Bring me some cheese to go with this whine

Is it Wednesday yet? It's already been a long slog of a week, dealing as I am with a cold Brian gifted to me. Me, of the iron immune system! Apparently that was the younger me, as I've gotten it far worse and longer than the gifter – as well as STILL dealing with the unwanted effects of two weeks of antibiotics in OCTOBER.  😣

This morning I cancelled my weekly date with my dentist (can I bear to miss TWO Tuesdays???), figuring he didn't want my germs – or the risk of me gagging when the sudden need to hack up a lung struck. At least that puts the next dental bill on December's paycheck; November's was used up long ago.

All this driving and killing time while waiting on Brian's basketball practices isn't helping my cold or my budget. Last night I went to a grocery store to see if they had any good deals, and scored several. But when the clerk scanned one particular item, the scanner picked up the bar code of the sale sticker AND the original bar code, charging me both prices. I caught it, and the cashier deleted it, but after paying and checking my receipt, I realized that not only had she not deleted the mistake, she had repeated it, resulting in two full-price charges and three sale price charges for the same item! Striken, she looked at me and she looked at the line of customers behind me, and referred me to customer service. The good news was that the cash register generated a coupon for $1 off another of the items I got on sale, plus a dollar off my next purchase, so I figured I might as well take advantage of it after visiting customer service. Soon I was back at the same cashier's with a third non-GMO, vegan mayonnaise – which rang up at $5.99 before coupons. ACK! I told her the shelf sticker said $2.99 and I had just paid that for the two I had already purchased, and she said no, they had rung up at $5.99 as well. 😳 I checked my original, now-marked-up receipt and sure enough, I was overcharged and hadn't noticed. So after paying 99¢ for the third one (correct price less coupons), I went back customer service for another overcharge refund. The clerk there noticed two more coupons for the same item generated by my second purchase and offered to credit those, bringing my cost down to $1.99 for the first two. So my comedy of errors was really a cascade of blessings . . . and added up to more steps on my FitBit and more of practice time occupied. Only, I did have something else I planned to spend that time on . . . maybe I'll finish that mohair scarf tonight. 😬

There was another big blessing yesterday. Sunday I got an email from a neighbor who has let us cut Christmas trees – no charge! – from their property in the past. They've turned into snowbirds and turned tree management over to someone else, but they had arranged to have their gate unlocked for three days for neighbors wanting a tree. There wasn't time (again, basketball practice) or weather to act on the offer Sunday, and even though Monday turned out sunny and dry, it's my non-stop, four-city/town commute day. But I got off work early enough to run up the hill and let our long-suffering dogs out to relieve themselves before heading to Salem – and lo-and-behold, Rick was home. When he asked if I had enough time to choose a tree, I knew it was then or never – whether I had the energy or not. (We really want to have a tree this year with my folks coming.) We must have set a family record, Rick and I. Spotting, agreeing(!), cutting, loading, unloading into a bucket of water; I think we bagged a tree in a total of 15 minutes! With rain projected by this morning (which came, and stayed) and Brian available to help with the heavy lifting, we got it inside and set up (with support string secured to the French doors' hinges!) before bedtime last night. Who knows when we'll find time to decorate it, but hey, Project 2017 Christmas Tree is well underway!

That's it for now from . . .