how much is enough? part 2

so today... i have ten minutes to blog. TEN MINUTES!!!

i have never written a blog in ten minutes before. i think my quickest time to date is about 40 minutes. usually it takes me much longer. of course, that is because i write a bit, play facebook games, edit, check my email, write some more... you get the idea.

but i am determined to be headed to bed by 11:00 tonight, and it is already 10:48...

(ok, technically i know that is twelve minutes, but i have a picture to upload, and that will take a couple of extra minutes...)

so here it is--my ten minute blog. this isn't going to leave me much time for editing and careful word selection...

anyway, i am starting to think perhaps i have a problem. i tend to buy things in multiples. if i find a top or a sweater i like at a good price, i will buy it in black or white or gray, and then also in at least one color--sometimes two. i was going to say that the only thing i don't buy in multiples is shoes, but then i looked in my closet--two pair of "ugg" like boots, six pairs of sketchers, two pairs of identical high-heeled boots, two pairs of tone-up sandals... i could go on, but you see the problem.

this is true for food too. i like to have meat in my freezer and food in my pantry. do i cook any of it? no. but i like knowing it is there. and even when i am grocery shopping, i look at the shelf of canned chili and think, "how many should i buy?" one or two doesn't seem like enough, but what is enough? four? six? ten? they are small after all, and i can eat chili by itself, or over fritos corn chips, or in a chili dog... so how many should i get??

and whatever i decide, once i get home, it never seems like enough. i am constantly saying, "maybe i should have bought more..."

so today i was at walmart, buying toilet paper and tissues, and i decided to take a little detour through the discounted christmas stuff. because you just never know what kind of treasures you might find on the clearance racks. i looked at almost a whole aisle full of empty goody containers. they were such a buy! twelve containers for $1! i wanted to fill my cart with them! except, since i don't really bake much, i grabbed myself by the throat and quickly dragged myself to the next aisle... which was filled with bags of bows. this did not tempt me at all, and i was almost ready to head toward the cash registers, when i saw this:
these are the most delicious peppermint candies ever! diandra introduced them to me before christmas. they only cost 88 cents a box, and each stick only has 45 calories! of course, it is 45 calories of pure sugar, but still... so before christmas, we bought several boxes. and now they were on clearance!

i grabbed one box and went in search of a price scanner. when the red laser lights stopped dancing over the upc code on the box, it told me that each box only cost 22 cents!

haaaaalelujah!

i went back and bought them all.

i thought about only buying half. i thought about only buying $5 worth. i finally thought i should just take them all! and so i did.
when i got them home, rollie couldn't quite figure out why i bought so many peppermint sticks. of course, he hasn't tasted them--he doesn't know how delicious they are! and he is not going to taste them! because if he liked them, then we would have to share. and by my calculations, if diandra and i each eat only one peppermint stick every day, they should almost last us until walmart again puts them on the shelves for christmas 2011.

you notice i said "almost" last us. maybe tomorrow i should go to another walmart..

***(and in the interest of full disclosure, this did not turn out to be a ten minute blog after all. i am not sure that i am even capable of writing a ten minute blog. maybe someday...)

timing is everything!

so today . . . i was schooled! out maneuvered! intellectually smacked down!

by a cute little five year old girl. in curls. and twinkle toes . . .

i finally wore my twinkle toe sneakers to school yesterday. yes, out of the house. i did not make this move recklessly. oh no i did not . . . i actually went back to the store a fifth time and bought another pair of shoes a half size larger. i brought them home. i tried them out. they flopped. i tried them with different kinds of socks. they still flopped. i tried the smaller shoes. they didn't flop, but they were a little snug. after much testing, i came to the conclusion that there was no way i could make the larger pair work. if i wanted these incredibly cute shoes, i was just going to have to keep the smaller ones and hope they stretched out a bit.

so the decision was made. to seal the deal, i wore them to school yesterday and returned the larger pair to the store during my lunch hour. i wore them all day. by the time i got home, i was ready to take them off and let my toes wiggle free! but it was ok--the shoes looked too cute for words, and my feet survived.

today, two little girls wore their twinkle toe sneakers to school. when i saw the first pair, it had laces, and i thought, "wow! why didn't they put laces on the adult shoes? why did they have to make them slip ons?" then the second little girl came in, curls bouncing (yes, here it comes . . . ) "look at my shoes, teacher!" she said. "i have twinkle toes too!" her mother came in behind her, shaking her head. "she said she HAD to wear those shoes today. she has never worn them before, but today she HAD to wear them, because ms. julie had twinkle toes on yesterday."

