back to senior prom

Happy one week count-down to our "cruise-a-birth-a-versary". (Bobby's word to describe the "cruise" we're taking to celebrate Marty's 30th "birth"-day, but that happens to fall on our anni-"versary").

Explanation of our weirdness aside, that's right folks, a week from now, Marty and I will be sailing the high seas, sans baby. And I can't freakin' wait. Who cares if we're only going to San Diego, Catalina Island, and Ensenada? Who cares if it was the cheapest cruise we could find and apparently the oldest ship that Royal Carribean will still put in water? We've never cruised before, so it'll all be magical to us, cheesey 80's cruise ship decor included.

And being the outfit planner that I am--whether or not this is the only area in my life that I bother thinking ahead about--I've been wrestling for weeks over what to wear for our one formal dinner. I have to look fabulous. Without spending a dime.

Last week I decided to get creative and pull my old prom dresses out of the guestroom closet. I dusted them off and thought I'd see if I could squeeze into one. My "senior in high school" body is long gone, so I prepared myself for the worst. Shock and awe, after a couple minutes of fighting with a zipper or two, I did it! Expanded post-pregnancy rib cage and all! Maybe I HAVE been losing weight recently. Wouldn't know. I hid our bathroom scale a long time ago.

Now how to update the "senior in high school" beaded halter-top look to something a little more current? Here's where my Project Runway-ish-ness came into play. I folded down the halter straps to make it a strapless evening gown. And it doesn't look too stupid! I'm my own little Vera Wang in the making. Proof of my designer intellect:

So I get to recycle a great dress, save money in the process, but still sport a totally new look! That's heaven to a penniless shopoholic like myself.

I should start a little fashion disaster hotline, for those women like myself whose budgets don't allow for a shopping spree every time another formal event comes up, but who still like to feel pretty in something new. Maybe fashion.crisis.aversion.com? Or 1-800-SENIOR-PROM?

Thanks to my prowess during this particular tale, I'll be rockin' the boat.

a child of the 70's

So, you know how everyone has those adorable new wide-leg pants?

I've been wanting to get myself a pair. Sarah approved the look on me, so from that first moment she said, "Yeah, you could pull that off", I've been convinced I need some. Candace looks fantastic in them, and she's tall like me, so I figured they'd work on my super long legs. And Anna wore a "real" designer pair on Sunday that flattered her smaller frame, so I decided they'd look alright on my skinny twig legs, too.

So when my son gave me a shirt on Mothers Day that didn't really work, I set out to exchange it for the wide-leg pants I've been wanting. You should have seen me wandering aimlessly through Macy's, pushing the baby in his bright green umbrella stroller with a dozen pairs of jeans hanging off the back, dragging on the floor. I was determined to find the right pair even if it took me all day. But after about an hour, Marty started getting anxious, so I took him into the dressing room to try everything on. Funny how some of the super-flared jeans look wide-leg-ish. Ew.

A couple whines and several tears later (not to mention my fussy son), I found the perfect pair. They're comfortable, and a size smaller than I thought I'd need, and plenty long. And I only spent twenty bucks! Yeah, they're a cheap knock-off brand, but they're MY cheap knock-off pants. I'm so proud.

But when I got home and modeled them for my husband, after gushing about how good my butt looks in them, he said, "Wow. Who knew that bell bottoms would come back in style?" Okay. Not really what I was looking for in the line of compliments.

So disco diva or not, at least I'll be smokin' hot. Groovy.

Madness #6--WinCo shminco...

Can I just say that I abhore going to WinCo?

But you just can't beat those prices. Yeah, Safeway is a lot nicer--they actually bag your groceries for you and offer to help you to the car, which is great for moms like me--but can I really justify spending twice or three times as much? Now that Marty and I are on a pretty strict budget, I have to keep our grocery bill under $250 a month. And I can spend that much on "just a couple things" at Safeway.

