Baseball Coach — $8.00
Given to the coach to help cover the costs of renting tunnel space and batting cages for practice today since the weather was yucky outside.  The Son’s team has their first game on Wednesday but they’ll be playing without The Son — Wednesday’s are cello lessons and orchestra rehearsal nights for us and I’ve been very clear with The Son and The Husband that those commitments come before baseball.

Luckily, though, this will be the only game The Son has to miss because the orchestra season is winding down for the year.

On a fun note, The Son came out of practice excited because he got to pitch this evening and the coach said he had a good arm.  His accuracy is excellent but he needs to work on his speed.  Hopefully he’ll get some specific one-on-one coaching for that.  As thrilled as I am for him, I’d really rather he didn’t pitch.  It’s not very good for their shoulders or arms.  Still, I think it’s better than catching.  He’ll probably end up just being a relief pitcher like last year which would be the best of all worlds.

In other good news, The Son is getting used to his new baseball glove and the coach noticed it right away.  Coach was glad to see that the boy had graduated to an adult-sized glove instead of that kid’s glove he had been using.  Yesterday I emailed the coach asking about proper bat sizes/weights for the boy.  Again, the coach had noticed that The Son’s bat was too small for him and hadn’t been sure whether to bring it up or not.  The Son’s been hitting really well and he didn’t want to throw him off his game.  The coach has a bat that his son has out-grown that he wants The Son to try — and if it fits we can borrow it before deciding to make that type of investment.  Good bats are really pricey.  Like $300-$500 dollars!  Sometimes they’re on sale or you can buy last year’s model but you’re still looking at a pile of clams for a silly bat.  And then, in two short years, if the boy goes on to play high school ball, he’ll need a different sized bat again.

Church — $15.00
Weekly offering.

Starbucks — $3.41
The Daughter and I made a “designer coffee” run this morning while The Son attended religious instruction.  The friend ordered and purchased her own coffee; The Daughter had a mini scone and a hot chocolate.

Wild Oats — $21.65
Both kids voted for lunch at Wild Oats instead of Einstein’s Bagels.  I’m not sure why they thought that either, or both, were even an option but I didn’t fight hard when they announced their decision — I thought sushi sounded good.

• 2 trays of avocado rolls — $4.75/ea.
• vegetable combo tray — $5.95
• Odwalla Strawberry C Monster — $3.29
• store brand soda — $0.59
• cookie — $0.99

School — $38.00
A yearbook for The Daughter.  I guess I shouldn’t begrudge her this expense — after all, she’s in high school and on the yearbook committee (a fact that, somehow, The Husband had missed until now even though this is the second full year she’s served on this committee).

School — $33.25
Hot organic school lunches for The Daughter during April and the first week of May.  We didn’t want to crunch the budget too much so we started the year with a 2-meals-per-week.  It’s so nice to not have to pack a lunch for her on those nights that I’ve been tempted to encourage her to want more.  But there are only certain meals that the caterer makes that she likes and rarely are there more than two in any given week.  Sometimes there is only one in a week that she wants.  C’est la vie.  The hot meals are a nice break for both of us but it’s definitely more expensive than packing my own.

Saturday.  The Daughter and I went grocery shopping together.  Actually, we went to the local rec center/gym to check out the facility and to inquire about the cost of some personal trainer sessions.  While we were out, we stopped for some groceries because, despite a string of what seems like 10 straight days of grocery shopping, there were a number of essentials we desperately needed.  What, you might ask?  Read on and you’ll find out  ;-)  

Kroger — $72.02

• Fruitabu fruit leathers — $3.99 (saved $0.50)
• Bartlett pears — $2.83
• 2 boxes strawberries — $3.99/ea.
• 2 artichokes — $5.98
• 2 bunches asparagus — $1.00/ea. (saved $5.98)
• loose carrots — $0.58
• red cabbage — $0.80
• cucumber — $1.49
• garlic — $0.69
• organic fingerling potatoes — $2.99
• Kroger salted sunflower seeds — $2.00 (saved $0.39)
• Best Foods mayonnaise — $2.79
• 2 cartons Horizon chocolate milk — $3.19/ea. (saved $0.50/ea.)
• Oreo cookies — $2.96
• 2 lbs. Coleman ground beef — $11.86
• Soft Scrub cleanser — $3.99 (saved 0.60)
• Scott Brite scour pads - $2.49 (saved $0.50)
• Dove hair stuff (for damaged hair) — $4.11
• Dove shampoo — $3.50 (saved $0.17)
• Cutex polish remover — $1.39
• bag credits — ($0.40)

