Something I’ve been desperately trying to teach my oldest child is the value of a dollar.

I’ve struggled for years with her even-stevens mentality. Unfortunately my son’s birthday comes before hers and she keeps a mental checklist of just how much cash she got vs. him. She also pays attention to the money we spend on his birthday/Christmas gifts vs. hers.

On Black Friday, I took her shopping for some clothes/shoes for her birthday which would be in addition to the gift she gets on her actual birthday, this Friday. The problem with this is she knows exactly how much those clothes cost. It didn’t matter that everything she picked was marked down by half, but had an original market value of $100. I didn’t spend $100 and so its value isn’t worth $100.

She doesn’t know what else she’ll be getting from us, but in her mind, it had better equal $150 because she also knows just how much Rock Band (her brother’s birthday gift) costs in the stores. Nevermind that she plays the game more than he does, or that as I said, her clothing was originally valued at $100.

At the mall that evening, she was unhappy with me for not just throwing money at her so she could spend like the wind. Her birthday was coming after all! There was much wailing, gnashing of teeth, and general brattiness.

That night at home, the house was quiet, Jason was delivering Caitlin’s friends home, and it was just me and Caitlin. I decided to have a talk with her about money and the value of an item. I threw this out:

Let’s say we spent $500 on your brother. And then your birthday comes and we spend $5 on you. But this $5 item is something you desperately wanted. It was the perfect gift for you because it’s something you honestly wanted. Now let’s say instead we spend $500 on completely useless junk. Wouldn’t you rather have a $5 item that you truly wanted than $500 on something you have no use for? So those clothes that “only” cost $50 were valued at $100. Just because I’m a good bargain hunter doesn’t make it any less desirable.

She thought about that for a while, and seemed to understand what I was talking about. It was sinking in.

Her other birthday gift has a retail value of around $180, but am I spending that? No, because I’m getting a great deal on it. Does that make it worth less simply because I’m not spending the full retail value? No. Of course I don’t plan to announce what it did cost so she’ll never really know how much we spent on her gift.

I don’t know how long she’ll think about our conversation, or if it did any good. I don’t know if she’ll be counting her birthday dollars and have her mental calculation of just how much more or less she got than her brother. I just know I can’t have another blow out over gifts. If we do, that’ll be the end of it. I’m donating her to charity! Ok, maybe not, but maybe I’ll just spend her alloted gift funds on her brother and sister, or maybe I’ll donate the cash to charity. I’ll make a big deal out of it just to show her what a mean mom I can be when necessary.

In case you were wondering, No. No, my son doesn’t have the same mentality. At least not in the open. He doesn’t really care what he gets or how much it was as long as it’s something he finds enjoyable.

Thank goodness for that.

In an effort to inspire some friends to blog more, I thought it would be fun to bring back some old questions from the Friday 5 that used to be popular on LiveJournal.

1. Would you consider yourself an organized person? Why or why not?

This is a tough one. I do consider myself to be organized, however if you walked into my abode, you might be tempted to call BS. But, the truth is, I know where most of our “stuff” is. Most of it has a permanent home and I know right where it is. Now does everything end up in its home in a timely manner? Not so much.

2. Do you keep some type of planner, organizer, calendar, etc. with you, and do you use it regularly?

I have a wall calendar that I use much to Jason’s chagrin. I’m not sure if I’ll be getting a 2009 calendar because I’ve been making an honest effort to use iCal more since that’s what Jason looks at to see what’s going on with the family. My problem is remembering to actually look at iCal.

3. Would you say that your desk is organized right now?

Well, on my desk right this moment you will find a cup of tea I’m still drinking, seam ripper, a wooden play cookie, 2 pens, my coveted nail polish, nail clippers shaped like an alligator. Of course there is also my keyboard, speakers, mouse, mouse pad and monitor. So there are items that don’t belong here, but there’s no stack of paper clutter, nor is it covered with piles of junk.

