Confessions

People I Want to Kick in the Head

This week, I read this:

 [Over-Achieving-Elf-on-Shelf-Mommies]

After reading several of her beginning blog entries, I realized I don’t have as much in common with this woman as I first suspected I would.  But I was initially drawn to her by our mutual manifestation of annoyance and stress into visions of short violent outbursts which would undoubtedly be delivered perfectly and would achieve results in one swift blow.  She imagines a punch to the throat.  I imagine a kick to the head.  Either way, the sentiment is the same, which means that our superiority complexes are only outmatched by our acute senses of self-control.  Perhaps in real life, I wouldn’t like her.  But I suspect that we would at least get along.

So in the spirit of all things American, I’m stealing her idea and calling it my inspiration for today’s post, and if it turns into a recurring theme, I’m giving her the original credit for coming up with the prompt.

  1. People who walk in my blind-spot.  It would be far too easy to complain about bad drivers as I’m sure we can all agree that people who do not signal are just as idiotic as those driving down the highway with their blinker on for miles.  But today I’m not talking about driving etiquette, I’m talking about walking etiquette.  I can’t say that I go to the mall terribly often, but it never fails that when I am there, someone ends up walking exactly one foot to my left or right and slightly behind me.  It’s like they are close enough to make me paranoid that I’m in the way, but just slow enough that they never pass me.  I find myself afraid to slow down for fear they’ll run into me, but instead speeding up to evade them.  Inevitably, they match their pace with mine, step for step.  Part of me is wondering if they are trying to nonchalantly get close enough to smell my perfume, but maybe they are truly unaware of their awkward proximity.  It’s weird.  And annoying.  And it happens way more often than I’d like to admit.  And it is even worse in the grocery store when the person doing it is pushing a cart and is apparently carrying a carbon copy of my grocery list.
  2. The checkout boys at Lowe’s Foods on Lewisville-Clemmons Road.  And speaking of grocery stores, I have a little shout out for the high school boys who work at Lowe’s Foods.  First, trust me, your buddy at register five also does not know the PLU for organic mixed greens.  They are $5.99 a pound.  Just punch it in or call someone.  Also, when you reload my groceries back into my cart (which my child is subsequently still strapped to), it is normal to push the cart behind yourself, to the end of the register, so I can take it with me, rather than making me come all the way around to get it back out.  Despite how cute high school girls may find you, or how cute you find yourselves, I am neither impressed nor charmed when you refer to me (or the high school girl on the phone, price checking for you) as “sweetheart,” or use your eyes to declare how hot you think you are.  I’ll take the chubby red-heads at Harris Teeter any day over you morons.
  3. The Authors of THIS BOOK, (and every other worthless children’s book, for that matter), as there are, undoubtedly, hundreds of thousands too many in circulation.  It is hard to find decent children’s books on the shelves at the library, will you people stop clogging things further with crap like this?  I mean, it is bad enough that your story relies so heavily on rhythm and rhyme that the story line itself is inane.  What I want to know is how did you and your editors fail to realize half of it is written in present tense and half is written in past tense (sometimes both tenses within one sentence)?  The fact that you’ve managed to publish an entire series of these things is truly mind boggling.  I think lines like this speak for themselves but in case they don’t, note the made up words and random use of capitalization mid-sentence, juxtaposed with such pop-cultural vernacular as ‘Game On.”
                 Game on!  It’s a reindeer flying through the sky
                 Practicing for Christmas so Hippiti-High
    I read this book exactly one time before telling Eliott that even her semi-literate-four-year-old-self could write a better book than this piece of garbage.
Confessions

Dear Santa

Snippets from a series of recent Paulus family emails concerning Christmas gifting…

So, to be clear, now that everyone in my family is married and at least one of us has children, we made a command decision to stop with the personalized gift giving to each member of the family and now we do the big-Catholic-family who-has-who-this-year thing.  In short, we go down the line and only have one family to worry about each Christmas.  Brilliant.  And unlike some families, who do a similar name-drawing style of gift giving, my family is not all about who can find the funniest/worst/most humiliating/crappy present giving.  In fact, because of Jeff’s helicopter pilot salary, my sisters and I are usually in competition for coming up with useful but creative gifts that can compete on Jeff’s level, but don’t break our bank accounts.  (Secretly, we’re all just waiting for every 3rd year when Jeff has our name again.)

