Pictures Mostly

I covered everything that happened over the last 5 days prior to yesterday and today with my last post and now I have some pictures to add to that post and cover everything that's been going on since then.

Here is a picture of Grace with her face painted like a tiger and holding her balloon dog. This was at the Rolling on the River Ride on Saturday:


Here is a picture of our tent. It doesn't look big in the picture since there isn't anything next to it for scale, but in the main section with the large door right in front of the camera, we easily fit our king size air mattress in there:


Here is how the bike rack and the bikes look on top of the Escape:


Here is a wider shot so you can see a little better how it all looks together:


Here is my free case of Valvoline SynPower 5W20 just like I wanted!


Here is Grace and her friend at the first day of pre-school this year which was Tuesday:


Wednesday, which was yesterday, I had to go to the Chiropractor again and this time my foot wasn't as out of whack like it had been so now I don't have to go in for another 10 days. That was good news; maybe my foot is finally starting to learn. Then Grace had gymnastics at 4 pm up in Antioch which means we need to leave our house at 3:30. We were waiting for our neighbor to come and start working on our tile in the entryway (YEA!) so that we could leave but he didn't get to our house until 4. So we were really late to class.

I left Grace there and came home to watch how our neighbor was doing the prep work for the tiling so that I know how it's done; He was putting in the Durock underlayment.

I've got to get some sleep...I'll finish tomorrow.

Wow, guess it's been a while

Thursday last week we were busy getting ready for our camping trip this last weekend. I got a free t-shirt from Valvoline today! That was a surprise! Can't wait to get the oil and then need an oil change! Here are some pictures...



Here is the container it came in, what looks like their old oil canisters:




I also made myself a t-shirt for my fantasy football team. Here is the shirt I made:



My neighbor was flying home from France that afternoon and we had a pretty major storm come through. I'm sure you're guessing where this is going...Have you heard those stories on the news where entire flights-full of passengers are kept on planes for hours on end and not let off? Yea, that's where this story is going.

He was scheduled to land at O'Hare airport around 3 pm and just prior to that the storm was moving through the area. This was a very strange storm with wind gusts in the 80 mph range and lots of torrential downpours. Just at our house I noticed when I looked out the window that it was blue skies and sunny on one side of the house and these dark black clouds on the other. The clouds obviously overtook the house, but it was just strange to see. So they kept his plane circling a large circle up into the upper peninsula of Michigan a couple of times and then the plane was running out of fuel and had to land. Consider they've just finished a 17 hour flight over the Atlantic Ocean and just want to get off the plane.

During this time, the flight tower at O'Hare was evacuated due to the high winds. So any chance for them to land at O'Hare had been diminished to pretty much nothing. They had a few choices of places to land including Green Bay, but chose Milwaukee for some reason. Keep in mind that Air France doesn't normally land at this airport and they have no terminals or ground crew to help them. After they landed they were third in line to be re-fueled. This alone took over an hour. Shortly after that the air conditioning stopped working in the plane and they couldn't get it to come back on. They tried turning off the engines and restarting them and that didn't help so they called Air France and they said to turn off the engines for 15 minutes I think and then re-start and everything should be alright.

Unfortunately after those 15 minutes, the engines wouldn't restart. Since they have no grounds crew to help them, they waited until the military could come over with some type of contraption to start the engines. This obviously took some time as well. So now they've restarted the engines and everything is working fine and probably O'Hare is re-opened, but the flight deck crew has run out of time for flying. They are only allowed to be behind the stick (as it were) for so many hours and their time is up; they can't fly the plane any more. The flight crew that was going to fly the plane back to France is at O'Hare along with the other 300 passengers that are waiting to go to France.

During all of this, he contacted NBC in Milwaukee and was actually interviewed on air during the 10 o'clock news via his cell phone. Then after they got off the plane CBS interviewed him too. So he got to be famous in Milwaukee for a day!

So now their only real option is to deboard the plane but remember there are no Air France grounds crews here and no terminal or gate to use. Plus this is a small airport that wasn't expecting any international flight arrivals, certainly not a plane this large, and had sent all of their customs workers home. So they had to find a gate to tow the plane to, call all of the customs workers in to work to run all 300 passengers through customs at what is now around 11pm or midnight. So he wasn't ready for me to pick him up until between midnight thirty and 1 am. I picked him up around 1 and got him home just before 2 am. Then he had to drive 5 or 6 hours to get to his work. And then he wasn't going to have much time between then and when his work started, so I don't think he got any sleep for probably close to 40 - 48 hours.

