Just updates...

Yesterday Clark was sick and stayed home from school. His first time! He had a fever, but he didn't have one today and went to school.

Today I accidentally closed the door on Haley's right-hand pinky. Ouch! While I was sitting in the hallway holding Haley and consoling her, Shanna was so sweet and brought Haley two blankets and a teddy bear. My girls are so sweet!

Now for the main update. Yesterday afternoon Lee said that he bid $250 on a bike stem that he really liked on eBay. And he also said that he probably wouldn't win it because there were three hours left for bidding. When he told me I was quite shocked. I said that the stem will be his only Christmas present. (Especially since our spending limit for Christmas presents for each other is $5 each--I told you we were gun-ho about getting out of debt.) Later I also wondered why he didn't ask me about it first, but I remembered that he said he probably wouldn't win it anyway. As I kept thinking about it, I knew that his current stem was kind of uncomfortable, and with him riding in 30-40 degree weather I want him to be comfortable. He is such a great husband to ride his bike to work so I can have the van since I am home with the kids. When he mentioned this huge purchase I knew we had the money, but with November almost over, December coming up, plus just paying a lot towards student loans I was taken aback. But, $250 is a lot cheaper than a new vehicle, that's for sure! Mentally, I came to terms with this big purchase--that might not even happen because three hours were left before the bidding ended.

Last night I went to a Relief Society Home, Family and Personal Enrichment meeting. It was on Visiting Teaching. The first lesson was really cute. There was bread, meat, cheese, etc for sandwiches and chips and pop for dinner. The sister first teaching mentioned some things about visiting teaching and related it to the food: being "sandwiched" for time, don't get stuck in a "pickle", don't be a big "cheese", "mustard" your courage, if you "carrot" all about your sisters then you'll contact them, etc, etc. It was cute. Our Bishop is letting us borrow tables and chairs during the holidays since we will have a lot of family here. So I got a table and chairs for Thanksgiving. We'll take these back after Thanksgiving and then get more for Christmas.

Back to the stem story. After I got home Lee started telling me about the bidding. He said he bid a dollar fifty for his first bid, but was outbid. Second bid: two dollars, but still outbid. The third bid was for two fifty and he was the highest bidder. Lee then told me with 15 minutes left he was outbid. He thought about bidding again because it was a really nice stem, but remembered my earlier surprised reaction and didn't bid. Someone won it for $2.75.

While Lee was telling me all of this I felt so BAD! I TOTALLY thought he meant $250 when he said he bid on the stem for "two-fifty". I don't know very much about bikes, but I found out last night that an ultra nice stem would be about $100 max. I also felt very extremely silly! A bike stem for $3.00 is an awesome price and obviously Lee can buy anything he wants for $3.00 without consulting me first. I do try to be a good wife! When he found out my HUGE misunderstanding--or should I say my two-hundred and fifty-dollar misunderstanding--he then knew why I seemed so shocked when he told me about his bid on eBay. The only good thing that came out of it was that it was 10mm shorter than he would have preferred. I think Lee and I are really good at communicating...I just wish I would have "communicated" earlier! So, hopefully he can find a stem soon that he absolutely loves and will be more comfortable riding his bike. He just saved us $250! Now I can go shopping. (Just kidding!)