For the Love of Girl Scout Cookies

Can you guess what delicious treat is coming my way? Girl Scout cookies!!! My niece is in girl scouts this year. She is a brownie, and a very cute one at that. Sadly, it seems that today's brownies do not wear a head to toe brown Brownie uniform. They only have a sash that they stuff into their backpacks on Brownie meeting day. Can you believe this? I remember my Brownie days and the huge amount of pride I had in my adorable brown Brownie uniform. All of the non-Brownie girls would look enviously upon the brown uniformed Brownie girls. And the boys always chat us up about what cool badges we had sewn upon our sashes. We would bask in their admiration, while straightening our sashes and pulling up our brown knee socks. I swear half of the appeal of brownies was the cute outfit. But, the other half of the appeal was the cookies.

Well, it turns out that my niece has set a cookie selling goal of 50 boxes. If she meets this sales goal, she will be rewarded with a hefty commission. A Girl Scout Water Bottle. And, as her aunt, I have been informed that I will be responsible for purchasing 45 of those boxes. Her mother will purchase the other 5. Hmmmm.

Actually, this doesn't sound like too bad of a deal to me. At 3.50 a box, this would only set me back about $157.50. So, I couldn't buy groceries for a couple of weeks. We could totally survive on cookies, right? But, I will also have to figure in the cost of the larger sized wardrobe I will be requiring after I scarf down 45 boxes of cookies. On the plus side of that (and I said plus side, not plus size), I would get to do some shopping. And it is clearance season.

Now, I just have to decide how many of which cookies I want. Tough decisions. Tough, mouth watering decisions.

Clearance Racks and Temperature Tuesdays

Savannah and I went to Target today to dig through all their clearance racks. We only hit one target store, and I'll be hitting another tomorrow. We came home with some loot, though. And I didn't spend much at all!! The after Christmas clearance season is my favorite season of the year. Here's a sampling of some of our goodies.

First, we have a brand new pair of long johns for Myles. The fact that these are smurf colored didn't influence this purchase at all. He will now be known as Myles Smurf whenever he wears these, much to his chagrin. :)

Savannah scored a cute pair of flats. She has decided to wear them to school tomorrow which means that she will have to pack her snow boots and her sneakers in her bag. Such a variety of footwear just to get through a day in the third grade! (These only cost me $3!!)

The next two pictures show my great finds. Two sweatshirts, one cost $2.98 and the other was $6 and one shirt for only $2.24. The fabulous and extremely soft black gloves are Savannah's. My favorite item of the season is featured in the second picture. Knee high socks. I'm starting a collection. When living through a winter with -40 degree wind chills, knee high socks are a must.

After we finished picking over the clearance racks, I remembered that I needed to pick up a new protective screen cover for my new ipod touch. I bought a three pack knowing full well it would probably take me 3 tries to apply the darn thing correctly. Allow me to properly set up this disaster. Christmas morning I was surprised with my new ipod touch. It is a step up from my ipod nano and I love it. It can hold most of my audio book library along with some fun apps. And, unlike an iPhone, I don't have to deal with bothersome phone calls during my farming sessions on tapfarm, nor do I have that horrible monthly bill.

In addition to the ipod touch, I was given a protective case for it in lime green (inspired by my love of Wicked) which included a screen protector. Unfortunately for me, I am a mental defective when it comes to applying the screen protector. I couldn't even figure out which of the Saran wrap-ish pieces of clear plastic was the screen protector. And was left with a bubbly, dust covered disaster after many repeated attempts. Today, I bought myself a new package of screen protectors and had planned to detail my ability to effectively adhere Saran wrap to the screen of my ipod. Here's the beginning of my new smartness...

First is a before picture. This is how my ipod has been shamefully going through it's life so far.
And, this was meant to be step 1: After removing all coverings and thoroughly cleaning the poor ipod, remove new screen protector from package.

I did this and the screen protector didn't quite seem to be the same size as my ipod. Hmmm. Upon closer inspection of the package, I had purchased screen protectors for an iPhone! DRAT. So, I had to return the sad ipod to it's green case and reapply the crappy screen protector. I did wash it off, though and while still bubbly, it looks slightly better. Tomorrow I'll be returning to Target (I wanted to hit another one anyway) and I'll be purchasing the correct screen protector. So, this story is to be continued...

