Garage Sale Flop

Today the children and I went garage saling. There were three sales to go to so we weren't out long. Ugh, we didn't find anything. NOTHING! I was pretty bummed. But tomorrow I am going out by myself. I know I was going out Saturday but Nick is going to be off tomorrow and I am noticing that all of the sales I am interested in start tomorrow rather than Saturday. So might as well go, right? Makes sense to me!
Anyone have any big plans this weekend? We are looking forward to not much which sounds heavenly right about now!
And even though our Garage Sales were a bust today we have played in the sprinkler and had lots of fun! Happy Thursday!

Homeschool Fashion

As many of you know we have decided to homeschool Emma this upcoming year. While many (make that Many, Many, Many) people have expressed their distinct distaste in this decision, there was one distaste that stuck with me.
When we were thinking about the idea of homeschooling I was still working. Well out of home. My boss gave me this horrified look and said "you're not going to dress like them are you?" Looking back on this it makes me laugh and I can most assuredly tell you, no. No I am not going to dress like them. Whoever "them" is referring to.
But you know who she's talking about...the people who wear wood soled clogs and corduroy skirts (in my Seinfeld voice I'll back that up with not that there's anything wrong with that).
A girlfriend down the street homeschools her four children (heaven help her) and she was talking to me about homeschool fashion. She was saying that her kids can wear whatever they want because they're homeschooled and sometimes their outfits are so odd that she's sure the neighborhoods abuzz with comments.
Maybe I will be eating these words in the coming years when the aliens have scooped my brains out and left only soft, worn denim in their place, but I will not be dressing my family in this fashion. So here before God and my country I make you this pledge:
*I Lindsay-not-telling-you-my-last-name will not wear clogs
*I will not wear a corduroy skirt unless they become back into fashion in a big, big way
*My children will not wear something that came out of the swiss alps collection
*They will stay well groomed
*They will be dressed in clothes, not pajamas or something that could pass as scrubs
*Until Emma gets that streak where she refuses to wear anything I like, our children will be fashionable (well as fashionable as an old prude like me can dress someone as). After Emma insists on dressing herself, there's no telling what we are in for.

Whew. I feel so glad to have that out in the open. I will be blogging more about homeschooling as we get closer to the school year starting, aka when my head will explode and roll around on the passenger side of the car.
Amen.

FINALLY...My Saturday Finds

Good Lord, where has this week gone? I honestly cannot remember it. Wowwie. Well first of all let me give you a little recap of Saturday. Nick had to go into work so it was me with the kiddos alone to go garage saling. I was a little worried!
But it was fine. It was also nice that it wasn't somewhere that we had to go. If they acted out (meaning, Cal's pulling Emma's hair and Emma's punching Cal in the face on the ground...and yes, this HAS happened) we could just go home...it wasn't somewhere we had to be. This was all optional, folks. The kids figured out soon enough that some garage sales do not have things they want to play with and beg and beg and beg for. So they asked to stay in the car.
FINE WITH ME!
I brought some toys and their breakfast in the car so they watched mom garage sale from the comfort of their plush car seats with cup holders. Ah the life, right?
So anywho, here's our loot...it ain't much folks :)

Emma insisted on posing...this pic took years, gents, years...for some reason Vanna kept sticking her bum out inappropriately. What kind of blog does she think I'm running around here? Yeesh!
My peecture is a not a so goood, but it will work. In total I paid 8.25 for Monkeys in a Barrell (old school game), Bob the Builder slippers (never worn...kind of weird about worn shoes), 2 Gymboree dresses/outfits, magnetic "paper" dolls from Melissa and Doug, metal noise makers (I remember these from my Grandma's house when I was a little girl), a train station for Cal's train table, a yo-yo, a creepy clown Pez dispenser (that was in a free box!), flash cards, two paint with water books (those suckers are HARD to find in the store!), a couple of stuffed monkeys, and a small Superman and Cinderella. Not bad, right? Nothing that was "shockingly good" in the deal department but oh well.
It was also 50% off day at the Goodwill so we went there...to one. Here's what we got for $5.00...

