Love Etsy. Love fall.  (Don’t despair if the individual item I’ve linked to has sold out:  the sellers often have more of the same item listed in their shops.)

Draft snake in “Lush” by Oh the Cuteness! on Etsy. Draft snakes help keep the chill out, but can we call them something less slithery-sounding?  Swiss cake rolls are long and thin, too.
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Between a four-year-old, a toddler, and a husband who routinely peels off his dirty socks while he’s watching the evening news and tosses them on the living room carpet, since apparently that’s the cue for his personal magic cleaning fairy to swoop in and whisk his laundry away to the hamper, my house has a bit of a clutter problem. Toys, books, shoes, crayons, and forgotten half-chewed waffles tend to accumulate on every available surface throughout the day, making it a real challenge to do the deep-cleaning I so greatly enjoy.

(Note: by “deep cleaning” I mean “sitting on the couch eating pretzels”. But the point is, if I really did want to vacuum, it would be hard to do so when the floor is three inches deep with LEGOs.)

I like to exact revenge on my husband by 1) power-nagging in that oh so attractive fish-wifely tone, and 2) draping his various discarded clothing items over his computer monitor (sometimes with a note: “OH HAI WE GOT LOSTED CAN YOU HELPS US FIND THE WASHING MASHEEN?”), and as for my four-year-old, I’ve started being more strict about having him pitch in. He’s definitely capable of putting away his things and carrying out other small tasks around the house, and I’ve been thinking it would be helpful to have a chore chart for him.

In poking around online, I’ve noticed that chore charts tend to have one common theme: they are butt-ugly. I know the home decor aspect of a chart isn’t really the point, but still, it doesn’t seem like it should be so hard to find a chart that’s both useful and non-hideous.

Here are a few chore-organization-solutions I eventually came across that I think are pretty cool-looking:
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I’m not quite in the BACKTOSCHOOLOMG headspace yet, since my oldest kid is in year-round preschool and the other is still young enough to lustfully gnaw electrical cords if you don’t watch him, but I understand it’s kind of a Big Deal, getting all the supplies and whatnot. I assume preparation is exactly how it’s depicted on The Wire, where a violent criminal named Marlo gives children money to buy their school clothes, in order to create a lasting debt and sense of loyalty so he can better use them as pint-sized drug dealers? I mean, I don’t want to have to pay for these things myself, for crying out loud.

Anyway, in the back-to-school theme, I was thinking about lunch-toting products that might be useful to read about. We did a post on lunchboxes last year, and we also covered some BPA-free products—I’m thinking these subjects are two great tastes that taste great together, you feel me?

(God. Sorry. The Wire: ADDICTED.)

I’m still not super worked up over BPA, but my thinking is this: since BPA-free products are so accessible these days (and generally not more expensive), why not buy those instead? It’s a pretty easy choice for me, and I’m all about easy choices. Here’s a neat selection of food storage solutions—perfect for holding school lunches—that are all BPA-free.
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I try and eat healthfully, although god knows I’m not always successful at it. It’s awfully tempting to dive face-first into my favorite junk foods at the end of a long, stressful day, especially when the kids have been performing Tantrum Relay Races for hours on end. (The preschooler is screaming because the toddler touched his blankie! Now the toddler is screaming because the preschooler ripped the blanket out of his hand! Now they’re shoving each other! Who will drive Mommy up the wall first? This is going to be a photo finish, folks!)

Despite that oh-so-confident blog title up there, I don’t actually believe in “must-haves” when it comes to diet and exercise. Like most things, what works for me may not work for you. However, here are a few of MY must-haves for staving off that daily desire to strap on a Frito feedbag, in case you find them useful:
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Business are going through layoffs, freelance clients are cutting back on their budgets, and sitting down to balance the checkbook has never been so depressing. Short of outfitting your office walls with Xanax-dispensing pellet guns, is there anything you can do to make your work environment more tolerable?

Well, maybe so. A little extra organizational happiness can’t be a bad thing, right?

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If you read me over at Swistle, you know I have been obsessed with enthusiastic about cloth napkins recently.  I initially tried them because of a feeling of wanting to purchase clearance merchandise no matter what it is environmentalism, but it turns out we LOVE using them.  They’re soft and comfy!  And I don’t iron them, and no one cares!

Well, so now I have to buy more than we need, to vent some of my enthusiasm.  I don’t even know how many I’ve bought so far, but…many.  I could sew clothes for ALL the VonTrapp children out of cloth napkins and still have enough napkins for them to use at dinner.
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If your household is anything like mine, you’re probably doing some cutting back these days, and luxury items seem a little more . . . luxurious than they used to be. As in, boy that necklace sure is pretty but I have other things I need to buy right now, like FOOD.

With budget restraints in mind, it can be hard to justify a high-end purchase, especially if you’re not really sure if it’s worth it. Is that spendy moisturizer really going to “revitalize” your skin, or will a drugstore brand do just as well? Let’s explore a few buzz-worthy purchases:
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Picked your 2009 calendar yet? It’s one of my favorite shopping trips of the year. I shop the week between Christmas and New Year’s, when calendars are 50% off at most bookstores. This started when we were younger and poorer, but now it feels like the sporting way to do it.

Shopping as sport makes me more open to unusual choices:  I might not choose a calendar of baby pigs if I’m paying full-price and choosing from the full line of options, but I might do so if I’m choosing from the picked-over shelves—and sometimes a calendar of baby pigs is the very thing I never knew I needed in my life.
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Do you realize that Christmas Eve is one week from today?  I’m making a list of gifts that have been given to ME in the past year, gifts that were a success and that you might want to consider buying for someone on your list.

My brother and sister-in-law gave me several pairs of earrings from the Etsy shop Kneehighs-n-Pigtails, and I LOVE them.  They’re so classy and dressy if you’re looking classy and dressy, but they look chic and awesome with t-shirt and jeans, too.
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I am not saying that good things don’t come in small packages, because of COURSE they do.  But sometimes a $20 CD can look, well, smaller than $20.  And sometimes a $20 throw blanket can look bigger than $20.

If you’re cutting down on gift spending this year, you might want to get more bang for your buck, as it were, by saving yourself money—and also giving the recipient a way to save some money themselves.  Or you might be trying to snow your in-laws into thinking you spent more than you did.  I’m not going to look too closely at your motivations, I’m just going to give you some big-looking, small-costing ideas that happen to go along with all the things people say they’re doing to save money these days.
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