Some Mid-Week Wisdom

You do not need a camel to tell you it's Wednesday, but I may be able to impart some other lessons learned the hard way during the week so far...

• When you are overcome by the idea that your night guard has not been properly sanitized since the day your dentist made it (5 years ago) and you deem it high time to throw it in a pot of boiling water for 5 minutes, be aware that it will cause it to shrink. To the point that you are never going to fit your chiclet teeth in it again. This is at least a $500 lesson learned, with zero percent covered by dental insurance. (Although I would argue that because my bite guard has cracked in 4 different places, it is actually medically necessary for me to have one to keep all of my teeth from disintegrating into dust and scar tissue.) 
• Anything that is used daily will eventually break, fall apart, or...crack...as the crockpot did on Sunday night. This was an enormous blow as I use it every single day. But, like any good slow cooker, I had an extra until I could pick up a new one yesterday. That is a $35 lesson learned but priceless when it comes to group morale.
• 16 month old babies are too young for handprint turkeys. It looks so easy on someone else's blog, but when the rubber meets the road and the paint is in the hair, mouth, diaper, and seeping into the kitchen tile grout, it becomes overwhelmingly clear. But next year we're gonna nail it! Not sure on the dollar amount on this one. We'll find out at the end of our lease, I suppose.
• Lastly, to all of the landlords out there: the appropriate question when screening applicants is not, "Do you have a cat/dog/parakeet/sloth?" but "Do you have any children?" I mean, if you would like your rental returned in exactly the same condition, this should be your stipulation. Somewhat related: Crayola makes a box of crayons that can grow legs and leap from whatever insanely high spot you've placed them onto the floor and into the hands of a toddler who sees the world as his blank sheet of paper. I wish I could quit buying this type of crayon but they seem to have flooded the market. (This truly is the only explanation because I count those sonsofbi...silly little things to make sure they are all accounted for before putting them up...way up...like on top of a refrigerator up. And yet...) We aren't even speculating on the price of this lesson. We just keep setting aside money each month and hope we don't have to sell a kidney or a cat when the final bill is tallied. 

This is all I have, but I feel like that's quite a bit since it's only Wednesday. Also, I've decided to start highlighting some of the small businesses I've been using lately on Fridays. I think they deserve a toast and they are mostly online so that means you can shop and sip champagne. It's a win all the way around!