 Vitamin Cottage — $18.45 

• Hain canola mayonnaise — $4.59
• Santa Cruz applesauce — $2.49
• Yaya popcorn — $1.75
• string cheese — $3.29
• 6-pack Spritzer — $2.94
• 6-pack Spritzer — $2.94 

Vitamin Cottage — $56.90

• Cascadian Farm grape spread — $2.79
• Applegate Farm sliced roast beef — $4.75
• 2 Amy’s macaroni & cheese — $1.99/ea. (saved $1.32)
• Amy’s cheese pizza pocket — $2.19
• Amy’s broccoli pocket — $2.19
• Amy’s cheese snacks — $2.75 (saved $0.50)
• 2 boxes Dr Okter’s chocolate brownie mix — $1.99/ea. (saved $1.00)
• 2 boxes Dr Okter’s oatmeal muffin mix — $1.99/ea (saved $1.00)
• Shady Maple Farms creamy maple butter — $5.99 (saved $2.30)
• Alta Dena mild cheddar cheese — $3.89 (saved $1.40)
• Alta Dena monterey jack cheese — $3.89 (saved $1.40)
• Barbara’s cheese puffs — $1.49 (saved $0.50)
• 2 boxes DeBole’s spaghetti pasta — $1.95/ea.
• Muir Glen tomato sauce — $1.65
• Muir Glen no-salt tomato sauce — $1.65
• Muir Glen 1/2-can tomato sauce — $0.79
• Newman’s Own organic balsamic vinegar — $5.65

Lavage session — $70.00
It’s expensive.  It’s painful.  But the effect it’s having on my IBS is both undeniable and fabulous.  This is the longest stretch of symptom relief I’ve had in about a decade.

Old Navy — ($40.87)
I returned the baseball jersey ($3.49) and the hooded jacket ($34.50) that the son rejected the other day.

T.J. Maxx — ($34.39)
I returned the four sage green organic cotton towels I’d picked up.  I really liked the color.  The towels were a gorgeous, thick cotton.  The price was perfect.  And I loved the idea of organic cotton towels.   Still, I returned them.

The way my master bathroom is set up, I have three hand-forged metal hooks screwed into a cherry chair-rail.  The hooks hold one towel for me, one towel for The Husband, and a bathmat we use when showering.  And there lies the problem — the towels hang right next to the bathmat so the towels and bathmat have to look nice together.  It’s harder to find towel sets that include matching bathmats than one would think.  I returned the organic cotton towels because I could not find a bathmat that looked good next to the towels.

Bed, Bath, & Beyond — $58.02
[I looked at towels at Linens N’ Things, Ross Dress for Less, and T.J. Maxx before stopping at BB&B.]

I bought 6 towels and 2 bathmats.  They are a pretty cream color – it’s a pretty color but not one that I’d typically consider or gravitate toward.  I generally prefer a medium-dark color for bath towels.  However, the cream looks very nice in my bathroom.  And I’d really been hoping to find a textured towel instead of the more traditional single-texture terrycloth towel.  I thought that a texture would add visual interest.  I could have gone with a multi-colored or striped towel, but in my opinion stripes or decorator colors become outdated quickly and I expect these towels to last me a good number of years.  The final benefit of buying cream-colored towels is that, unlike dark colors, they can be washed in hot water without fear of fading.

I can’t say it’s the best thing, but a very nice thing about these towels is that they were on sale — for 40% off.  I saved a total of $36 off the full price of the items I purchased.

Without a doubt, the very best thing about these news towels is that The Husband likes them and approves of the purchase.  He agrees that it’s time for new towels and he liked the ones I’d chosen.  Doesn’t get much better than that 

Wild Oats — $7.05

• dozen Nest Fresh eggs — $3.69
• Odwalla Strawberry C Monster — $3.29
• bag credit — ($0.10)

The Husband’s been bugging me for months now to downgrade our Netflix subscription.  I’ve always resisted because I’ve liked the flexibility that our 3-at-a-time subscription allowed.  With 3-at-a-time, I could keep up a steady flow of The West Wing discs for me, have a weekly movie that The Husband and I have picked out, and allow The Son or The Daughter to request something or bring in a family movie or documentary — all at the same time.

