Some photos from my mom's house

I went to my mom's house yesterday with the kiddo. I meant to post these photos yesterday, but you know how sometimes life gets in the way of the best-laid plans...

As a bit of introduction, if I haven't mentioned it before, my parents run a fruit and vegetable stand in their front yard, and during the spring they also sell plants and flowers. While we were there, they got a fresh shipment of flowers and I (as always) had my camera, so here they are...the obligatory springtime flower photos.

I'll apologise in advance...I'm not a gardener and I don't know the names of all the plants and I was too lazy to check.

Red flower




The interior of a pink trumpet flower




Pink and purple hydrangeas




Ferns




Yellow flowers




A pink flower




Enzo the lion in the fern jungle




Potatoes for sale




The watertower next to mom's house




Whisky barrel planter




Interior of the gazebo roof



And that was my day yesterday.

A load off my chest

I finally did it. I went to my mom's house and told her. Everything. Moving at the end of the year. Another baby on the way. Showed her the ultrasound.

Her reaction wasn't as bad as I was anticipating. I think that's almost always the case. You build something up for so long that you're just dreading it, and then you find yourself sitting on your mom's sofa talking about her new carpet and it just spills out. I did get the question that I was anticipating: "Can you afford this?" but I got one that I wasn't so prepared for: "Was this planned?" Where did that come from? Does it really matter?

Oh well, the thing I've been dreading for months is done and out in the open. It wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. It remains to be seen if I get family meeting #2 called on me. Even if they try that again, I'm not going. I'm an adult and completely capable of making my own decisions. I have a husband and a son (and baby 2 on the way) and I don't need my parents and sister to try to scare me from my path. They were wrong the first time (does my child look non-white?) and they'll be wrong again unless they're planning to support me in any way they can.

Hot Dog Flower

I talked about this some time ago and promised a photo for Katrina.

I finally photographed the elusive hot dog flower.

Enjoy!

I can't seem to win

My rash is going away. Score one for Carrie. However, for the last 3 days, I haven't been feeling well.

I'm not sure if it's just allergies because of everything blooming around here or if I'm actually sick. Either way, there's not a whole lot I can do. I have saline nose drops and I can take Benadryl sparingly. I felt a little warm yesterday, but my temperature was only 99F. No actual fever, just a little higher than usual. I hate to go to the doctor and pay the money only to be told that there's nothing that can be done.

This brings me to one of my pet peeves: people who go to the doctor and practically demand antibiotics. My mother is one of these people. She thinks that if she goes to the doctor for some type of illness, she needs antibiotics. She even did that with me when I was younger. There are some things that antibiotics will not help. I've tried to explain this to her, that if the doctor prescribes antibiotics because she wants him/her to, the doctor is doing her no favours and is contributing to the trend of antibiotic-resistant bacteria. Blah.

I've been thinking about what I want to do with the rest of my life, career-wise. If I remain in my current field, telecommunication, I would like to either get a supervisory position or an analyst position. But what I really want to do is go back to school -- med school in particular. I entered college 10 years ago with the intent of becoming a MD. Things got a little off track, and I've been telling myself that I would continue my education once Enzo started school. But that's 2 years off, and now I have another little one on the way and am moving to a country where even if I wanted to attend school, my fluency in the language (at least at the moment) would not allow it. I'm sure everything will work out in the end.

Ugh...ants

I'm still having the ant issue here, and I have been since I moved in back in November 2001. Is 3.5 years a long time to suffer with ant problems? Especially since our apartment management says it is not their problem, that I must have brought the ants with me when I moved in. It's funny that I brought them with me, considering I didn't have an ant problem at the apartment I moved from. Here, it seems like they're everywhere.

I have found ants on my end tables in the living room, on my computer desk, on the dining room table, on the counters in the kitchen, on the stove, in the kitchen sink, in the dishwasher, in the pantry, in both bathrooms, and even a couple in my bed. There's no way I could have brought all that with me. No freaking way.

I have developed a hatred for ants during the last few years. I see them and kill them either by a discreet finger smush or by drowning them. Enzo knows what ants are but doesn't know other insect names.

Poor kid...he eats Pop Tarts for breakfast and can only eat one of the two in the package at a time. We put the other back in the pantry for later. He asked for a Pop Tart and I handed it to him without inspecting it. He brought it back to me saying there were ants on it.

