Good Deals

With my new education on managing money, I have become even more frugal. I know, some of you are saying, "How is this possible?" and others are saying, "I guess I can expect a bag of rocks for Christmas." What if they're pretty rocks?

Anyway, yesterday I stole the show with a sweep up at a certain department store that starts with the letter K. While cleaning my room the other day (miracle)I found a pair of shorts I never wore. I bought them early in the summer and grabbed the wrong size, so they were set aside to eventually return.

While Dave vegged out in front of football and the kids napped, I toted the shorts back to the store and was granted a $29 store credit. I began digging through the clearance racks in the kids department, then the men's department and then, since I couldn't leave myself out, the women's department. I left the store with something for everyone: 2 shirts and 1 pair of pants for Maiya, 1 pair of jeans for Haven, a nightgown for myself (I'm girly, accept it, I have) and 2 t-shirts for Dave. I paid $3 on top of my store credit.

Not too shabby. Especially in exchange for a pair of ill-fitting shorts.

While I'm bragging, I might as well tell you about some other great finds I've recently made. Trash picking is not best thing that a girl in New Jersey can do for her reputation, but I'm not a Jersey Girl at heart. So, when I saw someone throwing away a perfectly good deck chair and table, I loaded it in the car and have been enjoying on an almost daily basis.

Another day I was driving around town and found a swingset on the curb, sporting a FREE sign.

And just today I found a small cabinet, just what I've been looking for, sitting curbside. Waiting for my frugal fingers to pick it up, dust it off, give it a couple of touch-ups with a black marker, and call it mine.

So, I continue to "shop" but in more (what's a good word for it?) creative ways. I don't think I will ever regret saving money, but I have certainly felt the sting of regret after spending it.

Potty time at our house

Potty training is one of those things that you do in life that reflects your personality. Every mom I know who has even attempted it, had a different method. So, in the past few months I've listened and read and now I'm writing my own script.


Before two of his baths last week, Haven stripped off his clothes, sat on the potty that has been gathering stray hairs for months, and peed. Like it was nothing. Like it was part of his routine. I screamed and threw a party (bathroom style) and he smiled.


Then, suddenly, came his conviction that he could do everything himself. When he began to shriek "ALL BY MYSELF!" about anything from climbing into his carseat to washing his hair, I decided that pooping and peeing is something he is welcome to do all by himself. Thus I realized that while he may have been ready for potty training for a couple of weeks, I finally had the will to do it as well.


We're going gradually. I anticipate that this will take a while (weeks, months) and that's okay with me. Any progress is progress (says the therapist). Today he kept a pull-up dry for over 4 hours. Yesterday, however, he was wearing tighty-whities and peed on Dave twice within an hour. We're in the sit-on-the-potty-every-half-hour phase.

So, our style is slowly, no pressure. I'll be the one carrying loads of tighty-whities back and forth to the washer.


Feel free to leave your tips for potty training! What worked with your little guy or girl? What didn't work?

What I Did with My Summer.

Did implies that the summer has ended. Which it has. Abruptly. Silently. Quite unkindly, if you ask me. It was such a nice summer, even though the weather wasn't.

I learned a lot and felt mostly that I was vacillating between lost and found. That's why I had little to put on this blog. I could have filled it with stories, but my thoughts were too far gone to sum it up without giving more of myself than I wanted.

I will attempt to end the cryptic speech now.

Haven, Maiya and I spent a lot of time at the lake, as we anticipated. Not as much as I would have hoped, but those sunny days of splashing and finally watching Haven wade in up to his shoulders were good enough for me. Maiya started walking toward the end of the summer, but her fearlessness around the water remained. One day my sister, Jes, was with me and noted, "I guess you don't go to the beach and read a book." I don't think I will do that for many years.

I took a 12-week course on personal finances. I learned more than I can say, and I think Dave and I will look back on this summer as the time that we made changes in our personal finances that were significant. The course covered issues from budgeting to giving to insurance and lot more in between. It's the type of stuff we all should have learned before we got jobs with real salaries (or at least before we quit our jobs with salaries to stay home with our kids). If anybody wants info on it, let me know. I think they offer classes nationwide at different churches and organizations.

Finally, and importantly, my baby sister, Rebecca, got married this summer. The sister I remember as an infant got married. The sister who made us all laugh and hammed it up every time she had a chance, danced her little butt off at her wedding reception and left a married woman. Her husband is a really cool guy (who Dave would have liked to wish "welcome to the family and good luck, you'll need it" in his toast if everyone had a sense of humor to accommodate that, but Dave wasn't sure). So, I have my first brother-in-law and the kids have their first uncle, well, by official relation that is. Congrats to Bec & Phil!

There will more posting on my part, I miss this blog. Thank you for coming back to read, if you have. Hope you also had a restorative summer.