It has been raining a lot recently, and when it is raining, and one is stuck indoors, one’s thoughts naturally turn to… online shopping.

Yes. It’s true.

But when you are as cheap as I am — or, when you are a stay-at-home mom so household expendable cash is at a minimum — or a combination of the two, actually, then you spend a great deal of your online shopping time looking at clearance sections, online sales and coupons, and secondhand stuff.

And I have spent a LOT of time doing just that in recent days. It’s become a bit of a THING with me, actually.

First, it was the clearance section at Victoria’s Secret. I have shopped there online for a few years now, and have gotten some fantastic bargoons. As long as you are not too fussy about colours, you can get some great stuff — I’ve gotten sweatshirts for 5 bucks, workout clothes for relatively cheap prices, and pajamas for something like 25% of their regular list price. Sure, they ding you on shipping, and the exchange can hurt, but if you do it when the dollar is strong here in Canada and wait for one of their shipping deals (or go splits with a friend on the shipping, as Heather and I have done) then it’s pretty good.

Another source of good deals has been at Toys Backwards R Us. When we first found out that we had an impending Stinkerbelle, I spent time buying toys and DVDs for our new daughter, and most of it was in the clearance section and in sale items. One day I got 6 things for under $50 — some of them classic toys like stacking cups or one of those ring stacker thingies. Again, if you are not fussy about patterns or colours, you can get great deals. Our high chair was peanuts. Our stroller was cheapcheapcheap. And both were big brand names.

And then, there’s always Chapters where, if you buy over $40 worth, shipping is free. Not to mention, they also have good clearance items. And having a members’ card will get you a decent discount at checkout.

Recently, my online shopping experience has just exploded. We’re very short on money these days, what with taxes and a $1500 car repair to get my car back on the road, and so it’s been a task — albeit a very enjoyable one — to hunt out some bargains on Teh Interwebs for stuff we feel would be nice to have.

I’ve recently taken to Kijiji like nobody’s business. We are planning a vacation, as cheaply as we can, and so we went looking for bargains. And what I found was pretty sensational. We ended up getting a Pack and Play for Stinkerbelle to sleep in while we are away, and a baby backpack so we can go hiking with her, secondhand and in really great condition, for a fraction of their original costs. And we’re looking into jogging strollers as well. And the beauty is, when we are done with them, we just sell them ourselves, and make some money back. I loathe the nickel-and-dime haggling of the garage sale culture, but this online secondhand stuff gets me similar deals without those kinds of hassles and without leaving the comfort of my favourite chair.

Also, I am following a bargain site called RedFlagDeals on Twitter, which means that every day, I get notified of online sales, freebies and coupons, for everything from groceries to stuff at Canadian Tire to electronics. THE DEALS COME TO ME. Is this heaven? I think it might be. A Serta leather office chair for 80 bucks? SCORE. A set of baskets for $10? AWESOME. 4 pictures for Stinkerbelle’s wall for $40? WHEE! Free granola bars? BRING IT. And while this in and of itself is great, it has also provided me with yet more links to still MORE bargain sites. It’s a cheapskate’s DREAM, I tell you truly.

So, yes. It has become a recent addiction, of sorts, but that is fine. I enjoy it, and although we cannot buy a lot of the stuff we find, it has actually given me hope. Our dreams are big, even though our bank account is tiny. So as I comb through these deals and bargains, it’s a comfort to know that we can have many of the material items we would like, and give Stinkerbelle many of the creature comforts, of a family with a fair deal more money than we have… as long as we are willing to wait for deals and budget wisely. She need not know that we don’t have a ton of free cash, and we can have lots of fun on vacations, or in the backyard, or here at home, at a reasonable price.

And I get to see some of those dreams of home decor and pretty things as a possibility too, which is kind of exciting. Things are suddenly within the realm of possibility. Plus I love to shop for this stuff. And the cheapoholic in me does a happy dance whenever I score a deal.

Now if you will excuse me, there’s a 15% off deal I need to have a look at…

It’s warm and sunny once again, in our little neighbourhood that backs onto conservation forest land, and that means… our neighbours are out sunbathing in the nude again.

And we are at a loss as to what to do about it.

We’re not prudes. Or maybe we are. But either way, I do not want to see my neighbours naked. And I certainly do not want to look up from weeding my vegetable garden to see the twigs and berries of someone else’s ill-tended garden, if you follow the way I have drifted.

Our neighbours are European, which means, when I tried ever so gently and diplomatically to ask them not to sunbathe in the nude last summer — or at least, to refrain from doing it where I can see it — they dismissed what I was saying with “It’s natural.” And I realize that in other parts of the world, it is fine to parade your bits and pieces for all to see. But we are not in other parts of the world; we are in suburban southern Ontario. And I just don’t want to see it.

I have issues, not just for myself, but for my daughter. When I begin teaching her about stranger danger — which has been on my mind a lot lately, with the abduction and murder of a little girl in a nearby town — how do I differentiate between these things? How do I explain that strangers showing her their “private parts” is not appropriate, when a neighbour does it every sunny weekend?

