Hehe, I got ya with the title, didn't I? I wonder how many people will come to read this blog just based on that title alone? Maybe I should start including words like sex, penis, vagina, ass, and lesbian and see how many hits I get. I don't use one of those trackers that figures out what words people used to find me, though it is an interesting idea.
So back to the title. There was some stripping going on at Wal-Mart tonight. OK, just for the record, I'm still on Friday night even though I KNOW the date says it's Saturday. That's just how I roll. That sounded kind of silly coming from me, but what ya gonna do?
I took a nap earlier tonight, and that's why it is now 4:21 in the morning and I'm no where near ready for bed. I went grocery shopping after waking, I left the house around 11. I brought Izzy with me. Why did I take my precocious ever so curious and mischieveious 2 year old out at 11 at night? Because that boy climbs out of bed, and out of his pack n play. I knew Jason wouldn't be able to stay awake with him until I got home, the whole being up since 5 in the morning thing and all. The olders were fine staying and watching movies. When I got home, they were in bed, so I'm assuming dear old Dad sent them to bed once the movie was done anyway.
I digress, but don't I always? I went over and picked up MF Jenn, and off to Wal-Mart we went. There is beauty in shopping so late. Fewer people shopping, and they are stocking then, so if it isn't out, there is always someone close by that you can have go check for you to see if they do have it. I have $200 to spend on food, and spend it I shall. That money will get us enough food to last about 2 weeks, thankfully. We'll just have to top off a little next week, with water, soda, bread, that kind of thing.
I remembered to bring my canvas bags, the ones that the cashiers dread seeing. I use them because I have 4 kids and I feel that just by having those kids, that's enough damage to the environment, you know, heating the house and driving them all over and stuff like that. When Jenn and I shop, we go through the entire store. By the way, I forgot the tomato paste and the mayo. That's what I get for not writing out a complete list. Again, I digress. We start over in the General Merchandise and work our way to the Groceries, more often than not. I needed cat litter anyway. I picked up a couple of tiny, but very nice smelling candles. Jenn needed yarn for the blankets she is making for Christmas gifts.
I was just at Wal-Mart yesterday. I didn't look for little boy belts though. So I needed to look for those for Izzy, and size 3T pants. I want them that big so that I know he will have room to grow in them. However, as he has no butt to hold them up, they will fall down because Izzy is not a chunker, he's a heavy big boy, but fat isn't what he is made of, so he NEEDS a belt on too big pants. We are looking at toddler boy clothes and Jenn asks if she can buy Izzy a "Cars" shirt.
Keep in mind, more often than not, I won't buy characters anything for the kids. On the rarest of rare occassions one of the kids can convince me to get them a Transformer this or a Princess that. This goes for clothes and bedding. Toys don't apply to this sweeping rule.
Yesterday, I bought Izzy a pair of "Cars" slippers. I tell Jenn that it's all right, I'm not the one buying it. I don't buy characters because kids outgrow them so quickly, and it's harder to do hand me downs with an out of date character on the front. Izzy is all geeked and keeps pointing at the shirts and saying "Cars, Cars, Cars". I think Jenn was impressed that he was talking at all.
Izzy CAN talk, he just doesn't. I don't know why he doesn't, he just chooses not to. I guess he feels he has nothing to really contribute, what with everyone else talking constantly it seems. Izzy pointed to a grey long sleeve shirt with Lightning McQueen plastered over the front.
We finish up our shopping, which takes about an hour more. Speedy shoppers we are not. We take our time, often going up and down each row or backtracking through 1/2 the department to find what we want. We manage to get all of our stuff in to one cart, so at least we didn't buy out the store.
I get all checked out, stuff shoved in to canvas bags and all of that. As Jenn is checking out, she tells the cashier, Leanne, to just hand the shirt to Izzy. Jenn then continues with the paying process. Izzy takes the hanger out of the shirt and hands it to me. He then starts the attempt of taking off his hoody so that he can put on his "Cars" shirt. Feeling sympathy for the boy, and knowing that at that ripe age of 2 he WON'T let it lay to rest, I strip his hoody and shirt off of him. Jenn looks over and sees a half naked boy where once a fully clothed one sat before. I take the tag off of the shirt and put his new, much loved shirt on him. The entire time, Izzy is saying "Cars, Cars, Cars" and signing "Thank You".
