WordPress alerted me that this is my 50th blog post! To celebrate the big 5-0 I am going to donate $50 to The Loveland Foundation. This foundation is focused on helping black women and girls access mental health care. I started my blog as a way to express myself and also to share some of my struggles and challenges in my first pregnancy. When I started writing it I had no plans to continue it for as long as I have but what I quickly discovered once I began was that many people read my words and connected with me in ways I never expected. I have received so much support, solidarity, understanding, compassion, and commiserating from so many through this platform and it honestly made me feel not alone during moments when I was indeed having a rough time. I feel very fortunate for this unexpected benefit, as I am already able to access mental health care and take time to focus on my mental health every single day in my very privileged life. This is something I realize I have taken for granted, and that in itself is also privilege.

I don’t really know how to put into words the things I am feeling and definitely do not have the wisdom necessary to comprehend the extent of what is happening to people in our country (and globally) right now. I feel like the world is burning down around us. I’m so beyond grateful that our kids are so young at this moment in time, and feel shamefully sickened by how completely sheltered we are from so much evil, violence, oppression, and more. I know that Olivia can pick up on some of the stuff going on during this beyond bizarre year – the change to her routine, missing school, not seeing friends or family, the stress Gates and I are feeling at times, etc – but to not have to sit her down right now and explain to her police brutality and racism because of some video she saw online or on the news or heard about from a friend or witnessed with her very own eyes is a goddamn blessing we don’t deserve. Complete privilege. Gates and I get to initiate the conversation and get to continue to teach her to love all people and be a friend and ally to everyone she meets, and expose her to things in such a way that hopefully she can recognize and appreciate diverse things and people and traditions and lives before she is old enough to realize that some people refuse to do just that. My friend shared with me a resource guide to help initiate discussions about race with young children if you are also in need of putting in the work in your own home – https://www.prettygooddesign.org/ – because to create actual change is going to be work for all of us. How we respond to what is happening right now could shape our children for life and we have such a duty to be proactive and persistent. I want to do more. Help me do more.

From this and some other things that have happened recently I’ve quickly realized how unprepared I am to handle tough questions from Olivia, and haven’t given it nearly enough thought about how to respond when she does things like lie, hit or pinch the twins, or try out using swear words that she picked up from god knows where. God does know where, actually. But that’s between me and Him. IRREGARDLESS – we were reading an old timey Little Golden Book that’s a current favorite of hers called Doctor Dan the Bandage Man, and during reading it for the millionth time she suddenly asked, “What’s a gun?” when Dan falls and scratches his finger on his “make believe gun” whilst playing cowboy with his friends. My mind went blank realizing how important my answer could be… I said, “It’s a weapon”. “What’s a weapon?”… UMMMM think think think oh boy oh my ummmm… “Weapons are used to hurt people, we don’t like them”. “But he gets to have one?” “His is pretend”. “Can I pretend a gun?” “No”. And she just kind of nods and moves on, the blind following the blind.

Also she always looks at this Donald Duck like drawing on the cover page with disgust and asks, “what happened to him?” – cracks me up every time.

Besides the gun stuff I have some beef with these Little Golden Books I’d like to discuss anyway. First of all, the moms are all extremely proper housewives wearing cute little dresses and constantly sweeping and looking skinny, which I find rude. Secondly, the fathers in the books are always getting to go to work and drive fancy cars while all of the sweeping and the cooking and the parenting is happening which is just a cruel reminder of my own life, besides the cute dresses and skinniness. And thirdly, the children in the books are hardly ever doing anything except saying their prayers and doing chores and practicing their hand at emergency medicine with band-aids and comforting their younger sisters… these books are shams, people! It’s a good thing Spencer has been slowly destroying them page by page, who needs that kind of unrealistic nonsense seeping into their children’s brains.

Expectation:

Reality:

Speaking of Spencer, his new thing is wearing hats 24/7 and scuttling up furniture and on top of buckets and the water table and toys and anything around him like a little spider monkey. He’s getting a tiny bit more coordinated but we do a fair amount of smooching of boo-boos still. He continues to communicate only in gibberish and “uh-ohs”, but is 1,000x less whiney than Sasha so he’s currently a little higher up on the favorite list than her. He also enjoys wagon rides, fiddling with his “business”, and stripping.

