Dear CVS,

I am not by any means a militant environmentalist. I recycle only when convenient, and use entirely too many paper towels. But even I must draw a line between a moderate amount of waste, and the absurd.

Let’s talk receipts. Today I stopped in your store to purchase one item, and was handed a receipt well over 2 feet long. Which I promptly threw in the trash recycling bin once I got home.

Two feet of paper to prove I purchased a single item. Doesn’t that sound a little ridiculous? I know you like to tack on unnecessary coupons to the end of the receipts but I cannot even imagine how much money your company spends buying and transporting all that paper nationwide. Probably enough to skip the coupons altogether and just lower your prices.

I intend to start shopping at Walgreens when possible, even though it’s further from my house, because I feel like I’m saving an entire tree every time I go there.

* * *

Dear Tom Thumb,

Please see above letter to CVS. Today I shopped in your store and left with over 7 feet of receipt and coupons. All of which immediately went into the trash recycling bin.

Please stop giving me a phonebook’s worth of coupons for items I never buy. If I’m checking out with O Organics Peanut Butter, it does not make sense to give me a coupon for Jiff. It is just a waste of paper.

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Dear Whole Foods,

I just want to say how much I appreciate the fact that even though I buy upwards of $150 of groceries, I still walk away with a receipt no longer than my hand. Printing on the back of the receipt is a brilliant idea and I applaud you for your environmental consciousness. And also for the fact that I can actually fit your receipts in my purse. And thank you for not burdening me with 100 useless coupons every time I check out.

However, you might want to take a lesson from Tom Thumb on the buggy-cart idea. Bringing my two-year-old to shop is a lot easier when she is distracted by the Fun! Buggy! Cart! Being located in the heart of Giant Family-Oriented Suburb, I’m sure I don’t have to tell you that there are more than 3 shopping moms in your store at any given time.

Therefore, 3 buggy carts for 45 shopping moms is a rather unsatisfactory ratio. It is exponentially unsatisfactory to a certain two-year-old who has her hopes set on a buggy ride and must settle for a regular shopping cart ride instead. Suddenly the shopping trip becomes much more of an ordeal, especially since - while in a regular shopping cart - her little hands are at the perfect height for reaching out and grabbing things off the fruit stands and other shelves.

Last week a bucket of meringue cookies found their way on to the check-out conveyor belt, which I did not realize until I got home and pulled them out of the bag.  Nobody in my family will eat meringue cookies.

Please take a visit to Tom Thumb to observe their buggy-to-child ratio, as well as their new “TV Cart” buggies, which are very effective at distracting young children, to the point where they actually look forward to grocery shopping.

Just don’t buy anything while you’re there, or you risk depleting a quarter of the rain forest with your receipt.

So yesterday we noticed a charge we didn’t recognize on a credit card we never use.  When we inquired about it with the credit card company, we were told that this particular business (which is basically someone’s name) “sells trophies, fireworks and tomb stones.”

Let me repeat that:  TROPHIES.  FIREWORKS.  And TOMBSTONES.

So I guess if you win something and want to celebrate, they’ve got you covered all the way through the part where you die from the fireworks explosion?  I would like to have seen that business plan.

Also, we saw the weirdest bug yesterday.  It was huge (as bugs go), measuring approximately 2.5” long with a thick body and a 4” multicolored wingspan.  And it totally looked like a hummingbird.  It was about the size of a hummingbird.  It flew like a hummingbird.  It was buzzing around the bushes sucking nectar out of the flowers like a humming bird.  But it had at least 4 legs and antennae, so I’m pretty sure it wasn’t a hummingbird.  Whatever it was, it was really cool to watch and we stood outside Olive Garden like a trio of idiots staring at it for a long time.

The day we moved to Texas in 2003, we had just driven 5 days from Seattle with our puppy, Japp. We were hanging out in my parents’ back yard when Japp slipped through the fence and took off for the wide open spaces of the golf course. It’s a breed thing - shiba inus are prone to run away and it’s virtually impossible to train them to do otherwise when given the opportunity. And shibas are fast. Ridiculously fast.

Unfortunately, Japp didn’t make it to the golf course haven. As he darted across the street, was hit by a speeding car. He died in J’s arms. And took a chunk of my heart with him. At the time we had no children and thought of that puppy as our baby. He went everywhere with us and J even took him to work every day.

At the encouragement of my uncle, we ended up getting another dog. We looked at other breeds but decided to get another shiba. We named him Hastings and have been overprotective to the point of paranoid when it comes to making sure he hasn’t had the opportunity to escape.

A couple of days ago, he did.

Little Button and I were exiting the front door for a walk and as we were getting her doll’s stroller through the door, Hastings leaped over the stroller and darted out. As I grabbed at him and he slipped through my hands, flashbacks of Japp hit - with the sudden realization that there was a good chance I would not see this dog alive again.

He took off down the street like a lightening bolt. Then he stopped at the end and changed directions, running past our house and down to the opposite end of the street. By the time I grabbed the leash he was nowhere to be seen.

I swear, if I ever get another dog - shiba or not, I’m going to look for one with a bad leg.

Not knowing what else to do, I started walking down the street with Button in tow, hoping we would at least see him and be able to track where he was going. And hoping that if he got hit by a car that Button wouldn’t see it.

And then he came back. I was looking in the direction he had taken off in, when I hear Button say “Hastings! There he is!”

And sure enough, here he comes trotting down some random side street. He had made a full loop around (told you shibas were fast) and apparently decided his three minute tour of the neighborhood was over. He came right up to us and let me put the leash on.

Which I did. And then I cried.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Did you notice this post has been mis-titled? That the word “prodigal” makes very little sense in conjunction with this story? Did you also know that my entire life I thought “prodigal” applied to someone who ran away and then came back? Yeah, that’s what I get from learning vocabulary from Bible stories.

It snowed here a few weeks ago.  Random.  One day it was 70 degrees, the next day it was snowing.  And then it went back to being warm again.  Texas weather in the Spring is so fickle.

And yes, here in Texas we take pictures of the snow because in this part of the world it’s marginally equivalent to earthquakes or aliens or Heidi Montag’s shot at a singing career.

We happened to have some friends in town from Seattle, which made the snow even more fun - the more the merrier, right?  And because it was FREAKING COLD outside and I didn’t have any warm maternity clothes but I didn’t have to go build the snowman because Scott volunteered.  Sweet.

I excel at lazy parenting.

My latest hobby has been bow-making. Bows for girls are so expensive. And it’s hard to find premade ones that really match all the right outfits. So I decided to start doing it myself.