The Day I Finally Learned to Stop Putting Things On Top of My Car

After stopping at the Bartlett Sports store to get Juliana's soccer gear, I spent about 45 minutes filling my grocery cart at Super Target. (But let's not talk abou the fact that I grabbed the cart with unturnable wheels, forcing me to muster all of my body weight to move around the corners. Why did this start happening only after I had piled a mountain of food in my cart? I don't really know.) The fun part of the story begins when I got to the checkout and realized I did not have my wallet.

After searching my car, I came to the conclusion that I must have left it back at the sports store, so I had the checkout woman hold my $160 basket of groceries for me while I sped back to the previous store. It wasn't until the wallet was still unaccounted for there that I really started to freak out. I then drove home to get my checkbook so I could at least pay Target for all my food (and to also spend some time on the phone cancelling my credit cards.) But when I got there I found a message from the Bartlett police department saying someone had found my wallet on Main St. and turned it in.

This is why I love living in a small town. If I had left my purse on top of my car in my old neighborhood in Chicago and driven off, by the time I had gotten home to call the bank I would have had a handful of charges made ranging from Marshall Fields to Rainbow on Lawrence. Someone probably would have tried to open a bank account in my name or apply for a mortgage. But here I got to retrieve my lost property from my friendly neighborhood officer.

People of Bartlett, I'm giving you a big smooshy hug right now for saving me a trip to the DMV.

More Internet House Hunting

I just found a great area for us to look for houses next year: South Elgin, Illinois. It is about 10 minutes or so directly west of us on Bartlett road and if we look there we can find the type of houses I've been salivating over here in Barlett, but in our price range. And I'm not talking just barely in the range, but completely and totally in the range along with a hot tub and a fancy schmancy swing set in the back yard to boot. As it turns out, we are close enough to this town that the kids in this neighborhood already attend the South Elgin middle school and high school. I had no idea. I took the girls on a little jaunt over there on Wednesday afternoon and I about had a heart attack when I saw how beautiful these houses were. I know I'm headed to suburban yuppie-town USA but lets face it: look where I am now. I If I'm going to be a soccer mom from the 'burbs I should at least have an awesome house to show for it, right?

Cindy Sheehan's Diary Posts from Crawford, Texas

Day 5

Day 4

There are more posts from the first three days but I liked these since it appears that she hasn't let O'Reilly and Drudge shake her down.

Help!

I can't stop watching HGTV!

Between this channel and Clean Sweep and Property Ladder on TLC, I can turn on my tv and see surprise kitchen renovations, organizational interventions and real estate "flips" at any time of the day or night. It's just mesmerizing.

Must. Watch. More. Now.

Plan of Action

I've been plugging away on little home projects that need to be done if we end up moving in the spring. Basically, I've scapped my plans for a little patio for the grill out back and for new linoleum in the upstairs bathroom since neither will really matter if we will be leaving. Instead, I'm opting to do little touch-ups here and there that will make our place all the more attractive to potential buyers. Things like repainting the fugly trim a fresh white color and fixing broken light fixtures. I'm still going to paint our bedroom since a neutral color will be more buyer-friendly than the present purple. I will not, however, be repainting the girls bedroom again, seeing that I just re-did it a couple of months ago and can't bring myself to do it all over again. Who knows, maybe another little girl (or two) will move in who just loves turquoise blue?

I've been doing tons of research on homes in our area. Although there are plenty of drool-worthy homes in which I will never live, I've also found a number of really nices houses in our price range that I can completely see us living in. One upgrade I will not waver on though is hardwood floors. I absolutely adore my wood floors and will fight tooth and nail to find a house with hardwood instead of carpet.

For now though, in addition to fixing up some little things we're basically going to concentrate on putting as much money away into savings as possible. We have this problem where if there is extra money in our checking account, we always find ways to spend it. So now all that extra "buffer" money will be transferred into a savings account so it hopefully will not be touched. Basically, what I'm trying to say is that if you are related to me you can expect for Christmas this year to get a big white t-shirt with a photograph of our smiling faces on it. Frugal!

Awwww

Thanks to Billy for sending me these photos from our last trip up to Milwaukee.

I Have No Brain

This morning I called the dentist to make an appointment for Juliana to have her teeth cleaned. When the girl on the phone gave me an appointment for Friday, August 19th I thought to myself, "Gee, something sounds familiar about that date, but I can't think of exactly what it is right now so it should be totally ok, right?"

Derrrr. That's only the day of Michelle and Dan's wedding. I remembered this the moment I hung up the phone.

So I called back to reschedule and I was given a new date of Monday, August 22nd. "Sure! That will be great!"

Not so fast. That's the day Steph and I are talking Juli, Maddie and Bailee to Build-a-Bear Workshop for Juliana's birthday.

So now I have to call back AGAIN and frankly, it's a little embarassing. WHAT IS WRONG WITH MY BRAIN?