Was it really just last night that I did all the Super Productive Working?? And still went to bed at, like, midnight, woke up at 8, proceeded to continue to be so efficient on work that I wrapped up everything I could do by 11:15 (and with another 50 minutes tonight, I once again only have 1 thing still due tomorrow), and proceeded to have a SIX HOUR ADVENTURE DAY??


PLACES I WENT / THINGS I DID

• The gas station, to fill up for the rest of the month


• The bank, for cash for the rest of the month


• 5 garage sales


• 1.5 hours of walking, some in a regional park, some just to enjoy strolling around a new neighborhood


• (I also parked by a dog park so I got to watch cute dogs go in and out for a while)


• A new Dollar Tree location


• The Super Huge Warehouse ValuThrift store


• Goodwill


• And I saw 2 people with 3 Borzois between them. Those dogs are AMAZING

SHINY NEW THINGS I ACQUIRED AT THESE PLACES:

The Les Miserables Complete Symphonic Recording, 50 cents

"To date I believe this is still the only audio version that has the whole play on it. The 10th/25th Anniversary only have the main songs and you don't get all the 'in-between' dialogue. This one has it all. That is the single biggest reason for owning this version."

An organizing guide in handy spiral-bound form, with checklists and everything, $1

Dollar Store: FANTASTIC BOOKS, $1 each

• Even When You Lie To Me by Jessica Alcott, a decidedly imperfect but currently my favorite student/teacher YA novel, which I have checked out of the library a second time snce I read it because I wanted to soak up some of the passages again. I've been eager to have it on hand. And there I was, just walking around the store, and I spot this one lone copy lying on a random shelf. Waiting for me. I go to 2 or 3 dollar stores regularly, okay, and this book has not been at either of them. I had to go 14 miles south and choose this one on a whim because it was next to the Warehouse Thrift Store.


• Voracious: A Hungry Reader Cooks Her Way Through Great Books, a/k/a an amazing looking and super-gorgeous book I checked out of the library earlier this year but couldn't make the time to read before it was due back.

Goodwill: more books!

• I tried really hard to say no to everything, but then I saw Susan Branch's gorgeous Heart of the Home and all bets were off, so I also bought 2 books I have not read, Joan Bauer's Rules of the Road and Annie England Noblin's Sit! Stay! Speak! which I KNOW I should not have bought, and should have just rented because now I won't want to let it go, but COME ON. A combination of "single woman inherits old house and moves to a small town to fix it up" AND "woman acquires a stray puppy"?? My two fave premises! Total cost for the three: around $5.40 for a hardcover and 2 paperbacks. God, that's double the dollar tree's prices for used books.

Things I did NOT acquire at the garage sales include:

1. a replacement keyboard exactly like my current one -- I am now actively missing a key because I broke the Z when I popped it off to clean it, so I replaced it with the key next to the number 1, and now I can't use tildes for that cool ~dramatic effect~ unless I use a pair of tweezers or copy/paste -- but he wanted $7 and listen, no, I don't want to pay more than $3 no matter how nice it is.

2. A black wire book display like they have in stores for paperbacks, $10. It was pretty neat, not gonna lie, and I genuinely considered it, but also it was kind of rusted and I don't know if it is the most practical use of space or if it is worse on book spines than a normal shelf.

3. A square Pyrex cooking dish (not my preferred color), $2

Overpriced Thrift Store Items I, With Great Willpower and Supreme Effort, Put Back:

• Chris Colfer's "Land of Stories: A Treasury of Classic Fairy Tales version (no dust jacket, $10 and enormous size to boot)


• Horse-Opoly


• A vintage 1970s Noah's Ark preschooler's board game, mostly for the plastic animals (they are hideous, but they are the special 70s hideous of the garage sale animals I grew up with and am secretly fond of, even if they were inferior to my domestic plastic animals)


• A ton of paperback books I would totally buy if I had 500x more space, including Ghost Cat and Marie Antoinette, Serial Killer

Finally: DELICIOUS FOOD EATEN TODAY:

• A bologna and American cheese sandwich, which I know is super unhealthy but I have been CRAVING this flavor combination for weeks and it was utterly glorious


• A Big Salad, i.e. the entire bag of one of those salad kits (but only about 1/4 of the dressing)


• Grapes


• Ice cold Diet Coke


• One of those frozen microwave-steamable wild rice + veggies bags


• Steamed baby carrots


• A chocolate chip cookie

And now here it is...only 10 pm...and I am contemplating turning off the computer?? What a night!