Shed-tastic!

Well if you can believe it - the shopping trip with the boys actually went FINE! I'm sure I went overboard on the 'prep' by reminding them 49,000 times of all the things not to do unless they want to be banned from shopping with me ever again.  And by a random stroke of luck, the first store we stopped at had these awesome little Nikes in the SCHOOL COLORS.  I raved about how cool they were, until I had him semi-convinced that he in fact wanted them... either that or he was on to me - that I had already made up my mind and he better just take them.  Charlie did, however, score a pair of Converse while we were there.  He didn't really need another pair, but if you'll recall - I bought him some ugly skater-style shoes on our last trip that I have always hated - so I was happy to see him start sporting a normal looking shoe - oh and they were on sale!

Since then I've been busy staring out my window all week watching a crew of guys build us a shed, yes a SHED!  

  Hard to believe we went from this (left) to this (right) in less than one week!

I am so excited to get everything from our garage moved to the nice new shed, so I can actually park my vehicle inside! Woot! Woot! I've only had to scrape once so far, but I'm hoping it will be my LAST.  I've never had an attached garage in my life! Always, my car with the half-hazard scraping lines all over it, screamed "I don't have a garage! I park outside!" Well, no longer! 

Now if there was only something I could do about the inch of dust currently covering my vehicle that screams, "I LIVE ON GRAVEL!!!!".  Ha.  One thing at a time...

What goes around comes around

Many of you probably remember my nightmare shopping trip with the boys before school started.  If not, you can refresh your memory here.  Since then, I've tried to refrain from taking them shopping for ANYTHING if at all possible.  I even tried taking them separately, but after Charlie was in near tears once when I refused to buy him a stupid toy skateboard ramp, I ruled that out as well.  I suddenly have a new appreciation for the anguish I caused my mother every time she wanted to go the store.  I have vivid memories of the both of us standing at our door and her making me promise not to ask her for ANYTHING if we went.  I would bat my eyelashes and swear up and down (and every which way possible) that she wouldn't hear a peep out of me -  if she would just pleeeeaaase take me with. Ha - I got something every time.  

When I got a little older, my tactics became more advanced.  Countless times I'd walk go to a store with my friends, find something I wanted, CALL my mother at work (from the store phone), and have her pick ME and the item up on her way home! Good God.

Anyway, here we are again.  Will needs basketball shoes.  I've already warned him that we are NOT (repeat NOT NOT NOT) driving all over H-E-double hockey sticks to find the 'perfect' shoes.  I will select the style and he can pick out the color.  LIMIT THE OPTIONS is what I have learned.  He grumbled a bit, but decided it was better than me bringing home random shoes without him.  

T minus two hours until departure.... WISH ME LUCK.

Good Shopping Gone Bad

I think it's official that I'm now a true "Iowegian".  Before I moved here, I often heard stories from my friend about her cousin (who lived in Iowa) and young children who stayed up all hours of the night - no bedtime.  As I got to know several other people after moving, it seemed that was a common theme.  Children in Iowa never go to bed!  Or at least, they don't go to bed at a decent time. Unlike our kids, many of their friends stay up well into the night watching TV, playing video games or whatever they want.  Not at our house!  

We went school shopping last night after dinner.  It all started out grand, but turned ugly pretty quick - picking out something as simple as a FOLDER became a critical decision worth agonizing over.   It was the shopping trip that wouldn't end!  And as I left WAL-MART at 10:25 pm last night toting both older kids, I shook my head sadly to myself... what have I become?! 

If nothing else, I've learned to never take the kids with me to buy anything but the supplies. No shoes.  No clothes.  OMG.  Buying a simple pair of shoes for school was impossible.  Charlie will wear whatever I come home with, but WILL has his own 'style' which includes a lot of black and a lot of skulls.  YUCK.  I usually try to buy cute stuff that may have a little skull snuck on, but with him in tow - he wanted skulls full force.

I can't even believe some of the crap I came home with.  I think I was just so tired of shopping that I started viewing the most hideous stuff in the store as 'not THAT bad'.  I had every intention of stopping by Old Navy for some T's after the shoe shopping, but the shoe shopping took so dang long there wasn't time.  They didn't have the size of Converse Will wanted, so after all the effort, we left the shoe store empty handed.  We then went to Target, again intending to grab some T's after the supplies.  Target was out of erasers, folders and something else - and didn't have any acceptable shoes either, so we headed to the dreaded Wal-Mart.  By this point I gave up on the shoes and T's and planned on just grabbing erasers and the other odds and ends. However, on the trek across the store between folders and Kleenex, we passed the boys clothing section. Will spied a 'cool' shirt (which was a black shirt with multicolored skulls, headphones and electric guitars) right away, and both boys immediately buried themselves in that section.  At first I was firm.  I told them the shirts were ugly - even repulsive, but they didn't care.  They claimed 'girls' didn't know what was cool.  

When I got home and displayed our purchases for Ben, I had to laugh at myself.  I am still in awe that I came out of the store with this gem:

As if this shirt didn't have enough going on with cards, skulls, flames, a car brand (Chevrolet? The only Chevy we have around here is Ben's commuter Geo), but if you look very close at the bottom of the shirt.... it even says 'NASCAR'.  Now that's a perfect shirt!

Good Lord.