Oh craigslist how I love thee

Every few weeks we make a big run to Wichita, for us that is the big city, it has become one of those things that we work hard to jam pack the schedule with as many stops as humanly possible.  Yesterday was that day and man was it packed!  
En route to Wichita we stopped at a smaller city to pick up some table cloths for the new table.  She had 4 priced at what it would have cost me for 1 and they were all brand new, still in the package. :)  The woman selling them had just had her last child of 9 get married, she informed us that we should prepare to be broke forever having so many daughters, thanks ::rolls eyes::
The next stop was less productive as the guy didn't have the item that he had advertised :(  But no matter it made for a great pit stop to feed the baby :)
Next up was to return my elliptical as the console kept dying, I had checked online and found a store that had the upgraded model, but wouldn't you know it they were out when we got there :(  We got the money back and went to Lowes which was just down the street.
I am not sure if I have mentioned how much I love Lowes, the employees are SO knowledgeable that it makes a call or trip so worth it.  We are planning a mini grey water system and the guy there was able to help dh find all that he needed to get it done.  They discussed all the logistics and offered a few insights that we hadn't considered.  I really like those guys :)
While dh did that I spent time calling all the walmarts in the area, there are like 5 or so.  I HATE calling walmart but it was necessary, I needed my elliptical :)  After being hung up on and on hold for what seemed like forever I FINALLY found what I was looking for.  It was on the west side of town, a minor hiccup as the rest of our stops were on the east side.

The great thing about Wichita is that you can get to anywhere from anywhere.  I mis read the directions and we ended up on the wrong highway but that was ok as it put us on the west side and a few exits later we connected perfectly with the highway we were supposed to be on and we were once again on our way.


Once we found the house it was already late, far later than we had planned anyway.  It was refreshing to see that even in the city neighbors look out for each other, as we pulled up the neighbor across the street called to make sure everything was alright.  We picked up a BEAUTIFUL cultured marble double sink for our bathroom and he even threw in a kitchen sink.  That was a total God thing as I have been looking at kitchen sinks for a while. For the price I was going to pay for the kitchen sink I ended up with 2 and let me tell you, that marble sink is HEAVY!!!!  I am so excited to get it in :)
Our last stop was not nearly as simple as it seemed.  The guy lived east of a town 2 towns east of the city and we got SO lost.  Not even the lady at the gas station could figure out where it was.  I called and he gave us some directions and we were kept driving and couldn't find it.  I said to dh we will be turning around at the next turn and I called the guy and he said we had actually gone too far.  But that exit was perfect as it was less than 5 miles from his house.   He was able to direct us perfectly from that point.  
There was only 1 thing we were unable to get to but it's still on the list (as it has been for a while).  We finally got home after 9 long hours in the van and dh headed out to deliver the newspapers.  All in all it was a really great trip and the money saved was awesome.  We were even able to save money on gas as we used our .20 cents off per gallon at dillons on the way there. :)  Did you know that Dillons allows up to $1 off per gallon?  We will be doing all our grocery shopping there from now on. :)
I finished the 2 benches for the new table and the sander arrived today so we will begin the sanding and stain process very soon.  The sub floor for the kitchen is going down very well and I know what I want for the flooring so I will be on the look out for a good sale.  :)
Well that's all I've got for now, we have skipped spring planting this year but hope to get some done eventually.  So many projects, so little time :)    

Parents, don't dress your girls like tramps By LZ Granderson

Grand Rapids, Michigan (CNN) -- I saw someone at the airport the other day who really caught my eye.

Her beautiful, long blond hair was braided back a la Bo Derek in the movie "10" (or for the younger set, Christina Aguilera during her "Xtina" phase). Her lips were pink and shiny from the gloss, and her earrings dangled playfully from her lobes.

You can tell she had been vacationing somewhere warm, because you could see her deep tan around her midriff thanks to the halter top and the tight sweatpants that rested just a little low on her waist. The icing on the cake? The word "Juicy" was written on her backside.