During all of this I was putting the bike carriers on my Escape and getting the bikes up there to see how it all worked. It was so nice! I tell you if you are considering buying a bike carrier and a roof mount is an option and you can afford it, it is so worth every penny! We had rented a trunk mount bike carrier for a trip we took last year and by the time I was done yelling and cursing and finagling everything I didn't even care if I rode my bike. With this Thule roof carrier it is so easy. All I needed was a step stool and I didn't even need any help. I could do it all myself. I didn't yell or curse even one time and I wasn't even tired when I was done. I was actually test driving the car when my neighbor called and said he was going to be ready soon. So I just left the bikes on there because I thought it would be a great test before our trip the next day (next day being relative considering it was after midnight.)

I was driving pretty fast at some points and honestly the wind noise wasn't even that bad. Nothing appeared to move or rock or anything. I was really impressed, it's a very high quality product and I highly recommend it to everyone. I just wish I would have bought the wheel holders that can hold your front wheel on the roof since I got two fork-mount bike carriers for Julie's and my bike.

Friday:
Just that little bit of room being taken up inside the car by those two wheels prevented us from taking the trailer with us so that we could ride a long distance with Grace as she can't go too far on her little bike. If I would have had more time to try and stuff it into the car maybe I could have gotten it in, but we had to get going because we were supposed to be down in Yorkville by 1 pm and as it was we were leaving late plus I needed to stop at the Chiropractor on the way because my foot isn't healing completely like it should.

So we got down there about an hour late Friday and we helped stuff goodie bags for all the ride participants for two or three hours. Then we set up our tent and went out for dinner (at Culvers - surprise!) because we were tired. Then we pretty much just came back to the tent and crashed. We set our travel alarm clock for 5 am for me and 6:45 am for Julie and Grace and went to sleep.

Saturday
All was fine until 3:15 am. RAIN, RAIN, RAIN. It rained, it poured, it did it all until around 6 am. I was supposed to show up to the registration area by 5:30 at the latest, but sitting in that tent with the rain coming down, I just didn't want to get up at all. I was waiting for the rain to stop, but it wasn't stopping so I finally got up and went over there. About the time I came out of the tent the rain stopped and I drove over there.

So I did registration until 10:30 when it ended and Julie and Grace came and helped to around 8 I think until 10:30. Then we pretty much just enjoyed the expo area and relaxed a little. I helped out with various jobs when I was asked to and Grace was really enjoying clown Sally and Ranger Rick whom was there. She got her face painted and kept getting balloon animals that she kept popping.

Since this ride was to benefit Illinois' environment, most of the vendors in the expo area were about or in some way related to the environment. REI was there and they are opening a new store in Schaumburg in November. That was exciting to find out. But what really piqued my interest was a thing called a "rain garden." I had never heard of it before then. It's a pretty cool concept where you select an area in your yard where you can improve the soils drainage and basically form a shallow pond. You then plant native plants that love water and are naturally found in wetlands. We already have a drainage area in the back that I wanted to convert to a dry river bed but the more I think about that, it will probably affect my neighbors because I'm thinking a dry river bed with a downpour will just become a river and more water will be diverted away from our yard into our neighbor's yards. I don't want to disturb the balance we've got going now, I want to improve it. So the more I think about it, a dry river bed is probably not going to work.

So now I'm going to research just how to do this and how much work it is. I looks like a lot of work, but maybe it's something I can do myself or with not too much help and with this, prevent any flooding in my yard and likewise in my basement. Plus like I just said, it should help my neighbors and it would help the actual wetlands in our subdivision because that's where all of this water goes right now.

Oh, one of the vendors was Ford because they were one of the sponsors, and they brought from Michigan...guess what? Yes, a 2008 Escape Hybrid. They should have called, I was there with mine! He wouldn't have had to drive all that way. But seriously, I talked to the guy and he seemed nice. He had noticed my car and it was good to see quite a few people actually looking at his car. I wanted to park mine next to his, but I didn't, nor did I ask. The one he brought was that green color that's in all the advertisements and he said the biggest question he was getting was 'what other colors does it come in?' He kept saying "well there's a blue one over there..."

