The Coffee House

[jcdeboever]

The price of kids' shoes makes me sick. We typically only shop at outlets, so we can get sneakers for a reasonable price (25-30$). But...for my daughter's summer/fall shoes, we ended up splurging on a pair of Keens. They let her foot breath while still being safe. But damn...$55 for a pair of shoes that can fit in my hand. The good news is that we have a pretty solid sharing network set-up. We had the first girl in our group of friends, but our next will be the third boy. So we have all sorts of awesome hand-mes for the new baby, including shoes that should last us for the next couple of years.

$55 for a pair of shoes that will fit her for only a few months? Yikes! As the mother of the only girl in our family (no hand-me-downs available!), I highly recommend cheaping out on everything but winter coats and snow boots until she stops growing. They grow so fast that you'll be giving away clothes and shoes that were only worn once or still have the tags on. It only gets worse and so much more expensive as they get older. I remember when all the girls at my daughter's school were wearing Uggs in 2nd grade. I thought it was insane to pay $100 for boots that will only fit for one season - if that! We bought $30 Target brand Uggs and they were fine and she never knew the difference.

Princess has pretty much stopped growing at this point so she got a couple of expensive pairs of boots last winter (Timberlands and LL Bean duck boots) that I expect her to have for the next 5+ years. This year her backpack, winter coat, jeans, yoga pants and dresses from last year all still fit! Easily saving me $500+ in back to school shopping - which I needed to pay for the new phone I had to get her after the salt water damage ruined hers.

Can't wait to see pics of the new baby!

Our church had a back to school basketball camp. We handed out 350 backpacks filled with school supplies. Walgreens donated all the supplies. We bought the backpacks. They went like hot cakes. Parents were very happy. They were jam packed too. Walgreens really stepped up.

 

[Gary A.]

You can well do your research yourself my dear! I am not here for justification I'm here for the coffee.

Who are you talking to? The only thing I saw was a post to waday who just asked for a link but you already responded to him. I'm confused.

Hopefully to all of us. There is some good info in Frank's post. Gary was a bio major and much of what Frank stated Gary remembers from college. The implantation of micro organisms via feces between people, while not a great topic over coffee, is more common than one would want to think.

 

[Gary A.]

You can well do your research yourself my dear! I am not here for justification I'm here for the coffee.

Who are you talking to? The only thing I saw was a post to waday who just asked for a link but you already responded to him. I'm confused.

And if you're here for the coffee, can you please quit with the talk about feces and gut bacteria?

If you can't back up all this pseudo science with a link to an actual credible study, then quit citing "reports" as fact-based. I invite you again to open your own thread for all of this detail about your interest in this stuff, but for the Coffee House, it's not a good fit.

Gary replied before reading Terri's response, lol.

 

[Gary A.]

Are these not the most adorable little shoes? My granddaughter left them here last night. She walks around barefoot all the time, if she had her way, she would never wear shoes. As a result, her parents have to really work on getting her shoes that she will wear. She's had issues with that at school too. She is my little pumpkin butt.
View attachment 145339

Being a country boy, Gary doesn't like wearing shoes either. But he would wear those. (He would draw-the-line at being your pumpkin butt.)

 

[Derrel]

Foods with a low glycemic index. Lotta weight lost, health and nutrition improved. Better food choices, again with the emphasis on the low glycemic index of the foods bought and eaten.

My coffee this AM is a mix of multiple types, with Tanzanian being the overall flavor leader. French Press, 3 minute brew, sugar,milk, one quart total.

 

[terri37 8]

Our church had a back to school basketball camp. We handed out 350 backpacks filled with school supplies. Walgreens donated all the supplies. We bought the backpacks. They went like hot cakes. Parents were very happy. They were jam packed too. Walgreens really stepped up.

I heartily support these kinds of community efforts. The parents of these kids shop at these stores all year long - it's a drop in the bucket for them to give back to the community, and no doubt already written into the annual budget.

For locals who just donate because they care, your good deeds don't go unnoticed.

 

[Gary A.]

The price of kids' shoes makes me sick. We typically only shop at outlets, so we can get sneakers for a reasonable price (25-30$). But...for my daughter's summer/fall shoes, we ended up splurging on a pair of Keens. They let her foot breath while still being safe. But damn...$55 for a pair of shoes that can fit in my hand. The good news is that we have a pretty solid sharing network set-up. We had the first girl in our group of friends, but our next will be the third boy. So we have all sorts of awesome hand-mes for the new baby, including shoes that should last us for the next couple of years.

