Is this a problem?!?

Yesterday morning, while watching the Today show in a hotel room in Lander, I caught a clip about the "soft" addiction of shopping, and the damage it is doing to thousands of people who struggle with it. It was both interesting and sad. I left my hotel room about ten minutes later and walked across the street to Alco and Family Dollar . . .

. . . less than an hour later, I was headed back to the hotel with three sacks of "stuff" that I had purchased. Now, I'm beginning to think that I may have a problem as well. However, my problem is a little different. Let me explain.

Where I live, it's pretty difficult to be addicted to shopping. It would be like saying that someone who drank once a month, if that, was an alcoholic. But I have to admit that I really get a buzz from finding a great deal. Here's where it gets a little weird. As I've listened to other people talk about "deals" they've gotten on things, I realize that I've taken the idea of a good deal a little too far. For example, if a shirt is over $5, it is not a good deal in my book, and not worthy of my $5. So here's the short list of what I purchased yesterday:

1 pair of jeans: clearance price $4.50
3 shirts for me: all under $3.00
2 dresses for Mylie: $3.00 each
Halloween costume: $5.00 (this was definitely a splurge!)

And I felt just a little guilty about the money spent on me. I haven't always been this way. I have always been a fan of D.I., but back in my college days when money grew on trees (at least for those with great scholarships at UW), I once bought a pair of jeans for $50!!! The thought of it nearly makes me sick to my stomach. I've kept myself in jeans for the last 3 or 4 years for that price, I'm sure. But slowly, over time, the problem has gotten worse.

One of my "low moments" came just a few years ago, when I wore a pair of ugly brown shoes for about a year and a half, just waiting for the right shoes at the right price so I could have a decent pair. But, I was rewarded for my wait, finally finding a pair of like-new leather shoes that were oh-so-cute at a yard sale for $3.00 Just the price I was willing to pay!

Another confession: I often go into a dressing room at DI or a department store with very low prices with a stack of things to try on. I honestly hope that some of them won't fit so I won't have to decided if those cute $7.00 jeans are just a little too expensive.

Finally: I think it has been at least three years since I have even looked at a rack of clothes that doesn't have a CLEARANCE sign on it.

So, decide for yourself: Am I just a cheap tight-wad, a frugal Mormon mom, or a hopeless bargain addict? I don't know. But I can't wait until this next weekend since I'm going to Casper and am bound to find an amazing deal on something!

First Snow

So, I'm a little late with this post, but last weekend, we had our first snow. I was babysitting two of my nephews on Saturday, and so the four kids went outside for quite awhile and had a blast in the new snow! Mylie was especially excited and antsy to get outside since she doesn't remember last winter very well and was just so curious about the snow. It wasn't too cold, so they had a great time doing all the snow stuff:

SNOW ANGELS,

SNOWBALL FIGHTS,

SNOWMEN, and of course . . .

SLEDDING!!!

And then if that wasn't fun enough, Connor asked his dad to bury him in the snow. Yes, that hat is really on his head. Breaking out was pretty exciting for him, too.

P.S. If this snow was still on the ground, I'd probably be bitter enough about it that I wouldn't find any joy in posting these fun pictures. However, it has long since melted, and we've had a beautiful week! Fall in Wyoming!

Belly Shot

So, I've noticed that it's the thing to do in the blogging world--pregnant ladies must share photos of their growing bellies. So, I guess I'll follow tradition and do the same. Less than a month to go! I feel great, however, and am actually hoping that I'll actually go to my due date or close anyway, since I still have 2 1/2 weeks of volleyball left, and certainly don't want to miss state tournament.

Now, people say that you can tell if you're having a boy or girl by whether you're carrying low or high. I don't know what this means, though. Is this just for tall ladies? For me, at 5'2", I feel like the baby is taking all the space between my ribs and hips! Is it possible for it to be high or low under these conditions? If you can tell by looking, please enlighten me.

What if?