4. Do you alphabetize CD’s, books, and DVD’s, or does it not matter?

Dvd’s are arranged as follows: Kid friendly movies on the bottom row, and everything else on the top. xbox games are also on the bottom row. Books? I don’t really keep a lot of books, but the ones I do have are arranged by subject matter. Music is all in iTunes and therefore arranged alphabetically by artist.

5. What’s the hardest thing you’ve ever had to organize?

My answer hasn’t changed since the last time I answered this years ago. It was the stockroom for the men’s department at the major department store I worked at. You wouldn’t believe the horrors I found in there. The nerve of some people when bringing a return or exchange hit home as I was going through the stock room. I found stacks of items dating so far back that I didn’t even know where to find its current value. And then there was the most evil paper bag in the history of paper bags.

Way up on a shelf above everyone’s head was a paperbag with a mystery item. No one had a clue what was in it and there was a thick layer of dust on it. Since it was up to me to get that room in tip top shape, I decided to just open the bag and see what the heck it was. If you don’t want to know, I suggest you just go away now. It’s ok, I understand.



There was a pair of jersey weight sweatpants. Gray… and brown. Only there wasn’t supposed to be brown on the pants. Someone had an accident of the, um, to put this delicately, runny variety. And then it was shoved in a bag and put into the stockroom for all of eternity. I have no idea if this was a return or someone in the store shopping was wearing the pants when it happened and swiped a new pair. I just don’t have any idea how they ended up in there, and I don’t want to know. This wasn’t in the kids department, these were full sized man pants. Also, it wasn’t an employee, at least one that was working when it happened because we weren’t allowed to wear sweatpants while working.

Now we had a policy that every single thing had to be accounted for and once these pants had been discovered I couldn’t just toss them. I had to figure out their “value” and then damage them out. Of course they had absolutely zero value to anyone sane, but for inventory purposes, they had to be accounted for. In the end, I assigned a ticket to the item, and then promptly damaged it out and chucked the bag into the huge dumpster. Horrible.

So yes, that stockroom was the hardest thing I’ve ever had to organize.

You know, I mentioned the nerve of some people with their returns. I was the only one working in the Men’s Sportswear department when an older man came in with a stack of about 5 pants. He thew the stack on the counter and said he wanted an exchange. There was no receipt of course. And upon inspecting the stack of pants, his motives were clear. They were old, and he wanted new pants without having to actually PAY for them. They were out of style and I said I’m sorry, but I can’t give you an exchange for these. He became irate and I called my manager who was upstairs at the time. I explained the situation to him and the guy was getting louder and louder. They just wanted the man out of the store so I was instructed to make an even exchange. The customer needed to leave happy.

The man came in with pants over a decade old, and left with brand new pants. Unbelievable.

A few weeks later as I was working the floor, I saw him approaching the door with another stack of old pants. Fortunately I wasn’t the only one working at the time, so I made a run for it to the stockroom. I wasn’t going to be nice if I had to deal with him again. And like before, he got brand new pants, but this time was escorted out by loss prevention with a stern suggestion that he never return again.

Would it surprise you if I told you the department store went bankrupt and closed the doors in 1995? No? Me neither with policies like that.

When I was growing up, my mother displayed the most embarrassing Christmas decorations. She had this hideous gingerbread man and candy cane fabric garland. She had ugly wooden ornaments, and atrocious golden sequined bell ornaments. There was the Rudolph made out of plastic melty… stuff for lack of a better word. And the cream of the ugly crop, the jewelry tree.

I was always excited to decorate for the season, and yet, I hated almost everything we put up.

Here’s the thing. I’m in my mid 30′s now and every year, I put up almost all of those decorations that I hated so much as a child.

Most of the ornaments and decorations mentioned were handmade. I think as a child, I associated homemade with cheap and being poor. Now that I’m an adult, I can look at the craftsmanship of each item and really appreciate the work that went into each piece.

