Confessions of the Fru-gal

I am cheap.  I admit it.  I was cheap before it was chic.  I was cheap before extreme couponing.  I was cheap before internet shopping.  It’s almost an obsession.  If I were  a super hero I would be the Fru-gal.  My grandmother used to get irritated with me for telling people how much I paid for something.  She was a Nordstrom shopper.  I would go to Ross and score a kicky pair of boots and tell everyone they only cost 9 dollars on clearance. Yeah, I mean everyone.  Someone says nice boots and I can’t just answer Thank you.  I have this overwhelming need to tell them not only where I bought it but how much I paid.   I wore those boots as a badge of honor. The less I pay for something the more I value it.  I know there is no way I can replicate my find and therefore treasure my frugal acquisition.

Let me just say.  I don’t buy something just because it’s cheap.  If I did that I would be swimming in paisley poly blend TJ Maxx pant suits and “ imperfect” Delta Burke undergarments…and one should never swim in a pant suit…

I love cute cheap dresses and the discount stores are straight and to the point.  I go to the dress section, I go to my size and leaf through a hundred hideous wastes of fabric and occasionally find something to my liking. It’s rare that I find something  but sometimes I am lucky and move on to the next step.

I have to pretty much be in love with something to advance to the next step… the dreaded dressing room.  This is the place where surly women look you up and down with more scrutiny than TSA.  They count and recount your items and hand you a plastic number which is your ticket to enter a tiny little poorly lit room that smells vaguely like onions…and goat.  If you can manage to look halfway decent under the life draining light that is usually reserved for public schools and insane asylums then you know you have a winning item.

Next stop…the line.  This is the time to check my phone…or pretend to check my phone.  I am one of those people, despite all body language to the contrary that people feel the need to engage in conversation.  My cell phone is my best friend in situations like this. There should be one button that you push without having to look that just makes your phone ring.  I’m sure there is an app for that. The line looks painfully long but they are fast and you make it to the front just at the time where every customer needs a price check and half of the cashiers are on break. You wait awkwardly for someone to say next and the anxiety builds as you don’t want to be that one person, spacing out on your phone while the harried cashier is repeatedly shouting “Next person in line” and the people behind you are trying to decide whether to tap you on the shoulder or hope that you snap out of your cellphone coma. Yes.  I stress about these things.  It’s finally your turn…

In Seattle you are expected t have a reusable bag at every moment, your lack of planning results in butterfly effect where the sound of a cashier’s eye roll somehow causes a poor Venezuelan farmer to step off his path resulting in the death of a Chinese factory worker…or something like that. I pay my 5 cent bag tax and hope that my paper bag doesn’t disintegrate on the 8 block walk home. Upon exiting,  I smile at the security guard suddenly very self-conscious of every move I make, even though I have done nothing wrong.  I stand up straight, as if he is going to search my bags because of poor posture.

I’m out.

I made it.

It was not emotionally scarring as an afternoon at Build A Bear

So you see.  It’s not just the money saved.  I went thru battle!…well  maybe not “battle”  but certainly a “middle class white people inconvenience”  for my 12 dollar bargain. I’ll do it again.  Over and over.  I am a glutton for punishment and a sucker for a deal.

Baking Brownies with a Four Year Old in 25 Easy Steps.

1. Decide to make brownies with your four year old daughter! You have seen pictures of this mother daughter bonding experience in Parenting magazine and everyone looks so dang happy!


2. Leaf thru cookbooks and guide your child away from the Buche de Noel and towards the brownie with sprinkles.



3. Remove child from the kitchen while you prepare all of the ingredients for easy four year old assembly (try to ignore the fact that you could have finished mixing everything and had it in the oven by the time you are done ”organizing”)


4. Remind your child to wash her hands.


5. Send her back to try again. With soap.


6. Smell hands and send protesting four year old back to try again.


7. Announce that if she keeps pouting there will be no baking.


8. Secretly hope that she continues pouting.


9. Help her with the pink side of the double sided apron, “Not the other side because we used the other side last time and not the owl one because the owl one is blue and doesn’t have any pink on it and pink is better”


10. Preheat oven, mix a bunch of ingredients together, pour into baking dish.


11. Explain to her that she can't try the batter because it contains raw egg.


12. Apply sprinkles.


13. Send child back to the bathroom to wash her hands after licking a handful of sprinkles off of her palm.


14. Eat some batter while she is washing her hands.


15. Finish sprinkles and put back in the oven to bake.


16. After unsuccessfully convincing your child to leave the kitchen so you can clean up, teach the insistent young one how to scrub a bowl.


17. Wipe up the dish water from the floor, the counters, the clock and the wall calendar.


18. Have the following conversation

Child: is it done yet?
You: Not yet.
Child: (In exasperated tones) When is it EVER going to be ready.
You: 18 more minutes.




19. Repeat step 18, only changing the number of minutes. Do this 17 times.




20. Remove brownies from the oven and set them out to cool.




21. Have the following conversation.

Child: Is it done yet?
You: It needs to cool down.
Child: But it’s taking for a LONG time. How many minutes?
You: 10 minutes.Repeat step 12. Do this 5 times. Give up.




22. Mangle the too hot sprinkle brownies while digging out a piece so that your child can have a taste.




23. Congratulate yourself on taking the time and effort to make memories with the child that is whining and crying because she has burned her tongue on a hot mess of brownie.




24. Swear that you will never do this again, until you tuck your kid in for nap and she says “Mama, I love baking with you, we should do this all the time” Smile and realize it is all worthwhile.




