Things I do to save sanity and money

So Friday was a dinner swap. I have one Monday night as well.  My Monday night is an established, once-a month, 10 family very well run swap that I've been doing regularily for, oh, maybe 6 months now?  Anyways, I like the idea of only cooking once a month, so I'm trying to get a second group going. Right now 5 families (not necessarily the same families) swap every other month.  We meet on a 1st or 3rd Friday and bring our kids over as soon as we're done doing our morning errands.  This time for my chicken parmesan (see my post about 40 pounds of chicken) I got a meatloaf, a swiss chicken, a beef stroganoff and enchiladas in return.  Not too shabby, eh?  I also like the idea of when I see my ingredients on sale, I can stock up and use them to make the same meal and trade with someone who got different stuff on sale. 

This morning Carter and his friend were invited to a classmate's birthday party at Chuck E. Cheese.  I'm not personally a fan of Chuck E Cheese.  He and his crack-like inducing games sound like a nightmarish way to spend 2 hours.  Esp at 9:30 in the morning.  Luckily it was a drop-off party.  Let me explain this concept to my friends who still just have toddlers or preschoolers at home.  Around Age 6, some of the birthday parties your child will be invited to will a) not require you to stay and b) be with people you don't really know that well, so 1) you don't know if you have enough in common to stay and chat them up without it being awkward 2) they could be axemurderers, but do have a child the same age as yours and somehow your child knows theirs.  Anyways, you are allowed to "drop off" your child and go do whatever you need to do for a few hours while your kid gets all jacked up on sugar and excitement by another parent.  It means, in exchange for a birthday present, your child gets to have a ton of fun and you get 1-2 glorious hours by yourself.  When Carter had his party, I allowed drop off because I know what an incredible gift this is to other parents. I have to be at the party anyways, it's my kid, I may as well bless someone else with this gift...

Anyways, so I left Henri and Valerie with a half-awake Paul before he could figure out exactly what was going on.  Besides, he owed me since he'd be playing games from noon on until all hours of the evening.  I dropped the boys off, introduced them and myself and thanked the mom for allowing this glorious time to myself. I then headed across the parking lot to the Jubilee Heart & Home Thrift Store .  I'd never been there before.  I liked that they were open at 9:30 on a Saturday morning, they had lots of volunteers helping and organizing (which was good, because the sizes were sort of right, there were a lot of things out of place in the clothing), they also had nice stuff at REALLY good prices.  Pretty much all I had time to check out was the women's clothing.  I tried on probably 70 pieces.  Being on the Eastside, it had nice stuff, though I'm learning that rich ladies are skinny ladies.  A lot of the great stuff was size Small.  But no matter, I found a few gems.

Item one was a lovely brown Buxton laptop bag about $60-$80 new for a steal at $8 with a small scuff on the back.

Item two was a Nine West purch with brown crock in good shape with the little keychain attached.   I would guess it would be $55 new  I got it for $4.  I like it because it's a little larger than my everyday Coach bag I carry. 

I got these tops for $4 each...

Cute black lace top with liner. I promise to wear black under it when I actually leave the house in it.

cute, comfy assemetrical pink shirt...

Stretchy Brown top with tie-back-Banana Republic brand, my own skirt...

Cute & comfy summer skirt-J Crew with my own blouse...

Entire outfits from the store... $8 & $10 total for top and skirt... the first top is a cute sweater tank with rose detail.

This one I love the bottom line of the skirt!

Cute top with my cami...

I also got two other unnoteworthy tops.  so it was successful. Fun, summer clothes!

MOPs end of year tea

My Thursday MOPs has a ladie's tea and testimony time at the end of the year.  Our table leader thought it would be fun if we had hats for our tea :)  I got my hot glue gun, silk flowers and an old cap of Paul's and got to work...

Goin' on a Bear Hunt...

Before I tell you about the bear hunt, I'll update about our health.  We all got better on the antibiotics.  Then yesterday I got stuffy again and without going into too much detail, let's say my infection is not gone.  I called the doctor this morning and she's called in some stronger antibiotics for me.  The babies seem fine, though. Valerie has a followup to be sure her infection is gone on Friday.

Monday swimming was cancelled from a "brown out" Tuesday we went to gym class like normal and today was bible study, Costco trip and then I came home to the phone calls.

There was a bear at Carter's school! It was featured on the local news.  They went on partial lockdown and then decided not to let students walk home and gave parents to option of bussing (if you did not call) or picking up by car (if you call). I figured Carter would love riding the bus, so I set up camp with the babies in the front yard and we waited. And waited. Carter's teacher called 1/2 hour after end of school asking if I was picking him up. I said we were waiting for the bus. I guess Carter couldn't describe which side of the school he lived on (one bus went north, one went south) so they were trying to figure out which bus to put him on.

He showed up the last off with the playground teacher, all smiles.

Us waiting...

Carter coming off the bus...

Here's his tale...




Oh, and can't forget. Paul came home one day this week with this lovely mark on his head. Apparently they were screwing around at work (some balancing game?) and he fell.  He walked in the door and I said, "um, no offense, but what the hell happened to you?

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