Similarily, we had a pre-school network for clothes and toys. Worked out pretty well. Plus, we lived near a very exclusive, very expensive area and frequented the local thrift stores for infant/toddler items ... but shoes, we felt, should be fitted. Recycling ...

 

[Gary A.]

The price of kids' shoes makes me sick. We typically only shop at outlets, so we can get sneakers for a reasonable price (25-30$). But...for my daughter's summer/fall shoes, we ended up splurging on a pair of Keens. They let her foot breath while still being safe. But damn...$55 for a pair of shoes that can fit in my hand. The good news is that we have a pretty solid sharing network set-up. We had the first girl in our group of friends, but our next will be the third boy. So we have all sorts of awesome hand-mes for the new baby, including shoes that should last us for the next couple of years.

$55 for a pair of shoes that will fit her for only a few months? Yikes! As the mother of the only girl in our family (no hand-me-downs available!), I highly recommend cheaping out on everything but winter coats and snow boots until she stops growing. They grow so fast that you'll be giving away clothes and shoes that were only worn once or still have the tags on. It only gets worse and so much more expensive as they get older. I remember when all the girls at my daughter's school were wearing Uggs in 2nd grade. I thought it was insane to pay $100 for boots that will only fit for one season - if that! We bought $30 Target brand Uggs and they were fine and she never knew the difference.

Princess has pretty much stopped growing at this point so she got a couple of expensive pairs of boots last winter (Timberlands and LL Bean duck boots) that I expect her to have for the next 5+ years. This year her backpack, winter coat, jeans, yoga pants and dresses from last year all still fit! Easily saving me $500+ in back to school shopping - which I needed to pay for the new phone I had to get her after the salt water damage ruined hers.

Can't wait to see pics of the new baby!

Gary's children had school uniforms ... OMG what a great idea.

 

[JonA_CT]

The price of kids' shoes makes me sick. We typically only shop at outlets, so we can get sneakers for a reasonable price (25-30$). But...for my daughter's summer/fall shoes, we ended up splurging on a pair of Keens. They let her foot breath while still being safe. But damn...$55 for a pair of shoes that can fit in my hand. The good news is that we have a pretty solid sharing network set-up. We had the first girl in our group of friends, but our next will be the third boy. So we have all sorts of awesome hand-mes for the new baby, including shoes that should last us for the next couple of years.

Similarily, we had a pre-school network for clothes and toys. Worked out pretty well. Plus, we lived near a very exclusive, very expensive area and frequented the local thrift stores for infant/toddler items ... but shoes, we felt, should be fitted. Recycling ...

We got 4 pairs of shoes that had never been worn from our friends. The mom just likes shopping. We also got lots of clothes with tags still on them. Kids can only wear so much!

My wife does most of the children's clothes shopping, she does most of it at Walmart and Target, with occasional trips to the outlets when there are sales/coupons. Hard to complain, honestly.

 

[JonA_CT]

The price of kids' shoes makes me sick. We typically only shop at outlets, so we can get sneakers for a reasonable price (25-30$). But...for my daughter's summer/fall shoes, we ended up splurging on a pair of Keens. They let her foot breath while still being safe. But damn...$55 for a pair of shoes that can fit in my hand. The good news is that we have a pretty solid sharing network set-up. We had the first girl in our group of friends, but our next will be the third boy. So we have all sorts of awesome hand-mes for the new baby, including shoes that should last us for the next couple of years.

$55 for a pair of shoes that will fit her for only a few months? Yikes! As the mother of the only girl in our family (no hand-me-downs available!), I highly recommend cheaping out on everything but winter coats and snow boots until she stops growing. They grow so fast that you'll be giving away clothes and shoes that were only worn once or still have the tags on. It only gets worse and so much more expensive as they get older. I remember when all the girls at my daughter's school were wearing Uggs in 2nd grade. I thought it was insane to pay $100 for boots that will only fit for one season - if that! We bought $30 Target brand Uggs and they were fine and she never knew the difference.

Princess has pretty much stopped growing at this point so she got a couple of expensive pairs of boots last winter (Timberlands and LL Bean duck boots) that I expect her to have for the next 5+ years. This year her backpack, winter coat, jeans, yoga pants and dresses from last year all still fit! Easily saving me $500+ in back to school shopping - which I needed to pay for the new phone I had to get her after the salt water damage ruined hers.