So, after looking at my cousin Lori's post yesterday, I just had to check out the yearbookyourself website. What fun! But as Tony and tried it out with pictures of ourselves, it had us asking, "What if?"

What if I had graduated with my dad?

What if I had been born 20 years earlier? I could have been my mom's best friend, or possibly TWIN??? This is a little freaky, don't you think, Mom?

Even if I could have been a high school senior in 1994 instead of an 8th grader. Then I could have had the hair of my dreams! What if Tony gained 100 lbs?What if he had lived in the 50's? Can you say teen heartthrob?

Or what if he had been born just 10 years earlier? Would he still be sporting this sweet mullet?

Who knows?!?

Graveyards . . . ugh!

About a month ago, I got a call from a lady who lives in the valley here. She told me that she and her husband wanted to go on a cruise with his parents for their 50th wedding anniversary. Their only holdup was the fact that two of her children, both of whom have disabilities needed nighttime supervision to monitor for seizures, and they couldn't go if they didn't find a provider. Since I'm a certified respite care provider, she got my name from the list and gave me a call. She told me that the provider would need to be awake all night, and that it would be for 4 nights from 9pm to 6am. My initial response was, "I don't think so." However, after hanging up the phone, I thought a little more about it, and realized that my excuse of being a mother of two small children sounded pretty lame when considering what she does. She and her husband have adopted 10 children, almost all of whom have disabilities. She has two that have cerebral palsy and seizures, two that have Downs Syndrome, two in wheelchairs, one blind, one deaf, and one dumb. I immediately talked to Tony, and we decided that I'd do it. I called her back, and she was ecstatic. She wanted to go so badly, but was worried that they wouldn't find anybody willing to take on the job. So, thanks to Tony's sisters and a friend, my kids will be taken care of during the days so I can get some sleep this week, and I get to spend 9 hours each night in a bedroom with two boys, praying that they don't have a seizure. In the meantime, however, last night, I was able to get 7 digital scrapbook pages done, read some from my book, get some respite paperwork done that I've been meaning to get to, and enter all my JV volleyball stats onto the computer. All this while trying to get one of the boys, who is deaf, to lay down and go to sleep. Hopefully he'll sleep better tonight. He had a rough one. Anyway, after meeting her chidren and thinking about what she deals with everyday VOLUNTARILY, I'm sure she's headed straight for the Celestial Kingdom. And although I'm tired, I guess I'm grateful, too, to be able to give a saint a much-deserved four night break. One down, three to go! Wish me luck!

Finally!

So, I finally got the FHE blog set up. To see it, go to www.fheswap.blogspot.com. If you are interested in sharing FHE ideas, please email me at taffymicheli@yahoo.com and I will email back to you the username and password required to get on the blog and post your ideas. Also, I would like to have an element on this blog where the ideas are sorted by categories, so instead of having how many posts were made in October, it would have something like Prophets (3) to show that there are three lessons about prophets, and you can just click there to get all three on your screen. Does anybody know if this is possible, or how to do it? If so, please let me know! I think this would make this blog really handy. Finally, I would love to know who posts the different ideas, so will you please include your name under Labels for this post. This should be fun!

FHE Swap, Anyone?

So, I was looking online for some ideas for my primary lesson last week, and I came upon a blog where different people had posted FHE ideas. I think this is a great idea, and was wondering if any of you would be interested in being a part of this. I think I would just set up a new blog, and then email the username and password to whoever wanted to join. That way, you could log in anytime and post something. I also would like to set it up where the archive is sorted by topic. That way, over time, you could click on a topic and have all relevant posts come up.

For those of you interested in joining, I would ask that you make one post a month. You can do more if you'd like, but at least that much. That way, we could really get a good base of ideas going. It could be an entire lesson plan or just a tip to make FHE more fun and effective. If you are interested, please leave a comment with your email address, or email me at taffymicheli@yahoo.com. I hope to get this set up this Sunday if there's a good response. This could be tons of fun!!!