A Safety Warning

No, this post isn’t about the recent recommendation that children remain in rear-facing car seats until they are two years old.  Don’t get me started on that…

This is about a recent experience I had that I need to share with everyone, because honestly, it really scared me.

A couple weeks ago Alethea received some Mylar balloons.  She enjoyed playing with them in her bedroom.  Then she kind of forgot about them, and there they floated, up on her ceiling for several days.

Then one night last week when Peter was watching the girls, he was putting Lydia down for a nap, when suddenly he heard Alethea yelling in her room.  He went in to find that she had climbed up on her toy storage cubes and flipped on the switch for the ceiling fan.  The fan had gotten up to speed and then sucked in the balloon bouquet.  Alethea was distraught, but Peter managed to untangle everything and both the balloons and the fan were fine.

Now you’d think that after Peter related the incident to me one of us would have said, “Hey, don’t you think we should take the balloons out of her room?” but we didn’t.  I guess I just figured Alethea was upset enough about it that she wouldn’t turn the fan on again.

Well, I was wrong.  On Monday morning I was changing Lydia’s diaper and I thought Alethea was reading books in her room.  Suddenly, Alethea came charging through the doorway shouting, “Fan! On! Fan! On!”

I knew in that instant that I only had seconds to act before the balloons were once again hopelessly tangled in the fan.  I ran to the doorway of Alethea’s room, but just as I hit the switch, I watched helplessly as two balloons were sucked into the fan and went around and around and around.

And then it happened, just as I thought the crisis was almost at an end, the heavy glass globe in the center of the fan came loose and fell to the floor with a huge THUD.

Now, I don’t know exactly how the balloons spinning around tangled in the fan blades managed to unscrew the globe so quickly.  Maybe it had already been loosened by their previous encounter, who can say, but I do know that if Alethea had been underneath that fan instead of safe by my side watching from the doorway, at best she would be in the hospital right now.  And I can’t even bring myself to type the worst.

I’ve learned my lesson.  Balloons that enter our house will no longer be allowed in any room that has a ceiling fan.

And just because I know not everyone will have time to read this rather long post, I’ve created a handy graphic to summarize:

Have a Very Budget Christmas

The other day I was reading an article that listed people’s best money saving tips for the holidays and I was intrigued by one woman who said she saved money by entering every blog giveaway she could find and winning the vast majority of her Christmas gifts.  I think for that to work, you’d have to enter a lot of giveaways, or you’d have to be really lucky!  I don’t think I’m persistent or fortunate enough for that to work!

However, when Lauren over at withtwocats.com recently posted a giveaway for a $50 gift certificate to TinyPrints, I thought I might have to see if I could at least win myself some free Christmas cards.  Click here for all the details on this cool giveaway!

I think I might be heartbroken if I don’t win, because I already went to TinyPrints and found a card I love:

Wish me luck!

Police Report Highlights

There haven’t been that many good police reports in our local newspaper lately, but here are the the few highlights:

First off, we have a new winner (or should I say serious loser) in the blood alcohol content category.  And the DWI prize goes to a 29 year old man whose BAC was .388   Yikes!

Next is “A red men’s bicycle was reported stolen April 4 on the XXX block of XXth Avenue N.E. The seat from the bike was stolen the previous week.”

One really has to wonder whether the seat thieves came back to finish the job, or whether this guy just has really bad luck.

And finally “A plastic, bronze fairy fountain was reported stolen from a backyard on May 23rd.”

Shockingly the report doesn’t mention any outraged neighbors calling for the fountain’s immediate return…

Who Moved My Cookies?

Recent police report from our area:

“A box of Tagalongs Girl Scout cookies was reported stolen from an unlocked vehicle 7:21a.m. Feb. 27…”

The police have not arrested anyone in the case, but Cookie Monster is a prime suspect…

Stale Cookie

This is a picture of a cookie.  One of a batch I made back in September of 2008 to announce Alethea’s pending arrival.  This cookie survived 3 months in the log cabin we were renting, a move into our current house and 11 long months sitting on our kitchen counter next to the knife block, for a grand embarrassing total of 14 months awaiting its close-up.  I’m afraid that if things aren’t big and in the way, or pressingly urgent, I just don’t do them and that is a bad habit.  Sigh.  Well, the cookie has been photographed and is now in… well, it’s gone, let’s just put it that way.

