Beautiful Saturday

Today was a gorgeous winter day. Bright blue skies, bright sun, but still with a bit of a chill in the air! It did warm up to around 60 today, so that is really nice. No coat needed today; just a sweatshirt.

Bill and I got out of the house this morning around 10am, and went to the recycling center for WTC. We had $31.00 worth of recycling -- woot!! We left the recycling center, and used some of the money to go out to breakfast! That is always fun. One of our new year's resolutions is to try and save money, so this is a good way to be able to do one of our favorite activities without spending our household money, and we're doing something good for the environment at the same time. Fun!

After breakfast, we took the empty propane tank over to the gas station to be filled. Phew, propane smells REALLY BAD. Ugh. Then back home for awhile. Bill stayed home while I took the car over to the car wash to be cleaned. It was FILTHY. Yuck. There's a tree at work that I try to avoid parking under, because it poops this really gross stuff. Not sap; but some kind of weird stuff. Yeech. It was all over the car because I had to park there the other day; it was the only spot left! It's usually the last one because no one likes parking there -- gee wonder why!

It took nearly an hour at the car wash; it's the best one in town (also the most expensive) and since it was such a beautiful day, everyone else had the same idea. But the car looks GORGEOUS now, both inside and out. I LOVE it when my car is clean. Then I went by Barnes & Noble and picked up a book for Bill that he'd been wanting. I called Rerunz, my favorite used bookstore, and they didn't have it, so I just went ahead and picked it up for him new at B&N. Because it was SUCH a sacrifice to have to go in there! NOT! Heh

When I got home, Bill wanted to take the truck over and get gas in it and get it washed at the cheapey gas station car wash. I mean, it's just a truck; know what I mean? My car is expensive and I refuse to take it through those car washes with the plastic brushes. The thing I like about the car wash I took the car to (Scrubbs) is that it's not only touchless, but it's a hand wash. They also vacuum the inside, black the tires, and even wipe the brake dust off the wheels! All for $23, but worth it!!

Also, when we took the truck out for gas and a wash, we put the coffee table in the back of the truck and dropped it off at the storage. When we put the Christmas tree in the living room, we moved the coffee table in the spare room to give us some extra room, and when we took the tree out, we really liked the living room without the coffee table, so we decided to just put it in storage. It looks a lot better, and its easier to maneuver in here. However, we now have no place to put the magazines!! Oh well.

On the way out the door do the truck and storage thing, we saw our next door neighbors coming back from the store with their new baby!! We didn't realize that he'd been born, so it was great to get a chance to coo over the baby. He is SO adorable!! He has an unusual name -- Orion. I feel sorry for the poor kid when he gets to school -- but oh well! He's a real cutie pie, and she looked GREAT for having just had a baby! She had a 3 hour labor, and pushed for 12 minutes. OMG we have to HATE her; that is SO not fair!! Geesh. I told her when she has her second one, she'd better be careful, because they usually come faster. I told her she'd better not even sneeze toward the end of pregnancy with her second one! She laughed and said that's what her doctor said! Too funny. She has NO idea how lucky she is! Oh well. They're such a nice couple and I'm so glad for them.

When we got home from the truck and storage errands, Barbecue Bill cooked hamburgers on the grill, we ate dinner and watched a show we'd TiVo'd, and now we're just relaxing! Tomorrow's Sunday, and we don't have any particular plans. I'm still waiting for a call from my folks to find out when in February I should come out there. I need to make my reservations; because the reward zone flights have limited seating; and I don't want the flights I want to sell out! Hopefully they'll call tomorrow. They're currently on the road, and I don't know how often they check their cell phone for messages. I'm really disappointed that Bill can't go, because he's never met my relatives that live out there in Arkansas and Oklahoma, and my dad's the youngest of his siblings. Dad will be 79 in Feb., so that means that his two brothers that are left are both in their 80s. Oh well, maybe next time.

Another Busy Saturday!

Bill and I had a busy Saturday, but it was fun, too. We got up and left the house about 9:30 or so, loaded up the recycling in the car, along with the nearly-empty propane tank for our BBQ, and went to do errands!

First, we decided to have breakfast out at Denny's. We love their Slams. I (Karen) like to have the All American Slam with all bacon, english muffin with honey. Bill had I think it was their giant slam -- something like that. I like the All American Slam, because the eggs are scrambled with a little bit of cheese. Yum! Mmmmm I'm making myself hungry!

Then we went to Fair Street Recycling, which is the recycling center for Work Training Center and turned in our cans, and got $20. Woohoo; paid for breakfast! Then we went to the fairgrounds and went to the Home and Garden Show, which was fun. Even though we don't own our own home, I enjoy wandering among the booths and signing up for free stuff! Bill was a sweetheart and followed me around the show. I'm sure it was mucho boring for him. But he did it for me, and I so appreciated it!!

Then we went to the U-haul center and had our propane tank filled, and then took it home. Then we decided to go around and look at some apartment complexes. We've decided when our lease is up on this house in June, we are moving to something else, something smaller, perhaps an apartment, we were thinking. The kids will then move out on their own, and Bill and I will have time to ourselves! I wasn't really excited about apartment living again, but there are some really nice complexes out there! Some of them have rents that are as much as our house!! Wowzers! We wouldn't move there -- we're trying to SAVE money! LOL But they were fun to look at. Ultra-luxurious! The reason we started looking now, even though June is over 6 months away, is that some of these complexes start taking waiting lists early, and we can be at the top of the list. Its going to come sooner than we think! But I also want to look into duplexes, too -- they can be just as nice and that way no one walks on your head and the noise level is less -- only one wall usually is shared in a duplex. We've got LOTS of time, but its so hard to know where we can save money and still enjoy where we live, too. We'll keep you posted.

We went to Sterling Oaks (expensive!!), Eaton Village (also expensive!), Mission Ranch Apts. (nice and reasonable), Cobblecreek (older, not as nice), and Oak Meadow (nearly exactly like Mission Ranch, only older and with lots of shade trees!). All of these places have pools, and washers and dryers in the units, etc. We just have to list the pros and cons and what we can live without, and what we can't. Thankfully, we have lots of time. I love this house we live in, but we can't wait to have a single level place, with less upkeep. Guess we're just getting old! There are some nice "senior" apartment complexes around, but you have to be 55 to live there, and we're just not there yet!

Then we decided to go to WalMart and pick up a few things, then to Papa Murphys to pick up pizza for dinner (yum!) and then home! Whew we were tired! We ate pizza and I baked cookies from Papa Murphy's cookie dough. We watched a couple of our TiVo'd shows. It's nice to know we pick up an extra hour tonight, thanks to "falling back" and losing Daylight Savings. It won't be dark as night out when we go to work anymore! Yayy!!!

Well, that was our day! Its after 11:00 p.m. now (old time) and Bill has gone upstairs to watch some sports or something. I'm going up in a few minutes. Hope you all had a great Saturday, too!