In order to expedite the process and minimize hassle and ultimate disappointment, a series of emails circulates the weeks before Christmas with vague attempts at gift-giving ideas.  Here is a quick peak into my current Christmas wish-list.

FROM: Claire
Subject: RE: General Christmas Gift Ideas

John and I have talked about it a bunch, but can’t think of anything we just desperately want or need right now.  Please do not get us a TV or DVD player.  Remember when Laura promised us her 28″ not flat screen TV but still newer (and bigger) than our previous two free TVs?  She got John quite hyped up to finally be able to see the screen from the kitchen and read subtitles, at all.  When said huge TV turned out to have only a 20″ screen (it’s okay Laura, I don’t know how to measure TVs either, seriously, but I think it works on the diagonal) John took us on a family trip to Sam’s Club and bought his own birthday/Christmas present.  Since that day, both Mom and Dad and John’s parents have offered us a new TV for Christmas.

I get it.  They want to visit.  But when they come, they want to be able to actually see their favorite TV shows without glasses.  Until recently, John and I had always considered a TV a bit of a luxury, one which did not trump health insurance, for example.  But alas.  In the wake of new technology, it turns out affording a new TV was much less of a burden than originally expected.  As it is, for now, we only need one TV.  Which we have.  So no TV this year.

Would it be weird to ask for a month of health insurance?

FROM: Claire (to Erica)
SUBJECT: RE: I have an idea of what I’m going to get you but is there anything you are absolutely dying for?

I don’t freaking know.

I think I need back surgery.  I’m mildly freaking out right now.

Back to Christmas.  Generally, I’ll just trust you.  But here are some ideas:

We sort of wanted one of those small firepit thingy’s that go in the back yard and I kept waiting for them to go on sale but alas, never hit a price I wanted. So there’s that.

We need a minivan.

If we get a minivan, we might want some of those little DVD players to go inside it for long trips with our children who are television addicted in the back.

I’ve been wanting to make compost and thought that one of those compost tumblers might be cool.  Have no idea where I’d put it.  But if I had one, I’d figure it out.

Note: we do not need a snowblower.  But John would love a leaf blower.  But if that was our family gift I’d write a nasty blog post about you and tell John to go blow himself.  Heh.  Heh.

I’m still not sold on the Nook or Ereader, so don’t go there this year.  Plus, I can’t find electronic books at used book stores.

Does that help at all?

I assume you are doing a Wait family gift, but if the mood strikes to get my kids something (this is not a hint, I swear, only if you want to) there are a few standby’s that you might run into: anything princess for either of them.  Really.  But especially Eliott.  Santa outfits in size 2T or 5.  Always classic.  Christmas PJ’s in 2T and 5.  I’m already on the hunt for these though.  They’ve been a bit of a tradition here, and what can I say, I’m sort of sold on them and their one-night-a-year glory.  Unlike every other holiday, I actually think Christmas PJ’s are cute.

Saturday morning cartoons have also embedded in my children an uncontrollable desire for Stompeez.

Oh.  Here’s something.  We have exactly one (1) steak knife, and we use it every night.  It’s always fun to share, but you know, a little awkward when we entertain, which is why I always serve enchilladas or chili when we have people over.

To be honest, this year I’ve been so excited about my own personal Christmas shopping (which is practically done, by the way, thanks to Black Friday, and Craigslist last summer for the girls) that it has been really easy not to think about anything I really want or need.  After waking up yesterday with a lower back pain that made movement almost impossible, I’m actually just really hoping for healing, a cure without surgery, or some really big clients in Wait Law’s immediate future.  That, or Extreme Makeover Home Edition to come outfit my house in all new ergonomic furniture, taller counters, and a year’s subscription to a floatarium.

And finally, there’s this:

FROM: Mom and Dad
SUBJECT: RE: Stompeez

  • there is a FREE duffle bag (only pay additional S&H), but there is no way to opt out of free bag
  • S&H is $28.00 + $7.00 internet fee PER PAIR
  • “Because of high demand, no guarantee for Christmas.”

That’s what you get when you let your kids watch Saturday morning cartoons.  Not-so-subliminal messages of desire for $50 air-filled-unicorn slippers.

Confessions

Leftovers…soup!

