Interesting times

Well, I've got a bit of catching up to do!

The biggest news is that Raider King found himself his own place.  It's the basement of a co-worker's house, and at an amazing rent - especially considering all the utilities are included, and it even comes with some furniture and a TV.  He's got Internet, too, but they haven't figured out how to set him up yet.  He's been there for about a week now, and it's working out really well for him.  Ah, I remember those days of living in one's very first independent home!  We're really happy for him, and he's finally not only got privacy, but space, as well.

I haven't even tried to do library lists lately.  The girls have been plowing their way through several series of Manga comics.  These days, our library trips involve putting a whole bunch of things on hold, then going in long enough to pick them up.  This past week I finally went for a regular library day with Youngest, bringing Eldest's card along so we could pick up her holds (Eldest had to get a new library card, now that she's an adult, which means her card is no longer free.  Not that it costs much, anyhow).  I hadn't been to the library in ages, so Youngest and I split up.  I went to the crafting section while she picked up the holds, then headed for the mythology section.  We met up in audio/visual, where I found a few dvds to borrow.  By the time I was done, she was waiting for me, reading one of the books she found.  Then she showed me the rest of the stack she'd picked!  When we got home, she insisted on weighing the backpack.  It was about 17 pounds of books! *L*

We've been doing an awful lot of running around lately, which has been a bit frustrating for Eldest.  She has to get ready for the art festival, and has been working on quite a few new paintings, along with her other sketch work, etc.  The festival is in July, but there's lots of preparation in between.  Her biggest challenge, I think, is going to be finding frames. 

Dh had brought up the idea of geocaching recently.  He's got GPS on his phone, so yesterday he and Eldest headed out in the wee hours of the morning to find some nearby caches.  It turns out there are seven of them near our place, some of which we've gone by many times without knowing they were there!  Of the seven, they found four this morning.  A couple of them were nano-caches - these are so small, they recommend bringing tweezers along to take out the log "book."  It's actually a tiny roll of paper that the finder dates and initials.  They also found a micro-cache, which is about the size of one of those magnetic boxes used to hide spare keys, plus a regular sized cache.  One they didn't find, they plan to go back to, as Eldest is now sure she knows where it is.  The other two, there were too many people around for them to be able to look for them.

Youngest now wants to go out geocaching, too!

Meanwhile, we're winding up our official school year.  Our facilitator visit is this Friday.  Looking forward to it. :-)

Youngest's guitar lessons will continue through the summer, though, as far as I know.  At least her teacher hasn't mentioned anything about a summer break.  She's still enjoying the lessons, though pains in her wrist (which, it has been determined, has nothing to do with her guitar playing) have been a bit of a problem. 

On a completely different note...

I quit.  I've thrown in the towel.  I give up in defeat.

(and no, Eldest, you are not allowed to feel guilty about this)

I've whined and moaned previously about how much I hate shopping.  In particular, how much I hate grocery shopping, due to the diverse nature of likes, dislikes and dietary requirements.  It's not usually much of an issue.  Dh has breakfast at home before I wake up, and usually has leftovers from supper as a lunch at work.  The girls have been making their own breakfasts and lunches for quite some time now.   We've basically had one major meal of the day, which I usually do, though the girls certainly have stepped in fairly regularly. 

The problem?

Well, I got tired of throwing away food.

You see, every now and then, no matter what gets made for supper, it just doesn't get eaten.  Oh, sure, some of it does, but very tiny amounts.  Then the leftovers get put aside for Dh to make a lunch for work, except he doesn't for some reason, so it sits there.  Next thing I know, I'm throwing away almost entire meals.  This *really* irritated me when that involved throwing out a lot of meat.  It got to be a real problem.  Sometimes, it was because leftovers were tucked into the oven or something, with the intent of it being used right away, only to be forgotten about.  I always made a habit of leaving the oven light on when something was set aside in there, but it would get turned off, and promptly forgotten about until the next time someone needed to use the oven.

Not good.

Well, about a week ago, I went to start supper, only to discover some food that had been sitting for 3 days, virtually untouched.  I'd made extra specifically so there would be enough left over for Dh's lunch, and not even the normal amount of it had been eating.  Few things bother me more than wasted food!

So I quit.

We are now responsible for our own meals.

Not that we don't cook for each other once in a while.  We've started using the BBQ now that the weather has finally improved, for example.  But overall, I've washed my hands of meals.

We'll see how long that lasts.

:-P