Did that catch you? That Izzy signs? Well, being the strong willed (read STUBBORN) child that he is and his utmost refusal to communicate with us, we have been teaching him basic signs. He can sign Please, Thank You, Bath, Eat, Mommy, Daddy, Cheese, Potato Chip, More, and Done. Maybe a couple of others that I'm not thinking of at the moment. With prompting, he can put two or more signs together in a basic sentence and he has started to SAY the word along with the sign.
This is how we wound up "Stripping at Wal-Mart". I told Jenn I would blog the moment because it's pretty funny. Also, I would catch a lot of traffic just on the title. HAHA! I jokingly said I would go and do it myself, the stripping. It'd be like the really cheap show that didn't have a cover charge. But please tip me. Or just tip me over and roll me out!
I know I missed Thankful Thursday. Thursday we went to Jason's folks for dinner, so the preperations before then made things get rather hectic around here and we didn't get home til almost 11. I'll catch back up next week, that there is a promise.
Prayers and Blessings, and have a wonderful weekend.
Showing posts with label Wal-Mart. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Wal-Mart. Show all posts
Saturday, September 6, 2008
Wednesday, July 9, 2008
It's All Beginning to Sink In Now.
Jason and I talked. I should start a whole little blog called "Jason and I talked". I digress. There was an incident yesterday while James was at program. It was pretty bad. For some reason this led to Jason and I discussing the upcoming school year. Oh wait, I know what led to that. James. And His Big Mouth. James has this brain malfunction where he opens his mouth and just says what he thinks. OK, a lot of people have that. However, this is more extensive. He doesn't know when he's pissed someone off and just keeps spouting off the stupidity. That led to James angering some pretty BAD kids and he got himself beat up. Thankfully he wasn't physcially hurt. His glasses got a little bent.
James had quite a few issues last year with school. Almost all of it was behavior related. He was suspended for a full 12 days. That isn't counting the number of times I had to go pick him up early from school. That happened about once every 2 weeks or so. Or the times I would get phone calls from the staff asking me to talk to James and MAKE him do as he needed to. Those happened, on average, at least twice a week. And if ONE phone call was made in the day, it was usually at least 3.
This next year, I don't want to deal with this. This utter stupidity of the school system and their absolute inability to handle James. I don't want the headaches, anger, and frustration from dealing with their close minded every kid fits the same form and if they don't they shouldn't be here crap. James had two teachers. His mainstream classroom teacher and his resource room teacher. Most often, he handled himself well in the mainstream classroom. There were times when I would get calls from his resource room teacher. Though not nearly as often as from the "behavior staff".
The "behavior staff" and I butted heads more times than I can count. On the Wed. before Thanksgiving, they wanted to suspend him for leaving class. He was leaving class because he was trying avert having a melt down because he was angry and frustrated. I told them No I'm not picking him up and No you are not suspending him. The man on the other end couldn't believe I had said no. And then he hung up on me. By the way, Don't EVER Hang Up On ME. Especially when I am discussing my child. So I called his teacher. THEN I called the principal. James wasn't suspended.
The woman on the "behavior staff" would call me to tell me to come get James. And should go on about what he did and how it was bad and how it made her angry and blah blah blah. Um, you are supposed to be trained as someone who handles children with behavior difficulties and you are bothered by a little 9 year old kid telling you off? Jeez lady, grow some balls. James has this phrase he uses for all adults, people in charge. "You People". Now this "professional" lady thought he was using a racial slur. She asked me if he knew what it meant. I laughed. I informed her it was anyone in charge. That, no, he doesn't care if you are black, white, or purple, if you are telling him what to do, and you are anyone but me or Jason, but mostly me, he won't do it most often. That's just James. That's his disorder. You can't medicate that out of him.
