I recently saw a commercial for a men's body wash. It was one of those all-in-one washes, covering hair, face, and body. Similar products are made for children. That might work well for men and kids, but no self-respecting woman would ever use just one product in the shower.

For hair, we use shampoo. Since it is a sin to use soap on your face, we use facial cleanser. Then there is body wash for the body and foot scrub for our feet. Sometimes body polish follows the regular washing. After everything has been cleansed, washed, scrubbed and polished, we need to moisturize. For the hair, there is conditioner. The face needs moisturizer. Not lotion, moisturizer. Then there is the body lotion. Our feet need either lotion or moisturizer specifically made for feet. Right now, I have a foot "creme" (not cream).

Each product is used exclusively for its own set purpose. Can you imagine what chaos would ensue if our foot creme met up with the body lotion in the ankle area?

Women need a large number of cleansing and moisturizing products. This can be seen at any grocery store in the aisle of body washes. There are about 90 for women, 6 for men, and maybe 2 for little kids. What can I say? A woman must smell her best.

It makes me wonder how our grandmothers survived with (gasp) plain soap and water.

Lessons learned

One Saturday, not long ago, I was doing my usual Saturday stuff when I got a phone call from my husband. He said there had been a grease fire in the kitchen, but fortunately it had been put out with the fire extinguisher. No big deal, I thought. So I lost a frying pan. It needed replacing anyway. Then he said he was going to call our insurance agent. Insurance agent? I wondered. How much damage had been done anyway?

I soon found out. The kitchen was smothered with white powder from the fire extinguisher. The range hood was pretty much destroyed. In fact, a piece of it had melted and fallen onto the range. It then solidified and became a permanent fixture on the coil burner. I wanted to just sweep up all the powder, but we had to wait until an insurance adjuster (or an assessor or somebody) looked at all the damage. Besides, the powder was an irritant and shouldn't just be swept up. So our kitchen was not usable. We went out to dinner for several nights in a row.

One might think that eating out all the time like that would have resembled being on vacation. If one were to think that, however, one would be wrong. Vacations are when you spend your days at an amusement park or beach and you get to go out to eat. We were not spending our days doing fun things and we had to go out to eat. By the fifth night, I really didn't care where we had dinner. I just wanted food to somehow come our way. One night, we went to my mother-in-law's house, and it was a very nice change for the better.

Eventually, we were able to get a new stove. A very nice new stove. A stove with a convection setup and one of those burners that is just for keeping food warm. It has three racks. (The old stove had only one.) It also has this really cool feature where you turn a knob and the correct burner turns on. (Something the old stove didn't have.) Anyway, our kitchen is now quite usable and I am happy to be cooking again.

So what are the lessons here? I am not saying that you should set fire to your kitchen in order to get a new stove. The phone calls and paperwork were a big headache and I am quite opposed to kitchen fires. Or any indoor fire for that matter.

One important lesson is to always have a fire extinguisher in your house. It is like having a form of insurance. You hope you'll never use it, but there might just come a day when you will be very glad to have it.

The other lesson is this: Sometimes you might have a problem so big that you can't even begin to figure out how to solve it. But after a time, it might turn out just right and somehow you may even find a happy ending.

Flower Quest

Ever since we bought our first home last year and increased our living space, I have been pulling vases out of storage and trying to put them on display, preferably with flowers in them. Of course, fresh flowers would be nice, but that can't happen year round. So I have been on a mission to find silk flowers.

One craft store in the area went out of business, so I made the seven mile trek to another craft store the next town over. (I combined it with another errand in the same town so as not to waste gas.) There I found an abundance of beautiful fake flowers, ranging in price from $1.99 to about $4 a flower. So I grabbed some up, went home and put some in the vases. I bought some more from the same place a few weeks later.

Recently, I went to one of those dollar stores not far from my house. I was looking for a cheap umbrella, but they didn't have any. But they did have silk flowers. Four for a dollar! I wish I had known that they were there, just five minutes from where I live. Soon I will have enough flowers to fill all my vases.

Interestingly, my kids asked me why I chose to put a vase of these flowers on the dining room table. Would we be eating around this vase from now on? Of course, the vase is removed before each meal. And why else would I display a vase full of flowers? Because it's pretty!

A Cat's Life

I feel compelled to once again blog about our cat, Olivia. This time I am trying to figure out why she seems so intelligent in some cases and completely idiotic in others.

There are times when I am impressed with her cognitive abilities. For example, one day Olivia decided to step from couch to the window sill. (See photo) She sat there for a while then realized there was no way down. It was too far to jump down and the coffee table was too far away to step onto. It took her about 20 minutes to figure out that she had to walk backwards to the end of the sill, jump onto the couch and then to the floor. Smart cat, right? But remember this is the same cat who fell onto the stairs every day for about a month before she finally quit napping next to the stairs. (See previous post, Olivia the Super-Cat)

Still, I know Olivia has some intelligence. In the three houses we have lived in since we acquired her, she has always known to stay away from the street. Even now when we are right next to it.

But then I think of the ritual she and I go through just about every week. Olivia's food dish is in the kitchen. Once a week, I move her dish to the living room so I can vacuum and mop the kitchen. About 30 seconds after I move it, she decides to eat. She goes into the kitchen and stares at the empty space where her dish usually is. She looks at me and meows. I point to the temporary location of the food dish. I even pick it up and shake it so she can see what it is. She gives me a blank stare and meows again. I point to the food dish again. She looks at the kitchen floor then looks back at me and meows. Finally, I start the vacuum which scares her and she runs off. About a half hour later, while the kitchen floor is drying, Olivia figures out where her food dish is and begins eating.

