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When I was in elementary school, there were no big dances to look forward to – there were skating parties!  Good old fashioned roller-skating parties!  Every year there were two of them sponsored by our school at the wonderful Haygood Skating Center.  I abso-freakin-lutely LOVED going to skating parties.  I loved playing four corners, limbo and shoot the duck.  I loved the couples skate to the hottest Journey songs!  I loved the whole shebang.  BUT, what I loved most was getting the rink pizza with my friends and the big old sticker vending machine in the front of the rink that gave me beautiful gems like this for my sticker collection (yes, I was a collector):

One skating party in particular, my mom would not give me money for pizza and a sticker.  She had made meatloaf and told my sister and I that we would be eating it or else – and that was the end of the conversation.  Well that was NOT acceptable in my book, so I made an executive decision and went into her purse and took a five dollar bill.  After dinner, she took us to the skating party, and she went to the Blue Hawaii to meet some of the other mom’s for appetizers and drinks while we skated.  Things were going smoothly; I skated the night away and played all the skating games.  I skated the couples skate with my super cool boyfriend Kevin Braun.  I ate pizza with my friends and shared with my sister and after pizza, I bought her and I our shiny prism stickers from the vending machine.  When she asked where I got the money for it all, I told her that I had found the money next to the curb outside, when we were waiting in line to get into the rink and she totally believed me.

When the party was over, we waited out front for my mom to pick us up (back then it was nothing for our parents to just ditch their six and eight year old children at a public skating rink).  We weren’t in the car five seconds and big-mouthed Kelly blurted out all about us getting pizza and stickers.  When my mom asked how we got them, she kept blurting about the five dollars I miraculously found.  My mom looked right at me and said “Hmmm, that is funny, I am missing exactly five dollars out of my purse, which I did not have at the restaurant to leave as a tip – they wouldn’t happen to be the same five dollars, would they?”  I was busted and got a nice spanking with the wooden spoon when I got home – but you know what?  It was totally worth it!!!

I had to go to court this morning for my speeding ticket that I got back in February. The ticket was for “Speeding 35 in a 25 / Traffic Calming.” I was totally NOT going 35mph when I passed that police officer. I know this, because he was not hidden and I saw him the minute that I turned onto the street he was “hiding” on so I watched my speedometer the entire time that I passed him and it never went above 30mph. He pulled me over and wrote me up for 35mph - but here is the kicker; Virginia Beach sponsors a Traffic Calming Program, where neighborhoods can petition the city and be included, so that if people get caught speeding in their neighborhoods, it is not prepayable and the fines are a lot higher - it is supposed to deter speeding.

So, it was mandatory that I go to court and the minimum fine for any speeding infraction on that particular road was $200 plus court costs. When the judge asked me if I was guilty of the charge, I said, “Well I am guilty of speeding a little, but not 35mph!” - and she let me explain my case. She said that she believed me and that since I was technically still going over 25mph (whoopty-doo 30mph), that she would split the cost with me, so she reduced the $200 fine to $100 and waived all the court fees, and then she must have known that this May is tight, cause she gave me five months to pay the fine - YAY!!!  I am so glad that is behind me now, even though I really feel like I should not have even been pulled over, oh well, $100 is better than $261 anyday.

We have had a little discussion/experiment going on over at Betty’s place regarding reusable grocery bags vs. plastic grocery bags, and I have to admit, I am pretty impressed with the reusable ones.  They hold an incredible amount of groceries, as she demonstrates here.  She ended up ordering hers through EcoBags, and got a couple that were torn, but it seems that they were doing everything possible to make sure that she was a satisfied customer and are replacing the bags.

I decided to order mine through Go-Again Bags, which she also suggested.  I emailed them to make sure that the bags came with a removable insert (stiffener) for the bottom of the bags, and they emailed me back within five minutes and confirmed that they did (I was very happy about their quick response).  The ones from Go-Again are about half the price of the ones from EcoBags, and when you are a mother of two on a budget during Dance Recital season, that is a great selling point - even better, is that you can find them on Ebay for even cheaper.

So I am doing my part and have ordered my green (because according to Betty the green ones “Pop”) reusable grocery bags.  I will let you guys know how they fare when they come in.  I will keep them in the trunk of my car, so that I have them whenever I need them.  They look like they will actually be a lot easier to carry than the plastic and the paper ones.

I cannot tell you how ready I am for May to be done with.  We have got so much going on in May that I feel like I have opened up the flood gate on our checking account and am just shooing the money out of the account.  There are dental surgeries, dance recitals, birthdays, weddings, court dates and associated fines, etc.  Somehow we always make it through, but this month is going to be a tough one and on one hand, I have no one but myself to blame.  I know every year that Kaiden’s Recital is in May and every year I do absolutely nothing to budget and save for it.

Every year the costumes are $90 a piece and the photos are around $100 and the Recital tickets for all the family are about $150.00 and the DVD that you have to buy cause you are not allowed to record or take pictures that night is $60 and do I save for it?  Hell no!

Mark my words, I am going to budget this for next year in my Quicken and I will not have to post this same post next year!!!