Again with the Easy Stuff that is SO HARD!

Our latest hitches~

#1: SCHOOL SUPPLIES

School supply shopping is always a hassle. My kids hate going and then complain when I bring them home the wrong colored notebook. So I drag them out every year. This year was even worse.

One of Alex's teachers specified that she wanted a 3-ring binder and a lined spiral notebook with 3 holes. No big right? Wrong. There are not 3-ring binders here. Only 2-rings and 99% of them are legal sized. There are also very limited numbers of lined spiral notebooks. I know they have them here, because there was one in the house when we arrived here. But I can't find them. They are all graph paper.

We went to the office supply store and finally ended up at the big Lider (which is essentially a Walmart). We improvised with what we could find. The teacher that requested the 3-ring stuff is new to the school. She may not know that something simple like that is impossible to find. We'll see what she says.

They also don't have folders. You know the good 'ole folded in half folders with pockets on each side. Nope. Nowhere to be found. They instead have these weird packet things.

I pulled these pictures off the internet so you can see. They look kind of like accordion folders:

But they open up to these little packet things:

My kids hate them and say they won't use them. They'd rather put their papers loose in their backpacks. We're going with it for now but we'll probably have dad pick some real stuff up in the US when he's home in September.


#2: DOG FOOD

We can't find dog food for our dog. Oh sure, there is dog food at the grocery stores, several dog food specific stores, vets that sell dog food - but nothing that will work for our dog. [Apparently we smuggled in a large ziplock bag of dog food. We didn't know it was against the rules, but there is a major fine for crossing the border with it... We're rebels like that.]

We have spent tons of money on dog food at this point, as the speciality stuff is much more expensive here. The thing is, our dog has a sensitive tummy. When he eats the wrong thing, he's ... um ... stinky ... So we all want him to have something that agrees with him. Otherwise we're all miserable.

The Pro Plan didn't work, so we've switched to Eukenuba. Not a good option. We woke up this morning with his "disagreeable stomach" displayed all over the only rug in the house... It was disgusting. It's also NOT MY RUG and it's this straw-like berber. I'll spare you the details, just know it was a mess.


Seriously. Every single day it's something!