Lately, I've been "totally into" a few things: giraffes, coconut anything, pink (ok, that's just always), yellow and gray, candy apple green, bamboo, kitchen gadgets, silly trinkets, and FREEBIES!! I have a pretty steady flow of freebies coming in the mail, and have a fb photo album dedicated to them :-)
I recently (like a week ago today recently) started working at a new daycare. My "comfort zone" is age 3 and under, preferably in the 1 and under stage. I am currently (and through the month of June) completely out of that zone. I am the lead (and only) teacher in a room FULL (10-11 kids on the average day) of 3-5 year olds. Thank goodness, my previous daycare gave me a pretty good amount of experience working under stress, so the kids I'm working with now don't usually make me want to run away crying...until today. I think I may have yelled 95% of the day. Yesterday, it was slightly understandable because they were coming off of a weekend...today, no excuses. By lunch-time I was pretty wiped (and that's just 2.5 hours into my day!). Typically, food (more specifically: McDonalds) helps brighten my day. Yes, someday I'm going to have to pick a healthier, less fattening day-brightener, but today was not that day. The minute my break started, I called hubby and asked if it was OK with him if I used a little of my birthday money ($25) to go to McDonald's (being sure to explain why). He said it was my money, so if I wanted to that was fine! I'm sure it helps that hubby also works at a daycare (my previous, stress management teaching one)...the man knows what a bad day at work means. I asked for directions to the nearest McDonald's and was on my way! Thirty-five minutes (it should have been WAY less, but I got lost a "kajillion" times) and $8 something later (I know, I know, but it was my birthday money!) I had a little bit of earthly encouragement sitting in a bag on the floor of the car. :-)
I had all intentions of using my birthday money for something useful (new jeans to replace my third pair of "i crawl on the floor at work and it tears up the knees of my pants" jeans, new shoes to replace my current "entire sole is about to fall off" pair, new shirt to replace one of my "wholey shirts", etc).
Hubby went to the gym after work tonight, so I decided to run by Kohls and see if I could find a cute pair of jeans for under $26 while I could still use my "$10 off anything $10 and above, Father's Day" card. I was able to find a cute pair of jeans that were marked down to $14.40 (originally, $48). I paid $4.62 for those jeans, thanks to mark-down price and my "$10 off" card :-D I headed next door to Wal Mart to see if I could find anything for $12 - what was now left of my $25 (after McDonald's and Kohls). At Wal Mart, I found a cute new pair of shoes marked down to $5 (after much searching...can you believe I almost paid $10 something for a different pair 'cause I thought THAT was a steal?!), a new shirt marked down to $3, and a tub of Toasted Almond Fudge ice cream (cause hubby needs some kind of a treat...yes, I'm sure I'll have at least one small bowl)!
I'm so excited! I was able to get new jeans, new shoes, a new shirt, and ice cream for a grand total of $16.30! At Kohls alone, I saved $43.60 on the one pair of jeans!
I can't wait 'till hubby gets home to show him all my finds (and his ice cream)!