Tonight:

Ethan downstairs by himself said, "Mommy, the square of 5 is 25!  And the square root of 25 is 5!  Daddy showed me how to figure it out!"  

Me, slightly chagrinned, "Oh, did he really. Wow.  Well, you are correct!"

"Yeah! And Mommy, what’s the square of 80?  Wait, never mind.  I’d better go ask Daddy.  We might get into fractions on this one!"

I just had to laugh.     (I really hope my kids don’t get beat up on a regular basis in a few years.)

Oh man!  I’m so excited about my shopping trip yesterday, I just have to be a little obnoxious and share.  My best effort so far, I think.  I know other people do better on a routine basis and with less effort; but I saved 63% off the total and even got some good stuff for free!  Very exciting.

So here’s my list of the best deals I got.

In the FREE category:  2 tubes of Crest, two containers of Quaker oats, a butternut squash, 1.25 lbs. of Roma tomatoes, and 3 pounds of bananas.

$1 and Under:  5 boxes Quaker chewy granola bars ($1 each/ .10 per bar), 8 oz. button mushrooms ($1), Glide Floss ($1), Crest Pro-Health rinse ($1), 4 boxes Quaker True Delights bars (.60 each/ .12 per bar), 2 bottles Aunt Jemima syrup (.60 each), Heinz ketchup (.50), Dawn dish soap (.50), 6 Yoplait yogurts (.42 each), doz. eggs (.37), 3 boxes Rice-A-Roni (.33 each), and a bag of Birdseye Steamfresh veggies (.30).  Whew!  

Tim does NOT "get" the whole coupon thing.  It makes no sense to him, "Just set the price at what you want it to be and people pay that.  If you want to be competitive, set a lower price.  What’s the point in coupons?  I don’t see how anyone could actually save enough to make it worth the effort.  You’re lucky to save… what?  The amount of tax on the total bill?"  To be honest, I’m tired of explaining it to him.  Plus, as he’s watched me save some real money over the last few months, he’s had to admit that it is do-able.  And I think he’s understanding the "point" a little better, but it still goes against what really makes sense to him.

He does enjoy laughing a little at me for getting so into the "thrill of the hunt," but that’s okay. 

I’ve about decided I hate Twitter — and that probably could extend to other social networking sites.  Here’s why.  (To my brother most of all, I acknowledge that it’s really a personal problem.)

Okay, here’s my problem.  In an attempt to know what’s happening with my brother w/o constantly calling and bugging him when he should be working on some big awesome web design, I go to his blog.  Which he never updates anymore.  Probably something to do with the web design thing.  But he does have his blog linked to his Twitter account.  So I often read a few of the most recent entries hoping for a clue about his life.  (I DO call him too, just not all that often.)

The bad thing is (well, a few things, actually): 1.I don’t understand really how Twitter works, although I think I’m slowly piecing it together.  So I’m easily confused by certain abbreviations and terms.        2.The chaff to wheat ratio (for my purposes anyway) is ridiculous!  Partly because: 2b.It’s a SOCIAL NETWORKING site, open to the world — so I’m not likely to see lots of personal stuff.       3.I am, and always have been, a person who is easily sidetracked.  I also think I have an addictive personality.  I don’t know hardly ANY of his "Tweeps." (Is that term correct?)  Yet this morning when I should’ve been doing something domestic I spent WAY too long going between his account and that of two other people (who I don’t know!) trying to follow a conversation about which sandwich shops are preferable!  Whhyyyyyyyy!!!!!??????    

So to all of you who are bugging me to join Facebook, I say again — NO!!!  I do not trust myself to NOT be on it all day.  Any of you who’ve seen my house would agree that I don’t need another drain on my time — esp. one like Facebook.  And so, like an alcoholic (or one who doesn’t want to become an alcoholic), I’m stayin’ outta the bars.    Besides, I can’t even put pictures on my blog.  The techno-requirements of Twitter/ Facebook would probably result in my head exploding.

