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Wednesday, August 20, 2008

School shopping...exercise or torture?

Since we're going on vacation again next week, I decided that we should get the school shopping done this week. It would be over and done with.

Monday we went through the kids' dressers and emptied out all the too small ones, seperated out the stained-not-good-enough-to-wear-to-school ones, and counted what was left that they could wear to school so we'd know what to buy. We then went through the old school supplies to see what could be reused this year (B found quite a bit to reuse because she wanted to be able to spend more money on clothes!).

Armed with our lists (and a budget per child...might as well teach them young), we set off to Wally-World (Walmart). The school supplies were picked out rather quickly and there wasn't a huge crowd which was nice. Then off to do some clothes shopping. YIKES!!! All I can say is that I'm very thankful my SIL was with us or I very well may have ended up a crazed, babbling woman because it would have taken at least twice as long.

She took ET to the boys section and began shopping, while I took the girls. 1st, of course...underwear. Now I have no idea why, but boys underwear was twice as much as girls. Anyway, they all picked out some items they liked, then it was off to...the fitting rooms! Even more torturous than the shopping (have I mentioned I'm not a shopper?), I entertained S (who is 2 and also not a shopper although she did amazingly well considering) while B tried on her clothes. Then B took EB for me to help her try on her clothes. And again we can't thank M (my SIL) enough as she was helping E try on his clothes. Go back to the clothing section for round 2 of selection and try on. Finally everyone is content that they have exhausted Walmart's clothing selection and want to spend the rest of their money at Target. And pretty much the only things missing are a jacket for ET and shoes for B.

M treats us to a well deserved lunch and we come back home to put S down for a well deserved nap. I explain to the kids that we will continue the shopping spree after dinner as that way HHT can take S for us. :o)

Now, a cool phenomenon that I've noticed is that while kids may not be excited about going back to school, they sure are excited about their school supplies and putting them into backpacks. I had to slow them down so that we could mark names on everything and make sure each child received what they were supposed to have. Then, HHT was bombarded when he got in the door with "Can I show you this?", "Daddy, you have to see this!", etc. until we announced that there could be a fashion show...later.

More shopping at Goodwill and Target after dinner and still no jacket for ET or shoes for B. So I decided that since we'll be back in town for Labor Day weekend, we'll take advantage of the sales. B wasn't happy as she had already been dreaming about being able to buy new shoes, but other than that everyone else was happy to go back home and put on the fashion show for Daddy.

And in between shopping excursions I worked out at Curves. Due to vacation, I missed 2 work outs last week and I was concerned that it would be a little difficult to go around the circuit. Nope! It felt easier and when I was done, the computer said that I had burned 545 calories which was a personal best for me. I also overshot my PI goal by 34 points. The last couple of work outs I had done, I was under my goal, so I left Curves feeling like the break had done me some good. :o)

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