Sunday morning we got up and basically just broke camp and came home. Then we were unpacking and stuff and then I had my first fantasy football draft. I am really excited! I think I have a great team this year. Only time will tell obviously, but I really like my team. I have another draft this weekend, but it isn't a live draft, each team just ranks the players and the computer does the rest. So I'll be ranking players up to the draft time this weekend to make sure I have everything just right.

Monday/yesterday was a hectic day. I had another chiropractor appointment in the morning. For some reason the bone that's out of place in my foot wants to stay that way. Then Grace had dance class. We tried those "natural" hot dogs and they weren't all that. We won't be having them again, but it was worth a try. They weren't horrible, they just weren't really hot dogs either.

Today was busy too. It was Grace's first day of senior pre-school. She's an old pro at this because she didn't skip a beat going there at all. It was like she had been going all summer long. I rushed home and started mowing the grass because it's really long and it's supposed to rain tomorrow. I wasn't finished yet, but it was time to pick Grace up. After I picked her up and came home, the mail had been delivered and I got my case of oil from Valvoline today! Yea!

I'll add more pictures tomorrow.

Squishy Soil

Alright, I've had enough rain. Please make it stop! Everything is so wet; the ground is squishy when you walk on it, the mulch is saturated and the plants are showing signs of too much water. But the grass is growing like crazy and it looks great!

If you don't believe me that we've had this much rain, check out this picture from my window well in the basement. I was getting our camping stuff out and just happened to notice this little guy just sitting there.



Here is his "vessel" for when I rescued him and took him outside and set him free tonight.



While I was releasing the crawfish, I happened upon this toad just sitting there with not a care in the world.



So anyway, all this rain has us thinking our camping and biking trip won't be too much fun on the camping side of the story. But we'll see; you never know until you actually get there. You have to have a positive attitude or nothing will turn out positive.

We got a phone call from the second online company that we ordered our bike rack from and they said they were mailing it today and that we'd have it on Friday. So I told them to cancel the order and I made a few more phone calls and found a bike shop in Barrington that had pretty much everything we wanted. The only thing that was different was one of the bike carriers was different than what I wanted but it seems nicer than what I wanted anyway so I think I'm happy. We'll know for sure once we get everything on the roof and try it out. I put the crossbars on today before we went out tonight and I noticed while we were driving that it did have some wind noise. They didn't want to sell me the air deflector that goes in front. They said to try it first; but I'm thinking I want it because that sound is annoying and we don't even have the bike carriers or the bikes up there yet.

Today was pretty good overall; we had to deal with the whole bike rack thing but otherwise things went well. Grace slept in again today and then her Aunt called this morning to see if Grace could come to a dance class she was having today at 6pm in the Lake Villa studio. I said that normally we would be in gymnastics on Wednesdays from 4-6pm so it wouldn't work, but today was fine. She said she wasn't sure how many students she'd have in the class this week and that would be great if Grace could come so we went. Then after that we all had dinner and went up to gymnastics to register for that which starts next week.

So Julie got to see Grace do dance today and she should be able to see Grace do gymnastics at least some times since she'll be working hard until 6pm each Wednesday. As long as Julie can avoid enough traffic to make it to Antioch before the class is over; traffic is horrible.

But Fairfield Road is open again. Grace and I went that way today to get to Barrington. They've finished redoing that road and the overpass is almost done for Gilmer Road. Also on Bonner Rd in Wauconda (at Fairfield) they've put in a stoplight. That's been needed for a while but not as badly as at an intersection near our house at Rte 120 and Alleghany Road. That is a deadly intersection if you ask me, but nobody has seemed to care until Grayslake built this sports complex just south of there off of Alleghany Road. Now all of a sudden we need this intersection improved to provide for the increase in traffic that will be going that way once the sports complex is finished. That's a silly reason considering the intersection is wholly inadequate.

Anyone else have GPS in their car? It's so fun to go down new roads that aren't on your map software yet because it looks like you're off-roading. I always say to Grace - look we're not on a road! She thinks it's the funniest thing. A few days ago we went down Fairway Drive in Vernon Hills which goes all the way through to Rte 45 now. That was an "off-road" excursion. Then today we went down the new Cedar Lake Rd in Round Lake and again we were "off-roading." Funny. I guess silly nonsensical things amuse me.

