For those who know me, it's no secret how much I love good deals. There's nothing better than getting a lot for a little! Hence, I love Ebay. I've gotten many a good deal in the past 4 years. You have to be patient, willing to research, and smart about throwing your bid up with about 12 seconds left! It's amazing how my heart will race with excitement biding on a$.99 strand of beads. Woohoo!!! 

I've had a few deals go south, though, in the past few years. For the most part people are pretty easy to deal with. Only once or twice have I gotten ripped off by some nasty folks. Well, I made a bad deal last week. I bought a pillowcase dress for Audrey. It was made with some super cute Suzy's Zoo fabric. I knew Audrey would love having Witzy the duck on her dress. And from my perspective paying $9 for an adjustable dress that we could use as a swing top later down the road made great sense. Buying clothes each season for a growing child can really get pricey. I'm always looking for things that will grow with her. And, most importantly, I'm always looking for LONG modest dresses. I like things that she can wear sleeveless in the summer, a shirt under it in the winter, and then as a top the next summer.

Well, you couldn't have imagined what this dress looked like when it arrived in the mail. I was astounded. All the seams were unfinished and fraying. The ribbons on the shoulder didn't match the dress and had sticky spots in them where it had been raveled up on the original spool. The hem was so uneven - at times it was a 1/4 inch and at other spots it was over 1 inch! The arm holes were two different sizes. It was a disaster.

I emailed the lady and she proceeded to tell me about her $5000 sewing machine. Then she says for only paying under $10, it was fine. She said I should not expect the same quality as a $425 dress. Well, first of all, how in the world would I know what a $425 dress would look like?  It's been a fiasco emailing back and forth. It's a smidge comical how much I worry about hurting this lady's feelings. I try to tip-toe around the issue, complimenting on her choice of fabric - because that was the only thing I could find that was good about the dress. In the end, she finally agreed to giving me a refund, minus the shipping. Can't win them all! (no pun intended)!!

YUMMY

I just bought the new Quaker Mini Delights Cinnamon Streusel  rice cakes. Yum-O! Doug would say that is one of life's most crazy ironies - rice cakes and the word YUM. I happen to love rice cakes. However, I think of a Cosby show episode where Claire is trying to get Cliff to eat lighter. After a dinner of salad, Cliff complains later that he's really hungry. So Claire whips out a bag of rice cakes from the nightstand that she helps will satisfy his nighttime hunger. Cliff take a less than enthused bite and claims the air in his mouth tastes better than the rice cake. Love the Cosby show!!

MILESTONE IN AUDREY'S LIFE

Ok, I know it's not that big to most folks, but this is for Audrey -- her first piece of gum! Last night I gave her a piece of gum while leaving the store. You can't imagine how elated she was. I mean to most it's a simple breath freshener. For Audrey, it's a tremendous right of passage in a whole new avenue of her youth. She called Grandma and Grammy and Poppy to tell them the exciting news. My mom was laughing because she said she couldn't even understand Audrey in the phone over her loud chomping! I was actually really shocked that she chewed it for about 35 minutes without swallowing it. Later last night I asked Audrey to go into my purse and bring me something. She comes back holding the pack of gun with the most adorable, hysterical expression on her face - partly expectant, partly afraid that she'd disobeyed, and partly amused with herself. She says to me, "All I could find in your purse was this pack of gum. Huh, what do you know!?"  I laughed so hard.

PICTURES

Doug is working on our photo albums for the computer. Many have asked and we know we're delinquent. We are working to correct that. New pics WILL be up soon.

In our efforts to fix these pics, we've visited many old photos. It's really bittersweet sometimes to look back at glimpses of a time that we cannot recreate or even remember accurately. I know every parent says that time flies. So many say that their child is born and then they blink and their child is moving away from home. It's so bizarre how that happens. I see pictures of Audrey and almost can't remember her even looking like that. It wasn't even that long ago. I try to look at the photo and recall what her little voice sounded like then, and I can't. It almost physically makes my stomach churn.

I fret that I'm not somehow savoring the time with her. I wonder how I could do better at hanging on to the past. Maybe I shouldn't mourn the past and just enjoy the newness of each new day. But it's strange to contemplate how time has passed and that I can't remember so much about one of the most precious things in my life. I don't know if I just get so busy with life and the daily busyness of taking care of Audrey that it just gets all jumbled in my head. Whatever the case, I'm one of those sentimental goofballs that wants to always keep my child with bouncy pigtails, giggly contagious laughter, wet kisses, and a cute little squeaky voice. I love it. I love the new things she does and says and little ways she changes and grows. But I long to flip a switch and relive the past at any time.

I need a video camera. Someway to capture the way she sounds; the way she says the word "monkey" - it's my favorite: the way she still seems to trip when she gets to running really quickly; the way she rubs her eyes in the morning when she wakes up; how she snuggles close to Doug when he picks her up after she has a dream;  how after a bath she stand on the mat all wrapped up in a towel; the way she cradles her babydoll when she's busy playing and doesn't know I'm watching; how her little prayers sound as she talks to God.

RANDOM UPDATES

Doug will be headed to Vancouver for a week's business trip. It'll just be us girls, lonesome without Daddy around.

Doug and I have an appointment with a lawyer to help us with the paperwork for the embryo adoption. We're still working through lots of decisions.

Sadie ripped a pad off one of her back paws last week. She is doing much better. We kept up with salt water soaks, neosporin, and two sock taped around her foot to keep it clean. She seems back to normal.

We found a dead mouse right in front of our door on the front porch yesterday. It's super cute. We actually left it there over night hoping a cat would come along and grab it so that we didn't have to bother with disposing of it. Maybe the lazy approach, but it sounded good at the time. Now that a cat hasn't done our dirty work, there are also flies now. I'll get Doug to scoop it up tonight. We got to laughing today when we remembered the dead mouse and realized it explained why the FedEx guy rang our doorbell this morning and took off running before we could come to the door to sign for Doug's passport. Poor guy!

Tomorrow we're headed to the zoo with the Risers. Chris is an elder at our church. They have a little girl, Johanna, whose a few months younger than Audrey. Audrey calls Johanna her best friend!