So in light of all these issues, I am going to homeschool James. Behavior Plans aren't working for him. The Resource Room isn't working for him. What works best for him is to have him as isolated as possible. To not have to interact with the other kids unless he wants to. Well Hell, I can do that here at home.
There also has been the concern over Jayden. Her teachers just can't get her to DO her work. To work in a way so she is learning. She is easily distracted by everything around her. Also, if she doesn't want to do it, much like her brother, she won't. She pulls a different card than him. It's not a behavior issue. It's simply "I can't". Apparently, the teachers take that as it is. I have been told the entire year this past year about everything Jayden just can't seem to do. Here's the kicker here folks. YES, SHE CAN. I've put her to the test. Everything they told me she can't do, yes she can. I look at her and say "I don't want to hear you can't. You have to do this. You don't have a choice." Screw explaining the why of it right now. She's 6, she doesn't even COMPREHEND the why of it really, she just sees that mom told her to do it, so she's doing it. So Jayden is going to be homeschooled as well.
Oh, have I mentioned I'm not an organized person at all? Thankfully, I have the Four or More Mommies. Many of them are homeschoolers and they are an amazing resource. They have all kinds of info for me to take and use as need be. One of the great things about homeschooling is I can work at the pace of the kids. We don't need to spend all day doing their work, unless that is how long it takes them to complete their assignment. I can do direct rewards if need be. They are also much more likely to do the work because it is ME telling them to do it and they have been trained since birth to do as Mom and Dad direct.
So in the next couple of months I will be working on organizing our homeschool "stuff". Figuring out lesson plans and gathering teaching aids and materials. I'll be using my printer and going through lots of ink. Picking up school supplies on the cheap when they go on sale. And hoping and praying I don't lose my mind. And that I can get through to them, that I CAN teach them and they WILL learn. That's the most intimdating part of all right now.
Homeschooling does open us up a little. We were staying here in Kalamazoo because of The Promise. However, homeschoolers don't qualify. The kids will go to a 2 year college, then transfer to a 4 year if that's what they want. So Jason will be able to expand his job search area. He wants to be making more money. About $10K more a year would really give us a cushion that we need. It's still a rather low income, but hey, we already live frugally. That small amount will allow us to make sure that we live within our means, and not be so reliant on outside factors, like child support. Will we be staying Kalamazoo? I don't know. As of right now, yes. However if Jason finds a job in Holland or Battle Creek or St. Joe or....well, you get the idea, we'll move. It's what is best for the family, so we'll do it.
It would be sad to leave this house. Leave my gardens. The hard work I put in to the girls' room. However, a long commute for Jason is not an option. We tried that once. After a year, it wore us out. Both him and I. We want to stay on this side of the state. Within about an hour of where we are now. That will keep us still close to his family south of us, and all of my family to the north of us. Jason wants to be able to start taking monthly, or even bi-weekly trips to see his folks. They are getting up there in age, at both of them being over 70 now. We can't afford that right now. We can barely afford our trips to pick up Katy Beth. So his job search continues. And I start homeschooling.
Life is always full of change. I think the kind of people we are is determined by how we handle that change.
James had quite a few issues last year with school. Almost all of it was behavior related. He was suspended for a full 12 days. That isn't counting the number of times I had to go pick him up early from school. That happened about once every 2 weeks or so. Or the times I would get phone calls from the staff asking me to talk to James and MAKE him do as he needed to. Those happened, on average, at least twice a week. And if ONE phone call was made in the day, it was usually at least 3.
This next year, I don't want to deal with this. This utter stupidity of the school system and their absolute inability to handle James. I don't want the headaches, anger, and frustration from dealing with their close minded every kid fits the same form and if they don't they shouldn't be here crap. James had two teachers. His mainstream classroom teacher and his resource room teacher. Most often, he handled himself well in the mainstream classroom. There were times when I would get calls from his resource room teacher. Though not nearly as often as from the "behavior staff".