I started getting the tent and other camping equipment out today in preparation for our trip. With the bikes on top of the Escape I'm thinking we'll have plenty of room for all of this stuff in there, but who knows. When we took the Freestyle camping it was pretty loaded and it had more storage room than my new Escape does. I might do a dry run tomorrow just to see how much room all this stuff is going to fill up in there.

Oh today was our milk delivery and when I was changing my order last night so they wouldn't bring stuff we don't need this week I noticed they had hot dogs that had no preservatives, no fillers, no nitrates, etc. I'm thinking WOW, whats left? That's what hot dogs are all about, but I ordered them and figured we'd try them out just to see how they are. Anything with less fillers and useless "stuff" that we don't need is bound to be better, right?

I was reading through some of the installation instructions for our battery backup sump pump system and it's recommending that I purchase a deep-cycle marine battery for the system. But I had read online that marine batteries aren't good for this so I'll have to do more investigating I suppose.

I've got to go as I have to get some sleep.

No Rain!

We actually didn't have any rain today. Can you believe it? I can't. So I took advantage of that fact and got the lawn mowed this evening. I actually was able to mow the lawn before it got super high and needed special attention to be mowed. So that is out of the way and I can rest easy over the weekend when we aren't here that the grass won't grow too much. Ha-ha; watch it grow 6 inches while we're gone.

Grace and I pretty much just hung out at home today. She slept in so we had a late start anyway. We didn't finish breakfast until 11 and then we had lunch at 2:30 or 3 so the whole day was a little off. But we did manage to get over to the village hall and buy some yard waste stickers so they'll take my grass clippings this week. Then we went over to the Fox Lake Menards and bought our new sump pump and battery backup system. It didn't include the battery and I didn't see one sitting there by the backup systems so they are either out or I have to buy it somewhere else. So that's another thing to add to my to-do list. We checked the recessed lights they were selling there and I wasn't too impressed. I'll have to try the Home Depot or Lowe's or an electrical supply company.

After Menards we stopped at the park near our house on the way home. We didn't have much time because Julie was going to be home from work soon. As it turns out she got home about the same time we got to the park so Grace only got to play for 15 minutes. She wasn't so happy about that even though I told her when we got there that we only had 15 minutes. The trials and tribulations of a 4 year old...

So then we came home and I made dinner - quesedillas - and then like I said I mowed the grass. After a shower and a shave I paid our bills and now I'm writing this. Did you hear that the space shuttle landed safely today? I'm so glad nothing bad happened when they re-entered the earth's atmosphere. I really was afraid it had been damaged too much. I know they do this anyway, but they had better check everything out now to make sure it doesn't need further repair besides just the heat shields now that it's been subjected to those extreme temperatures.

Oh the bike trip we're taking this weekend is called "Rolling on the River." It's down in Yorkville, IL which is 55 miles southwest of Chicago. That's 85 miles from here and will take us almost 2 hours to get there. It's a two day event to benefit Illinois' Environment. Since we've been trying to do little steps in helping the environment this sounded like a good thing to do. We'll be camping and helping with registration and hopefully riding in the event too. We're just hoping it doesn't rain the whole time and that our campsite isn't completely full of mud!

I'll talk more about this later - I've got to get to bed.

Have I Mentioned Rain?

On Sunday we went to church and stopped at Panera Bread on the way home. After that we just hung out at home for the rest of the day. The Cubs game was rained out and the Bears didn't play so there certainly wasn't anything to watch on TV. Julie was doing the laundry and I was trying to determine what we needed to buy to put our bicycles on top of my Escape when we go on our bike trip this weekend. It took a long time to finally figure out what we actually needed and then I finally got it ordered which wasn't as easy as it sounds. Some sites I was checking prices at kept emptying my shopping cart. And then some didn't have the parts I needed.

As it turns out the place I did order the parts from didn't have the parts their site said they had since they called today and left a message saying they didn't have them. So I'm going to cancel that order as I placed the order with another website today. And now I have to pay more for shipping as we need it by Thursday. I called around to places around here where I could drive to get these parts and they didn't have them either. The entire reason I ordered them online was because it was cheaper than any place locally even with shipping. So now that I'm increasing my shipping costs, I had to check and see if anyone had them because it might be cheaper just to drive over and get them. But they didn't have the parts either. So I'll just hope that this new company has them and can get them to us in time.

