There are days when my brain goes off on wild tangents. Today was one of those days.

I was listening to the latest Mom’s Money podcast, this week’s show is about teaching kids about money. This is a great topic for me because I want to start giving my kids an allowance and just don’t know how. I’ve mentioned they are price conscious and now seems to be a great time to start working with money.

While listening to Mom’s Money I decided my kids need piggy banks. I know I had seen one with multiple compartments for saving, spending, donation, etc., so off I went on a Google-quest to find said piggy bank. I tried Amazon - who had the one I wanted (the Money Savvy Piggy Bank) listed, but it isn’t available right now. Okay so tried and true Amazon failed me - but google won’t!

Back to searching.

I found the site that created the money savvy bank - and wow it is available in multiple colors! Alice immediately picked pink and Jake wanted green. I’m thinking this is a great idea but can I find it locally so I can save on shipping costs. Ahah, Toys R Us! But their phone number is busy no matter how many times I call them in five minutes. Since my brain is skipping from thread to thread, I quickly move on.

A quick glance around the bank creators site shows me a cow bank and a football bank - Jake sticks to wanting a green pig, Alice thought the cow was cute but she’s becoming attached to the color pink in general so there was no changing her mind.

Still thinking I want to save on shipping, I go back to Google - maybe there is a site that has it offering free shipping or low shipping. Darn Amazon anyway.

Then I stumble upon a post on the financial blog Get Rich Slowly about this exact piggy bank. Reading the post is merely verifying my want of the piggy banks and I’m ready to click back and buy the banks, sucking up the shipping charge (and the crazy fact that I would be spending a chunk of change to teach my kids to save money). Then I read the words

(Of course, the truly frugal can accomplish the same thing with four canning jars.)

His parentheses; and the link goes to a flickr picture of three canning jars with a child’s handwriting indicating saving, spending and donate. It took searching and bouncing from site to site and my finger on the buy now button before I thought *duh I have old Ball Mason jars* - I can just use a few of them! A little while later and we went from this

to this on the dresser.

Save, Spend, Donate.

I stayed with green paper for Jake and pink for Alice, used stamps from Stampin’ Up to decorate the punched out circle and look at that - a three component piggy bank system. It’s about time I use the jars for something, as they haven’t moved since I put them up on the shelves. Their allowances start next week.

How does your brain work when searching for something?

So I had this idea - I’m going to go through all the pictures saved of my nephews when they were babies (I’m thinking of the two 8 year olds) and print them out. I probably won’t print all of them but just the ‘good’ ones and I’ll stick them in an album for Christmas. One nephew doesn’t have any pictures of himself as a baby and the other does, but these are pictures I took, and no one but the hard drive ghosts have seen them.

Then I found this ~ Blurb ~ from abby try again (she has a book ordered and they give you a preview link, check hers out if you are interested!). You can upload from Flickr (hhmm, I have a professional account, I can just upload all of my pictures of said nephews) and add text or whatnot from there. And the prices are definitely reasonable - considering I wouldn’t have to spend the time printing, yeah definitely reasonable.

These would be Christmas gifts and would you believe I already have five of seven done or bought for my nephews? Okay I counted two as ideas for these picture books, but that is a pretty good start considering it isn’t even Halloween yet.

Oh! And I could do a picture book of our old house! And one of here, someday. And the vacations we’ve been on. The possibilities!

I should just sell my photo printer, I’ve used it so few times (seriously, I’ve printed maybe six pictures). That’s just not right.

I’ve been thinking about tattoos a lot lately. I think this has happened before but I can’t pinpoint when. It started a couple of months ago, and I can’t draw at all so all of my ideas are in my head. I think of the snake my Uncle has, but doesn’t talk about, and the partial initials my Dad has (he did it himself, in a class in school), and the elaborate sleeves a friend of ours has. I watch shows like Miami Ink and LA Ink and think of driving there to get a tattoo done by one of them.

I have a short stack of journals/notebooks (all designated to certain topics of course) and on top are a few blank moleskines - I need to just get a pencil and start sketching. Of course it won’t be perfect, but it’s not about perfection. It’s about expression and art and the love of whatever you are drawing.

I’m browsing craft blogs and came across an article at The Storque on Etsy about home made tattoos (really reminds me of my Dad’s initials on his hand). I have new colored pencils and a moleskine, I just need to do it. At least it will be a start.

