Ode to the Dollar Section at Target

You know which section I'm talking about, right? The section of $1-$2 items when you first walk in the door. About 90% of it is cheap junk, but the other 10% is cheap, useful junk. I've found so many things there to either entertain Sophie while I'm shopping or to put away and pull out on a rainy day. Or a day when she's driving me batty, I need to get some things done, and I feel too guilty to turn on a movie for her. Ya, it's usually one of those days. They're great for stocking stuffers, too.

Some of these little treasures include stickers, little notepads, books, puzzles, play dough, window decals/gummis, pencils, and Sophie's favorite -- those dissolvable capsules that have foam critters hiding inside. She loves those. I even got a cheap chip bowl to set by my cutting board to use for vegetable scraps while I'm making dinner. (Think Rachael Ray's garbage bowl.) I love it because it keeps all my scraps off the counter, and I don't have to keep reaching over to the garbage can under the sink.

Best dollar I've spent in a long time.

Lately I've been spending some one-on-one time with her during Ivy's morning naps. Sometimes we do little Sesame Street 20-piece puzzles (found in said dollar section) -- her current favorite thing to do. I'll give her something to look for on a piece (i.e. Elmo's fingers), she'll find it, then I'll show her where to put it. Sometimes she figures them out on her own if they're really obvious matches. I love to watch her little brain at work.

I Feel Like a Beatnik

After nearly a year of having bent, broken, and/or duct-taped glasses, I finally got a new pair. Now you're either going to love them like I do or think I'm nuts. Yes, they're loud, but the girl at the store talked me into getting them. They were initially my favorite, but I chose another pair that weren't quite as cooky. She told me I should get the black and white ones instead because the shape of the ones I picked out wasn't right for my face. I really liked her. I appreciated her giving me her opinion, and because she'd worked there for 10 years, I figured she knew what she was talking about.

Ivy's "just woke up" face.

This one's for you, Mary. I think new glasses, as well as new hairdos require a kiss-face pose. And no, that's not a mole on my chin. it's chocolate. From making these.

Floral Mistress

I'm so excited that one of my best friends has joined the Etsy train. She just opened up a shop showcasing her floral arrangements and I wanted to share. These aren't just ordinary arrangements, either. They're made from high quality silk flowers and gorgeous vases. (By the way, I didn't even know she did this until a couple of weeks ago. We really need to get together more often, Stace. :))

Here's the link to her shop: Floral Divine

And here are some of my fav's:

Black Velvet

Tuscan Romance

Eastern Sky

Shopping Fix

I went to the mall on Thursday -- probably the first decent mall I've been to since we moved here. You'd think that living in the Bay Area would mean amazing shopping on every corner, but not in our neck of the woods. There's actually a "mall" within walking distance of our place and another one just down the freeway, but seriously . . . they're pretty sad. They don't even have Gap's. Even the mall in Idaho Falls has a Gap.

If you venture about 20 minutes in any direction, you'll find some great malls, but I hadn't been until Thursday. Sophie was quite a trooper. She lasted about 2 1/2 hours riding around in her stroller. As long as I fed her and took her out to let her wiggle once in a while, she did great.

The particular mall I went to had a Nordstrom. I love Nordy's. I get a little tingle up my spine every time I go in and hear the piano playing. I don't buy things there very often, for obvious "we're still in school" reasons, but last week they were having their Half-Yearly Sale. Hallelujah. I found a cute non-maternity-but-could-still-work-as-maternity top for half-off. And another little tingle went up my spine as the cashier wrapped it in tissue paper and put it in one of those cute little paper shopping bags with handles. You don't pampered like that at very many places.

Addiction

I think I'm addicted to scrapbook paper. Funny, because I DETEST scrapbooking. I'm such a sucker for those huge 12x12 "pads" of 300+ sheets in about 100 different patterns. I bought another one today. It was a Christmas one and it was only $4.97. How do you pass that up when individual sheets run about 69 cents a piece?!

I have no idea what I'm going to do with all this paper, but that's not the point.

Ok maybe it IS the point. Does anyone know where I can find some cute papercrafting projects that aren't scrapbooking or making cards?

Bloggy Giveaways

I recently stumbled upon a blog that hosts giveaways. All she does is give away free stuff. How cool is that? I love free stuff.

The site is Bloggy Giveaways. Go check it out!

Close Calls and Cool Finds

I was about one step away from being sent to jail yesterday.

I'm not joking.

Earlier this week a guy responded to an ad I had on Craigslist looking for someone to give his 14-year-old son piano lessons during his month's visit to the Bay Area. They guy claimed he was on vacation in South Africa and told me that his boss would be sending me a check. I was to cash the check, take out the money he agreed to pay me for his son's lessons, then wire the rest to a nanny service, who would be taking care of his son during his stay. The whole situation sounded fine until the part about the check. I was a little wary from then on, but I let things play out until I got a check in the mail yesterday. I don't know why, but when I got it, I sat on the couch and just stared at it. I couldn't stop looking at it, and the more I looked at it the worse I felt. I looked over the security info on the back and even took it to a bank to have a teller look at it. It only took her 5 seconds to look at the check and tell me it was fake.

1. The colors were off on the top.
2. The watermark on the back didn't say, "Original Document"
3. There was no watermark on the front.
4. The bank information on the check sounded hokey.
5 The check itself was printed crooked.

The guy had emailed me that morning to tell me to send him the wire transfer confirmation numbers as soon as I had sent it. When I realized he'd sent me a fake check, I called the police. An officer came over and I told him what had happened. He told me that if I had tried to cash that check, the bank would have taken it from me, called the police and I would have been put in jail until they could confirm where I got the check. (And that I didn't just create it myself...) And I would have been liable for money that the bank wired to the "nanny service", which would have been about $3000.

Scams like this are really common on Craigslist, unfortunately. I'm glad I didn't give the guy any other information besides my address, which was reasonable because he was going to be sending his kid here. And looking back, his whole story sounded weird. I tend to be too trusting and gullible sometimes. Sheesh.

On a slightly lighter note, my hard drive gave out* yesterday. Steve worked for a couple of hours last night and a few this morning recovering what I had on there. He's brilliant. I got all my files back, but I have to reinstall a lot of my programs. I almost lost all of Sophie's pictures and movies from October and November. I also had over 300 recipes filed away in OneNote that I would have had to copy and paste (and in some cases, re-type) in again. AHHHH!!! I can't remember what else I had on there, but I'm sure I probably wouldn't have wanted it gone forever.

I made cookies last night and have probably eaten over a half dozen since. It's been a stressful 24 hours.

On a MUCH lighter note, and to Craigslist's redemption, I found a few estate sales and bought a bunch of vintage 40s-50s jewelry. Some of it I plan on taking apart and making other things, but some are very cool as is. By the way, estate sales are way fun. You pretty much walk into someone's house (most likely they've died) and buy whatever you want for cheap. They had all kinds of antique furniture, books, kitchen stuff, clothes, and you name it. If any of the SF girls reading this want to go with me next time, let me know!

* "gave out" is really a euphamism for "Nat unplugged her power cable from her docking station and forgot her laptop didn't have a battery in it, so it wasn't able to finish shutting down properly."