How (NOT) to Save on School Supplies

So Margaret needs a fancy-pants calculator for math this year.

This weekend we headed off to Target to do our school supply shopping and found the one we needed for $129.99.  Holy moly.

She chose the pink one, which I was happy about, because I remember from my teaching days that calculators like this tend to get stolen. I figured a bright pink one might be easier to keep track of than a black one.  We got out of Target for $199 plus change. Yes, we purchased most of her school supplies, but we also found some comfy sweats, blank t-shirts for tie-dying, an 18 pack of colorful pens that I just had to have, and a couple boxes of Special K. Target is a dangerous place.

Later that day, we learned that Staples had the same calculator on sale for $89.99! Except it wasn't really on sale; it just qualified for $5 off with a coupon plus a $35 rebate. Still, $40 bucks is $40 bucks, right? So Margaret and I planned another outing to go get a second calculator and return the first one to Target another day. Tim did a little online research and determined the same calculator, only in black, was $99 at Amazon, with free shipping. He posited: "Would it be worth the extra $10 and the color change to just stay home?"

Nah, Silly Man! We've got this shopping thing covered.

So we headed out to Staples. We took the toll road, which cost $2.00, but we were saving $40, so who really cared? Once we got to Staples, we easily found what we needed...and then some.

Yep, the pink calculator was there, but so was a wall calendar for me, and the binders Margaret still needed at $11 a pop. Eleven Dollars. Eleven. Oh for the days when I got the kids their binders at the thrift store for .69 each. I considered trying to slip some "vintage" binders by her later in the week, but these ELEVEN DOLLAR binders were in our hand, not in the bush, so we bought them.

We also loaded up on some spiral notebooks for our Operation Christmas Child shoeboxes. At the register, several other items mysteriously materialized in our cart: Burt's Bees lip balm, a bag of sour candy because our blood sugar was plummeting, and another jumbo pack of pens for me.

Staples Haul: $200 before $35 rebate. Oh, and what happened to the $5 off coupon? It was on Tim's desk at home, left there during his stint as an internet researcher.

Anyhooo, I am none too impressed with Margaret's and my shopping skills right now, and will tremble with fear until I unload the first calculator at Target AND get my rebate from Staples. Then there's the problem that I'll probably be tempted by other shiny objects at Target when I go. Or what if they have a sale on Boyfriend T's, cardigans, or miscellaneous plastic items?  How much is this calculator going to cost us????

So I guess what I'm saying is, I think Tim was right.

But you don't need to say anything to him. And certainly DO NOT tell him we ended up at TJ Maxx after Staples. It was right next door, and we really needed that pina colada scented candle and those mugs.

Update: Just dug through my purse for the Target receipt and it turns out the calculator was on sale for $90.00. Yep, all of this to save .01 

Note to Self-ie

We talk a lot about selfies these days, and how having so much emphasis on how we look is detrimental, especially to young girls. I agree, but I must admit it's fun to turn on my phone and discover funny selfies Margaret has taken, which I DARE NOT post here. She's 12. I'm learning, learning, learning.

I was thinking back to my middle school and high school years-- you know in the days before a "tween" was a thing-- and even though we didn't have the means to take many pictures, we still managed to capture the ugh and angst of those years pretty well.

For us it began in the photo booth.

Not the cute, 5 in a row black and white photos so popular at weddings and bat mitzvahs these days. It was a Polaroid booth inside Woolworths at the mall. As in, "Have your mom drop you off and meet me at the photo booth!" You would squeeze in with one, maybe 2 of your best friends of the week, hold really still, and hope that your fluffy, center-parted hair would make it in to the picture, but the zit on your chin would not.

When we made it to high school, the Polaroid booth morphed into our own cameras, usually of the lousy Disc variety-- a short-lived experiment by Kodak that made everything look grainy, as if it were taken through cheesecloth or a window screen, long before Instagram would introduce a generation to cool filter effects.

The REALLY, REALLY good news: "sharing" our photos mean ordering doubles. At worst, one or two people would have access to a bad or embarrassing photo. A shoe box under the bed or a sticky "magnetic album" provided a level of privacy that is a foreign concept to us today. Worst case scenario was that you might wear a jaunty Liz Claiborne felt hat to school in 8th grade and it would make its way into the yearbook.  Not that I'd know anything about that.

Maybe you passed around your summer beach pics in the cafeteria once school started, showing off your baby oil tan. I'm still peeved that an ex boyfriend kept my little plastic keychain photo from Ocean City, the kind you'd look through to see the photo illuminated at the end, because now there is no proof that I ever looked decent in a bikini, even if it was for 45 fleeting seconds in 1987.

Even though my best friend Lisa and I couldn't snap with abandon like kids do these days, because we had to buy our film and pay for developing, we spent quite a few date-less Friday nights taking pictures of each other. We came up with themes and went around  my house looking for clothes that would complement what we consider to be out "artsy" tableaux.

Note the wild and rugged theme here:

I wonder if Lisa still has her banana clip. I have mine.

Or check out the romantic theme here. A teddy bear and pearls really set the stage for romance, don't you think? Gosh, I loved that haircut!

Not sure where I'm going with this trip down memory lane, but I thank The Good Lord that I was born when I was. I think girls have always wanted to pose for the camera and document good times with friends; I'm just glad I'm posting these as a 40-something who can look back on those exhilarating, hard, weird times with a smile rather than (too much of) a cringe.

Charging Ahead

Margaret is now a rising 7th grader!

The end of the year hoopla led to a lot of flashbacks to the end of Jack's 6th grade year. Hard to believe that from that point on we had exactly 3 months left with him.

As we stood with Margaret in front of her friends and their parents at her 6th grade dinner to read the "charge" we'd written for her, Tim and I wept. Not a gentle weeping, but choking sobs. I know that tears are cleansing and honest, but I wish so much we had been able to keep it together because this was supposed to be Margaret's evening. We intended to praise our beautiful, intelligent, spunky girl for all of her accomplishments in grade school, and launch her into the next stage of her life. We would share about her strength, her wit, her work ethic, her magnetic personality, and her huge potential for the future. We would tell her she could do all things through Christ who gives her the strength she needs (Phil 4:13). Of course all the parents understood our tears, but try to imagine being 11 years old, standing up in front of 40 people while your parents sob openly, and you just have to remain there, facing the crowd.

"I felt like an alien," she said on the way home. I think that may be the BEST, most accurate description of how I have felt as a griever, and I'm so proud of Margaret for putting her feelings into words.

In many ways grievers feel like aliens, trying to navigate a planet that is foreign to us. While we may have once thought we fit in, those days are clouded in our memories. Our new found understanding of what is important (eternity, love, relationships) and what is not (gifted programs, promotions, money, church politics) leave us feeling separate and on the margins.

We are reluctant prophets because we have neither the stamina or the inclination to stand on a street corner proclaiming our new revelations. We are tired. We are hurting. And what's the point of sharing anyway, when our knowledge has come at so high a price? When every person who lives will eventually learn these truths on his own, through the inevitable losses to come?

I think of Margaret, who did not have the luxury of learning about loss as an adult, or in a gradual, natural way.  At an age where being even the slightest bit different is a burden, she feels different in a significant way. If I could, I would take that burden from her. I'd carry it in a sack with me, alongside my own grief and pain, until she reached adulthood. Until she'd had a chance to experience other losses-- of a pet, a friendship, love, of a dream or two. Then I'd let it out slowly so it could settle gently around her shoulders and not knock her to the ground.

And if I could read her "charge" to her again, I'd tell Margaret that she brings light with her everywhere she goes, and that light will never go out.