Never Too Fast To Exercise

...I'm certainly not too fast to exercise; I went running the other day for the first time in a long time and I was so slow! I thought I was running so fast. I thought to myself, Wow, Self. Look at you go! But alas, when I looked at my watch at the one mile marker, I got quickly discouraged. It took me ten minutes to run a mile. That's the slowest mile I've done in a while. And I think I could probably walk that fast...

Good thing my kids are fast. Look at Owen here, doing his "exercises:"

Then there's Drew, who's super strong and loves to "weight lift":

I guess I should follow their examples and start working out more.

Check This Out

I was looking at our electricity bill, which is finally going down for the year (our house has electrical everything, so our bill gets extra high in the colder months--basically October through late April). I noticed our average kWh usage per day is around 51 (92 in the winter!). I got sorta curious as to why it gets that high, and what each of our appliances uses. I came across this site to calculate energy usage. It's pretty interesting. Keep in mind that it only calculates one appliance at a time, so if you want to estimate the grand total to see how it compares to your utility bill, you have to keep track of them all separately. Also on the main homepage are ideas to lower your energy usage. Earth Day Every Day!

Speaking of going green, a while ago I wrote about having to choose between the city recycling and the residential home recycling programs. Turns out the choice was made for me. I got a note from the residential home saying they would be picking up our recycling one final time and they encouraged their contributors to use the city recycling program. They were actually part of the committee to implement the city recycling program. So that takes care of that. It's actually a lot easier for me because now I don't have to sort the recycling. Not that it's difficult or anything, it's just one of those chores I dislike, such as folding and putting away laundry or emptying the dishwasher. And the residential home will collect recyclables from small businesses so they'll still be making money, and everybody wins.

Pop Quiz

Q: What happens when you think the hubby is watching the baby and the hubby thinks you are watching the baby?

A:

Dirt Brownies.

Ninety Bucks Later

What a week. I feel like I haven't been home at all, but I can't think of where I have been. It's all a big blur.

Things got even blurrier from the kids' point of view: Owen woke up Tuesday with super-goopy eyes. Then Samantha woke up goopy on Wednesday, and Drew woke up goopy on Thursday. By Thursday, Owen's eyes looked a lot better, so I thought Drew and Samantha would get better in a couple days, too. But then, Thursday evening, Samantha got all warm and rosy--really warm; 103.5, to be precise. All she wanted to do was sit on my lap, so that's what she did while David called the Nurseline. They suggested we give her a bath. It seems like every time we call them, their answer is, "Give the kid a bath." Good thing there's a nurse in my family. I called my marathon-running, super-mom, cousin Heidi. She returned my call the next morning and gave me some tips for reducing Samantha's fever with Tylenol and Motrin. It helped! Samantha's fever dropped back to normal by noon, and she felt well enough to complain about not feeling well.

I'm big on wait-and-see when my kids are sick, but their eyes just weren't getting better like we thought. Owen's eyes looked pretty clear, but Drew and Samantha's were still grody. So on Saturday David took the kids to the doctor while I went to clean some apartments. Sure enough, they all had pinkeye. Yuck. I feel really bad that we didn't take them in sooner, because they could've started treatment sooner. (I also feel bad that we took them over to the neighbors' to play on the trampoline. Oops.) Good thing we still have insurance. Even with insurance we shelled out $20 for each kid's co-pay, and $10 for each kid's eye drops. Doesn't seem like much, but when you times it by three... It would've cost even more without insurance.

The doc thought Samantha's fever was just part of a bad cold. I wonder if it was all related to her eyes, because once we started the eye drops, her eyes cleared up, her nose has started to clear up, and her temperature is a nice 98.6 degrees.

In unrelated news, I applied for a job as a clerk at the city utility billing office. I think my experience working at Convergys makes me a great candidate for the job; I had to deal with all different types of customers, and I learned all kinds of things about helping people manage their accounts. Hopefully I can score an interview and convince HR that I'm the gal for them.

I Would Love to See This in Real Life

I subscribe to an email newsletter from FamilyFun.com. It contains craft ideas and food ideas, and all kinds of other stuff. Today's news letter had some ideas for outdoor crafts, including this cute little Squirrel Cafe:

For the directions to make it, go here.