In My Bag

My mom keeps asking me to help her organize her house. The problem is, you can only do so much organization when you have too much stuff for your house! I’ll put it to you this way: imagine having ten square feet of space in which you need to organize and put away twenty square feet worth of stuff. No matter how you slice it, it WON’T. FIT. Why? Because there is physically not enough room to put everything way.

This is how my mother’s house is. This all started around four years ago, a few months after she became physically disabled. She just… collects stuff. She impulse buys, a LOT. She gets into fits where she needs 10 things and 100 related accessories. Half the crap she has, including a spiffy paper cutter (I bought it off her last month), a label maker, a globe and two espresso machines, haven’t even been opened! It has been years, LITERALLY YEARS, since she purchased these items, and they’re still sitting around, unopened.

Is there some kind of disorder that she fits into with this?? If so, I need a name, because she needs some help. Ugh.

I need a new mop, and I’d like some recommendations. I’ve done the mop with the sponge attached to the plastic that bends it in half to wring it out. I’ve done the mop that has the replaceable string thing on the bottom that wrings out via an attached tube that comes down over it and twists back and forth. Now I’m checking out some microfiber mops. I’ve heard good things about them on infomercials, even though I tend to roll my eyes at infomercials.

So, suggestions please? Oh, but not anything like Swiffer or WetJet — been there, done that with them, and I’m really not impressed. Ever try to really *scrub* a floor with a Swiffer or WetJet? You know what happens? That little attached pad? It comes right off. Ergh. So irritating!

As I mentioned in a post on kitty.nu, car rentals can be pricey. And scary. And intimidating. It’s weird to walk in and plunk down a few hundred or so in exchange for renting a car that’s worth several grand, and then some! It’s a big responsibility to take on, and one you should not take on lightly.

That’s why it’s great to use a service link advantage.com if you need to rent a car. They provide great car rentals without the hassle and confusion that many other car rental agencies have. I recommend using them if you need to. My mom has in the past, and they’re great!

My HP B9180 Photosmart professional printer is here, and it is everything I could possibly want and then some! It’s larger and heavier than the HP 8750, but it also takes nine individual ink cartridges AND four individual print heads, and has over 4800 individual ink spraying nozzles, so the extra weight is to be expected.

So far the photos are coming out flawlessly. 4 x 6, 5 x 7, 8 x 10… borderless and perfectly sized, and bordered and perfectly sized! No pixeling or jaggedness issues whatsoever! My only teensy, tiny complaint is that the photos are looking a little dull on paper, but I have a feeling that’s a simple thing to correct using Adobe Photoshop. I have been doing some research on color profiles to see what others suggest.

More tomorrow, once I get my new paper to use with the printer!

I really don’t know what I’m doing for my mother for Mother’s Day this year. Her birthday was last Saturday, and I’m in the midst of planning my husband’s birthday party for this Saturday, so at the moment I’m kind of partied and gifted out. But I’m thinking of doing a mothers day gift delivery for her, from 1800flowers.com. I really like the idea of surprising her with a bouquet of flowers.

Although… I don’t want to do just flowers. I wish you could send a gift card along with the basket! But maybe I’ll make do with the Serene gift set.

What do you think?

All this talk of my woes with finding a good swimsuit for Alyssa, and I forgot to mention Ryan! My poor Ry Bean. Well, the Ry Bean has a pair of cute green with blue and white stripes down the legs swim shorts from last year. They had a lot of boys swimsuits to choose from at Target, and I really liked the shade of green these swimming trunks came in!

But in case they don’t fit him, since he’s around 35ish lbs. and is pretty solidly built, and we bought the swimming shorts a year ago, when he was still wearing baby swimsuits, I have my eye on these:

What do you think?

I love shopping for baby gifts. Baby gifts are incredibly easy to buy, especially when the moms-to-be provide you with a gift registry! For both pregnancies I created gift registries. When I was pregnant with Alyssa, I had a gift registry at Amazon. When I was pregnant with Ryan, I had a gift registry at Target. Both times, people knew exactly what I’d want, but still have a selection of items to pick from, so it would still be somewhat of a surprise for me.