My one request for an apartment in Buenos Aires: I don't want to share my dwelling with any small neighbours. No ants allowed.

Awkward

That's me right now. My belly is expanding at an alarming rate. Well, alarming to me, anyway.

I'm at the odd stage of pregnancy. Pregnant enough to be bigger, but not big enough to be obviously pregnant. I look like I'm going home and hooking up to the IV of Haagen-Dazs. I'm at the "not-big-enough-for-maternity-clothes-but-too-big-for-regular-clothes" stage. And this sucks. So...I dug out some of my maternity clothes from last time -- just the shirts for now -- and have been pairing them with my regular pants, worn super-low on my hips...below the hip bones. If my shirt weren't huge and billowing it would be bordering on indecent. But it's the only way to be comfortable.

I'm not so excited about going through the worst of the summer while at my largest. Thank goodness our apartment is air-conditioned and has a pool. Score two for Carrie. Knowing my luck, we'll have one of the hottest summers on record. Note to self: must get cute maternity swimsuit. Does such a thing exist? Maybe I'll just get a bikini and scare the hell out of my neighbours. Heh.

And for the record, I still think it's hilarious that I may have a chance to give birth on Labour Day.

The book is in the mail

The first 4 chapters of my husband's book along with a great cover letter were mailed today. According to the agent who requested these items, we should allow 2 months for a response. So sometime in mid-May, we should know whether she likes it and thinks it might sell, or whether she thinks my husband has no talent. Let's keep our fingers crossed.

If by some miracle we can sell this book before we move, that would definitely help the financial situation. A big advance...hell, even a modest advance...okay, well any advance would be nice.

Overwhelmed

It's finally caught up with me. The feeling that I'll never get everything done in time.

Julian has been feeling stressed out for a while and now I've got it -- the "Oh My God, What Am I Doing?!" syndrome.

It's the middle of March. I'm planning an international move that's going to happen in about 8 months, and in the midst of all this I'm pregnant and will give birth to a second child. At the moment I'm sitting in an 1100 square foot apartment that is packed with stuff. My stuff, Julian's stuff, Enzo's stuff. I need to sort through all this stuff and figure out what we're keeping and what we're selling. I don't even know where to begin, and what specifically to take with us and what not to take. Of the things we're selling, I need to decide when to sell it. I don't want to start selling major furniture off too early, but I don't want to wait too long either.

And on top of this, my husband made the suggestion yesterday that maybe he should go a couple of weeks early to find us an apartment and start getting settled. If it were just going to be me and Enzo, I might say yes. If it were just the two of us, it wouldn't be an issue. I'm just thinking of spending 2 or 3 weeks here with a 2 month old baby and a 3.5 year old trying to get all the last minute chores taken care of, including getting the apartment cleaned and ready for us to move out, which will include repainting. If I survive that, then I have an overnight flight with the 2 kids with no help. Will I have slept at all? Probably not. Will I get mobbed at the airport by Julian's family and friends? Probably yes. Will I have smuggled a weapon on the plane to take care of things? Definitely.

Am I selfish for not wanting to have to spend these weeks alone with the children? I'm remembering the time when I was at home on maternity leave with Enzo. I was barely able to take a shower on most days, and that was a matter of impeccable timing, so that he would fall asleep in his little carrier and I would drag it to the door of the bathroom. Then Julian would get home and I would cook dinner and just relish the times when Enzo would cry and I had someone else to relieve me so I could relax a bit. I'm just thinking that if I'm here alone, I'm never going to get relief. My relief would be Enzo. I don't think that's such a good idea.

I also remember having a pretty bad case of post-partum depression. I was medicated because of having horrible feelings about my own child.

I think for those reasons it's best that I'm not left alone with the kids.

Blogrolling appears to be down...

Again.

I really enjoy Blogrolling. I think it's a great service, but it's frustrating that it's down. So if you notice the site loading a little slow tonight, that seems to be the culprit. I suppose I shouldn't complain too much about downtime of a free service.

From the Blogrolling.com archives:

Site and system was down.

by Dan at 11:07AM (EST) on March 10, 2005

For those of you having problems with your sites this morning please be aware that blogrolling was experiencing an extremely high load. The problem seems to fixed for now, however, we will continue to look into the problem as the current solution is only temporary.

We thank you for your patience.

Sincerely,

The Blogrolling Team

Edit: It's back up now. Yay!

Why does Europe seem to like this guy so much?

