'Twas a Busy Day

Although I was going pretty much nonstop yesterday, I didn't seem frazzled or rushed at all. I guess that means that everything fell into place well.

After I got up yesterday morning and had my usual coffee time, I hopped in the truck and jetted out to Tacoma to look at a freezer for sale for $50 on Craigslist. It was a beautiful dry, sunny morning. We had prearranged that I would get there at 9am, but evidently she wasn't quite on track because she answered the door in a towel (which is always a good thing!) She's selling things she owns to bail her boyfriend out of jail, which in most people's opinion (mine included) is a no-win situation. But hey, love is blind, right? Anyway, the freezer hasn't been used much recently, and has spent it's life on a covered back porch. It was pretty dirty, but in basically sound condition and still had both of its baskets inside. When I talked to her the night before on the phone, I had her plug it in so it would be cold the next morning when I picked it up, which it was. In retrospect, I probably should have brought a thermometer with me just to see how cold it really was, but it was freezing as a freezer should be at least. It's only a 5.0 cubic foot model chest freezer, which is just about 3 feet tall and 2 feet square. That's just the right size for my needs and doesn't take up much room. My little above-fridge freezer just doesn't cut it for me. I like buying things on sale, and it's hard to even fit a couple extra pieces of meat in there, let alone more bulky things like loaves of bread.

The place I picked it up from was right near the Goodwill store in Tacoma, so I stopped in and wandered for a while, eventually buying nothing. Across the street was a Ross Dress for Less store, so I stopped in there and bought myself a comforter. It's just your basic white comforter, and unless you buy expensive, this one is like most: 95% feathers and 5% down. Still, it was only 30 bucks and is pretty well made.

I also made a stop at Costco on the way home to buy printer cartridges for my printer. I may not have made the best decision on that though. I thought about it long and hard, and decided to gamble though. The problem is that it's not that great of a printer to begin with, and add to that you never know how long they're going to last you anyway. Mine uses separate cartridges for each color, and they are $13 for each color (3 of them) and $25 for each black one. Costco price was for double packs: $33 for two blacks and $53 for 2 sets of colored ones. All in all it was a spendy thing, but over time (assuming I don't smoke the printer) I saved $42. Sometimes it's painful to buy "long" on an item, but it makes the most sense. Oh, I also bought a giant Costco sized bag of Hoody's peanuts as a treat to me.

After I went home and unloaded the freezer (it is light, so I did it easily myself) I had to move a few things out of the way in the garage so I could roll it (yes, it's on wheels) towards the back where it will live it's life. After I did that, I opted to cut up a whole bunch of 2x4's that Teresa had given me a few weeks back as firewood. When that was finished that and I cleaned up my mess, I eyed the Harley sitting out in the cold sun. It eyed me back. Then it winked at me. I wasted no time downing the rest of my beer and getting my leathers on, and away I went. It was actually a really nice winter day for riding--Not too cold. It was nearing the end of the afternoon though, so I didn't ride too long. I did make one stop at Lowe's for some hardware though. I got a nice smile from a lady shopper in there too, who evidently doesn't see too many men walking around in there wearing leather chaps and such. I ended up buying a bunch of little things I need--One of which was the ends I needed to make a custom-length extension cord to power the freezer with.

After I went home and got a good fire going, I got hungry. I suddenly had a desire for Skipper's fish for some reason. I called Sarah's house to see if she wanted to go, but nobody answered, so I sent her a text message. After about an hour and a half went by, I decided to just go, so I stoked the fire and left, opting to walk the three blocks to Skippers. I just sat down and started eating and the phone rang. It was Sarah and I told her that I just sat down and if she could get her mom to bring her down I'd buy her dinner. After a couple minutes the phone rings again. "Are you still there? Oh, did you walk down?" She was calling me from Teresa's car in the parking lot, obviously wondering why my car wasn't there. She came in and we had a good (well... Okay, mediocre) dinner and walked back to my nice warm house. We finished up by watching Date Movie. It's a pretty good spoof and we laughed a few times.

And here it is... Sunday morning. By the way, the comforter works great! I took out the acrylic cheapo crappy one I had on the bed under the top blanket and put the new one in so I could actually compare, and I'm impressed with the difference. It was money well spent.

Now, back to the coffee...