Friday, March 20, 2009

Last Post's Boring Update and More

Gorgeous day today - finally. Nice weather after a long crappy spell does wonders for one's outlook on life.

My daughter spent the last few days of her spring break with her grandmother instead of coming home. Sad she didn't stay with us, but her grandma needed to see her, too. Today, Daughter stopped in on her way back to school. We went out to lunch at a local cafe and then wandered around in a store that is going out of business. Daughter is now safely in her own town and headed to her apartment. She had to get back because not only does she have homework to do, the person that was taking care of her cats needs her to take care of his cat over the weekend. Sigh. Yes, I'm okay. Sigh.

White vinegar is a wonderful smell remover. One towel is now fresh smelling and very soft. (I haven't washed the other towel yet.) I'm going to the grocery store after while to stock up on vinegar and Borax. I used to mix Borax with water in the diaper pail to soak the diapers. How could I have forgotten that it is a good odor and stain remover??? (Well, in my defense it was 29 to 30 years ago when I quit using cloth diapers, and Daughter was only diapered in disposables.)

The pickup didn't start. The battery was dead. Imagine that.

Our friends, Joanie and her son Brian, cooked St. Patrick's dinner. We wound up having stew and soda bread instead of corned beef and cabbage, but it was absolutely the best stew I have ever eaten. (Joanie said she couldn't find a decent corned beef, which I certainly believe.) There was supposed to be a huge crowd, but Joanie's dau-in-law and the grands and greatgrands all had the flu. So, there was just Joanie, Brian, an older gentleman that I'd never met, my husband, and me. We ate, visited, and ate some more - such good company and such a good time.

The "good" bookcase that got wet dried out very nicely. There is about 1/4 inch along the bottom of one side that is rough, but if anyone looks that closely... And, if the bookcase is ever set on carpet, it won't show at all. Whew!

DH jump started the pickup, and took it to Lewiston and Clarkston yesterday. J had a job to finish up, so it was a good excuse to go buy a new vacuum cleaner. (I hope it is a good one; I haven't yet taken it out of the box.)

While in "town", I looked for filing cabinets. Staples only had the expensive chintzy kind that bend easily or the really expensive wooden ones in stock. There is only one other office supply place in the Lewiston now, and they don't keep filing cabinets in stock.

Also for several years now, I've wanted one specific kind of storage cabinet. The only place I've seen them, besides in a catalog, is at Shopko. I didn't want to order them and pay shipping (heavy and over-sized = $$$$), and I've been "too cheap" to pay the price Shopko was asking. I've checked on these every time I've gone into the store. You can imagine how surprised I was yesterday when I found that they were on sale for 52% off (!!!), and we had the pickup to haul them! I really only needed two, but bought the 3 that were in stock. Finding things (fabric??) to fill the third cabinet will not be difficult.

Let's see. Bookcases (laminated particle board) were also on sale. Purchased three for J's office at his "other" job (I didn't have to pay for these. Yeah!) and two for my sewing room.

And, since J was along, he got to man-handle the huge sacks of dog food and the heavy buckets of cat litter that Costco sells. Actually, taking him to Costco is not good, because he wants to buy fattening goodies.

Ordering clothing from a catalog is for the birds. Daughter normally wears an 8 petite dress, so that is what I ordered. The dress is huge - at least two sizes too big. She normally wears __ size shoes, wide width, and a half size larger if purchased from Payless. I ordered several pairs of dancing shoes to see which style she liked best and/or fit best. Yep, they are all too long. (One pair is even defective!) But, where in Idaho would one buy ballroom dancing shoes - especially ones in wide width - except out of a catalog? Is there a place in Spokane? (We don't have time to travel anywhere else to try on shoes.) And, why in the world doesn't the catalog state that the dancing shoes run larger than regular dress pumps? The dance world is new to me; I don't know these things. I'm sure other people don't know, either. Every single item I ordered has to be returned, and I get to pay the shipping. Grrr.

It is now 6 PM. Time to fix dinner. Hope everyone has a good weekend.

5 comments:

Adrienne said...

Well - that is certainly more than enough to keep us busy.

Sorry I didn't know about the file cabinet thingy. I'm trying to empty our three drawer, full suspension cabinet and send it to a new home. Do you need another?

And as my hubby goes more and more to his music being completely digital we'll be getting rid (hopefully) of his FOUR oak lateral files.

Usually it's hubby that buys the bad stuff at Costco but yesterday I bought (all by myself) a whole tray of Danish (and loved every last crumb!)

We're having corn beef and cabbage tomorrow. I "heart" cabbage!

I've been using vinegar instead of fabric softener for about 3 or 4 weeks now and love the way everything feels. I have exactly one thing with a bit of static - a nightie of mine, so it's no big deal.

Packrat said...

Adrienne, please let me know when the cabinet is empty. I might need it. I thought of one more place to try before we order new ones - the used furniture store. Thanks for the offer.

I'm going to try the vinegar rinses for a while. I'll have to do it when J isn't home though. He doesn't like the smell of vinegar. (Washed too many windows with it when he was a kid.)

Adrienne said...

Oooops - I think it's a four drawer. Wait - let me go check............
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It's a four drawer. Let me talk to hubby. I'd like to see it gone but we need to review exactly whats in it and where that stuff would go. Two drawers are virtually empty, the bottom is old cr_p of hubbies, and just the top one has home stuff that could be contained in something that doesn't take up one whole end of a closet. I'm thinking a single larger file box on a shelf would suffice. It's not like we're running a multi-million dollar company here....

Adrienne said...

Oh yes, I forgot - the vinegar doesn't have any real odor once it's in the machine (1/4 - 1/3 cup is all you need). And there is no smell after the spin dry.

My towels have never been fluffier and I keep lavender sachets in my linen cabinet and now you can smell the lavender on the sheets instead of the fabric softener. (What an awful sentence that was but it's after midnight so I can be excused - I'm sure you got the drift!)

Another plus - I was having occasional trouble with my washing machine getting mildewy smelling sometimes between washes. After I started using vinegar it quit and it always smells fresh.

Packrat said...

Adrienne - thanks for all the hints!

If you decide for sure that you don't want the filing cabinet, please let me know how much you want for it and we'll come up and get it. (You can email me.)

I went ahead and ordered a new cabinet for the business, anyway. My mom ordered one, too, so it helped distribute the freight costs. I'll use the new for the business, and any older ones for the truck load of genealogy stuff.