You can never have too much onion soup mix

Yesterday we dropped our paycheck at Costco ~ and had a great time doing it. But the warehouse shopping phenomena never ceases to amaze and amuse me.
While I’m wandering down towering aisles of 20 pound cans of olives and gallon sized jars of pretzels, I wonder what people in France or Russia would think of these shopping centers.
Not only do we fill our carts with a month’s worth of groceries in one swell foop, we have people offering snacks of thawed cream puffs, shrimp, chicken and rice casseroles and energy drinks as we wander the looming heaps of bath towels and cheesecakes larger than the tires of your average SUV.
The plan was to buy new printer cartridges for our computer, which we did. We also purchased enough meat to fill the crock-pot through most of 2006, six (6!) packages of soup mix to flavor all the meat and a package of toilet paper so big we had a hard time getting it in the trunk of the car.
Now I won’t have to leave the house for another week, easy.
But then again, I do have to go to work to pay for the mega-pack of frozen pizzas, tanker full of laundry detergent and bucket of mayonnaise.
I love America!

For love of fowl things
I think it started with rubber ducks. These cheerful, bright, and whimsical toys make me smile every time I see them.
From rubber ducks I developed a fondness for all things feathered. Shortly after our first son was born, we bought a bird feeder and hung it outside his bedroom window. We amused ourselves and him watching sparrows fight over sunflower seeds and mullet. A few years into the bird feeding, we noticed a sparrow hawk periodically visiting our feeder, waiting for dinner to arrive.
I suppose we should have been alarmed to see this bird preying on our little feathered friends. But he had as much a right to eat as the sparrows. Besides, he was such a handsome fellow, with a noble bearing and hooked beak. He was small, but mighty, and we welcomed his occasional visits. The sparrows, understandably, were less thrilled.
I don’t know if it was before or after the arrival of the sparrow hawk, but at one point we added hummingbird feeders to our growing array of bird feeders. Hummingbirds amused the heck out of us. They are so small and feisty. Whenever DH went out to refill the feeder you could see the little hummers, hovering and peering into the window waiting for their fresh food.
Since moving north, we have found a whole new flock of fun in the California Gulls making their homes on the Great Salt Lake. I suppose it is ecologically unacceptable, but when we go to a fast food place near the lake, my children love to save their French fries to feed the gulls.
On one occasion we walked out of the business and spotted one gull, so we threw out a fry. Suddenly the sky grew dark as the gull let out a (mine) caw and hundreds of gulls descended from the heavens. I swear, it was like a scene from “The Birds.”
The Great Salt Lake is a wonderful place to watch birds. In the summer the water provides nesting grounds for geese, pelicans, gulls, a stray flamingo, “Pink Floyd” that escaped from the local aviary and has made his summer home on the water. Yes, we even have a few ducks.
So now my scrapbook room is supervised by a turkey and two chickens, my user name is SageHen and my pajamas are decorated with Tweety Bird.
Don’t try this at Home
It’s January 8th and I am one week into my new and improved, time management, flylady, supermom self.
But I have run into a few snags.
Take this morning. DH has pink-eye which is apparently linked to a sinus infection.
DS-11 is complaining of a sore throat.
DS-7 can’t find his white shirt for church, or his black pants. We know where his shoes are because we keep stepping over them in the middle of our bedroom floor.
I am giving up going to church today.
This is not part of my supermom plan, I should be able to go to church, shepherding my shiny, well-mannered, well pressed children in front of me while hanging lovingly on DH arm. But it ain’t happening today. Part of good time, resource management is knowing your limitations.