Three Thing Thursday

Thing the First: With all the news about the government mining personal data, here's an interesting take: The Government Should Be Paying You for Your Data. This is effectively what corporations do through loyalty programs and coupons, and there are some really good points here. Data is a commodity that has a very high value. Assuming that the government does not have a constitutional right to collect this information (which I, personally, do not think they have), would you be willing to hand it over if you were compensated for it?

Thing the Second: I am on a sweet potato and cauliflower kick. My latest favorite: aloo gobi with sweet potatoes. I love this recipe.

Thing the Third: Our composter has been full for some time - it probably wasn't put in the best place in our backyard to get warm enough to break down the stuff inside. So we're at a loss for what to do with vegetable peelings - until now! Yup, I'm going to try to make my own broth.

Expensive week

Our power's been out for three days, and we've lost all our perishable food. 

I had family visiting last weekend and this week (two different groups) who therefore couldn't stay with us and had to stay in hotels. All our meals are from restaurants lately. 

Due to the power outage, our sump pump failed, and we got several inches of water in the basement. We were able to save our belongings, but the carpet, drywall, etc. is a total loss. We have insurance for sump pump failure, with a $1,000 deductible. 

Baby M is having surgery on Wednesday. She'll be there for anywhere from a few days to a week, so this really could not have come at a more inconvenient time. 

How are you guys doing?

Three Thing Thursday

Thing the First: Here are ten great cooking shortcuts - I love the idea of making rice and quinoa ahead of time!

Thing the Second: 30 Foods You'll Never Have to Buy Again - because you can make them! Homemade Nutella? Yes, please!

Thing the Third: Here's a list of five happy things. One of them is almost certain to make your day better, even if it's already awesome.

Odds and Ends

Baby M Update: She has been home from the hospital for four months now, almost as long as she was in the hospital. That will be a great milestone! Unfortunately, she was recently diagnosed with failure to thrive, because her weight gain is still so slow that it's putting her at risk for a number of different problems (fragile bones, developmental delays, dehydration, electrolyte imbalance and other things). So last week we were readmitted to the hospital for a few days to have a temporary feeding tube placed. I'm hoping that a few weeks with a feeding tube will get us to a place where she can take over on her own, but if not, we will be readmitted again for surgery for a more permanent tube. (It's not really permanent-permanent, but would be in place for a couple of years, as opposed to one that goes through her nose to her intestines that will be in place for a few weeks.)

The feeding issues are by far the hardest part of parenting that I've encountered, so I'm hoping that having an alternative way of getting nutrition in her will make our days more enjoyable. And if the pressure's off, we can make mealtimes less stressful and hopefully she will no longer fight the bottle.

Other odds and ends:

* We have finally signed up for a health savings account through Peanut's work. While all of Baby M's healthcare costs have been covered by insurance, dental work and 20% of medical costs for Peanut and me are out of pocket. I'll submit the first claim this week.

* I have been getting better at this whole stay-at-home-mom thing, at least in regards to keeping up with laundry and getting dinner on the table when Peanut gets home from work. Sometimes I look at my days and wonder what on earth I did all day, but Baby M is getting more content to watch me do some work instead of needing to be held all the time.

* We haven't made pizza in a long time, but I love The Frugal Girl's breakdown of how much it costs to make compared to frozen or takeout pizza. I made egg rolls this week, and meant to do a cost analysis to see how cost effective they were. Unfortunately, they didn't taste that good and were a huge amount of work, so I'm not sure that I would do them again regardless of how much savings they were. But pizza is worth it!