Now, however, I’ve finally watched every single episode of The West Wing (all 7 seasons).  That frees up one out of every three discs requested.

Also, The Daughter is down to only two sports practices a week but The Son’s practice schedule just got heavy leaving us with only one night together as a family with any sort of movie-length free time.  The thing is, none of us like the idea of using that night, every single week, to watch a movie together.  Often, The Daughter has homework.  Or we feel like playing a game instead.  Or, as happens most frequently, there isn’t anything that we’re all interested in seeing together.

So I finally gave in to The Husband’s wishes.  I couldn’t bring myself to downgrade all the way to 1-at-a-time so I only dropped us down one level to 2-at-a-time.  That will save us $3.00/month.

We’re open to upgrading again for a while this summer when The Daughter’s out of school and has, potentially, more free time (and, as a consequence, we parents will have more free time too).  Last summer not only did we have the 3-at-a-time subscription but we had three different queues — one for The Daughter, one for The Son, and one for me and The Husband to share.  We might well go back to the same arrangement this summer.

Then again, we might not.  The Daughter’s been talking a lot lately about getting a job — an idea that The Husband and I are both encouraging (as long as it won’t interfere with her studies).

Also, now that The Daughter has a driver’s license, she might spend more time with her friends this summer and find that she has less time and less interest in watching rental movies.  On the other hand, now that we’ve done the basic work necessary to convert the big basement room from a “playroom” into a “rec” room more appropriate for teenaged “hanging out”, maybe The Daughter will spend more evenings at home entertaining friends, playing foosball, and watching movies on her “new” TV.

However things pan out this summer, for now we’re a 2-at-a-time Netflix family.  The Husband is happy, we’ll save $3 each month, and we’ll still manage to watch plenty of movies.

Obama for America — $10.00
What is this, my third or fourth donation?  I’ve been meaning to donate again for the last few months but never seem to get around to it.  I know it will never happen, but I threw my $10 into Obama’s pot so I’d have a chance at his latest “dinner with Obama” event.  How cool would that be?

Vitamin Cottage — $5.28
A gallon of Horizon organic 2% milk.  We needed other groceries but The Daughter wanted to do the shopping so I ran out and bought the milk I needed for breakfast.

Kroger — $56.42 (on a Gift Card)

• Meadow Gold buttermilk — $1.99
• Horizon chocolate milk — $3.19 (saved $0.50)
• Kroger medium cheddar — $4.50 (saved $0.19)
• Hillshire Farms sliced smoked ham — $3.50 (saved $0.49)
• Hillshire Farms sliced  turkey — $3.50 (saved $0.49)
• tomatoes — $4.59
• strawberries – $3.99
• organic lettuce – $3.99
• organic spinach — $2.50 (saved $1.49)
• 7 Pria energy bars — $0.89/ea. (saved $0.10/ea.)
• Gillette satin saving cream — $2.29 (saved $0.07) [for The Daughter]
• Keebler Club crackers — $3.99 (saved $0.50)
• Hidden Valley cereal — $4.29
• Mission frozen burrito — $2.79
• package of colored paper — $3.99 [for The Daughter]

I’m really digging this “newly licensed teen” thing.  Right now we’re keeping her to errands on this side of town.  Today she ventured to the public library and the grocery store.  I could get used to having someone eager to run errands leaving me at home to do laundry or read or … just not having to leave.

iTunes — $2.12

• The Way I Am by Ingrid Michaelson
• My Moon My Man by Fiest

Paragon Sports — $44.97
Two pair of Mizuno G3 sliding shorts for The Son.  He likes this brand and model the best of any of the sliding shorts he’s worn.  Unlike most sliding shorts on the market, these are made of 90% cotton.  They have a built-in cup pocket and offer him a comfortable fit.  He ended up wearing these for baseball and basketball last year.  We moved up to a size medium; I hope they won’t be too big and get rejected.  I had a tough time finding a reputable source for these shorts.  I couldn’t find any local stores that stocked them so I had to do some on-line shopping.  Last time I bought them from Baseball Warehouse but they no longer carry them.  I looked at no less than a dozen on-line stores that eventually were rejected because they either 1) were a shell company operating under many different names and didn’t actually physically stock any of their goods, or they 2) charged outrageous shipping fees.  I’ve never purchased from Paragon Sports before but at least they have a physical address and a customer service phone number.  I crossed my fingers and placed my order; I’ll report back if and when I get the shorts.

