What a Nice Weekend

OK, to be absolutely truthful, my weekend is from 5:00 p.m. on Saturday until Monday morning - so not really a full two days. But it was wonderful, nonetheless. Why? Read on...

I'm dancing for joy lately. I know that won't last, but it's
a great thing right now. 

Saturday at 4:00 p.m. was the second pick-up day at my Father-by-Marriage's house for items that had been sold on the on-line auction. Everything except the pool table and one person from out of town's items had been picked up by the time I dropped by to see DH there after I shut down the store Saturday night. I went through the house with him. The rooms are mostly empty. We still have clean-up to do, and there is trash to throw out, but there is no other way that we could have gotten so much out of the house so quickly. Even though I would have changed some things if I was doing this again, it was a good experience. We waited until my nephew arrived with a new toilet that he was installing in the downstairs bathroom, then left to grab some dinner and call it a night.

The easiest way? Have a relative do it for you! Yes, of course
we paid him - he is a trained plumber. But we didn't have
to try and do the darned thing ourselves. Yippee!

Sunday we woke, dressed and went to Renaissance Festival for the day. The weather was perfect. It was cold in the morning - mid 50's when we arrived. But the skies were blue - not a cloud in sight - and by the afternoon the temps were in the mid 70's and the fest was crowded with patrons. Next weekend is the final weekend of this year's Fest, so we'll be there rain or shine to wrap the season up. Another plus - the final two weeks of the season they run a special price on next year's season tickets, so we purchased next season's admissions yesterday and saved a bundle. Basically, during our fourth visit we start attending for free and since the season is seven weekends long, we go for free for half of the weekends. It's a great deal and we always grab it.

Twig the Fairy was in fine form at Fest yesterday. She started at the
Minnesota Renaissance Festival many years ago and is still'
one of our top street performers.

We had a nice, light dinner and DH grumped about how horribly his football team is playing this year (they were really pathetic in yesterday's loss). My team plays tonight, but I have high hopes for them. Go Broncos!

DH's Minnesota Vikings played horribly on Sunday. Hopefully my
own beloved Denver Broncos can do better tonight on Monday Night Football.

An on-line writing friend is coming to town for a wedding at the end of the week and we're trying to work out a RL meeting for Wednesday. I'll know more a bit later today or tomorrow, but it would be a wonderful thing. I always love to meet my on-line friends and acquaintances in RL when I can. Some of my best friends started out as text exchanges between keyboards and I cherish each one!

Meeting new friends is always such fun!

The final items from the on-line auction are being picked up this afternoon and at 6:15 pm tonight, and then we'll be done with this segment and ready to get the house on the market. We're running about a week later then I wanted on my mental schedule, but that's not too bad considering all we were trying to get accomplished. Fall is looking like it's going to be a great season!

And finally, an author I follow on-line made a custom cell-phone skin featuring one of her books and had the link. I decided that since it was very inexpensive, I could afford to change skins for the season, so I downloaded an autumnal pic and it's getting printed and shipped to me as we speak. If you're interested in making one for yourself, check them out at cellphoneshop.net .

I decided on a detailed look at that solitary autumnal tree that I used
in my celebration of fall post last week. It will be a wonderful
seasonal cellphone sink for my phone. 

Have a great Monday!

Real Life Gets in the Way

Sunday was supposed to be the day when I sat down, finished inking CB's illustrations and started the color work. Supposed to be is the operative word here since Real Life got in my way. On Saturday night DH and I settled down to watch a few more episodes of Game of Thrones 2nd season on DVD. About midway through we decided to have popcorn and DH went down to do that. Shortly afterward he was walking up the stairs to ask me if the microwave was supposed to make strange noises and look like flames. Flames?!? I immediately went down and he showed me. Well, it might not have been actual flames, but it was not what was supposed to be happening either. We unplugged the microwave from the wall, declared it dead, and ate cupcakes instead.  But that set up our Sunday errands.

This is what we ended up buying. Pretty, isn't it?

We have to have a microwave; it is our primary appliance in the kitchen. Most things in my kitchen are cooked either on the cooktop or in the microwave. We had been planning to go and buy some eyeglasses for DH (desperately needed - his eyes are really bad) so we added "buy a new microwave" to the list. I spent a bit of time searching Amazon and comparing prices and ratings to our local store, Warner's Stellion Appliances. Stellion's actually came in at the same price or even less for almost any model I looked at, so I decided we would go there for our new oven. After a lovely omelette breakfast we put the old microwave into the car and headed out.

I have a cooktop, not a range, but I would love a top-mounted microwave oven.

I've wanted a microwave for over the cooktop for several years now and we could fit it into the cabinetry,  but we would need an electrician to wire a plug and a circuit for it before we could put one there, and that is an expense, etc, that we didn't want this time around. So we ended up with another countertop model. The last oven lasted almost exactly 13 years (purchased on Feb 24, 2000) and I have hopes that this one will be equally long-lived. At least it's pretty, is the right size, and looks like something that DH can figure out how to use. All plusses - oh, and also less than $200 - a big plus for the budget.

After trading out my old oven for the new one at the appliance store's warehouse, we went to LensCrafters to order some glasses for DH.  He wanted two pair - one pair for bifocals and one just for distance. They were doing their 50% off lenses sale, which did help, but we were still looking at more than $700 for the two pairs. Ouch!

DH's new glasses will be similar to this style.

The glasses aren't cutting edge, but they are nice frames, similar to the picture above, and the lenses are some new type of plastic that will decrease the weight of his lenses which are always quite thick. We should be getting them by mid-March and then DH will have to force himself to wear them every day for several weeks to adjust to them. It'll be a struggle, but if he can adjust to the new prescription and to bifocals in general, his vision will be much better. The lenses have a 90-day guarantee so he can have them remade if he needs to as long as he's given it the tryout that he should.