lucyismycat

Sounds like this is the year for "experience" gifts - museum/zoo memberships, water park passes and long weekend trips for the kiddos. They are mostly past the ages of wanting toys, thankfully. I am not-very-patiently waiting for the new MacBook Pros to be announced, and I'm guessing this is going to affect the delivery timeline for those. Rats. My 10 year old really wants my current one; he may be waiting right alongside me. lol

Happy August! This month brings DH's birthday, our state fair, back to school for the boys, hockey tryouts and (usually) our hottest temps of the year. However, today we woke up to 66F and no real scorchers in the near forecast. I'll take an early (false) fall!

Happy July! We have had nothing but rain for a couple of weeks, and we are all just done with it. Soccer is miserable, BMX racing has been canceled for a while now; at least hockey is inside, so not much changes there. This is the month that brings our second Christmas, so I'll start getting ready for that soon. The boys have decided that they don't use their toy room upstairs much anymore, so I can "have" it as a home office. They've been going through toys and books (soooo many books!), and we are trying to find an organization that could use them. We have loaded up all of the little free libraries around us already, but I refuse to send any books to the landfill, so we are checking with the public libraries to see if they can use anything. We are going to leave one bookcase in that room for them to store their favorites. I'm looking forward to being out of my sewing room as an office! They say this is my Christmas in July present LOL

Len, I believe you won for sure! I ended up grabbing a couple of packs of lightning chargers, which I should really just turn into a subscription at the rate we go through them. Everyone in our family as at least 2 Apple devices, and some of us have more. And it seems like everywhere we travel, we leave one behind. I also grabbed a butter crock! I have wanted one for a while, and kept telling myself I'd wait until Prime days to order it. It came last week and we've been using it with fresh bread that I bake every other day. So far, so good! Total spent was 33.12.

Happy June! Our weather has been pretty chilly for the last week. I am ready for summer and the water park! Low temps didn't stop us from opening days this weekend but I didn't get in the water at all the first day. Our boys are finished with school for the year, summer camp starts next week. DH and I are still working from home, but I am planning to start going in one or two days a week sometime in the next month. One son wants to go to camp on the other end of town, so that's a 40 minute round trip every morning and afternoon - I'm trying to convince him to try a new camp that's right behind our house. :-/ Otherwise I may end up working in the office this summer (close to camp) and WFH when they go back to school in the fall. Roll on, summer!

Kind of can't believe it's already May. Allergies abound! Both boys were home from school last week with allergy symptoms but are back to school today! April brought the end of spring hockey season and the beginning of soccer season for one kid. The other one told me last night he wants to be a 4 sport kid (hockey, lacrosse, football and BMX) but we'll see how long that lasts. He was invited to join a AA hockey team for the summer and they just started practicing this weekend. May is bringing: summer vacation planning, annual vet checkup for the dog, spring cleaning, yard cleanup (never-ending), lots of fishing, pool opening, still working from home full-time. Today is bringing: lots and lots of rain. My poor lawnmower will need a hay-bailing attachment before it's all said and done!

Happy April! We just got back from a little spring break trip to the Alabama gulf coast. The beaches were beautiful and the boys and my mom had a great time. The drives there and back were horrid, and it’s not a trip I want to make again. Brake failure on the interstate on the way down after I just got new brakes last week - mechanic put the brake cable against the wheel and it rubbed a hole in the cable, resulting in all brake fluid leaking out. Of course, I don’t use my brakes on the interstate unless I REALLY need them and it was a near catastrophe when I tried them and the pedal went to the floor. We survived and I will be presenting that bill to the mechanic to reimburse me next week. Terrible traffic on the way back, and my mama kept asking me to stop so she could shop. What should have been a 12 hour trip turned into two full days. The next time I want to go to a beach, I will get there via airplane! Happy spring!

Happy March! February brought the tail end of our youngest's fall hockey season. DS10 has his last tournament for "fall" this coming weekend. Tryouts for spring hockey are next week lol - no break. February also brought us an Oculus Quest 2, and this thing has been the hero we've needed all throughout quarantine. I wish I'd known how much fun it would be, and I would have gotten it last year when they came out. DH and I are both still working from home. Boys are still doing hybrid school (half days, 4 days a week). Our school board has voted to go back full-time in the fall, but nobody knows what kinds of restrictions they'll have (masks, I am presuming). This year (like all the rest) is flying by already!