I'm speaking of David Hasselhoff, of course. The Knight Rider guy. The Baywatch guy. International recording superstar?

This is another one courtesy of Egocrata. I'm going to have to make Julian stop reading that blog, since it seems to be the source of all evil. Well, maybe not the source...just the purveyor.

And I proudly present to you in video format:



I just wish I had a link for the video of this:

Oh my...you've GOT to see this

Okay, this was brought to my attention by my husband. It's on the blog of his friend, who we'll call Egocrata.

It's a band (I guess they qualify as a band) called Hurra Torpedo. From what I can tell from the web site, they're from Norway. Man, what is it with Scandinavians? We're all weird.



Their thing is that they apparently use old kitchen appliances for percussion instruments. Strange.

I did it...got my horrible photo

So I went out today and I had my photo taken for my passport photo. It's pretty bad, but it was the third take and I felt bad for the poor guy at the camera shop. More on that to come.

So here I am in all my passport-photo glory. Just remember...I warned you.



My mouth is kinda funny looking because I think I was in the middle of yelling at my kid to leave something alone. Note to self...WHY did I bring Enzo along on this adventure?

I look like this should be on a most-wanted poster somewhere. Last seen: Party City, Little Rock, Arkansas. Armed with birthday party supplies. Consider dangerous.

Whilst I was at the camera shop, I had to have a look around. I know that I really don't need a new camera and that we really can't afford one right now, but I've got a baaaad case of the "I wants"...and all I want is a new camera.

So I got to hold and test out the Nikon D70.



I think at this point I was in such ecstasy that I heard choirs of angels singing and the camera really did have that strange otherworldly glow as pictured in their brochure above.

Oh. My. God. I am in love with a camera. And as you can see from the oh-so-helpful sales person's handwriting, right now they have the body and a lens combination with a $200 rebate so it would only be $1100. And then I'd have to buy a memory card to be able to use the thing, since that's not included. I told Julian when I picked him up about holding the camera and how substantial it felt in my hand. I also mentioned that since we're moving that now would be the time to buy so we don't have have to pay customs fees, since we won't be back to the US for a long time, if ever. He was not convinced. Frankly, I wasn't either. Paying over $1100 for a camera, regardless of how much of a religious experience it causes, is a lot of money. Especially for someone who's preparing for 2 major life changes in the coming months: a move to another country and another child. So long story short...I think the camera's staying in the shop. Unless I go back by myself for another test and I can't control the urge to run. :)

The camera shop is conveniently located next door to Party City. So we went in after my religious experience with the camera and Enzo had his with party supplies. He's having a dinosaur "party" for his birthday. I bought some cups, plates, a tablecloth, and some cake toppers and we'll live it up in style here on his birthday. I didn't really want to go all out and have a party, but I still wanted his birthday to be special for him. We reached a nice compromise, I think. Especially since the dinosaur tablecloth is already on the table and will be for the next month.

Getting things in motion

I'm going to get my passport photos made. I decided that I need to go ahead and get my photos made before I get all yucky and bloated later in my pregnancy. I'm calling around to check prices at some local places. In case anyone's interested, Fedex Kinko's in downtown Little Rock takes photos and they're $12.95 + tax. No appointment needed. Bedford Camera in west Little Rock takes photos and they're $7.95 + tax. No appointment needed. They're the ones who took Julian's INS photos and they seem to know what they're doing.

I think I know where I'm going, and while I'm there, I'll ask about infant passport photos. That's going to be an adventure.

I don't know if I'm getting better

My rash on my back and sides seems to be going away. Woo-hoo!

However, it's making its way down my body now and is primarily on my legs and abdomen. It's just as itchy as ever.

I made a stop at Walgreens on Friday to restock on my Sarna lotion as well as some Benadryl. I'm trying not to take the Benadryl unless it's unavoidable, because of the whole pregnancy thing.

It's kind of nice for the skin that felt like sandpaper a few days ago to feel like my regular soft skin again. But I'm not holding my breath. Not after my first pregnancy where I itched for months and months. I really hope this is going away, but I'm not counting on anything.

In other news, my husband and my mother-in-law decided that it's probably best for me to have Baby 2 here and then move later. So I guess we'll be back on the original plan to move in November. How maddening.