Today was Grace's first day of dance class this year. It was this afternoon from 3-4 pm. I'm not excited about the time but I'm sure when we get our whole routine going it won't be so bad. I'm just wondering if Grace shouldn't be in a more advanced class. There are some girls in there that were in her class last year but there are some new kids that don't appear to have much experience or maybe any experience and Grace is doing really well with just about anything asked of her. I think I'll have to ask her teacher and see what she says. Maybe there isn't a class available for her to take or maybe she's in pre-school or gymnastics during that class.

We went to Menards before her class and were looking to buy a battery backup sump pump system and a new sump pump because they recommend that you buy a new sump pump when you buy and install the battery backup system. Well with all the rain we've been having I guess sump pumps are in high demand as they didn't have hardly ANY sump pumps nor the battery backup system I wanted. They checked in the computer and the Menards in Fox Lake and Gurnee both have the backup system I want so I guess Grace and I will have to check at one of those stores tomorrow.

Speaking of rain, we've had so much! Just yesterday we got about 4 inches. And it's supposed to continue raining for the next 4-5 days. Our sump pump has been working hard and I'm not surprised that sump pumps have been selling well lately. It's just like in the winter when the snow starts to fall people all rush to buy shovels and snow blowers, etc. So then the stores run out if it's a big storm and then lets say your shovel breaks and you need to go and buy a replacement, you're out of luck. It seems to be that way every winter. I suppose it shouldn't be any different during rainy times with sump pumps.

Anyway, it was annoying that they didn't have what I wanted but at least I didn't have to have one because mine was broken. So I'll just continue on my quest tomorrow. We came home after dance class and had dinner and then I went grocery shopping after dinner and just got home not too long ago. So its been a long day and I'm ready for the rain to stop! As a result of all the rain the mosquitoes are horrible. Rosco was waiting to come in and had about 8-10 of them flying around him as he waited. You walk outside and they start attacking no matter what time of day. We just have too much standing water.

If you've been watching the news lately, you might have noticed that Illinois has now gone 20 days without a state budget because they can't agree on the particulars. I don't know how or when they're going to fix this because both sides are trying to pull punches and neither side is giving in. The Governor Rod Blagojevich isn't giving in and has put new bills in front of the legislators that were hundreds of pages long and was expecting them to vote after only an hour or so. This could go on for a very long time.

Have you also noticed that the lady that was holed up in a church here in Chicago for over a year Elvira Arellano to avoid deportation recently left the security of the church and went to Los Angeles to speak at an immigration rally. She was on a nationwide campaign for immigration reform. As soon as she was done speaking, ICE came and arrested her and took her down to the border and handed her over to Mexican Authorities. Wouldn't you think she'd expect this? I don't think I would have left that church until the immigration reforms I was fighting for were in place. Her son was born here and is a US citizen and she didn't want to be deported so that she wouldn't be separated from her son. Of course her son has followed her down into Mexico for now.

Rain is here

Remember we had that really nice day yesterday and that rain was coming for the next several days. Yea, that whole cycle has already begun as it rained on and off for most of the day today. And no end in sight.

We were kind of busy today so I didn't get much done. I pulled the weeds out front and just as I was finishing (and hoping to mow the grass) the rains started. We all had lunch together at Culvers before heading to the grocery store. Pretty much the only things we picked up were things we needed for dinner tonight. I made home-made pizza including the crust. Since deep-dish is my favorite, that's the recipe I found and was trying. The pizza was pretty good (everyone else liked it) but I'll be using a different recipe next time. Plus we tried using fresh mozzarella cheese. Never experiment with two unknowns at the same time - especially with company coming over. It tasted fine, but didn't cook up very well because it has a much higher moisture content.

But it was nice to have pizza at home since Julie doesn't really like it. After I made the crust and it was just rising I ran over to Office Max and tried to get my money back for the web cam. Yea, it was easy, they did it with no problems at all. Got back nearly thirty dollars. It was definitely worth the trip. Glad I noticed it in their flier this week.

While I was out I also mailed a package to our Aunt in Nebraska; basically just a CD with some pictures on it. After our company arrived I threw the pizza together and tossed it in the oven. I was disappointed because it didn't taste the way I wanted it too, but it was pretty good I guess, just not was I was looking forward to. We didn't have any left-overs, so that's a good sign.

Then for dessert we had make your own sundaes with a new flavor: double vanilla. Guess that's new because I've never heard of it. It was really good! Really hit the spot.

