Tuesday, June 30, 2009

Riding again!

Tonight was the first night of the Summer Riding program. (I missed the early session because of DH's business trip, so I'm stuck with the July hotter-that-Hades session.)

It went pretty good. Class is in the evening, it's almost dark by the time we get untacked and cleaned up. I got to ride my pal Payton again - he's a 14 year old Quarter Horse gelding, liver chestnut wiht Impressive bloodlines. A few difficulites, since I need to remember some of the finesse-type stuff, but it'll come back.

Now I just need to remember how I was lacing my boots, because one ankle is not so happy right now.

More tomorrow. I'm wiped out.

Wednesday, June 24, 2009

Today's free stuff in the mail

Nice trip to the mailbox today:



Aside from the phone bill, we got
  • the new issue of Missouri Conservationist (free to MO residents, extra if you live out of state)
  • two Pace coupons ($4 each) to replace two that had printing issues
  • two coupons for free KFC (one must still be en route)
  • my free desk calendar from Golden Age
  • recipes and coupons from Nakano - we get a free bottle of rice vinegar, and 50c off a bottle of cooking wine

Monday, June 22, 2009

My lousy timing

So, back in the spring, I got the info for Summer Riding this year. I missed the first session, thanks to DH's business trip and our 3-year inability to look for a babysitter. Instead, I signed up for the second session, which starts next Monday (assuming I didn't wait so long that the classes are all full).

There's a reason I prefer the first session; namely, Missouri summer heat. We just watched the forecast for this week, and it's uuuugly. Highs in the upper 90s every freaking day, with triple-digit heat index predictions. The coolest day predicted? 96 degrees. And with my luck, next week won't be any better. Sure, classes are in the evenings, but if today's any indication, that won't help much. It's still probably in the 80s outside (at midnight!) right now and sticky-humid.

Friday, June 19, 2009

Walgreens deals

We ventured out into 95-degree heat today for a trip to Walgreens and Old Navy.

This is the Walgreens loot. Total, around $10.

The Ginger Thins were 79c each with the Walgreens coupons. El Burrito loves them, and they're usually $1.99 per box. We'll be going back tomorrow for three more boxes. At that price, I'm stocking up. The purple zip-up reusable bag was 50c (regularly 2.99 or so), the large paper clips were 25c; mailing tubes 75c each (and I may get a few more for poster storage and future science projects). The Beanies were $2.50 each; they were unplanned, but El Burrito fell in Looooove with the Penguin. The other one's a Christmas Beaver; he's mine, because he reminds me of the animated parts of the Red Green Show. Unfortunately, the Penguin has lost his online game code. :(

Then we went to Old Navy to exchange some wrong-sized flag shirts. I lost $3 on the deal; I bought them at 30% off, and the exchange credited me with $3.50 per shirt, but charged me $5 for the correct sizes. The problem was that I exchanged 2, and bought 2 more. If I'd done just the exchange, I probably would have not been charged extra. But oh well. I got one of the new Flag shirts for $2.50, since mens sizes are half price right now. (Apparently the one I got last time was a mens size. Next trip, I got the same size, but in a womens, and it's waay to small. Too bad there's no easy way to tell mens from womens in the Flag shirts.)



We

Tuesday, June 16, 2009

Hilarity at the library

First, the numbers, since they haven't been updated in a while. I returned some books after my lovely quarterly visit to the dentist yesterday (a slight up-side to having crappy teeth - I'm stocked up on toothbrushes for the next decade), checked out a few yesterday and a few today. So the totals are:42 items out, 1 hold, and 1 very overdue DVD that has to go back before I can check anything else out. Or renew what I've already got, so there goes that plan.

El Burrito had a good time at the library today. We missed storytime (I was wrong about the existence of a Thursday storytime in the summer), but we found $8 worth of goodies on the sale carts. El B. took his stuffed Eeyore along again ("Eeyore loves the library" says El B.), and an older gentleman (okay, 50s or so) commented to El B. on it. El B (who needs a shorter nom de blog) told him that it was his Eeyore (so back off!), and he had feet, and Pooh Bear has hands and feet. The fellow told him that he had an Eeyore at home too, and he'd see El B at the Hundred Acre Wood.

And now, El Burrito is firmly convinced that we saw Christopher Robin at the library today. :)

He's also become a social butterfly. He'll walk up to complete strangers and say "Hi, my name's mumble mumble" - usually followed by "and this is Mommy, my giril" which always cracks me up. I think it's his version of "Hi, I'm Emily Elizabeth, and this is Clifford, my big red dog." He ad libs. He said hello to at least 20 people at the grocery store this weekend. If we passed them in the aisle, he said hello. We saw one woman twice, so she got a "Hello again" on the second pass.

He also walked up to the rockhound club's display case and said "Hi rocks, I'm back!" so he's not picky about who, or what, he'll talk to. :) And he noticed that they'd changed the display, and the green stone that had fallen over was gone. This month, it's geodes and a whacking big piece of iron pyrite that would have convinced me it was gold, at least at first.

At the library today, he walked up to a little girl in the kiddie section and said (honest!) "Hi, my name's El Burrito, and I've got boogers up my nose. Mommy has to get them out." Cracked me up. Later, he insisted on walking up two flights of stairs, where he's never been before. He tried to chin-up on the Periodicals desk to say hello to the staffer there, and got a kick out of looking over the railings to the lower floors (library has a big three-story opening in the center, with long dangly artwork). He liked the Reading Room on the third floor, too. And then we walked back down all those stairs, with a discussion about the right and wrong side of the road/stairs, and a stop to say Hello! to someone walking up the steps.

Friday, June 12, 2009

I've been assimilated

Like I need another hobby!

