today jewel and i went shopping. she baby-sat last night and instead of letting her hold onto the money and spend it on junk, i took her to wal-mart to get some much needed long-sleeved tops. the last time she baby-sat, she earned $27. we borrowed about $7 to take care of lunches for the little ones. instead of holding onto the remaining $20 to buy earrings (which she wanted) or winter tops (which she needs), she took it to school and bought candy and gum and garbage. since she can't control her spending (much like her father), now when she baby-sits, she'll give us the money to hang onto and when there's enough or there's time, we go off to the store to pick up stuff she needs - clothing, makeup, cleansers, etc - or stuff she's been saying she wants - a book, earrings, hair stuff, etc. hopefully she can learn to hold off on spending her money until she can cover something in those two categories - needs and wants. when it looks like she might have a handle on it, then we'll try not hanging onto the money for her and see if she can control herself and not spend it just because she has it. that was reason number one for doing it this way today.

reason number two was to show her that places like wal-mart and target have cute clothes that don't cost a fortune. jewel is a name brand kind of girl, unfortunately, and given half the chance, would be a clothes horse to boot. she loves clothes. worse, she loves expensive clothes. given the option of wal-mart or fashion bug, she'd go to fashion bug, wet seal, go jane, forever 21, styles, and the like. in other words, she'd go to places where $25 might buy a single item rather than 2 items. we once gave her and her sister about the same amount of money and let them go off to the mall. she came home with maybe 2 things and was broke. kitten came home with 3 outfits, a belt, and still had $5 to have an ice cream with her boyfriend.

i'm not saying the more expensive stores are wrong or bad. we just can't afford them. and she needs to learn that the stores with lower prices - target, wal-mart, kmart, mervyns, and ross - have cute things that are affordable. today she bought 3 very cute tops - a sweater, a long-sleeved layered look t-shirt, and a velour top with rudolph on it - for $32. they're all adorable, and she actually likes them. and, for awhile, these are the places we'll take her until she can see that she doesn't need the fancy name with the fancy price tag to buy cute clothes that she's going to like.

while we were there, i also finished most of my teacher supplies. i'd like to get another pencil case larger than the one i have (i'm currently using 2 smaller ones and a ziplock baggie for my stuff), but everything is covered. even the rewards. now that took some doing. what do little boys like? not a clue. my son's not a normal little boy, so the things he likes and the things other middle schoolers would like could be very different things. when saxy and i were out yesterday, we actually considered bags of candy pieces, but i hate it when my kids come home after getting candy, and i know other teachers wouldn't appreciate having to teach kids hyped out on sugar, so we came without any candy for me to use. today i bought fancy #2 pencils and some designer type erasers. not great, but cheap and not sugar. so, i'm covered for a bit, particularly since i would only use them in classes where the kids are generally difficult and only give them to the kids that are fairly well behaved.

last week was a rather mixed work week. monday and tuesday were near nightmares. i didn't go in wednesday because of a sick froggy, and almost got called in thursday but it was a special ed class - autistics! i don't do special ed. i have taz and he's enough for me. friday i went to another new high school and, other than the first period, the kids were pretty good. i don't even blame the first class - i was called in late so arrived about 10 minutes late, and they had to transition from the lady who was covering until i got there to me. pretty disruptive all around for them. i did manage to finish revising chapter 11 friday though - that's how good the remaining classes were. these kids weren't nearly as interested in california though. ;) it was a very nice way to end the week. friday was also the first time i had to turn a school down because they called me after i'd already been booked by someone else. i'm already scheduled for a middle school on monday - one that's not too far away. if i don't get called in tuesday or wednesday, i still have half a dozen schools left to call and get on the lists of.

this upcoming week will be a bit short, but we're getting 2 checks, at least, and will be able to start covering the last few things we need to take care of. this month, obviously, is going to be a bit sketchy in terms of my paycheck, but things are looking up all around. it's nice to have good stuff happening for once. :)