The "behavior staff" and I butted heads more times than I can count. On the Wed. before Thanksgiving, they wanted to suspend him for leaving class. He was leaving class because he was trying avert having a melt down because he was angry and frustrated. I told them No I'm not picking him up and No you are not suspending him. The man on the other end couldn't believe I had said no. And then he hung up on me. By the way, Don't EVER Hang Up On ME. Especially when I am discussing my child. So I called his teacher. THEN I called the principal. James wasn't suspended.
The woman on the "behavior staff" would call me to tell me to come get James. And should go on about what he did and how it was bad and how it made her angry and blah blah blah. Um, you are supposed to be trained as someone who handles children with behavior difficulties and you are bothered by a little 9 year old kid telling you off? Jeez lady, grow some balls. James has this phrase he uses for all adults, people in charge. "You People". Now this "professional" lady thought he was using a racial slur. She asked me if he knew what it meant. I laughed. I informed her it was anyone in charge. That, no, he doesn't care if you are black, white, or purple, if you are telling him what to do, and you are anyone but me or Jason, but mostly me, he won't do it most often. That's just James. That's his disorder. You can't medicate that out of him.
So in light of all these issues, I am going to homeschool James. Behavior Plans aren't working for him. The Resource Room isn't working for him. What works best for him is to have him as isolated as possible. To not have to interact with the other kids unless he wants to. Well Hell, I can do that here at home.
There also has been the concern over Jayden. Her teachers just can't get her to DO her work. To work in a way so she is learning. She is easily distracted by everything around her. Also, if she doesn't want to do it, much like her brother, she won't. She pulls a different card than him. It's not a behavior issue. It's simply "I can't". Apparently, the teachers take that as it is. I have been told the entire year this past year about everything Jayden just can't seem to do. Here's the kicker here folks. YES, SHE CAN. I've put her to the test. Everything they told me she can't do, yes she can. I look at her and say "I don't want to hear you can't. You have to do this. You don't have a choice." Screw explaining the why of it right now. She's 6, she doesn't even COMPREHEND the why of it really, she just sees that mom told her to do it, so she's doing it. So Jayden is going to be homeschooled as well.
Oh, have I mentioned I'm not an organized person at all? Thankfully, I have the Four or More Mommies. Many of them are homeschoolers and they are an amazing resource. They have all kinds of info for me to take and use as need be. One of the great things about homeschooling is I can work at the pace of the kids. We don't need to spend all day doing their work, unless that is how long it takes them to complete their assignment. I can do direct rewards if need be. They are also much more likely to do the work because it is ME telling them to do it and they have been trained since birth to do as Mom and Dad direct.
So in the next couple of months I will be working on organizing our homeschool "stuff". Figuring out lesson plans and gathering teaching aids and materials. I'll be using my printer and going through lots of ink. Picking up school supplies on the cheap when they go on sale. And hoping and praying I don't lose my mind. And that I can get through to them, that I CAN teach them and they WILL learn. That's the most intimdating part of all right now.
Homeschooling does open us up a little. We were staying here in Kalamazoo because of The Promise. However, homeschoolers don't qualify. The kids will go to a 2 year college, then transfer to a 4 year if that's what they want. So Jason will be able to expand his job search area. He wants to be making more money. About $10K more a year would really give us a cushion that we need. It's still a rather low income, but hey, we already live frugally. That small amount will allow us to make sure that we live within our means, and not be so reliant on outside factors, like child support. Will we be staying Kalamazoo? I don't know. As of right now, yes. However if Jason finds a job in Holland or Battle Creek or St. Joe or....well, you get the idea, we'll move. It's what is best for the family, so we'll do it.
It would be sad to leave this house. Leave my gardens. The hard work I put in to the girls' room. However, a long commute for Jason is not an option. We tried that once. After a year, it wore us out. Both him and I. We want to stay on this side of the state. Within about an hour of where we are now. That will keep us still close to his family south of us, and all of my family to the north of us. Jason wants to be able to start taking monthly, or even bi-weekly trips to see his folks. They are getting up there in age, at both of them being over 70 now. We can't afford that right now. We can barely afford our trips to pick up Katy Beth. So his job search continues. And I start homeschooling.
