Obsessed

Hi.  My name is Shana.  I *gulp* am a silly band-aholic.

As with everything else, I am a day late and a dollar short as it seems this trend is already in most people's rear view mirror.  But lately, I (no, not the kids...ME) have been obsessed with silly bandz.

I'm not sure what it is about these clever little plastic bracelets.  Perhaps it's the fond nostalgia of my own jelly bracelet fad growing up. 

It could be the pretty colors, or the brilliant simplicity.  Maybe it's the surprise of finding out "what it is" when you take it off and untwist it.

Who knows, but I dig them.  It's a childish obsession I have lately.

I buy them for the boys yet they have no interest whatsoever.  Alex likes to put them on and take them off a hundred times and Nate thinks they're rubber bands for shooting at the dog or his baby brother.  So I find myself wearing them and collecting them and hoarding them.  I've even considered staging my own silly band swap (think chain letter)!  It's a sickness.  I think I need help.

I have "a thing".

Actually...I have a LOT of "things".

I am what you might call a collector.  If I have one of something, I probably have several.  Especially of certain things that I tend to have a(n) (odd) preference for.

Namely, coffee mugs.

The cuter they are the better!  I like them fun and cool and different.  I have TONS of them and have to consciously resist the urge to buy more whenever I find one I love (especially at the dollar store where they always have fun ones!)

I also have a "thing" for blankets.

Here, the criteria is SOFT.  I tend to be a very tactile person.  I love soft things.  Fuzzy things.  Warm things.  Blankets are the best of all worlds!  So I tend to collect them.  Lots of them - I have a whole trunk full of them and several bins, closets, and corners stuffed with them.  And I'm not the only one...Where do think Nate gets this from?

I tend to have a bit of an obsession with cute kids dinner wear, too.  I always find adorable cups, divided dishes, or bowls with cute monsters or animals or characters on them at fantastic prices and can't resist the urge to buy more (even though realistically I could already NOT wash the dishes for a whole week and still have enough cute plates for the kids to eat off of!)  I'm afraid if I don't nip this "thing" in the bud, my husband will KILL me!

I've talked before about my "thing" with polka-dots which spills over into pretty much EVERYTHING.  Purses, wallets, shoes, scarves, socks, belts, coffee mugs, blankets, AND dinner wear.  I even got an adorable polka dotted camera strap for my camera (seen below with a new scarf, both of which I got off Etsy - Love it!!!!).

It's ridiculous.

These "things" are all relatively small, both in size and financial investment so do I continue to feed my obsession, or seek an intervention?  I could just rotate the old "tired" things out to make room for the new, but that feeds my issues of wastefulness I've talked about here.  Ugh!  Help me!!

Do any of you have "a thing"?

Seeing Spots

It all started innocently enough with this:

Aside from that being the cutest child ever to grace this earth (besides, of course, my first child who ties him for first place)....is that not the most adorable sleeper you've ever laid eyes on?!?  When Alex was itty bitty he lived in this sleeper.  Mostly because I loved it.  In fact, I loved it so much I bought him two more, in different sizes.  One was a sleeping bag style and one was a size 6M that I figured he could grow into.  However, much to my dismay he was too big for this newborn sized one and too small for the bigger one while the season called for it and once he did fit that size, it was warm out (and FLEECE sleepwear is seldom a wise dressing choice in warm temperatures).  Darn him for not growing predictably!  :)

Anyway, this cute polka-dot sleeper, seems benign, right?  That is until I bought him this blanket:

And then there were these diapers, that I was SO excited to learn had gone from a Care Bears theme (when Nathaniel wore them) to beautiful blue and green POLKA DOTS!

And then the obsession unknowingly poured over into MY sleepwear:

and other fashion accessories:

Until finally, I found myself buying things just BECAUSE they had polka dots, regardless of whether or not we needed the things (receiving blankets, long after the swaddling stage...more blankets even though Alex has already decidedly chosen his favorites...a little handmade dinosaur lovey from Etsy because I thought it was too adorable to pass up...travel coffee mug...reusable coffee cup jackets...green-friendly reusable shopping bag...a new lunch bag to carry my lunch to work in even though I already had one that I wasn't using).  All with polka dots.  I always had excuses...er, I mean justifications:
*  Receiving blankets are light weight and would be useful to cover Alex up with in the cooler Spring and Autumn months when a fleece blanket was just too much.  
*  You can never use too many blankets, especially during those pesky cold Upstate NY winters.  
*  I am trying to be green and not have to waste all those cardboard coffee cup jackets they give you at the coffee shops.  
*  This shopping bag would be perfect to carry my stuff to and from work in, how hip and stylish am I?
*  I don't use my other lunch bag because it's ugly, and too big, and too bulky, and ugly (did I say that already?). 

Seriously people.  I think I have an issue.  At one time (albeit BRIEFLY) I  actually reconsidered re-doing the theme in Alex's nursery since they had since come out with an adorable polka-dot design in crib bedding, wall decals, mobile and such.  I'm not kidding.  It would have been A-DORABLE!  Problem?  Well, he was already almost a year old and it just wouldn't have made sense.  Weeks (maybe even days later) he was over the crib bumper stage anyway so it really would have been a waste.

(this is not the actual theme I had wanted to go with in my remodel dream, but this is fantastic, is it not?!)

I mean, really.  I picked a polka-dot theme for Alex's 1st birthday party and then called it a "gum ball" theme to make it not look like I wasn't just insane!  The invites, the cake, even the decorations were polka dotted.

I'm CRAZY for polka-dots!  Both of my blogs even have polka dots on them...I think I need help.  I'm scaring myself...