Happy February! We are still playing hockey out of state, but at least our state allows us to practice now, so I don't have to drive 2 hours (each way) for that. A couple more big tournaments and this weird, crazy season will come to an end. Waiting for a call to schedule my 2nd vaccine and then hopefully I can start going back to the office a day or 3 a week. I've enjoyed working from home some, but I really miss my coworkers and employees. (and I'm REALLY fed up with audio lag on Webex LOL)

List of Macy's stores closing this spring. I have NO idea how ours is not on this list. There's very little merchandise in the store, and even fewer customers. Our Bed Bath and Beyond store also missed the chopping block. I haven't been in that store in a really long time, so I'm not sure what their product/customer look is. https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/shopping/2021/01/06/macys-store-closings-2021-list-liquidation/6555338002/

I'm probably in the minority, but I'm hoping the Thanksgiving night sales come back. I didn't do any BF shopping this year because I was traveling with my son to a sports tournament - we left Friday morning. I didn't make time to track down any online sales, and I didn't really get into the sales weeks prior to BF. I felt they were confusing (will item X be offered online or in store only, or both?) and not very good deals in a lot of instances. I think 2020 was just a bust for me in regards to BF shopping. Hopefully 2021 is a little more "normal". I did see where Macys is closing another 45 stores this year. My mom and I can't believe that the one in our local mall is still open. We have done our best to keep them in business, but they have huge gaps of open space where there is no product whatsoever in the store. I suspect ours is on the chopping block. This makes me wonder what other big stores aren't going to be around for BF 2021.

Happy new year! We let the boys stay up as late as they wanted, one made it to 9:15 or so and the other almost 10. I tucked myself in to my sewing room until midnight and then went to sleep to the sound of fireworks set off by neighbors. Woke up to freezing rain this morning. DS9 has a goalie camp tomorrow and Sunday that requires a hotel stay, so I’ll spend most of my day today packing up for that and taking down indoor Christmas decorations. DH got the outside ones yesterday. Back to work on Monday after being off since the 23rd. I’ll have to take some time this weekend to go through emails so it’s not so overwhelming. We are still trying to find another dog to add to our household (rescue), here’s to hoping 2021 has a new furry friend for us!

I am mostly done shopping - I need some more gift cards that I will hopefully pick up today at lunch and get in the mail. If those are late, it's not a big deal. I need to also get stamps while I'm out so I can mail out Christmas cards. They are a little late this year, but at least they are going out. We do photo cards or I just probably wouldn't bother at this point. lol I am waiting on one gift to arrive via USPS, I have no idea where it even is. DH's trail cams are arriving today (thank you, Amazon), and that's pretty much it. I have everything else wrapped and under the tree. I have baked cookies off and on, and a ton of bread that DS9 keeps eating. I've given up on having treats to give away; at this point I hope I have cookies left for Santa. He might get beer and pizza this year. I have not even started shopping for Christmas dinner food. I will hopefully squeeze that in on Wednesday. I don't even know what we are going to eat - no menu plan whatsoever yet. I will see what's left - could be interesting lol

We normally host a large Christmas lunch party for both my family and DH's on Christmas day. That has been canceled for this year - we may try to do something later, but for now I'm planning to drop off gifts and some of their favorite holiday foods. My DMIL/FIL are in their late 80s/early 90s, so we are doing as much as we can to protect them. Our church is doing a "drive-in" carol singalong on Christmas Eve, which sounds like a lot of fun. We have out-of-state hockey again this weekend and I think we will find a fancy light display to drive through Saturday night. Definitely different, but it doesn't have to be ALL different-bad.

I went to one of our local Walmarts last night for the first time in a few weeks. They still had the $25 sheets and the nutcrackers, I didn't look for anything else, but the aisles were jammed with so much stuff I had a hard time even finding the regular stuff i went there for. I did exactly zero BF shopping this year, so it was weird to still see stuff available, especially in one of our busier stores.

Happy December! Let's get this year over with and hope for better things next year!

I work in healthcare IT (university based); we are off Thursday and Friday and took off Monday for good measure. DS9 has a hockey tournament 4 hours away from home next weekend, so I’ll need another day to recuperate from that lol. I’d take off on Wednesday too, but my 2 right hand people have it off already and I don’t want to leave anyone short handed.

My mom hit one of our local Walmarts to get the Scoob movie for the boys. She said she didn’t see any 3.96 movies, but they did have a couple of boxes of the ones that were 7.96, so that’s what we got. She said it didn’t seem like a big selection, but the store was jam-packed with people. I thought we were supposed to avoid that this year. Our governor is going to shut us down again for sure if we don’t get any better at this.

Well, I am going to see if my mom can make a Walmart run this morning for that stupid Scoob movie. We are quarantined until my youngest DS gets his Covid test results. That is the only gift I had on my list for this event. Wish I could do a pickup for it.

Yes! Ready for another year, hopefully a better one than 2020 has been.

PS5 will be delivered tomorrow. Naturally...boys are home from school on Fridays (and actually quarantined until the youngest gets covid results). How to distract them while I deal with FedEx...lol

This one is kinda meh. I usually pick up new iPads for someone in the family at their thanksgiving day sale. Those adidas hoodies look alright for 50% off but I can’t see much else here that I need. Bummer.

I am still waiting for the Meijer ad, with some kind of desperate hope that they will have something I can't live without LOL

Spoke too soon - Fedex says it's out for delivery. Walmart.com still says expected by end of day 11/12. Now to prepare the hiding place!

Xbox preorder is being delivered tomorrow, while the boys are out of school for Veterans Day. Fingers are crossed that it's in some kind of unmarked cardboard box. First world problems, for sure