Sasha spends the majority of her days (and nights) whining incessantly and exaggerating her falls and tiny injuries caused by her twinado brother. She has started making little chirpy noises that sound a tiny bit like “please” and “thank you” and can definitely say both “shoes” and “cookie”. Their speech development is SO much slower than Olivia’s was at this age – I was watching a video of Olivia at their exact age where she was speaking in multi-word sentences, counting to 10, and naming colors. OOPS we aren’t quite there yet, sorry twins!

It’s a weird summer that’s for sure but I have to say, I am actually loving it. Since everything is closed and cancelled we’ve been able to take a step back and enjoy the downtime. Usually there are so many invitations to things and plans made and pressure to do things and see people that we don’t ever seem to have time just to be together. We’ve been working on all sorts of stuff in the house and the yard… I’ve got a never ending list of projects and ideas that I squeeze into the cracks of our days. Also it’s gardening season! My favorite. I go out and stare at it approx 67 times a day.

Bike rides, endless walks around the neighborhood, using our smoker, swimming, picking flowers, looking for snakes, screaming at the top of our lungs for no reason, etc – the days feel long but the weeks are flying. If all the stars align we should be getting to go up north in the next few weeks to see my parents – we’ve got Covid tests scheduled and everything so that the kids should be able to slobber all over them with reckless abandon. Can’t wait!

I recently told a few people about how I typically spend less than $50 per week on groceries and they were skeptical and a little alarmed and a little curious… so ask and ye shall receive – here are my 3 main tips for saving at the grocery store. Obviously if you or your family prefer certain brands or organic items, etc my methods probably won’t work for you as I am an off brand discount shopping trash queen.

1) Clearance, always. Don’t be afraid of the dented cans or discount meats, come on down into the gutter with me – the water’s fine. We’ve got lots of freezer space so I stock up and freeze everything from cheese to lunch meat to bagels to veggies and garlic when the price is right. Woodman’s sells big bags of “ugly produce” for $0.99/bag. I look for the ones with bell peppers and green onions and then dice everything and freeze – peppers used for soups, chili, omelettes, etc and green onions will always be handy for whenever a recipe calls for them. My last big green onion swipe was almost 1 year ago and we are on our last container so keep your eyes peeled for me. Speaking of peeled, peeled garlic can be pureed, chopped, mixed with olive oil and spices and frozen in ice cube trays, etc. Scored 3 lbs of peeled garlic cloves recently and we are set for awhile.

2) Stock up on sale price items and freeze if you have room. Butter, cheese, bagels, tortillas, bread, etc – basically anything that is a staple on your menu, strike when the iron is hot and save $. Buy bulk bags of things you use often like onions, potatoes, rice, garlic, etc so when you are making a specific recipe you have common ingredients already in your pantry. I plan all of our meals based on what we have on hand and what is on sale – read the sale ads to compare prices or download an app like Flipp to help find the cheapest ingredients available if you have something specific in mind. If you want to get really app crazy you can use ones to earn cash back on certain items too, like Ibotta. Takes some planning but over time the payout is worth it. I do the bulk of our weekly shopping on Thursday mornings because I don’t start work until late morning those days and let me tell you I HUSTLE. I usually stop at Woodmans, Aldi, Pick ‘n Save, Piggly Wiggly, and Meijer which are all located within about a mile of each other in our suburb. I work on our grocery list all week and look up ad prices so I know where the cheapest option for each item is.

3) The most basic trick is to compare unit prices on everything. The tiny little number on the tag will break down what is the better deal, just make sure the unit of measurement being used in the tags are the same. The math gets a little harder (especially for dodos like me) when there are extra savings when you buy a certain amount of an item, for example – Pick ‘n Save has “buy 5 save $5” promotions so gotta bust out the ol’ calculator at that point to compare.

And then, after rolling around in all the money you have saved, spend $78 on craft beer and sparkling water.

Final thoughts:

A little bit of this:

And finally:

Make sure you’re on the right side of history.