It Always Comes Back to Money, Doesn’t it?

Well, winter appears to be here, reminding me that I need winter boots, new mitts/gloves and ski pants. I hate shopping, yet I am able to spend so much money every month. I blame the grocery stores where you can buy everything in one go. Although, it saves me from having to lug from store to store just to get Christmas gifts, new sheets, decent knives, etc. Now whether I would bother to lug myself around in the first place is part of the whole thing.

So where have I been for the past seventeen days? Why, laying laminate in my basement. I wasn’t a huge laminate fan and only gave in as it really is the only way we will ever be able to cover the vast floor downstairs, but I must say that it looks quite good. My dad came up and taught me some tricks for tough angles and cuts and I must say that I did a pretty good job. (I didn’t do ALL of it by myself, but I did do quite a bit.) Now all we need is to get some baseboard and the place will be looking pretty spiffy. The problem is that with some of the rooms being so big, we had to leave expansion gaps at the walls for the laminate which means that the baseboard that we have upstairs will not work down there as it won’t cover the gap when you go up over the doorways as it is a tapered baseboard. So, we have to try something different. And cheap, like MDF. Although the laminate is on ‘don’t pay for thirteen months’, they are still going to want their mullah in thirteen months. Money, money, money.

My daughter is pretty pumped to have a play area downstairs. We started arranging things today and it is amazing how quickly you can fill up an area, even when you have ‘nothing’.

Did you know that there are very few direct flights to Vegas from around here? I didn’t know that either. It is crazy, really.

It all comes back to money.

Where did The Summer Go?

Listening to: I Will Survive a remake by Cake. (Kinda funny. Kinda slow. Kinda monotonish. I love it.) It`s on Satellite radio.

Another summer gone.

I keep hoping for a bit of Indian Summer out this way, but I think I may have to give up that little dream.

Anyway, at work, the whole ‘you rock for working here’ has sort of worn off and everyone is back to normal and their own lives and worries. I guess I knew it wouldn’t last, but yet, it was REALLY nice having a day in the sun like that. You could really get used to that. There is the risk of such fawning to go to your head and affect your ego, but it would be fun to experiment and see how long it would take before that sort of worship (or just appreciation) went to your head. I could offer myself up as the guinea pig. Anyone? Anyone?

We went shopping for shoes–specifically running shoes–for our daughter today. She wears a toddler’s size 10 or so. And man, is it hard to find decent running shoes for a kid. By decent, I mean, not $45. And not out of the hardest, heaviest, nonflexible rubber ever found on planet Earth. And velcro. And well…I guess that is about it. Oh yeah, and isn’t advertising some cartoon character like my kid is some billboard for Disney or Nickelodeon.

As well, I became curious about the ever so popular shoes with lights in them that light up and flash when kids step. What powers the lights? Batteries, most likely, right? So, what do you do when the shoes wear out? Toss them? And what becomes of the batteries? The landfill no doubt. So how many batteries are going into the landfill that we don’t even think about?

Anyway, we found some good shoes after some agony. Or what felt like agony as I hate shopping. Sorry, didn’t hear me? I HATE shopping. If I get rich and famous–I would totally hire someone to do that for me. Okay, just rich. Anyway, we found some shoes–on sale. YES! And they had winter boots too. Hmm…last year I got stuck after the first snowfall with no boots for our daughter. And these are Sorrels. The king of winter boots. And they are pink. And they almost have my daughter’s size. Hmm… But they are $50. OUCH! But if you buy one pair of something, the second pair is 50%. So, we bought them. In the end, it was like paying $30 for the shoes and $30 for the boots. It adds up, but now she has decent footwear and we got to go home.

Thank god.