When Harry Met Sally - Chapter 1

Tiffany had been telling me for quite some time about their friend, "Jeff Tidyman", always first and last name included in the description.  Tiffany and her husband, Paul, went to college with Mr. T and in that time became locked into a lifetime of friendship with him.  Throughout the years, stories of Mr. T revealed that he was what I would term, a "wild man".  At one point he was running for State Representative, then he was in Iraq with the Marine Corps, then onto Egypt to study Arabic, then back to Iraq, and on and on and on.  I could hardly keep up with the stories of his voracious appetite to conquer the world.

Regardless, I was intrigued.  So when Tiffany came and said, "Jeff Tidyman needs a date for the Marine Corps Ball.  Do you want to go with him?" I replied, "Ummm, I think that a guy who is that adventurous would probably find me boring, but sure."  I immediately started stressing about how I was going to spend an entire evening with such a wild man, especially one who was vastly more intelligent than me.  I needed to create the illusion that I could hold my own in the smarts department.  I pictured myself making little blunders like saying, "Is it 'Arabic' or 'Aramaic'?" and "I always accidentally say Marine Corpse Ball instead of Marine Corps Ball.  Isn't that so funny!?!"  I was a total airhead back then.  As opposed to now.  Now I'm super awesome at intellectual stuff.  Ask me anything.

Anyway, back in the day I was working at a church in Kansas City, managing the Children's Department and helping with the Missions Team here and there.  Life was good, for the most part.  Unlike most girls who were approaching 30, I was not worried about getting married.  In fact, I was afraid of it; commitment phobia to the core.  The guys who liked me, I didn't like.  And I always fell for guys that were totally unattainable, and therefore, uninterested in yours truly.  I think if Mr. T and I ended up going to the Marine "Corpse" Ball together, we wouldn't have worked out.  The timing would have been all wrong.

We didn't go together because, as it so happened, Mr. T sent out a request to several friends saying he needed a date.  Several friends responded.  He ended up taking someone who was more on the way.  Kansas City was quite the detour after all.  I was greeted by a nice bouquet of flowers at the office one day.  I still have the card he wrote expressing his apologies for not choosing me to be his date.  It was the first of many bouquets I would receive from the famous Jeff Tidyman.  But future bouquets would have to wait.

We didn't meet for the first time until five years later.

Eleven!

Today Tidytot is 11 months old!

Earlier this month, Grandma S came to visit.  We had a grand ol' time, as always!  Our weekend was packed, but we still had time to make it to the annual Heritage Days parade.  Don't you love Tidytot's jogging suit and fashion sneakers?  We signed her up for the pre-parade 5K race they had.  She had a great run and placed 1st in her age bracket!  You can see how proud we are in the photo below.

Another milestone happened this month.  She is now able to hold her bottle all by herself.  We realize most babies do this much earlier; I'm not sure why it too her so long to figure it out.  Must be because we were too busy teaching her the Greek alphabet and didn't devote enough time to this particular skill.  It's been a good "mom lesson" for me.  Sometimes I just need to put down the multiplication flash cards and focus on other things.  After all, most children learn to walk before they have the Periodic Table memorized.

Tidytot had a runny nose for a couple weeks this month.  She's not a thumb sucker, but she does suck on her finger when she's trying to fall asleep.  This proves to be a very difficult task when attempted with a stuffy nose.  And like most babies, she hates the snot sucker thing.  I discovered that the most snot exited her nose during the sneezing process.  Ergo, in order to increase sneezes I would wave the pepper shaker under her nose until it had the desired effect.  Worked like a charm!

In other news, our little munchkin is a big time college girl now!  I am working at Mr. T's office for a few hours a week and while I'm at work, Tidytot goes to the daycare at the college.  Instead of saying, "Let's go to daycare!" we say, "Let's go to college!"  We call her childcare workers her "Professors" and complain that even though she's in college we still have to do her laundry.  

Speaking of, have you ever seen a pair of purple pants frame a cuter face?

Some things never change.  Tidytot has always and still loves paper.  I think next month her favorite thing about her birthday will be the wrapping paper, then the cake, then the presents.


Until then...

Good Deals

Everyone loves a good deal.  Here are three that I thought I'd pass onto you:

1) Price Matcherz

Most people know that Wal Mart does Ad Matching, meaning if you find an ad from another store for a better price, Wal Mart will match that price.  Price Matcherz is a website that looks at all the applicable ads for your area and pulls the sales that qualify for Ad Match.  So, you can go through the list, make note of the ads you wish to match, and shop away.  I used it last week and saved $35.  That's a lot of dollars!  It takes some effort, but it's worth it.

2) Dolly Parton's Imagination Library

Funny name, great program.  Sign your child up and receive a free, age-appropriate book once a month for children 5 years old and under.  Certain zip codes apply.  Check it out to see if it will work for you!

3) Viooz.co

Mr. T told me not to put this one on because it probably illegal or somehow puts zillions of dollars worth of viruses on your computer.  But, what the heck.  It's really the only way Mr. T and I live dangerously. Viooz.co is a website that lets you instantly stream for free any movie you could possibly think of, with a few exceptions.  Heads up, there are "Cinema" movies.  Those are movies that someone has filmed with a video camera as they are sitting in the theater.  Mr. T and I don't watch those, not because we're saints, but because the quality is poor.  In fact, we try to ignore that all together because it make the whole website seem like shady business.  We click on the "Movies" link and watch those.  Most recently I saw "What About Bob" for the first time.  So funny!  My life is now complete.

What good deals do you know about?  Please share!