Team Gray!

When my kids did theater, we parents were expected to volunteer to help launch the show. I would have loved to play in the orchestra, or better yet–transpose the score to make it easier for the kids to sing, but I always had a baby, so that would have been too hard to manage.

My mother was a long time volunteer in the costume shop at our community theater, so her expectation that I would sign up for the costume committee was great.

I lacked her confidence, and passed.

Now I wish I’d signed up to help with costumes. Those moms knew something I didn’t. Pssst: you don’t have to be a perfect or even excellent seamstress in order to help with costumes. And you might actually improve your skills in the process. What a concept!

This week, I told my kids they were on break. But to avoid aimless lounging, I told them they could have ‘school light,’ where we’d do projects, etc. I mentioned the dollhouse.

They pulled out this battered costume-making book instead. It’s a board book, barely held together with an old ring binding, and would probably be missing several pages had it been a paperback.

My mother, (the traitor!) had bought it for Yanni, and she’d pored over the pages, faithfully trying to reproduce every costume therein.

She was especially interested in the tutus. There was a garbage bag tutu, a bubble wrap tutu, a newspaper tutu, and a real tutu, made of tulle.

We’d gone and purchased all the supplies, and then I ran and hid my head, terrified I’d mess it all up. Perfectionism is a dangerous thing in a parent.

The book is written for kids. Surely the costumes are something a child could make?

But the bubble tutu proved too hard. The garbage bag tutu, too flimsy. And the tulle? I tried to help with the tulle, but the holes were too big to really hold the thread.

We were both disappointed.

If I’d volunteered on the costume committee, I’d have known what to do.

It turns out, I learned from my mistakes. Today, Imani and Joy also wanted to make tutus. Joy and Imani worked on the garbage bag design by themselves, and Joy wore her tutu for several hours.

Imani wanted the tulle model. I tried to find some tulle lying around the house. I’d made curtains from it back when I’d done the kids’ rooms. Yanni had fluffy light teal curtains for her sea themed room. The tulle was leftover from my wedding.

Couldn’t find that. Likely the cat had something to do with it…

I did find a curtain panel I’d sewn for Xay’s room. It was camouflage tulle, and just wide enough for the pattern! I set to cutting and sewing while the girls watched. I felt funny working on the kids’ project, but reminded myself that tulle and ruffles and skirts are difficult sewing. I tried to keep myself from saying this out loud; I didn’t want to discourage the girls from trying to sew at some point in their lives.

Long story bearable, I finished the tutu. It took all morning, and the ruffles pretty much fell out, but it left a cute little skirt much like the little tutu that came with Chanya’s cutest pajamas.

Except, you know, homemade.

20 years and 1 day ago, a beautiful flower* came into the world.

Our lives have never been the same.

I teased her that now that she’s 20, she’s going to age backward, and start looking younger and younger. It’s the family legacy. She’s not feeling it.

In true Viva Ayanna style, we celebrated her birthday over the course of 2 days. Yesterday, she hung out and got her presents. Tonight she got her cake. I thought that 20 called for sparkly silver and crystal sprinkles on the cake, rather than scrawled letters or sloppy flowers. Ayanna liked it, and she appreciated that her sisters had decorated the dining room in her honor.

How many memories can you amass in 20 years? Surprisingly many, especially if you’re the mom, who remembers every detail. Add that to the daughter, who hasn’t forgotten anything after her 2nd year, and there are many rich stories.

Happy Birthday, sweetie. May you have an amazing life.

*Ayanna means beautiful flower in Swahili.

I recently took a couponing class with my sister in law.

After getting hooked on the Extreme Couponing show, I had tried to run out and work the system on my own. I saved about $8 my first shopping trip, and was discouraged. Those folks on TLC could have bought $300 worth of groceries with $8, not spend $300-$8. So, fail.

But Curtis was encouraging, suggesting that wasn’t bad for a first trip. He later said that the folks on TV are a wild exception to the rule. I found that all stores are not equal, price-wise, and started shopping smarter.

The coupon class confirmed our suspicion. We’re kind of in a depressed coupon area. Meijer doubles coupons in every part of our state except West Michigan. Why? Lack of competition. They drove Cub Foods out of Kalamazoo back in the early 90s, Jewel Osco by the early in the millennium, and even though we have Walmart, we don’t have Kroger, Trader Joes, Costco, and many other grocery stores.

The savings our coupon teacher boasted were modest by extreme coupon standards, but decent. She certainly takes good care of her family, and she has a brilliant method that doesn’t take full-time employment hours.

So I started working the system this week. I price matched prices of milk, butter, eggs, etc. to figure out where to shop. Since no one store has everything we need, I knew I had to hit several stores anyway, and my time was limited today.

I found a sale of milk at Meijer, and decided to go there first. I returned bottles there, and found that I like their bottle return better than any store in town. That was the only coupon I used. I saved $3.60 with my bottle return, along with in-store savings on butter and milk.

I went to Walmart later on, and found that milk was a penny cheaper there than Meijer, and eggs were 41 cents cheaper than at Sam’s Club, which had boasted the lowest egg price during my online price source. I stocked up on eggs, and bought other items with coupons. I saved another $3.00 or so, which I found disheartening, but I’ll keep going. Couponing is going to take practice.