This week in learning: Grass & New Shoes!

First, for my fellow crazy cat lovers, a recommendation:

Sweet Prince works for Petco corporate and brought me this self contained packet for grass seeds for the cats. Let me tell you, they LOVE it! And? it was remarkably easy to grow.

I planted the seeds in the bag just before new years. Within a week the grass had grown to the height shown and I was able to start “mowing” it to feed it to the cats. Four weeks later it is still going strong and I will probably have it for maybe another few weeks. Retail price on the Petco website is $3.47 – a BARGAIN if you ask me! Chip is a grass eater. Hell, Chip chews on ANYTHING! Plastic bags are his latest obsession. he chews on the edges of the kitchen trash bag that hangs over the edge. He’s also the one who barfs more prolifically (shocking eh?). However, since I’ve had this grass to put in his food bowl every night – which he RUNS to get – he has not barfed at ALL. Amazing.

OK, next thing. Not really something I learned I supposed yet. Still kind of another product review! All unsolicited, I assure you. Exactly one week ago I put on my favorite Nine West brown shoes to wear to work. Part way through the day I noticed that the left shoe felt odd. Turns out it had split open on one side! I have the same pair of shoes in black and brown because they were so comfortable and I wear them almost exclusively 5 days a week. Still, after only a year I was mighty disappointed that the shoe ripped like that. Upon examining the black ones when I got home, I saw potential weakness in the same spot though they are still intact for now. Bummer! They were only $45 each when I bought them, but still! Anyhow, given that I am watching my money carefully I made sure to go through every possible discount site and use every coupon/cash back opportunity I could as I looked online for a replacement pair of brown shoes. Happily, for a grand total with shipping and tax of $52 I ended up with TWO new pairs of shoes which already arrived and they fit perfectly AND are super comfy – thank you Naturalizer shoes!

And some quick hits in learning:

• If you are at all interested in what is going on in the middle east – download a program called Livestation and, I kid you not, watch or listen to the Al Jazeera English station. Because as we all know, our own cable news channels are much more interested in Charlie Sheen’s latest arrest vs what might possibly be going on overseas!
• Cat sneezes are kind of adorable. Cat sneezes at 4:30am when said cat is sleeping RIGHT NEXT TO YOU are not quite so adorable.
• If you are a night owl, and you get a little hungry at 2am for a snack – please keep in mind that other people sleeping in the house WILL be woken up when you POP MICROWAVE POPCORN!!
• Can you tell that sleeping 8 hours straight uninterrupted in my house is a HUGE challenge? Who knew that would be the case with the youngest occupant being 14 and not, say, 4 months old?