finished all the desktop folders that I'm going to do today - 9 folders done! Yay! had a nap, and had lunch going to fold laundry and then work on my butterflies

My DH keeps telling me to quit reading the news, because it's just shooting, shooting, shooting and the horror of it is just too much. We had our Cinco de Mayo party for his work crew and one of his co-workers had to skip b/c her son's school & the highschool adjacent were both under lockdown to an active shooter threat (thankfully it did not materialize and nothing happened, but she was still understandably shaken). In that moment, he turned to me and said, "I guess you're right to be paying attention to this....it really *is* stressful....." Yep. And I read the MSN article as well.....it's horrific. And my state is just.....the response is incomprehensible. The pics of them using a school bus to transport injured kids, from the room where it happened......the thought of 77 minutes of lack of response to get medical aid to kids that needed it.....it's all together awful.

Laundry is working - one load out of dryer, next load into washer, into dryer, next load into washer - need to go up and swap around and then it will be nap time. Have sorted/cleaned out four desktop folders on the computer, purging various free resources I've never used and putting in order the things I actually do use each year. Still many more to go, but this is a good first step. Arrangements made to meet MIL at 6 pm to get the dogs - they are graciously meeting us halfway; yay!

Good morning! Today is back to real life - vacation was incredible, even with all the time in the car. I'm glad we went, and glad we drove. So today, back to it. My list: ....coffee ....keep working laundry ....meet MIL to pick up the dogs ....decide something for dinner (not sure we have enough leftovers from yesterday) ...work on butterflies for the quilt project ...finish posting pics ...get the kids to unpack their stuff and put it away ...work on random school stuff for summer (organizing my files better, so next year is even more just open & go) ....whatever other random thing(s) I think of ...veg out, go to bed

Got the key from the neighbor and had a good long chat about our crazy animals. Ate dinner (roast in the crockpot, hooray for sales!) and watched AntMan Quantumania - cute, but not amazing. A good step in the Marvel MCU puzzle, though. Got my pics done, need to get DH's phone and the kids' phones and see what pics they took. Heading to bed I think, although it's early....

okay, it loaded and is copying over - some are named the same??? so making 2 folders to deal with that. Weird.

well I cannot get the dumb phone to actually connect to my computer, so will have to see what to do to fix that.....grrrr. Laundry is started.

We are home - made it back last night around 11:30. The decision to drive vs. fly - Oldest expressed (around lunch time last Sunday, the day before our scheduled departure), that he just had a really bad feeling regarding the flight. Now, he is prone to anxiety, but he (and DH) also sometimes gets premonitions, or prophetic dreams/feelings, or whatever you might want to call those. He stressed this was different than "just" being worried about flying (he is never one to worry about flying, in fact). So, we called a family meeting, offered the options: fly anyway; cancel the trip; drive instead. Everyone agreed - drive instead. So, drive we did. The only stress was in the mad scramble Sunday afternoon to get ready and hit the road -- we wanted to still arrive by Monday night as planned, but as we were now moving our departure up by roughly 24 hrs, we had to pack, get ready, etc. The drive itself was not nearly as insane as we feared. We have 3 adult, fully licensed drivers, and 2 permitted drivers (who can drive w/a supervising adult), so everyone took turns, and all in all, the vacation was a good one. So, today's list: ...coffee, church to hear DS's friend play guitar, nap -- DONE ...eat a snack ...start the laundry ...do the other unpacking ...get the key from the neighbor that watched the cats/rabbit ...message a friend about fencing w/her tomorrow when we go get our dogs from MIL's house ...transfer pics from all the phones to the computer (from the trip) ...watch Ant-Man Quantimania (sp?) tonight ...veg out, go to bed

Oh, @mom31257, I'm so sorry to read that; what a terrible loss. Prayers for the young couple's families, for your ds, and all their friend group.

Happy Anniversary, @ScoutTN! Just popping in - we are still on vacation, and in a fun last minute twist, for various reasons, ended up *driving* to LA from Houston instead of flying. So, tomorrow we start the jaunt homeward. It has been a really good trip, including the car time, so that's good. We're planning some fun stops on the way home tomorrow/Saturday, to break things up/give us fun "out of the car" time on the trip home. Should be good. Today's agenda is still being decided, but should involve the Santa Monica Pier, among a few other things.

Picked up DS Did a grocery run for D&D food for tomorrow, and picked up salmon burgers for dinner for tonight (yay, HEB!) Now heating them & will eat, then watch a movie

got 3 more butterflies stitched out, and the papers removed; will work on cutting them out later on/throughout the weekend. Waiting on DS's friends to text they are heading home - maybe DH & I will go run some errands while we wait.

Home from my training - it was good, I did learn some things. DS is off with his friends; the pick-up time is "oh, whenever, no rush, it's flexible..." - sigh. Okay. Oldest's mistake was, in fact, his mistake and he ended with a D in the course b/c of it. :sigh: Dang it. They are doing away with this program, so not even sure he'll be able to retake the class or not in order to finish. :sigh: DH and the boys are playing video games, so I'm going to go sew I think.

