This and That from Here and There: Getting ready for Karmen's 30th birthday

About a month before Karmen's birthday, I got to thinking about the fact that this year my little sister would enter a new decade, and I wondered what special and slightly out of the ordinary thing I should do to commemorate the occasion. I decided that it might be fun to fill a bag or a basket or some such thing with thirty little items to mark her thirtieth birthday. Upon reaching my decision, I set to work. I wasn't sure how many things I would be able to find that would be both reasonably priced (read: cheap) and also relatively useful (read: not junk). As I shopped, however, I quickly found that my chore would not be to find enough items but rather to not overbuy. I found a multitude of items that were "just perfect" for the occasion, and I only needed thirty! As I pondered my new dilemma, I came up with what I believed to be a brilliant solution. Perhaps Mom and Dad would be interested in filling their own bag or basket. Perhaps Kyle and Kalynn would go for the idea as well. And perhaps, they would be too busy to shop for all of these items, and they would require my assistance. What a lovely thought! I made a couple of phone calls and hit the stores again. Mom wanted to have a little fun and do some of her own shopping, so I decided to limit my purchases to 80 items. Even then it was hard to stop, but stop I eventually did. Then I sent pictures of what I had purchased to both Mom and Kyle so we would "double buy" as little as possible. Here are those pictures.

For visiting little friends

Toiletry articles

Crafty products

Kitchen goods

To keep in the laundry room (Maybe? Some of it anyway?)

Snacks (and a couple of candles)

Office supplies

Next step: Combine my purchases with Mom's purchases before Karmen joins us over the Thanksgiving weekend. Karmen would meet Mom, Dad and me in Savoy, IL as we traveled down to Grandma and Grandpa L's house in Mt. Vernon and thus would not be at Mom and Dad's house until the Saturday after Thanksgiving when we all arrived there together. Mom and I decided to get the basement all set up and decorated on Wednesday so we wouldn't have to sneak off and do it while Karmen was in the house.