Ethan is so sweet.  

He loves hearing stories about our childhoods and about our parents, grandparents, families, etc.  A couple days ago I was telling him about Granny Plumlee’s (my mother’s mother’s mother) blackcap jelly.  It’s the best jelly I’ve ever had.  I often get blackberry jelly at the store and pretend, but I know it’s not the same.  Anyway, I told how after Granny died Aunt J’Lea got ahold of the LAST of the blackcap juice, made jelly out of it, and gave each family unit a small jar of it at Christmas a few years ago.  I told him what an awesome gift that was, mostly because of the sentiment, and partly because I don’t know how to make jelly.  And no one is really sure what blackcaps are.  (We think probably a black raspberry.)  Anyway, I told him how I savored that jar of jelly.  I told him how Daddy enjoyed it too, but he ate hardly any of it because he knew how much I loved it and what it meant to me for Aunt J’Lea to make it for everyone.  (Ethan’s daddy is awfully sweet too!)  Then I told him that at some point, somehow the jar got frozen (old crummy fridge!) and the rest of the jelly that was in there was ruined — turned to a grainy/ sandy substance that in no way resembled jelly.  He seemed to immediately grasp how disheartening that was.  

Yesterday he said in a quiet and kind of shy way, "Mommy, someday when I can read and write, and I can cook, I’m going to go to Aunt J’Lea and have her teach me how to make jelly.  Then I’m going to write it down so I can make some blackcap jelly for you."

Man!  What do you say to that!?     

Okay, so here’s something else besides my sad computer frustrations.  

HUMMINGBIRDS!!!!  Saw a fantastic episode of Nature tonight on PBS, all about hummingbirds.  I have thought hummingbirds were so very cool since I was about 4 and saw them at church camp where my mom was working.  So tiny — so fast — how did they do it!?  Where did they live?  What were the babies like?  etc.  I’d stare at the feeders for the longest time in anticipation of their return so I could try to see what they really looked like.  And maybe to see where they went when they flew off.  Then one would come buzzing in, and before I could get over the excitement of seeing it, it was gone again.  Blast it.  But tonight we learned all kinds of neat things about them, and got to see a lot of slow-mo film.  It was great.

So here are some cool facts about the world’s tiniest birds.  There are over 350 species of hummingbirds. They are only found in the Americas.  There’s a species in (I think) the Bahamas where the beak of the male is straight and the female’s is curved.  Why?  Apparently they feed from different flowers, and the difference in the shape of their beaks allows them to access the food from the different flowers.  Another species has a beak that’s longer than its body — about 4 inches!  Again, its food source is a flower thats nectar is DEEP inside.  25% of a hummingbird’s diet is bugs.  They open wide and basically fly into the bug.  Their hearts beat at about 600 beats/ min, and up to twice that when they’re flying!  Their body temp is about 105 degrees.  BUT!  All that fast flying and high body heat uses up tons of calories.  So at night, their body temp slowly drops to about half of what it is in the day, and their heart rate can slow to 36 beats/ min!  Holy cow!  How does that evolve!?  So that’s probably the most amazing tidbit I heard tonight.  But here’s my favorite.

Researchers noticed at least one species where a few mothers seem to build nests relatively close together in little groupings.  Then they noticed that these little groupings of nests formed a ring around the nest of a hawk.  Those tiny hummingbird eggs (and babies) are very vulnerable to being eaten by squirrels and such.  With the mothers out all day eating, and as tiny as the mothers are, it’s hard to protect the nests.  And how convenient is it that the hawk’s favorite meals happen to be the very animals that love to eat hummingbird eggs!?

Oh my goodness!  God is so cool!  And I do not say that flippantly.  What an awesome, amazing, interesting, fun, perfect God we serve.  He even knows and cares about tiny hummingbird eggs.

So who cares about stupid computers — and how stupid I feel trying to figure them out.  At least God’s in charge of the universe.