25. Have a brownie...and a drink.

I am an Awkward Mom

I always wonder if other moms feel as awkward as I do in every social situation I am tossed into.  It's not that I am antisocial in the real world, (well maybe a little).

I am an awkward mom.

It may have started out by being a step mom.  As a stepmother you are always feeling out your place, not only at home but in the world of parent/teacher conferences, Pee Wee football games, birthday parties and other events where you are constantly reminded that your husband has not only had sex before you, but shared a life with another woman that you will be forever tied to for the rest of your life. How's that for a neurotic run on sentence?

When my daughter was born I thought I would be less awkward.  I wasn't.  I've run screaming from every mommy group I have ever attended, and by run, I mean walk and by screaming, I mean quietly weeping on the inside.
I hate the name "Mommy Group"
I also hate "Froyo" and "Xfinity"
but this is not what this post is about.
Wait.  I also hate BOGO and Ruth's Chris Steakhouse.

I don't know the other parents at my daughter's preschool school very well, so every time I strike up a conversation I feel like I'm the new kid in 4th grade, wearing head gear. I want them to like me.  I want them to think I'm cool. Wait. No I don't.  Dear God please don't invite me to anything. ...
Today I am obsessing over the Birthday Party Evite.  I didn't score an Evite because of my cunning wit and my magnetic personality.  I am just on the Preschool's email list and parents are encouraged to invite everyone in the class to their 4 year old's birthday bash.

Why I don't want to go
1.  We would have to go and be social

2.  What am I going to wear? I don't fit in with the Gore-Tex crowd or the opposing Lululemon gang.

3.  Clara is going to realize that other 4 year olds have kid parties instead of the themed cocktail parties we   throw to celebrate her day of birth.

4.  One camp is the stay at home mom camp.  One is the corporate mom camp.  I am in my own hybrid "work sometimes" camp and I will have to explain.

5. When I tell people I work evenings and weekends it makes me sound like an exotic dancer. The truth is more glamourous.  I get paid to perform while wearing a pig costume. While this should be a great conversation starter with preschool moms and an opportunity to market my work as a childrens theatre performer, I become all insecure and tongue tied in the presence of  UGGs

Why I should go

1. I love my daughter and it's important for her to do social things and celebrate her school friend's birthdays.

2. I should be more social.  I am sure there are very nice, normal parents out there that like cocktails and mocking the more fortunate.

3. Proof that Clara actually has parents and didn't just hatch from an egg like Jonathan Winters in "Mork and Mindy". (Pretty sure all of the moms at Clara's school are too young to remember Mork and Mindy)

Why I will go
1. Cake.

Hey there 39

So here we are.  I am officially 39.  365 days until I celebrate 40. For some reason, I have been giving thi s year a lot of thought.  I have been thinking about all of the things that I wanted to accomplish by the time I turned forty and with the exception of a few things like, win a Tony, be a size 8 and total world domination I am pretty happy with Deonn in progress. I have some accomplisments under my belt.  here is my top Ten.

1. I found "the one" Ok, so he is obsessed with The Little Mermaid and has the same musical taste as my mother, and I can't count the amount of times he has made me watch the Superman opening credits, I hit the jack pot.  I found a man who will love me, put up with all of my neurosis, and keep me away from WebMD when I have convinced myself I have contracted Ebola.

2. I became a mom. I acquired a step boy child and gave birth to the world's loudest girl child. I would say something kind and amazing and inspirational about having children but it's 10:20 and  my four year old daughter is whining in her bed, claiming to be afraid of her frog humidifier.

3. I live in an amazing place.  My neighborhood gets a bad rap. Sure there is the occasional stabbing in the alley, drug deal gone wrong or a good old fashioned shivvin. (sp?) but for the most part, it's a lovely place with great restaurants and coffee shops and just blocks to Pike Place Market. It's like a small town, in a big city.  We know our homeless and they have our backs.

4. I get to act. It ain't Broadway but I get paid to dress up and sing and dance and perform.  How cool is that?  Performing for children is the best. Performing in a pig costume in front of your husband's ex-wife?...well that's a whole other blog post.

5. I write shows.  I write things that I think are funny. I put it up on the stage and then I rake in a ridiculous amount of royalties! and by ridiculous I mean...well...can't quit my day job.

6. I have a reliable car, for the first time in my life. However, I drive a car that could house the country of Lichtenstein. Yes, I have become one of those people with a  ridiculously large car.  It's not a Hummer or an Escalade or anything and it certainly isn't a minivan, but it's bigger than most parking places in which I am trying to parallel park.  This isn't really an accomplishment, just a fact.

7. I have a collection of wonderful friends.  I have friends who are willing to brave my neighborhood and struggle to find parking to help me celebrate turning 39.  If you have ever tried to find a parking place in downtown Seattle, you know how good these friends are. My friends are the best and this year I am going t make an effort to see them all more, and not just take advantage of the free babysitting.

8. I have figured out how to use all of our 7 remote controls.

9. I have  learned all of  the words to "Walk Like an Egyptian" and I can sing it while playing the tambourine...sort of.

10. I wrote my first  'The Story of 39" blog entry.  It's surprisingly hard to come up with things I have accomplished.  Perhaps it's because so many of the things that I have, I am simply grateful for and I don't consider them accomplishments. Oh wait...here is another one.  I have accomplished bed time success and my daughter is finally asleep.  Unfortunately, so is my husband.  Goodnight everybody!