I love shopping for school supplies. Hundreds of spiral notebooks, thousands of pens in every color imaginable. Gadgets for fastening, adhering, sealing, flying, pushing, pulling– Maybe I should stop there.

If you’re responsible for hiring at somewhere like Office Depot or Staples, you’d be wise not to process my application, I’d go out of my head being surrounded by all these yummy things day in and day out! 

So when the kids are getting ready to go back to school, as much as I try to get them to give me very specific lists in an earnest attempt to curb my overwhelming need to take all those homeless items back with me, the kids don’t quite get the importance of being specific. And whose to blame them? The lists they come home with from their teachers seem to grow to a ridiculous size whenever the budgets go wonky.You can probably imagine just how crazy the lists are now, given how strapped the school’s resources are with the massive budget cuts.

This year my husband stepped in to save the day, offering to grab up what they needed provided they came up with a list. Did I happen to mention how they’re not very good at that? Yeah, I think a bit of my adoration for the stuff has rubbed off on them, too. You’d have thought they were writing out their wish list for a birthday or Christmas by the time they were done!

I thought it was way too much and began comparing what was on their list to the list their teachers had handed out and what I knew we had on hand. It went something like this:

They came back with notebooks, mechanical pencils complete with extra ‘lead’ and erasers, and I believe I saw two bright yellow highlighters. It was just the silly string that kept me from permanently assigning the hubby to the task next time.

But I might reconsider. I got these:

from their trip to the store.

Happy back-to-school supply shopping, y’all!