Economic Stimulus & Three Old Saws

I obviously don't understand macroeconomics (only nanoeconomics) because I'm confused about how borrowing 500 billion dollars from China can be a good thing for our country. Don't get me wrong, I'm not going to say, Oh, it's from China, never mind, I don't want it. I don't think people who refuse to buy something because it's made in China will turn the money down, either. Still, it's a little creepy. I know there's an expression, don't look a gift horse in the mouth--but be ready for that horse to turn around and kick you (April 2009). What about the one concerning the free lunch, as in there is no such thing? I'm just saying that my instinct tells me that the feds are gonna get it back. After all, only two things are certain...

Finally, I am posting some new pictures, and maybe not the best ones, but staring at the little thumbnails gives me a headache. So this is what you get.
I am so excited for summer! Even though yes it is a long way off, really. But today was perfect, even almost a little on the hot side. We were outside for hours! Trevor was just about begging for a nap after playing out in the backyard for over two hours. His buddy Thomas came over and helped him unload most of the soil from the meticulously-prepared-and-awaiting-their-spring-sowings garden beds. Then, after a solid two-hour nap, off for a stroll around the neighborhood, a visit with Leroy, and then more backyard time. I can't wait for summer!

A Poorly Timed Meal

Oops. We decided to move the compost pile today and discovered a stinking slimy mess of maggots, or at least some kind of grubs. Unfortunately, I decided to make pasta for dinner and all we had in the cabinet were gnocchetti. It really was quite unappetizing.

Some Stuff

You know there's a toddler (or at least a messy eater) in the house when...
Last night, hubby and I were cozying up when I felt a small, soft, plump object between us. Sure enough, our intimate moment somehow included...a raisin!

Todd is now watching "House." I have seen a few episodes of the show, and it is entertaining, but really, isn't it the same plot every time? I refuse to waste time watching it, for the same reason I don't generally like watching the same movie twice. Unless it is Napoleon Dynamite, which I could watch every week for a year, or that one movie with Bruce Willis where he's actually dead, and there are a bunch of clues, but I didn't get until just about the very last scene. So I had to watch that over right away just to figure out...where did I go wrong? I'm curious, when did you all (uh, I mean you three) catch on?

The Miracle of the Cleanup Song

We sing in our baby class the "cleanup song." It goes kind of like: "Cleanup, cleanup." I adore the cleanup song. One day last week, Trevor had scattered some magazines from the basket where they pile up. Several hours later they were still littering the living room floor when suddenly Trevor started singing the cleanup song and actually picked up and put away every single magazine! I love the cleanup song.

"Survival Guide for Busy Moms: 50 ways to do everything faster and better."

WARNING: This post is extremely wordy and mostly useless. I just wrote it for my own entertainment. But it probably won't entertain you. So stop reading now, Busy Moms.

That is what one of the hooks on the MSN homepage read today. Because we're definitely not doing things fast enough or well enough, ladies.
I admit that I only skimmed the first twenty-five hints (If only I was getting things done faster, I would have had time to peruse all fifty.) It's not too important what they were; in fact, they were so predictable I figured I could actually make up twenty or thirty more: stuff like having apple slices and carrot sticks ready in the fridge so your kids can grab them, or put away clothes as complete outfits so you don't have to search through drawers, set the table for breakfast the night before, etc. What I'm getting at here is not the content of the ideas, but the underlying premise that we should get everything done faster AND better. If we could just get things done faster, we could do more things!
I apologize for the horrible sentence structure in the previous paragraph: I simply don't have time to go through and fix it, because I'm doing things so poorly and slowly.
Okay, I know I'm being a little extreme, I know the authors of this article are trying to be helpful, but something about the headline struck a nerve when I read it right after I waded through the living room to sit on the couch when I should have been doing things faster and better. So now that I've been so crotchety and mean, I'll move on to the NICE part of this post...which is, REAL tips I have learned from mom friends lately.
From Betsy, I've learned that you shouldn't let your toddler run around in restaurants; but purely by example, not by anything she said or any feeling of being judged. (Duh, I guess that's obvious to most of you, but we're not big on rules or structure or any of that stuff.)
From Adrienne, I just learned how to make the best post-nap-crankies-squelching snack ever, which is popcorn with nutritional yeast flakes with some apple slices thrown in, and she also adds cheese sticks, but I haven't tried that yet so I can't vouch for it.
From Marianne I have learned that the weight of two toddlers in a bike trailer pulled with a single speed bike through rain wind and hail is about that of a large horse (and by the way, Marianne, I haven't withdrawn your nomination for mother-of-the-year.) Also, I'm really out of shape!
If your name did not appear, it's not that I haven't learned from you, it's just that I'm out of time now because I've been doing things poorly and slowly all day.