School Supplies

The PTA at Caroline's school offers the option for parents to purchase next year's school supplies in advance. All you have to do is send in a check at the end of the school year and without any exertion on your part, the school supplies miraculously end up in your child's class room on the first day of school. It's a convenient option, especially if you don't particularly enjoy navigating the congested school supply aisles of your neighborhood big box store. It's a sad sight, those school supply aisles. Confused parents with lists in hand trying to find plastic folders with prongs AND pockets for one child and plastic folders with just pockets for another. And wondering why the second grade teachers ask for regular glue sticks (that only cost .25 a piece) and the third grade teachers want the big glue sticks that cost three times as much.


The PTA school supply fundraiser is without a doubt convenient. Like triple washed lettuce, juice boxes and single serving yogurts, you have to pay for convenience.

And with this school supply package, you really pay. The whole shebang costs $57. I realize it's a fundraiser and the PTA has to make money on the deal, but I could not bring myself to pay $57 for supplies I KNEW I could buy for a lower price.

Now, please pretend that you see a nice picture of all the school supplies we purchased.
You should be seeing an assortment of pencils (pre sharpened!), marble composition notebooks, crayons and colored pencils. And we can't forget the tissues, ziploc bags and hand sanitizer.

I'd like to show you the picture I took, but my camera has decided to not cooperate. All I get is a lens error message and a prompt to turn the camera back on. Only, it won't turn on because the lens is stuck. I love that little pink camera; it was my birthday present last year. It's not even a year old! My fingers are crossed, hoping for a camera lens miracle, but I have a feeling I'll be getting a new camera soon. My internet searching and troubleshooting efforts have proven to be futile, and I'm not sending it into a repair shop and paying close to what the camera is worth to repair it.

I'm so sad. Please pray for a camera resurrection. While you're at it, you can also pray for my poor "w" key on my laptop. It sticks. I hate when everything falls apart! I've previously claimed that age 33 is the year that I've begun to fall apart and now it appears that my stuff is following in my creaky, achy body's foot steps. Boo!

Anyway, Caroline and I set out on a few shopping trips to acquire her third grade school supplies. We could have gone all at once, but we like to spread it out. It gives us something to do during the week. I maintained a frugal minded mentality while school shopping, but I did not partake in any of those one cent deals Staples and Office Depot advertised. Sometimes sanity preservation trumps one cent deals.

All in all I paid $38 for school supplies. I could have spent less if I had been a little better prepared and more willing to push and shove my way through Staples or Office Depot, but I'm just glad that I met my goal of spending less than the school supplies-in-a-box deal.

The supplies are ready. I guess that means school can officially start.

Two weeks to go! I just hope I have a working camera on the first day of school.