Yeah, that 8-year-old girl was something to see alright. ... I hope her parents are proud. Their daughter was the sexiest girl in the terminal, and she's not even in middle school yet.

Abercrombie & Fitch came under fire this spring for introducing the "Ashley," a push-up bra for girls who normally are too young to have anything to push up. Originally it was marketed for girls as young as 7, but after public outcry, it raised its intended audience to the wise old age of 12. I wonder how do people initiate a conversation in the office about the undeveloped chest of elementary school girls without someone nearby thinking they're pedophiles?

What kind of PowerPoint presentation was shown to the Abercrombie executives that persuaded them to green light such a product?

That there was a demand to make little girls hot?

Read more here

Autism and Vaccines Researcher for CDC, Indicted for Fraud and Money-Laundering - CNBC

ATLANTA, April 14, 2011 /PRNewswire via COMTEX/ -- SafeMinds demands long-overdue independent review of vaccine/autism research for data manipulation and conflicts of interest. Vaccine safety remains questionable.

Poul Thorsen, the principal coordinator of multiple studies funded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) used to deny a vaccine/autism link was indicted on April 13th on 13 counts of fraud and 9 counts of money-laundering. The charges relate to funding for work he conducted for the CDC, which claimed to disprove associations between the mercury-based vaccine preservative, thimerosal, and increased rates of autism.

SafeMinds first voiced concerns in 2003 regarding a series of epidemiology studies out of Denmark and under the jurisdiction of Thorsen that provided the basis for the Institute of Medicine's claim that there was no association between thimerosal and autism. That claim has been responsible for the continued unsafe use of mercury in influenza vaccines in the United States and infant vaccines around the world.

"The quality of this epidemiological research has always been questionable," states Sallie Bernard, SafeMinds president. "Many biological studies support a link between mercury and autism, but these Danish studies have been used to suppress further research into thimerosal. With clear evidence of Dr. Thorsen's lack of ethics, it is imperative to reopen this investigation." From August to October of 2003, three articles on the autism-mercury controversy were published in close succession, all of which used data from a Danish registry for psychiatric research to assess the relationship between autism trends and the use of thimerosal. SafeMinds accessed the registry at the time and reported that a large percentage of diagnosed autism cases are lost from the Danish registry each year and that most of those lost cases were older children.

Since the studies were based on finding fewer older thimerosal-exposed children than younger unexposed children, the validity of their conclusion exonerating thimerosal in autism was questionable and likely a result of missing records rather than true lower incidence rates among the exposed group.

In addition, internal emails obtained via FOIA document discussion between the Danish researchers and Thornsen which acknowledge that the studies did not include the latest data from 2001 where the incidence and prevalence of autism was declining which would be supportive of a vaccine connection.

Read more here Autism and Vaccines Researcher for CDC, Indicted for Fraud and Money-Laundering - CNBC

Table

Work in progress :)  Check out this project and many others at http://www.ana-white.com

6 months old already

My little guy is 6 months and 14lbs :)

They're already conspiring, lol

Did You Know? (Vinegar and Hydrogen Peroxide) by Back to the Basics--Hope for the best, Prepare for the Worst

You have to keep each in a separate spray bottle and then spray both, one after the other."In tests performed at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, combining the 2 mists eliminated virtually all Salmonella, E. coli bacteria or Shigella on heavily contaminated foods and surfaces when used in this manner, making this spray combination more effective at destroying these potentially deadly bacteria than any commercially available kitchen cleaner or chlorine bleach. .

It doesn't make a difference which one you use first - you can spray either with the hydrogen peroxide followed by the vinegar, or with the vinegar and then the hydrogen peroxide. When cleaning fruits or vegetables, simply spray them well first with both the vinegar and the hydrogen peroxide, and then rinse them off with tap water. Neither is toxic to you even if a small amount were to remain on the produce.  Keep a spray bottle of each of these on your kitchen counter and feel very good about the sanitizing and cleaning they do.

1 MILLION pounds of Food on 3 acres. 10,000 fish 500 yards compost