Month: August 2010

Some Perspective, Please!

That what I think some people desperately need to get–perspective.

I’ve been watching Platinum Weddings. I really have no good excuse for this, other than it’s a classic train wreck scenario.

Featured in one episode (yes, all of this occurred in one couple’s wedding!) was an engagement ring that cost as much as our house, a linens budget equal to the price of our new minivan (and it’s not like you even get to keep them!), and an overall wedding budget that is approximately the same as what my husband will make in 20 *years* of work.

Plus, the bride “needed” almost as many different dresses for her one “big day” as I have in my entire wardrobe! Do you really need separate dresses for the waltz and the rumba? Perhaps they’re getting married on Dancing with the Stars? And that doesn’t even include the other two dresses the bride insists she “needs!” Oh yeah, and different hairstyles to accommodate each dress. Are the guests really willing to sit around waiting while the bride has her hair done multiple times? Mine sure wouldn’t have been!

I’m sure filet mignon makes for an elegant dinner, but can you imagine the cost? Especially for 150 guests! And someone should really tell people that squab is just a *pigeon* before they shell out the big bucks to serve it for their wedding.

I refuse to believe America’s economy is in that much trouble when people who are my age can throw away that much money on one day!

Back to School Shopping

I love buying school supplies. I really do. Homeschooling is really just one big excuse to buy new crayons, new glue, and cool new notebooks all year-long. And don’t get me started on the books I can pass off as “necessary” for education!

But back to school shopping is a whole other animal. I hate it. Hate it with a passion. Where else can you find desperate mothers, whining children, and overworked employees all in the same three aisles. (If you’re thinking Christmas, even that isn’t *this* bad!)

It took all my strength to load up the children and head to Wal-Mart today. I knew it would be a zoo, but I finally had Moose’s school supply list, and a rapidly dwindling amount of time in which to find everything on it. One of the benefits of homeschooling is that *I* make the list, and we can shop early, before everyone else is thinking about school, but when the stuff is already on sale. But Moose needs stuff for his year in the public school, so off we went.

We encountered children running around the school aisles unsupervised, trying to find the perfect color binder, or the folder with the coolest picture (hey, I remember Lisa Frank supplies; I know what’s it’s like!), or the right pencils, while their totally oblivious mothers stare dumbfounded, trying to find the pack of *16* crayons instead of eight or 24.

We also encountered mothers with no conscience, armed with heavy tanks, I mean shopping carts, ready to run down anybody and everybody, just to get the last box of 25 cent crayons. And if we weren’t dodging the soul-less cart wielders, we were trying to get around the cell phone happy moms, calling their friends and trying to figure out just what they were supposed to buy, all while blocking most of the aisle with their carts, their bodies, and their occasionally present children, who would show up every so often to throw something else in the cart when mom wasn’t watching.

And don’t even get me started on the store employees. I feel for them, I really do. I’ve worked in retail, and I know it’s no picnic, especially at busy times of the year. But I have to wonder if 2:30 in the afternoon the week before school starts is the best time to plunk a ladder in the middle of the most-traveled school aisle, causing backups that rival the interstate as rush hour. Or maybe it would be a better idea to leave a palette in the middle of the main aisle, forcing to people to walk to the back of the store and around, only to have to stand in a mob to get to the discounted school supplies on the other side.

The best part of the trip, however, is the amount of stock available. After several trips between the seasonal school aisles, and the regular school aisles, convinced that I will *never* find half of the stuff on my list, I notice my full cart, and think I must be done. So I check over my list–I finally found the right crayons, (after checking in two different places), have the right size binder after searching three spots, got the scissors on the first try, folders that were replaced partway through the trip but are now suitable, watercolor paints…wait, no paints. No paints in the seasonal aisles, no paints in the regular aisles, no paints left in the whole store.

Nope, this is the *best* part of the trip. The realization that after I wait in the checkout for 20-plus minutes, I get to go across town to Target and start the whole crazy process, with a whole new group of crazy shoppers, all over again, this time in search of *one* elusive item!

(I did find the paints at Target-the last package of them. Clearly God was watching out for me, as He must have known I didn’t have the patience to trek to undetermined store number three with all four children in tow!)

The Start of a New Year

Tomorrow marks the beginning of the third year of our journey in homeschooling. I can’t believe we’ve been at it so long! Turkey and Bunny will be second graders, so I guess that makes me a second grade teacher.

One of my favorite things to do the night before the first day of school is assemble all the books that we’ll be using that week (and only that week, you should see the rest of the books we have for the whole year!) on the schoolroom table so that they’re waiting for them in the morning, Christmas style.

This year, since they each have so many workbooks (seven!!!), supplies, and their very own My First Catechisms, I also made a stack on each side of the table where they sit, with all of their very own things.

I took a picture of all my assembled teacher materials, too. It’s a little intimidating to look at them all sitting together!

The schoolroom is all clean and organized (for now, anyway)–I’m very happy with what I’ve been able to put together, even though I know I’m going to have to seriously rework things in a year or two when Ladybug starts school.

Yes, it doubles as a guest room, but the bed makes a great place to spread out all of the books we’re currently using!

No Microwave: Day Fourteen

Tonight we had leftovers for dinner, which I would normally heat up in the microwave, but of course I had to use the stove instead. This was probably my biggest problem day since going microwave-free.

Dinner was thawed, but *very* cold when I put it in the oven to reheat. I was hoping it would take 25-30 minutes to heat through, but it ended up taking closer to an hour. How I missed the convenience of the quick-cooking microwave today!

In other news, I found a microwave I like. I was even all set to buy it (on sale!) at Best Buy this week. There was just one little problem. The display model was stainless steel, which doesn’t go with our kitchen, but the tag on it said also available in black, which is what we need. So, I asked the sales person to look it up, find out how I could get it, and what the price difference would be. When he looks it up, however, he finds no black model of that microwave in their system. Huh? How do you intentionally print up a tag saying an item is available, when it doesn’t exist at all?!?

Well, it *does* exist, because I found it on Samsung’s website, but I can’t find anywhere I can get it retail. I’m hoping that maybe it’s a new model (please don’t be an old, discontinued one!) that Best Buy *will* have in the future, but doesn’t have yet. So, I’ll wait some more, I suppose. I *really* liked that model. Actually, it’s the only one I’ve found that I really like, and that goes with our kitchen, and is in our budget. So I think waiting is probably my best option for now.

In the meantime, I just have to make sure to plan a little farther ahead when reheating leftovers for dinner!