Midnight Goddess

Halloween’s less than a week away. We’ll be taking the kids to one or two of the malls this year as we have done for the past several years. It’s safe and we’re surrounded by many other families who trick or treat at the malls. We have yet to take the kids to the neighborhoods to go trick or treating. We did that with Memphis when we lived in WA. I think when Jaz is a little bit older, we’ll go from house to house.

Since Marty was off this past weekend, we went to the Spirit Halloween store on Stevens Creek to buy costumes for the kids. I figured it’d be the only time we’d have to go as a family to the store. When we got there, the store looked ransacked. I expected that because it’s so close to Halloween. We went to the girls’ section first. I didn’t even bother suggesting girly costumes to Jaz. I saw a race car driver’s costume and showed it to her and her face lit up. I knew at that point that I picked the right one for her.

It was slightly more difficult to find a costume for Memphis. He first wanted to be a toilet. I didn’t see the costume that he was referring to but I wasn’t too big on walking around with a toilet following me. Then he wanted to be Po from Kung Fu Panda. But I know he’s very sensitive about his head and rarely wants to put objects on his head for any reason. The costume required him to put on an insanely large Po head. Then Marty saw Iron Man and suggested that to him. When we were on our way to the store, Memphis had mentioned that he wanted a costume that had a mask to cover his face. He didn’t want people to see the sore on his face. The Iron Man came with a mask perfect for that. So Memphis agreed to be Iron Man this year.

To keep it simple, we grabbed two identical pumpkin buckets for the kids. It was the cheapest ones at less than $2 per bucket but the kids care. So I was happy about that.

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Marty was the first to get sick but it looks like he’s going to be the last person to fully recover. I think it has a whole lot to do with the fact that he is back to working hard everyday and he’s out in the elements. Jasmine had a bit of a runny and stuffed up nose as well as a slight fever. But she’s over it now. Memphis has been coughing, sneezing and blowing his nose. Today it seems he’s better but he has a very bad small patch next to the left corner of his mouth. A few days ago it was very raw. Now it looks like a nasty cold sore that burst open.

I was the 2nd person to get sick. And although it was pretty tough running the household and taking care of the kids while I was sick, I didn’t get nearly as bad as Marty. I didn’t get any sinus headaches. I got random cold chills, a stuffed up head and the occassional runny nose. But I’m pretty much over it now.

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I survived another year of life and I’m very thankful. It’s been a tough year as my birthday marks a year since me and Marty went through a very painful, trying time. We’re still healing from it and I expect that it will take awhile before we’re completely healed.

We didn’t do anything “special” for my birthday because we didn’t have any money and Marty had to work all day today. But I’ve gotten many phone calls throughout the day from my family: aunts, uncles, in-laws, grandma, Mom and Dad, Marty, and Sean. It was great hearing from everyone. I even got bombarded with birthday greetings from my guild friends on WoW, thanks to Sean who told them that it was my birthday ;). Thanks Sean. I also got a lot of automated greetings from various forums, including ones that I forgot I was a member of.

The kids were being good for me. They weren’t stressing me out or pissing me off which was good. Memphis had drawn balloons and cake for me. Him and Jaz torn off a bunch of bright colored post-its and put them in a pillow case. They tossed them in the air and pretended that it was all confetti. We sat down at 8 PM and watched “Who, Bob, What Pants”, a gift from Memphis to me ;).

Last night, Marty gave me a really sweet birthday card. I knew he spent a lot of time picking out just the right card for me. He said he had to read about 15 different cards before he found the right one. It was really sweet of him. He included a scratch it ticket. I was close to winning $25,000. Only needed one more number. Oh well. Maybe next time.

Last night and part of this evening, Memphis has been bawling his eyes out because he doesn’t want me and Marty to die. We tried to explain to him that we have long lives to live. We talked in depth about God, death, the after life, Heaven… It was too much for Memphis. He kept crying and crying saying that he didn’t want to be alone and that he wanted to go with us when we pass away. I tried to comfort him the best I could. He’s such a sweet boy with a big heart. I love him.

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Awhile back Marty gave Memphis the opportunity to earn money for crushing the soda cans that we save. He jumped on it. He proudly did it almost every day when I would hand him a plastic bag of 12 or soda cans. Towards the end he started to slack off. He didn’t actually stop doing it. But he wasn’t always willing to stop what he was doing to crush cans. However, I never forced him to do them. I just reminded him that he always has the choice to stop. The consequence was that me and Marty would keep all the money.

This morning, Marty had a small window of time to take Memphis to the recycling center to get paid for his work. Marty wanted to do this because it would give Memphis the incentive to continue crushing cans. But he wasn’t awake yet. He normally gets up between 10 - 11 am, depending on how late he stayed up the night before. So I went into his room and gently woke him up. I told him what Dad wanted to do with him. At first, he didn’t want to get up. But then I mentioned that he was going to get paid for the cans he crushed. That helped him get moving a bit more.

Less than an hour later they came back from the recycling center. Memphis was beaming as he showed me his money and told me he earned $33. I was so proud of him. I think that this should help him continue to crush cans now that he has proof that he can earn money from doing them.

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I love Costco. Does that sound weird? I also love shopping at Walmart (especially the superstore in Gilroy) but that’s a different story.

Last night after me and Marty got showered and dressed, we took the kids to the local Costco store. We’ve been members of Costco since 2004 and used our Executive membership heavily when we lived in WA and NV. But our membership ran out 2 years ago and we never renewed it until last night. We just couldn’t muster up $100 to pay for the Executive membership.

So instead we agreed on getting the regular Gold membership which is really all we needed anyway. It only set us back $50 instead of $100. We had gotten the executive membership to get the 2% back that we had spent at Costco. Anyway, we turned in our old cards and got our pictures taken for the new ones that we got. Jaz wanted to be in the picture when I stood in front of the camera but she was too short to be seen standing in front of me. I figured that I wasn’t going to make a big deal about her being there since her face wasn’t going to show up in the final anyway.

Once that was done, we took a quick trip through the aisles. We only had a few minutes to look since the store was closing. The longer we stayed there, the more I wanted to whip out my wallet and buy stuff. Costco has a lot of stuff that we use but in bulk. Since we don’t have a whole lot of money right now to spend on things, we’ve made a habit of using our Safeway card whenever we need to buy groceries. We’re there at least 1-3 times a week and we definitely save money using our card. We also go to Walmart to buy things because Walmart is well known for their slashed prices.

I got hungry staring at all the food and drinks that Costco sells in bulk. I got happy when I saw that they sell Starbucks Frappacino Mocha in bulk. Yum! If at all possible, that’s all I would need in the morning. I’m not a big breakfast person.

Memphis was very excited by the toys, clothes, food and electronics. He spotted a section where Costco sells Webkinz in a 2-pack for only $20! And they’re the full size plushees. I also pointed out the Ipod Nanos. That’s the latest and greatest thing that he wants. I heavily suspect that Memphis is turning into a gadget and computer geek like me. Jasmine on the other hand was happy when she saw the Tonka garbage and dump trucks that were for sale. She’s a lot like Marty in that she loves big trucks and anything with wheels that go fast.

I can’t wait to start shopping regularly at Costco again. Regardless of what our financial situation is, we’ll always shop at Safeway, Costco and Walmart… no matter how much money we end up making. We can be filthy rich and we’d still be regulars at those stores.

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