I’ve decided to give this Spring Cleaning thing a serious try. I loved the two Rubbermaid storage boxes Mary got me at Walmart on Sunday, so on Monday after we’d picked up Jaylen from school Mom, Jaylen, Alaethia and I made a quick trip to Walmart and got the other two I’d seen. The ones I’d gotten the previous day were brown and orange and the ones left were just brown ones. At $2 a pop, beggars can’t be choosers, so I quickly tossed them into the cart, as if someone were waiting around the corner just waiting to snatch them out of my grasp.
I slowly scanned the clearance isle just in case I saw anymore storage boxes and lo-and-behold, there were two canvas totes–a purple and beige one–but they didn’t have UPCs.
I walked around looking for an employee and I found a man in the garden isle. I told him about the boxes I wanted, but that they didn’t have UPCs. He said, “Oh…man, I don’t think we’ll be able to sell them to you then.” I sort of pout and say, “Darn. Okay,” and start walking away. He says, “What would you pay for them?” I turn on my heel and look at my mom for help and I get an idea.
I point to the baskets in the cart and say, “Those are on clearance too, and are for $2 each.”
The man nods and says, “$2 then. Let them know at the front and tell them I gave you the price.” Woo!
We looked around in the kitchen isle to find cereal canisters, perferably thin, rectangular ones to save space. I like to buy the huge generic bags of cereal (instead of, say, 3 boxes for double the price) and we have them all over the place since everyone likes different cereals and they don’t fit in the cabinets. They were sort of expensive, so I decided to wait.
On the way home Mom suggests checking at Joy Dollar. I’d never checked there, so we stopped. As we’re walking in I notice a little girl’s just staring at me. She looks really familiar and then it hits me; she looks just like Ricci’s oldest daughter, Belinda. I wasn’t completely sure, but we smiled at eachother anyway and she ran off so I continued to look for the plastics isle.
Mom had wandered off, so I began to look for her and when I go into one of the isles I notice Ricci’s standing there with a baby girl in her arms and another baby girl in a cart. She turns and I say, “Hi, Ricci.” and she says hello, too. I ask her if the infant is her new baby and she says yes, that she’s 6 months old now. She looks just like Goyo. She notices the bundle wrapped up in my arms and says, “Who’s is she?” and I say, “Mine!” We get into a half-hour conversation about what’s been up in our lives, how we parted on bad terms, and she invited me to Rachelle’s birthday party this weekend. She’s turning 2 and she’s standing and walking around. The last time I remember seeing her she had short hair, was barely pulling herself up and taking a few steps. I can’t believe the luck that Ricci has. Granted, it’s still the situation she’d been in before that’s caused all her misfortune, but it’s still horrible that she has to go through all that crap. Especially horrible for her girls.
Everyone I’ve told about getting back in touch with her keeps warning me to keep my distance. I appreciate the concern from everyone, but there’s no way I’d let myself get into the situation we were in last year. Never again.
Getting back to the boxes I was looking for, I didn’t find them LOL. Which is weird ’cause I used to see those around all the time. I’ll have to go back for the ones at Walmart later.
I’m hoping to get started on going through my closet and the boys closet sometime this weekend. Mario’s off on Sunday, so hopefully he’ll help me move the furniture around in the bedroom. I started going through the stuff in the living room closet, but there’s so much crap in there it’s going to take me forever to finish!
I’d love to get a small corner desk for the computer since our 6 year old desk from Walmart takes up so much darn space. I’d also like to get a smaller, less obtrusive entertainment center or TV table, since the one we have doesn’t have much in it anyway besides the TV. We’ll have to find a new place for the turtle tank, since that’s where we have it right now =\.
I was watching Oprah on…Tuesday, was it? It was about organizing small spaces and they made over a 250 sq. ft. house! The drapes and patterns weren’t exactly my taste but I do love how everything had it’s place. Even the cat’s litterbox was nicely concealed in the bathroom! I have to say the kitchen was my favorite.
Before:
After:
Isn’t that amazing? Our place is much bigger than that (okay, not by much probably) and I can’t organize it for crap! But then again, it takes money to become organized and I don’t have that much money, heh. Here’s the link if you’d like to see the before and afters. I love what Nate, the designer, did to his own small apartment, too.
We went to Target yesterday to get Alaethia some diapers and saw the sweater I wanted to get her last week on the clearance rack. John made me put it back because I told him to help me refrain from buying anything I didn’t “need”. (Noticing a trend with me and clearance items LOL?) Well, I found it there again yesterday and saw it as a sign that I must get it since nobody else had bought it yet. I also found another little cream-colored blouse and bought it for her. The sweater was $4.98 down from $9.99 and the blouse was $6.38 down from $9.99 as well. I LOVE bargains. She won’t fit into these till she’s 9-12 months, but that’s pretty cool. I’ve gotten her lots of things (mostly on clearance that are super cute) that she’ll use as she gets older.
We stopped by Mary’s work as well to pick up a gift that Irene had bought Alaethia. It’s a super cute dress that I can’t wait for her to fit into!
I’ve had all week to get around to doing everything but haven’t had the chance since Alaethia’s been requiring lots of attention now that she’s spending hours awake at a time during the day and on Wednesday we got sad news that Mario’s aunt, Alicia, passed away :(. She’d suffered a heart attack since before the holidays and never recovered. Jorge is down from California for a few days. We’ll be attending the funeral tomorrow afternoon.
I’ve also caught yet another cold. Or it could be the one I already had, getting worse. I felt achy and gross all day Wednesday and now I’ve got the runny nose and dry cough. Alaethia’s been waking up every two hours at night since I try and go to sleep with her by 11:30, the latest. Last night though, I tried putting her to bed in her bassinet because I didn’t want to get her sick and we were up till 1am. I was so exhausted I just put her on my chest like she usually sleeps and the little booger fell asleep right away! I’ve noticed that when she goes to sleep late, around 12:30 or 1am, she’ll sleep for 3 to 4 hours straight. I wish it were like that when she falls asleep early, too :(.
Thank goodness Elda offered to drop the boys off for me every morning. I don’t have to risk getting into an accident for driving around while I’m sleepy and I get to get Mario’s stuff together. Well, most of the time. I didn’t get to put his lunch bag together this morning since Alaethia was screaming her little head off. I can’t wait to feel better–I miss smooching her already!
She’ll be 1 month old tommorrow! How time flies!