Tid Bit is starting kindergarten this year.

And with real school, comes a real school supplies list.  Pencils, markers, crayons, folders, and more. 

Towards the end of this previous school year, we received an option to purchase the school supplies in a pre-assembled package for a fee… that was of course fairly more than if we just went out ourselves and bought them.  My thought…”Why on earth should I pay more for pencils, paper, and folders when it’s such a cinch to go to Walmart or Target and buy them myself?!”

Last week I thought we’d head out early one morning to Walmart and get a jump-start on the acquisition of school supplies.  We’d go before everyone else and their brother went, and we’d for sure go before the tax free weekend which will drive the masses in search of the same things on my list and leave me coming up void.  Aren’t I clever?  “Preparation is the key to victory,” right?  (I saw that clever quote engraved on a gun in a movie we watched about hitmen last night…Jason Statham at his finest.)

Anyhow…turns out I was totally wrong.  When I’d first glanced at the school supplies list it seemed simple enough, but when I got down to purchasing everything, I not only realized that some of the things were brand specific,  they were item number specific.  WHAT?!

Did I mention that my child is starting KINDERGARTEN?!?!

I wandered around Walmart like a lost puppy… with 2 kids who were sick and tired of school supplies shopping and beginning to whine and tire of the whole ordeal….right there with you kids….I’m right there with you!

The school supplies section didn’t have all of the school supplies that were on my list…and making sure that I had navy blue (the specified color for some of the items) was proving to be a pain in the tookis too.  I grabbed a package of pencils and tossed them in the cart only to realize that the list specified “black pencil and black eraser Ticonderoga pencils, 4-6pks.)  I searched all over and finally found a man in a suit with a Wal-mart nametag stating “general manager” (so sue me if I sound rude, but they’re about the only ones in the whole store who can answer any question I have without taking me on a tour of the entire facility in search of something seemingly basic like a pencil.)  He took me to a whole other section of the store and we found a 10 pk of Ticonderoga black pencils…so I bought 3 packages of 10 to make sure I had at least 24 since 4×6=24 and that was how many I was suppossed to have in the end.  Surely this would work, right?

I found what I could at Walmart, save the “green tipped Crayola No-Drip glue”, and the “Smead legal sized expandable poly folder in navy blue” which I apparently could only find at Staples…at least there was a SKU number for this item.  So we paid for our 8 pks of Crayola crayons, and 8 pks of Crayola colored pencils, and standard Crayola water colors, and 1 inch navy blue plastic binder, and other super-specific items, and of course our black erasered Ticonderoga pencils…and we headed for Staples to get the one ultra-specific item for a whopping $16.99, and hopefully find the other things that Walmart didn’t have.

I immediately found a manager upon entering Staples and asked about the Smead navy blue legal sized expandable poly folder and the Crayola no-drip green lidded glue.  Her reply, “Staples does not even carry the Smead brand, and I’ve never even seen that type of glue here.”

It has recently come to my attention that in my own perception of myself, I must think I’m younger and cooler than I actually am.  That in the mirror of my life, I see someone who’s still pretty relevant and youthful.

Lately though I’ve been forced to inch a little closer to that mirror (since in my older age my perception glasses must be blurred) to get a clearer look.

I’m realizing that as I look towards my 33rd birthday in a month from now, while I’m still pretty young in the whole tape measurer length of my life, I’m not as young as I used to be….and other people notice that too.

When we were at the beach earlier this month I decided to help my super cute but very shy cousin break the ice with some girls about his age (18.)  I’ve always been able to start a conversation with strangers easily and this was no big deal….plus, I was selling a cute guy to cute girls.  No biggie.

So… I go over to the group of girls on the beach, sit down and say hello and then launch into some schpeil about my cute buy shy cousin not wanting to infringe on their girl time but who was curious about them.  It was reasonably smooth and mildly unobtrusive…plus I’m a girl…and I’m relatively hip, or so I think.

Then comes my kiss of youthful death when the girls comment on my toenail polish and say…

“That is so totally cool that you wear blue toenail polish.”

It wasn’t lost on me for a second that what they were really saying actually wasn’t finished.   I didn’t miss it though, the “at your age” was clearly implied.

Sweet…I’m youthfully culturally relevant…albeit old.

I’m thinking that when I’m 90, I might sport a black leather biker jacket…and fake boobs…and blue nail polish.

Aging gracefully….yeah.

PS.  Please for crying out loud, send our sailor this month some love.  He hasn’t gotten a darn thing from anyone and is totally bummed.  Poor guys out on a ship in the middle of nowhere… bake some cookies, send a card…something!?!?  I’ll post the next letter when I know this sailor hasn’t been forgotten from the shores of this continent!

