Progress, more internal than visible

(Finding this picture had made all this work worthwhile!!!)

(And yes, that is a douche bottle!)

Progress is happening in all sorts of ways. But two in particular that I will now talk about at some length, because I am, above all, wordy.





The first is Valentine's Day. Most importantly the Valentine party for my son's class. This is our third year in which we have had a social event for my child. The first year I truly lost my mind and made elaborate homemade three dimensional cards for 3 year olds. I somehow equate an entire night without sleeping to make these disposable objects as proof that I loved my child the most. Of course I lost that contest my the mother who had custom cards made at the local printing shop complete with the child's picture, a ribbon and pink and white m&ms with the child's name. But I digress.


Last year I went the Shutterfly route and had elaborate valentine's printed complete with WALT's picture and a Thomas background. I won! But now I still have like 10 of those cards that I don't know what to do with . . so this year I was determine to want not, waste not.


In cleaning out the kitchen cabinets I discovered a couple of overkills. Candy was one. Cute and clever holiday theme treat bags were another. Every holiday from Christmas to Easter to July 4th represented. So I decided to eliminate two problems with one party.


Until this particular party I have been the holier than thou mother who has stuck her nose in the air and declared "oh I don't buy candy for school functions, it's pure sugar." Meanwhile my kid is the first to put other people's sugary treats in his mouth -- all at once. So on Thursday night out came the treat bags and out came the mass of candy. When sorting last mouth I had identified which types of candy were plentiful enough to create like bags for 16 kids. In the end we had a vday sucker (from a bag purchased by WALT and mom at target a few weeks earlier) 2 Carmel's, (from a bag brought over by Senior just last week) a pixie stick, candy bracelet, and sweet tarts (all left overs from Halloween.) Tied up with left over curling ribbon they actually looked adorable. I thought that perhaps that the mixture of candy was a bit random, and yet eerily similar to the treat bags WALT is always bringing home from these parties. It makes me think that I am not the first parent to re-gift candy.





The second is that I have been doing some searching on the Internet on my own about scaling down and de-cluttering. I found this incredible article about a woman who had paid off her student loans just by selling stuff on e-bay. Now that my physical house is starting to come back into order I have been spending time thinking/worrying/plotting on how to bring the fiances back into some type of Zen like state. I don't really think that I am going to pay off my student loans, (though that is what she said she thought as well) but there always seems to be a new bill every month and if I could just pay off a few of the small ones I know I would sleep better at night.


I have had luck in the past with half.com in both buying and selling textbooks. I have decided to re-open my little shop there and seriously scale down my book collection. Another one of those two birds with one stone things that is going to make Tammy so happy!


The article lady suggested Sunday as a good day to list. So this week is the books and hopefully over the next week I can get E-bay set up for selling (not just buying) and the same with PayPal and then I can post some of the nice clothing and jewelry that I was going to try to take to consignment.





Oh yea me. Oh and the bathroom is done. I still have too much perfume, but I have no make-up so in my mind it evens out. Pictures to come soon (as soon as the books are posted.)