06/15/2012

1.  Friday!  Also the last day of school!  It was kind of a let-down of a last day, because I was preoccupied for most of the day with taking care of other stuff. 
I had to call a bunch of Lowes stores to find one that carried the dishwasher we want.  This really had to be done because we can't turn the water on in the kitchen sink until the dishwasher is installed! 
Then I had to call around and find a garage door repairman.  Oh yeah-- yesterday amidst all the hubbub, Ben accidentally backed out of the garage with the back door of the van open.  It hit the garage door and knocked it off it's track, and disconnected the spring.  Ben worked on it for about an hour last night, but decided to give up when he started getting scared about losing fingers (the spring on the garage door is at an incredibly high tension). 
Then I called a painter that came out a couple of years ago to give us an estimate on removing the awful wallpaper in our bathrooms and repainting, to ask him to come back and give us another estimate because Ben is sick and tired of the bathroom wallpaper being halfway torn up (which happened when we naively thought we could remove the wallpaper ourselves-- HA!  Not when the original builders applied it directly onto the sheetrock!  WHY would they do that??  What a mess!).  We never had the work done a couple of years ago because we couldn't decide which one to go with, so we just didn't do it at all.  :-) 
Then I called around to find a handyman because Ben is just no way going to have time to install all the sinks. 
Then I took pictures of our refrigerator and range to post on Craigslist. 
Then I got sucked into searching for stainless refrigerators on Craigslist.  Buying new is so expensive!  Things on Craigslist are so cheap!  And so my supervising of the boys' last day of lessons was not so stellar.  I don't think they minded, though.  :-)

2.  I really hate making big purchasing decisions.  I get paralyzed when there are too many options, and no clear best-choice.  After spending WAY too much time online looking at refrigerators on Craigslist, and then searching for reviews for the various models I found listed, I narrowed down the field to 3 options.  The new refrigerator we liked at Lowes, and two others available on Craigslist. 
Ben and I went to one guy's house to see the refrigerator he was selling, only to find that he had JUST sold it right before we got there.  Darn it, I probably would have bought that one.  Then the next one we went to go look at, also used, was a great refrigerator, but not stainless steel.  It was a metallic silver color, but definitely not stainless steel.  So there go 2 of my 3 options, leaving "buying new."  But I'm just not sure I can actually do it!  I think I'll spend another day or two looking for used refrigerators.  Ben thinks we should just buy new.  Maybe we should, I don't know.

3.  The boys went with Ben and I to see the second refrigerator, which was in this cool house down off of Volente down by the lake.  The guy who showed us the refrigerator was sort of the caretaker-- an interesting but sad and lonely guy who told us about his mother who committed suicide 2 years ago yesterday, and didn't seem to want us to leave.  There are lots of lonely people in the world and I felt humbled to take notice of how fortunate I am to have my family. 
Anyway, afterward we drove around and looked at some lots available down by the lake.  Ben harbors some fantasies of building a house on the lake.  It is such a beautiful area, but so expensive (although I'm sure Ben is right that houses in that area don't lose their value too much), and really not the kind of setting I want the boys to grow up in.  Living among millionaires in their super-fancy houses on the lake (even though ours would not be super-fancy) is NOT real life.  While Ben and Brigham and Joseph were out looking around, Joseph caught a big toad, and had to take it home with us.  :-)
Then, we drove up to a Lowes in Leander to pick up the dishwasher I finally was able to locate (a display model-- the ONLY one available in all of the Austin metro area).  A trip to Lowes is a fun family outing. 
When we got home (entirely too late), Joseph suddenly realized he couldn't find the toad!  He scoured the car, throwing away trash and clearing out a bunch of stuff the boys had left in the car.  My sweet Joseph was very worried about the toad.  Finally I told him we'd leave the car door open, and the garage door open a crack, and I was sure it would hop out of the car and be just fine.  His shoulders drooped, but he went inside.  Then, just as I was getting out of the car, I saw it!  It had been hiding under my seat.  I captured it, yelled to Joseph, who got a big smile on his face and took it inside.  Now it is sitting happily in a bowl of water in a big metal tub in the middle of the playroom.  :-)