When I left the house this morning at 9:02 it was probably sixty degrees outside.  I didn’t even send Eliott to school with a coat.  It is now 3:00 and forty-four degrees, according to The Weather Channel on my phone.  I might not have noticed the drastic drop in temperature except that my heater just kicked on for the second time today, which always alarms me the first few days of winter every year.

Our Thanksgiving trip to Michigan was like our first teaser of cold weather this year and even then, for Michigan, in November, it was pretty nice.  The girls rebounded from a week of constant play time (complete with paint and play-doh, Mommy’s two least favorite pre-school “toys”), a house full of friends and kitties to play with, and the best dress up clothes ever (according to Eliott) and we’re getting back into our three week normalcy routine before school lets out again for Christmas.

Have I ever mentioned how much I love my normalcy routine?

I was upstairs, sort of half dozing off into my afternoon nap tradition when I realized we have nothing to eat for dinner.  It’s Tuesday.  I know for a fact that there is positively nothing good on sale at any grocery store right now.  Of course, taking a nap without having a plan for dinner is exactly as productive as trying to get some writing done when Carter is home on Tuesday mornings.  I simply can’t do it.  My first thought was spaghetti, my go-to we-have-nothing-to-eat food.  But the only spaghetti sauce I have in the pantry right now is Ragu, which needs to go to the Food Bank, because everyone here hates it.  (I just love those blind-taste-test commercials which prove everyone chooses Prego over Ragu–surprise!  I think the sole of my shoe has more flavor than Ragu.  And it probably wouldn’t give my 2 year old diarrhea.)

So I went downstairs and opened my fridge to see what I could throw into a crock pot and call soup.

I have:

  • exactly half of a leftover rotisserie chicken
  • onions, carrots, garlic, and about a quarter of a green pepper
  • some previously fresh, now frozen, sage and oregano
  • Lipton onion soup mix and chicken bouillon cubes
  • a can of garbanzo beans
  • a can of diced tomatoes

I mean come on.  It worked for the soldiers in Stone Soup.  Now I can go to the gym at 4:00 and know that dinner will be ready when I come home.  Will probably run by the day old bread rack and grab something that can be toasted with a little mozzarella cheese on top.  I’ll check in later and let you know how it turned out.

Confessions

Something in the Air?

Is it a peak allergy season in North Carolina right now?  I ask because I honestly don’t know.  Two nights ago, while sitting at the bar of 6th and Vine splitting date night between my husband and my girlfriend Molly, I started to feel a tickle in my throat.

As I outlined in my last post, I don’t knock on wood for good health, and I’m telling you right now, pregnancy cured a disease in me.  No.  I’m totally serious.  From the time I was very young (it started in Mississippi, which was second and third grades) I have suffered from what I would consider severe asthma, and not the kind doctor’s call “sports induced.”  In Mississippi, I was allergic to everything, and could count on getting sick for at least two full weeks of every year, once in the Fall and once in the Spring.  In fact, I spent my second grade Spring Break, the entire week, in the ICU, hooked up to IV’s and breathing machines.  I remember very little of it, outside of my dad sneaking in popcorn and Pepsi for the night shift, and watching Johnny Carson with me on a television that resembled a green microwave with a screen that was slightly bigger than an iPhone.

When we moved to Washington State, my parents starting taking me to an actual allergist, where I began a long relationship with allergy shots.  I have to admit, getting tested for allergy shots was actually one of my favorite parts of childhood.  Twice they did it on my back, and it was a little like a Chinese torture/pleasure experience.  Twice they did it on my arms, and again, the needle pricks relaxed me into a state of malaise, which was immediately interrupted by instantaneous itching, and the fight not to scratch.  Sadistic?  A little.

In high school, I missed our Fall retreat every year because I was sick.  My senior year, I prepared in advance, got on a steroid the week before and even brought my breathing machine (also about the size of a small microwave) with me.  My dad now admits to driving 120 miles an hour in my mother’s Volvo to pick me up in the middle of the night and take me to the emergency room.  He didn’t get pulled over, but he was pretty sure he could have convinced any cop of the emergency and talked himself out of the ticket.  (My attorney husband is rolling his eyes right now.)

I have been on four different oral medications throughout my life, and whenever I so much as had a sniffle or a scratch in my throat, my parents rushed me to the Minute Clinic to get antibiotics and a steroid.  In college, I bought Z-Packs on the black market, in order to be ready for the inevitable final’s week sickness.  I have always relied on a rescue inhaler, which is probably why, for most of my life, I was a weak athlete and hated running, even though my body would have suggested otherwise.