i am pretty sure the mom did not think i had really worn twinkle toes yesterday. i am pretty sure she thought no one over the age of eight would wear them! i am pretty sure of this because of the way she looked at me when i assured her that yes, i had worn twinkle toe sneakers to school yesterday.

pretty soon i heard that same little girl say, "i am going to ask my mom to get me some shoelaces for these shoes--sparkly ones!" and my adult mind said, "that is a crazy idea! she doesn't need shoelaces. those are slip on shoes! what will she do with shoe laces?!?"

and that's when it hit me! shoe laces! duh!!

because even though the style of my shoes were designed to be slip-ons, they had holes for shoe laces. i could have bought sparkly shoe laces, laced those bigger shoes up, tied them tightly, and they wouldn't have flopped on my feet! they would have been perfect!!

it was a brilliant idea--conceived by a five year old girl who wanted just a little more bling in her life. really, a girl after my own heart. and without even thinking about it, she had solved the problem that had puzzled me for days!! DAYS, i tell you!!! shoelaces. why didn't i think of that. it was just the solution i needed . . .

. . . IF i still had the larger sized shoes. and IF i hadn't already worn the smaller ones all day yesterday. if only i had procrastinated just one or two more days . . .

sometimes i think the cosmos is mocking me . . .

plane ticket woes

so today . . . i am forced out of my comfort zone by the evil lakers.

diandra and i are going to go to portland in july to visit my parents. we have done this for the last few summers, and it is always so much fun! but it requires plane tickets to be purchased . . .

i haven't done a lot of traveling in my life. as a kid, most of our vacations were spent in the car traveling to the midwest to visit family. i have lots of good memories about those trips, but it meant days spent in the backseat of our car with my little brother.

you do the math.

as an adult, most of our vacations have been spent traveling to the portland area to visit my parents. thankfully we have always lived on the same coast, so the travel time was shorter, but it still meant many hours in the car. only now, i get to sit in the front seat!

so until recently i hadn't flown much. and when i did fly, rollie took care of all the arrangements, and i just followed him around with my carry-on bag trying to look inconspicuous. because for some reason, rollie always gets singled out in the security line. i don't know what it is. i think he must look a little bit sinister when we fly, because he is so tall and he is always on the lookout for suspicious characters . . . which probably makes him look a little suspicious!

but this time, it was up to me to get the plane tickets. i have been online for days now, checking out the prices, scared that they would go up before we could finalize our plans. which, of course they did--in a matter of hours, because i checked them today right before i came home from school! and then when i went to book them tonight, the price on the return flight had jumped $50!!! so i knew i needed to get those tickets NOW!

and why, you ask, was it up to me to get the tickets? why wasn't my wonderful, thoughtful husband taking care of that little task for me, as he usually does? five words . . .

game 1. lakers vs. celtics.

i'm sure rollie would have been happy to take care of this for me, but my time frame happened to fall during the first game of the nba championship series. he has been looking forward to this series since last fall. and really, if i had asked him, he would have done it anyway (he has tivo!) but i decided there was no reason i couldn't do it. i am a competent, capable adult. it isn't rocket science! it is just shopping . . . for something non-negotiable and non-returnable.

but there are so many decisions to make, and you know how i am about decisions! diandra has been easy to work with. she is flexible and keeps saying, "whatever you think." but that just makes it harder for me, because it leaves me with so many choices. and buying plane tickets isn't like shoe shopping--you can't really change your mind and exchange them. (speaking of which, i now have two pair of twinkle toes shoes at my house in two different sizes! the sales clerk finally said maybe it would be best to try them both at home and then return one pair. yes, a sales clerk actually said to bring one pair back. i think i wore her out with all my questions about, "but do you think it is better for them to be a little tight? should i be wearing socks? will they stretch out?" i am pretty sure she just wanted me to go away . . . ) so i played around with different flights and airports--because i am lucky enough to live within 45 minutes of four different airports--until i found what i thought was the best one. i put in all the information, i read all the fine print, but i just couldn't click on the button that said "purchase." i just couldn't do it. i wanted to check with someone, anyone, to make sure i had done it correctly. but it was late and rollie was already asleep, and i was pretty sure my mom was asleep, and diandra was awake of course, but she had already said, "whatever you decide will be fine!"

so finally i did it. i clicked on the purchase button. i bought plane tickets. all by myself.

of course, i only did it after reading all the fine print, which included the words "you may make one change to this itinerary or cancel and refund to original form of payment with no fee within 24 hours of purchase." ah ha! a loophole! admittedly it is a tiny loophole, but it was enough to make me feel like that if i get up tomorrow morning and realize i have made a terrible mistake, i can undo it.

because i need the security of knowing i can change my mind--even if it has to be in the next 24 hours!