El Burrito and I went to Hobby Lobby the other day, for one thing: a skein of the cheapest natural-colored wool yarn we could find. Slim choices, but we found one (I Love This Wool in winter white, which is actually only 93% wool, as I just discovered). I've got a plan for some crocheted wool Kleen Kanteen covers, and some dabbling in Kool-Aid dye, which won't work on the Peaches & Creme cotton (found that out too late - so I'll try tea dying, or the plant dyes suggested for Easter eggs). If this all gets done in the next month, I'll enter them in the county fair Home Arts division.

So, I made the mistake of browsing the yarn section with El Burrito, and somehow we came home with two sets of knitting needles. Not sure how it happened, I'm still iffy on crocheting at times, especially counting stitches. But now I'm the owner of a set of Susan Bates 10 inch, 9mm Crystallites in orange ($1.07, or 80% off of $4.99) , and a set of SB 14 inch, 3.75mm metal needles ($1.43, 65% off of $3.99).

And it gets better! My sister scored a few hundred sets of bamboo knitting needles from Craigslist this week (for $20 total!). She and a friend are going to keep some and sell the rest, and I think she's giving me a few. It's like I'm being sucked in by a black hole of knitting!

Today's funny Burrito story

El Burrito took his little Schliech monkey in the bath tonight. Said it need a bath because it had hair on its arms, legs, etc. Started calling it a "water monkey" and floated it in the bathtub toy - the "beautiful pea green boat."

After the bath, he was asking the monkey if he had a good bath or something, and doing a little monkey voice "thank you for the bath." He did this on Tuesday with Eeyore, asking if Eeyore had a good time at the library. Eeyore loved the library, and got to see the ducklings at Summer Reading sign-up.

Thursday, June 11, 2009

Gardening

I finally got around to starting some seeds (in almost-mid-freaking-June!).

My able assistant, a 3-year-old El Burrito, spent the whole time asking me what I was doing, proving he's hit preschooler-hood. And I found out, as I started, that the seed-starting soil mix is apparently do-not-touch: the bag warning recommended using gloves. Which I don't own. Fun.

So, I've got 2 larger pots with 4 sunflower seeds each, and 3 peat pots each of mint, marigolds, lemon balm, and 4-o'clocks. The marigolds and 4-o'clocks are going to be planted in the square of bare dirt between the "porches" downstairs. The dirt there is pretty lousy, but hopefully they'll be able to tough it out. And I'll add some potting soil and fertilizer when I transplant. It's my stab at "guerrilla gardening" for the year. I may also accidentally toss some mint and lemon balm seed into the ditch between our building and the next, along with some more marigold seed. The lawn guys never mow it or otherwise touch it, so it's bare dirt and weeds where the vinca hasn't managed to take hold. Not a lot of sun, but it gets run-off when it rains.

For the next round, I'm going to try to make some starter pots out of newspaper. Then I'll start catnip, zinnias, pansies, petunias, and whatever else I have running around. And the Christmas cacti need to be pruned back, so the cuttings are all going to meet some newspaper pots. Whatever I don't keep will be given away or Freecycled. (Or sold at a yard sale, but once again I haven't been invited to join the "family" yard sale that Least Favorite Sister-in-law is having.)

Yeah, if we manage to get a house, it'll be a pain in the rump to move it all. I'm hoping that this will be the mojo that gets us a house. It's the same principle as every move I made into or out of the dorms - every time I moved, it was the hottest day of the week and usually of the month. It's the corollary to a rainstorm hitting the day after you wash your car.

Family drama

Yes, the blog is quiet. It's proof of my lack of motivation.

I've got a weekend full of family drama to deal with. My sister is coming to visit from out of state, since her husband's dad had a bit of an ATV accident (broken clavicle, plate & screw, chipped vertebrae). She doesn't visit often, and doesn't like to spend a lot of time at Mom's house due to the clutter & mess. Plus the fact that when we visit, most of what we do is eat and watch TV - Mom cooks to feed 3 times the number of actual eaters.

So sis comes up with a feasible (I thought) plan to stay in a motel, visit us for a day in our town, and minimize the amount of annoyance. Which led to phone calls, crankiness, a lovely passive-aggressive guilt-tripping email, and a headache (mine).

Right now, I have no clue what's going on. I'm not sure if we'll have visitors this weekend or not. If we will, I need to do some cleaning in the "public" rooms. If not, I've got more urgent things to deal with. Either way, I'm going to get a lot of crap from someone, it's just a matter of who and how much.

This is why Sis moved out of state, into another whole time zone, and doesn't come home to visit often. Mom's always giving her stuff (gifts, our old childhood stuff, etc) and telling her not to give it away. And then griping when she gets rid of it anyway. You want to control what happens to something, then don't give it away. Sis went back to school for another degree (traditional Chinese medicine, plus acupuncture, to go with her yoga certifications). Our parents haven't really supported her on that. They spend all their time worrying about her lack of job, her DH's job security, how many times they've relocated, etc. And Mom's just overbearing on the subject of more grandkids.

Which is why I didn't go visit when DH was out of town last week. I didn't need the headache. (I got it anyway - daily phone calls to see if I was coming down for a day. Oy.)

Monday, June 1, 2009

More mistaken identity

I've managed to get the local retirement home and Humana to stop cluttering my mailbox, but DH's name is still on a mailing list targeting older folks. (This is because he & his dad have the same first name. Beware, if you plan on doing this to your kid.)

Over the weekend, DH got a nice mailing from the Neptune Society, about free pre-paid cremation, with veterans' benefits (his Dad was in the Army). Such a happy, youthful-feeling thing to get in the mail. (That's sarcasm, there.)

Not sure why I'm getting emails from AARP, but I'm blaming that on spam. And the random seminar mailings have thinned out lately.