Life is always full of change. I think the kind of people we are is determined by how we handle that change.
Monday, July 7, 2008
Budget.
It's just one word. It's how I look at it. One word. Budget. Not Our Budget. Not The Budget. Simply Budget. Or otherwise known as "how do I pay for everything we have come to expect out of life with falling dollar values and increasing fuel and food costs?" That takes up a bit too much room to do regularly though.
Ugh. So I'm sitting here, playing a game of solitaire. My mind keeps wandering, as it does when I play games like that. It keeps wandering to the budget. Ugh again. I keep trying to figure out how I can cut our food costs.
Here's the thing. I only shop for food at Wal-Mart. Have done that since I started working there, which was shortly after we moved here to this house. It's a loyalty thing. It's also the fact that I KNOW I'm saving money over going to Meijer. I've done the price comparison. It's honestly cheaper, and I'm not just saying that to support "The Company".
So our grocery cost has reduced some because of that. No more Meijer. I don't shop at Save A Lot anymore however. I'm wondering if I need to start doing that again. In all honesty, what I would get at Save A Lot were the boxed/canned goods. Some frozen foods. A little refridgerated stuff. Otherwise, I went to Meijer. Since I've been shopping at Wal-Mart all the time, Save A Lot has been cut out. We use store brand items as much as possible. That cuts out quite a bit of cost right there. We buy in bulk, so we can save 20 cents a pound on meat and use the extra freezer to stock up, though that may no longer be an option, which I'll get to in just a second.
There is also the option of NO extras. No chips. No soda. No popscicles. No breakfast sandwiches. No snacks with lunches. No cheese sticks. No higher quality lunch meat. No higher quality cuts of meat at all. No frozen pizzas or pizza rolls. No yogurt. No cereal bars. No granola bars. No marinades.
Wow, that cuts out about 1/2 of what we eat regularly. And everything else would be the cheapest of the cheap. I really don't want to live like that however. I will fight that with tooth and nail, kicking and screaming the entire way. I lived like that with Homer, with Chris, I won't go back to it. It's a miserable existence.
Jason takes the bus back and forth to work. So that cuts down on gas usage. I will only be going out of the house for errands if I ABSOLUTELY have to. Otherwise, I'll do my shopping after work. As it is, I'm not sure how we are going to finagle the kids' school/fall/winter clothes. All four of them have grown. They will all need refurbishing to their wardrobes.
I'll be going through the boxes in the storage room, looking for things that used to be Katy's that Jayden can now wear. It was about this size that I started keeping everything. I should be able to find some stuff, hopefully. Listing stuff on EBay. The kids old clothes. I need to become much more Gung Ho about that. Treating it like a part time job. One that I do late at night, after everyone has gone off to bed. I can take the pics during the day in the sunlight and then edit and post the items at night. Go and do one to two bulk mailings a week.
Jason is still looking for a different job. Right now, I'm not sure if I should be or not. The job I have pays decently. It works according to the availability I have. I don't get asked a bunch of questions when I change it a little to better suit my home life.
The freezer. Ah yes, it seems that our 2nd stock up so we have it fridge/freezer is taking a dump on us. Well Crap A Doodle Bob. There is no way Garry will replace it. It's our 2nd fridge. He was going to take it out when we moved in a year ago. I looked on Craigslist. There is a listing for one for $50 about 20 minutes from here. Jenn says she can get it in her truck so we could go pick it up that way. However, if it's gone, I'm out of luck. Jason is going to have a fit about buying a new one as it is. He wants to get rid of the 2nd one. He feels that we'd save energy by not having. I'm sure we would, but I highly doubt that unplugging one fridge will save us much more than MAYBE $20 for an entire year. Our energy costs are elsewhere.