So I guess it's the really low grocery bill at the end of my WinCo visit that makes it worth my time. I mean, now that I'm a mom, it's a pretty big deal to restock our fridge and usually naked pantry. I have to work around my son's sleeping and eating schedules, so he's not whining the whole time and causing other moms to stare at me with that look of disapproval like I have no idea what I'm doing. So once he's rested and well fed, I have to load him into the car along with a bottle, toys, diapers, wipes, a bib for that unexpected throw-up, snacks--you name it, I've probably got it. I then get to drive across town to go to a store that makes me uncomfortable. I get to deal with people touching my son's hands and feet without asking permission, then watch as little Marty puts that same hand or foot into his mouth. Yuck. You just never know when people have showered last, or washed their hands. And the cart is always so full that my tiny little self has trouble dragging it around the store. I have to almost throw my body against it to get it where I want it to go. And believe me, steering around the people that just stand in the middle of the aisle is pretty dang hard. So I wait in a fifteen minute line, then spend another fifteen minutes bagging all my groceries while people glare at me for taking so long. But when I have to attend to my fussy son who's tired of sitting on the hard metal seat for so long, I will take all the time I need to make sure he's okay. So sue me for caring about my son more than about being "bagger of the year". Then I drag the heavy cart out to the car, take forever loading it myself, and try desperately to avoid putting the gallon of orange juice on top of the potato bread. When I get home, I take the baby into the house first and try to distract him with a fun toy or piece of cheese to munch on so he doesn't try to get out every time I open the front door with a new load of grocery bags from the car. It usually takes me about ten trips back and forth to get everything in the house. And I'm not strong. So when I overdo it and try to carry in more than I'm able, I get angry and get determined to prove something to myself and carry it in anyway, no matter how much my arms are burning, and how many times I scrape myself. And the cats always try to escape, so I have to close the door behind me every time I go in and out. It makes for a long unloading process. Tonight I had half a mind to call Billy (our neighbor) and ask him to help me. But even if I had an extra set of hands, I still have to actually put everything away. In the fridge, freezer, or pantry. Of course my anal self has to sort things by category and go through everything we already have, throwing out the bad stuff to make room for the new. Really, I hate when food gets shoved into the back of the fridge or pantry and we don't know it exists until it's rotten. So I try to rotate things in and out. Really, it takes forever. The whole ordeal just takes freakin' forever.

Anyway, needless to say I don't enjoy grocery shopping as much as I used to when I had the luxury of just hopping out of the car and walking in to the store. I didn't have to worry about finding a cart whose little seat belt actually works, or about avoiding aisles with suspicious-looking people in them so my child stays germ-free.

But hey. I'm trying to look on the bright side. It's a great workout, with all the packing and lifting and loading and unloading and pushing and sorting and such. So to those who think moms just sit around and do nothing all day, eat your shorts. "Sitting around and doing nothing" is not as easy as we make it look.

Take THAT, WinCo. You may be my Everest, but no matter how grueling the journey, and how many times I curse grocery shopping along the way, I always win in the end.

Madness #3--the Target trap

Since becoming a mom, I've learned that it is impossible to leave Target without spending more money than you intended.

With their cute little displays and relatively low prices, how can you not toss a couple extra things in your red cart? And when you're being selfless enough to buy things for other people, like your adorable son who's sitting facing you in the cart with his gorgeous big blue eyes and precious "buy me everything" smile, how can you not justify each purchase?

Just the other day I went to Target looking for something small to send to my friend's son who's turning one. I was hoping to just spend a couple bucks--nothing extravagent. I ended up with forty dollars-worth of stuff! I managed to convince myself that I needed to buy a handful of greeting cards for birthdays and events coming up over the next few months, and that I just HAD to purchase the adorable Sesame Street-themed birthday party invitations for our son's upcoming bash instead of making my own invites. And was I forced to buy the little nightlight for the baby's room since it perfectly matched his decor? Of course!

I swear, every time I tell my husband that I'm headed to Target, I think he freaks out in his head. Knowing that I'm going to bring home a bag full of stuff we probably don't need.

My theory? You can always take things back. And while you're there returning stuff, may as well just look around for a little while...

my elf shoes

Okay, so I'm kind of proud of myself. I've actually started a little bit of a fashion trend. And for the girl who used to wear hot pink stirrup pants with yellow wool socks and Payless's cheap knock-off Converse, this is a big deal.

