GoodTimes, Bad Times

Three and a half years ago I was introduced to Other Mothers, a kid's consignment store chain. I went with a friend from Spokane and she showed me how great this store is. It is here in Boise too. One of the beauties of the store is that it has a monthly sale where everything is $.25. Yes, only 25 cents per item. It really is as great as it sounds. The only downside? Battling crazed bargain hunting mommies. But it is a fascinating social experience. There are women who line up to be the first ones in the store. They are poised with several "Smart Car" sized plastic bags and comfortable shoes. As the doors to the sale open these mommies rush in with arms pre-stretched out all ready to grab and bag. In a matter of minutes they have filled four or five massive bags of clothes. Since the clothes are dumped out on big tables, it is easy to scoop large quantities of clothes directly into the bags without really having to sort too carefully. That comes later. After their bags are stuffed to the brim they drag them to the outskirts of the crazed mom-mob and begin a meticulous sorting period. Occasionally they will ditch some of the clothes that are deemed unworthy back onto the long tables. When this happens there is nothing short of a pirhanha effect on the clothes. In my rookie days, I made the mistake of thinking I could handle one of these moments. Oh boy. I was overwhelmed with arms, bags, breath, and before I really even looked at anything, the clothes were completely GONE from before me.

The fantastic part of the quarter sale is that you can buy tons of stuff for crazy cheap. Some of my best finds have been with coats and shoes. I consider it a major victory to find a matching pair of shoes in the crazy bins of baby stuff. Today I struck gold! I got six pairs of shoes for a whopping $1.50. One pair are Ecco shoes that go for $70 when new. These ones have a bit of dirt; no problems cleaning that off. Two other pairs are baby Gap brand and super cute. I found some shoes for Ben too that are the pre-walkers. They look brand spanking new. I've been putting off getting him shoes because I just can't bring myself to pay $25 for him to wear them for a month before growing out of the size. So just move that decimal point over a couple spots and I'll gladly pay that price.

I try to be pretty picky in the 25 cent clothes I get for the kids. Nothing too worn out and definitely not any underwear (GROSS). Considering I really have never enjoyed shopping, it's surprising that I actually look forward the the quarter sale! I will just enjoy these times that I can get away with buying second hand clothes for the kids before they start to care.

Little victories like $70 shoes for a quarter fit under the good times category. I have gone to the sale when I come home with two lame shirts that I end up giving to the D.I. though. Can't always win, I guess.

Like the other day when I made Afton's birthday cake. I thought the rainbow turned out pretty well. I was expecting to make some bigger mistakes on the frosting part. No, those mistakes came later... in abundance. I thought I would make a base for the rainbow that would be like a big fluffy cloud. Since the rainbow was a white cake, I thought it would be fun to make a chocolate cake for the other part. I pulled out my trusty recipe book that my aunt gave to me a few years ago. She had gathered yummy recipes from my grandma, her daughters, friends, and of course herself. I have been using the recipes with great satisfaction so I thought I'd try a chocolate cake recipe from the collection. It said to use one 9" round pan. As I made the batter, I was thinking that it sure looked like a ton of batter to pour into only one pan so I decided to put it in a 9" square to give it a bit more room. I figured the cake would be really dense and not raise up too much. Hmmm. After about twelve minutes in the oven I began to think I should have stuck with my gut feeling. Soon the cake was oozing out over the edge of the pan and dripping onto the bottom of the oven. Well, I thought, maybe it will stop soon. Wrong. After about 18 minutes I knew I was in trouble. The cake was POURING out over the sides of the pan and coating the rack, the burner and the bottom of the oven with tons of goopy chocolate batter. In a matter of moments billows of black smoke came streaming out of the oven. I rushed to turn off the oven and try to get the pan out. The end result was about a 9"round worth of cake on the bottom of the oven, charring and smoking. The real 9" pan was half cake, half batter and it was a fight to get it off the rack. To make a long story short, it was a disaster.

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