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.

Why is nothing ever simple?  And why are there times in my life when I seem to leak money from every pore?

The problem with being a gadget-hound is that new gadgets open the wallet floodgates.  It’s never a simple matter of buying a new gadget.  No.  There are always new wires, new cables, new adapters, and new accessories that the new gadget requires to work properly.

I inadvertently opened those floodgates last week when I visited the Apple Store with my mom.  I’ve been dreaming of a printer server for about 5 years and of a central remote hard-drive for at least 3 years.  When I heard about the Time Capsule I simply could not resist.  And I’ve not had a single second of regret since making the purchase.  But I had forgotten about the new gadgets floodgate phenomena.  And I’m bumming a little bit about it.

Of course, the Time Capsule in no way caused or created the need for a new monitor for The Daughter’s computer — other than the fact that without the Time Capsule I might have gone another year or two without using her computer and therefore would have remained blissfully ignorant of the fact that her old CRT monitor is on it’s last legs.  The picture would have continued to degrade until one day it would have died completely.  I shudder to think of what additional hours of watching that shimmering, shimmying screen would have done to her eyes, her brain, and her equilibrium.  But the fact remains that the addition of the Time Capsule to our home network lead to my decision to scrap her CRT and buy a new LCD monitor.

So after all three teens finally crawled out of bed and got showered and dressed this morning (The Son was the last one up — I dragged his sorry rear end out of bed at 11am), we all headed out for a little monitor comparison shopping trip.  We started at Best Buy.  I needed to buy a longer audio Y cable anyway and Best Buy is typically a dependable source of decent computer equipment.  I looked at monitors but didn’t see any sales that I simply couldn’t resist.  So I found a sales guy, described the type and length of audio cable I needed, gratefully accepted the offered cable as the solution to my problem (why, oh why do I do this), and proceeded to checkout ($22.68).

I needed an audio Y cable (RCA to mini-stereo jack) long enough to reach from my stereo to my new Airport Express plugged in close to but not right under the stereo.  With the short cable I bought yesterday, the only outlet I could use for the Airport Express is underneath the bookshelf holding the stereo.  Can we say major interference and lousy sound quality?  But when I move the Airport Express over one outlet on the wall, everything is golden — the sound quality on a little ancient boombox of  The Husband’s (circa 1988) is fabulous.  I can’t wait to hear what my airtunes sound like coming from my Onkyo component stereo and my Baby Advent speakers.  But that’s what I’ll have to do — wait.  The helpful guy at Best Buy sold me a set of RCA to RCA cables.  Yeah, like that’s what I asked for?!?

So now I have two cables to return, well, make that three cables to return to Best Buy.  The first being the correct type but woefully too-short audio Y cable.  The second being the incredibly wrong type but temptingly long-enough double-ended RCA cables.  And the third being the VGA extension cable I bought yesterday when what I really wanted was a VGA replacement cable.

After striking out three different times at Best Buy and coming up empty at Radio Shack and Staples, I gave up and simply ordered the necessary cables on-line from Amazon.  In cases such as these, I want instant gratification and having to place a mail order is highly aggravating.

After our ill-fated trip to Best Buy, the teens and I headed over to Costco.  I’d seen a ViewSonic on the Costco.com website that I wanted to take a look at.  The gods were definitely conspiring against me today — turns out that most of their on-line offerings are not available in their stores.  Bummer.  Well, I still managed to feed all three hungry teens for $9.86 — two had pizza and one had a chicken bake thing.  Two had sodas; one a berry smoothie.  Being able to feed a hungry daughter, son, and nephew on less than $10 is truly an amazing experience.

Upon our arrival home from our ill-fated shopping excursion, I did a little more on-line shopping and finally decided to go with the 20″ ViewSonic Optiquest LCD monitor from Costco.com.  The price was $199 plus shipping and tax brought it to $218.59.  But there’s a $20 mail-in rebate (if I can remember to file the rebate) so that will bring the final price down to $198.59.  The 20″ monitor will give The Daughter the biggest screen in the house — lucky kid.  I can’t see how I could manage to wrangle it unless I’d be willing to give up my laptop — something I’m simply not willing to do.

The Amazon order was placed this evening.  The two cables weren’t expensive enough to qualify for free shipping so I asked around to see if anyone wanted anything else.  The Daughter asked me to order the next book in a series she’s reading in her spare time — Eclipse from the “Twilight Saga”.  The Son didn’t need anything but The Husband told me about two Reginald Hill books that are in print but aren’t available through our library system — A Pinch of Snuff and Dialogues With The Dead.  So we ordered those as well.  Those three books along with our two cables brought our total to $45.29 — well above the $25 level necessary to qualify for free shipping.  Free shipping is great — but not quite as wonderful as having enough gift certificate money to not have to pay a single penny out-of-pocket.  Actually, not only did this order not cost me a cent, we still have about $30 worth of gift certificate left 

The upside to losing out on the instant gratification of cables and a new monitor is that I’ll be getting a couple of packages in the mail.  I love getting mail — even when I know exactly what I’m getting and I’m the one who paid.