And people wonder why I never had a boyfriend.

Asthma is a wimpy kid disease, and not the kind you want to admit you suffer from.

When I got pregnant with Eliott, everything changed.  I had to go off Allegra-D, because it is on the “we don’t know if this messes with a fetus so avoid using it” list.  But aside from my weekly and progressive allergy to– said fetus, I was otherwise in the best health of my life.  I mean, yes, I lost 7lbs in the first trimester due to all-day morning sickness that had me constantly feeling like the room was spinning.  Yes, I was mildly addicted to Tums Smoothies from month four until delievery.  And yes, I did break out in all-over hives for the last six weeks of pregnancy, causing 3 a.m. scalding hot baths in oatmeal or Aveeno, just so I could go back to bed.  (They call it PUPS?)  But I never had to use my inhaler.

And I haven’t really ever had to use it since.

And I no longer take allergy meds.  At all.

And  I ran my 2nd marathon when Eliott was 8 months old.

So, today, I awoke with gunk in the back of my throat and that foggy headache that is clearly not just a caffeine withdrawal.  And I’m wondering, is it allergy season in North Carolina?  We’re flying to Michigan in two days to stay on John’s farm.  I have an inclination to bring along my breathing machine (which is now roughly the size of my iPhone), but I’m not even sure if I have any medication to put in it.

 

Confessions

Google Karma

Call it kismet, call it karma, call it the balance of the universe or simply the truth of Galations 6:7, but I have always believed that things happen for a reason.  I don’t knock on wood nor do I avoid out loud gratitude for streaks of good luck, good health, or good fortune for fear of jinxing anything.  Though I do suffer from bouts of anxiety and worry, this irrational and hormone-induced stress is most often aimed at my immediate circumstances and rarely does it cloud over my rosy outlook on the big picture and my own sparkling future.

Don’t get me wrong.  I’m not walking around in the naive belief that good things happen to me because I’m a good person.  (God knows, kindness and unconditional love for strangers–especially those who immediately strike me as of the ignorant variety–doesn’t come easily for me.)  But it isn’t like I bow my head at night muttering, “Thanks Lord, you know I deserved that today.  As long as you keep it up, I’ll keep it up.”

I do, however, like to think that a lifetime of returning stray carts in parking lots is one reason why all the cashiers at Harris Teeter treat me so well right now.  I like to believe that my luck with prime parking spots on rainy days with my children comes from a time in my life when I chose to park far away for no reason.  And financially speaking, when I consider that John and I are miraculously avoiding serious debt and managing, against many economic odds, to raise our family, grow a new business, and allow me to stay home with my children, I give credit to the fact that both of our grandfathers and fathers were God-fearing and honest businessmen.

So in the last three weeks or so, John has picked up a couple of new clients who found him on the Internet and chose him based purely on his Google reviews.  I have to admit, as a consumer, I very often rely on the Google review to be the first and most convenient place for a product or service opinion, however, as opinionated (and succinct, and tactful, and gifted with words) as I am, I’ve never actually written a Google review.

Until now.

Today, I began in investment in Google karma.

 

After a productive, but not particularly restful weekend, and the prospect of a busy and stress-filled week ahead, here’s a quick plug of wife/mother/consumer -support, sent out to the Internet cosmos in the hopes of a fruitful return.  God speed.

Confessions

How to Survive Christmas with Children

Yesterday, out of nowhere, John asked me, “Would you have married me if I was like, really into video games?”  Understanding the degree to which really implied, I thought about it for a solid five seconds.  “No.  I’m not sure I would have been attracted enough to even date you.”

This answer, though true, surprised me a little, considering I do know several people (adults, mostly men) who are as John put it, like, really into video games, and the truth is, I don’t dislike these people.  In fact, there was a time in my life when the group of boys I was not dating were these people.  I personally went through a stint in high school where I was somewhat addicted to Sim City and WarCraft (courtesy of my brother) and an even more brief period of dorm-life in college where I played The Sims.  But really into video games?  Uh.  No.

