I'm a Slave to the Sale

I have this problem. I tend to obsess about stupid things. I buy most of the kids’ clothing at The Children’s Place because they have sales that kick some serious pa-tooty. At the end of the winter, I bought 3-in-1 coats for the kids. They cost eight dollars. The best part is- if they don’t fit when the little fluffy white stuff starts falling from the sky, I just find the receipts and take them back, as long as they still have the tags attached. You can’t beat that with a big ugly stick made out of a California Redwood.

So, what, you may ask, is the problem here? The problem is that I bought shorts and flip-flops that were on sale for the little guy today. I’m so completely enamored of the store’s clearance prices that purchasing something that is only on sale makes me insane. I am absolutely convinced that within the next two weeks, the items I just purchased will be marked down to a ridiculously low price, and that makes my head reel. My brain is fighting amongst itself: “you should have waited for the better sale” right hook to the jaw “if you wait they won’t have his size” karate kick to the chest. (It would seem that I don’t have a little angel on one shoulder and a devil on the other- I have a boxing champion and a black belt in karate.)

This scenario rather debilitates me because I feel as though I cannot exercise my own free will and purchase anything from the store save for those few times during the year when a bright-red clearance sign heralds the good news. Unfortunately, my son registered about a seven on the my-kid-needs-shorts-real-bad scale; that fact, coupled with the possession of a coupon, is what led me to my erratic behavior.

I sometimes think that coupons are a common-sense killer. Instead of waiting just a bit longer for that sale that may, or may not be, around the corner, a person clutches the coupon that promises a discount and watches the days tick down until the date it absolutely must be redeemed or it will expire, at which point the person must use it or lament its loss. Whoever thought up the idea to actually put the power of the make-your-own-sale mentality into the actual hand of the consumer was a genius. It’s taunting, tempting, and titillating.

I realize that my irrational panic at missing a good sale is absurd. I once heard bargain hunting referred to as the female equivalent of “the thrill of the hunt”, and I believe that I have a bad case of bargain-hunting-induced-adrenalin-rush addiction. I do find it quite thrilling when I can buy my kiddos five well-made t-shirts for ten bucks.

Still, I have a problem. Instead of seeking the help of a qualified therapist I decided to confess my consumerism sins to the world, and hope that the release of sharing such asinine conduct will help me to overcome this deficiency in my character and enable me to become a better person. A person who can look a bright-red “extra 50% off already reduced prices” sign in the eye and say… well, I don’t know what I’d say. I may need another blogging session. I’m not cured yet.

I Have Subdued this Muffin- it is MINE!!!

"Please Don't Do Anything Foolish"

My husband is off to spend the weekend in the woods, hiking and camping with a group of his friends. The forecast: hot and wet. It will be a time to grunt, slap backs, and hack down mighty oaks for firewood with a pocketknife. There will be lots of smacking at insects as they buzz in and out of the ear canal and tickle the back of the neck. Sunscreen will not be worn and the men will come home moaning for aloe and Solarcaine. When they do get back they’ll be stinking to high heaven because during their time of seclusion they will not change underwear or shower; that way, if anyone gets separated from the group they will be easy to locate using only the olfactory senses. Water will be boiled over a fire to make coffee. When someone realizes that a can-opener was not on the “to-bring” list, a machete will be brought forth to open the cans of ground beef hash and baked beans. The privacy of a bathroom door has been exchanged for a wide tree trunk, and a patch of uneven ground dotted with rocks in just the right places so as to poke an annoying finger into the spine has taken the place of freshly laundered sheets and a comfortable bed. I just hope that the forecast is wrong: it will be hard to enjoy my extended sleeping quarters if the thunder is crashing madly about me, and images of lightening strikes are flashing before my eyes.

I Conquered the Haystack

I try to stay organized so that when I am looking for something I can easily find it. In an attempt to find a particular picture frame that I had stored away before we moved last year, I kept stealing a few minutes here and there to sneak up into the attic and look for it. This went on all morning and it was well into the afternoon before I finally found it.

During my searches I found some fun and interesting stuff that I had forgotten about completely. I found my super-compact spy binoculars from when I was a kid. (Yes, I wanted to be a spy. Being a super-resourceful smart person has always appealed to me.) I also found a cool tool for blowing really huge bubbles. I’m not sure how it works and I’m afraid that my toddler will inhale a large amount of soap instead of blowing the bubbles out of the proper end of the tube. He’d probably be belching bubbles for a week. Maybe I should put that item back where I found it for now.

Most of the boxes and totes are labeled, because if everything was just packed into nondescript boxes and then the boxes stacked haphazardly here and there it would be impossible to locate anything. I went through some of the totes three or four times; I looked through boxes that couldn’t possibly contain picture frames. I tried to determine how long it had been since I’d seen the frame- was it possible that I had gotten rid of it?

I finally found it. In the tote marked “photos”, of all places. Imagine that. In a shoe box where I usually keep packets of loose pictures. Oh well. I was just glad that I didn’t have to run up and down the attic stairs anymore, or sift through boxes while the merciless sun beat upon the roof of the house, cooking me alive.

During my hunt I happily realized that I have a lot more stuff up there to get rid of then I thought, so that means we’ll have a lot more room in which to put all of the stuff that we will acquire over the next couple of years. Acquire/store, use/don’t use, recycle/throw away. It’s a vicious cycle.

Destructo Baby

Let's dismantle the table's centerpiece and smash Mommy's glasses.

Danger! Danger!

It is time to get a new gas range. The stove was here when we bought the house, and it has never worked well. As a matter of fact the stovetop didn’t light at all when we first moved in. After some major scouring three out of the four burners worked relatively well, but that fourth one still won’t light. It can be complicated to fry fish, heat a spicy white sauce, cook rice and steam vegetables all at the same time; actually, I can’t do all of those things on the stove tops simultaneously- something always ends up in the microwave.

The front left burner used to emit a semi-large fireball while igniting if another burner was already lit. My husband used to crouch down so that he could look the burner directly in the eye, like he was trying to give it the I’m-the-boss-of-you stare and frighten it into submission, but all it would do was continue to click, click, click. Many a time did I advise him to move his eyebrows out of the way of the fireball that was to come if he didn’t want to smell of burnt hair for the rest of the week. Or perhaps he would like to turn the knob off and stop the gas from leaking into the entire house. The burner works fine now, but my husband still doesn’t know how to operate the range.

It is the oven’s manner of operation that has sealed the fate of the entire range. When it ignites, it initially omits a rather ominous stench of gas, and the whoosh of ignition is a little too intense. I thought the smell was possibly a bit stronger than the oven in our previous apartment, but it dissipates almost instantly so I wasn’t really bothered a whole lot by it. However, my mom was here last night and having never had a gas range she was surprised at the odor. The more I thought about it and talked with other family members who have gas ranges, I realized that the oven is taking too long to light (hence the reek of gas and the caliber of the whooshing), just like the stove burner used to. As I am not interested in manufacturing an explosion worthy of director Michael Bay, I intend to purchase a new oven as soon as possible.

The Most Gorgemous Girl in the World