Learning By The Way

could have wrought this destruction?

Why, that would be my son, Peter. Somehow while stirring Nesquik into his milk, he knocked this circular hole into the side of his glass with his spoon. It is good to have talented children.

Margary lounges, surrounded by her court of entertainers who are thrilled that she is up from her nap, albeit not fully awake yet. “Carry on, my subjects, I will alert you if I am displeased.” (How did those socks escape the No Mercy matching event!?)

If you read my first post about online shopping, then you’ve already signed up for some websites that give you cash back for just using them as a shopping portal. Now, here is how my frugal self continues to save time and money.

Even when you are already getting cash back from a shopping portal, you can still use coupon codes. My favorite place to find up to date, accurate codes is Dealtaker. Invariably, if you search Google for a coupon, you will come up with a hundred websites that claim to have codes, but don’t. I’ve found it to be a waste of time, so I just check Dealtaker. If they don’t have it, I’m not going to waste 10 minutes searching for one that probably doesn’t exist. If you have time to kill, by all means give it try, occasionally you’ll find one.

If you are looking for a specific item, try PriceGrabber for the cheapest online price. They are pretty reliable. It might also be worth your while (especially for big ticket items) to post in the Slickdeals.net forums asking for the cheapest place to buy it. Someone there might know of a place that isn’t originally the cheapest, but has a great coupon for free shipping or percentage off that you can use to bring the cost down lower than usual.

And if you want to use multiple shopping portal websites, the easiest way to discover which one offers the greatest percentage cash back for the store you are shopping at is to search for the store at Evreward. There are also coupon codes available here, though I have found their lists to be not as complete as Dealtaker.

Example:
So, say I want to make an order from Overstock.com.
I go to Evreward, and find that Mr. Rebates shopping portal (which I use) gives 5% cash back.
I go to Mr. Rebates, click through to Overstock, and do my shopping.
I check Dealtaker for coupons, and find a 10% off code that works for me.
Now I have very easily saved 15% for just seconds of my time. (Of course, I get 3% cash back with the credit card I use, but that is just gravy along with the fact that Overstock is already deeply discounted from retail…).

Happy shopping all, and may the joy of Jesus the Savior and King never be lost amidst the hustle and bustle of the season.

Last night, while James and I were out, we stopped by our local game store (Just for Fun) and picked up a card game that I have been eyeing for a while. This morning after math and Bible time, I played it with the 4 older children. A good time was had by all. It is called Early American Chrononauts. During the course of play, events on the timeline are changed, making a ripple effect and creating paradoxes. You try to patch the paradoxes, and manipulate play to make the ‘reality’ where your timetraveler is coming from. It is interesting to think through some of the events and how they are interdependent on each other- if Andrew Jackson had lost the Battle of New Orleans, he wouldn’t have been a hero and become president, and been there to defy the Supreme Court’s ruling and commit that evil act to forcibly remove the Cherokee from their homes.

After Early American Chrononauts, we drank hot cocoa and I read aloud a book called “Our Pilgrim Fathers”. A lovely way to reflect on God’s providence through history as we prepare for Thanksgiving tomorrow!

Last night, James and I went to Sears to enact the next chapter in the saga of the dishwasher. You see, a bit back, our dishwasher died. With 9 people in the house, we work our dishwasher a bit a bit harder than most households do, I’d wager to say. I am not silly enough to think that a dishwasher is a necessity, but it is a great blessing in being a timesaver (and due to God bringing a free stove and free refrigerator into our lives just when we needed them, we had money in the appliance budget), so we decided to buy a new one. I researched Consumer Reports, we made our choice, and it turned out to be on sale that week by a significant amount, and we purchased it. So far, so good.

It came into Sears on Monday, and yesterday the installers came. And said that they wouldn’t be able to make it fit, due to the space being .25 inch to short, and no give whatsoever in our tile countertop. sigh. So back to the store we go last night to pick out a shorter dishwasher (who know that there was up to .75 inch variance in dishwasher sizes?) There was only one dishwasher that might work. And it wasn’t as nice, and not that much cheaper, and definitely not recommended by Consumer Reports.

So, on Frank the dishwasher salesman’s verbal agreement that if it doesn’t work we don’t have to pay the restocking fee, some different installers are going to be coming out to give it a try. Maybe today they will stop by to survey the famous immovable tile countertop. Maybe not. At any rate, someday we will have a new dishwasher. Of some kind. I believe it.

and you were my eldest son, you would look just like this:

The picture is a little out of focus, but too good not to share.