So the other night I was hanging out with some of my non-reading and not-from-church book-club mom friends when the conversation came around to Christmas.  One woman in the room has several children of various ages.  I came in second with my two children, oldest four.  Others are about to experience their first Christmas with a toddler.  Naturally, they wanted to know, how long do I have before my child turns into a Santa-worshiping, material-driven millennial who believes that he is the reason for the season, and no one else?  And, is there any way to prevent this from happening?

To these two questions I answer: “Not long,” and “No.”

In this situation, rather than over-thinking and worrying, I find myself defaulting to the reality of my childhood and the fact that my own parents never attempted to pro-actively prepare us for Christmas nor detract us from hoarding the JCPenny catalog and dreaming about everything we thought we deserved on Christmas morning (and again two days later, if you were my sister Erica).  Yet, as far as I can tell, we all pretty much turned out okay.

Though I can look back now and realize exactly how “rich” my parents were when I was a child, especially compared to my current financial situation, John would back me up when I say I was never spoiled.  To the argument, “But you have a big house,” I responded, “We have a big family!”  To, “You never wear hand-me-down clothes,” my answer was, “I have an older brother!”  And to the unspoken arguments, I might have preemptively answered, “My mom drives a Caravan, my dad drives a Jeep, and I’ve never even been to Disney World.”  But ultimately, these are not the reasons I didn’t consider myself rich.  I knew we weren’t rich, for one reason, and one reason only:

We were the only people I knew who didn’t own a Nintendo.

Today, as I braved the holiday traffic on Hanes Mall Blvd., I made a command decision about this Christmas and the many that will follow.  First, whether we can afford it or not, my children will not be given video games, ever, for any gift-giving occasion, from Mom and Dad.  Furthermore, whatever is the electronic rage of the month, my children will be deprived of it.  (Cell phones for 6th graders?  Are you kidding me?  Sorry, Eliott.)  Finally, if any large electronic device is purchased, it will always come addressed to the FAMILY and not an individual.  Basically, my children will never be allowed to believe anything expensive in the house is exclusively their own.

I realize the video game culture isn’t the sole driver behind our consumer minded Santa-worship in this country.  But because it is the most prominent thing I can say my parents actively deprived us of, I’m going with it.  We teach what we know.  Perhaps taking children down to the mission on Christmas Eve and serving soup works for some families.  Perhaps cleaning out toys once a year for less fortunate children (and really driving home the idea that we aren’t just “making room for new toys”) is what some parents find is the key to indoctrinating acts of selflessness into their offspring.

Me?  I’m denying my children admittance into selfishness (and popularity, I’m sure) by making sure there is absolutely nothing at our house that might cause them to consider themselves better than others.  In fact, I cannot wait until the day I get to say to my oldest, “Well, if everyone in your class has it, use theirs!”

While I like to think that going to church, praying before dinner as a family, and instilling my children with a sense of self that is a reflection of their Creator are all important things, I am convinced that they are not the things that made me the person I am today.

Nope.  It was definitely the Nintendo we never owned.

Carter, Confessions, Eliott

September October Blur

As September gave way to October, I found myself writing a check  for preschool yesterday dated 11-1-11.

What?!

Where is the Fall going?  (Actually, my mother is probably wondering the same thing, as I believe I’ve spoken to her on the phone a total of one hour plus six minutes since my sister’s wedding four weeks ago.)  And the truth is, I have no idea, except to say that my 2011 Things To Do list is finally dwindling, and not a moment too soon, by my calculations.

Eliott’s and my teeth have been cleaned, professionally, I got a flu shot, found a potential future baby doctor, made and then rescheduled an appointment for this year, and continue to nurse two children through colds which seem to be lasting  forever.  I have shopped for, ordered, sent, and continue to seek perfect baby shower gifts for the endless number of close friends having babies in 2012.  I have fought baby fever, lost, and priced maternity insurance for the upcoming year as well as the potential total cost for that plus pregnancy and delivery as a result.  (I have discussed figures with my husband who assures me the only way we can have a baby in 2012 is if I get a job or win a minivan on The Price Is Right.)

I am caught up on the first two seasons of Dawson’s Creek and have come to the conclusion that my fashion choices in high school and the first couple years of college, though exactly as bad as I remember them, were actually completely appropriate and I dare suggest, hip.  I have started reading three books, and have three angry Public Library emails in my inbox demanding the return of at least two of them.  Also, I read an entire textbook on the Old Testament.  Then I edited, updated, and otherwise creatively contributed to lesson plans for a new edition of the teacher’s manual…for teaching the entire Old Testament.  A book I am far less familiar with than, say, To Kill a Mockingbird.

