I think I have been able to accomplish everything I wanted to do today before the World Series, which is currently in a rain delay as I write this. So let me run down the busy and tiring day that has been my Saturday without the family.
Rolled out of bed around 8:15 this morning after heading to bed around 1:30. I had my breakfast and then got right to work on the sprinklers. As I may have mentioned in previous blogs, the sprinklers have become a hobby of sorts for me. I actually enjoy fixing them, although I don't like it when they break. When I went to Home Depot yesterday, I got three sprinklers: one to fix the broken one and two to replace existing sprinklers that don't cover as much of the yard as they should (these two were installed by the city after they had to move our sprinklers and their piping to build a storm drain) and a cap to cap off another sprinkler (also installed by the city) that wouldn't be needed once I replaced the other two. I wound up having to go back to Home Depot to get a couple of small parts to make the sprinkler higher above ground since the joint (or whatever it's called) is right next to the planter and the sprinkler was too wide to screw on there. The best part about the trip back was that the two parts I got cost less than $1 total! Buying something you need at Home Depot to get your Home Depot fix and spending almost no money...every guy's (ok, this guy's) dream! Anyway, once I adjusted the spray pattern to cover the parts of the lawn it needs to, it was on to the three along the curb and storm drain.
No major problems here. I dug up the first one and capped it. I dug up the second one, replaced it and made the pattern didn't have it watering the street. Then I went the third one and started digging it up. No problems with it: dug it up, screwed on the new sprinkler and made sure the pattern was fine after some minor adjustments. Something freaky happened though while I was digging this one. I felt something tickling the back of my leg. I look back and it's a brown widow! They have a very similar body shape to the black widow, but instead of being black, they have a white lightning bolt-like pattern on it, still with the red/orange hourglass under it and still poisonous. (We've had tons of those around our house this summer. I've only seen one or two black widows.) Of course I freak a little bit, shake my leg, it falls off and I show her why it's cool that I'm bigger than her! (That's man talk for "I smashed it.") Then back to work with no further issues. All in all it took about an hour or a little more to do the sprinklers.
After that, came my big project for the day--cleaning the couch, and under it! This took me about 4 hours in all! I wanted to do as thorough a job as I could since we don't vacuum it too often (although we, correction I) should since Traci is allergic to dust mites. It all began by taking the cushions off and tossing them across the room so I could them move the pieces of the sectional and see we have been missing.
Holy crap, was there a ton of stuff under there! It's too bad the kids weren't here or we could have had Christmas early with all the small toys I found. I found a number of pieces that belong to Mr. Potato Head, a number of fruit snacks, McDonald's french fries, goldfish crackers, hair bands, head bands, crayons and even one of Traci's sandals that was almost against the back wall. (For sanity's sake I will assume that it got pushed back there and didn't walk all by itself!) In the couch, I hit the jackpot as I found 22, count them, 22 crayons! Once I had decided what was worth keeping such as the sandal and most hair things, what needed to be thrown away, and what bordered on toxic, I took the vacuum and sucked the rest up. Then it was on to the cushions and I took them on one by one. Now the couch is more fluffy and cleaner. Traci should be happy when she comes home tomorrow. If I didn't do this today, I would have needed to do it before next Saturday when we have our annual Sunday School Halloween party over here.
I did take a lunch break in the middle by using a coupon I found to relive my Whittier College days by going to Rick's Drive In & Out in Uptown Whittier. It was a buy one get one free coupon so I got two burgers for $3. And these burgers are way better than most fast food places. The only exception might be In-N-Out, but it's very close.
After the couch, I needed to clean up since you just feel nasty after doing all that cleaning. So I showered and then it was off to the store. This felt like an accomplishment, not because I went, but because of how much I spent. I actually kept it under $200! (It was just over $160). Looking at the bottom of the receipt, it showed savings of $45! I don't care if they actually mark stuff up to discount it to the real price to say you saved money. It's good for the psyche! And by the way, we have been shopping at Ralph's now for a number of months since they announced the new lower pricing in their stores earlier this year. Before, we shopped at Vons and our grocery bills were getting close to $300 per major trip on a fairly regular basis, and that's with Vons Club savings. Kudos to Ralph's!
Now all the groceries are put away and I'm waiting to see if they will play game 3 tonight as it is still raining pretty hard in Philadelphia, where it is now 9:30. If it comes on, cool, if not...Wii!
1 comment:
Seriously, did you need to mention everything you found under there? That's just gross. And by the way. You may not have cleaned the couch with the vacuum recently but I have done it several times. Because if I didn't, I wouldn't be able to sit on it. Darn allergies. But underneath, I didn't do. That's crazy. Gross.
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