The temperature has dropped here from the balmy low 70’s on Monday to below freezing.  I love the winter but I hate being cold (if that makes any sense at all).  Anyway, the point is that I didn’t want to leave the house today.  Such is the life of a mother and homeowner.  I actually had to make two trips.

First I had to pick up The Daughter from practice.  I couldn’t run my errands before I picked her up because I didn’t want to drive all the way across town with a 1/2 ton of cement in the back.  And I didn’t stop on the way home because The Daughter was tired and sweaty from practice and I figured there wasn’t any reason to force her to help me wrangle 12 80-pound bags onto a cart at The Home Depot.

So I did my mommy errand, brought the cargo home to take a shower and have a snack, and I took off on my second errand.

Office Max — $27.96
My printer’s been out of commission for three days because the black cartridge was empty — and it’s been a serious pain in my backside not having a functional printer.  I’ve been wanting to print and use a 25% off coupon from B&N but couldn’t because the bar code wasn’t printing clearly.  Unfortunately, it took me a day or two to figure out why my prints were coming out so lousy.  The cruel irony is that Office Max is right next door to B&N.  But I couldn’t combine the errands because I had to get the ink and install it in the printer before I could print the coupon which I needed before I could visit B&N.  Ugh.  Still, I had a $10-off coupon for Office Max so I got a double-pack of black cartridges.

This printer is shared by my computer (I print a moderate amount — packing slips and coupons mostly), The Daughter’s computer (she does a lot of printing for school), and The Son’s computer (who prints only occassionally for research projects I assign) plus we use it to copy and fax so it ends up being used at least once a day.  I should have made a note when I inserted the last cartridge so I could be on the lookout for sales.  Next time.

The Home Depot — $47.68
Twelve more 80-pound bags of Quikrete cement — so another 1/2-ton of cement.  Yes, I stacked them onto the cart myself.  And I pushed the cart to the cashier.  Once there, I did ask for assistance in loading them into the car.  And that’s where they are still — waiting, I hope, just until tomorrow morning when the handyman and his son are supposed to show up to pour my new retaining wall.

edit:  I forgot — $1.07 of the Home Depot purchase was for a purple “spring clip” carabiner for The Daughter — she had asked just earlier in the week if I had an extra one tucked away somewhere but I didn’t.  I think she wanted to use it to clip her Nalgene bottles together.  Anyway, I picked one up and she was thrilled — both with the color I’d chosen and for the fact that I’d remembered her request.