I should be more awesome.

Seriously….couldn’t we all use a boost in our personal awesomeness?!

Like today, the 8th anniversary of my nuptials to the Hubs, when he fully woke up the mildly fussing baby at 5:20am by messing with him (instead of changing his soaking wet diaper rapidly and getting the heck out of there,)  I got ticked, waved my hand in the air at my Hubs, said something probably very un-anniversary-like, and marched down the hall to try my darnedest to get said baby back to sleep…so that I could go back to sleep and a few hours later remind myself to be nice the rest of the day.

I could probably use a boost in my awesomeness.

I could be more awesome too if instead of serving up leftovers for dinner, I’d take a trip around the corner to the fancy butcher shop and pick up something more impressive to celebrate.

That awesomeness is still in debate, but probably not likely since the Hubs has a basketball game tonight too.

I’m pretty sure that I could use a boost in my awesomeness.

If I were really awesome though, I’d get a sitter and go watch his basketball game at the gym and grab fun take-out afterwards….but I hate basketball, and the smell of men playing it unless I’m in the nosebleed seats at a massive stadium.

I’m nearly certain that I’m not that awesome either.

It’s looking like my anniversary day could use a dose of awesomeness for sure.

But here’s what would make me the most awesome of all….to actually honor this stuff….the stuff I said and promised on the day we got married:

I, Logan, take you Jeremy to be my treasured husband.  By the grace of God, I promise to respect your spiritual leadership in our home.  I desire to encourage you in your dreams, and to support you in whatever the Spirit calls you to do.  I commit to walk in step with you, to admire you, to serve you in daily life, and to encourage you in your own walk with Christ as the highest priority.  I desire to create a home where you are respected and esteemed, and I commit to joyfully submit to your authority .  I give you my purity and I promise to be faithful to you, and you alone.  All that I have, and all that I am, i now give to you.  Whatever hardships or joys may come, may I keep these vows and strive towards the perfection of them, til death should part us.

I’m absolutely positive that I’m not always that awesome….but I do think it is pretty awesome that with all of me, I want to try.

Happy Anniversary to the man who married me 8 years ago….despite all of my unawesomeness.

I was totally gonna post another recipe for you today since I’ve been cooking up a storm lately, but I have to tell you about the drama I experienced last night!

Ok, so first I just have to tell you…I don’t care if you have a bad day and maybe if you really are a complete jerk inside…keep it in people.  Save it for your spouse or for your girlfriends’ ears.  Don’t…I repeat don’t get all bitchy in Hobby Lobby with the poor checkout girl who’s just doing her job.

Last night I had to run into Hobby Lobby to pick up some floral foam and a couple other random things for the wedding this weekend.  When I came in there were 2 checkout lines…both full, but one definitely longer than the other.  I had the thought…”well, looks like I might have a little bit of a wait checking out, so I need to book it to get out of here at a reasonable time.”

When I got everything I needed and came back to the checkout line, I got in the shorter one….duh?!

The checkout girl finished up 2 people in front of me and began checking out the lady directly in front of me.  Then out of nowhere…there’s this freakishly rude high pitched voice yelling from 2 aisles over…”Excuse ME!  EXCUSE ME!”

We all look around to see who the heck is being so miserable.  Then we see this lady in the other line waving her arms and yelling at my checkout line girl.  “EXCUSE ME!  Do you see this line over here?!  We have all been waiting in this line much longer than the people in your line.  We have all assumed that YOU were only processing returns and as a result have been waiting for a really long time in THIS LINE!  Not once did you turn around and tell us that you were available for checkout of regular items.  We have all been assuming that you were only doing returns!  This is ridiculous and I am just furious and frustrated.  I have my kids at home and I shop here all the time.  This is absolutely ridiculous!!!”

My checkout girl was stunned (along with everyone else in earshot…which was pretty much the entire freaking store!)  She just said “I’m sorry you assumed that ma’m, but I have been processing both returns and regular checkouts this entire time.”

The woman launches in again…”This in unbelievable.  This customer service is atrocious!  As much money as I spend in this store and here you are making excuses for your poor performance.  You could have at the very least told ALL OF US WAITING IN THIS LINE FOREVER that you were available!  You need to do your job…this is absolutely unbelievable.  If I didn’t really need these items I’d have left a long time ago.  What a waste of my time!”

My checkout girl looks white in the face and is now shaking she’s clearly so angry.  And I couldn’t blame her.  She whispers into her walkie talkie to her manager and says “Please come up here…there is a woman freaking out on me and it’s making me REALLY angry.  Seriously…come now.”

