Today was a huge work day for us.  Sam went with his sisters up to Topinabee today to lay to rest Penny’s ashes in Mullet Lake.  Kind of a depressing occasion…but I hope they enjoyed themselves, being together and sharing memories of mom and stuff.  While he was gone, me and the kids worked our butts off.  We did a lot of work around the house…but mainly worked in the trailer…packing it up and cleaning it out so we can put it away for the winter.  It was a lot of work, and I still have to bring in more stuff and vacuum the trailer out.  The kids worked toward earning prizes.  I made up a chart of boxes they could color in for each job they did.  When they got six jobs done they earned a prize (sam had bought fruit stripe gum and candy bracelets for incentives) and then I made up a chart of prizes (up to six) that included the candy along with a craft and a trip to the park and a dollar.  Savannah made it to a dollar, but Karson and Max only made it to the candy.  It’s really hard to get Karson to do chores.  He just doesn’t care about the prizes like the other two.  He did do several jobs without complaining today, and I appreciated that.  So I took the kids to dinner for a reward for helping out today.  They wanted to go to Burger King and get the idog kids meals.  I gave in.  They really like them.  I think they are kind of stupid, though, because they don’t even play a tune.  At least they could have had part of a song on each one.  All they do is light up.  But they really like them, so I guess whatever makes them happy.  Anyway, after that we ran over to Office Depot (Jackson) to pick up some report covers.  I wanted them to cut up and use in pocket charts to highlight our sight words in our stories and stuff at school…but they don’t make the colored report covers like they used to when I was a kid, apparently.  They are all clear.  I did find some colored transparent plastic pockets (like the kind you can put in a binder) and I think they will work for what I need. I know you can buy these from educational resources, but I wanted them now and I thought it might be a good alternative.  Anyway, I also walked to the back of the store to check out the price of the laminating film (my friend at school has a laminator and I use it a lot, so it’s my turn to get the film) and as I suspected after an expensive meal at Burger King (I can’t believer Burger King charges 3.79 for their kid’s meals…and if you want to make a healthy choice and have apples instead of fries, it’s an extra .49 cents!) I didn’t have quite enough money to buy that, so I’ll have to go by tomorrow.  And as we were heading to the checkout, I noticed that there was a display on the end cap of an aisle of Color Surge paper/markers by Crayola.  I love this Crayola product.  It’s perhaps my favorite product ever!  The markers color super bright on the special double sided color paper.  I love that the paper is thick like cardstock, and I just love how fun it is.  The bad thing about this product is it tends to fade, just like the color wonder stuff does…only maybe not quite as bad.  It doesn’t do well in high humidity and water or any liquid will ruin it.  It does laminate well though, and as far as I can tell, it doesn’t fade if it’s laminated.  I won’t say anything else about, but that if you like to doodle and you like new pens, markers, stuff like that…and even if you are over 40 years old…it’s really fun to play with and I would highly recommend going out and buying some to play around with.  You can always use the excuse it’s for my grandkids/neice/nephew.  🙂  So onto why I called this post “What a deal!”  I noticed as we were on our way out that the Color Surge products were on sale.  for 3.99.  That is a great deal because they are usually between 6.99 and 7.99.  At Office Depot the original price was 7.99.  So we decided to get two because that would pretty much use up the money that I had.  Then I get up there to pay, and he says it’s seven dollars and something.  I say “how much?” and I lean over to look at the cash register…and those Color Surges only scanned for 1.00 a piece!  So I sent Savannah back to get them all.  I didn’t end up getting all of them. I got 10.  Which if you add it up, is a savings of around 70.00!  I am always reading these blogs of my friends, Angie and Sara and they are always writing about the sweet deals they get with rebates, coupons and sales at stores.  I’d love to get into that…but I so don’t have the time for it.  So this kind of surprise is SO great.  And my kids in art class are totally going to love using Color Surge for their projects!  They don’t get to use fun products like that very often, because usually they are so expensive…and my budget for art supplies is SO tiny!  Anyway, I am very excited about my great deal.  I did leave a few of them in the display, so if you want Color Surge for 1.00, you might be able to get them if they are still there. Good luck and have fun!

Savannah drew this picture with Color Surge.