Local Sports Equipment Store — $216.07
Dick’s Sporting Goods — are you listening?  This is the sale you missed yesterday because of the lack of floor salespeople in your store.  There’s no way of knowing how much I’ll spend on sports equipment in the future, but with two active teens to equip, I think it’s safe to say that I’ll end up spending a few more sheckles before they’re grown and gone.

What was Dick’s loss was the local store’s gain.  The Son and I were very happy with this outing and very happy with the purchases we made.  The only thing left to purchase this season is a new bat.  I’m hoping that we’ll be able to find a used bat at the used equipment store later this week.

We bought:

• baseball uniform pants — $20.96
• Under Armour metal cleats — $83.96
• Mizuno MVP baseball glove — $94.96

edit:  just a little note — the baseball glove was entered into my YNAB Budget* as a Gift: Immediate Family.  Last summer we gave The Son a hypothetical baseball glove for his birthday — it was given in name only because The Son was supposed to pick out what he wanted.  Being the reluctant shopper that he is, he only just got around to wanting to go glove shopping today.  The Mizuno glove he picked out is a beautiful, pre-oiled, nicely broken-in high-quality 12″ leather fielder’s glove.  He fell in love with it because he can fit his oversized hand into it without too much trouble and because, despite buying it just days before his first game, it’s already flexible and supple enough to use — no breaking-in period needed.

My new monitor was delivered yesterday just as the kids and I were leaving to run our errands.  I love getting packages and I always want to put everything aside to play with new toys immediately 

But I had to be strong and stay focused on the tasks at hand.  So I didn’t get to unbox and set up the new monitor until last night.  The unboxing wasn’t too difficult  ;-)   The setting up was a breeze though the quick set-up instructions really should emphasize the order in which things should be turned on (monitor first, then computer).  That little tidbit is buried in the product’s info booklet.  Being the good IT tech that I am, I leafed through the booklet before doing anything so I got the order correct the first time.

Once the monitor was hooked up and turned on, I hit my first snag.  The display was distorted (no big surprise since this is a wide-screen monitor).  However, when I went into my control panel to choose the correct settings, the option I needed (1680×1050) wasn’t available.  The booklet mentioned this possibility and suggested that I go on-line and locate an updated driver from my computer’s manufacturer.  This proved slightly more difficult than I’d expected but I was eventually successful.  Once I had the updated driver, everything came into clear view and all was good.

The monitor’s only been on-line for about 12 hours so I can’t really give testimony regarding it’s quality.  Don’t you just hate rave reviews given after only a few minutes of use?  Most bad instant reviews are due to the user’s own incompetence and good reviews can’t be considered valid because the user simply hasn’t had time to evaluate the product over a period of time.  If I remember, I’ll report back in after a couple of months.

What I can review is my on-line purchasing experience with Costco.com.  The whole thing went smoothly from start to finish including a follow-up email from Costco.com today to confirm yesterday’s delivery.  One might view the email as unnecessary and even annoying but not me.  Suppose we’d left the house 5 minutes earlier and missed the UPS guy?  Suppose he’d left it on my front porch and someone had helped themselves to my new monitor?  I might not have discovered for another day or two that it had been delivered but that I hadn’t gotten it.  I wouldn’t hesitate to make another purchase from Costco.com.

Because nothing in life can be easy or convenient (what fun would that be, right?), The Son’s new coach chose a different style of baseball pants for this year’s uniform.  The Son’s team has always worn white pants with black pinstripes.  Some years the socks are black and others they wear the stirrup socks.  But always the pants are the same.  But not this year.  No, now that The Son actually has two pair of pinstripe baseball pants that fit him, they go and choose a different style.  A style that no one in town seems to carry.  We went out in search of uniform pants and baseball cleats and came home empty-handed.  Well, what I mean is we didn’t manage to find either the pants or the cleats.  We did manage to find other things though 

Dick’s Sporting Goods — $45.42
I swear to you I can’t think of a single store at which I feel more galled any time I spend money there.  I hate Dick’s with a purple passion.  Their selection sucks, their customer service is non-existent, the music is loud and obnoxious.  They had the pants we needed — but only in youth sizes.  The Son wears an adult size Small.  They had several styles of baseball cleats we would have liked to have tried but it appears that had no staff on hand anywhere in the store today so we couldn’t try any on.  I should have known better than to go in there — every time I do I swear it will be the last time.  But I was tempted by some coupons the team mom had handed out.  Naturally, none of the coupons did us any good because the few items we found weren’t covered by the coupons.

