Boogers, flyers, and gratitude

Things around here haven't been great. Both Elias and Mike are sick. My no tissue rule is proving to be very fun indeed. Last week I bought three organic cotton hankies for $12. I soon realized that 3 hankies lasts about 2 hours in a house full of runny noses. Then I cut up an old baby blanket into about 12 more. They lasted one day. Last night I cut up another one, and now I am doing the laundry. 

Mmmm boogers. There is a lot of them in my house, just in case you were wondering. The great thing about using flannel blankets to wipe your nose is that you don't rub your nose raw from wiping it with wood products. No matter how many synthetic lotions they put into tissue, it is still a wood product at the end of the day, and your nose will be red and sore. Not so with flannel!! I don't even mind the small bit of extra laundry.

Enough about boogers, I never posted my newest change last week so here it is: Gratitude. One small simple word that means so much. Gratitude for all the people in my life, my house, my bed, my health, my telephone! Gratitude makes what I have enough, and more. Every day I think of all of the things that I am grateful for and that I have, then I don't feel the need to acquire more useless stuff. 

I was looking through one of the many flyers that come to my house (yes, I still get them despite all of my efforts to have them stopped- more on that later!!) and I saw a shiny stainless steel toaster oven, and for a moment I thought "hey, I could use a new toaster oven." Why this thought entered my mind I do not know. I have a toaster oven, it is old but it works great and I use it everyday. I took a moment to be grateful for the one I have, and then moved on. 

Having fliers delivered to your house each day feeds the need to get more stuff. 

Back to the flyer problem, I have called the flyer force (in case you want to call in Calgary, the number is 291-0657. Tell them Jennifer Vanderland told you to call and have your flyers cancelled!)  I have asked the kids that deliver them to please stop, I have a sticker on my door, and I have even gone online to www.the-cma.org/consumer/donotcontact.cfm to join the "Dump the Junk Campaign" So far nothing has worked. I plan on staking out my front door until those kids stop throwing flyers on my front porch. I lived in a condo in Hillhurst for years, and I had a nice little sticker on my door which was amazingly effective. The burbs are a different story.