As much as I’m looking forward to my new goodies and gadgets, I’m also really looking forward to the end of this particular flood of gear and gadgets.  I love new toys but I hate leaking money at this rate.

Shall I start out this post by telling you what I didn’t spend money on today?  A computer monitor.  Yup, I didn’t buy one today.  But I’ll probably have to buy one tomorrow.  During the process of setting up my new Apple Time Capsule-driven wireless network, networked printer, and remote 1TB hard-drive (how cool is that?), I spent about 10 minutes on The Daughter’s computer.  Her ancient CRT monitor is starting to give out.  Normally I wouldn’t worry about anything that’s just starting to give out.  I don’t generally replace things until they’ve really given up the ghost.  But after a few minutes of looking at a monitor with wavy, squiggly text, I felt seriously nauseous.  There’s no way that it can be healthy — and this is the machine that The Daughter uses every single day for her homework.  So, I’ve started the research and will need to pick up a new monitor as soon as possible.  In the meantime, she’s using The Husband’s monitor — and he’s less than thrilled and he wants his monitor back ASAP.

I did spend money today:

Cash — $4.00
The Son had baseball practice this afternoon.  The weather was yucky so they met at the local indoor pitching tunnel/batting cage place and each boy needed to take $4.00 in cash to help pay the fee for their time.

Best Buy — $33.87
Cables.  I needed a pin-to-RCA cable ($19.99) to hook my new Airport Express up to my stereo.  When it’s all said and done, I’ll be able to broadcast music from iTunes from any computer in the house through my stereo in the living room.  I also needed a 6′ VGA monitor extension cord ($11.49).  The VGA cable on The Daughter’s old CRT monitor was barely long enough to reach the tower where it’s stored in her computer desk.  The VGA on The Husband’s monitor is even shorter than the cable on the old monitor.  I assume that all of these newer LCD monitors will have shorter cables so we’ll need an extension cord to make things work.

Wild Oats — $70.81

• 2 boxes lasagna pasta — $2.49/ea.
• white onion — $0.77
• grated parmesean cheese — $3.49
• ricotta cheese — $3.99
• 2+ lbs lean ground beef — $10.48
• jar of Italian Seasoning spices — $3.99
• Muir Glen tomato sauce (small can) — $0.99
• Muir Glen no-salt tomato sauce — $1.69
• mozzarella cheese — $7.99
• package of flour tortillas — $1.99
• sliced smoked turkey — $4.99
• sliced roast beef — $4.99
• organic chocolate sandwich cookies — $2.99
• 1/2 gallon Horizon 2% milk — $3.29
• salsa — $3.29
• albacore tuna (large can) — $5.49
• mild cheddar — $3.98
• bag credits — ($0.20)

My mom and I visited the Apple store today.  Man, that was an expensive outing!  ;-)

The reason for the visit — my mom decided that she wouldn’t have room for her 2-yo PC (tower, keyboard, and 15″ LCD monitor) now that she’s moving from her own house into a bedroom in my sister’s house.  She’s been playing with the idea of buying herself a laptop.  I’d been trying to talk her into waiting a few weeks before making any decisions — you know, settle into her new digs, get a feel for how much time she’d have, what it was like to share a computer with my sister’s family or if she’d really need her own.  My mom, being my mom, listened to all of my advice and then proceeded to buy herself a new Apple laptop anyway.

Oh well.

The total bill was $2,056.78. My portion of it was $561.44.  I bought a 1TB Time Capsule, an Airport Express Base Station, and a pair of In-Ear headphones.  The Time Capsule itself has a retail value of $499 but the clerk helping me, who also happened to be the store manager, mis-quoted the price.  I bought the only one in stock.  When he realized his error in quoting the price, he said he’d honor his quote.  So I got it for $399 instead.  Naturally, I was pleased as punch.

My mom bought a white Apple MacBook, an AppleCare package, an Apple One to One membership, and an HP Photosmart C4280 (which will end up costing her $0.00 if she remembers to submit her rebate info on time).

I am truly envious of the laptop (which I’m using right now — just to try it out for her) but I’m tickled pink about the toys I bought for myself and can’t wait until I get a few spare minutes to play with them.  The Time Capsule is a wireless router, a print server, and a remote 1TB hard drive that will play nice with both my Macs and my PCs at the same time.

Being Wednesday, I also stopped at Wendy’s for some dinner for The Son.  Tonight he went with a Baconator and a medium vanilla Frosty — all for $6.54.

This evening I also spent $10 in cash – $6.00 for event parking, $2.00 for a bottle water, and $2.00 for a massive brownie for The Son.  We attended an comedy performance and had a spectacularly wonderful time together.

The Husband took The Daughter, The Nephew, and my mom out for dinner while The Son and I were out for the evening.  I have no idea how much he spent.  What I do know is that I just spent the last 45 minutes cleaning up The Daughter and the bathroom after she “blew chunks.”  She thinks her stomach was off-color before she went out to eat but the big meal didn’t help matters at all.  Maybe she’ll be able to sleep now that her stomach is empty.  It’s definitely time for me to head to bed and see if I can’t catch a couple hours of shut-eye too.