Heyyy, its March 8, the Day Without a Woman. Apparently some of the keys on my keyboard are female because they have decided to not work, so bear wit me if you see some dropped letters and punctuation. Add laptop to my list of tings tat are broken and not fixed. (Add my printer also, and the bumper on my car which is still messed up from wen I Got Hit back in the fall.)

I have sympathy/affinity for the Day Without a Woman activities, but it’s simply not possible for me to take off today. However I’m wearing red and it’s safe to say that I wont buy anyting today.

OK, that was yesterday; now it’s Thursday and the keys are working slightly better but the typos make me giggle so I’ll leave them. Speaking of shopping, I have a tale to tell. Sunday was a dreary day. Cold; most of us were sick in some way. I decided to take the kids out and get Sebastian and Gemma new sneakers, just to get out of the house and get someting crossed off my list. Gemma had outgrown her sneakers and Sebastian’s just stunk.

I had looked at TOMS online, but the kids weren’t going for them. I decided to take them to Kohl’s because it was close by and I thought they had New Balance shoes there. New Balance is made in the U.S., to a certain degree. (They are also on the Grab Your Wallet boycott list, but in this case I think the ethically made factor negates that.) So we get there and discover there are no New Balance shoes there. Mostly Nike and Skechers. Also by this point I have remembered that shoe shopping in a crowded store with three kids on a dreary Sunday SUCKS. So we bought some Skechers and got the hell out of there. After we got home, I looked up Skechers and found that they have some issues (receiving an “F” on one site). So I guess the lesson is to do your homework before leaving the house. I’m having a sense of deja vu right now. I feel like this happened before, with me buying Skechers for them. I’ll have to check the blog archives. Anyway, as penance I’m thinking I will return the flip flops I tossed in the cart for myself. They are turquoise and I would love them for the summer, but they are made in China. My first glance at Kohl’s policy on their sourcing is not encouraging. I’ll have to do some more homework. But it’s probably relatively easy to find an ethical flip flop for myself, as opposed to this ongoing struggle to find sneakers for the kids that are ethical, come in their size, and that they will wear. Maybe emails to Kohl’s and Skechers are in order as well.

I’m sitting here now waiting for the heater repair guy to come. He was here on Saturday to the tune of $500, and is coming back today with another part, for another $300. But I can take the heater off the broke list…

I’m listening to the newest Ryan Adams album, btw. “Prisoner.” I splurged on that the other night. If history is any guide, I’ll certainly get my $10 out of it and then some. If you are a Springsteen fan, be sure to check this out. Super Springsteen-esque.

Monday morning I had it playing while I (finally!) started seeds. I think it’s safe to say that nothing makes me happier than sitting around listening to good music while cutting up toilet paper tubes on a mild March morning.

Monday, Aidan was home again (he’s been the sickest) but he was recovering, so I dragged him around on errands. I had to mail out two more items that sold on eBay — woo! — so we went to the UPS Store, the post office, the deli, and the dollar store (for more “LA” brand OxyClean). We also went to Friendly’s for lunch, which cost just $11 since we had a coupon for a free kid’s meal. (Having him around during the day is bad. I also got him McDonald’s pancakes after his doc appointment on Monday, just cause I felt bad for him, and probably did something similar on Friday. Food is love, right? Especially convenience food? No?)

In any event, I did better with cooking this past week. Last Tuesday, we had French toast. I didn’t add any veggies, but I did add flax seed to the batter. Wednesday was the crown jewel of the week. I cleaned the bathrooms, posted more clothes online, did three loads of laundry, and baked chocolate chip cookies with whole wheat pastry flour, ground oats, flaxseed, and demerara sugar. AND I made chicken piccata, stuffing (Stove-Top), broccoli and corn for dinner.

Thursday was when all the illness started creeping in. I took care of bills, budget stuff, phone calls and emails, went to an assembly at school and made chicken soup with my frozen homemade chicken stock and the leftover chicken from the night before. I proceeded to eat this soup for like every meal for the next couple of days. Sebastian and Gemma ate it the first night. I could have put celery in but I’m kind of meh on celery in soup.

Friday night, my inlaws took the kids out to eat so hubs and I went out for a quick bite at a bar despite not feeling great. Saturday night, we ordered pizza. Sunday night was cereal. Monday night was spaghetti and meatballs courtesy of the freezer. Tuesday was grilled cheese and/or turkey sandwiches and potato salad. And last night was chicken nuggets and nachos. Monday night I tried to go to a town hall but got there too late to get parking; last night was a PTA meeting; tonight Aidan has soccer and I have another meeting.

On Saturday I bought some other new items: vermiculite (for seed starting), a smoke detector, and three wooden spoons. The first two were necessary but the spoons I had to think about. Finally concluded that the spoons I have should be thrown away and that it was OK to spend $3 on new ones. What a rush! This was at the local Ace hardware store. I also washed, ironed and posted more clothes on Facebook, and on Sunday sold two items.

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I got rid of HBO a while ago, but last night I realized that we can have a 48-hour free preview. I activated it so I could watch “Big Little Lies.” It was right up my alley: ocean scenes, school pick-up mama drama, murder. Reese Witherspoon, Laura Dern. So I have to binge watch another 2 or 3 episodes tonight and tomorrow. May as well catch up on Bill Maher while I’m at it. Last week Aidan, my hubs and I caught some of PBS’s “Africa’s Great Civilizations.” So interesting. I know so little about Africa. Have to try to watch the rest of it.

On Overdrive, I’ve started the next Game of Thrones book, A Dance with Dragons. I also was reading The Underground Railroad but it was so disturbing I didn’t want to read it at night, and now I think my loan has run out. Very good though.

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Question for readers: what kinds of chores do your school-age children do?

Aidan takes out the trash, brings the cans back to the house the next day, takes the compost to the compost bin, all pretty regularly. I can also have him switch wash into the dryer and bring clothes up from or down to the cellar, feed the cats, vacuum. Sebastian and Gemma can set the table, take the container of recyclables from the kitchen down to the can in the basement, fold towels and clothes (after a fashion). Sometimes they out their folded clothes away. With the dishwasher broken, everyone has been called on to dry dishes while I wash, here and there. And of course, just general picking up/straightening up. Lots of that.

Just curious.

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In the 60s today, snow tomorrow. How will this affect my garlic??

Today: PTA stuff. More seed starting. Probably pizza for dinner. Tomorrow: food shopping (I seem to have migrated to the end of the week.) Weekend: spring sports in the freezing cold.