The reasons I wanted to move before the birth were a) avoid paying for a plane ticket for baby 2. I know that's kind of silly, but when you're looking at spending between $800-$1000/person for plane tickets, that's a lot of money for a tiny little person. And I know that I could reduce the cost somewhat by holding baby 2 in my lap as we fly from Arkansas to Dallas or Atlanta, but we will have to have a seat for the baby on the flight from the US to Argentina. b) avoid having to procure a US passport for baby 2. How do you get a passport photo of a newborn? I'm basically going to have to trek around with a week-old baby getting everything arranged so that the passport is ready by the time we leave.

This could be a disaster in the making, but I'm trying to stay positive.

I had to work yesterday, and I have to work today as well. Ick.

My hours on Sunday were cut a couple of weeks ago, and in order to still get paid for a full work week, my schedule is such that I work 6 hours on Sunday, and then 8.5 hours each day from Wednesday-Saturday. That in itself is not such a big deal. What kind of bites is that if I take a vacation day, I can only use 8 hours of vacation pay per day. I'm not able to use 8.5 hours. Why, I'm not sure.

This brings me to this past week. I took a vacation day Wednesday. I didn't know at the time the vacation pay issue. So I was told that I had to make up that other half hour on another day. By the time I found this out, it was already Friday and I had to have the time made up by the end of day on Saturday. So I decided I would make it up on Saturday. Bad idea. Yesterday was gorgeous here. It was sunny and warm, with a high of around 85F. And I was at work for 9 hours. Ugh. And then, in a wonderful irony, today -- which happens to be my short work day -- is only supposed to reach 55F for a high temperature. Oh well. I'll survive. Maybe Monday and Tuesday will be nice. And maybe some anonymous benefactor will decide to leave a check for me under my door. A girl's gotta dream.

My husband reviews World of Warcraft

Read it if you dare.

Step away from the bus

I can't gain any weight

That would not have been something uttered by me a few months ago, in fact, quite the opposite. But I have been pregnant for 13 weeks now and I have not gained more than 2 pounds (about 1 kg for anyone handy with metric measurement). I really haven't been too nauseated, but yet I seem to not be gaining weight.



My abdomen is getting larger, since I have noticed that my pants no longer fit the same. But no weight gained. I guess that's not an entirely bad thing, since I was overweight to begin with and most of the weight gain needs to happen from here out.

At least I haven't lost any weight. And the thing I'm thinking about is that I weigh less now than I did at this point in the first pregnancy, since I kind of took the whole "eating for two" concept a little too literally.

One thing that's been in the back of my head for some time are the words of my mother-in-law, who said in an email to me to watch what I eat so as not to gain too much weight so I wouldn't have so much to lose after the baby's here. Here's the Spanish for you: contame como lo estas pasando y aguanta las ganas de comer asi te alimentas con lo necesario e imprescindible y tenes pocos kilos para perder. So I'm freaking out about not gaining weight. And I'm not gaining weight anyway. I wasn't before she emailed me and I'm still not. But it's this little nagging voice in my mind.

My family still doesn't know. I know I should tell them about baby 2 as well as the planned move to Argentina, but I just can't seem to do it. I don't really want to do it on the phone or by email, but I don't want to do it in person either. Damn, I'm stuck.

I haven't seen my parents since my birthday back in January and it's partly because I don't want my mom to see my enlarging abdomen.

What to do, what to do?

Ode to Sarna

This is the best stuff I have ever found.

It's got camphor and menthol in a lotion base. It's great for really itchy, dry skin. A plus -- it's steroid free, so it can be applied multiple times daily as needed.

It has a cooling effect on the skin when it's applied. To me, it's absolutely heavenly.

I've found it locally at Walgreen's. It's also at DERMADoctor and drugstore.com.

We're a step closer

To getting my husband's first book published. I researched some agents on a day off a couple of weeks ago. He sent an email query to one and she emailed back yesterday that she wants him to send him the first 30 pages.

Now, I know I shouldn't put the cart before the horse...but the plan is in action! I'll probably get everything printed and mailed next Monday.

I am so mad at my body

When I was pregnant the first time I had PUPPPs. That acronym stands for Pruritic Urticarial Pustules and Plaques of Pregnancy. If you're still playing along, pruritic means itchy. And the itch is the worst part of this crap.

From the stats I've seen, roughly 1 in 500,000 pregnant women have this. And it's primarily in first pregnancies. The stats on women experiencing this in subsequent pregnancies drop from there. Oh, and it normally starts in the 3rd trimester.

