5 Favorites

1.

Parenting: Illustrated With Crappy Pictures

I have loved this blog for a while, and I just devoured her book in a weekend (and I'm one of the slowest readers ever). It's weird because I seriously haven't even had most of the issues the author complains about (yet?). Still, the MS Paint-style pictures are hilarious, Amber's writing is hilarious, and Crappy Baby is adorbs.

2.

Birthday Freebies

This was some of last year's since I'm too lazy to take a pic of this year's

Ah, I love my birthday. Mostly because of the influx of coupons, freebies, and good deals that hit my inbox in the week leading up to it. I got a free sub at Firehouse Subs, a free (kid-size) scoop at Baskin Robbins, a free $3 to spend on whatever at CVS, and a free burrito (with purchase of drink) at Moe's. I still have a free breakfast at IHOP that has so far gone un-used, along with a couple other 'buy something get something' offers that I'm not always so keen on because there is actual money involved. (But I did want that burrito on Sunday night, so that worked out well.) I think I just ate more fast food in one weekend than I have in a few months. Happy 29th to moi!

3.

the Indiana Bureau of Motor Vehicles (BMV)

Yeah, this is a weird one, but they do a great job with this here! They have good hours that can appeal to people in almost all shifts --open Tuesday through Saturday with certain days of the week open until 7pm. This is totally awesome because it meant I didn't have to lug the child with me to get my car registered here. (I did take her to get my license, and it was a huge mistake because she whined the whole time I was attempting my computer test. Doable, but not ideal.) They also have perfected speediness and short wait times. There were actually a lot of people there when I went to do my plates this week, but there were 10 workers, and each could handle anything. And there were another two 'floaters' who did things like checking my car's VIN number while we handled the rest of the paperwork. I got my number at 4:51 and walked out of there with my car registered in Indiana at 5:10. Less than 20 minutes, start to finish!

The only weird thing is that I only got a temporary plate, and they'll mail me the real one. The other states I've lived in just grabbed one from the pile and handed it over. Also, I've heard that IN plates are crappy plastic, but my others are pretty metal. I'm planning to hang my 3 former plates in our garage when we buy a house, so this kind of matters.

4.
this house that we didn't buy

I probably shouldn't think about it any more, but we saw this house last Thursday with our realtor, and it was fabulous. It was also at the top of our budget so we decided to wait a few days. Someone else put an offer on it the next day, and there is now a big "Sold in 7 Days!" sign next to the other one on the lawn. If you want to see more pics, here is the trulia listing. (Yes, it even included the swing set!) Things I've learned: we (actually, it's just me) are totally gun-shy about making an offer, especially this early in our search, and the good houses around here go fast. I'm also probably going to compare every house we see from here on out to this one.

5.

Maximum Cuteness

In the Crappy Pictures book, Amber Dusick introduced me to the phase called "Maximum Cuteness" which goes from about 16 months until 3 years. (I guess kids get mean and nasty about then, or at least that's what Crappy Mama says.) Anyway, Cora has hit this stage, and I am loving it. She had never shown much interest in her stuffed animals before, but now she has started carrying them around and hugging them and such. Then, there was this:

Let's take a closer look at that: 

And last night she fell asleep with her stuffed cat under one arm and her mousey under the other. I can't even handle the cute.