But to end my day on a positive note, today was Temperature Tuesday at Runza. That means Runza only charges whatever the temperature is at 6am for their runza sandwiches. Today, Runzas were 4 cents. For those of you who aren't from Nebraska, here is a link to Runza so you can see what you are missing. They are supremely yummy. Unfortunately, the holiday season has caused most of my jeans to shrink (surely, this must be some sort of laundry issue, right? It can't have anything to do with the hours of couch sitting and face stuffing, right?) Well, Temperature Tuesdays are followed by Exercising Wednesdays, Thursdays, Fridays, Saturdays, Sundays, and Mondays. :(

What a Winter

I thought I'd take the camera with me today when I drove to work. This is what it is still like driving in Nebraska with all of the snow we have gotten in the past month. It's quite unbelievable. This is what our street looked like as I drove the kids to school this morning. The trees were all covered in ice and it was a little foggy out.

This is the street we drive to get up to the school. It's nearly impossible to see any oncoming traffic. On the right is a full parking lot and the mountains of snow are so high that you cannot even see the parked cars.

After I drop the kids off, I have to drive down the road behind the school, which has only been widened a single lane.

This is a shot of some of the icy trees I passed on my way to Omaha.

A stop sign in the snow.

A mailbox in the snow.

And a scary stretch of one of the county roads that I have to travel.

And this is my prediction of what our streets will look like after our next snow. This has been one crazy winter.

Just Another Manic Monday

I am having a whopper of a Monday. I woke up this morning and had to get the kids ready for school. This is suddenly a strange disruption to my usual routine of leaving them at home with B because of a snow day. I discovered that I had absolutely nothing in the house for me to eat for breakfast and decided today was going to be a McDonald's morning. Yum Yum, right? So, I slip slide my way all the way to Omaha, excited to see a full 2 lanes of highway open for my entire travel. (Friday's commute involved long stretches of a single lane of plowed highway and me hoping a semi didn't come along to clobber me.) But, the traffic was moving soooo slowly once I got to Omaha and I was not going to work without my McDonald's. So, I was late. And to compound the situation, I had forgotten that the street I usually drive down was closed and I had to detour unexpectedly making me more late. I pulled into the parking lot, sought out an acceptable parking place, grabbed up my bags and my drink and hustled into work. I walked all the way across the building to my desk before I realized that I left my much desired breakfast in the car. Damn. So, I put my things away and grabbed my pass key and dashed back out to my car. And realized that I had left my car keys in my purse at my desk. My third attempt at getting to my breakfast was successful. I guess the repeated laps around the building was the universe's way of helping me work off those breakfast calories.
I got home this afternoon to discover B was out on the roof trying to push off the 2 feet of snow that has accumulated up there. While he is home alone. And standing on snow covered ice. Alone.
Miraculously, he never slid off the roof and the snow has been swept away. Over one small portion of the roof anyway. Unfortunately, the temperature warmed today and some of the snow and ice started to melt and drip down the back door. The gutters are overflowing with ice and are causing a spectacular fountain to pour down over our back door. This is causing an especially slippery patch of ice to form on the top step into the house and causing us to employ awe inspiring feats of daring to get into the house. Tonight, the back door is completely encased in ice from our roof fountain and will not close completely. This winter is proving to be very challenging.
And, because of the astronomical amounts of snow outside, the dogs prefer not to do their business out in the little patch of real estate that has been shovelled for them. They much prefer to leave me a present in the back porch following their evening meals. And, believe me, a present from a Great Dane does not go unnoticed.
Tomorrow is Tuesday and Tuesdays always go more smoothly for me. Plus, I'm taking Savannah shopping at Target. It's clearance time and a little retail therapy just might restore my sanity.

The Great Icicle

This is one of the icicles that we broke off of our house today.



WOW!!

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We've got SNOW!!

Well, we've got enough snow to last us until 2015. I am home again after taking my 4th day off of work due to snowy roads. The kids are home for their 4th snow day of the year as well. By our estimates the snow will likely melt off by the 4th of July and that is also the date that the kids will get out of school for summer break because of all of the snowdays.
The snow was blowing so badly today that all of the roads in my entire county are closed. That sounds pretty bad. I haven't left the house to find out. Additionally, it's about -20 degrees outside. I'm starting to think hibernation sounds like a good idea. I'll be cuddled up with the kids today under quilts watching movies and reading books while chili is cooking in the kitchen. We know how to do snowed in.
The kids got new sleds for Christmas and this year we've got enough snow to actually use them right away, but it's been so cold that I haven't been motivated enough to take them to the big sledding hill. I know it would involve about 45 minutes of prep work and bundling for only 5 minutes of sledding fun before frostbite starts to set in. A warm up is coming the weatherman promises. As soon as it does, we'll be out sledding!!
By the way, the picture above does accurately represent what my backyard currently looks like.