Shiny clean car

My car is home again, and much cleaner than when I dropped it off. The dealer's body shop does a nice job on things, I have to say. One of the nice things about body-shop work is that they wash the car at some point. And I think I noticed a whiff of Windex when I got in this morning to drive it home.

On the other hand, the clean sparkliness does make it very easy to tell that the car's had some work done. Not that the paint doesn't match, because it does, perfectly. But, when it's clean, it's pretty obvious that 80% of the car has 8 years worth of little scuffs, scratches, and cart dings. The door and quarterpanel, on the other hand, have a just-off-the-showroom-floor finish, and well, it kind of stands out. :) Of course, given how (in)frequently I wash my poor car, most of the time the new finish will be covered in a nice layer of dust, courtesy of the lawn crew. It's the down-side to parking under a car port - my car collects the dust, but never gets a nice rain to rinse it off.

Other tidbits:

• The Sesame Street blocks arrived yesterday, and were a steal for $6. We haven't opened the box yet, but they seem to be made of a wood with some heft to it, and they're about 1.75" square, so they're about the size of the Peek-a-blocks. Big enough not to be a hazard, small enough to be grabbable.
• The One Skein book I've been waiting for finally made it back to the library. Unfortunately, it's about 90% knitting, so it won't be as helpful as I thought.
  
• I ordered some yarn last night, from Joann.com. It's the Patons Canadiana yarn, which I can only find online. Which makes it hard to do any color coordination. I need something to go with 7 skeins of very purple yarn, so I ended up ordering one skein of every purple shade, plus two shades of white, some blues, and two shades of rosewood. I'll end up having some colors that don't work, which is why I wanted to see the One Skein book - it's all patterns that take one skein of yarn or less.
• I think I'm giving up on having digital photos printed at Target. I've gone in twice now, once with a USB key, once with a SmartMedia card, and both times, neither machine would read the media. HyVee will be my next attempt. I'm trying to avoid Walmart, for various reasons, and since we still use dial-up, uploading dozens of pictures to an online site can take a while.
  
• After the photo attempt at Target, El Burrito and I went up to Gymboree, where I'd heard they were having a sale. They are. 99-cent socks, although the cutest ones (red argyle, and a pair with a horse head on the top) were sold out in his size. I did get a few things, at about 75% off. We came home with 2 pair of socks (one blue, one cream with a squirrel face), a nice green plaid shirt for $4.99 (reg. $24.50), zip-up cardigan for $6.99 (reg 32.50), and two long-sleeved romper type things, $6.99 each, marked down from $28.50. Total: $30, for clothes that would have been $120 originally. Oy! Gymboree is even more of a hazard than Carters is. Their things are usually really cute, and well-made, but the regular prices are a little out of my comfort zone. 75% or 80% off is much more my taste.
• The weather last week was colder than I realized. We set a new record low last week, after getting within a degree of a record high the week before. The magnolia at the corner of the building looks frozen, as do the forsythia along the sidewalk and the redbud south of our deck. I'm guessing the farmers market will be a little skimpy on the tree fruit this year, and the paper said that the local vineyards may be pretty bad off as well.
  

Running behind

This has not been the most productive Monday. Here in the land of procrastination, Monday is Laundry day. I don't know why, it just is. (Contrary to FlyLady's idea of doing a load a day, which to me would just stretch laundry day out until it was everywhere. I prefer to do all of it in one day, so that for a brief hour or so on Monday afternoon, I can say that the laundry is really done.)

Today, though, hasn't been going as planned. Laundry day is usually 6 loads, sometimes 7, very occasionally 8. The first load usually hits the washer around 9 a.m. and I go from there. But today I'm running late. It's 3:00 pm right now, and the third load just went in. Ai ai ai. The first load started two hours late, because I didn't get the laundry sorted last night, El Burrito slept late after his hard weekend, and I can't sort the laundry without waking him up (it's a space issue).

As far as that list of things to do over the weekend, well, yeah. The list is still 90% intact. We did eat out for lunch, and had dinner with the in-laws and assorted cousins last night. We did do some shopping, including a run to the grocery store for Peeps on Sunday morning. I intended to get some Peeps at Target, but when I was there on Saturday afternoon, their Easter candy was wiped out. Beyond decimated. I would like to run by the store today and see if they finally put the Cadbury eggs and marshmallow bunnies on sale, but that depends on whether the body shop gets done with the car today. Sigh. The taxes did get worked on, and DH will be doing that more tonight. His plan is that when he comes home tonight, we're (El Burrito and I) are supposed to pretend he's not here. Other than dinner I guess, so this could be interesting. :)

But, the crib mattress isn't lowered, the porch didn't get measured, and the decluttering effort is still in that "darkest before the dawn" stage. I realize things usually look worse before they look noticably better, but for some reason we seem to get stuck in the "worse" part and never make it to the "looking better" end.

