Happy Halloween!

I wanted to be able to tell you this awesome story about how we didn’t buy our costumes, but rented them at a costume shop. And that we saved a ton of money and did something good for the environment. But I can’t.

Not for lack of trying, though. We went to a costume shop that had rental costumes. I was thinking we could save money, borrow some costumes and be done with it. But the costumes available for small children were, how shall we describe it, terrible. And when I mean terrible, I mean complete and utter crap. The options available went like this: a dalmation or someone from the Renaissance or 1800’s.

The kids were looking at me like I was smoking crack. Like, Mom has gone off the deep end and we need to help her but first – “Hey, there’s candy. Mom, can we have some candy?” And then we were done at that store.

So, we went to a retail costume shop. The Boy found his costume pretty quickly. The price tag? $51.96. Just shoot me.

The Girl didn’t find anything she liked. And, holy goodness, we looked at about a zillion costumes. She was not impressed. So we got home, searched Amazon, and found a costume that she liked, that fit her and that could deliver by yesterday. I was sweatin’ it. But it arrived yesterday around 2 p.m. Total cost for hers? $25.66.

I’m disappointed. But, we figured it out and everyone is happy with their costumes. I spent $77.62, which I suppose is not too bad as far as Halloween costumes go, but I really wanted to rent them. I mean, they wear them exactly twice: Once to school and once for trick-or-treating.

To mitigate the environmental impact, I’ll try to find friends with kids younger than mine and pass them along. I have two nieces that could use The Girl’s costume. And  The Boy’s costume? I’m sure I can find a taker.

The Frig

This morning I also decided the refrigerator had to get cleaned out. There was a lot of stuff in there that should have been tossed long ago. I hate food waste, but it makes no sense to have flour from three years ago just sitting there getting even more expired. It’s hard to see, but the top shelf was jammed full of old bags of flour and jars of I don’t know what. I went from this:

To this:

I do my grocery shopping on Saturdays, so if all goes as planned, the refrigerator is pretty bare by Thursday and Friday. I’m trying to do a better job of using up leftovers and not throwing food away. I can still do much better. But looking at a clean refrigerator makes me happy.

Happy Halloween and Clean Refrigerator JuJu to all of you!