If Life Were Like An Old Movie...

I love watching old movies. I should clarify, not just any old movies. I prefer the black and white chick flicks of the day. I'm not a John Wayne fan and can do without cowboys, gunfights, and soldiers trudging through mud.

I spent part of the day today watching a classic from the 1930's. I'm sure it didn't win any Academy awards, but it is a classic in my book nonetheless. Why? The reason is simple. Oh, if life were only like an old black and white.

This particular movie centered around four sisters. I can relate, as I am one of four sisters. I will refer to them as Sister A, Sister B, Sister C and Sister D.

Exhibit 1: Sister C, who is rocking a flat-as-Texas stomach, goes into labor. Seriously, there was absolutely no bulge, bump or bloating whatsoever! Really?!? I was sporting the beached whale look months before I gave birth.

Exhibit 2: After giving birth to a "preemie" (not sure how preemie, given the figure of the expectant mother!), Sister C is presented with her newborn. Enter hospital nurse carrying a 4-month old. I could have done without the first few months of no sleep and round-the-clock feedings!

Exhibit 3: Nowhere in Sister C's hospital room is there a plastic water pitcher with matching plastic cup, bed pan, beeping machines with wires going everywhere, etc. Instead, set out neatly on the bedside table are the patient's silver hairbrushes (I am only guessing that they were silver since the movie was in black & white). Okay, the next time I am in the hospital, please dispense of all equipment, plastic ware, dry erase boards and latex glove containers mounted to the wall.  Instead, carefully place my hairbrushes on my bedside table (an equal distance apart from each other). I mean, that is really all that anyone needs anyway, right?

Exhibit 4:  When bringing hospital food to Sister C, it is not brought in on a plastic school lunchroom tray with plastic lids hiding the unpalatable morsels beneath. Nope. Her food was brought in on a silver tray complete with china tea set. Ok, so maybe she had a better HMO plan that I did!

Exhibit 5:  When learning that her husband would be returning from his tour "by winter", she responds with "She (the baby) will be 4 or 5 months old by then and talking really well."  Hmm, talking at 4 or 5 months and then maybe walking by 6 months, reading at 7 months and completely potty trained by 8 months. Yeah, I could deal with that. Just think, I could have a college graduate by the time my baby turns 3!

Enough of Sister C, let's move on to Sister A.

Exhibit 6:  Deciding that she wants to have a child, but not actually give birth, Sister A decides to adopt. She fills out the form, tells her husband afterwards and then all she has to do is wait...for about two weeks. And here we had multiple forms & evaluations, home studies, interviews, parenting classes, etc, etc, etc, and a 3 1/2 year wait, during which my husband had to be completely involved.

Exhibit 7:  Soon after adopting, Sister A gives birth to twins. Aww. Now enter Sister B and her husband who politely ask Sister A and her husband "Since you now have twins, could we have little _____ (insert adopted baby's name)." Yes, they are playing a round of hand-me-down children. Oh, you have two boys and I have two girls, so let's trade one!

I will note here that Sister D spent the entire movie chasing down a prospective husband. No baby drama for her.

Oh yes, if life were like an old movie I'd still fit into a Size 0, wouldn't know what a 2am feeding was, my hair would always be perfect, I would eat off of china & silver everyday (rather than plastic and styrofoam), I would have given birth to an infant prodigy, would have avoided endless adoption forms and parenting classes, and could have traded kids with my sisters!

Can I get a loan for a hair cut?

When did getting your hair done necessitate taking out a second mortgage? For me personally, if I want my hair cut, colored and styled it will cost me $150 at the salon in my town that hasn't made me look like the end of a Q-Tip or had me sporting a pond-scum color. I enjoy getting my hair done, but honestly, I can think of at least 150 other things I could do with $150. So, I usually end up needing or doing something else instead. I haven't had my hair done since July. Yes, I said July. I tried coloring it myself. It was supposed to be Soft Brown. At least that is what the box said. And the model on the cover had beautiful soft brown hair. I'm guessing now it was either her natural color or a good use of PhotoShop (probably the later). My hair, on the other hand, was a light reddish brown. More emphasis on red than brown here. Oh well, I had to embrace my red self because I had 150 other things I needed to spend $150 on.