So, a couple years ago my mother-in-law when to London and came home raving about the shoes that all the fashionable girls were wearing. She described them as black flats with a pointed toe. We went shopping and tried to find her a pair, but to no avail. Which was weird because everyone seems to have those shoes.

Well, for her birthday this past October, I was determined to find them. It took about five minutes of google searching to discover that Target carried black flats with a pointed toe. Not sure why we didn't just look online in the first place. Anyway, I buckled little Marty into his carseat and set out for our local Target to pick up a pair. Save on shipping costs, right? When I got there I discovered that they carried a bronze version as well. And my mother-in-law wears a lot of bronze, so I surprised her with some fun, pointy shoes. Happy Birthday, Mimi. Nevermind that she had to trade them for the silver ones since I bought the wrong size.

So my birthday rolled around in December, and my sister called to find out what I'd like. I directed her to the Target website and hinted that there were some pretty cute bronze pointy shoes for a reasonable price. Sure enough, she bought them for me and I started wearing them almost every day.

Then for Christmas, my younger sisters bought each other the same shoes in black. So I found myself trying to be careful that we all didn't wear our shoes at the same time. It would be pretty lame.

At a baby shower in January, a friend of mine (okay, Kathy) was admiring my bronze pointedness and asked where I got my adorable shoes. A couple months later I noticed her wearing a pair of her own at church one Sunday.

And now, my sister-in-law has the exact same ones. My mother-in-law went to lunch with her yesterday and came home to tell me that Anna had on the same shoes I wore yesterday, too. I can only imagine that she got the tip from Kathy, who's a good friend of hers.

So I guess I kind of started a fashion trend. I mean, people have been wearing elf shoes for a while now, so it wasn't really my idea, but I'm responsible for six gorgeous pairs finding their way to some happy owners, including myself. They really are comfortable despite looking like they would bend your toes in several weird directions.

The next time you see someone wearing them, think of me. Plain old Becky, whose version of high fashion is splurging on a thirty-dollar faux leather purse on sale at Macy's, discovered something cool and passed it on. Like I said, I'm pretty proud of myself.

15% off...

You know what I love?

Going to the mailbox and getting a coupon for 15% off of something that I've been meaning to buy anyway. It's like a little extra goodie in my goodie bag.

I wish every day was a 15% off coupon.

Barnes and Noble, here I come.

a khaki kind of day

So it doesn't take a genius to notice that I'm pretty tall. I tower over my husband when I'm brave enough to pull my heels out from the recesses of my closet.

Normally my height doesn't really bother me. I mean, I'm the shortest one in my family, with a little sister who's about 6'3" and a big brother who's 6'9". Yeah, BIG brother. When I'm around them, I even think of myself as kind of puny.

But today, I began to curse my long legs as I set out to find myself a pair of khaki pants. You'd think they'd be easy to find, since most stores are carrying longer sizes these days. SO WRONG.

Let's see, American Eagle (yes, I'm complaining about my husband's store) doesn't carry long khakis unless you special order them online and pay out your butt for the added inconvenience. The pants at Old Navy that were actually long enough were too wide in the leg. I could have fit two of me in each of those pant legs. Needless to say they looked pretty silly on my relatively skinny self.

So, Kohl's. I looked in the junior's section because the women's pants are all dress pants, and I wanted a wear-around-the-house type pant. So after trying on about five pairs before figuring out what size I was, I started getting antsy. Some fit okay, but were total butt-crackers when I leaned over (come on, you know you do the butt-crack test in dressing rooms, too). Others were skin-tight and showed off every little extra part of me that I usually try to hide. And, you guessed it, the rest were too short. But then I found a pair that claimed to be a "tall" size. Imagine my surprise upon discovering that they were too long! Gadzooks! But my picky khaki self couldn't handle how much they made me look fourteen again, like I was trying to be cool with my super-long, super-flared pants. But the regular length of those same khakis was just a little bit shorter than I would have liked. I wish they had a "regular tall" size for those in-betweeners like myself.

So what did I do? I bought both the regular and tall khaki pants. To take home and try on for my husband to see which ones he thinks I should keep since little Marty wasn't much help in my decision-making process. He just kind of looked at me and whined.

I guess the perfect pair of khakis, or perfect anything for that matter, just doesn't exist. Some days I feel like whining about it too.