Daily Chatter: 2/12/13

Recently I purchased a box of spring mix at Sam’s and it started to get slimy well before the use by date, so I took it back to get a refund.  That was no problem, but when she was giving me my cash back, I realized that there had been tax charged on my salad!  What?!  Since when do they charged sales tax on salad?  The cashier said she didn’t get it, either, but that “they” (their corporate office is what I inferred) had recently decided that it was a prepared food and so tax should charged on it.  Both she and I agreed that it was ridiculous – not only do you have to have dressing to eat it, but that particular brand of spring mix even says to rinse before use.  They are supposed to be looking into it but I wonder how many other stores are charging sales tax on items that shouldn’t be charged sales tax? (You can download this PDF that explains what food is and isn’t taxed in Colorado.)

We have an overdue library book that we can’t find. It’s to the point where we are now getting weekly emails about it, and the $25.00 replacement cost motivated me to raise the bounty for finding it from $0.25 to $1.00. I’d offer $5.00 but at this point we’ve quit actively looking for it so I don’t feel like the extra money is going to motivate anyone to look for it. I’m going to be really bummed to pay $25.00 for it, because it’s one of those cheap Scholastic paperbacks. :( I’m not really complaining about the inflated replacement cost – I know that it costs more to replace it than just what the book costs, but I really don’t want to pay $25.00 so we are holding out as long as possible.

This morning at breakfast we had a lively discussion about what the kids want to be when they grow up.  So far we have an aspiring Lego Master Builder, a “blog poster”, and a mom.  (The other two abstained from the discussion.)  I will say that a couple of my children clearly do not appreciate the work of a mother, LOL.  The conversation had better have a different tone when we have it again in ten years!

Yesterday’s history lesson was about the first Olympics so we made olive leaf crowns and then had a pentathlon after supper.  The kids competed in a crawling race, high jump, discus (flicking a quarter), arm wrestling, and javelin (toothpick throwing).

The 3yo got a kazoo recently and had trouble getting it to “work”, prompting her to conclude that the batteries are dead.  Yep, definitely going to go along with that one!

My oldest has declared that this is “Valentines Week” and said we should get off of school for it.  Of course, this is also the child that said we should get off of school for his aunt’s birthday last week.  (Never mind that his aunt is in public school and doesn’t even get off for her OWN birthday.)

Speaking of Valentine’s Day, I’m curious if you all do much to celebrate it.  I really don’t like forced affection types of holidays (starting this year Mother’s Day does not even exist in our home) but Jeremy and I usually do sort of celebrate Valentine’s Day at home in the form of dinner after the kids go to bed.  I just remembered that my dad used to give us a card every year which is kind of a nice tradition, so I might do that for our kids this year.  But this whole idea of spending $100 or whatever the average is?  Crazy to me.