I saved the picture after browsing tattoo art online - if it is yours please let me know and I’ll link it! I saved it because I like the bird, I’ve been attracted to sparrows lately.

Today, Oct. 15, 2007, is Blog Action Day - 15,000 bloggers writing about the environment.

All of my life I’ve taken care to take care of the environment. As kids we always cleaned up our street (others weren’t as nice as us about not throwing trash out), sometimes Mom had to talk us into it, sometimes not. Although my brothers and I didn’t start recycleing until we were older, adults living on our own, it’s something we continue to do (I’m always amazed at how much paper we throw out). We changed our lightbulbs to the curly looking ones, the CFLs, turn off lights when we aren’t in the room, wash clothes when there is only a full load and the same with dishes, run errands all in one shot and more.

The high school I attended does a earth week, when most others are celebrating earth day. It was always fun, I was never one to skip a day or two like others did. There was a wide variety of events to sign up for from reporting on the events, cleaning up areas of town, painting, planting, etc.

Crafting is another story - I only halfway use things I have around the house. I have a stock of crafting items but when I go to make something I sometimes realize I don’t have one thing around the house to finish it. Frustrating for me and doesn’t go with the whole use what you have thinking. I am working on being better when it comes to crafting.

Whip Up has a great article written for today, check it out here.

I admit it, some days I just want to go around answering meme’s.

My friend Marie tagged me for a 7 things about me that you may not know meme.

1. I love organizing - not necessarily using my things once they are organized, but just the act of organizing. I love it even more if my Mom is around to help.

2. I love shopping, window shopping and online shopping. I can go to stores and just walk around, walking out with nothing (okay that is rare). I want to go downtown at least once before we go and just walk around looking at the stores. Online is even better, you can leave windows open and go back and pick up where you left off!

3. I don’t like doing the ‘man jobs’ around the house - you know, taking out the trash, mowing the lawn, etc. My brothers did that stuff when I was growing up and I think Chris should do them now (sometimes he doesn’t agree with that, but that’s neither here nor there).

4. We bought a new bed a week ago and I’m not sure if I like it - for sleeping. For laying around during the day it is awesome, I have the laptop, a book, plenty of space to lounge around and a nightstand for my water. What, I have kids to take care of? Oh yeah…

5. I love to read - wait, maybe that is already known? I have a lot of books and finally found a bookstore that is a trade in store, can’t wait to go there!

6. I procrastinate, big time. I have a lot I need or want to do but a lot of it is put on the backburner, often for no good reason! It’s a bad habit and I’m working on changing that.

7. I like folding clothes. There I said it, it’s true. Moving them to the washer and dryer, not so fun.

I tag Tishia Lee, Much More Than A Mom and Carrie Lauth.

I think I’m reading to make a tshirt quilt. I have no idea how to start, but I have lots of tshirts to use. I’m finally ready to seriously give up wearing only old concert/college shirts and figure I better put them to good use. I have several Kenny Chesney shirts (no laughing, he’s a cutie!), a favorite college shirt and one from a Sugar Ray concert.  I used to love them, and Mark McGrath is a cutie too - plus we went to the concert when I was about seven months pregnant with Alice!

I’m thinking various blocks surrounding the logos/whatever piece of the shirt I use, plus some other blocks. For some reason I’ve really been loving sparrows lately (did you know Mark has sparrows tattoo’d on his shoulders? Very cool!) and was thinking maybe an embroidered or appliquéd sparrow block? I think I’ll have my Mom help cut the shirts so I will stop wearing them, plus she can help me figure other blocks out.

I’m excited! I’ve been wanting to make a shirt quilt or a quilt made out of clothes for ages now! I have a few things of the kids saved and wanted to make them each a quilt from their clothes too but never did. I’m not sure if I’m ready for that yet, one quilt at a time I think.

Another post from my wonderful Mom! She cross stitched/embroidered pillow cases for Alice to go with her quilt. The edge was raw and we found matching ribbon in my ribbon stash. I’m not sure if you can tell on the picture but the ribbon background is brown and the flowers are pink and orange - perfect match! I finished one of the edges last week and then the second one over the weekend. It wasn’t too hard once I managed to coax my sewing machine into sewing longer stitches.