Now if she were really a smart cat, wouldn't she figure all of this out so we wouldn't have to go through the same thing every week? Apparently not.

Then again, she has been smart enough to stay alive to the age of 15.

Parenting 101

Isn't it interesting how much some think they know about parenting even before they have kids? I know I used to have great ideas about parenting. If I heard a screaming toddler in the grocery store, I said to myself, "If that were my kid, I would..." and then come up with some solutions that would shape that kid right up. When I saw a baby with a pacifier, I thought how silly that was. Your baby doesn't need a pacifier if you simply make sure all his needs are met. If he's crying, find out why and fix the problem. Easy. And, of course, I would never be guilty of saying "Because I said so." I would calmly and logically explain the reason to the child who would immediately understand.

One day, some years later, I heard a screaming child in the grocery store. It turned out this particular child was sitting in my grocery cart. But nothing I did stopped the crying. What had happened to all those great ideas? Some I had already used, but they hadn't worked. The others--well, I was afraid that if I tried them, I would be arrested. The pacifier, which I had packed in the diaper bag also wasn't working. There was nothing left to do but cut the shopping trip short and go home.

As the kids got older, there were also many times I answered the question "Why?" with "Because I said so!" What had happened? Why wasn't I following my own great advice? In a word, REALITY.

Reality had taught me that even the most disciplined child gets bored after being in a grocery cart for an hour and sometimes nothing can stop the crying but heading home. I had also figured out that there are some babies who have all their needs met perfectly well, but still won't stop crying. In those cases, a pacifier may help. Sometimes. Reality had also told me that there are times when a child needs to obey without question and the old "Because I said so" standby is the best thing. If necessary, the logical reasoning process can follow later. After all, if your house was burning and you told your child to get out, you wouldn't answer their "Why" with logical reasoning.

So now, when I hear a crying child at the store, I sympathize with the poor mother (or father) instead of judging them. I also wonder if they would like a pacifier. For the child, I mean.

The Adventure of Costco Shopping

The other day I made my monthly trip to Costco. If you have ever shopped at Costco (or any other warehouse-type store) you know how much fun it can be.

First of all, parking. I have never been to Costco when it is not busy, so finding parking is always a challenge. But I can usually find a spot within sight of the front door. That doesn't mean close to the front door, just within sight of it.

Then, I grab a cart, flash my little card at the greeter, and I'm ready to shop. Of course, due to poor planning, I am once again arriving just before lunch time and getting hungry. Fortunately, there are a plethora of free samples available.

I head down the first aisle which now contains chips. A few months ago, it contained toothbrushes. Before that, it was diapers. I guess they like to rearrange things now and then to keep us on our toes.

I soon have a cartload of gigantic packages of random items: peanut butter, chips, candy, bottled water, frozen pizza, and toilet paper. I check my list and make sure I haven't forgotten anything, because if I have, it means walking the equivalent of four city blocks to go back and get it. I have also gotten my fill of free samples: English muffin, meatball, potato chip with dip, and cheesecake for dessert. Who needs lunch?

To the self checkout. Scan the items one by one. Hope that the conveyor belt doesn't get too overloaded. But it does. Rearrange everything and continue. As I scan, a computerized female voice shares each price with everyone standing nearby. How nice of her. Get my total. Swipe my card. Get my receipt.

Now I have to hurry and load it all back into my cart before the person behind me gets their stuff mixed up with mine. Finally, after someone checks my receipt and I'm out the door.

Loading the stuff into my car can be tricky. If the sun is shining, I have to make sure the chocolate items are not on top. Otherwise, the sun shines on them all the way down the highway and melts the chocolate. (I'm serious. That happened once.) So I play Tetris with the groceries trying to get them all in the back of my car in nice neat stacks.

When I finally arrive home, I then have the enjoyable task of lugging everything into the house except for the items that go straight into the chest freezer. Then I rearrange the pantry and the fridge a couple times to make room for all the stuff.

Finally, I'm done! And it was so worth it because I saved...Well, I don't know exactly how much money I saved, but I know I saved some. So it was totally worth it!

Now all I have to do is forget how "fun" it was before I go again next month.

I Love Fall

Since we moved into our new house several months ago, I have learned a lot of things about home ownership. One major thing is that we have to do all the upkeep ourselves. At our last residence, the leaves fell in the yard and and a few days later they miraculously disappeared. (The landlady's son took care of them.)

Now we have to rake the leaves ourselves. I have been spending a lot of time doing this and have learned a number of things:

1. Leaves pile up very quickly. I only have to rake one medium size section of yard and I have a huge pile of leaves. I can only fit so much in my yard waste bin so one huge pile a week is all I can take care of.
2. It seems like the more you rake, the more work there is to do. I just spent about a half hour raking leaves and filled my yard waste bin, but there are still leaves all over my yard. And in a few more days, the leaves will be all over the section I just raked.
3. Raking leaves can be a fun job. I like it because it gets me out of the house and it is good exercise. And I can listen to my iPod while I do it.
4. Jumping in leaves is fun. Well, I haven't done it myself but my son seems to enjoy it.
5. Someone is leaving apples in my yard. Every time I rake leaves, I come across a few apples. There is not an apple tree within sight of the house, but these apples keep showing up. Since some are small and misshapen, my theory is that squirrels are leaving them. Although I thought they buried their food.

Now that the trees are almost devoid of leaves, my goal is to someday rake up all the leaves on the ground. At the rate I'm going, I may just accomplish that before next fall.