Lauren

I finished a bottle of vitamins! Granted, they were children’s chewable vitamins so it wasn’t like I was choking them down, but I’d often forget. I think this bottle has been around a looooong time.

I was happy because that meant I could buy another bottle! But then…… I noticed that I still had another bottle of boring, grown-up vitamins.

Ugh. Who wants to take those? However, I am trying to not be so wasteful, so I counted them out to see how long it would take to finish them.

As it turns out, if I take one a day I should be finished by the beginning of May. I’d need some sort of motivation, though, so I wrote this on the bottle:

See? I even gave myself enough grace to skip a bunch of days, and since I obsess about tiny wood stoves, this is the carrot on the stick I need to actually do something about it!

It’s been working pretty well. Having the bottle right by my coffee cups is a good reminder, except for the mornings when I unload the dishwasher and just grab a mug from there. Eh, nobody’s perfect.

As it turns out, the wood stove might not be necessary……… (that’s tomorrow’s story)

Hi! Remember me? I have some stories to tell you over the next couple of days, and I’m going to sit down and write them all. (It’s Sunday morning. Lloyd has been fighting a cold for several days and is staying in bed. I went to a wonderful funeral yesterday and that’s my church attendance for the weekend, so I’m not a total slacker.)

Let’s see, I’m going to tell you about:

• Vitamins and fire
• The new fire thing
• Chicken Bake
• Raspberry rolls
• Lloyd’s photo
• The Coat Story

But first, let me ask you if you’ve seen my car key. It’s been missing for quite a while, but since I haven’t been driving anywhere in the car without Lloyd, or I’m driving the truck, it hasn’t been an issue. It was last definitely located the first weekend in February. Anyone? Anyone?

I’ll let you know how it turns out.

Preamble: It’s important to the story to know that our ‘medicine drawer’ was in a secret, low, under-cabinet drawer that’s hard to get to.

So, The Project started because after my last round of sickness, Lloyd said, “Maybe we shouldn’t keep all the medicine so close to the floor, now that we’re getting older.” My creaky joints and I were totally on board with that, along with figuring out where all the other stuff would be better stored. For instance, we keep extra soap, deodorant and toothpaste in the other under-cabinet drawer – the one that now we know the furnace is cooking throughout the winter (thanks, thermal camera).

So, on Sunday, I did NOT take a ‘before’ photo of the process because it was too shameful and embarrasing. I took two folding tables into the bathroom and we pulled EVERYTHING out of the cabinets, doing some preliminary sorting and tossing. (An hour into this was when we discovered we were late to church.)

Later in the day there was more sorting and tossing, and further subdividing of stuff. We wanted to see what kind of totes/bins we might need, but honestly – we had almost everything already. The only thing to buy was something to hold the various kinds of medicine/first aid stuff.

We bought some bins at Dollar General, and they’re going to work out just fine.

So, here is both the ‘before’ and also the ‘after’ of the room.

See? Looks just the same. But, the guts are different:

I still have some sorting of my own stuff to do, but at least I can easily get to the ibuprofen when I get sore and tired.

So many things went sideways on Sunday before 10:00, it was pretty funny.

It started at 4:30 a.m. I woke with a start – fairly sure that I had perhaps left the dishwasher on at school. (I don’t do the dishes often anymore, so I am out of that routine.) Rather than lay in bed and wonder about it for the next couple of hours, I just drove over there and checked. Good news! It was off. Bonus: I had a very early Council Fire that was done by 5:30.

With all this extra time, I started on our next Project: rearranging the stuff in our bathroom so that the medicine isn’t in a drawer right by the floor. (There’s a whole other story about this in another post.) I got a good start, then Lloyd got up, showered and dressed, and helped me. We worked like what seemed was forever, but at 7:45, I looked at the clock. A while later, I looked at the clock: 7:45. “It seems like it’s been this time forever. What’s the real time?” Lloyd checked his phone. “It’s 8:26. Church starts in four minutes.”

Stupid stopped clock! I jumped out of my pajamas and into church clothes and we tore out of the house.

So, we were late to church, but it’s all fine. We sang hymns, heard the sermon (long), then Concordia’s women’s’ chorus sang for the offertory. Somewhere around me, I heard a faint crackling and a faint voice, but I figured someone behind me was messing with their phone.

Nope…… it was me. I accidentally called my Dad on my watch. Oy. Sorry, everyone…..

So, home to eat, nap, have a family Zoom, then finish The Project. (That’s for tomorrow.)

You already know that I like to buy the cheap powdered detergent, right? And I believe we’ve also had the conversation that you don’t need to use as much detergent as you think you do, right ? Well, this post is not about that. It’s about the scoop.

Somehow, we lost the little scoop that has lived in our laundry detergent container for years. I replaced it with a measuring spoon that was working out just fine, but for some reason, Lloyd bent it. I don’t know why. (He probably has rage issues.)

I was happy to have a quest! I wanted to find something little and cute and unique. In my mind, it was going to be a little carved wooden spoon, but TJ Maxx had other plans. I found a set of measuring spoons in their clearance section. Actually, I found lots and lots of these sets. They’re all on clearance because the little metal collars on the wooden handles are all loose – on ALL the many sets they had.

Well, that’s not a problem if you know how to Lauren things. I used a pliers to squeeze the collar back on, then sawed off some of the handle.

There – perfect!

Don’t bend it, Lloyd.

It was a pretty good day, and I’m proud of my kids. I’ve been doing this holiday with preschoolers for decades, so it’s pretty plug-and-play. They decorate a bag in the days ahead, they sign (not address) their valentines, I tell the parents to NOT bring a class snack (but doo-dads or candy with their valentines is fine). The day of, we make easy, one-page crowns, string beads on a ribbon to make a necklace, and take turns passing out valentines.

My triumph this year was the snack. I had thought about making cookies, but I didn’t have any regular flour in the house. Ugh. One more obstacle. I went to Wal-Mart to find a pre-made plain cookie that I could put frosting on….. and saw the graham crackers.

Perfect! I put the frosting in the bag, snipped a corner and drew a heart and their initial on it. They thought is was The Best Snack Ever.

Now, if only I can remember that for next year…..