Lifestyles of the Young + Suburban

Archive for March, 2008

Who doesn’t like something that is free? Buy one, get one free. Free sampler with any purchase. Free refills.

Well these all require that you buy something to pay nothing. Even then, getting something for free evokes a deep psychological sense of one-upping the man — instilling a sense of pride and strategery to get said item for the discounted rate of nothing, nada, zip, zilch, zero.

Most of us have probably picked up a thing or two off of the curb that was either carefully discarded for the taking (by either the trashman or whatever fortunate soul came by) or was unintentionally lost, left or lorn without a chance of ever finding its previous owner again. An old chair, a saw, a lamp, a picture, a bucket, a piece of fruit. Errrg?!?!

Yeah, I didn’t think so.

CNN.com has an article about the poorly named freegans practicing the even dumberer named freeganism. Furniture or a tool is one thing, but food? Unfreegan believable.

Apparently this group of folks is boycotting the consumerist system. Which I call capitalism and I think is one of things that makes our country great. If you don’t want to pay someone for food — grow it or hunt it, but don’t partake in any activity where you are encouraged to bring a friend (in case the lid closes on you). That’s not freedom, that’s free-dumb.

Here’s a cute picture of Lisa from a week or so back when we were in Houston for my cousin’s wedding:

Tomorrow we go back to the doctor and will start going weekly (until the little guy makes his debut). We have another 34 days until the April 29 due date, but I think we are both ready to meet our newest edition.

No major advancements on the name front, though I am glad to see are still getting a few votes on the poll.

Lisa’s been busy all day doing the baby’s laundry and still has a few loads left, if you can believe it. The good news is he won’t have to have the embarrassing moment when someone sees him wearing the same bib within a two week period. She loaded up yesterday on all the medical and personal care essentials for our little man, and if that visit to the store was any indication of the months to come, I would highly recommend buying stock in Target!

Despite lowering the price and having an open house a couple weeks back there is no major news on the home front either. After the new kitchen floor we put in a last month, we were hoping for a bit more interest (read: multiple offers resulting in an all out bidding war). We continue to have visitors with nice comments, but no one nice enough to write an offer. The St. Joseph Lisa picked up before she headed back to Georgia for the shower doesn’t seem to be doing the trick. The woman at the Catholic bookstore told us to put him on the mantle, despite the consensus on the interwebs recommending burying him upside down in the backyard.

At least we got to play house last week, as we house sit for Mom and Dad (Manchee). It was nice being able to grill out a couple of nights and have some space to spread out. Jackson thoroughly enjoyed the leash-free outings into the backyard and by the end of the week had learned to bark at the golfers in sync with Abby and Hannah.

More to come, stay tuned.

These and other great Do’s and Don’ts with Babies on this site.

Supposedly these come from a book called Safe Baby Handling Tips. This may be one to check out in the next 48 days.

We have a doctor’s visit tomorrow and then we head to Houston for my cousin Kim’s wedding. The weather should be nice and Lisa is saying that she may break out the SPF 35, bikini (and t-shirt) to lounge by the pool.

Fortunately he has restrained himself from munching on one of these delicious little teddy bears that hangs from the mobile of the rocker we picked up last weekend (bonus points of me actually reading instructions in the background):

Well, I guess it wasn’t technically a blizzard, but I think we got around 6 inches of snow, which of course became slush, then froze making the Friday morning commute fun.

I was in Denver this week for several meetings and barely made it back to DFW. My flight may have been one of the last ones that made it in (or out) since it seemed like they were canceling flights left and right (including Dad Manchee’s flight back from Orlando). While I was enjoying the additional hour added on to the ride back from the airport, Lisa snapped this pic from outside our patio of the snow coming down:

By mid morning the next day most of the problems were gone, so Lisa and Mom (Manchee) were able to head to a huge yearly kid consignment sale put on by one of the local churches.

Lisa came out of there spending very little, but with a great Dallas Cowboys onesie, some cute swim trunks, and a Johnny Jump-up (we’ll go with the eponym since I am not sure what it is really called).

After last weekend’s shower, we realized that we needed to figure out where we were going to put the baby and all the great stuff we have been given.

Thanks so much to everyone that attended the shower last weekend, I know Lisa was so excited to see so many friends (and family) and for the folks that couldn’t make it, but still sent along a gift — thank you, too! We really appreciate you thinking about us and our little guy. A special thanks goes to Lora and Melissa for putting togethersuch a special afternoon for Lisa.
Because the due date is less than two months away and we don’t have any offers on the house (yet) we are making the best of our 900+ square feet. We are returning the dining table and chairs to the rental company, which we’ve only used once to actually eat on. The fact that there is a perfectly good coffee table about 5 feet in front on the 65 inches of HD DLP glory makes meal time in the dining room a little less attractive. I mean who wants to just “listen” to re-runs of Law & Order or Sell This House? Because the dining room is now bare, we have made it the office/hobby area. Office area because there are desks and a computer in there and Hobby area because Lisa’s knitting and scrapbooking supplies take up half the room.

The old office area/den is now the nursery. Check it out:

This is actually the first picture that comes up if you do a Google Image search for “boy nursery” and isn’t what the room looks like by any means, but I am sure if we were in a house Lisa would of had it way cuter! Whenever the house sells and we get a new home in Texas I know she will have a field day getting the baby’s room set up.

Right now we have the pack n’ play, swing, and a borrowed dresser (thanks Mom!) doubling as a changing table. It looks good and even though it is pretty bare, I know it will get filled up soon with all sorts of things to make our little man feel welcome.

Jackson was very interested in the swing, which has a really cute teddy bear mobile. The bears are just the right size and softness that Jackson dreams about devouring in a matter of minutes. It’s been 36-hours and all the bears are still there despite a few unsupervised nursery visits. Hopefully this is an indication that he understands not all the toys in the apartment are his and he doesn’t need to chew/suck/maul all soft, cuddly objects he makes eye contact with.

Stay tuned for future updates on the nursery.