Is it wrong to chain your kids to a tree?

There definatly are days that I wish I could tie my kids up to a tree. Away from anything they can touch or hurt or destroy. Yesterday was one of those days. I was changing laundry and found Tessa walking into the laundry room with this lovely present on her legs. Josie was close behind her. I asked Josie where Tessa got all the pen on her legs from. Josie gives me a shy little shrug and just sat there giving me puppy dog eyes. I asked again--a little more stern this time, knowing I had found the culprit. Josie said that she found a pen in the car. I asked why she was playing in the car, when she knows that the car is off limits. Again...the shy shrug...I asked if the pen was still in the car. I went out to the car to get the pen, and look at the nice surprise I came to. Of course, Josie tells me that Tessa was the one who colored in the car---ummm, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to discover that a one year old cannot draw stick people yet, no matter how advanced their parents think they are. Needless to say, Josie spent a great deal of the afternoon sitting in the "Time-out chair". Great for resale, huh. Any ideas on how to get pen out of leather?

A lesson learned

Elli had a good point today. We are going camping tomorrow, for the "Vink Annual Camping Weekend". I include the "annual" in there, for the fact that we only do this ONCE a year, and at the end of the weekend, we all know why. I will let you all know how it turns out. Anyway, with Dean being gone on business all week, and me being alone ALL week with the kids, I had to bite the bullet and do the worst thing imaginable in my book--do the all out, huge grocery shopping trip with all 4 kids. I wish sometimes I had a blood pressure cuff in my car so that I could actually see how high my blood pressure is at times like that. As we were following the bagger out to the car, I was chit chatting about--what else--the weather. After she got all the bags in the car and I got all the kids loaded and buckled, Elli looked at me and asked,
"Mom, do you know that girls name."
"No, she is the girl who brings our groceries to our car."
"Is she a stranger to you then?"
"I guess, but she seemed like a nice girl and she did a nice thing for us."
"I thought we weren't supposed to talk to strangers, and aren't people strangers if we don't know their names?"

Ummm.....what else do you say. Busted. So, I cranked the radio and pretended not to hear her still talking about how we can't talk to strangers and what makes a stranger a stranger..lada lada lada. How do you explain that one?

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It Goes So Fast!!

I rarely ever carry cash with me. I find that if I carry cash, I spend more. I do use my debit card too often, but I think if I had cash, I would spend more than when I don't. That being said, I had for a grand total of 4 hours on Friday, $150.00 in cash in my wallet. Probably the most cash I have carried around in years. I had a garage sale Thursday and Friday. Not the most successful garage sale, being I only made $150.00, but it's more than I started with, and it was a good way to get all the "stuff" out of my house that I have been collecting over the last year. I counted the money, split it with my friend who had the garage sale with me, and within 4 hours was grocery shopping. Many hours of sorting, pricing, and setting up clothes = ONE grocery bill. How sad!! Money gone, wallet empty, but 6 tummies well fed.