Last week was a rough one around here. Both Rae and me were sick. She was sick the first part of the week. I began to feel bad about Friday or Saturday. Yesterday I was still pretty wiped out, so my dear sweet husband stayed home to take care of us.

Although I had to ask him to do it, he cleaned the dishes and cooked supper. When he does the dishes, he cleans the whole kitchen. He did a great job, and I’m so glad to have those dishes put away.

Being sick did put me behind on the Ultimate Blog Challenge. I didn’t make 31 posts for October. I may try again in December.

I also have a couple of reviews and giveaways for November. I plan to start the first one tomorrow. Both are pretty cool products.

So hopefully tomorrow we will be better. Or at least have more get-up-and-go. Being sick does put a damper on plans.

Tonight I cooked my first dinner from the E-Mealz low carb menu. It was a Mediterranean chicken with garlic vegetables as a side. I have to say that it turned out pretty tasty.

It was really easy to cook – which is always a plus. I would say it was a success. My husband ate it and seemed to like it. I thought the vegetables turned out pretty good especially considering I have never cooked that many vegetables by themselves.

The next meal will be Monday night. This week’s menu sounds very tasty, so I’m looking forward to many good home-cooked meals.

It is a shopping trip my mom had been planning to take for weeks. The day finally rolls around. We load up and head out in search of bargains galore. The night before I had used my debit card online and made sure to put my wallet back into my purse. My purse sat on the couch/bed in our living room all evening until it fell off landing bottoms up. My husband returned my purse to its original spot shortly thereafter. My gut told me to double check the contents; a quick glance at the floor didn’t reveal anything that out of the ordinary.

As I am getting ready to make my first purchase of the day, I start searching my purse for my wallet. It is nowhere to be found. Luckily I keep my cash in a coin purse and was able to buy what I wanted. I only carried a little bit of cash, so I had to pass on a few items.

I knew I should have checked closer for my wallet last night but I assumed that it was in there. This just proves to me the importance of listening to that small voice inside your head. It is okay to ignore the voice in certain situations like when someone cuts you off in traffic. Your voice might say to speed up and give the driver a piece of your mind. A lot of times the voice is spot on. If I had just taken two seconds to check for my wallet last night, then I would have been assured of having it today.

I would love to say that I will act when my inner voice tells me something but probably not. This is a lesson I seem to learn every few months. One of these days maybe I will learn to follow my gut instinct.

All week I had been waiting for Sunday night and the LOST series finale. It’s been bittersweet watching this last season knowing that the end is coming. I will not go into a lot of detail about the finale or the last season so as not to spoil it for anyone – including my husband who has only seen a few episodes from season six.

From reading tweets and Facebook updates, it seems there are quite a few who still are as confused as ever about LOST and weren’t happy with how it ended. Maybe they should have chosen one of the ‘alternate’ endings.

But as a series finale, it did answer some questions and left a few hanging. I figured they couldn’t answer everything because it seemed no one knew all of the answers. After watching the finale, it took a few hours to digest just what had happened. My first impression was I didn’t like the ending but after thinking on it, I like it better. I think you can take away from the finale that ‘it’s all good’ for our castaways.

This summer I hope to watch all of the seasons again. I do think that about around season three that the writers might started to stretch out the series since I remember when it premiered that it was supposed to be a three year TV show. So that’s my big summer plans – watch a TV show that I’ve seen every episode but want to watch again for clues.

One of our favorite wedding gifts we received 15 years ago was a picnic basket. We used it on almost every trip. The top finally started to unravel and even though I still use the bottom of the basket, I’ve been looking for a replacement. I found a lovely basket at a second hand store for $5.99. It needed a slight repair as one of the handles was missing its wooden holder. But being resourceful, I was able to come up with a solution.

After trying a few different ideas, I thought of using a bottle cap. I had picked up a few bottle caps a while back for crafting purposes. This one looked the best and was also red – matching the basket lining. I cut down a chopstick to hold the handle in place. Then I sanded the inside of the bottle cap slightly for a better super glue hold. Within a few minutes, the glue had set. So far no problems. We’ve made one trip just fine. And if anything should happen, I have plenty of super glue and can always find bottle caps lying around.

I love finding a good bargain and being able to fix problems for free.

Does your dryer ‘eat’ socks? Well, apparently the dryer isn’t the culprit – it could be your washer. While washing, some times socks get pushed to the bottom of the tub and get wrapped around the agitator of the washing machine. You might want to check there – although it might not be that easy – for those missing socks. If you prefer not to have to take your washer apart, place your socks on top of the load of laundry. This way they are less likely to wind up at the bottom of the tub.

Other ways to keep your socks from going MIA include pinning them together and/or placing them in a laundry mesh bag.

Ever since we moved two years ago, we have been eating off plastic and paper plates. Our last set of dishes were only $10 and we thought we’ll just pick up some new ones. Well, we could never find anything we liked that was cheap as $10/set.

I love bargains and stopped by the local thrift store. They had a sale, so I just had to rummage through all the knick knacks. Then I noticed the stacks of plates. Since we really needed plates, I took a look at the plates and found four that I really liked. I only found one bowl that I liked but plan to keep an eye our for more of these -

I told my husband that it would be nice to have some ‘real’ plates for if/when we have company over. It would be so nice to do some entertaining again. At least now we have real plates should we have people over for dinner.

Last week I was sick. It’s no fun to be sick in the summer. It just seems wrong. But like most bugs that make their way around, both my husband and daughter now have it. Thankfully I’m feeling better so that I can take care of them.

This week I have a lot of catching up to do. I feel behind on everything like housework, summer activities, and the Internet. I just haven’t been online much and I feel a little disconnected. What did I do before the Internet?

I do have a few blog post ideas that have been running through my brain. So maybe I can get those jotted down between the laundry and disinfecting the house. I’m still not 100% this week but feeling a lot better than last week. Hopefully I can at least get partially back in the groove this week.

Happy Mother’s Day! Look what I woke up to. Roses! They are so beautiful. Thanks to the kid for waking us up super early so that my husband could then sneak off to the store without me. Somehow I doubt that was their plan.

Sunday is Mother’s Day. I have to admit that I’m still a Momma’s girl. I love my Mom dearly and every time someone says that I look just like her, I take it as a huge compliment.

My Mom and I not only look alike, but we also have a lot of the same mannerisms. My sense of humor I definitely get from her. She loves a good joke and is usually good for a witty comeback(yes, I’m from a family of smart asses).

We like a lot of the same TV shows, so we get to talk about the latest on ‘The Biggest Loser,’ ‘Survivor,’ and ‘Desperate Housewives.’ I’m still amazed that she likes ‘Survivor’ but really glad she does.

I’ve had a lot of things handed down from my Mom from physical characteristics to physicals items. She’s given me beds, clothes, furniture, etc. We have been very fortunate when it comes to hand me downs. A few months ago we bought our first major appliance – a refrigerator. We’ve been married for 13 years. So, yeah, we’ve gotten plenty of hand me downs from my Mom. So yeah, I am very fortunate not only to have a loving and gorgeous Mom but one who is super generous.

This post is part of the Parent Bloggers Network blog blast. It is being sponsored by the Johnson’s second annual Celebrity Hand Me Down Auction that runs through May 14th. That’s another hand me down I got from my Mother and that’s a love of auctions and good deals. All proceeds from the auction will benefit the Johnson’s No More Tears Clean Water initiative.