Super-sized Sunday Post

Let's start with revisiting my deep and abiding love for La Bonne Velonte.

I've mentioned no doubt, that I am not a fan of shopping in general m'peeps. You may have picked up that spending money is not my recreational activity of choice, but occasionally I go to Bonne Velonte and I walk on air for days. Shopping there is my talent. It is! I never leave without picking up a screaming bargain on something I really needed or wanted and it never takes me much time at all. Awesome things are magnetically attracted to me there. Let's face it, there is a ton of garbage there (going purely on what I send their way on a regular basis), and I'm not a particularly patient person. I don't find rifling through things enjoyable so if it's not close to the surface, it's not going to be found by me.

Take our date last night where we browsed our local BV.

As I half heartedly shifted through a rack of truly heinous polyester jumper style floral dresses, I found a linen shirt-dress from H&R. 'Twas a bit big but I grabbed it anyway. Along with a nice wide leather belt (for a dollar) and voila. It's A Look Dahling (as my dear sister Shona would say). And look, a lovely summery bag to go with it! (That was a buck too).

Do you think I'm sexay baby? With the super flattering soft focus special effect I applied to this photo? No? Yeah, I can see that.

Thanks to Denise who said my ensemble was picture worthy, and to Benj the boy behind the camera. I am working it baby. Check me out. Actually this one was taken between shots where I really was working it. Here I'm just spying on my neighbours/checking to make sure they are not laughing at me. Hi Richters! And really this photo? It's truly the best of a sad, sad bunch. Whenever I pretend to be a mo-del, I end up looking considerably less intelligent. I think it's the mouth half ajar that clinches it. The dress is arguably better with these shoes (which I also got for an amazing price sometime ago-brag-but those shoes, cute as they are, absolutely KILL my feet, Just thought I'd share.)

Yup buying stuff cheap. It's Mah Skill. It took me til I was about 30 but I finally found my skill, and shoot-it makes me proud.

For some time now I have been wanting a pink metal colander to go with my pink and green vintage-y kitchen. (Which I must clarify I have wanted for my entire life long long before vintage became the hip thing to want.)

Now that we have ascertained my non-hipness.

Since I have an only slightly broken white plastic colander this would fit in the "want" rather then "need" category. Last night I found one, except it was green. The perfect green. I could not have even dreamed of such wonder. Just sitting there, waiting for me. It's minus one handle. Handles! A mere technicality. I got the shirt I'm wearing there on the same trip to BV, too, by the way.

Also, a globe for my boys' birthday (they are obsessed with maps) and I think a globe is an awesome thing to have in a home. I have many happy memories of spinning one endlessly as a kid and have been looking for one for ages. (Even though this one says the Democratic Republic of the Congo is still Zaire-whatever, I say, whatever. It's still a find. We'll call it vintage and all will be well.)

And happily, in more practical news, we found a litter box "canopy" to cover Thumper's little box of goodies. These, we had actually priced at Petco and after seeing what they wanted for a chunk of plastic, decided we were not that offended by Thumper's litter box. But for a buck, we thought, why not, and darlings, Thumper has never been happier. (I would hate to go to the toilet in public too).

I'm not done yet! I also got a super cute shirt for Gracie, and a bookshelf-which is going to become something simply mahvelous dahlings. But you will have to wait to see what. (You'll weep when you do, you will. It's that good)

Aaron got some nice new shorts (oh so desperately needed) and a good leather belt and some books (oh so not needed but he's a nice guy so I'll allow it). And all of it (plus more I'm sure) for less then what the dress would have cost (on sale). I think I should start a regular feature displaying my Goodwill/garage sale finds because they please me so greatly. They will be labeled so that you can easily skip those posts.

Of course we went in there looking for some heavier dumbbells and did not find them but I call it a success regardless. Who needs dumb old dumbbells anyway.

Other brag-worthy events of the past week. Benjamin, who will be 11 on Tuesday (how!?) went 14 km (his furthest distance on the trail with me on Saturday and barely broke a sweat, didn't complain once. He is a rock-star. A stoic, undemanding, rock-star.

Gracie (aged 7) constructed a remarkable Family Home Evening unassisted with very little time to prepare, where she likened sin to weeds in a vegetable garden, gave practical and relevant ideas on how to eliminate these from our lives and ended it all with a family activity of weeding the vegetable garden. That chick is good. We didn't even see that coming.





I baked cookies with Gracie and Finny yesterday and only had a small nervous breakdown. (I should never bake with small children when I am sleep deprived and post-long run/long-clean. We know for next time). The Perfect Storm.

Speaking of grueling experiments, I survived my part in the process of registering our soccer club and all the individuals therein) with the league and only hurled verbal abuse at the "boss-man" once, or at the most five times. But that's ok since my boss is Nathan and he almost certainly deserved it, if not for anything at this time, then for something, at some time. (Remind me to recount the tale of Nathan At The Spinning Class one day.)

Speaking of lashing out, this week I accomplished the Semi-Annual Bedroom Dig Out. Whereupon we throw what few clothes aren't already on the floor in my kids' rooms, to the floor, and then proceed to sort through them and give the vast majority of them to La Bonne Velonte. (Which is why I can say with authority that the BV receives a lot of crap). Then mommy painstakingly folds each t-shirt and puts it in the drawer like "files" so that no pile need ever be disturbed, and every child goes through in-service training regarding the correct method of the folding and "filing" of the the t-shirts. But here's the brag for this paragraph: I did this all without the obligatory 30 minute rant about how

"I was pretty sure I just did this and do you think this is what God put me on this Earth to do? Over and over again?? Really? Do you really think that this is the purpose of my existence?"...(and so on and so forth),

and reconciled myself to the empirical evidence which suggests that yes, this is in fact my purpose in life. So I smiled, filed t-shirts and remained civil to my kids throughout the process, and a good time was had by all. Well, sort of.

Also? All the kids passed onto the next level in swim class. Well all apart from Finny. But we feel that this may have been intentional on Finny's part due to the very strong feelings he has developed for one blonde bomb-shell lifeguard/swimming instructor. He sighed over her beauty after each lesson, and announced his intentions to mawwy her. He even went so far as to give me beauty tips in order to bring my appearance closer in alignment to hers. (He did this with great tact and sensitivity I may add, but it marks the first time he has admitted to someone being more attractive then I-but only a teeny tiny little bit-not really I'mjustkidding my boodiful mommy). Smooth operator. We are in so much trouble.


I am also impressed at my restraint in allowing Gracie's latest loose tooth to fall out naturally. Here's the latest version of her smile.

So that wraps up some of the highlights of the week. I am off to bed now. Because I'm a good girl I am.

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