RTT- Costco Fail

Tuesday again. Time for an update.

• Our Christmas tree is finally down but even after vacuuming the living room TWICE, I'm still finding pine needles (with my feet!) all over the house.

• The Gardener spent 3 hours Friday morning cleaning up all of the snow that fell then drifted around the buildings. This was the drift I was referring to when I said that the snow was waist deep. Okay fine, I'm short but still!

• I gained 7 pounds over the Holidays and now I hate to admit it but I'm putting myself on a diet. I know it sounds crazy that a 105 pound woman would put herself on a diet, but seriously my clothes are starting to not fit so well, so yeah, time to say NO to that extra cookie (or 5) a day and walk my butt out to the mailbox instead of waiting for a trip out of the house to pick up the mail with the car. Nothing crazy, just cutting out unhealthy snacks and moving a little more until I can fit back into my jeans. The last month or so has been a season of indulgence for me. With all of the snacks and meals out when I was in Arizona and 3 weeks of family get-togethers and parties (with eggnog!), I feel a little bulgy... and not in a good way. My plan for the next few weeks is just to make sure that I think about the kinds of foods that I'm putting in my mouth. I'll still probably have a cookie here and there, just stop at one. I think it will do us all some good to get back in to a routine of healthy eating. This also may be my half-assed attempt at a New Year's resolution. We'll see...

• Binny and Mae started swimming lessons last Saturday. Mae is convinced that she can swim all by herself but frequently sinks like a stone and the instructor quickly scoops her up out of the water. Binny is still not loving the part where her face gets wet, but she puts up with it and even held her head under the water for 5 seconds. Mae did it for a whole 32 seconds but Mae is so darn competitive that this doesn't surprise me in the least.
  

• I learned that vinegar is no substitute for dishwasher detergent. It works great in the dishwasher to sterilize canning jars but not so great for an entire meal's worth of dirty, crusty dishes. I ran out of tablets Saturday and figured that some vinegar would do the trick along with the heavy wash cycle. Not only was the vinegar ineffective but there were food bits stuck over all of the dishes so I had to actually hand wash *gasp* our dinner dishes. Monday morning I promptly made a list and went to Costco along with a coupon for my brand of dishwasher soap but they sold out their entire stock over the weekend! I bought some inferior other tablets to substitute until I can get the good stuff. I hope to try again before my coupon expires. Why does it seem that every task I take on takes at a minimum 2 days to accomplish? Much like this blog post....

That's it for me today. Click over to Keely's blog for more randomness.