BBW Deal!
Originally uploaded by binkwaffle

Why you should
a) use coupons
b) take advantage of killer sales
c) finally use those gift cards that just sit in your wallet for a year...

All told, I paid $5 and change out of pocket for this. I used a $5 BBW gift card, $40 left on a mall gift card, a $10/$40 BBW coupon, and bought it all at the semi-annual sale, and I paid 5 bucks!!!

Those candles were 75% off!! The regular price of everything was approx. $176!! Pre-giftcard and pre-cash price was only $50 and change. Granted, I used a gift card that I wouldn't usually have, but it was still an awesome deal either way!

I got:
2 Wallflower units w/ refills
2 Wallflower refill packs
1 Body Lotion
1 Shower Gel
4 4 oz. Candles
2 14.5 oz. Candles
2 Antibacterial Soaps
1 Shampoo
1 Conditioner

And yes, I know the photo stinks to high heaven. Sorry about that. Wanted to start using all right away and not stage a photo shoot. :-)

Bugs!!!!
Originally uploaded by binkwaffle

Apparently, these are squash bugs! Thanks, Andrea! We have the spray and will be dousing the vine, bushes, and part of the garden tonite. Seriously, the bug factor (are slugs officially bugs, too? If not, broaden it to a pest factor) is the biggest turnoff for me when it comes to gardening. They just flat out gross me out. They don't scare me, but they are just plain gross. And it feels like they're crawling all over me once I've seen a few. Ewww....

Bugs!!!!

What is this bug??? There are hundreds of them all over an aggressive vine coming from my neighbor's yard. The vine overtakes everything on my side of the fence every year, but this year it's worse because it has these black things all over it! Now, granted, it looks like they're killing the plant, but in the process, I don't want them to kill the plants underneath them, the ones that are mine!!! And they're VERY close to my garden, and I did not do all that work to have a bug colony eat the fruit of my labor. Literally! HELP!!

I probably did a very stupid thing (Did I mention my thumb is only very slightly a pale pale green and that this is the first year my garden is still alive at this point in the spring/summer?) and tried to hose them all off. I had two thoughts: (1) they might get mad and fly away, or (2) they might be so wussy that the force of the water kills them instantly. Apparently, I was wrong on both accounts, because they're all still there. So now what? Do I spray them with something? Of course we want to rip out as much of the vine as we can, too, but the roots are on the other side of the fence (and it's a rental so who knows who lives there right now?) and I really don't relish the idea of ripping out all those vines with the bugs still all over them. Ewww. And they're just barely hanging over one side of the garden (which is how I found them, when I was trimming back a few bush branches), so they'll all fall off into the garden as soon as we start ripping them out.

Help!

So, my boys to come into contact with a good half-dozen teachers every day. It's an AWESOME magnet school here in Tulsa that anyone living in the district has GOT to at least come tour and consider for their kids. It was originally a lab school and a "demonstration" school where all the teachers from the entire district came for a few days to learn alternative ways to teach kids based on kids' brain research and the like. Now it's just a "normal" walls-free multi-age hands-on school that still operates the same way but that doesn't have teachers coming to learn.

Anyhoo, all that's to say... The boys each have a "homebase" teacher and a "family" teacher. (Homebase is based on their grade or age group; family is a multi-age "class" that meets several afternoons a week, where they get to learn to interact with other ages, to learn from each other, to help the younger ones learn, etc.) So the "main" 2 teachers for each boy got a reusable shopping bag using this pattern.

(To be honest, I was underwhelmed with the pattern and project--sorry to the designer--but they're done and that's that. I wish I'd reinforced them with a little interfacing, but I guess they are shopping bags, after all. So, there they are. Ain't redoing them now! Overall, they're cute; just a pain in the you-know-what to make. Not overly quick to whip up.)


THEN, of course, the boys came home from school one afternoon; not to drool and gush over my long hard work, but to insist that Mrs. So and So, Mr. You Know Who, etc., all needed one, too. After all, they all teach the boys each day. Oy. So I set out to create a more time efficient project for the rest of them, and voila! After a zillion searches online and a hybrid of a billion tutorials, patterns, and photos, here's what I came up with:





A tutorial will follow this week, now that the teachers all have their gifts and the final rush of the school year's end is over. You know, while the boys are running through the house and I have all that, er, quiet time...