So forgive my absence from book club, my spotty attendance at Tuesday morning church social/study hour, my no’s to the last three pre-school birthday party invitations, and the fact that we have enough pork roast in the freezer to last us the next seventeen days, but we’re totally out of butter and eggs.  I’m functioning on lists.  But the checking-off of items is happening in no particular order.

To recap the past month, I offer a few pictures, taken in rare moments of mental clarity (or not) by my trusty iPhone.  (And to think I ever debated the move to a smartphone.  Hah.)

Eliott got her ears pierced. This about sums it up.
One night the handle of the kitchen sink broke, just as I began the dishes.
John fixed it.
Eliott had RARE moments of helpfulness.
Halloween went about like this.
They became cuter with the prospect of actual candy (and yes, there were outfit changes).
Confessions

Friday Surpriday

As followup to what was otherwise one of my most annoying days this Fall, I received a nice little surprise in the mail today.

Take a journey back with me to September 22 of this year, and what I announced to the world through the annals of Facebook:


I had just left the volunteer first peek of my first (and last) consignment sale.  I went in with really hopeful expectations and yet a pretty small wishlist in the first place, but managed to walk out with very little to show for it.  I was annoyed and disappointed in what was purporting to be a colossal waste of time.  (And on top of that, it turned out I actually managed to make less than my predicted profit, which I really didn’t think was possible.)

I came home just in time for my 9:30 appointment with a little website called Totsy (aptly named because it is geared toward all things “tot” for desperate deal seeking mothers, like me, who like to outfit their children in really trendy shit but not actually pay premium prices for any of it).  From my very limited experience with Totsy, it seems this website advertizes for and then conducts closeout sales for any number of different stores and websites.  It looks like the majority of their sales revolve around brand new products trying to gain customer attention, or seasonally old products, simply trying not to go to waste.  The sale I had marked on my calendar (let the patronizing begin), and the only time I’ve actually utilized Totsy, was a Stride Rite shoe sale.

Most parents know that Stride Rite pretty much owns a monopoly on decent children’s shoes, which is why they can get away with charging $50 for a pair of shoes that is only meant to last six months before the kid outgrows them.  This is also why I had the Totsy Stride Rite sale marked on my calendar.  The way it works is the sale is advertised, but you cannot see any of the items nor the prices until the sale opens at a specific time.  Once it does open, you must shop and pay in a hurry, because your cart empties itself every twenty minutes.  I’m sure you can only imagine what happens when two hundred thousand mothers are all attempting to purchase $10 pairs of brand new Stride Rite’s at the same time, online.

Long story short, the crashing Totsy server managed to occupy me through four episodes of Dawson’s Creek.  It seemed like every time I got my cart filled and my information down, the order would fail to go through.  I’d refresh and refresh, and then my twenty minutes would be up and my cart would suddenly be empty.  It is like the virtual equivalent of running through a crowded Walmart on Black Friday, sucessfully grabbing the exact five items you had your heart set on, and just as you get in line to pay for your rightfully obtained deals (and celebrate your luck) a big man in a black coat comes up behind you, grabs your shopping cart out from under your unsuspecting gaze, and chucks your treasures to the back of the store.  There’s no time to retaliate (or cry), because you have to go retrieve them before someone else does, and start the process all over again.  It was an adrenaline rush, if nothing else.

My sale opened at 9:00.  At 11, I finally got a confirmation email.  This should have been cause for a double fist pump, but by this time, between Dawson’s Creek, a hot laptop, and the whiskey, I was pretty much just ready for bed.  Big surprise, the next morning our credit card called with news of some “potentially fraudulent activity” from the night before, as I had been charged for the same order a total of five times.  I called the company and prepared myself for a morning of sitting on hold and more frustration.

Not the case.  I was pleasantly surprised to find the lady answering the phone spoke English as her first language (point for Totsy), one, and was actually really cool about the entire thing from the night before.  I was right when I guessed that they’d been fielding phone calls all morning from other moms (who were possibly much less cool than I was about the whole thing).  She ended up canceling all but one of my orders and said I wouldn’t actually get charged until it shipped.

