Monday, March 23, 2009

Another successful weekend visit

DH had the weekend off and we spent it visiting with my son and his wife. My grandson found out we were going to be there so he asked his mother if he could spend another weekend with his dad so he could spend time with us (she had a bowling tournament and said yes). We hadn't seen Mykel since right after Christmas, and damn, has he gotten tall. He's going to be 13 in June, and he's already 5' 10". He's going to be tall like his dad, I think.
We went to Mankato so Jon could pick up a pair of shoes and I could check out the fabric stores for the patterns by Coni that I wanted and look for fabric and notions to make bras. Jon found his shoes, but I didn't find the patterns I wanted (I'll have to order them online) and no fabric/notions for bra-making (order online again). But, I did stop in at the Catherine's store where I used to shop all the time when I lived in the area (before I got married and moved 3 hours away). I checked out their clearance rack (they always had neat tops on the clearance racks) and found two really cute tops. One was normally $50, the other was regularly $48, and I paid $9.99 apiece for them (I do love a bargain like that, and I couldn't have made them myself that inexpensively).
When we got back to Jon's house, Tina stayed home since she wasn't feeling well and Jon took off to ride his crotch rocket (was a nice day, in the 60's, and he wanted to ride it before the rain hit this week). So we took Mykel back to the motel with us to go swimming. There were a bunch of kids there (some kind of team event was going on) and some of the kids were Mykel's age. He ended up hanging out with them (Mykel and 2 of the boys were competing to see who could make the biggest splash jumping into the pool). DH and I decided after 2 hours of competing with 20 kids for a place in the pool that it was time for us to quit. Mykel asked if he could stay and we said yeah, since it was going to be at least another hour before Jon came to pick him up. About a half an hour later, he came back and got changed, then the boys he'd been hanging with came to see if he could go back to their room with him. I told him it was ok, he had his cell phone with him and his dad could text him when he got to the motel. All in all, all 3 of us had fun at the pool, and it's amazing to see the change in Mykel. He's growing up for sure (2 years ago, he wouldn't have wanted to spend that much time with us, and he wouldn't have made friends and wanted to hang with kids he just met). He's turning into quite a remarkable young man, and I'm so proud of him (he's even getting into reading a lot now, he said he was interested in the book I brought down for Jon, I won it in a drawing on Good Reads, read it, wrote and posted my review, and now Jon and Mykel will get to read it, it's about the first half of Genghis Khan's life, fictionalized but based on Chinese manuscripts from that time).
We left just before noon on Sunday, so when we got home, I checked email (between my 2 accounts, I had about 115 emails) and looked to see how many posts I had missed on the blogs I follow (148 posts between Thursday night and Sunday afternoon). Took me the rest of the afternoon and most of the evening just to get caught up on reading everything.
Jon and Tina are coming up the first weekend in April to pick up a truck DH found for Jon to put in a demo derby ($50, and it runs, can't beat that). They'll get to see DH's new truck that we picked up tonight (well, it's not new new, but new to us). DH's 1989 F150 4WD is getting close to the 200,000 mile mark and is starting to need more repairs than the truck is worth (it's really rusting out, but still runs good), so we went truck shopping. We found a 2000 F150 4WD, extended cab, towing and off-road package, matching fiberglass topper, 89,000 miles, one-owner for less than $10,777. We had been saving money for an ATV for DH, but transportation to work is more important, so the $4500 was our down payment, and with that, financing the rest was easy. We'll make extra payments on the principal so that we don't have to pay so much interest, and it will get paid off sooner. It's a really nice truck, clean, no damage, not even any nicks or dings in the body (but poor DH, all of his last few cars/trucks have been either red, black, or red and black, and this truck is maroon with gold along the bottom of it. He just can't get away from the red....lol). I got to drive it home, and man, is it ever nice. Was windy as hell coming home and the wind didn't even budge this truck on the road (blew DH in the old one all over the road). Has a cd player in it, and the outside temperature digital readout above the windshield, 2 power outlets, a place for his sunglasses and a garage door remote near the temp readout. Hell, the buttons for the cruise control on the steering wheel even light up at night (my Windstar is newer by 1 year, and doesn't have that). The nicest thing about it, I think, is the 4WD is shift on the fly (you don't have to stop the truck and get out and lock the hubs, just slow down a bit, turn the 4WD knob to 4HI and you're set). You do have to stop and put the truck in neutral to shift into 4LO, but that's not a problem, and it won't shift into 4LO unless you're stopped and in neutral or park (nice safety feature, there). So I think he's going to be really happy with this truck, and I won't mind driving it if I have to (fat as I am, I fit behind the steering wheel with no problems at all). It does sit rather high off the ground (16" rims), but with running boards and oh-shit handles at the top of the door posts, I can haul myself into it with very little trouble (and it's easier to get into than the '89 F150, that one I need a step-stool, 15" rims with 31" tires, no oh-shit handles to help, and the running boards are too high off the ground for arthritic knees do not make for easy entry).
Pictures of the new tops:

The top above is black/white/grey/purple.

The top above is hot pink/purple/black with black lace at the hem.
The colors don't show up very well, I'll see if I can get better ones tomorrow, it's late and I'm tired, had a long day of running errands and test-driving the truck for DH before he decided he wanted it (he had to work).

ETA - If you click on the pics, you'll get a better view of the prints in the tops, but the colors are still off a bit (and the curtains on the door behind the tops are the ones I made).

2 comments:

  1. Sounds like you had a wonderful time with your son and grandson. PRETTY tops! I always have it in my mind that I can't afford Catherine's. I need to get over to the one in my area and check out the sale rack!

    Congrats on the new truck! That seems like a great deal! Enjoy:)

    ReplyDelete
  2. Kat - How neat the stuff is on the clearance racks at Catherine's is depends on the size of the store. I don't check out the clearance racks at the one in St Cloud because it's a small store and usually doesn't have much (not to mention all the racks of clothes are less than 2 feet apart, which makes it difficult to navigate). The store in Mankato is a larger store, the racks are farther apart, and they always have a wider selection of everything, but I don't get to shop there very often since we live about 4 hours away (but it's only a 45 minute drive from my son's house, so I may check them out more often when we're down there visiting). They had a rack of cotton knit tops there that I want to check out the next time we go down that way. They were regularly priced at $16.99, which isn't bad, and should be even better if they ever hit the clearance racks....lol

    ReplyDelete

Comment moderation is enabled. If you're a troll and trying to slander someone or just being generally an asshat, your comment probably won't see the light of day. If you want to have a reasonable, civil discussion, welcome, and feel free to comment.
To the troll at IP: 70.242.65.196 , adsl-70-242-65-196.dsl.stlsmo.swbell.net, your comments will not be published, nor will they be read. They will be automatically deleted. Get a life, sad sack.