Adventures in Shopping

We're home again. Getting settled back in. I set a new land speed record for getting vacation laundry washed, dryed, folded and put away ... under 24 hours. This has never happened before in our married history. As LightHusband says, "Usually they (the dirty vacation clothes) have to marinate for a week or so, before we're ready to wash them." There is something about doing the vacation laundry that truly changes the mental space I'm in.

I've spent a good portion of the week purging the schoolroom. I've removed a lot of schoolwork from previous years that can be archived. I've stored a lot of books (especially for history) that we'll use when we get to those eras again. We deconstructed the way we use the space in the schoolroom (which is actually the diningroom). We tried to figure out a way to get desks for each of the LightChildren. But then we'd have to get rid of the table, and it serves a number of purposes other than school. It's the "kids" table when we have friends over for dinner. I use it for extra sewing space and cutting space for my quilting. The LightChildren use it for crafts and other projects. So, in the end, we kept the table. But we did decide to get some new bookshelves and a new supply cabinet.

I knew just the bookshelves I wanted. These -- which could be found at Target. I then spent several fruitless hours pouring through websites trying to find a supply cabinet that didn't look like one of those horrible metal closets that you find in the back behind the office manager's desk. The only thing I found was a hutch that came under the heading of bathroom furniture and I was afraid I'd never get past that. Especially after LightHusband took one look at it and said, "Hey, that would look good in our bathroom." Back to Google after that comment; but our search was in vain.


Nonetheless, we scheduled a trip to Target to purchase the bookshelves and take whirl through the furniture and organizing departments to see what they had, up close and personal. Sometimes you miss things when you're on-line. Lo and behold, we had missed something! There, in the closets section, was our grail!! Imagine these pieces with the door portion on top (it has shelves behind the doors) and paper supplies and other flat products on the sliding shelves of the base unit. I'm in heaven. We even got metal baskets to put on the shelves behind the doors. Organization, here we come!! Of course, it came in 2 very heavy boxes and took LightHusband 4 hours to put it together. But it's a thing of beauty awaiting our stuff. And the schoolroom is ready for our school adventures to begin.

But here's the funny thing that happened at Target. Just as we were getting in line to check out, I remembered that I wanted to get special 3-ring binders for each of the LightChildren and I for a project we're doing. So I left LightHusband to check out with the furniture and took LightBoy off in search of special fun binders. In due course we found them. We were then entitled to check out in the "Express Line," with our 3 items or less. There was an older gentleman two people in front of us with a single 1-subject spiral bound notebook that he was purchasing. He already had his dollar bill out to pay for it. The cashier waved it over the laser beam, rang it up, turned to the gentleman and said, "That will be ..... ten cents!" The sudden sucking sound was audible as all of our heads whipped around. How did we all come to be in a penny candy store in the midst of a SuperTarget in MegaLand? TEN CENTS??? I cannot remember the last time I'd heard that as the sum total of a bill at a store. Even the gentleman was dumbfounded. He fumbled for a moment, then said, "Wait, I have a dime!"

A dime. He paid for his total purchase with a dime. Even LightBoy was astonished.

The non-plussed cashier just kept telling us to go get spiral bound notebooks while they were on sale; we really shouldn't miss it.