I sort of chalked the entire thing up to “lesson learned” and though I’ve been diligently checking my credit card statement for the past few weeks, I wasn’t about to go into this deal with the same high hopes I’d had for the consignment sale.

The good news of the week is that today, almost a month later, I received four of the five pairs of shoes I had my eyes on that night (for a grand total of $46).  My credit card was charged appropriately, and I also have a $5 credit in my Totsy account as an apology for the big man in the black coat.  Can’t say I’m in the mood to fight the same laundry-basket-wielding moms who elbow each other through consignment sale doors, literally or virtually, again any time soon, but Totsy has officially scratched a competitive mom itch for me, this month.

Confessions

Psychotic Money Saving

As an above average deal-finder and coupon user, I have admitted before that it is a conscious goal of mine not to let money saving become an obsession.  (The fact that I’m blogging about deal-finding again is arguable proof that I’m not fully succeeding at this goal.)  But I’d like to say for the record, that obsession, for me, is a far milder term than it is for so many others, when it comes to the grocery budget.  I’d say comparatively, I’m not nearly as psychotic as the so-called extreme couponers around me, who’s visible-to-the-public-obsession manifests itself in the following ways: (1) spending hours clipping and organizing coupons into what looks like one of those baseball card display binders, then walking up and down every single aisle of the grocery store attempting to match sale prices with an available coupon; (2) purchasing dozens of Sunday newspapers, or worse, stealing the coupon inserts out of the Sunday papers at Walmart; (3) anger at the cashier when a coupon doesn’t scan correctly or when the price on the register doesn’t match the price they planned to pay, resulting in entire carts full of products left at the front of the store for a bag boy to put away (I swear I’ve never done this but I’ve seen it more times than you can imagine); (4) stockpiling Windex and BBQ sauce whenever it is free (which, by the way, is about every 6 weeks) as if either one of these items will be the most helpful in the event of an apocalypse.  *Sidenote: does anyone ever get to the very bottom of a bottle of Windex?  It is like the Loaves and Fishes of cleaning products.  I think I’m still using the bottle we purchased in Greensboro six years ago.*

Lord, no.  I am not this bad.  I’m actually a little humiliated to admit some of the things I haven’t caught myself doing in a while, which is to say, at one time in my life, I may have displayed one or more of the following behaviors: (1) refusal to purchase something I actually need with the knowledge that I can either find it cheaper somewhere else or have a coupon for it at home; (2) anger at my husband for buying something at Sam’s Club that seemed like a great deal to him, but was still more expensive than the price I can find it for on a regular basis elsewhere; (3) waking up in the wee hours of the morning, panicked at the thought that I’ve let one of my drug store rewards expire, and the subsequent inability to fall back asleep as a result.

In fact, number 3 above, is the reason my brother-in-law believes drug store rewards are a scam.  His explanation is that they are lying to you when they advertise something as “Free, after…” and they force you to come back into the store within a couple of weeks and buy something you probably don’t need, just to spend the “reward” they gave you for the item you purchased guilt-free two weeks ago, believing it was free.  To some extent, I would agree with this.  In fact, I hope more people are treating the system this way than the way I am treating the system.  Because if everyone was able to roll-over drug store rewards in the way that I have done this year, the system would cease to work.  Drug stores would go out of business.  And so would my source of joy.  In life.

So I was doing a little mental math in the car this morning on the way home from Lowe’s Foods.

The subject of my number crunching: gas rewards.

Lowe’s Foods, a local NC grocery store that is on the high end for prices (similar to Rosauers in Spokane or Ukrop’s in Virginia, but a notch below The Fresh Market and Whole Foods) has introduced this new Gas Rewards thing.  I’ve actually been getting the print-outs all year, as my store was one of the pilot stores for trying out the program, and throwing them away.  All these months, I’ve been looking at this little slip of paper and assumed it was telling me I could save five cents TOTAL on my next gas purchase.  I kept filing them away assuming they’d build up over time and then forgetting about them.  Now that it has been launched state-wide, there has been more explanation and advertisement for the way it works.  Every time you spend $100 at Lowe’s you earn five cents off per gallon on your next fillup at certain gas stations.  For a minute, I was kicking myself for all the times I let the reward expire.

But then it hit me.

Five cents off per gallon for every $100 of groceries purchased? 

My car, when the gas light is on, only requires about twelve gallons to fill up.  At five cents per gallon, I’m saving sixty cents.