Did one electronic chore - making good progress Talked to mom - if her echocardiogram looks good today, her doctor will send her home, back on the original BP medicine

I need one that's "my husband didn't read the description correctly, so even though it states right there that this thing is (whatever feature is wrong with it), he didn't see that, and thought it would be (whatever feature it is that would fix what's wrong with it), and so it doesn't meet our needs and we need to return it...." For ex, once he ordered calendars for his mom & her husband (one each) for Christmas. It stated in the listing, but he didn't notice, that these were the mini size calendars, the little like 5x7 ones (when closed), not normal wall sized (what are those? 12x12 when closed?) calendars. He didn't see that, even though it was there. So, here arrives some mini little calendars, and clearly that cannot be their gift, so back they went (I forget what he actually stated as the reason). He's done similar things over the years, but that's the only one I can think of just now.

Good morning! Today I have: ....coffee ...do a few electronic chores ...go to a teacher training - we're using new software for registration, and it has a ton of features, so going to learn all the ins/outs of it ...DS's friends will pick him up for putt-putt, so come home & sew (or nap) ...movie night tonight with the family - I think we're going to watch Renfield ...check on mom ...follow up with Oldest to see if the glitch he had turning in a project last night got solved - it was due at midnight, he submitted at 11, but it showed that his teacher had graded it at 7 as 'no submission"; he's emailed the prof to see what's up......oof. I hope she goofed, not him. 😞 ...dinner....??? no idea ....start working on laundry, maybe, b/c we leave Monday for our trip I think that's about it....Have a great Friday!

Hmm. I'm trying to think when the price shows up....I *believe* that once you are through to the "pick your seat" phase, you can see the price. Of course, that generally is NOT including the fees, which show up when you move to check-out. So, you're in the queue, and you've got no idea (I vaguely think they may tell you the range??? I have no idea). You pick your seats, either by a price range mechanism (so you can select the price range, or "best available" or what have you), or via the seating chart (in which you hover over a seat, and the price pops up, so you know the base price). For hot ticket items, the seating chart method is faster usually. Then you select/add to cart and head to check-out, at which point it reveals the full price with the fees, which are often very high, yes. You can still back out and select cheaper seats instead at that point (at the risk of, will there still be some?) if the total is too much. It's a whole thing, and quite a fiasco, and with the dynamic pricing if you check once, don't buy right away, wait a few weeks, there are still seats....if demand heated up, you might find that they are now going to cost more (although conversely, if demand has stalled, you may find you pay less....). It's rather ridiculous.

Almost done with the 2nd butterfly for the current project....Cherrywood fabric's Monarch challenge. Oof. Slow-going. I made the background some time ago, now I'm making a slew of monarch butterflies for it.....of course I'm doing reverse applique which means layer 5 colors of fabric. Sew the butterfly into it. Sew the spots into it. Carefully cut away one layer at a time to get to which color I want in that spot. Flip over and repeat on the back side (b/c some of the butterflies will be sewn "in flight" , so I need both sides done). It takes about 15 mins to stitch one. About an hour-ish to do the cutting for one. (the deadline is June 15th) Doing some electronic stuff for a break, then will cook dinner. Mom is being admitted; will hopefully know more tonight/tomorrow.

Your laws sound amazing. Yes, that's exactly what it means - it's very similar to airline pricing (at least here). The price can even fluctuate day to day, hour to hour (on the regular, original point of sale site; it's even worse on the reselling sites).

she's about an hour from me; she's in the same town as my grandma. Her fiance' is there with her, and if needed I can go down. So far she's good (they got her bp down and are monitoring everything, etc....).

Well, turns out the putt - putt place doesn't open till 4 today, so instead we are going tomorrow. Oops. (glad it was not my mistake!). So, eating lunch, and then.....???? probably will go sew, as DH is heading out for a meeting. Also, mom is in the ER, so keeping in touch with her. Her BP has been wonky, and her doctor changed her med - today was the 1st day on the new one, and it went crazy high (230/100-ish). We got in touch with our back-up pet sitter for next week, and she said yes, so that's good.

Good morning! Today is a light day as now I'm done with school! yay!! So, today: ....coffee ...a few electronic chores ...take DS to play putt-putt with friends -- during which, either hang out w/the other mom, or go hang out solo and do....? something ...depending on timing of that, maybe go to piano recital for the kids at the co-op (if so, figure out a crock pot dinner) ...if we go to the piano thing, go direct from there to fencing (thus the crock pot dinner, which I should do just in case) ...fencing, home, bed If I wrap up electronic chores early, I'll head up and get some sewing done before time to take DS

So fun! Our radio station here is talking about the NO show and how great it was -- they play Houston tonight, and I am sadly not going. (DH has a dumb 5-song rule for me, in that I must be able to name, from memory, at least 5 songs by a given band before he'll buy tickets....as I am hopeless with that, even with artists that I can sing along to everything they've ever played, it's really hopeless when it's a band I only know about 2 songs or something....). *it's fair, though, 'cause I'm such a concert addict I'll ask for tickets to things where I've maybe heard/know one song by the band. DH just looks at me skeptically and I acknowledge probably he's right - our budget certainly needs the limit, or I'd be at everything possible.... So glad you had a great time!!!

I've been checking for this; thank you for posting! It sounds like it is moving in the right direction, and hopefully will resolve favorably, soon. And yay for an office with a window!! That's great!

re: the renting of it, it's supposed to be a thing where you go to the place, get time to shoot it at the shooting range, the gun doesn't leave the place. How she was able to get out the door with it is mind boggling to me - you'd think the store employee would walk the gun to the proper range, set it up, etc., and supervise the recreational firing of it.