Hairclips & Housekeeping

So today I had a couple of errands to do and I took Amelie with me to the mall. One of the things I wanted to do was go to Gymboree and take advantage of a 50% off coupon I had, and raid their sales rack. Given that I have two girls, I feel a bit more like I can buy better quality clothing because I know that it'll see two kids, but I'm still a stingy queen of cheap and buy stuff uber discounted. (quick question, is "uber" too 1999?)

Well first we went to see the puppies, because it's a treat when we do that, and Amelie always has great stories about it when we get home. (Is that selfish, to take her there just because I want to hear her stories?) Anyway, seeing a living, breathing creature in the middle of the mall makes it feel a little less like it's sucking the life force out of me. She very much enjoyed the puppies. She saw one with a rather cute nose and it very much wanted to touch her. "I want it," she says in this innocent kind of way, which sounds more like she wants the joy of being with it as opposed to a demanding toddler kind of way. So I tell her, "pray and ask God to give mama and papa a house with a backyard and then we'll get you a puppy". (later on, R asked me if that was a good idea. what if God suddenly did give us a house, then she'd expect a puppy, and right now she's too young for a puppy. he's right. but 1. it reflected our confidence that God can do amazing things like that, and so comforted me instead of chastising me and 2. if God answered a prayer like that for her, I'll start getting her to pray for other things! and faith like that deserves a puppy. ok maybe not exactly but you get my drift).

So on we went to Gymboree and boy did I make that coupon stretch. All my fellow clearance junkies -holla! I did you proud.

But there was one thing I saw that I didn't pay bottom dollar for... although it was still on clearance. I just couldn't resist and so to justify it, I'm going to give them to Amelie for her birthday (which is only 2 months away so I don't have to wait long).




She loved them, and so I can't wait to give them to her!

Also, I was very proud of myself. I spent way less than usual at the grocery store today. One of my goals right now, to reduce waste and focus on being a diligent budgeter is to buy less when I got shopping... seems logical right but here's the deal. Because of our car situation, I could only go grocery shopping maybe twice a month. So I'd try and buy a ton of stuff to last us 2 weeks or so, which is fine with things like cereal, or meat I can freeze, but you just can't buy produce and expect that romaine lettuce head to be as fresh two weeks later as the day you bought it. So I'm just going to have to figure out how to do this but here are my goals:

1. better meal planning. this way I can a) not be so stressed out when it comes to 5 pm and I have to think about food for the 10th time in the day and b) buy what we need for the meals we're having, and not a random cupboard crapshoot. won't always work perfectly, but hopefully...
2. buying less = spending less + wasting less

...so I feel better, not just about meal preparation, but also about the state of my fridge, and plugging the hole that (I feel like) keeps hemorrhaging money and food.

Sorry, that got even a bit too "housewifey" even for me. This really was just meant to be a post about how much I loved being with Amelie today, and that I got to buy her some fun, funky hair clips!