A Day in the Sun

Today was a nice day. We started out by taking the car in to get looked at, which was not so fun. Our original purpose was to get a second estimate on the air conditioning, but on the way down to Asheville, our car kept vibrating when we were on the highway, which is even more of a concern. So I asked them to check our tires and alignment as well. It seemed to start right after I got the tires rotated, which made me kind of suspcious. It took them most of the day to look at the car, and the news was not too good. Apparently we could use new shocks and struts, which is expensive stuff, almost as expensive as a new timing belt and water pump. I told them no, we're not doing that. In the alternative, they suggested two new tires and a realignment. They're also going to refresh our refrigerant and replace a couple burnt-out bulbs. Total cost: about 400 dollars, including the two tires. Ouch. I checked the estimate with my old buddy Repairpal, who I am not shilling for today but still using, and was pleased to see that the quote for the refrigerant refresh was actually less than the estimate the website gave me. I just hope it works.

Melissa and Robert and I went shopping today, and that was much more fun. We went to World Market and got some cool cooking things, noodles and cake mixes and flavored oils, and a giant tub of Nutella, among other things. I love Nutella. I have to be sparing with it, though. Now that I'm not nursing anymore, I really, really, really need to get serious about trying to moderate my eating. It's so hard! I should get back on Weight Watchers, but I need to free up at least forty dollars a month for that, and it's not happening any time soon. Besides that, Weight Watchers requires a lot of food that is more expensive than what I usually buy, so that's also problematic. But I'm going to try. Wish me luck!

That's a terrible segue into the other best thing about today, but I'm going to do it anyway. After we got home from dinner tonight, we started up the new firepit outdoors for the first time. M's folks have an absolutely gorgeous fire pit area with benches in their side yard, I just love it. We got a fire going, and we found sticks and made delicious s'mores. S'mores over an open fire is one of my very favorite things, so much so that I managed to make them one-handed with Robert hanging out on my lap. Yummy! Robert was fascinated by watching the fire, and was very good even though we stayed out past his bedtime. (He'd had a nap at the restuarant earlier, as you might notice from today's picture.) When we got inside again, he took half a bottle, fell fast asleep, and barely made a peep as I put him to bed. Sleepy, sleepy boy.

And one last good thing: I realized that M's folks have the same kind of camera we do, and thus their camera cord is the same as ours! I was able to connect the cord and rescue all the pictures from the past month that I took without the card in, that were stranded in the camera's memory. I have posted the best of them to Flickr, you should go and check them out.