The Daughter found two pair of shorts in the style she likes for volleyball ($7.99 and $3.99).  The Son found some batting gloves ($15.00) and two pair of black baseball socks he’ll need for his uniform ($14.98).

I’m going to try to stand by my resolution to never again darken the door of a Dick’s Sporting Goods store again.  There really are other options available to me.  I just need to remember to use them instead.

Banana Republic — $142.61 + $25.xx
Yesterday I freaked out.  I’d actually talked The Son into cooperating and agreeing to accompany me to the clothing store after church.  The BR staff had told me that the 40% store-wide sale ran through the weekend but when the kids and I showed up at the mall at about 2:30 yesterday afternoon, the whole mall was shut down.  Duh.  Easter Sunday.  I was so bummed about missing the sale.  I went back today with The Son in tow prepared to do my best to get them to honor the sale today based on bad information about when the sale ended.  But lo and behold!  All of the sale signs were still up!  I cashed in on the 40% off everything in the store without having to make a stink with the manager.

My regular readers will know that The Son is very picky about his clothing and hates shopping with a purple passion.  He’s also growing like only a 13-yo boy can.  And he’s got, um, unusual taste in clothing.

I have to tell you that shopping with him this afternoon was amazing.  He didn’t grump.  He didn’t complain.  He followed after me holding all of the clothing I picked out for him to try on — without uttering a single complaint.  Then he disappeared into the dressing room and quickly and systematically tried on all of the pants, shorts, shirts, and vests we’d (well, I’d) picked out for him to try.  Each time he tried on a new article of clothing, he’s open the dressing room door, tell me clearly whether or not he liked it, and turned around or pulled up his shirt whenever I asked 

He picked out one pair of Dawon khaki pants ($23.99), and pair of classic khaki shorts ($20.99), and a really handsome pair of linen pants ($29.99).  I’ve gotta tell you, I love linen.  I love wearing it and, in general, I love the way it looks.  The Son, with his long legs and slim build, looks fabulous in these linen pants.  And the best thing is he really likes the feel of linen.  He tried some linen shorts but didn’t like the cut so they were rejected.  But he loved the linen pants.

We also picked up a second black t-shirt for baseball ($8.99), a very nice long sleeve knit crewneck shirt — almost a lightweight sweater ($11.99), and two solid sweater vests ($17.99/ea.) — one each in navy blue and heather grey.  Then, to top it all off, Son surprised me by liking a medium blue sweater vest with an argyle pattern on the front.  He said, “it screams Geek.”  Unfortunately they didn’t have one in stock but the very nice and very helpful clerk found one at another store and helped me order it over the phone.  I had to pay $5.00 shipping but it was worth it — it will look great on my son, the self-professed geek.

Borders — $15.39
The Son had requested this stop — he’d come prepared with his wallet containing his gift cards for Borders and Starbucks.  While I was checking out at Banana Republic, he wandered down to Starbucks and bought some type of calorie-laden chocolate shake thing.  Then we stopped in Borders where he bought himself another Terry Pratchett book.  I bought a copy of George Orwell’s 1984 for The Son and a 1/2-priced Lindt chocolate Easter bunny for The Husband.  BTW, The Husband says I should make a habit of buying his traditional chocolate Easter bunny on sale the day after Easter from now on instead of paying full price before Easter.

Kroger — $13.27
Again, I was home, tired, and in my jammies.  The last thing I wanted to do was go to the store.  But I’d forgotten to pick up my prescription and I’m really behind on my daily dosage of Levoxyl (synthetic thyroid medication) — which, in another week or so, is going to come back and haunt me.  So I got dressed again and went out before they shut down for the night.  I also picked up another 1/2 gallon of Horizon chocolate milk ($3.19) since the kids only bought one carton last night.

Tomorrow The Daughter heads back to school and The Son and I will have to head back out to continue scouring the stores for a pair of cleats and some baseball pants.