{"id":3607,"date":"2014-08-14T10:18:45","date_gmt":"2014-08-14T16:18:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/newstayathomemom.com\/?p=3607"},"modified":"2014-08-14T10:18:45","modified_gmt":"2014-08-14T16:18:45","slug":"school-supplies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newstayathomemom.com\/?p=3607","title":{"rendered":"School Supplies"},"content":{"rendered":"

I never have been school supply shopping with my kids.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>Up \u2018til now, we\u2019ve always bought The Kit.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>You know The Kit.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>It\u2019s a school fundraiser that allows you to go online and buy one convenient pre-packaged set\u00a0of all the school supplies you already HAVE (somewhere), for an exorbitant cost.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

But this year, since I lost my exorbitant cost affording mechanism in the office closure, AND since we already have a lifetime supply (somewhere) of 6-inch Fiskar scissors and opaque rulers-with-inches-and-centimeters, I figured I\u2019d save me some of that there money \u2013 all by using what we have and\/or shopping for just the missing parts \u2013 instead of going The Kit route.<\/span><\/p>\n

First though?<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>BEFORE shopping, you have to figure out what you already GOT in order to figure out what yew gotta GIT, Varmint.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>We got us some drawers and drawers filled with crapped-up writing instruments.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span><\/span>So I started there and then planned to fill in any 5-subject notebook gaps at Walmart.
\n<\/span>
\n<\/span> Pay no never mind to the fact that the finding and sorting of the fifty THOUSAND Sharpies we have scattered throughout the house subsequently morphed into an organizational effort of Herculean proportions.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>We\u2019ll just call that \u201cSpring Cleaning \u2018Cept In The Summer,\u201d shall we?<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>It needed to be done and now all the drawers in the house are clean and organized.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>Howdy, Fellers, y\u2019all wanna see my clean drawers?<\/span><\/em>\u00a0 <\/span>The upside of that effort is we\u2019ve confirmed we have fifty THOUSAND Sharpies in every color of the rainbow.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>The downside??<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>None of them are \u20182 extra-fine tipped black\u2019 ones like on the 5<\/span>th<\/span><\/sup> grade school supply list, so we have to buy more.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>See?!<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>ALLLLLL worth it.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span><\/em>[When I say that thing about it being worth it, does it seem like my teeth are clenched?<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>\u2018Cause they are.]<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

And clenched teeth always make my Spidey-senses tingle.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>Which means that a clusterbomb is about to go off in the immediate vicinity.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>In other words, the fill-in-the-gaps\u00a0shopping trip is gonna go down HARD.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>REEEEEAL HARD.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

So when we arrive at Walmart, I\u2019m not surprised to find that the entrance\u00a0looks eerily similar to the Mouth of Hell.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>Scratch that.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>With the boxes AND BOXES of school related minutia stacked up on either side of the entrance, it ACTUALLY\u00a0looks more like a School Supply Gauntlet. <\/span>\u00a0<\/span>It\u2019s an inescapable tunnel of school supplies that beat on you until you burst out the other end \u2013 dazed and bloody, barely alive.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>IF you live, that is.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

But you know me, always trying to avoid a descent into madness, so I put on my fun face and say to the kids as we walk in, \u201cOh!<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>They knew we were coming.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>Look at all these colorful binders.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>Both of you kids need binders.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span><\/span>Grab ’em and go!”
\n<\/span>
\n<\/span> Sissy replies, “These are all one inch.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span><\/span>Mine need to be one-and-a-half inch.
\n<\/span>
\n<\/span><\/span>Crap.
\n<\/span><\/em>
\n Sonny replies, “MINE can be one inch.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span><\/span>But these are all colored and mine need to be white.”
\n<\/span>
\n<\/span><\/span>Crap!!<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>And what is this,\u00a0<\/span><\/span>Racist Binder Time?!
\n<\/span><\/span><\/em>
\n And so it goes until it’s an hour later and I\u2019m sixty bucks in the everlovin\u2019 hole and we can’t find a Mead Black and White Composition college-ruled notebook to save our lives. <\/span><\/p>\n

Red and black?<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>Check. <\/span>\u00a0<\/span>GREEN and black? <\/span>\u00a0<\/span>Check. <\/span>\u00a0<\/span>Black and white zebra stripes?<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>CHECK!<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>Hey, technically it’s black and white and I don’t CARE if they’ll give you a demerit because of it, just GET IT!<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span><\/em><\/span>But it’s wide-ruled, not college-ruled.
\n<\/span>
\n<\/span><\/span>GAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!
\n<\/span><\/em>
\n Turns out I HATE back to school shopping.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>And I don’t think I saved myself any money by NOT buying The Kit.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>And it sure as S**T didn’t save me my sanity.<\/span>\u00a0 Won’t do that again.\u00a0 <\/span><\/span>Kits next year for SURE.
\n<\/span>
\n<\/span> P. Frickin\u2019 S. \u2013 why did we have to BUY book covers?! <\/span>\u00a0<\/span>Why can’t my son just A) USE the hot pink argyle-patterned book covers his sister had leftover from last year\u2026or better yet, B) just MAKE book covers out of paper bags like I did when I was a kid?!<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>When I posed these questions to him, he looked at me like had just suggested he WEAR hot pink paper bags to school the first day.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>So we bought some slinky-fabric book covers in manly colors for $1.98 each.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>GAAAAAHHHHH!! Twelve paper shopping bags, a bitten pencil nub, a blue Bic pen and perhaps a few obsessively coordinated folders and notebooks comprised my entire back-to-school-supplies when I was his age. <\/span>\u00a0<\/span>And I turned out fine! <\/span>\u00a0<\/span>Just FINE! <\/span>\u00a0<\/span>F. U\u2026.i. n. e. <\/span>\u00a0<\/span>FINE!!!!!<\/span><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I never have been school supply shopping with my kids.\u00a0 Up \u2018til now, we\u2019ve always bought The Kit.\u00a0 You know The Kit.\u00a0 It\u2019s a school fundraiser that allows you to go online and buy one convenient pre-packaged set\u00a0of all the school supplies you already HAVE (somewhere), for an exorbitant cost. But this year, since I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[191,185,187,193,190,195,184,194,188,186,192,189,151],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newstayathomemom.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3607"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newstayathomemom.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newstayathomemom.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newstayathomemom.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newstayathomemom.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3607"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/newstayathomemom.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3607\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3615,"href":"https:\/\/newstayathomemom.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3607\/revisions\/3615"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newstayathomemom.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3607"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newstayathomemom.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3607"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newstayathomemom.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3607"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}