Today, I took my daughter to get her hair done. She has not had it professionally done in two years. Yes, I said two years. Needless to say, my daughter's hair was in desperate need of some professional help. It was beyond dry, broken off and had more split ends than a freshly plowed wheat field. I've tried to do my daughter's hair. Really, I have. But her hair is of a different texture and requires different care than anyone in my family. I was in way over my head and needed to call in the professional. "Bruce" was wonderful. He didn't berate me too badly over the condition of her hair. He guided me through exactly what he was doing and what it was going to take to get my daughter's hair back to a shiny and healthy state. Several treatments of this, several trims here, this shampoo, that conditioner, this moisturizer, that creme, this spritzer..... (I will state here, for the record, that he was not trying to sell me any products. And I did not purchase any either. He was simply informing me of what needed to be done.) Dollar signs were flashing through my mind like an out of control cash register. To be realistic, I KNOW I've spent as much, if not more, in all the wrong products for her hair in a feeble attempt to repair it myself. I finally passed out when he told me that what she really needed in a few months, once he was able to get the hair all healthy again, was a special treatment. A $300 treatment! I knew she needed this treatment. I had been told by others many times before (none hair professionals, but with similar hair). They had just avoided telling me how much this treatment would cost. I guess they know me all too well and figured I would find 300 OTHER things to do.

After her first appointment, her hair is beautiful. It is soft and silky. Not coarse and frizzy, like it would always be when I did it.  Lesson learned.

PS: I've decided to start accepting Hair Treatment Donations.

Bren

My name is Bren, and I coupon.

I've said before that I am a couponer. Yes, I am one of those people who holds up lines, questions the cashier when something doesn't ring up correctly, and there is usually a manager involved at some point. Now, I am a couponer, but I am NOT an extreme couponer. I have never been able to go into the grocery store and spend $4.39 on a $16 million order. I am happy when I can save more than I spend.

People have asked me how long I've been couponing. Well, that depends on how you look at things. I started clipping coupons when I first got married (22 years ago). I got more aggressive about it when our kids came along. But, and this is a BIG but, I always forgot to take them with me to the store! I would have boxes, envelopes, bags and organizers full of coupons.... all sitting in the cabinet. I would occasionally remember to take some with me, but then would realize on the way home that I forgot to give them to the cashier. Oh yes, I was one extreme couponer! Now flash forward 22 years. I was watching that show on TLC. You know the one. And thought, "Hey, I want groceries that will feed my family of five for a month for $.74." I mean, who wouldn't? Right?? So, I got organized. I found a binder, had some old baseball card sleeves and got up at 6:00 am on Sunday morning to buy 8 papers. I clipped and clipped and clipped and clipped and clipped. I sorted and sorted and sorted and sorted and sorted. Then I decided that 8 papers was really too much. Since then, I've scaled down to two papers (much more manageable), unless I find out that there is going to be a REALLY good coupon in the paper.

This new organized me started in May. Since then I can honestly say that I have saved over $2,000. I buy things only when they are on sale or I have a coupon. The best savings is when you can combine sales and coupons. I do not have a basement piled high with enough food and toiletries to supply Somalia for a year. But, I do have enough for my family for at least a little while.

So, I wanted to share my Harris Teeter trip with you. This week the great grocery chain was having Super Doubles. Meaning, they would double the value of any coupon with a printed value of up to $1.98 (usually stores only double coupons that are up to .99). This means that all of my $1 off coupons have instantly become $2 off, and my $1.50 coupons are now $3 off. You get the idea. So anyway, I went last night and the store had been cleared. There was nothing left of the things on my list. * I will note here that I am NOT a shelf clearer.* This morning, I heard through the couponing grapevine that Harris Teeter had restocked their shelves. The angels were singing and I heard their calls!

Here's what I was able to get today:
4 packages of Sargentos shredded cheese
2 boxes of Trix cereal
2 boxes of Honey Nut Chex cereal
1 Sara Lee pound cake
8 Totinos pizzas
2 packages of Pepperidge Farms Goldfish
2 boxes (24 ct) Eggo waffles
2 packages of Pillsbury brownie delights
2 bottles of Tropicana orange juice
1 carton of Minute Maid orange juice
1 gallon of milk
3 containers of Activia yogurt
2 packages of English muffins
4 packages of Oscar Meyer turkey hot dogs
2 large bags of Snyder's tortilla chips
1 3-packs Orbit gum
2 squeeze bottles of Parkay butter
1 package of Old El Paso Tortilla stuffers
1 box Cocoa Pebbles cereal
1 box of Honey Comb cereal

I paid $60.36, and according to my receipt, I saved (drum roll, please) $108.88.

