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Gather ’round, kids, while I teach you a valuable life lesson: When the milk on your cereal tastes funny, don’t try to power through finishing the bowl. Toss that stuff out and make someone take you to McDonald’s for a McMuffin, or you’ll be sorry later.

Today was my third official day off, and I spent most of it in intestinal distress. Booooo…….

That’s all. How was your Tuesday?

So, Lloyd and I are back from a wonderful weekend with his family at Heit’s Point. He didn’t get much sleep all weekend so he’s zonked out now. I’m sure he’ll want to do a recap later this week, so I’ll just tell you a little story about emergency plumbing repair.

Lloyd and I stay with Sam and Rachel in the Gospel Hostel – a building divided into four large bunkrooms. Early Sunday morning, our bunkroom’s toilet was clogged (thankfully with just paper), and there was no plunger to be found.

I am Chief Toilet Unclogger at school, but with no plunger, we were in a pickle. I’m not fond of the coat hanger method, because, well – ew. So, I filled up the small wastebasket several times with water from the shower and dumped it in. It made most of the paper go down, but it was still clogged.

I just needed something to blast some air down the hole. I thought about cutting the top off a bottle, but couldn’t find one that was empty enough. I did have a can of Pringles, though! Chips out, can in (open end down).

A firm squeeze – only bubbles.

Jam it in there, Lauren!

Squeeze! Whoosh! Crisis averted.

I hope you haven’t been eating breakfast, because this was a really gross story.

That title has no bearing on this post, other than the fact that I stated to Lloyd and Brad that every second of my upcoming vacation was precious like gold, not like the trickly nickels of their own abundant vacation time. Plus, it is crazy fun to say ‘trickly nickels’. Go ‘head – try it.

Anyway, I used a small amount of my precious time to make a little bit o’ happy. I discovered that I like to have a jar of Starbursts around so I can eat one or five at a time, but all that unscrewing of the jar lid was really wearing me out.

Problem. Solved.

So, if you read Brad’s site yesterday, you know that I gave him money because it eased my guilt. He always buys something for the yard and it eats at my soul because….well, it just does.

I had told Lloyd before Brad came that I wanted to give him something, and Lloyd said, “You should stick ’em together. Lon used to make the detasseling notebooks.”

Well, that started off a world of day dreaming and prototyping!

It turns out that we’re not the only one to have made a notepad out of money, so if you do a search on the internet, you might get better directions.

What I can tell you is:

1. I went to the bank and got new, consecutive bills, but it works just fine with regular money. (You’ll want to make yourself a pad out of old ones so you can just have the pleasure of ripping them off one by one.)

2. I cut a piece of card stock for the back ‘bill’ so I could glue it down to the inside of the card.

3. Rulers or some sort of thin pieces of wood are necessary. The vice is nice, but binder clips alone would have done the job. Clip the bottoms of the bills, then arrange the top.

4. I used about three thin coats of rubber cement along the top. Apparently Elmer’s Glue would have worked, but whatever. A hair dryer will speed up the process if you’re in a big, impatient hurry.

5. I made covers out of cardstock and did a not-so-careful job centering text and folding, but hey – it’s a book made of money, so I don’t think anyone’s going to quibble.

6. If in the future I cannot think of a gift for you, I am giving you cash.
And you will love it.