As far as the shopping?

• I did not buy anything at Ace Hardware - the pansies they advertised weren't there, thanks to our cold weather, and I didn't buy a new pot that I need for a houseplant, because I forgot to measure the current pot. It's in dire need of a new and heavier pot; right now it's in a light plastic pot, and it's top-heavy.
  
• I did not buy anything at Hobby Lobby. Not even the neat-looking new yarns they had, or the clearance yarns. I was looking for school-theme scrapbooking things for Mom, but Hobby Lobby didn't have anything.
• I did use the special 30% off your total purchase coupon at Michael's, to get some things that Mom needs for the scrapbook she's working on (a retirement scrapbook for my Dad). Plus we bought some photo frames, $2.50 each, for pictures of El Burrito to decorate DH's cubicle.
• After looking at prices for chocolate-covered marshmallow bunnies, it's cheaper to buy Peeps and dip them in Hershey's syrup. Probably taste just as good, too.
• I bid on, and won, and auction on Ebay for El Burrito - it's a big lot of about 53 Peek-a-blocks and Roll-a-rounds. Including shipping, we're paying about 65 cents per block, which is a darn sight cheaper than the $1-plus that Amazon wants.
  

And, totally out in left field, this toy looks wrong to me. It's called the "My Little Pony So Soft Pony Walking Sweet Steps." Now, don't get me wrong, I had my share of My Little Ponies in earlier years. But a baby pony in a walker, with a rattle and a sippie cup, just seems not-right to me. Ponies walk on all four feet, not two.

Weather report: Darn cold here over the weekend. Below freezing at night, after at least one day of 80-degree weather two weeks ago. From what the newspapers have said, the tree-fruit crops locally may have been hit pretty hard, if not wiped out. Fun fun.

Productivity

. . . or the lack thereof. So far, it hasn't been a really productive day. And I'm still waiting for my car to get out of the shop. Fun.

• I did ban a spammer on one of my Yahoo groups, and put three other potential spammers on limited status.
  
• I watched an episode of Riptide while I ate lunch. Yes, this is productive. I'm trying to catch up on some DVDs, mostly because I worry that one will be damaged and I won't find out until it's too late to exchange or otherwise replace it.
  
• I gathered up a small stack of DVDs and a larger stack of books that can be boxed up. This is part of a larger plan. Since we're going to be moving sooner or later, anything we pack now won't have to be packed up later. It'll also make it easier for us to do some work around the place (like the annoying doors).

I did make some progress last night, while watching Deadliest Catch. I went through all the sale ads, in preparation for a shopping run tomorrow. Then I sorted some of the coupons (but I still need to weed out the expired ones), and got rid of most of a small stack of newspaper bits and pieces.

For the rest of the day: El Burrito is awake and hungry. After that, among other things, I need to do the dishes, and get some digital pictures ready to be printed. My mom wants some prints, and there are a couple of aunts who would like some as well. The new camera has the most helpful option of shooting pictures directly in 3:2 format, but the pics from the old camera have to be cropped to the right ratio. If I don't do it, the printer (Target, etc) will do it for me, and they tend to not care if they slice off a head or arm.

Any other year, this being Easter weekend, I'd be heading off to Springfield for some fun. I collect Breyers, and another collector in Springfield has been having a Breyer show for the past few years. It's always on Easter weekend, because that's when she can get the best price for the conference room. But, this year, I'm missing out on the show because we're going to Nashville in a few weeks. And, of course, the other Breyer show in the state is the weekend we're out of town. Lousy timing. Oh well, maybe next year.

On the list for the weekend:

• Taxes (this is DH's thing; I just dig numbers out of Quicken when he needs them)
• lowering the crib mattress, since El Burrito is sitting up on his own, and pulling up onto his knees in the crib
• Easter dinner with the in-laws
• possibly measuring the porch and purchasing the fake grass carpet
• lunch "out" on Saturday
• some shopping (possibly on my own), including a trip to Michaels and/or Hobby Lobby for some things Mom needs
• cleaning/organizing/decluttering in general - the furnace guy is coming in a week, so the place needs to be semi-presentable. The front rooms, anyway. Sigh.
  

Just stuff

First:


El Burrito with his grandma's tulips last weekend. Out of a dozen shots, there are very few where he was looking at the camera. That's unusual for him - he's a bit of a ham. His favorite aunt called from Georgia after I sent her a CD of his pictures, to ask "Does he always have that cheezy grin on his face?" Well, yeah, unless he's asleep or I manage to sneak up on him. I sneak better with the new camera, because it sounds different from the old one. He's still figuring it out. :)

If you're looking for toys, Amazon has some toys on clearance right now (if you go down the page, on the left you can sort by discount %). I spent $30 on El Burrito last night, after getting DH's opinion on a few things. He ended up with the Pet Pals Roll-a-rounds, the Learning Town Car Wash & Barn, and some wooden alphabet blocks from Sesame Street. The blocks are a gamble - they're only $6, but there' s nothing indicating the size anywhere. Not even Google could come up with any size information. I guess I'll have to wait and see. At least the blocks are shipping soon - the ship date for the Roll-a-rounds is, get this, April 16, 2007 - June 10, 2007. I'm boggled.