Maybe I should start playing the lottery. I think I've got this again. If this is what I have, then this will be the second pregnancy where I've been affected by this horrible itchy rash for the whole or almost whole pregnancy.

The first time around, no one could figure out what I had. I went back and forth between my OB/GYN, my primary doc, and my dermatologist. I had a cabinet full of creams and pills and things to put in my bath. Some things worked for a while, but nothing completely got rid of the itch. It was worst at night. Under my doctor's guidance, I was taking 2-3 Benadryl every night at bedtime just to try to get some sleep. I would start itching in the night and scratch myself without realising what I was doing. I scratched parts of my body until I removed the skin -- while I was sleeping. I even tried taping gloves to my hands so I wouldn't scratch. It was bad. It was beyond bad. And I think it's back.

Here's a picture of my side that I took earlier today:



Both sides look like that as well as my lower back, my abdomen, my butt, and my upper thighs. And it itches like crazy.

I have an appointment to see my OB/GYN next Wednesday. I'm giving the rash until then to disappear. Maybe it's an allergy to something. If it's not gone when I go in, I'm asking for drastic measures. I refuse to be miserable for months again. Especially with so much that I need to get done.

Race car carts: Genius or Evil?

I don't know if they have these in other countries or not, but some stores in the US have them. It's basically a shopping cart with a plastic "race car" attached at the side where you steer. The kids sit in the race car, where they get belted in and have a steering wheel.

We have these at the Kroger where I shop, and if Enzo is with me, he insists in riding in one of these.

On one hand, it's kind of nice because he actually wants to sit down and get belted into one of these and is relatively calm and controlled through the shopping trip. On the other hand, these things are unwieldy. They're longer than a normal shopping cart and wider as well. And the steering...these don't steer like a normal cart because of the wheel placement. People who don't have kids give us dirty looks when we're driving these carts because of the above reasons. My friends who do have kids understand totally. We don't struggle through the store with these because we want to, it's to placate the kids and get our shopping done without chasing someone through the store or picking up 10,000 things that have been thrown out of the cart.

So to those of you who've given me dirty looks because I couldn't get out of your way fast enough, I apologise. Maybe I should have driven a regular cart and had Enzo in the basket so he could have beaned you with a can of soup.

I so want this camera

Yeah, it's kinda low-tech. It's not pretty. But I've seen some gorgeous photos taken with these.

Note: to actually see the photos I'm referencing, click the word "photos" above and on the page that opens, scroll down past the image of the camera and click "show pictures." Then you can click on the images to cycle through.

I just love what this camera can do.

Spring is here

Nearly party time

Okay, the kiddo is going to be 3 in 37 days.

Last year at this time, I was abuzz with party planning activities, deciding on the theme, getting decorations and party favours. I bought a small helium canister to inflate my own balloons. I even decorated the cake myself.

You can see other pictures from the festivities here, if you'd like.

This year is a different story. I just realised a couple of days ago that the kid has an upcoming birthday. The year seems to be going by so quickly.

I have no idea if I'm going to have a party, or if I do...will anyone show up? Last year, I invited about 7 children from his class at daycare and asked that the parents RSVP. I got one definite "We'll be there" and one "Maybe," but nothing from the others. So I had no idea if the others were going to show or not. I prepared for 8 kids plus parents. It ended up being 2 kids, Julian and me, my mom, my sister, one niece, and my friend Jon with his girlfriend. Don't get me wrong, Enzo had a great time. He had no idea that 6 of his other friends were invited and didn't come.

I was thinking that if we have a party this year, I'd have it somewhere other than our house. Like maybe Chuck E. Cheese. But I'd hate to pay for a party, since the minimum cost is $40 plus tax, and have no one there but my family and then have to endure an hour and a half with a singing mouse. Hmmm. Maybe I won't have a party per se, but just take Enzo out with our family somewhere.

I found my son's birth announcement online

I was doing a little miscellaneous web browsing this morning and I found this in the alumni section at hendrix.edu.

The announcements are listed in order by class year. I'm class of 98, so I'm down toward the bottom. But there we are. Weird. I remember submitting that to the alumni magazine and getting a t-shirt and a certificate.

I'm online again!

I made another call to tech support yesterday evening and I guess I finally communicated my agitatedness well enough that the guy said that he would put me on the "outage schedule" for Sunday. The tech came by while I was at work, I got a text message on my phone that we were back in working order again.

