dianec42

Last Friday was a very busy day. We dropped in on our remodeling place, then spent like an hour at the local tile & flooring store picking stuff out, and - more importantly - pointing and laughing at things that looked like Q*bert.

Then, heaven help us all, we went to Costco. Right before the big snowstorm. Inside was only normal levels of Costco crazy, but the parking lot (West Springfield, MA) was Mad Max levels of insane. That parking lot needs at LEAST one traffic light and probably at least one rotary. Luckily Mr Diane volunteered to drive at that point, otherwise we might still be there trying to turn left.

Bonus: I saw all "8"s out of the corner of my eye and thought the register had tilted. No, that was our total. Ouch. And that was WITHOUT booze or chocolate. Weirdly, wine now costs less than mixed nuts.

Over the last few days: the bathroom contractor came out and measured for tile; I phoned the schmancy fixtures store and placed our order; we changed our minds on the cabinet colour yet again, and ordered the cabinets and countertop; faffed around on the tile a little more, finalized the tile order, and put down the deposit on that. Oh and we picked out a paint colour. IT'S HAPPENING!

Meanwhile it's still colder than a very cold thing. I've learned things about taking the trash bins to the street after a big snow that I really could have gone my whole life without knowing. Oh well, all part of the Vermont experience.

Today we drove down to Oceanside for an astronomy expo. (Well, Stuart drove. It gets us there faster.) We did not win any of the Fabulous Drawing Prizes; I'm a bit relieved we didn't win anything huge. (Our #1 question for telescope vendors today: Will it fit in a Mini?) We didn't even buy anything, for a change.

Once the morning clouds burned off it got sunny and quite warm. The one thing we did bring back was his-n-hers mild sunburns. :-)

All in all, a great day out. I managed to stay fairly religiously low-carb, and did a hell of a lot of walking, both of which can only help.

In other news, Carmageddon seems to have emphatically failed to come to pass. Traffic on our bit of the 405 was the lightest I've ever seen it, and I've seen similar reports from closer to the affected area. Huzzah!

Wow, different Macy's (Macy's's?) do have different selections of stuff. After utterly striking out at the Del Amo one a couple days ago, tonight at the Macy's in South Bay Galleria I found myself thinking "I'd better get to the fitting room before I collapse under the weight of all these dresses to try on!" Dress #2 was perfect. Purple, not so long that I step on it, nor so short that you can see how fat my knees are. Also scored some purple pumps which were on SALE!

There were some less satisfying, but very amusing, moments in dress-trying-on earlier in the evening. "I'm lost! Head towards the light!" and "Dude! I look like an eggplant!" are the only ones that stick in my mind.

I has a new monitor. This one works! Oooooooh. It's HUGE!

Time to install some games. Or maybe dinner. How'd it get to be almost 9:00 already? I'm not even the one playing!

Bah. Age of Conan crashes on my poor old laptop. Oh well, shopping time!

So I went to Jo-Ann's with a list and a plan... to find out that they only carry DMC embroidery threads, not Anchor. Bah! I grumpily prodded the selection of purple and verified that it just won't do. Now to panic... I mean research.

I did however get a piece of 16-count Aida which was exactly the size called for plus one inch in each direction, plus the Light Effects thread I needed. On a whim I headed to the magazine section, where they had ONE COPY LEFT of the January Cross Stitcher (with the giant Art Deco chart). Score!

I also bought a couple of pairs of silly and comfortable shoes to wear as the weather gets warmer, but failed utterly to get an emergency backup pair of jeans. Oh well, time to hit the gym until I fit back into the smaller ones. (I may rant later about capris, but I'm just too tired right now.)

Also, Xump had one 5x5 rubik's cube in the window, but it was the crappy Winning Moves one, which the nice salesgeek agreed was utter rubbish and under no circumstances should I buy it. I assume she was NOT working on commission! (-:

Wow. "3-5 business days"? The dress arrived on my doorstep today!

Yes, I'm sure they pad the shipping estimates. I mean, who's going to complain if something shows up a day early? And it shipped from Riverside, CA. (-:

Needs a hook-and-eye at the waist. Also needs the living @%#^&! ironed out of it. The length is actually okay! It's on the long side but not ridiculously so. Time to start practicing in the high heels o doom...

also: it's this one, in lavender:
http://www.amazon.com/Marilyn-Satin-Halter-Dress-Plus/dp/B000M4XIPS/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=apparel&qid=1196228768&sr=1-1