{"id":7771,"date":"2011-01-25T04:16:00","date_gmt":"2011-01-25T04:16:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/?p=7771"},"modified":"2026-10-02T01:36:26","modified_gmt":"2026-10-02T01:36:26","slug":"day-75-oil-dispenser-give-and-day-76-pink-boots-give","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/?p=7771","title":{"rendered":"Day 75 – Oil Dispenser (Give) and Day 76 – Pink Boots (Give)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

I am fighting to get caught up after a busy weekend.\u00a0 Friday night was small group.\u00a0 Saturday evening we had tickets to the Disney on Ice show in Indy – a Christmas gift from my Mom.\u00a0 Unfortunately, Mom wasn’t feeling well and wasn’t able to go with the six of us.\u00a0 Instead, The Princess (age 4) got to offer the extra ticket to her very bestest friend, Ellie.\u00a0 Ellie is an easy kid to have along – she’s easygoing and good-natured… but Saturday night she was also a bit gassy… which I know\u00a0because she was sitting on my lap through the whole show.\u00a0 At one point in the evening I called her a goofball and she laughed and laughed and kept repeating, “Goofball!\u00a0 You called me a goofball!”\u00a0 She’s hilarious.\u00a0 And she and The Princess are so darn cute together.\u00a0 I try not to think about taking The Princess 1,500 miles away from Ellie because when I do, I have to fight back tears… Anyway, the evening was certainly pleasant enough, but for a family that is fighting back against materialism, it was like being thrown into the lions’ den.\u00a0 Conseco Fieldhouse was filled to the brim with colorful plastic THINGS and overpriced food.\u00a0 The show itself was based on Toy Story 3 and at one point there were 30 “Barbies” skating in formation.\u00a0 Definitely surreal.\u00a0 As you watched the skating Barbies, your kid could enjoy a scoop of multi-colored shaved ice in a Buzz Lightyear-shaped bowl for only $15.\u00a0 They did manage to trick me into spending some of my money.\u00a0 A box of popcorn was fairly reasonable (by movie theater standards anyway) and so I got one at intermission to share.\u00a0 As soon as the vendor placed the thing in my hands, I realized my mistake.\u00a0 I knew I would have to endure a chorus of “I’m thirsty!”\u00a0 So I cringed and\u00a0plopped down $6.75 for a refillable cup of soda … and grabbed 7 straws!\u00a0 It was almost worth the price to watch the kids knock heads together sipping soda after a couple of handfuls of extra salty popcorn. After the show ended, The Princess had a queen-sized meltdown over a bag of cotton candy.\u00a0 She could not understand why Daddy wouldn’t shell out 12 dollars for 50 cents worth of sugar!\u00a0 She eventually gave up on the cotton candy and switched her attention to the toys.\u00a0 She got neither. But we did walk down to the South Bend Chocolate Factory on the square and shared a collosal piece of chocolate cake – the seven of us had our fill for $10.\u00a0 The best part of the evening was when The Princess (completely without prompting) looked up from her chocolate cake as we sat around the table together and said, “This is better than a toy.” THAT is what I want my kids to understand and THAT is what I want to live. As far as the Gives go for Saturday and Sunday:\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n

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On Sunday, my younger brother Russ and his family-to-be came over for lunch.\u00a0 Melissa fixed a great meal and we had several hours to converse while our kids played with their cousins-to-be.\u00a0 Alecia mentioned at one point that Allison didn't have a pair of snow boots of her own (she had to wear her brother's) and Melissa found a pair of pink boots that The Drama Queen has outgrown.\u00a0 Russ had jokingly said at one point that he hoped to get out of our house without receiving a "Give of the Day" (since he is also trying to sell a house) but he didn't refuse a Give that was purely practical.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n
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This oil dispenser was a beautiful gift from my (brother and) sister-in-law.\u00a0 It\u00a0has\u00a0the little dishes with it and the idea is that you mix the oil with some spices in the tiny bowls to dip bread in.\u00a0 Well, we love that at restaurants but never think to do it at home, so this is going to Goodwill … unless someone out there wants to claim it before it actually makes the trip!\u00a0 I would much rather give it to someone I know who might appreciate it – especially since it was a gift – so don't be shy!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I am fighting to get caught up after a busy weekend.\u00a0 Friday night was small group.\u00a0 Saturday evening we had tickets to the Disney on Ice show in Indy – a Christmas gift from my Mom.\u00a0 Unfortunately, Mom wasn’t feeling well and wasn’t able to go with the six of us.\u00a0 Instead, The Princess (age […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":7772,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7771","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7771","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7771"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7771\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7774,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7771\/revisions\/7774"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/7772"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7771"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7771"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7771"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}