Life in the 10 hour shift world ...

has come to this.

Dinner of meatballs (nothing else!) on Tuesday evening.
Dinner of macaroni and cheese on Wednesday evening.
Dinner of macaroni and cheese or pancakes on Thursday evening.

I'm thinking this might just be a great weight loss plan.
I must try come up with something else for next week. I am going to either starve or meet my goal by Christmas time.

Monday was my day off.
4 hours spent schooling with Tia ... and then to Anchorage for a shopping spree.
Found Jari some dress pants. THAT was a great accomplishment. They don't really make a lot of pants for "thin" folks with long legs. We did find several pair. Thank Goodness!

Then off to Costco. I had been planning on doing a major shopping trip there once PFDs hit the bank. I really wanted to do something like buy a years worth of stuff. Well, I probably didn't manage a YEARS worth, but I did accomplish a few things.

We now have:

• 480 loads worth of laundry soap and if you scimp on the laundry soap each load ... you might even end up with more!
• 30,600 squares of toilet paper. I still haven't quite figured out how to dole that stuff out. How many squares do you think a person should be allowed per sitting?
• Not one measly square of paper towel ... forgot that!
• Dishwasher soap ... we're not going to need to be handwashing dishes for a while!
• A few other things to make the mommy happy in the cooking department. Sort of forgot that I won't be doing a lot of that while I was filling the cart.
• A husband with a Costco card. Alright!! I can now give him a list when he runs to town. Saves me a trip. I won't make the trip anyway, so this is a true benefit. :)
• Light bulbs. We have replaced nearly every light bulb in our house with the new energy efficient ones. Those ones that are full of mercury and need special disposal. I did a quick calculation. I'm not going to calculate how much I've spent on light bulbs, but it won't be nearly close to the anticipated savings. I still have a few more lights to go, but imagine that I've replaced at least 36 light bulbs so far. According to the packaging I would save a total of $1288 on lighting cost. Add the additional money that we spend for electricity on top of that and my savings is a whopping $1,674 over the life of the lightbulbs. Hmmm. The shorter days of winter are fast approaching and our house is lit like a Christmas tree for much of the day. Am curious to see if makes a difference or not. I do have to tell you that I don't like all the lights. I am learning. We moved lightbulbs from room to room on Monday evening. The living room started out looking like Lowe's or Home Depot lighting. That was not going to work. Those bulbs got moved to the basement and "warmer" bulbs moved to the living room. It will take me a while to get use to the kitchen ...it is a tad bright. No hiding dirt anywhere in there anymore!

Light bulbs, new freezer ... we're into energy saving mode around here. Our electric bill sky rockets in the wintertime. We're trying to figure out how to make our house more energy efficient without tearing off all the cedar siding and adding insulation. We did add a new chest freezer the other week and still need to move things from the old upright one. Would still like another small one ... but that can wait. Next in line is a refrigerator. Ours is ancient. Ours runs constantly. I believe there are also tax rebates for buying Energy Star appliances ... one thing at a time!

Other than Costco, dinnners and saving money, I pulled a real doozy this morning at about 4:10 a.m. I have to admit that it was really bad. I always sleep on my right side. Fussy left hip that I have just doesn't like being on the mattress side for the night. For some reason last night (maybe I was tired) I never rolled over and so was facing my dearly beloved in my sleep. At the mean hour of 4:10 I was in the middle of a dream. Something was falling off a shelf! What on earth does one do when something is falling off a shelf and you're in the middle of subconsciousness where everything is alive? One quickly throws out an arm to catch that falling thing. I really don't have a clue what it was that I was catching. I really didn't hear the crack when I connected with something that wasn't the dreamed of object. I did wake up rather quickly when my dear husband yelped rather loudly. It is becoming a very bad habit of mine. I cracked yet another nose ... and tonite ... it still hurts. He is ready to put up a wall in the middle of the bed. I'm thinking I just need to lose my right hook. What next?!