The manager comes up and the tirade continues to the manager.  It gets louder, it gets worse, she’s absolutely berating this poor girl who has been working consistently the entire time.  The girl is now checking out my stuff and looks like she’s about to burst into tears.  I said to her, “Are you ok?  Do you want me to let your manager know that you haven’t done anything wrong?  It’s going to be alright.”

She says “Something like this could make me lose my job.  I can’t afford to lose my job.”

The lady is still loudly bitching in the background.  By this point I want to punch her in the mouth too.  I think EVERYONE in Hobby Lobby wanted to punch her in the mouth just to shut it up.  So rude…I can’t even tell you.  Un-believable!

I finished checking out and still hear the lady yelling about assuming that the line was just for returns and the incompetency of the girl running the register.  I wanted so badly to walk over and say “Excuse me ma’m…I just wanted to remind you that ‘you know what happens we we ‘assume’ right?!’ ….yeah…ass out of you and me.  Remember that one.  Yeah….maybe you should.”

But I didn’t.  I walked out to my car and put my bags into it.  Then a lady who checked out in the line before the yelling lady came out.  I asked her if it was really all that bad, because to me it didn’t seem so and I was concerned about the girls’ job security after the rant.  She looks at me and says “Oh…I see.  You’re THAT person!  I’ve had a bad day regardless…I don’t really care.”  And then she walked off.

WHAT THE CRAP?!  Why is everyone peeing in everyone else’s cornflakes?!  Seriously?!  Can’t we all just get along?  So I walked back into Hobby Lobby, hid behind the fake flower section til the lady with the spawn-of-satan attitude left, and then went up to the manager and said that I didn’t think the checkout girl did a thing wrong.  She thanked me and then I left.  Yeah….I’m THAT person…and that’s just fine with me.

So then off I go to take a couple of dresses to a friend to try on for the wedding this weekend.  She and her Hubs are staying in a Residence Inn before a move across the big pond to Europe for a year of work.  They were sitting in the lobby taking advantage of the free happy hour.  I joined them for a beer and some laughs til all of a sudden my friend is completely alarmed and says “OH MY GOODNESS!”  We all lookedei out the window to see an overweigh middle aged man who’s wearing no pants get back into his car and speed away.  Who knows how long he’d been sitting there, because we weren’t paying attention, but my poor friend got an eyeful of this pervert doing things in public that noone would want to know he did in private anyways.  Then he zoomed away….satisfied with his perversion and violation of people he didn’t know I’m sure.  And I wanted to punch him in the mouth too…and kick him in the you know where.

What the heck is wrong with people?!  Unbelievable rudeness and completely disgusting perverts in one night?!

I honestly have no idea what I want to say about any of it other than…don’t assume….don’t be wretched…and keep your freaking pants on in public.

Makes me want to go be a farmer in remote Virginia and homeschool my kids…and make cans of everything I grow in my organic garden…and make fresh bread every morning after milking the cow to make fresh butter too.  Seriously….we’re raising our kids in a rough world and sometimes I wish I could escape it all.  I’m just believing that the Lord is gonna show me how to live well myself and to raise little lights to shine in this dark world.  Because it’s dark…and that was all in just an hour yesterday.

UGH!

Just had to share about the super fun day that my family had today!  And have to give some serious kudos to my kiddo as well.

Near where we live in SC, there is a relatively newer bike/walking trail that goes all the way from the north end of town to downtown called the Swamp Rabbit Trail.  It’s been there for a couple of years I think, but we’ve just now gotten to the point where Tid Bit can bike at a rate that’s fast enough to make it fun for us too.  We bought a chariot carrier (the pull behind kind) for Little Bit to ride and have been doing a pretty good amount of biking around the neighborhood the past couple of months since we got the chariot rider.

We’ve been telling Tid Bit that when he got pretty good at doing biker safety hand signals, staying in a good line, and pedaling hard that we’d take him to ride the Swamp Rabbit.

So today we went.  And it was a BLAST!  All total we biked about 12 miles and my little man didn’t complain even once.  In fact he told us tonight that he probably could have biked “at least 26 miles or something more.”  Doubt that, but good for you little dude!

We ran into the parents of an old college friend of mine on the trail and they mentioned a restaurant in an old Hardware Store near the end of the trail, so we headed up that way to finish off our adventure.

We were so glad they told us about it, because it was not only adorable but delicious.  So I’m gonna say, if you’re anywhere near Greenville, SC, you need to do the trail (or part of it like we did) and eat lunch at The Cafe at Williams Hardware.  It was a really fun day!  Hope your weekend has afforded you some good family times too!

Thank you Natalie Merchant… and yes they are, yes they are!