We’re not nudists. We’re going to start to deal with the whole “privacy” and nudity issue within our family when our child is old enough to understand and talk about these things. We’re family, but we’re drawing what we feel are appropriate lines when it comes to nudity and privacy. But that is within our family. We certainly do not have a level of familiarity with our neighbours where we feel it is “okay” for our daughter to see them naked.

We honestly don’t know what to do about this. We’re finding we are unable to enjoy our backyard because we don’t want to look up and see our neighbours in all their naked glory. We want to be good neighbours, and we don’t want to have conflicts, but I can’t see any real way out of it. If we go and talk directly to them and tell them that they cannot, by law, sunbathe naked in their yard, we will piss off our otherwise quite lovely neighbours — and good neighbours are hard to find. But we’re angry and annoyed with the fact that it is an issue for us and we can’t enjoy our weekends as we’d like to. And the only other option is to call the police and have them come and speak with them, and that would be worse, I think.

So what does one do with a naked neighbour? BDH suggested a paintball gun. I am thinking of moving. Neither option is really viable.

All I know is, if I have to bleach my eyeballs one more time, there’s going to be trouble.

I have been uninspired to write anything recently. I have nothing much going on, not much to say, no news to report. I got nuthin’.

Teh Internets are a boring place come spring. People go outside and do… I dunno, STUFF. It happens every year. As the weather gets nice and people get busy, the internet gets quiet. My hit count goes down. Also, add the fact that our infertility journey/adoption journey is now over, and the bloom has gone off the blog rose, as it were. People move on to other blogs since there’s no impetus to lurk and wait for what’s going to happen next. So my hit count goes WAAAY down. And I get boring, and I get bored.

I enjoy spring, and I go outside too, but I don’t do anything except walk, really. My vegetable garden will be mostly neglected this year as I mind Little Miss Stinkerbelle. We have a groundhog (who we have named Zippy, for that is what he is) who lives under the neighbour’s deck and comes by to visit periodically, so whether he makes a meal of the vegetables I do plant is anyone’s guess. Our back gardens are suffering from an overgrowth of weeds and a particularly vicious winter that seems to have washed away topsoil, denuding roots and freezing and killing many of my perennials. So, they will require a lot more TLC than I can give them while watching a baby, and a lot more money invested to replant than we can afford this year.

BDH has had a particularly rough ride of it at work recently, with a heavy workload beating the crap out of him on a regular basis, so he is tired. And I am — let’s be honest, here — being a butthead and staying up way too late after a day of chasing after an increasingly active child, and surfing Teh Interwebs too much, and trying to walk way too far and too much, and existing on caffeine and rabbit food and Chocolate Hobnobs (which are like crack in cookie form), so I am tired. We have busy days, so when 7 pm rolls around, we just want to have a little bit of “me” time. And that is usually something counterproductive, and keeps us up too late.

What we need is a vacation. An ACTUAL vacation. Our vacations over the past decade have often been to visit with friends or family, and while it’s always really lovely and a great deal of fun, on those sorts of vacations we always feel the need to visit everyone under the sun or cram in as much as is humanly possible in our time with them. Ideally, if I could plan a vacation for this summer, I would love to go someplace and do NOTHING. An ideal vacation for us would be to go to a cottage, where I didn’t worry about money and life stuff and BDH didn’t worry about work and didn’t get sick, and where we did nothing but sleep and read and relax and vegetate. But the cost is prohibitive, so it will not happen this year.

So, what’s a girl to do? Well, it’s a long weekend. Maybe it’s time to take a little time off from writing. Maybe I should just put down the laptop and walk away. Nobody’s reading what I write and I am not saying anything interesting, so it is a good time. Maybe I just need to take some time off. Maybe I need to weed my lawn and spend time with my husband and hug my kid for awhile.

Meh, I talk a good game. But you know and I know, it’s not that easy. My laptop is like my own personal version of the One Ring. It’s My Preshusssssssssssssss.

I’ll be here. I’m be mind-numbingly boring, but I’ll be here.

I know, when I posted about the geese on the roof a few weeks back, that a few of you did not believe me. Not really. There were some skeptics in the crowd. “Self,” you said to yourself (for you are very smart), “surely she is mistaken. GEESE do NOT sit on ROOFS. Certainly not 3 storeys up in the air. I believe,” you say (for you are nothing if not very forgiving), “that sleep deprivation has made That Woman DELUSIONAL. Or, possibly, she’s just gone a little dippy”.

Well, I am here to tell you, while I may, in fact, be dippy, the geese around here are, too:

So there you go. Photographic evidence that the wildlife around here has gone completely off the rails.

Now, I grant you, it may very well be that it’s not ALL the local wildlife that have taken to behaving in eccentric fashion, sitting on roofs and the like. It could just be THESE TWO GEESE going around sitting on roofs when I am out walking JUST TO MESS ME UP. I wouldn’t put it past them.

