Another Shameless Plug

I have listed about half of my jewelry in my etsy shop (karenelisam, if you want to search for it). I'll be listing more over the next couple of days. Take a look, and enjoy browsing others' shops, too. (Subliminal messages: Look... spend... enjoy... buy... buy... buy!) Interestingly, this burst of entrepreneurial fever happens to have occurred on the same day I purchased textbooks for next semester. Seven of them. Kudos to Amazon for having the lowest prices overall, and kudos to future jewelry shoppers for feeding my education habit.

Environmental Consciousness for the Underachiever, part 2

In an earlier post, I talked about walking places nearby, like the grocery store, the parks, the pediatrician's office, the pharmacy, and the bakery (where the almond croissants are to die for... or at least, to walk a mile for). An update on that train of thought: how much can I fit in the bottom of Ethan's strollerwhen grocery shopping? $40.00 worth of groceries, apparently. Today's trip was the most I've fit so far:

2 gallons of milk
1 box of Texas toast
1 can of olive oil Pam
1 box of rotini pasta
2 lb. block of Mozzarella cheese
1 avocado
4 bananas
1.5 pounds ground beef
1 loaf of bread
3 packages of yeast
2 cans of spaghetti sauce
1 bag of chocolate chips
36 corn tortillas
1 dust pan

What I didn't do for the environment: tell the cashier to skip bags entirely. I forgot to say anything because I was having too much fun watching Ethan flirt with her and with another nearby baby.

Back Home...

and grateful for indoor plumbing, air conditioning, my own car, and my own family. So I did okay without the first three, and missed the last until I got home. Ethan showed he's glad to have me back by patting my shoulder repeatedly and saying "MA-ma!" in his sweetest voice. I'm enjoying the time off in between last semester and the summer session by trying to simultaneously accomplish a lot of little things and do nothing at all. We'll see how this experiment goes. And no OCONUS annual training next year.