Can't wait to see pics of the new baby!

Gary's children had school uniforms ... OMG what a great idea.

Agreed. So cheap, too. 5 sets of Old Navy uniforms will only set you back $100 this time of year. From a teacher stand point, it would solve a lot of other problems too.

 

[Gary A.]

Our church had a back to school basketball camp. We handed out 350 backpacks filled with school supplies. Walgreens donated all the supplies. We bought the backpacks. They went like hot cakes. Parents were very happy. They were jam packed too. Walgreens really stepped up.

I heartily support these kinds of community efforts. The parents of these kids shop at these stores all year long - it's a drop in the bucket for them to give back to the community, and no doubt already written into the annual budget.

For locals who just donate because they care, your good deeds don't go unnoticed.

Comes out of their advertising budget plus a tax nenefit on top of it all. A win-win for all.

 

[Frank F.]

Depending on your kids style and needs good leatger shoes can cost 75€ per pair easily. Sneakers go for 25€ to 30€ a pair. I recently bought well made leather boots for horseback riding that were 35€ only. It also seems to depend on where you buy. The horse boots we bought in the countryside in some farm supply market.

 

[Gary A.]

The price of kids' shoes makes me sick. We typically only shop at outlets, so we can get sneakers for a reasonable price (25-30$). But...for my daughter's summer/fall shoes, we ended up splurging on a pair of Keens. They let her foot breath while still being safe. But damn...$55 for a pair of shoes that can fit in my hand. The good news is that we have a pretty solid sharing network set-up. We had the first girl in our group of friends, but our next will be the third boy. So we have all sorts of awesome hand-mes for the new baby, including shoes that should last us for the next couple of years.

Similarily, we had a pre-school network for clothes and toys. Worked out pretty well. Plus, we lived near a very exclusive, very expensive area and frequented the local thrift stores for infant/toddler items ... but shoes, we felt, should be fitted. Recycling ...

We got 4 pairs of shoes that had never been worn from our friends. The mom just likes shopping. We also got lots of clothes with tags still on them. Kids can only wear so much!

My wife does most of the children's clothes shopping, she does most of it at Walmart and Target, with occasional trips to the outlets when there are sales/coupons. Hard to complain, honestly.

Good Stuff. Much of the our local thrift store clothes still had tags on them. But don't assume you'll get bargains at thrift stores. When Mary Lou's son went off to college we thrift stored his dining wares, later buying more stuff in Target we noticed new plates and cups for the same price we paid at a thrift store.

 

[Frank F.]

You can well do your research yourself my dear! I am not here for justification I'm here for the coffee.

Who are you talking to? The only thing I saw was a post to waday who just asked for a link but you already responded to him. I'm confused.

It was a PS to the former post

 

[Frank F.]

If that is so you should try some enzyme supplements when you eat cheese.... ;-)

But really: go on a holiday to Switzerland and eat the best fondues and Raclettes of your life. Cheesy and not US cheese, real Suisse made cheese!!!!

Hey, here's a crazy thought: cheese is cheese, no matter where it's made and no matter if someone believes it is superior or not. It's still going to affect me in the same way and I'm really not looking to add supplements when simply limiting my intake is the obvious solution.

For the record, I don't like Swiss cheese. And yes, I have had very good European cheese. However, if I feel like splurging, I have plenty of local handmade cheeses made at farms within 50 miles of me to choose from, and they will be just as delicious.

Your insistence that something is better because it's European is quite tiresome.

MIL's viewing is Sunday, the internment is on Tuesday; we leave to deliver Lazy-Lobster to Maine after the internment. We're probably going to take the cross sound ferry and stay around new London / Mystic Tuesday night.

I'll probably still be at the hospital with my wife and new child Tuesday and Wednesday, but let me know if you need any local area knowledge!

Hey, congrats! Did I miss an announcement? Or is this your announcement? Either way, woot!! (Forgive me - it's Friday, I'm exhausted, am starting allergy season, and haven't had enough coffee yet this morning :/ )

Sorry, I somehow seem to represent some kind of European Supremacy Movement in your eyes. Sorry. Not intentional. Just my limited experience of US ingredients. My very limited experience. Buy handmade cheese from local farmers seems just right for me.