That's a RL Polo (ebay), a Fisher Price stove (Ebay), A wire basket (any ideas for this folks? I saw something like this in The Farm Chick's Christmas Book with some red thing in it at Christmas...maybe I'll do that???), a few books (PTL the Children are bookies), and Toy Story bath toys...which aren't squirty so I could sanatize the crap out of them! muhahahahah!
Here in Hicksville, Today is garage saling day again today and I have no idea if I am going out again or not. We'll see how the kiddos wake up. And Saturday Nick doesn't work...did you hear me? Is this thing on? SATURDAY the man doesn't work. He's already said I could go on my own. I feel so grown up. I secretly am pretty sure he just doesn't want to get out of bed to go with me, which I understand :)
BTW, a Funny story...When we go by houses this is what Cal says (please repeat this for every house you have in your mind we drive by...) "That garage sales closed". At first I thought yep, no garage sale there. But then I realized that he calls Garage DOORS, Garage SALES. So their garage DOORS are closed. Silly kid. He makes me laugh. People probably think he's a real bargain hunter searching for those garage SALES. :)
Happy Thursday!

Parade

Well Blogger is having some technical issues (what else is new?) so I can't upload the picture of the parade from last year...it's so cute :( Oh well. :) Tonight is the parade we go to every year. The kids are super duper excited! I'll post some pictures of it :) Happy Wednesday!

Thursday Garage Sale Finds

Well here we are...everything we got at the sales...I was so excited when I got home and realized how little I spent for so much!

Here is a picture of EVERYTHING! Well Everything except a shield we got for Cal. He is so in the sword phase and the poor guy's been toting around a serving tray as a makeshift shield. So the kid needed a shield for 50 cents!

Do you like these gals? The kids love Pez so we've kind of started collecting them simply because we have so many of them. Cinderella and Princess Leia for 10 cents each!

Oodles and boodles of clothes! I got a gymboree shirt for a buck (to ebay), three pairs of jammies for Cal for 5o cents each, a gymnasts outfit for Emma for $3, and pair of jeans for Em for 50 cents.

An American Girl Molly book for 50 cents and these little Christmas bears that make music together and their little bells light up for 50 cents

Cal liked this superman for 50 cents. Nick said they had a Spierman and a Batman too but they were mean looking...is this really the happy looking one out of the bunch?

Other things we got included a Fisher Price Race track ($1), a little wooden racing track thingy ($1) , a metal filing box ($3)...old and vintage and cool, 3 puzzles for 50 cents each and an Incredibles guy for 10 cents.

Well I think that is about it. The only upsetting thing was that we found this gigantic tub of Barbies...it was HUGE and spilling over. It had 4 vintage cases, all kinds of clothing storage boxes, and little fold open houses for Barbies. There were tons of Barbies, clothes, shoes, accessories...everything you could ever want. Well they wanted $20.00. Saying it now it sounds CRAZY...but I thought it was kind of pricey so I called Nick over to look. He told me to pass it up.

Well we kept saling and then I kept thinking of the Barbies. Afterall Emma's starting to get into Barbies and anything she didn't want I could sell or donate or SOMETHING, right? I mean one Barbie outfit was $6.00 so for all of that I thought it was a steal! Well we went back and it was gone. G.O.N.E. Gone. I was crushed. I had really wanted those 1960's cases. But oh well. What's done is done, right? Nick assured me that I will stumble across more Barbies and I am sure he is right.

So that's it. I've got the kids cereal in to-go containers, smoothie ingredients in the blender glass in the refrigerator, and my to-go coffee cup is next to the coffee maker ready to go. Hopefully we have luck tomorrow and I'll have even more to show you!

Thursday Garage Sales

I've gotta tell ya, I was totally naive when it came to garage saleing. I believe it was last summer when I was talking to my Aunt Jan about garage sales. She was telling me about after work sales. And we were talking about Wednesday being a popular day for sales. How weird, right? For some reason my pea-sized brain had only been able to comprehend Saturday as a garage sale day.

Well I remembered that conversation this year and started paying more and more attention to Thursday sales.

In our area they are actually really, really popular. And for those brave souls who have a 3 day sale (thursday, friday, and Saturday), their best stuff will still be there.


On a side note I can not imagine having a three day garage sale. If you've ever had a garage sale you know that by the first day you are utterly exhausted, wanting to fall to your knees screaming "why God, why?"




Then you have to do it another day. So I can't even imagine doing it for three days.




Anywho, this past Thursday Nick and I took Cal to go garage saleing. And why you ask?