Tomorrow we don't know what we're doing yet. Hopefully I can tie up a few loose ends around the house. Just wish it wouldn't rain so I could do a few things outside too.

I'm very tired, so I'll go for now.

A Nice Day

Finally we had a really nice day weather-wise today. Amazing! I was starting to wonder if we'd just jump right into fall or winter suddenly like we have in some years past. One day it's in the 80's or 90's and then all the sudden it's in the 60's. That's a big shock. But today was really nice - mid 70's for most of the day and a nice breeze and mild humidity! YEA! Now it's supposed to rain for the next several days.

If you remember from a few days ago a friend of mine invited us to go with them to Great America today and my foot was feeling good enough that Grace and I went. Like I just said, what a nice day! We went with two of Grace's friends from dance class and one of them is also in her pre-school class plus her sister and their Mom's. So there were seven of us and unfortunately for the friends sister she didn't have anyone her age with so that she could ride the rides she wanted to, she had to do what the 4 year olds were doing and she was bored out of her mind.



But the other girls and us parents had a good time. At the Wiggles World area they had the music cranked so loud we had to yell at each other to hear anything. And the Spy Girls Adventure Show was closed today. But we got to see the 3-D movie called Marvin the Martian. I think the girls really enjoyed that. It was pretty cool. They kept wanting to ride the rides in the Wiggles area over and over and then it was pretty much time to go so there was disappointment over not being able to ride any roller coasters but they all had a really good time (except the older one.)

After that we came home and it was too late to start dinner so we took care of the cat next door after letting Rosco out. Then we went to check on the other neighbor's cat because they were leaving on vacation today and hadn't heard from the person that was going to cat-sit for them. But alas, the cat wasn't there so we don't need to worry about her. They had come this afternoon and picked her up. I call this cat-sitter "the spa" because they just love this cat and treat it so well when it's at their house. It's kind of funny. But she is a really nice cat.

So we ended up buying Gyro sandwiches for dinner tonight. They were pretty good but I'm not sure if anyone really liked them a lot because nobody commented on them - good or bad. I won't say where they are from unless I hear that they liked them. We really like the restaurant we got them from but have never tried their Gyro's.

We saw most of High School Musical 2 tonight on the Disney Channel. I recorded it at home assuming that we weren't going to be able to watch it. I was partially right because we were so late bringing dinner over that the movie had already started before we got there. But Julie's "hip" parents had it on when we got there. So Grace disappeared as soon as we got there and we found out why as soon as we got to the living room. Grace has been so excited about the movie coming out and she's been listening to the soundtrack every chance she gets. I think she liked the movie, but I can't ask her now as she's sleeping at this time of night.

I thought it was a pretty good movie, what I saw of it at least. I didn't see much of it to be honest; I guess I only really saw about half of it. I suppose I should hold back on my judgment until after I've seen the whole thing. I was wondering and so was one of Grace's friends' Mom today about our friends that moved to Zimbabwe. We aren't sure if they get the Disney Channel out that way and their two girls are REALLY into High School Musical. If you read this Lauren and need a DVD, just let me know. It's all ready to mail as I recorded it straight to DVD tonight.

My foot as I said above was feeling better today. When I woke up it felt really good but as the day progressed (and I walked more) it was hurting quite a bit today. I think I'm being payed back for how I treated my foot yesterday. It felt good yesterday so I kind of resumed my normal activity. And then today I did quite a bit of walking all around Great America; plus a lot of standing too. I really should take it easy more, but it's hard to just sit around. I don't want to just sit there and wait.

I got the approval today to be part of a Bears Super Fan Blog Team. I guess they did this last year and it was successful so they're doing it again. Sounds like it's right up my alley. I'll let you know more details when I find them out.

So tomorrow I'm going to try and get Office Max to give me a partial refund for the web cam I purchased last week. If you remember last Friday Grace and I went in with our 15% off bag and filled it up with stuff including the web cam. Then we get the newspaper on Sunday and it shows the exact same web cam being on sale for 50% off. That's quite a big difference. So I'm going to first try to get them to refund the difference which is like $25 or if I have to I'll just return the one I bought and buy it at the new discount price. Either way, I'm not paying more than 50% of it's original price since that's what it's on sale for right now.

Julie is having a Stampin' Up class tomorrow morning and then we're having friends over for dinner. We have some cleaning to do and I have to get to the store and buy the ingredients to make dinner. So I'd better get going.