Without going into the algebra lesson let me break this down quickly: this is less than 1% savings, people.  I think the value of the dollar is depreciating at more rapid rate than I’m accumulating gas rewards.

This also brings me to my next point.  I have admitted to my deal-finding obsession within the confines of grocery and drug store walls.  But nobody has said anything about the gazillions of people who are willing to drive across town to save five cents a gallon on gas.  Number crunching or not, if you were to add up the amount of time it takes to make it to another gas station, not to mention the ounces of gas burned to get there, you might be surprised to find out that your sixty cent savings was spent in the journey.  Who’s the psycho now?

Confessions

A Grammar Lesson

I frequently receive emails with a disclaimer that reads, basically, “I hate emailing you because I’m always afraid you’re correcting my grammar and judging me.” And, for the record, oh, semi-educated world, such fear is not entirely unfounded, but only half-way correct. I’m not correcting your grammar. I’m simply noticing your grammatical mistakes. And judging you.

That said, English teachers actually have a much harder time getting away with grammatical mistakes than the average human, for obvious reasons. It might come as a surprise to know that in sending weekly parent-student emails from my classroom, I actually freaked out before pushing the send button. Only the bravest would have dared call me on an actual mistake, but the truth is, it did happen from time to time. I also reread every single one of these blog posts about four times before pushing “publish” and even then, John (or my mother, or my brother-in-law) often sends me an email before the end of the day with a brief correction.

I know I’ve already admitted to losing my grip on spelling at some point in my life. It seems like it had to have happened with the onset of word processing everything, or more likely, the invention of the squiggly red line and right click button, but it very well may have started in 6th grade when the bell dinged in round 1 at the Area-District Spelling Bee. My word? Podium. (It’s like my subconscious decided at that very moment, “So what if you can’t spell? Good spellers are stoopid! Take that!”)
Sidenote: before publication, I was forced by that very red line to right click “subconscious,” above.

There are certainly such things as “acceptable grammatical mistakes” in the proper context. Some call it poetic license. I call it, my blog. And while I’d never use them in a professional format, or in an educational publication, for example, in my personal writing I wholeheartedly embrace the bending of certain grammatical conventions like punctuation. And sentence fragments. The difference between me and everyone else at this point is, I DO IT INTENTIONALLY.

At any rate, there have been plenty of times whilst wielding a magenta Expo, that I’ve had to stop and ask 29 wide eyes, “Wait a minute. Is that even right?” And one argument that arose with frequency (not only in my classroom but between me and legal writing “friends”) was a question of commas. In fact, up until three days ago, I didn’t even know this particular comma had a name. Now I do. And I understand him. And, if I go back into the classroom one day (assuming the school is in no way associated with the Baptist church), I will make an overhead projection of this very visual, and teach my classes accordingly.

A lesson on The Oxford Comma:

I cannot take credit for finding this picture. I have Facebook and Josie to thank for that. And while I’m standing at my grammar podium, I’ll say this: I know grammar snob blogs exist en masse. I am not the first (and hopefully won’t be the last) to complain. But a recent hormone induced riff with John has put in the mood to make lists, so without further ado, here are the mistakes which make me want to chuck Expo markers at people’s heads. Note: these were also displayed in permanence via homemade laminated posters around the walls of the room I once called home from 8:30 to 4pm, five days a week.

A lot is TWO. WORDS.

Y.O.U. + A.R.E. = you’re.
It isn’t that difficult, people.

Your 4th grade teacher was being lazy when she taught you that sentences cannot begin with the word because. They can. It is called a subordinate clause and it doesn’t matter if it comes at the beginning or the end of the sentence, as long as it is connected with a comma to a subject and a verb. What she should have been proclaiming from the rooftops, instead, was: “Never begin a sentence with the word which, unless you are asking a question.”
NOTE: the rant wasn’t part of the poster. It merely verbally accompanied my pointing out of the lesson within. It often concluded with, “And if you are still in touch with your 4th grade teacher, do the world a favor and pass this little nugget along. If not for yours than for my future.”

There. They’re. Their.
There’s a difference.  They’re’s a difference.  Their’s a difference.

If I see any of the following:
LOL | B4 | b/c | ♥ | 🙂
I will physically throw up on your paper, let it dry, and then hand it back to you.