Gotta love Coinstar

Today we hauled our crazy family to Walmart to make use of the Coinstar machine. We had amassed a whole lot of change through garage sales and the gathering of change in prior years (that's the beauty of having an adoption process drag on for three years), and also through the change drive we held at our church these past couple months. Now, Coinstar charges 9% on each dollar counted, which is a little steep when you're trying to raise money and every penny matters. We had hoped to avoid Coinstar, but as it turns out, banks these days simply don't work with large quantities of change or won't do so without charging you for it, so the folks who invented Coinstar have themselves a nice corner on the turn-your-change-into-usable-money market. And we had ourselves over 1000 quarters, 1000 dimes, 700 nickels, 6000 pennies, and one half-dollar for good measure. What's a busy family to do? Well, we certainly weren't going to roll it all ourselves. So, we spent a good half hour feeding that greedy little machine all that change, never mind the horrendous clamor it made and the audience that sometimes gathered. And what did we have to show for it? Why, $467.76. Not too shabby!

Oh, and I got my Sleepy Wrap in the mail today! Its like a Moby Wrap, but a lighter weight material...and cheaper. I wore it around the house for a good half-hour...sadly empty, of course. (Though I was tempted to try it with the cat...the snuggly one, not the evil one.) It was a sort of boost in the right direction for the 31 days ahead. Ack! 31 days!