Scary St. Patrick's Day

Rowan: "Mom, you're not wearing green today!"

Me: "I know. I don't really have anything green."

Rowan: "But green is your favorite color!"

Me: "I know! I really need to get some green clothes!"

Rowan: "And you know mom... If you don't wear green on St. Patrick's day, the lepers will bite you."

Me: "What?!"

Rowan: "Yep. The lepers will bite anyone who doesn't wear green."

Yikes!

Ice Cream Weather

What do Minnesotans do when the weather rises above 50 degrees?

We toss off our coats.

We abandon our boots.

And — best of all — we indulge in...


ICE CREAM!

Yesterday, our local (OUTDOOR) ice cream stand opened for the first time since last fall. By the time we made it through the line, the sun was setting and the temperature was dropping. Still, we enjoyed every minute as we slurped and shivered away at our picnic table.

Spring is coming! It's really coming!

The Last of the Apple Juice

Rowan: "Look, mom! Dad gave me the last cup of the apple juice."

Me: "Ah, man. I was hoping to have some of that."

Rowan: "I have a great idea!"

Me: [Thinking my little sweetie was about to offer to share.]
"Really? What is it?"


Rowan: "Maybe next time you can get yourself some while you still have a chance."

Spending to Save...A Contradiction? (Probably, But I Don't Care.)

The following conversation took place on our way to Sears to buy a new refrigerator.

Rowan: "I don't want to go shopping. Shopping is boring!"

Me: "I know you don't like shopping, Rowan, but we need to pick out our new refrigerator."

Rowan: "Why do we have to go today?"

Me: "Because if we buy a new refrigerator now, we can save $200. That's a lot of money!"

Kyle: "Yep. And if we don't buy a new refrigerator now, we'll save $1,000. That's even more money!"

He just had to point that out, didn't he? But he was only being a smart alec. Our old refrigerator — manufactured in 1990! — has seen better days. Saving $200 on something we planned to buy anyway is indeed a savings.

Now we're just counting the days until March 19, when our new refrigerator arrives! Can you believe it? No more duct tape!

Waking Up With Reverse Psychology

"G'mornin' Rowan! Give me a smile!"

"Oh, c'mon. You can do better than that. It's a new day!"

"You're gonna be stubborn, huh? Fine. Don't smile. In fact, you better NOT smile. That's right, mister. NO SMILING ALLOWED!"

"Hey, I mean it, buddy. You better stop smiling this instant! Don't even think about smiling!"

"What?! What are you doing? I thought I told you not to smile! There's absolutely NO smiling allowed in this house!"

"Laughing?! Now you're LAUGHING?! How can you possibly laugh this early in the morning? Are you crazy? Breakfast is serious business!"

Ah, reverse psychology. Works every time.

Gettin' Cash for My Clunker of a Refrigerator

We got our appliance rebate reservation yesterday!

The Web site crashed, the phones were clogged and the service was amazingly lousy, but persistence paid off. If we buy a new refrigerator within the next 30 days (and recycle our old one), good old Uncle Sam will give us $200 for our trouble. Nice!

Which brings me to the real point of this post: EXTERNAL MOTIVATION!

We need that in this house. Big time.

I mean, really. You'd think we'd have had plenty of internal motivation to replace our refrigerator over the past two years.

Just look at it:

It has that "I used to be white, but no amount of scrubbing will ever again make me sparkle" thing going on. Lovely.

And then there's the duct tape. You see, the shelves fell apart the week after we moved in. Did we buy a new refrigerator? Nah. My MacGyver hubby simply fashioned a solution out of duct tape. I was thrilled, of course.

Oh, and I can't forget the freezer. We're now experts at balancing frozen pizzas "just so" in order to prevent them from slipping through the wire shelving. It's an important life skill, people!

But soon, all of this will be a distant memory. For we now have a little external motivation — and a deadline.

Thirty days.

Sweet!