Take that jewelry tree up there. That’s a picture of it as it hangs on my wall right now. I know detail is lacking, but hey, the shot was taken with my cell phone. What do you want. Looking at it now I see a very impressive work of art. It’s made with plywood, black velvet, Christmas lights and over 100 pieces of costume jewelry. They were laid out in such a manner that everything lines up and it’s an absolutely perfect tree. I have no doubt that it took hours to put together as well as time and money spent collecting all of the costume jewelry. Who know what the cost to make this project was. (BTW, this tree was created by my uncle for his mother, my grandmother, over 35 years ago)

I can tell you that I adore this piece. I think it’s beautiful and a fantastic way to recycle all that jewelry you’ll never wear again and doesn’t hold much monetary value.  I love this tree so much that I’ve started my own collection of costume jewelry, so that in a few years when I have enough, I’ll be making one of my own. I really can’t wait for that day to come.

I’m not sure if I didn’t appreciate it because I didn’t actually see my mother working on the handmade decorations. I never saw her crafting. My kids always see me working on projects. Caitlin, my oldest daughter, has been bitten by the craft bug. She sees AND appreciates all of the work that goes into creating something beautiful.

In fact the jewelry tree is hanging up in our place right now because she specifically requested the jewelry tree.

I think Jessalyn is just as fond of it as the rest of us are.

Jessalyn and Jason circa 2005

It’s a penguin, not a snowman.

Our Thanksgiving was like any other Thanksgiving celebrated by families across the country, only not.

This year my son decided to go to his dad’s house for Thaksgiving. The rest of us went to the ex-hsuband’s parent’s house.  That’s not as weird as it may sound. They are, afterall, the grandparents of my kids. And the ex wasn’t there anyway.

How was it not like your typical Thanksgiving? Half of the conversation was in Chinese, and there was rice. No, they aren’t Chinese, but they have a Chinese woman living with them and she brought 3 friends over. There was eating, giving thanks, and then dancing. It was about that time I decided we needed to go home.

My plan was to wake up on Friday at 3:30 a.m. and hit Kohls first thing. Then head over to Target to purchase our “annual” camera. The one we got last Black Friday became ill and was no longer taking decent pictures. I set my alarm, only I set it for 3:30 p.m. I woke up at 4:15 and decided just to get to Target which opened at 6 a.m. I got a much better spot in line this year, and Jason met up with me at 5:45. We were out of there by 7 with camera, and a few other items in hand.

From there it was time to eat breakfast at Panera and then hit up the soon to be completely defunct Mervyn’s. By the time we left there. we had spent nearly $200 and purchased one gift. One. After that we went home, gathered the girls and headed back out. There was more buying, more lines, more more more. After about a 2 hour break in there somewhere, we saddled back up and hit the mall. The great thing about going to the mall around 5:30 p.m. is most of the crowds were gone. Sure there were a lot of people, but it wasn’t as bad as it had been in the morning.

Saturday was supposed to be Decorate! day. What it ended up being was Grocery Shopping! day. It was also Celebrate Kelly’s Birthday! day! With pottery painting! And pastrami sandwiches! And traffic by the Honda center because a gazillion people were trying to get to the Celine Dion concert! day. *Wretch* (My apologies if you’re a Celine Dion fan)

Sunday became Decorate! day, and man was that a long drawn out process. For some stupid reason, we packed up a strand of half working lights last year and then couldn’t remember which strand was the half broken light strand. And then Jason was trying to fix a bulb while it was plugged in and simultaneously broke a bumb, cut his finger and schocked himself. We abandoned hope and I went off to Target to get 2 shiny new strands of LED lights to put on the tree.

Anyhow, after a very long and drawn out process, our abode is sufficiently decorated for Christmas. The advent calendar is filled, the stockings are hung, but not by the chimney with care because we don’t have a chimney. It looks festive and nice, even if the ornaments are hung in clumps because I let my 3 year old help her sister decorate the tree.

So here we are, December 1. I still have a lot of creating/shopping to do, and not enough time/money to do it all. Isn’t that true for everyone? Yet, somehow, it’ll all be done on time.

Try and take a little time every day to savor the season. Don’t let it slip away before you get a chance to enjoy it.