(I like the Roll-a-rounds and Peek-a-blocks a lot. So does El Burrito. I need to start hunting Ebay for them, as they're hard to find around here. Amazon or Fisher-Price changed their stock recently, and instead of a 6-pack of balls for $6 or $8, it's now 3 blocks for $9. I don't think so. Ditto for the alphabet Peek-a-blocks. Some merchant has them on Amazon for $52 right now. I think the set is $25 at Target, but we'll wait on those for a while longer. They're nice, but not that nice, thanks much.)

I'm also waiting for an xD card I ordered from Amazon. I ordered it on 2/23, and the "estimated ship date" is March 28, 2007 - April 11, 2007, per Amazon. The strange part is that it was in stock at Amazon a week or so ago. If I hadn't used a gift certificate for it, I would have canceled and re-ordered when they were in stock. But, luckily, I ordered another one with the camera, so I'm not in dire need of one anyway.

Now, if I can just get motivated to do some cleaning and organizing. It's already Thursday, and I have no idea where the week went. I do know we're working on our taxes Saturday, and going to the in-laws for dinner Sunday, so the weekend is already booked. We were going to replace the fake-grass "carpet" on the screened porch this weekend, but with highs predicted in the 40s (after 70s last weekend), we're postponing until warmer weather.

Nothing going on here

It's not a productive day, no matter what plans I had this morning. The cold weather arrived earlier than expected, so at 9:00 last night I was bringing the houseplants back in from the porch. It's supposed to frost every night for the rest of the week.

Nothing else to report.

El Burrito's big night

The Young Man had a big night last night. Sometime between 10:20 and 10:45 (I know because Dresden Files was on, and yes, he keeps late hours. Hush.), he sat up by himself in his crib, with witnesses, twice!! And the second time, I got it on tape!! (Okay, not "tape" exactly, since I can't find the two blank tapes for the camcorder, but I was using the new digital camera that can take movies, so there's visual evidence.) We're pretty sure he hasn't done this before, or if he has, he hasn't stayed sitting up until we were around. Looks like his method so far is to scoot backwards on his hands and knees until his feet hit the side of the crib, then keep scooting back until he can get his feet under him. I think he was trying to do it on the bed today, but with nothing to run into, it doesn't work as well.

Of course, he followed that up about an hour later with a Poop Situation. The kind where you just stop and say "oooooh. my. gawwwwd., where do I start?" It didn't help that I was in the middle of an allergy attack, with strings of sneezes by the half-dozen. El Burrito was sitting in his basket and we were trying to catch up with the daily paper, when I noticed him poking at something on his leg. I nudged DH, who was closer to him, thinking it might be one of the annoying ants that are wandering around. DH leaned over and said something like "Uh oh." "Uh oh?" says I (original, no?). The thing on his leg was poop. Oh joy, a blowout. So DH picks him up, carefully, leaving a mess in the basket, and we head off to the bedroom to deal with the Situation. People, there was poop everywhere. It had oozed up the front of the diaper (but not the back) and out both legs. It was scattered from his knees to his armpits. There was even poop in El Burrito's belly button. (Yes, at that point, I had to laugh, in between sneezes. It was that or gag.)

Needless to say, the boy had a bath at around midnight last night. Which is why the laundry didn't get folded, the sheets didn't get fully changed, and I didn't get in bed until almost 3 freaking a.m. Yes. I'm tired. It was a Perfect Poop Storm: teething + a weekend of bottled water at Grandma's + prunes for lunch (because he doesn't eat as much when he's visiting) = Oh Boy.

In other news: my car is at the body shop for the third time. At least this time it's not the bumper. Thanks to two small accidents, my 8 year old car is on its third bumper already. This time, it's a nice dent in the side, from being backed into in the library parking lot about a month ago. Too bad the woman didn't back into the other side; that's where most of the bad cart dings are, and while I'm not vain enough to get them fixed for cosmetic reasons, it would have been a nice perk if they happened to get fixed while the dent was getting repainted.

Allergy season has hit full force, starting at around 9:00 last night. I've been taking generic Claritin for about two weeks now, but things are still bad. I could always call my dermatologist and beg him to renew my Zyrtec Rx, but he never did anything when the pharmacy called him last year, and I'd bet that the worst of things will be over in a week or so (I hope), so I may as well tough it out and see how things go. But if you sneeze so much that you get a (little) nosebleed, it's bad. I don't know what it is that's blooming or pollinating or otherwise spawning, but it's making me freaking miserable and I'm ready for it to stop, thanks very much.

