Day 222: Travel, Battery, Concert Tickets

Posted on | April 10, 2008 |

Starting the day off with an airline ticket has never been my favorite way to begin the day.  Nevertheless, it needed to be done.

Southwest — $139.50
I bought a one-way ticket back home from my sister’s.  [I also purchased a one-way ticket for my mom but we put it on her credit card since she's paying her own way and it's so much easier with security and such when the passenger buys their own ticket.]

Earlier this year my mom sold her house, sold off most of her possessions, packed up everything else, and moved across the country to live with my youngest sister, her husband, and their three children.  I made my final trip down to my mom’s last month arriving just in time to help with the final cleaning and packing.  The next day we closed on my mom’s house and made the 8-hour drive back home to my place.  A few days later, my mom left her car here and flew out to my sister’s where she’s since been helping out and settling in.

Here in the ‘burbs, we’ve been enjoying the use of my mom’s car – especially now that The Daughter is a licensed and insured driver.  We’ve become pretty spoiled having three drivers and three cars.  But all of that’s about to change.

Now it’s time to move on the final stage of the my mom’s major life-transition — she needs her car back!

This morning we finally picked some dates and bought the tickets.  We’re committed now.  My mom will fly out here in two weeks and then a couple days later we’ll pack up her car and she and I will drive out east to my sister’s.  Two weeks later, I have a ticket to fly back home.  Two weeks will give us plenty of wiggle room — we’ll have a flexible departure date in case we want to stay and catch on of The Son’s baseball games, our drive across the country will take 4 good days but we can stretch it to 5 if we need to, and I’ll have a few days to spend visiting with my sister and her family before flying home just in time for The Husband’s 73rd birthday!

The Daughter’s going to be in 7th heaven when she finds out I’ll be gone for a full two weeks — with me gone that leaves The Husband here with the kids and lots of driving to be done.  The Daughter will get lots of opportunities to drive herself to school plus run other sundry errands.

I’m looking forward to the trip because other than my ticket home and my own food and miscellaneous expenses, my mom (or sister) will be footing the bill for the trip.  This will be the first trip I’ve ever taken with my mom in which The Husband and I haven’t covered all of the lodging, gas, and food expenses – including my mom’s.

Level 8 Technology — $68.89
The battery on my laptop’s been worthless for months now.  I get, maybe, 20 minutes usage out of it before it dies.  Most of the time that’s a nuisance but not a major inconvenience because most of the time it’s easy enough to be plugged in somewhere.  The flexibility of having a laptop that I use most is that of using the computer in any location in or around my house that I wish.  Upstairs, my bedroom, the storage room, side by side one of the desktops, etc.  So as long as the wireless connection is working, being hooked to an outlet isn’t a huge issue.  Still, to have to be next to an outlet does become a hassle every once in a while.  I finally got tired of it, and in anticipation of my upcoming cross-country drive (see above), I decided it was time to bite the bullet and buy a new battery.

After doing some on-line research, I decided to go with Level 8 Technology.  I’ve never made a purchase with them before so, if nothing else, I’ll have an interesting review to provide in a couple of weeks.  I used the HP website to determine what kind of battery I needed then used Google’s shopping link to find suppliers.  Level 8 had a good user rating (4.8 out of 5), they offered a very competitive price, and, to top it all off, offered free ground shipping.  Here’s hoping everything goes smoothly….

Vitamin Cottage — $6.48
The Son and I were running early this evening and had time to kill before he had to show up for his pre-concert warm-up so we stopped in the nearby VC for a quick snack.  I bought an Odwalla Strawberry C Monster for myself for dinner and let The Son pick out a candy bar and a Knudsen soda.

Concert Tickets — $16.00
I purchased two concert tickets — one for me and the other for The Husband.  The Daughter did not accompany us as she’s busy finishing a major school project due tomorrow.  It was a great concert, the last one of the season, and we stayed to the very end (we usually leave when The Son’s group is done).  It’s always a tad bittersweet but I, for one, am glad the season is over.

Youth Symphony organization — $25.00
Since this was the last concert of the year and it is yet determined as to whether it will be the last year The Son participates, I decided to spring for a DVD of the concert.  They put on three concerts every year but I typically only buy a DVD of the final concert.  In retrospect I’m really glad I got my order done tonight — it was a fabulous concert with a guest artist and I’m sure The Son will one day be glad that we have a copy of it.

Related Posts for Further Reading

• Day 193: A Bushel of “Apples”
• $$: Groceries, an Odwalla, & “Harvey”
• $$: Allowance, Fuel, Dining, & Hot Date!
• Day 259: Cultural Experiences & Plastic Bins
• Day 235: Dinner & The Theater, etc
• Day 220: Gas, CPAP Supplies, Theater Ticket, and Dining

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