Oh. Wait. Now THERE is the sleep deprivation talking.

Carry on.

Some random factoids about my life these days:

• My daughter is getting way into the sign language. It’s awesome. Problem is: she’s trying out new signs on her own. Spontaneously. She’s mimicked signs from one of her DVDs/shows, and she’s using them. And due to the fact that she’s only 13 months old and lacks some fine manual dexterity, it’s hard to know exactly what each new sign IS. She’s trying to communicate something to me, and I no habla ingles, apparently.

• Yoko Ono is following me on Twitter. I LOVE that.

• I am going to get my car fixed. I swear to you. This month, even. Which means we’ll need a new car seat. But this will also give us a bit of freedom to go out into the world beyond walking distance if we so choose. AND I can do crazy things like make my dentist appointments and stuff. I KNOW. Out of control.

• I am currently fighting a compulsion to go out and buy yarn. I have not even finished the knitting project I am currently working on, let alone know what to do with the hundred skiens of yarn currently cluttering up my home. And yet, like a beacon, I know there is more yarn out there, and I feel strangely in the market for some.

• I have rediscovered my love of Sesame Street. We have been downloading their podcast, and Stinkerbelle is ENCHANTED — especially by Murray the muppet and the “Family” Word on the Street webisode. Sesame Street is wonderful, entertaining and educational, full of diversity and positive messages. The Children’s Television Workshop ROCKS. As far as I am concerned, my daughter can watch as much Sesame Street as she wants. And I have to admit my delight that one of my personal faves from childhood, The Electric Company, is being resurrected. I have high hopes.

• I have now lost over 20 pounds since starting WW in February. My goal was 20 lbs by Stinkerbelle’s birthday, so I only missed it by a few weeks. So now my new goal is 10 pounds by Canada Day. THAT? Will be a LOT of walking, man.

• I believe, but I cannot be sure, that I might have gotten a decent night’s sleep last night. I am feeling strangely alert. Could be the giant mug o’ coffee has kicked in, though.

It’s been a long 24 hours here, full of medical errands. I am tired. BDH is tired. And Stinkerbelle is tired-ish, too. But it is a beautiful morning and so we plan to enjoy it.

Yesterday was Stinkerbelle’s 1 year checkup. At 29 inches and 21 pounds, she’s growing well and is as bright as a button. The rate at which she’s growing and developing is awesome, if a little sad. Everyone at the doctor’s office marvelled how fast time is flying with That Baby, and how much she is changing.

Everywhere That Baby goes, she is a magnet for attention and admirers — which was a very good thing yesterday, since it was time for her MMR (measles/mumps/rubella) shot. And another one, I forget which — but they both go in the arms, and they both STING — so having her peeps around as a diversion was a HUGE help. So, with Daddy along to do the firm grip on the baby (Mommy being too much of a crybaby pansy), the shots were given, and there were many big tears. That Baby cried, also. But many of the staff were hovering, peeking in to try to cheer up That Baby and get her to smile after her big shots, and soon she was her cheerful self again. The kid is a real trooper.

But with any vaccination, babies get a bit off, so for the rest of the day, we had a tired and occasionally cranky baby. I was home to comfort her, while BDH was off to the hospital for x-rays on his knee. He’s currently getting physio on an injured knee — coincidentally, an injury I have had since university in my own knees, so I am hoping to get the benefit of some of they physio exercises he is learning. Anyway, he was off to the hospital for follow-up x-rays and back in pretty short order, and once home, we settled in for an afternoon of trying to keep That Baby amused.

I am always amazed at how tiring it is to entertain a very small child. She can’t even run around or anything yet. But even though we tag-teamed her, I was still tired enough yesterday afternoon that Stinkerbelle and I actually napped together. I like to say it’s because she needed cuddling to get a good nap, but really, I love the snuggling and rocking and snoozing together, and I will take it when I can get it. Plus, I wasn’t feeling really well yesterday, so I welcomed the time to just chill.

After an afternoon of baby wrangling, we bathed and fed That Baby and got her to bed (with just one repeat performance when she woke with gas pains after about an hour). But once we got her to bed, we were so tired, we just parked ourselves in front of an old movie and vegged for the evening. Which was for the best, considering I was on Baby Duty all night — BDH was heading back to the hospital in the middle of the night for a 2 am MR exam. Neither of us slept particularly well, with his sleep interrupted by a date with radiology and mine just interrupted by wakefulness. And waking with a jolt at around 5 am for absolutely no reason didn’t help much, either. (I blame a particularly noisy sunrise, myself.)

So here we are, all pooped out after yesterday’s various adventures. It’s going to be a slow day, that is for darn sure. BDH is off to work, and I think That Baby and I will aim for a quiet day together. A walk will be nice. Maybe a bit of playtime outside for her while I think about gardening. Or maybe not. It’s hard to say. And I am feeling too sleepy to think about it much.