I can only hope it doesn't get as bad as it did two summers ago (or three, I can't remember). Even with the Claritin, my left eye would occasionally, with no warning, go "floom" and puff up until it looked like I'd walked into a door. Lovely itching until I had to take my contact lens out and walk around with one usable eye. That eye could go from normal to Eek in about ten minutes. I ended up with a prescription for something called Patanol from my optometrist. Folks, you know it's going to be bad when the doctor gives you the Rx, plus a rebate form for $25. A tiny bottle, about 1 fluid ounce, of this stuff, was something like $50. I almost fell over when I looked at the pharmacy receipt. But, at four drops a day, a bottle lasted about six weeks, and the stuff worked. I need to go see if I've got any left. I also need to find out (not by self-testing!) what would happen if I took 2 Claritin a day. If this keeps up, I'll be that desperate.

And, since it's Tuesday, El Burrito and I did go to the library and book sale. Nothing for El Burrito today, unless you count a copy of What to Expect - the toddler years, but I got a bio of Tesla and an autobiography of Madeleine L'Engle. And El Burrito got compliments on his manners from the book sale cashier. He also got a "thank you" from me, for not being that little girl pitching a screaming hissyfit at Target.

What a weekend

Would you believe, they're outside mowing the grass again? Barely a week since the last time, but we've had lots of rain and warm weather, so the grass is happy. (Which makes my dad happy - more grass means fat happy cattle, less time feeding hay, and hopefully more hay for next year.)

Proof of Missouri's weather weirdness: right now, it's about 80 degrees outside. Weather report for Thursday night? 34 degrees, and frost. Guess who'll be moving houseplants back inside Thursday?

El Burrito is asleep right now, after being awake for about 2 hours this morning. He's recovering from a hard weekend visiting his grandparents (my folks). No napping there, since there was exciting stuff going on, so he's sleeping off a killer case of grandma-itis right now. I'm dealing with laundry, including a double load for El Burrito, since we're washing his next-size-up clothes that will probably fit him now, if not in a week or so.

The weekend trip (actually, about 30 hours) was pretty nice. Except for the nasty headache I had the whole time, with no ibuprofen in sight (my purse container was empty, and acetaminophen does squat for me). And the fact that my mother's cooking is an all-or-nothing thing lately. Either a table full of food for 4 people, or leftover Little Caesar's pizza (which we had Sunday, not that great). El Burrito got to pet Grandpa's bottle calf, and one of the beagles, and sit on Grandpa's tractor with him (not running) for a picture. It's my Dad's old Farmall M, built the year Dad was born. It's a cute picture. And we took my dad out for dinner, since today's his birthday and he's impossible to buy a gift for. He said no gift, so we took him to Cracker Barrel.

DH and I made a quick trip (quicker than I'd planned!) trip to the outlet mall. El Burrito needs more sleepers in a bigger size, so we went to Carters, Baby Gap Outlet, and Childrens Place Outlet. Now, why didn't anyone tell me that those adorable sleepers that Carters makes don't come in any size bigger than 9M?? Gripes me, let me tell you. I was all set to get the boy some more cute sleepers, but no dice. Our choices were the rubber-footed sleepers that zip down the front and one leg, or the 2-piece jammies. I'm not fond of rubber stuff in the laundry, because it tends to do badly in the dryer and I get tired of picking dried rubber bits out of the lint trap. But we got a couple of each, to see which does best for us. We did find some cute ones, but it looks like my search for the 12M duckie sleeper is a lost cause. :(

El Burrito made out pretty good as far as clothes. He's got fleece zip-up jammies for next fall, $4 each at Carters, plus a couple of bodysuits, two Baby Gap rompers to use as jammies, and a lovely red corduroy shirt that I hope fits him for Christmas. It's a size 24 months, and he'll only be about 18 months in December, but for $2.79 I thought it was worth the gamble. He also got summer jammies with sharks, space ships, and a few other designs. We'll see what works, although if the shirts on the 2-piece PJs ride up, we may just let him sleep in pants and a bodysuit.

On the other hand, I didn't get to do any shopping for me at all. We left for the outlet mall at 3:30, and DH says - after we get in the car - that he'd like to be back around 6:30. It takes about 45 minutes to drive to the mall (22 miles), so that just gave us 90 minutes to shop. Part of that was spent walking around - it's a big mall, and I wanted to go to the Oneida store, but it moved recently and the mall updates their maps about every other blue moon. In the end, we just went to Carters, Gap, and Childrens Place. No book stores, no Oneida.