A day off

 I had a dental appointment early this morning. When I went for my six month cleaning a couple weeks ago they found the tiny beginning of a cavity and advised me to go ahead and fill it promptly. It was the quickest, easiest trip to the dentist I've had in years (not counting cleanings) because we caught it so early. Much to my dismay, though, the dentist is insistent that I need to have some crowns redone very soon. A few of you may have been reading here for long enough to remember when my old dentist retired and a series of awful temporary ones filled in while the practice looked for a permanent replacement. I ended up spending thousands of dollars for very badly done work. Now it's going to cost another $2000 or so out of pocket to fix everything. Since I'm not having any pain or problems I keep trying to put it off, but it's soon going to be necessary to avoid trouble in the future. Why does dental work is so damn expensive? I'm going to try to hold off a little longer, maybe until the fall. 

I decided that since I've hardly missed any days of work this year and my personal paid time off keeps accruing, I would take the whole day off work even though my appointment was easy and I was done by 10am. I had tentative plans to go to the bookstore or the library or even a couple of thrift stores this afternoon. Too bad for me, though, and it's a good thing I took the rest of the day off, because Gregg's truck broke down and we're currently having to share my car. Yesterday he had to have the repair shop come tow it in and it looks like the clutch may need replacing. Sigh. There goes another $1000+ , and all the more reason to put off the next dental bill as long as possible. We just can't seem to catch a break in the money department lately! It's always something!

But it's nice to have the afternoon off even if I'm stuck at home. It's a cool, cloudy day and the porch and my garden are calling to me. I'll leave you with a few pictures of the garden progress and the kids:

Tomatoes are coming along...

We finally planted something in a big concrete planter a friend gave us last year. It was one of several outside a restaurant he used to own and he had salvaged them for his home garden.  He also gave us the plant we ended up putting into it: a small ornamental pomegranate. 

Finally, for all you Marco fans out there....here he is on his porch swing the other day, eating a lime and jalapeno potato chip. He loves chips, as you can see.

Just a simple day in the life...

Today has been an average day off for me, and just the kind of day I like.

First, I slept in until 9:30 and then took my time reading blogs with a cup of coffee. Then I showered, dressed, and picked up the house a little bit. I also finished a couple of chapters of the novel I'm reading at lunchtime.

Then I took a trip to the goodwill store to buy cheap blankets for the dogs' bed. George will chew up and destroy nice dog pillows, and we gave up on using them ages ago. He'll eventually chew up blankets, too, but I can always go buy a stack of them for $2 or $3 each and replace them once they're threadbare. Poor Ginger hasn't had a really comfortable place to sleep since George arrived. She had a wonderful doggie mattress along with thick fluffy comforters before he came along. Those are days gone by, George being the chewing machine that he is!

While browsing for the blankets, I found a pretty serving platter and a couple of really nice gardening reference books.  I ended up getting the books, the platter, and 4 large blankets, all for $20. Not bad.

Once I left the goodwill and headed towards the farm stand down the road, the wind started gusting, the temperature dropped 25 degrees, and rain started to pour. I feared hail because of the sudden drop in temperature, but it only rained. I sat in my car for awhile at the market trying to wait it out, but eventually I got out and ran in to make my purchases. I only got a little bit wet!

The small market is so pretty this time of year, with all the flowers for sale.

And I'm glad I went, because I got some nice stuff for our dinner tonight:

I've had steaks marinating all day, and now that the rainstorm is over (and the sun is back out) we can grill them just like we had planned. Gregg will be home from work soon, and we'll light the grill and sit outside and talk. I'll make myself a cocktail to take out with me. Since today is Cinco de Mayo, I thought about stopping by the liquor store to get tequila for margaritas, but it seemed silly when I already have good whiskey and can make whiskey sours with it. I like them just as well, and decided it was probably best to save the money. After all, we're planning a vacation next month to the Outer Banks of North Carolina and so should be saving our pennies where we can! It's going to be an anniversary trip for us (we'll have been married for ten years!) and I'm really looking forward to it. Which reminds me of something else I did today: spent some time searching the internet for the perfect place to stay up there. It's going to be a nice trip. The Outer Banks is one of the most beautiful places on the East Coast.

That's it for my day off. Have a good weekend, everyone!