I got home and looked at our copy of the work order that was left. What was the issue, you may be wondering? Why was our service out for over 48 hours? "Disconnected in error. Reconnected." That was the problem. We got shut off and we shouldn't have been. There's probably someone else nearby that should have been disconnected and wasn't. Now the question is: do I call Comcast on Monday and show my ass and ask for a credit for my inconvenience?

Arrrrr...

Well, you probably won't be seeing much of me online this weekend.

My internet access is screwed at home. It apparently died sometime during the day on Friday and when I called yesterday afternoon was told that my account is fine, that there were no outages in my area, and let me get tech support on the line. Tech support was oh so helpful. Your modem's not online. Well, no shit. That's why I'm calling. He had me power cycle our modem, which we had already done, to no avail.

Then he says, I'm not sure what's wrong, let me get a tech out. What time on Monday will be best for you? Monday?!

So we are all weekend with no cable or internet. And there are no outages and my account is fine. WTF?!

The Joys of Toddlerhood

I can't have a lit candle in my house. I just lit a candle and put it on the dining room table. Enzo promptly climbed up in one of the chairs, leaned across the table, joyfully proclaimed,"It's a party!" and blew out my candle. Not once, twice, but four times now. I give up.

Earlier today, I took a shower. Enzo walked into the bathroom and yelled, "You're naked! I'm going to bite your naked!" Where this comes from, I don't know. Anyway, he proceeded to try to bite my ass. Is it bad to be nude in front of your kids? At what age do you stop? It's not like I lounge around the house au naturel or anything, he sees me in the bathroom or in my bedroom changing clothes. Have I scarred my kid for life?

Speaking of bad parenting, there's a great post on Moxie on the subject. It's nice to know that I'm not the only one to drop my kid out of a chair or forget to buckle him in his car seat.

Weirdos

Okay, so I didn't stay home today. Enzo and I went to have lunch with Julian today. We went to Arby's, where we were sitting in a booth near this guy who was sitting drinking out of a bottle in a paper bag. (Gee, I wonder what he had in there?) He wasn't eating anything when we went in, but while we were eating, he went and got a sandwich, moved to another table to eat, left his trash on that table and then moved back to the original booth.

I thought I smelled smoke, but I couldn't see anyone smoking, so I thought it was a couple who had just walked in and I was smelling it on their clothes or something. Wrong. It was the paper bag guy, just sitting there nonchalantly smoking a cigarette. In a non-smoking restaurant in the middle of the lunch rush. Odd.

Half of the diners seemed to be talking about him smoking. Loudly. He did nothing. Even better, the staff didn't do anything, but I don't know if anyone complained.

As a smoker, I understand having cravings and needs to smoke, but I'm also considerate enough that if I am in a non-smoking area or in the house of someone who doesn't smoke, I will excuse myself and go outside.

I guess my question about this guy is: was he too drunk or whatever to care what he was doing, not too drunk or whatever and didn't know better, or just disrespectful?

Oscars

Was everyone else disappointed by the Oscars? It just seemed...blah.

What was up with Beyonce singing almost every song? Don't get me wrong, Beyonce is cool, but there's only so much this girl can take.







My other question: when did the practice of presenting awards from the aisles start? Or bringing all the nominees on to the stage to stand together?

Weekend update

I've had a pretty uneventful couple of days. I worked over the weekend. The hours on Sunday were reduced from 9-6 to 12-6. That's nice, but I have to make up those other 2 hours by staying an extra 30 minutes on my other work days. That's not so nice.

At work, there's also a huge spider who's built a web just outside the closest window. We've named him Fred. I took a picture of him on Sunday.



I like how you can see me reflected in the glass.

Sunday after I came home, I got some takeout from a restaurant down the street and we watched the Oscars. The Oscars are not usually high on my TV viewing list, but I was curious to see Chris Rock hosting.

Yesterday Enzo and I stayed home together, although we did leave in the afternoon. We had lunch out at Wendy's, bought a chipset fan for Julian, paid the cable bill, and went to Target.

At Target, Enzo got some new shoes.



We also got some red Peeps that are Target exclusives.



Julian disassembled his computer yesterday afternoon, cleaned out all the gunk, and replaced his chipset fan. The old one wasn't working right and was causing his computer to power off indiscriminately. From his reports, it's working great and he even lowered the temperature inside his case by a couple of degrees.

Today, we're probably going to stay home. Not much planned except some laundry.