Well I found this awesome blog, Yard Sale Mommy. You have to check it out. I want her life. Well I pretty much have it, but I want her and I to be BFF. We can talk about Kit dolls, and drink Mountain Dew...and garage sale of course silly.


I found her blog through a website I've been going to for a coon's age (like to add hillbilly lingo juuuust to make sure you're listening). That website is Money Saving Mom...which helps you save money as a mom...just in case you can't put two and two together on your own.





Anyway, Yard Sale Mommy (whose name is Jen btw) goes out Saturday mornings and hits up the sales for cute things to ebay and for her kids. Looking at her finds inspired me to get out there and get shopping!





So that is just what Nick and I did yesterday. We took $60.00 out of the bank and we didn't even break into it...just some spare wadded up monies I found at the bottom of the purse were used. And we found so much stuff! It's scattered ALL over the house now with clothes being in the laundry and the kiddos playing with things. I will get a picture together for you. And you will see the awesomeness that is upon us, muhahahahah!


Anyway, it's the little things that make me happy I guess! I am planning on going out tomorrow Garage Saling but here's the kicker...Nick has to work. So that means I will be schlepping the kiddo's around with me. Here are my ideas for how to handle this:


I invited my college age sisters. Or should I say Seesters? Anyway it's not looking good on that front as, you know, they have lives and all.


I've kicked around the idea of dragging around my grandma...exnay on the ringbay randmagay. Did I Pig Latin that right?


Third option is to throw them in the car in pj's, buy a box of glazed doughnuts and just leave them in the car...but then I have to deal with glazed dough goo everywhere and sugar induced coma children when I get home. Hmmm...


My final option here is to take them with me and hope and pray and beg and threaten and plead for them to be good. This will probably be what I will do.

We are also going to a sale at a neighboring college. I usually wait in line at insane times for the best selection but for some reason the kids don't like standing in a line for hours at a time in the dead of night. Weird, right? So we are going later...later is 9ish. I am totally expecting that nothing will be left but then again something might be there, right? Maybe?

I so wish that my husband didn't have to work weekends. It just kills me and makes me not feel nice. It sucks to speak not so lady-like. But then again, he only works every other weekend and he is here and he has a job and it is fine. See? I can talk myself out of complaining...I just need to start talking myself out of complaining before I'm complaining.

Anyway, happy Friday evening. I'll try to find the scattered pieces of garage sale finds and take a pic or two!

Okay Sideburns

I have to tell you a story...
today Nick and I went garage saling with little Cal in tow. He was sitting behind me and kept putting his feet on the back of my seat (ugh, so annoying). Anywho, I asked him to stop and do you know what his reply to me was?
"okay sideburns"
Oh geesh. Nick says that all of the time to myself and the children so of course that is where he got it from.
Anyway you've probably been wondering where I've been. And if you find out, could you let me know, because I've kind of been wondering too.
Truth is I've been in major funk-ville lately. Just can't seem to shake it. Please pray for me. Whatever it is, it's got to stop now. NOW, you hear me? NOW!
So anyway, sorry I didn't fill you in before, it's just becoming so regular for me to have to say "sorry I wasn't writing gang..." but in reality I would love to write.
I am thinking that maybe if I force myself to come up with things to write about then I will be writing about things that I do. So I will actually do things other than housework and kid stuff and blah, blah.

Desires of your heart

This morning during my devotion time I was reading in the book of Psalms. I'm horrible at remembering where a verse in the bible is that I like so when I stumbled upon this one I was so happy:

Psalms 37:4
"Delight yourself in the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart."

This is a fairly well played verse...if you're a Christian you've probably heard it before.

This verse has a particularly great meaning to me. I was working at a Christian Bookstore over Christmas break during my freshman year of college. I had been exposed to all that was out there at a party school and was really looking for a fresh start. More than anything I wanted to find a godly man who would be my husband. I was stocking shelves and all of a sudden I came to a bookmark lying askew on the ground with this verse on it. Well I bought the bookmark and it really became my mantra. I prayed it over and over and I really tried to delight myself in the Lord. How hard can that be, really? Christ died for me! That's not something that is really hard to celebrate, you know?

Anyway, about three weeks later I met Nick and the rest is history. I've always deep down thought that this verse kind of kicked off our relationship and has kept us going ever since. We delight in the Lord and what He was done. We are married with our home, I get to stay home, and we have two wonderful children.

Today delight yourself in the Lord...He WILL give you the desires of your heart!