Binkies and Briefcases

It was bound to happen eventually. Eddie is scheduled to come back for his first “visit” home in two or three days. (He is traveling for work for the next three months, but is able to come home for a few days periodically.) Unfortunately I did not quite make it through this first three weeks without him before going into crazy-lady-with-hormones-worse-than-when-I-was-nine-months-pregnant-melt-down mode. It has been extremely stressful trying to file all the paperwork for the dissolution of my business, work several evenings a week, schedule Nicholas’ appointments for play therapy, occupational therapy, special ed teachers, preschool orientations and meet the teacher days, doctor’s appointments, and do all of the normal day-to-day stuff that Eddie usually helps me with.

This morning I might have cried hysterically because my daughter misplaced her sippy cup full of juice. I might have turned off the tv and forced Nichols to search frantically with me while he was crying tears of his own because he felt like he was being punished. (When he came back to me crying and holding a plastic soda bottle from our toy kitchen and said “Here mommy, I found a drink for you.” I realized I was being slightly ridiculous and let him go back to watching Toy Story.) I might have called Eddie screaming and crying about how not finding the sippy cup was going to lead to juice stains on the furniture, cockroaches, and people in Hazmat suits taping off our house as a contaminated area while clouds of green smoke came out of the chimney.

He might have tried to comfort me by telling me that he had scheduled a cleaning lady to come give us an estimate this morning so I wouldn’t have to be so overwhelmed. (Believe me, I know, that’s why I married him.) I might have responded to that by screaming “WHAT?! HOW COULD YOU DO THIS TO ME?!!!” I might have told him that I could not possibly let a woman who cleans houses for a living see our house in its current state of disarray. I might have yelled and screamed and cried until he offered to try to reschedule the appointment so that I would have time to clean for the cleaning lady.

I might have also yelled at my son and forced him to leave my bedroom because he moved the blanket on my bed about six inches after I told him not to touch it because I had placed it a certain way to cover a stain on the comforter since I can not possibly have the cleaning lady think that we are messy when she does come. I might have also told him it was just too bad that his toy train went under the hutch in the dining room and I guessed Thomas was gone for good. I might have made my daughter go back in her crib only an hour after she woke up and let her cry while I frantically threw boxes (from my new dinnerware that arrived yesterday) into the garage and the suitcase from the kids’ weekend with their grandparents that was still siting on the kitchen table into my closet.

I might have done those things this morning. Maybe. But if I did those things I know it would have been ridiculous because of all these things I have to be thankful for:

1. My husband is only gone because he has a well-paying job that supports our family.
2. We are getting a cleaning lady
3. We have had lots of help these past few weeks from family and friends
4. I got to have some time to myself this weekend
5. We are all healthy
6. The house is only messy because we have a lot of stuff (toys, clothes, food, etc.)
7. Abby slept through the night last night
8. We are making slow but steady progress on the potty training front
9. The medical debt that was caused by a mistake with Abby’s insurance is finally paid off
10. The team Eddie is working with put in LOTS of overtime over the past few weeks specifically so that he will be able to make it home on Thursday for our anniversary. It’s looking promising.

So instead of wallowing in completely unwarranted self-pity I am going to try to just wait patiently because in a few hours my grandmother will be here and tomorrow one of my dearest old friends is coming to help and Thursday I might just get to finally see my husband again.

Anyone who doesn’t regularly shop at thrift stores is dumb. There, I said it. If you like throwing away money, be my guest. I do not. I am extremely frugal and probably would still be a tightwad even if I had millions of dollars burning a hole in my pocket.

Here’s why:

These are some of the items I’ve picked up over the past week or so at ReSource York and Goodwill

I paid a grand total of $25 for this stuff. That’s actually a little steep for me (I told you I’m cheap.) but still not bad considering what it’s worth. One of my favorite things to do is look up what stuff I got at thrift stores and yard sales is worth, it might be a sad hobby but I enjoy it nonetheless.

The wooden train was $8 at Goodwill and the little wooden toolbox was $2. I bought them to give to Nicholas for Gotcha Day next month. (the day we celebrate the anniversary of his adoption) The train is hand-crafted, brand new, and has an artisan’s initials on the bottom. When I looked up wooden pull trains I found this one listed for $175! I had a hard time pricing wooden tool boxes without tools, so I’m estimating a $10 value for that.

I paid $10 for my antiqued white mirror at ReSource. It’s very heavy, in perfect condition and is going to look awesome in our downstairs powder room over the pedestal sink I bought from Craigslist. Overstock.com has this one on sale for $168.

The woven balls were $1 each at Goodwill. They are each a decent size. It was on my projects to try list to attempt making some of these, but since they were only a dollar I just bought them. Cute for fall decorating and super trendy right now, even Target sells these balls for substantially more than that. The regular price for two mini woven balls at Target is $16, although they are on sale right now. Hmmm…$11 on sale for two miniatures ones or $2 for two full-sized. Hard choice.

I got my white ceramic soup tureen for $3. Granted, it did not come with a lid (That’s ok I plan to use it for decoration anyway since I already have a white ceramic tureen, also from Goodwill, that came with a ladle and a lid) but considering that Williams-Sonoma sells this tureen for $139 I still think it’s a pretty awesome deal.

That means I got over $500 worth of stuff for $25 this week. I don’t know why anyone would pay over $500 for that dinky little pile of stuff, but apparently people do. Not me, though.

Thank you, thrift stores!