Fan Mail

Lucky girl that I am, I received this picture of a honeypot in my email.  I kinda collect weird  pictures of Honeypots.  Hey, I have a blog called MY VIEW OF THE HONEYPOT.  This was sent to me by my dear hubby.  I am pretty sure you have to have a sense of humor to be in the portable toilet business.

Here are some my other memorable honeypots - Wizard of Ooze and Headquarters.

One Red Dot

Chuckles participated in the performance One Red Dot put by his school in collaboration with Western Washington University(WWU). One Red Dot is a pop up book by David A Carter.   Their music teacher wanted to introduce the kids to some real composers. So she used the One Red Dot book as a jumping off point and music students and their professor, Lesley Sommer helped compose the music. The kids depicted and performed each page.  It was very modern.  The WWU students created the background music though the elementary students did perform on the xylophones. The pages were displayed on the screen behind the performers. There were 83 3rd graders participating. Chuckles was in Four Flip Flop Flaps and he was part of the Flip Flop. He was in 5 Wiggle Wobble Widgets and he was part of a Widget.  He was a body percussionist in 6 Fluttering Flicker Clickers and 10 Coiling Curlicues.

The performance was at Western.  I did manage to get Chuckles there but not before turning around 3 times.  Chuckles finally told me this isn't the way.  LOL  They got to go during the day to practice the performance.  It made quite the impression on Chuck. I asked him if this was where he was going to college.  He said he didn't know.

Chuckles before the performance

Chuck performing 5 Wiggle Wobble Widgets

Light it Up Blue

The month of April is National Autism Awareness Month. April 2 was actually World Autism Day. Autism Speaks has a Light it up Blue Campaign.  I thought I would be remiss if I didn't mention it on my blog.

I really love Floor Pie's take on " What Autism Awareness Looks Like."  She echos a lot of my feelings in a lot more articulate way on the subject.

This video also spoke to me. It will actually teach you a new word too.  This is from My Asperger's Child and is called Misunderstood Asperger's Child.


I have found the new blog My Asperger's Teen really helpful as her son and my are the same age and both transitioning to High School. That scares the you know what out of me. We are still waiting for the transition meeting.

I like big plants

I like big house plants. I cannot lie.  I love houseplants so when Nester had a planty linky party I had to join.

This is my newest addition.  This is so large it had to be repotted.  I looked around for large pot and the prices were astronomical.  So , I had a brain storm and repotted this in a shiny metal garbage can.  To tell you the truth this almost wasn't large enough.  This turned out to be a cheaper solution. More about the repotting here and what it looked like when I received it.

Above is my first large plant, I ever grew.  Don't I sound like a proud parent. It is a split leaf Philodendron.  My kids once de-leafed it.  I wasn't a happy Mommy. They use to call it the plant with the eyes. The kids thought the split in the leaves looked like eyes.

Above is a prayer plant at night the leaves close up. This also has blooms.

See the spikes.  Those are the blooms. I also have a hoya that is blooming.The blooms almost look fake.

I have been extremely lucky to be gifted or purchased distressed plants.  A lot of my stands and pots have been thrifted. 

Forced Adventure

Yes, I am a mean Mom.  Yesterday, I made(forced) my children get out of the house.  The picture above is #1 Son at the beach.  He is writing a story which he told me is too complicated for me to understand. Of course, he said that when I asked to read it.  And he told me it is a rough draft.  He chose to write at the beach. Chuckles and I however were more interested walking along the beach.  Chuck made some impromptu art with rocks and shells.  We ate a little lunch and found a geocache.  Not a bad way to spend a couple of hours.

Couponing Sanely

I had a really good couponing trip on Monday. I have always wanted to do a coupon beauty shot.  Above is mine - 4 boxes of cereal, 1 can of almonds, 6 apples, and a gallon of milk all for $3.62 from Albertsons aka Albies. Sometimes I fall off the coupon wagon.  I guess I should say I fall off the coupon wagon, often. Clipping coupons and seeking out deals is work. I have a love/hate relationship with couponing.  I love to save but I don't want to work to hard for my savings. I think I finally came up with the 10 commandments of Couponing Sanely.

1. No Deal is worth losing sleep over.  I don't do complicated coupon deals.  The more complicated it is the more stressful it is to me.  If this is your cup of tea, go for it.  I need my deals to be pretty straight forward.

2. Time is money.  I am a big believer in balance in my personal life.  I am not going to spend all day seeking out deals or clipping coupons.  I spend roughly 1 hour a week clipping coupons and seeking out deals. 

3. Meal planning saves you money.  It will save you more than couponing in the long run.  It saves you when you are not eating out.  I rather invest more time in meal planning and cooking ahead than clipping coupons.  I think over the long term this pays off more than couponing. I shop sales and plan my meals around those sales.

4. Make sure your coupon organization system works for you.  I actually clip out coupons.  I file them in a certain order.  This system works for me.  I was a file clerk in a very previous life.  My friend is a simple file the insert.  It works for her. Have a system and use it.  The more organization you have the less time you have to spend on couponing.

5. Don't buy foods/products you won't use.  No coupon is a great deal if you aren't going to use the product.

6. Use coupons ethically!!!!  You would think this would be common sense. Don't be a shelf clearer. Don't forge coupons etc.

7. Don't go it Alone.  I use coupon websites that help me pinpoint the deals.  I also have several girlfriends that share deals and pass the info on. 

8. Make sure you get the paper with the most inserts.  My local paper barely gets any coupon inserts.  I am lucky that my Mother-In- Law gets a paper that gets the most inserts and she saves them for me. I regularly buy Seattle Times to get more inserts.

9.  Be Flexible.  Deals sometimes don't work out.  Try new products.

10. Don't compare yourself to other couponers.  I am never going to be an extreme couponer. That is too much effort.  Any savings is better than no savings at all in my book.

 My bottom line is to feed my family cheap nutritious food with minimal stress and fuss.

One for the Numbers

My sad attempt to get a 300th cache picture with me in it!

30tth Cache Found!

We found our 30tth geocache Saturday.We also found the most caches in a day that we ever have found - 20.  I love the names of the caches - Yippy Skippy (peanut butter cache), Purple Tree Hugger, Gnome Home (log with a door).  The names crack me up and remind me how imaginative people are. We did most of our caching down near the Skagit Airport.  Next to the airport their are many many trails.  We walked and walked.  We wished we brought our bikes.  This is the perfect path for bikes and dogs as it is mainly flat and nice gravel surface.