I’m sure I’m not the only one who’s trying to cut back on superfluous spending lately—cramped budgets! Looming holidays! Insane daycare costs! Medical co-payments! Babysitters! Pants for my son who keeps getting taller but not wider so nothing ever fits, ever!—so I thought it would be fun, and possibly even useful, to share a few of the things we’ve bought lately that have been worth every penny and then some. Caveat: these have to be things we’ve bought for ourselves, not for our kids, okay?

I’ll go first:
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Love Etsy. Love fall.  (Don’t despair if the individual item I’ve linked to has sold out:  the sellers often have more of the same item listed in their shops.)

Draft snake in “Lush” by Oh the Cuteness! on Etsy. Draft snakes help keep the chill out, but can we call them something less slithery-sounding?  Swiss cake rolls are long and thin, too.
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I know you and I live in different cities so I can’t make generalizations, but in MY city it is mid-July. STILL SUMMER. And yet all my favorite stores are clearing out the summer stuff. Some people roll their eyes at summer clearance and school supply sales in mid-July, but I say WOOOO: it’s generally right around this time of year I’m finding out that a handmedown swimsuit isn’t going to last through another kid after all, or that for some reason a child has only two pairs of shorts in his size, or that a 2-piece suit might have been a better choice.

The Children’s Place has their summer stuff on sale, plus an additional 30% off. Here’s an outfit I bought for Elizabeth for just over $10:
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Years of my own experience should have clued me in, but until I had a daughter and bought her a cute 1-piece cherry-patterned swimsuit from Target, I hadn’t fully realized that 1-piece swimsuits are REALLY CHALLENGING to pee in. It can be a little tricky to find a cute non-bikini 2-piece for a toddler girl, especially at the BEGINNING OF JULY when summer is OVER.
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Oh hey, another holiday is looming around the corner, BLEAH. I mean, oh, Valentine’s Day, my FAVORITE, I choo-choo-choose YOU!

(BLEAH.)

Please just tell me I’m not supposed to send in Valentines to my 3-year-old’s preschool. The teachers would warn us about this, right? Or is it just one of those Things that Good Parents Know About? ARRRGH.

While I’m stewing over the possibility of needing to make cards for a classroom of kids whose names my son cannot be trusted to accurately pronounce (one girl has been known in our household as “Prafarsha” forever, because that’s what he said her name was. FALSE), please enjoy some Valentine’s Day Gift Ideas for Guys, should you be shopping for the occasion.
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As a sort of follow-up to the topic of home workout DVDs, let’s do one more post on the subject of exercise and health, if you can possibly stand it. It’s still January, after all, and I don’t know about you but I’m still 1) trying to work off the epic number of cookies I consumed in December, and 2) baking more cookies because what else am I going to do with the leftover bag of milk chocolate morsels, other than eat them by the handful, not that, ha ha, I have done such a thing less than 24 hours ago. (MMMPH.)

I’m not sure there’s really anything that makes exercise easy, at least for me, but I do have some go-to items that make it more fun, or comfortable, or . . . well, I don’t know. Less sucky? Let’s go with that.
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Do you realize that Christmas Eve is one week from today?  I’m making a list of gifts that have been given to ME in the past year, gifts that were a success and that you might want to consider buying for someone on your list.

My brother and sister-in-law gave me several pairs of earrings from the Etsy shop Kneehighs-n-Pigtails, and I LOVE them.  They’re so classy and dressy if you’re looking classy and dressy, but they look chic and awesome with t-shirt and jeans, too.
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So. November. About seven weeks left until the winter holidays. TIME TO PANIC.

Or for those of us who lovvvvve gift-buying, time to YAY! Time to start spending time every day prowling around looking for deals. Time to start placing orders and squirreling them away, and forgetting what’s already there, and ending up with too much for some people and not enough for others! Yay!

And this means I only have about seven Tuesdays left to share gift ideas and great finds with you, and
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If you like pink, October is a good time to shop:  a lot of pink stuff is available for National Breast Cancer Awareness Month.  If you’re like me, you like supporting that cause and also really like the way it justifies a purchase.

Coffee-Mate is offering a pink mug for $12.95; $5.00 is donated.
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I recently received a request to cover gym bags as a topic, which made me happy because O, how I love looking at bags. Diaper, laptop, purse, it doesn’t matter — bags are one of my favorite things to web-window-shop.

I actually could use a new gym bag, since I’ve just been carrying my purse when I go to work out. It’s a tote shape so it works decently for carrying the things I need (iPod, towel, water bottle, keys) but I do notice I’m the only person mincing around the weight room with a, you know, purse. I have a largish duffle bag I could use, but that seems like overkill — I don’t change at the gym, so I don’t need to bring along clothes, shoes, and toiletries.

Don’t you think I need a new bag? COME ON TELL ME I NEED TO SHOP FOR A NEW BAG.

Ahem. Anyway, here are some bags (big and small) I’ve been looking at:
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