Camping

J. and the boys just departed for Yosemite - an annual trip (usually, though they did skip last year - H. had football back then and it conflicted with the trip) with J's younger brother and his kids. Based on the amount of stuff being loaded into the van, you'd think they were going to be gone for a week or more. No - just today, tomorrow and Tuesday - returning home late evening on Tuesday. That's the thing about camping: it takes a lot of 'stuff' to survive in the wilderness. Tents, cook gear, stove, tables, chairs, sleeping bags, food, etc. My idea of camping is pulling up to the curb and having the bell hop take my bags. Now you know why I don't go. Just not my thing. When J. asked me for a roll of quarters from my 'fun money' stash, that hit me with ANOTHER reason it's not my thing - showering by the minute. And hiking to pee. Not my idea of a fun time.

There is a fire near Yosemite at the moment and I worry a bit about that, though J. says they are camping far from the fire zone. They've done research and talked to people who live in the valley and they say you can still see Half Dome - just a bit of haze. So hopefully, that will remain true. If they're not having a great time and are miserable from smoke, they'll turn around and come home.

Yesterday was an errand marathon. I went to the bank while J. took recycling to the center to cash it in. We both went to Costco, then to the health food store to pick up this week's veggies (more about that later) and then we went to the 99cent store - which may be my new 'favorite' store. I've never ventured in there before - no particular reason other than that it's not in a shopping center we get to much. But it's in the same center as the store we pick up the produce from, so it was convenient. J. wanted a small-ish container of dish soap for the camping trip - so we wandered in. Thought we'd buy the one thing for $1. Left with a cart full. Shasta soda! DIET! black cherry, my favorite and impossible to find. Also spaghetti sauce, Chiclets gum (remember Chiclets??), cocoa, etc. And Arnold Palmer iced tea - 1/2 tea, 1/2 lemonade - the kids LOVE it! It was a lot of stuff and we left for only $32. I was really surprised how much variety they had - especially in the food section. Sure, some of the labels were a bit mangled. Or the print run on them didn't go well - but the food was name brands and not expired - so what's not to like about paying $1 or less for things you use everyday/weekly and would pay two to three times as much for at the 'regular' grocery store. I'm sold.

Then we needed to head to Mervyn's - I had stopped there on Friday and found some shirts and pants - great sale price AND an additional 20% off for using my Mervyn's card. I'd read a few days ago that they are on the edge of filing for Chapter 11 and I think I saw evidence of that - literally every single clothing rack had a 'sale' topper on it - 40%-50% off, then the extra 20% for using their in-house credit card. Wow. Looks like they're trying to raise some cash. I rarely find things there these days - they are most definitely not targeting my demographics in their clothing selection - but I found a few nice tops and a couple pairs of pants. And we went back last night 'cuz the boys needed socks - and t-shirts. So we drove to Manteca, had dinner at El Jardin (great food - it's nice to have a 'backup' Mexican place on our list). Shopped after dinner, then headed home. The kids begged for Baskin Robbins (right next to the restaurant) but I said 'no, too expensive'. We surprised them by going to Fosters Freeze on the way back into Tracy. I had my usual - B. had a sundae and H. had an Oreo Blizzard. J. nibbled some of mine. Fun evening - and we all ended up outside by the pool trying to cool off. Nice evening.

The veggies look as great as last week - and so much variety. There's something there that we don't even recognize - we think it's some kind of squash. And there's kohlrabi, kind of like a cabbage. She included a recipe for it and I'm going to cook it tonight for myself to see what it's like. It's like Christmas seeing what's included this week - and it's all really great! We're enjoying it a lot -

So it's just me and Chloe here today - have to run to Petco to get food pellets for Fofy - (I don't know why Petsmart doesn't carry these pellets for parakeets - but they don't, thus necessitating an 'extra' trip across town periodically to Petco, where we rarely shop). And possibly stopping in for a final perusal of the Linens and Things store to see what's left now that they are in their final days.

I have some 'work' work to tackle as well. Laptop here. Need to get started on some things. It's the perfect day for it - up early, ready to go.

That's my Sunday news report. It's going to be very hot here today - the air is completely still and it's already approaching 80. Oh, and I have our most recent electric bill and we are doing GREAT - used (on average) 7 fewer KWh PER DAY than this month last year. We are all acclimating to the thermostats being set for 80 when we're home, 84 when we're not. It can get warmish - like last night when I was scrubbing the bird cage, vacuuming, etc. - hence the late night time out by the pool - but we're managing. And it's really helping, which I feel good about - and not just from the perspective of lowering our out of pocket expenses. Just feels good knowing we're trying to reduce our need for energy that's produced via non-eco-friendly generation stations.