Also, notice that everything I bought is BRAND NAME (except the milk & English muffins, which were HT brand). My family had been living off generic for so long, they forgot what the "real" stuff looked & tasted like! Before, a typical trip to the grocery store would run between $250-$300, EVERY week! I am proud to say that I have dropped that amount significantly.

So how much are you saving?

Bren

Being a Cheer Mom

You would think that being the mother of a cheerleader is easy. It seemed so simple at first...

As I have mentioned previously, I have a drama queen 9-year old that is also a cheer diva. She began her cheer career at the ripe old age of 7 with a once-a-week tumble class. We were looking for something fun and active that she could do, that she would enjoy and that would also allow her to expend some energy (a nice way of saying, she was wild and I needed a break and prayed that she would conk out early each night). I didn't mind the drive to the gym in another county, and I looked forward to that one hour each week when I would get to talk with actual adults (not just pretend to have conversations with the ones I would occasionally see on TV since our TV was usually tuned in to the Disney Channel or Nickelodeon).  Within a couple of months my daughter had decided that she wanted to be on one of the cheerleading teams at the gym "more than anything else in the world". Since these teams were competitive teams that traveled around doing competitions, my husband and I decided it would be best to take her to a competition first, so that she could see what all was involved. We knew that once she saw the raised stage, the bright lights, the very loud music, stern looking judges and the thousand people watching - she would run for the hills. Yea, right.

But in my mind, cheerleading can't be that time consuming for me, right?

Two years, a gazillion dollars and just as many miles on my car later, I have been appointed a Team Mom, A Gym Mom, Booster Club President, coordinator of whatever, snack bar supply getter, the mom who always has whatever you need in her bag, the copy maker, the garbage collector, the idea bouncer, the money collector, phone answerer, fundraiser organizer.... you get the idea.
 
The once-a-week trip to the gym is a distant memory. A typical day now usually begins with a wake-up call from a coach, followed by a quick shower, the inhalation of a banana or granola bar (ok, usually it's a Reese's Cup) while speeding safely driving down the highway to get to my diva to practice on time. By the time we return home, the sun has long set and I want nothing more than to go to bed or a shot of something strong.

So here I am. At the gym. Writing my blog. I've been here since 8:45 this morning and will be here until 9:00 tonight. I haven't seen the other members of my family in three days. I think they still live with me, but I'm not sure at this point. The only evidence of them has been a sink full of dirty dishes and massive amounts of empty food wrappers/boxes and soda cans in the trash/recycle bin.

Yes, I am a cheer mom (I even have a t-shirt that says so). I am my daughter's biggest supporter. And despite the empty checkbook, endless volunteer hours, countless drive-thru meals and the real temptation to put a blowup mattress in the gym office, in the end - it is all worth it!

National Champion!

Bren

The Great Hamster Chase

I am a sucker. I will be the first to admit that.

Recently my daughter wanted a hamster. She talked about nothing else for weeks. So I finally gave in and took her to the pet store to pick out a little furry rodent. And cage. And rodent igloo. And running ball. And bedding. And food. And....and.....and....  It was a cute little thing, and once again - I'm a sucker. My daughter named it Cookie Dough and we brought her home, put her cage together and helped her to settle into her new surroundings. She seemed content, but little did we know that Cookie Dough is a master escape artist.

A little less than 48 hours later, I discovered that Cookie Dough had made a break for it when one of her crawling tubes was not properly secured. How the little sucker was able to push the tube completely loose and off of the cage is still a mystery. We weren't even sure how long the fuzz ball had been missing. For hours we scoured my daughter's bedroom. We tore apart her bed, her nightstand, the dresser, the boxes of toys. Dumped out her basket of shoes and another basket of stuffed animals. We searched her closet, then did it all again. And again.  Then we moved on to our son's room, then the bathroom and finally my room. We searched every nook and cranny, then took our search downstairs. Could a rodent the size of a chicken nugget really make its way down a flight of stairs? We weren't sure, but with a child in hysterics, we were going to keep searching. That is when we noticed that one of our dogs was looking rather satisfied. Guilty even. This is the canine that likes to bring us "presents" and leave them at the door. We have been blessed with gifts of mice, birds, frogs, moles (lots of moles) and the occasional groundhog (I kid you not!). This is also the same dog that had not taken her eyes off of Cookie Dough since we brought her home. Taps began playing in my head. And as the realization of what had occurred began to sink in with my daughter, her wailing increased ten-fold. Cookie Dough had come to our family as a pet and ended up as a midday snack.