I Love Target Clearance

My kitchen is a mess.  Normally that would really bother me, but at the moment I feel rather triumphant, because amidst the measuring cups and spoons, mixing bowls and various ingredients sit six rather beautiful homemade waffle cones.

It all started yesterday when I went to Target and there on the clearance rack was a waffle cone maker.  Not only did it look like a fun and fabulous item (I mean the people on the box are grinning from ear to ear holding their ice cream cones) but it was only twelve dollars and fifty cents!  I knew that in purchasing such an item I risked Peter rolling his eyes at me when he came home and saw it sitting on the counter, but I couldn’t resist!  Sure enough the waffle cone maker was met with some initial hesitation, but all that was forgot this afternoon when the smell of fresh-baked waffle cones began wafting through the house, so much so that Peter made a voluntary grocery store run to pick up some ice cream for himself and some sorbet for me.

As I sit and soak in the glory of the moment, I am tempted to conclude that this may be my best Target clearance purchase ever.  How ’bout you?  What’s yours?

More Police Reports

Okay, so I know my last police reports post wasn’t that long ago, but I just couldn’t resist sharing these recent happenings:

First of all, there were several DUIs, which unfortunately is completely normal, but I noticed that one of the offenders had a BAC of .30!  How is it even possible that man could manage to climb into a car, let alone attempt to drive it.  Yikes!

The winner of the oddest item taken from a car goes to the report stating “a pair of fake diamond hoop earrings and a black stun gun were reported stolen from a vehicle.”  I am left wondering if those items belonged to the same person or not.  It intrigues me either way!

But the report that tops them all is:

“A robbery was reported at 2:13am on September 16th.  Two men, displaying knives approached a man delivering pizza.  The two men demanded and took…”

His money right?……  No…..

“The two men demanded and took the pizzas before leaving.”

Rest assured though you pizza loving public:

“Police later located and arrested the robbery suspects.”

Those must have been some hungry men.

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On an unrelated note:

GO TWINS!  Beat those Yankees!

Farewell to the Metrodome

Tonight Peter and I went to see what may very well be our last ever Twins game at the Metrodome.  As those of you in the Twin Cities probably know, the Twins will be playing in the brand new Target Field come next summer.  We got to see a fantastic game and spend a whole 5 hours baby free!  (Thanks to Grandma Debbie and Grandpa Chris for watching Alethea.)

While we’re excited about outdoor baseball coming to Minnesota next summer, it is a little sad to see the dome go since Peter and I have had lots of fun dating memories there.  At a time like this, I feel it’s only fitting to say, “Goodbye Metrodome with your horrible acoustics and bad seating layout.  Thanks for the memories.”

I am a Fashionista

So I had this money making idea the other day, and I thought I would run it by all of you to see what you think.  You can be my test market, so to speak.

My moment of inspiration came as I was trying to make myself presentable to leave the house and run errands.  As part of the process I had to change my shirt with the massive spit up spot on the shoulder and all down the arm (there might have been some on the front of the shirt too, I can’t exactly recall).  Anyway, I started thinking that people (not me, but people) pay perfectly good money to buy jeans that already have holes ripped in them.  If there is a market for that, could there be a market for pre-spit up on shirts?  Because if there was, I could just sell shirts like that and then, not only would I make money, but if my shirts became the next big thing, I would never again have to change my shirt before leaving the house because of a silly spit-up spot.  I could just tell people, “Oh no, Alethea didn’t spit up on me, this is just my Gucci sweater.  It’s the latest thing.”

So what do you think?  Should I be calling the people at Armani?  Or do you think it would be wise to keep my day job?

Some Things I will Never Understand

Let me start out by saying that I don’t mind watching sports on TV.  In fact, if it’s Twins baseball, I actually enjoy watching it.  Other sports are fine in moderation as well and I try not to get on Peter’s case too much even when he watches games/teams/sports that I couldn’t care less about.

But every now and then I catch Peter watching sporting events that have already taken place.  Apparently we get a channel known as ESPN Classic and allegedly the games they show are so famous and fabulous they are worth watching even though everyone knows who wins and what they have to do be victorious.  At least, this is what I have been told.

Whenever I realize that such a “classic” is on our TV, I have to stop and ask Peter, “Why are you watching this?”  And he will inevitably answer, “This is the game where so-and-so does such-and-such.”  And then I say, “If you already know that is going to happen, why do you need to watch it happen?”  To which I have yet to receive a satisfactory explanation.

For the good of my marriage, I suppose I should leave it alone, but I just wanted to say for the record, I really don’t get it.