Not Fade Away.

Yesterday I received an email from one of the owners of a local independent bookstore that my family loves to visit. Among the points covered in the email was the fact that "big businesses" like Target and Amazon were going to be selling selected big name books (i.e. the new Stephen King book) for under $10. This is designed to get people into the stores or the online shops to spend money on other items.

I've long known that this is how it works, especially at Target. They figure, if they can get you in there to get Up for only $15.99, they're going to keep you in there for other things.

The problem is this: I understand that everyone wants to save money. I understand that if you can get Steve's new book for $7.99 at Amazon, well, who doesn't want to save $28 or whatever the difference is? But...if you think about what's important to you (in my case, the independent bookstore) my spending my money at Amazon ultimately helps Amazon and no one else.

If I spend my money here, in my city, with an independent bookstore, most of that money stays here in my community. If I think that it's important for HAVE a place like my independent bookstore, I need to keep spending my money there. Sometimes I'm not going to be saving anything. Sometimes I'm going to be spending a lot more. But if I don't, they'll disappear and I won't be able to go there at all.

The email included a link to Project 3/50. The idea behind Project 3/50 is this: pick three independent businesses in your area that you believe you can't live without, and then spend $50 per month at those businesses. Total. Really, it's not that much. Maybe it's a bookstore, maybe it's a record store, maybe it's that great little Indian restaurant you just found, or the farmer's market that just popped up down the street...but how hard is it to concentrate your efforts on the things that are important to you, the things that make your life a little better?

It's not hard.

This isn't to say that I'm not going to buy my laundry detergent at Target anymore, but I'm going to really try to make sure that my money is where my mouth is. How about you?

I'm warning everyone now:

If I don't find a sippy cup that actually is SPILLPROOF soon (rather than one that just claims it is but rains juice everywhere) I think I'm going to to absolutely crazy.

A little sugar goes a long way.

My cell phone has been turning off by itself lately. I got it last December, so I called my phone company and they said they would replace my phone if I just brought it in to the store.

I took it in this morning and the girl there said that it needed a software update, which would be twenty minutes, instead of a new phone. Terrific! The store was next to a Target, so I went over there with Two because I just couldn't bear the thought of entertaining him in the phone store.

We ended up at Target for about 40 minutes.

When I came back to the phone store, guess what? My phone wasn't ready. Apparently I had too many pictures on my phone and they couldn't load up the software. The software update kept stalling out because it didn't have any memory left. The nice guy I talked to said that I could buy a memory card for $20 or they could just Delete. My. Pictures.

Um. I guess I'm bad about that sort of thing but a) I was told they'd just give me a new/different phone and not too delete stuff to make room for that and b) I didn't WANT to pay $20 for that and 3) Two was going a bit berserk and I was feeling like my hair was going to start falling out in a few seconds while I stood there pondering this and Two was trying to disassemble their tv display.

I'm NOT good at waiting for things or being patient. I am one of those people that sighs and rolls my eyes a lot. But I shut up and thought hard and never sighed OR rolled my eyes once and the guy said "Well, I can give it to you for 50% off, since no one told you about it."

Fine. Do it.

45 minutes later, everyone in the store is intimately acquainted with Two and my phone is finally ready. But I had long ago just decided that I can't be mad, why spend all that time I won't get back just being mad? So we had sat on every chair, played with every phone, pulled on every balloon, and did just about everything we could. And the guy came out and said since we were so nice and we had to wait so long, he would just give me the memory card for free.

Now I can transfer all my photos to the card and I don't have to email them to myself, which saves me money on that, too.

It pays to be nice.

Such a deal.

This morning I had to go to the dermatologist. I usually go once a year, because I grew up at the beach (except for a five year period where I lived in Nebraska) and burnt myself to a crisp when I was growing up, which really is pretty much bad for your skin.

Usually I go visit my doctor in January, but recently I noticed two spots that had popped up that were, well, questionable to me. It wasn't anything big, but when you have had to have things cut and scraped out of you like I have, you just don't mess around with it, you go in.

I thought I was fine with it until this morning, when I just had a horrible feeling of dread. I hugged the boys when they went to school and kissed them more than they like. I squeezed my two year old until his cheeks bulged, and wondered if I would have a horrible car accident on the way to the doctor's office and never make it back to pick him up from my friend's house.

I apparently had nerve issues.

After the visit to the doctor (clean bill of health! all is fine! here's a blast of some horrible freezing agent that will knock that one right off, and here's a scalpel for the other one! ow! bloody bandaids!) I went and picked up Two from my best friend, and we all went out to lunch. We had to go to pick up a book I ordered that was in at the bookstore, and one of our friends has a record store right next door, so while Two was asleep, I sat on the floor of the record store and went through all the Bargain Basement records.

$13, 10 records, and a clean bill of health later, I'm having a great day.

P.S. YES, it was worth $1.00 to buy that Triumph album. I like "Lay It On The Line" and they never play that song on the radio. I couldn't get it for less anywhere.

I didn't really whine. Too much.

Family dynamics are funny. For the longest time, it was just the Mr. and me and Eleven and Seven. Seven, being the baby, spent most of his time with me...which naturally meant that Eleven spent most of his time with the Mr.

Seven always makes me these little pictures that say he loves me. Eleven always makes pictures that say he loves the Mr. Usually this is fine, it's a result of just how much time we spend together. But last night, Eleven was randomly making yet another picture depicting (in full gloriously written out words) how much he loved his dad and I just had a stabbing fit of jealously.

I tried not to say anything because I knew I was just being petty but I couldn't make it, I said something. Not too bad - but along the lines of "Well I never get any pictures saying how much you love me!" The Mr. laughed and said "Well, I never get any from Seven either!"

Wah, wah, wah, right? I felt stupid immediately but everyone laughed and it wasn't that big of a deal.

I had to leave to go pick up our take out food and ended up sitting there forever waiting for it. I got home and we ate dinner and I went in my room to get my pjs on...and this is what I got:

I know I was being a bit of a baby, but my heart is happy.

True Luck.

On Halloween, the boys were having friends over for Trick or Treating. While we were waiting for everyone to arrive, the TV was on in the living room. We were also playing records in the living room.

Some people had arrived but we were waiting for some other people to get here, so the kids were playing in the living room while we grown ups were talking in the kitchen.

The next thing we know, the kids are screaming and running out the front door. We ran outside and they were all exclaiming about how there was this nice dog on TV and all of a sudden the dog turned into a naked man.

Um.

Apparently the Mr. had been tivoing a football game, and I had scheduled for True Blood to tivo. When you tivo two things at the same time in our house, the tuner automatically turns to one of those channels. Luckily, the sound was off, because I watched it later and when Sookie sees Sam turn from a dog back into a man, she lets loose an f-bomb.

So, always remember, either check your to do list to make sure that something you don't want your kids to see doesn't pop up during prime time, or if you don't check it, make sure you're blasting the record player so loud they can't hear the TV. And that they can't read lips.

image from trueblood.net, via google images

Could be good...or not.

I forgot to mention I signed up for a fourth year of NaBloPoMo, aka National Blog Posting Month, so you're going to see at least a post a day from me for November. That may be irritating, as it could lead to you seeing things like this (a sign I found taped to the boys' bathroom door yesterday):

You may see something absolutely witty this month, but you know, it's a crapshoot (in more ways than one).