Elsie, Peter, and I came up with the story, but left blanks labeled with the part of speech that would fit in there. This is the result:

“When you wash socks, it helps to have a big, metal bottlecap. Put the bright socks in it, and add hot tabasco. Agitate the socks shockingly. The tabasco will get shiny, and you will need to replace it with fresh. You might want to wear socks to protect your hands. Use plenty of soap. My favorite is Fireman Detergent. When the tabasco finally runs clear, wring the caterpillars out. Hang them up to eat in the sun.”

I’ve never liked crowded stores and parking lots. So when online stores started popping up, I started shopping in them. I think more and more people will be doing this as gas prices skyrocket and online stores offer sweet deals to entice shoppers. While I am very thrifty, I also don’t like to waste time! So over the years I have streamlined my online shopping to a nice routine that saves money and time. I am going to tell you what it is, if you care to read on.

There are websites that get a referral kickback for linking to stores, and then pass some of those spoils back to you in the form of a rebate (usually somewhere between 1-15%) So just by going to their website to click through to the store you want to shop at, you get cash back! You can sign up for several of these programs to see which ones you like best (and have the stores you shop at most), but I recommend that you then choose 1 or 2 of the highest paying ones and stick with them. Most have payment thresholds of $10 or $25, and it can be a long time to reach your payment threshold in each program if you don’t consistently use the same ones. My favorite ones are:

Coupon Cactus (10$ minimum payout, quarterly, fun interface, has some stores the other programs don’t)
Mr. Rebates (25$ minimum payment by check or Paypal, lots of stores, easy to navigate)
Ebates.com (10$ bonus with your first purchase! pays quarterly, 5$ minimum payment)
Cashbaq

Since I have been horribly fuzzy minded and disorganized lately, many things around the house have been falling through the cracks. One of those things was sock matching. Socks would go through the wash without their pair, and get thrown in a laundry basket. Day after day would go by without my managing to look for their mate. And since I seemed incapable of sitting down for a bit and getting them matched, I instead organized an entire Day of the Sock. (no, I don’t understand me, either)

On Friday, there was this proclamation before breakfast:

“Hear ye! Hear ye!
Whereas chilly autumn weather is upon, and a large percentage of body heat is transferred through feet to ceramic tile,
Whereas we are universally sick and tired of looking in our sock drawers (or on our sock shelf as the case may be) and finding them bereft of socks,
Whereas the Mama has other potential uses for the laundry basket full of one socks,
Whereas drastic sock deficiencies call for drastic sock measures,
I, Theresa Lansberry, Mama of the house, declare this day and the 24 hours contained therein, to be a
Desperation Celebration of Socks
honored by all inhabiting said house.”

I had a schedule of events which started (after checklists were over) with the Sock Prowl. The children searched under beds and in basements to find socks that were inappropriately not in the Laundry System. They found 107 total, with the biggest finder getting a fabulous prize (Samuel, with 37 socks, got a package of Mighty Beans).

Then it was on to Sock Math, where we made up sock related word problems and passed them around for all to solve. Then it was the No Mercy Sock Matching event, where socks were matched or disposed of. Of course, being matched didn’t necessarily save them either, for there were many eliminated for being holey or of a size not fitting anyone in the house. After that was Sock Shopping at T.J. Maxx, with a quick stop at JoAnn Fabrics for fabric paint.

After lunch, all the children designed their individual sockmark and painted it on their socks, making it easy to instantly identify the sock’s owner. Moriah made a fancy ‘M’, Samuel a vampire smiley face, Toby a skull, Elsie a golden crown, and Peter a pawprint.

Whew! Sock day is grueling. But nobody ever said it would be easy. We soldier on valiantly, right into preparation for Sock Celebration Dinner.

Entertainment over homemade pizza kicks off with a Sock themed Mad Libs, created by me, Elsie, and Peter. Then it is a play (with sock puppets, of course!) written and acted by Samuel and Toby, with the puppets they had crafted that afternoon with socks that had been eliminated in the No Mercy Matching Event. It was called “The Battle for the One Sock”. Moriah and Raquel came up with a list of sock trivia, with some made up facts stuck in to see if we could separate the true sock lore from the false. We didn’t do very well with that, but that made for all the more laughs.

At the end of the day, everyone had socks in their drawers and memories of a rollicking good time. It seemed an fitting way to memorialize that bit of clothing that gets walked all over. When you can find them, I mean.

There are many things that Margary adores, like sisters, wire whisks, boxes of staples and dogs. Oh, and mailboxes, brothers, the papa, crackers, mirrors, and books. Somewhere high on her list of favorite things though, has to be the piano.

Photo by Moriah