, upload a picture of your receipt, and they deposit cash into your account! Once your account reaches $20 you can either have it sent to your bank account through PayPal or Venmo, or you can choose from a bunch of different gift cards like Amazon. I’ve been using it for a couple months now and have already made two transfers! Here's my referral link—if you sign up using that code, you get $10 and I get $5 :)

I know everyone has the best mom, but I really do. She comes to visit almost every Wednesday morning, forfeiting her one-mile work commute for a crazy 60-90 minutes of stressful New Jersey traffic, usually brings us some kind of delicious and homemade food, helps me with the girls, stays with them while I run errands or to appointments, folds laundry, reads stories, waters flowers, changes diapers, organizes my laundry dungeon—you name it and she does it! I’m so grateful to have such a loving and selfless example of a mother and hope I can emulate her for our children.

Nick has been working on a project in our garage this week, and I was keeping him company in a camp chair with my glass of wine after the girls were in bed last night. Just as he was finishing up and closed the garage doors, my neighbor walked outside and saw me sitting in the driveway drinking wine, alone. Nick and I both ended up next door (video monitor in tow) for drinks, with several other neighbors stopping by as the night went on. I may have paid for it today, but it’s just another reason that I love our town and neighborhood—impromptu cocktails with neighbors on a Tuesday night is totally normal!

Have you ever seen or used a Little Free Library? Our town just got one this week and I can’t wait to try it! Their mission statement is “to promote literacy and the love of reading by building free book exchanges worldwide and to build a sense of community as we share skills, creativity and wisdom across generations.” How great is that?!

If you have young children, how many clean sweeps do you do during the day? When Eloise was young, I cleaned as we played throughout the day, which resulted in feeling like I was always cleaning, so I pared it down to one mid-day sweep before her nap and one before Nick got home. Now with two babies, and a newly minted scooter (still no crawling but the scooting is so darned cute), our house is a BOMB at all times. I haven’t even been attempting to do much straightening until after everyone is in bed at night, but I’m not loving this method because dinner clean up takes a decent amount of time most nights, and then I still have to clean up the house after that. So I’ve been back to my old ways of two sweeps a day the past couple of days, and it’s so much nicer!

That’s a lot more rambling than I meant to do—I’m impressed if you’re still with me! What’s going on in your week?