So I do this, I sit and I worry. It makes me feel like crap. It wears me out and I just feel like I'm dragging ass all day. Trying to walk through a swamp as I'm slowly sinking. I can't even see the shore that I'm working toward, but I keep getting reassured, by the voice through the over head speaker, that it IS there and it WILL be worth it. There are many days where I want to just say "Fuck it!" and stop walking. I keep going. Cause I have to. Ugh.
Ugh. So I'm sitting here, playing a game of solitaire. My mind keeps wandering, as it does when I play games like that. It keeps wandering to the budget. Ugh again. I keep trying to figure out how I can cut our food costs.
Here's the thing. I only shop for food at Wal-Mart. Have done that since I started working there, which was shortly after we moved here to this house. It's a loyalty thing. It's also the fact that I KNOW I'm saving money over going to Meijer. I've done the price comparison. It's honestly cheaper, and I'm not just saying that to support "The Company".
So our grocery cost has reduced some because of that. No more Meijer. I don't shop at Save A Lot anymore however. I'm wondering if I need to start doing that again. In all honesty, what I would get at Save A Lot were the boxed/canned goods. Some frozen foods. A little refridgerated stuff. Otherwise, I went to Meijer. Since I've been shopping at Wal-Mart all the time, Save A Lot has been cut out. We use store brand items as much as possible. That cuts out quite a bit of cost right there. We buy in bulk, so we can save 20 cents a pound on meat and use the extra freezer to stock up, though that may no longer be an option, which I'll get to in just a second.
There is also the option of NO extras. No chips. No soda. No popscicles. No breakfast sandwiches. No snacks with lunches. No cheese sticks. No higher quality lunch meat. No higher quality cuts of meat at all. No frozen pizzas or pizza rolls. No yogurt. No cereal bars. No granola bars. No marinades.
Wow, that cuts out about 1/2 of what we eat regularly. And everything else would be the cheapest of the cheap. I really don't want to live like that however. I will fight that with tooth and nail, kicking and screaming the entire way. I lived like that with Homer, with Chris, I won't go back to it. It's a miserable existence.
Jason takes the bus back and forth to work. So that cuts down on gas usage. I will only be going out of the house for errands if I ABSOLUTELY have to. Otherwise, I'll do my shopping after work. As it is, I'm not sure how we are going to finagle the kids' school/fall/winter clothes. All four of them have grown. They will all need refurbishing to their wardrobes.
I'll be going through the boxes in the storage room, looking for things that used to be Katy's that Jayden can now wear. It was about this size that I started keeping everything. I should be able to find some stuff, hopefully. Listing stuff on EBay. The kids old clothes. I need to become much more Gung Ho about that. Treating it like a part time job. One that I do late at night, after everyone has gone off to bed. I can take the pics during the day in the sunlight and then edit and post the items at night. Go and do one to two bulk mailings a week.
Jason is still looking for a different job. Right now, I'm not sure if I should be or not. The job I have pays decently. It works according to the availability I have. I don't get asked a bunch of questions when I change it a little to better suit my home life.
The freezer. Ah yes, it seems that our 2nd stock up so we have it fridge/freezer is taking a dump on us. Well Crap A Doodle Bob. There is no way Garry will replace it. It's our 2nd fridge. He was going to take it out when we moved in a year ago. I looked on Craigslist. There is a listing for one for $50 about 20 minutes from here. Jenn says she can get it in her truck so we could go pick it up that way. However, if it's gone, I'm out of luck. Jason is going to have a fit about buying a new one as it is. He wants to get rid of the 2nd one. He feels that we'd save energy by not having. I'm sure we would, but I highly doubt that unplugging one fridge will save us much more than MAYBE $20 for an entire year. Our energy costs are elsewhere.
So I do this, I sit and I worry. It makes me feel like crap. It wears me out and I just feel like I'm dragging ass all day. Trying to walk through a swamp as I'm slowly sinking. I can't even see the shore that I'm working toward, but I keep getting reassured, by the voice through the over head speaker, that it IS there and it WILL be worth it. There are many days where I want to just say "Fuck it!" and stop walking. I keep going. Cause I have to. Ugh.
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