My husband and I felt so bad, that we (yes, we both are suckers) went out and bought another fuzzy chicken nugget. Cookie Dough 2. We brought her home and got her settled into her predecessor's cage, making sure that everything was securely connected (we wanted to keep our dog on a strict dog-food-only diet!).

That night, our still distraught daughter decided to sleep in our bed. She had not quite warmed up to Cookie Dough 2 yet. So we all settled in: my husband, my daughter, me, and two of our dogs who sleep under our bed. At 3:00 am we hear scratching under our bed and one dog (the gracious present giver) jumps up bumping her head on the bed rails. My husband and I sit bolt upright. Could it be? No, it was impossible. But we were going to check to be sure. As my husband escorts (ok, throws) the dog out of the room (to be on the safe side) I peer under the bed. Actually, I was laid out flat on my belly with a flashlight. There under the bed I see a dust ball with feet fly past our Chi-weenie (who is completely oblivious and just wants to go back to sleep). For the next hour we chase, corner, search, listen, and build baracades. We look like we are reenacting an episode of the Three Stooges. Our daughter is sitting on the bed shouting instructions "She went that way! Over there!). Cookie Dough certainly is a sneaky one, not to mention lightening fast! We trap her under the bed and she bolts for the nightstand. We block her exits and she slips past anyway leaving a blazing tail towards the chest-of-drawers. She bolts out from the back and runs behind a bookcase. I finally have her cornered when she decides to try to make another break for it and runs up inside a roll of wrapping paper. There is no escaping now! Once I finally have her and our daughter is rejoicing, we have to figure out what to do with her. Cookie Dough 2 has taken up residence in her cage, and we quickly learned that hamsters that were not raised together cannot bunk together. Lucky for me, we had a spare found-at-a-yard sale cage that my daughter had initially refused to use because of the color. By 4:00 am we were the proud owners of two Cookie Doughs in two cages. And life just got more complicated!

Cookie Dough 1 has since gone on to escape two more times. The first of which, she was found and captured behind the couch in the living room. The second time, however, she actually did not escape so much as was helped out of her "holding pen" (a big box with some shavings where we put her when we are cleaning her cage). Yes, she was helped out. By our dog. Who had her in her mouth. I did mention she hadn't taken her eyes off of the fur ball. My son was able to get the dog to drop her, then with another Stooges reenactment, we caught her once more.

Cookie Dough 1

Chloe (the gift giver) just waiting for opportunity to strike - again

Anyone want a little furry chicken nugget?

Bren

The tears of youth

I was planning on writing about something else today, but changed my mind with events unfolding at my homestead.

My 9-year old cheerleading diva just burst into tears. Not "look at me because I need attention" tears, but real sobbing, shirt soaking, alligator tears. She did the same thing a few days ago. Now, to understand my (and my dh's) frustration with this is know that typically when our daughter is upset, she refuses to talk. At all. Not a word. Nada. Just sobbing and wailing. And usually we have no idea what is wrong. Such is the case as of late...

When our daughter sunk into her wailing isolation a few days ago, it took us HOURS to finally get her to speak. The cause of her the-world-is-over-for-me tears? Club Penguin. For those of you not familiar with Club Penguin, it is an internet game by Disney, where members create an animated penguin, decorate an animated igloo and play silly games. Yes, an internet game has brought my child to producing rivers of tears. And not just once. The incident a few days, the one that took hours to figure out, was over the fact that she could not log into this virtual penguin land. Turns out, Disney forgot to renew it's web domain. Disney. The company that was built on making children happy had now done something that produced an ocean of tears for children all over the world! In my mind, it wasn't such a big deal. An inconvenience, yes, especially since we are paying a nominal monthly fee for our daughter to have access. But apparently for the countless kids out there, this event was of catastrophic proportions.

Today's ordeal was almost as life-ending. The cheer diva's special code did not open the right virtual catalog! Oh, the horrors! To be young again...

Of course, I may be reduced to tears as well if I had ordered Cosmo and got Fisherman's Digest instead.

Vandals

My home has been vandalized. If you have ever seen my house, you would probably ask yourself "How can they tell?" I will be the first to admit that I am NOT one to keep a clean house. At this moment I am trying to divert my eyes away from the stacks and stacks of stuff that need to be gone through, thrown out, given away or just put away. But yes, we were vandalized.

