Score!

Trust me, I'm as amazed as you probably are that I'm blogging two days in a row for the first time in probably a year and a half! But I had a really fun day! Full of things about which to blog! Woohoo!

First off, I was up until about 1 this morning reading Al Capone Shines My Shoes. It's cute. It's a sequel of sorts, the first one being Al Capone Does My Shirts. It's a young adult book for middle-school age kids, I would say. I loved the first one. It made me smile at the end. And I'm enjoying this one as well. Some of it literally makes me smile. I love books like this. Feel-good books. Anyway...

I woke up at 9 this morning. I set my phone alarm for 8:15. And yes, that's early for me :). I hit snooze on the phone (that is 3 middle-button pushes, by the way... I learned this so I can hit snooze without having to look to make sure I re-set it to sound again in a few minutes :)), so I woke up at 9 and got up. Because my mom and I had big plans to work on the pantry. I had a breakfast of toast with blueberry-rhubarb jam and strawberry-rhubarb jam. Two pieces of toast, one with each flavor. These are the jams I helped make with the then-Enrichment committee at church. It's not called an Enrichment committee anymore. But, I digress. Then my mom and I got down and dirty... quite literally. I usually overestimate my abilities and underestimate undertakings. I figured we could have the whole "cleaning and organization of the pantry" thing done in 3 hours. Wow was I off base! We barely scratched the surface! Some of that stuff hasn't been touched in probably 30 years. Which means it's dusty. And spiderwebby. Ick. Of course, please note that not everything in the pantry is this way. Just the stuff that hasn't been touched in eons. It's a huge pantry and storage area. One of the treasures I found are about 5 stickers from Birmingham, AL that have Vulcan on them and call Birmingham "The Magic City." They are circa 1981. How many people do you suppose have those?!? Apparently my grandparents must have made a stop in Birmingham back in the day -- probably for Square Dancing is what my mom and I are thinking. Anyway, we have a lot more work to do, but we have ideas for organization, and I think it will look great when we are done!

Before long it was time to get ready for work. Both my mom and I went in around noon, and I was pretty darn productive there, even though I wasn't feeling all "worky" today. Oh, and of course I helped Bob do the crossword puzzle. I like that ritual. Usually he will fill in a few and walk away when he can't think of anymore. Then I'll come check it out and fill in what I know. Then he'll come back and fill in some more based on what I've put in, etc etc. I find that I like doing the puzzles better this way than by myself. We tend to always finish the "warm-up" in the daily paper, and some days we succeed in doing the "hard" one too :). Oh, and of course there was tons of laughter with Mary. I'm not even sure what we laughed about at this point. I just wish I had a tape recorder some days.

After work, I got home and was thrilled with two items that came in the mail!!! One was a bill. Yes, I know. Who's crazy enough to want that? Well, me. Because! I wrote my pay-off check for my credit card! It goes in the mail tomorrow! Woohoo!!! I'm ecstatic, can you tell? I called the credit card company to get my pay-off to make sure it wouldn't go up with interest charges before they receive the check, and they said it wouldn't because of when they figure everything. And then they tried to sell me some kind of coverage so that I wouldn't have a minimum payment due in case I got laid off "in this difficult economy" or something. I said, "Look, I appreciate what you're saying, but I'm making my final payment, so I won't have a balance. Why would I sign up for something like that?" Yeah, no thanks. So anyway... I'm excited.

The other item in the mail was a package from Julie! Inside were the best friend journal -- it's my turn to write three memories :) -- an Office notepad for grocery lists, etc (awesome for 2 reasons: because it's The Office and because it's perfect for lists! :)), and a pair of 80s-style "sunglasses". I don't know what else to call them. You will see what I mean though. These were from Julie and her friend Randi, I believe. Julie had told me she was sending me a package and that something inside was from Randi. Anyway, totally awesomely 80s! Made me smile!!! And so now you can too! And don't make fun of my goofy 80s pose. It's the best I could come up with :).

In case you can't tell from the picture, they are those shades that have slits in them and no actual lens. So totally 80s :). Little by little I will have the whole 80s get-up. Now to just fit back into that jean skirt... So, thank you Julie and Randi!!! Way awesome surprise!

And then I went and spent money. Because I'm uber-frugal like that, right? Okay, actually, I didn't intend to spend money. Well, except for what it cost to get contact solution. Everywhere I've tried to get contact solution in the last week has either not sold it, been out of stock, or it was $10.99. I'm sorry. I'm cheap. I'm not paying 11 whoppers for contact solution when I know I can get it at Wal-Mart for like $3. So I finally gave in and just went to Wal-Mart. I know, Julie... Everywhere for you is like at least 15 minutes away. But up here things are more compact, so I have gotten spoiled :). And I hate the drive to Wal-Mart. It's on the other side of town ;). Whine, whine, whine. But anyway, so I went. And got 2 full-size bottles for less than $6. I think it was actually even cheaper than that. Oooo! I had to look, and it's even better! I got 2 bottles for $4.73 after tax. Yeah, so forget that $11 crap. It didn't even cost me $7 in gas to get to Wal-Mart :). And then I went to JC Penney -- a place I never shop -- and found some of the most awesome after-Christmas sales ever! I can't tell what I got, since they are all for Christmas 2010. I'm working on buying throughout the year -- especially when things are on sale -- so I don't get slammed at the end! And I got $180 (before tax) worth of stuff for $26 after tax! For you math nerds out there (like me :)), that's roughly 14% of what I would have paid had I bought them before Christmas! Gotta love a good deal. And simply can't pass it up -- especially if I have the funds and it's going to pay off in the end :). Woohoo! So, I have both "big girls" (as far as nieces go) bought for for Christmas!!! Wahoo!

And then I came home and showed my mom my scores :)! She was impressed!

So yeah. Today was a pretty awesome day. And on Saturday, I'm going to go bowling with some of the ladies at church, so that should be fun :). And even more fun, because I have that discount card, so I get 2 games for the price of one :). For up to 4 people, so I'm sharing the discount with 3 other ladies from church :).

Oh, and my mp3 player has some pretty darn awesome music! I love this thing!