I got an email from Russell Stover about a 50% off sale. I thought it would be on stuff I didn’t want, but I clicked through just to see—and it was a lot of stuff I liked! I filled my cart, la la la, so much fun! Free shipping over $25, I will somehow manage that! Teacher gifts etc.! And then I started the checkout process, and the shipping was $45 on that $25 order, because it’s warm outside so the order doesn’t qualify for free shipping or even normal shipping. Okay! But maybe not bother having a sale then, if “warm weather” means insane shipping charges and it is MAY! If I save $25 off $50 of chocolate, but it costs me FORTY-FIVE DOLLARS to ship it, then what I have IN FACT done is spent $20 EXTRA on the chocolates, when I could buy them for regular price and no shipping and no minimum AT A LOCAL STORE! It’s kind of like an OPPOSITE DAY sale!

Speaking of warm weather, I have switched to my warm weather shoes. This year I have a new pair:

(image from Amazon.com)

Skechers Bobs Utopia sneakers. I dithered for a long time. Were they…Too Much? Would I feel silly wearing them? Finally I bought them, and I love them. They’re sort of like Converse: comfy but not a lot of support or padding, maybe a little more than Converse but not a lot more. The laces just have a little knot in the ends: if you want to tie them in bows, you’ll have to take them out and buy new, longer laces. I thought I might want to do that, but I haven’t wanted to. The backs of the shoes are elasticized so you can easily slip them on.

Dramatic subject change. I have been cranky ever since Paul stopped drinking iced coffee, because he liked half-and-half in it, so there was always half-and-half available. I can’t go through a thing of it myself before it goes bad, but I DO like some in my coffee sometimes. The other day, Paul came home from work with a handful of shelf-stable creamers from the cafeteria. Then I discovered I could purchase them, rather than making Paul steal several from work every day until he retires. LIFE CHANGED.

(image from Amazon.com)

Now I have cream for my coffee WHENEVER I WANT IT, without fretting that the carton in the fridge is going bad, or that it’s not worth it to buy a carton and just use a third of it! I put the box downstairs in the basement, and I use a canister next to the coffee pot to hold a more reasonable number of creamers. Bonus: this is a canister I bought because I liked the squirrel pattern (I think it was intended for dog biscuits), and then couldn’t find any use for it. So it was sitting uselessly on my counter ANYWAY, and now it is sitting there usefully!

(It looks like a HUGE canister, but actually it is next to a SMALL coffee pot—the 4-cup kind. Also, usually I have the canister shoved to the side of the coffee pot, but I pulled it forward for this demonstration of how I have TINY CREAMERS! IN MY HOUSE!)

We have a new flash-hit toy:

(image from Amazon.com)

Coinstruction. Paul got this from a post-yard-sale FREE pile on someone’s lawn, figuring meh, what the heck. OBSESSIVE COINSTRUCTION ensued. It’s a set of little things that attach pennies together temporarily to make structures.

Note that I am not necessarily recommending this toy. It has hundreds of tiny little coin-joiners. They are EVERYWHERE. But if you are people who get out a toy, play with it carefully, and then put it away neatly; or if you are people who aren’t particularly bothered by little pieces everywhere and you pretty much gave up on that sort of organization years ago, then this may be a success at your house, too. (You will need to obtain the pennies separately.)