Throughout my years, I've seen homes that were egged by reckless youth (not me, of course) or tp'd (that's toilet-papered, if you didn't know) after a big game. I've always felt compassion for the homeowners who had to clean the mess in the morning. Wet tp - yuck! I've seen mailboxes dented from baseball bats, lawns strewn with trash, and even recently a front yard covered in pink flamingos (come on, THAT has to be vandalism!). I feel fortunate that other than the occasional drive-by littering, we had never been vandalized. (PLEASE DON'T GET ANY IDEAS!) But my serene existence has come to an end.

We came home to discover two holes in our garage wall. They are not large holes, but still an obvious indication that someone was trying to get into our house. As you can see by one of the pictures, the culprit(s) made it all the way through the drywall and stopped when he/she reached the blue insulation. And the vandalism was not confined just to the wall. A ladder, shop vac, several items from the recycle bin, gardenhose, spray can, roller blades, golf club, football and something else we haven't been able to identify were among the other items damaged in the attack.


We are not sure what prompted the vandalism. It could have been done to get to our electronics (take note: most of which are broken), although going through a door makes more sense than through the wall. It certainly wasn't to get to some secret stash of cash (Note: there is none - secret or not) or a jewelry box filled with the queen's jewels (think cheaper than cz). Priceless works of art? Maybe - I do have a couple pieces hanging on the refrigerator (beautifully colored inside the lines!). Our guess to the more probable reason - boredom. Yes, this (or these) culprits were probably bored and looking for entertainment - at our expense.

It did not take us long in our investigation to find and apprehend the perps. Yes, there were two. Both are juveniles, what a shame. However, we have decided not to press charges.

Perp #1Perp #2

But their punishment will be severe! I'm thinking BATH!

Bren

The Procrastinator

It is October and I have not even begun to think about Halloween. It is not because I am anti-Halloween or refuse to let my children participate, I actually enjoy Halloween in its full chocolate glory. No, it is because in my mind it is still September and Halloween is a distant holiday not to be thought of for at least four more weeks. WHEN DID IT BECOME OCTOBER??

So here I am on October 28, no pumpkins, no decorations, my youngest child has no costume and she has a costume party to go to in one hour!! Yes, I did conveniently forget about the party, but that was partly due to the fact that she has been sick and I just assumed (ok, hoped) that she wouldn't be well enough to attend. I am now feeling like the bad mom watching my seven-year old dig through her dress-up box looking for something to wear. ANYTHING to wear. The problem is most everything is too small. (It has been a while since we've gone through her dress-up box). Everything else is "too itchy".

When my boys were little I actually made their costumes. And there were some good ones, too. Among the favorites were a Hershey kiss, a pencil and a robot. As they got older, they wanted store-bought scary costumes. And by the time my daughter came along, I was thrilled to buy the princess dresses. It was a nice change from goblins, vampires, monsters and other creepy creatures.

But now what am I going to do? Thirty minutes and no costume. Maybe an old sheet with a couple of eyes cut out? Better yet, ONE eye (shows more character and takes less time!).

Bren

Misadventures of a Homeschooler - The Beginning

I think I will have to rename this blog "Misadventures of a Homeschooler" or "What Was I Thinking?" My daughter and I are on Day 3 of our new homeschool adventure. My dh, I'll refer to him as DrJ, (as a basketball fan, he LOVES this! However he is neither an MD nor a basketball player - at least not since knee surgery) and I decided on homeschooling after years of consideration. Many of my friends and relatives homeschool and I asked for their input on my decision. What I quickly learned was that everyone has their own idea about homeschool and their own style of teaching.

I must admit that I was confused about one method referred to as "unschooling". I thought that it must be some sort of traditional-school detox and I would need to set up an inhouse rehab center like you see on TV. Was my daughter going to need an IV drip of some solution called "Bully Busters"? Turns out, much to my relief, that "unschooling" is actually a teaching method where children learn by a more hands-on approach. No detox, whew!

What we (and I say "we" even though it is really "I", but I don't want DrJ to feel left out) decided was a more academic approach using lots of books and workbooks, but in a more relaxed and flexible setting. At least this is what I keep telling myself. And, so far it has worked. Of course, we are only on Day 3.

I am anticipating many battles, much frustration and I know that the few gray hairs that I do have will multiply rapidly. But at the same time my daughter and I are excited. She loves having school in her pjs and not having to raise her hand to get permission to use the restroom. We have decided that instead of just reading about things in books, we are going to go see them. Next week is the aquarium. I guess we really should get dressed for that one.