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Summer
12:24 p.m. - 2009-08-08


I am having a very busy summer, which is totally odd for me. After all the excitement over doings in WSP's office, things there have calmed down, and we are getting a regular paycheck again, which is, of course, nice and reduces the anxiety level considerably. We are so used to living the frugal existence that we decided to just keep living that way to try and work toward a debt-free lifestyle. We have made major inroads on the college debt already. We must have earned some good kharma because the fridge, car and printer waited until we were back on track to croak. We have replaced the fridge and printer and just got the car back from the shop yesterday. The dealer wanted close to $1,000 for a new radiator, but WSP took the car into the independent shop we use, and got the radiator, a wheel alignment, and a bunch of other stuff done for a little more than half that amount.

I had a small (well, maybe not so small) victory over the new printer. The spouse wanted us to search for a printer that used the same kind of ink the dead one used, and this really restricted the printer we could get and made the search difficult. However, he had a stockpile of ink he had bought for the old printer and didn't want to waste his investment. One day last week, I decided to call several office supply stores and see if they would take back the unopened, unexpired ink for a store credit. One store said they would, and when I rushed over there with the ink, they gave me the really high price they charge for ink in that store ($72 for a double package of color cartridges), and before I knew it, I had a gift card for an amazing amount of money. When the spouse came home, I told him this, and to say he was pleased is an understatement. We decided to reward that store for its generosity by buying the printer from them, so we returned to the store. The spouse found the printer of his dreams, that scans, copies, prints and faxes (not that we know how to do half of that yet). So the store came out ahead in the long run.

We have also had lots of social events this summer, and this month will be a family birthday, an office party, a brunch, and who knows what-all. We went on a drive with the EGs and bought some daylilies, but these have not been planted yet. We were waiting for the spouse to dig up the bed in front of the peach tree out front, and he just finished doing that. It really looks great now, and we just need to set in the lilies.

I am knitting two pairs of socks for Abby and working on the pattern for a shirt for her. She should be here today for a visit so I will get her to try on the muslin made from the pattern I drafted using my computer software. She also wants some skirts and sent me links to some on various websites that she likes. I went to the pattern sales at the fabric store and found patterns almost exactly like the ones she likes, so there is skirtmaking in my future. I also have ordered two new sewing books, a new book by David Page Coffin on sewing pants (love his 'Shirtmaking'), and a book on sewing machine attachments and how to use them. I have never really put all the attachments that go with all my various machines to good use, and I would like to try them all out.

I found 'Cranford' on DVD at the library this week, and I really enjoyed it. I missed it when it was on PBS. It was a lovely story.

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