An expensive morning!

Life can be a lot simpler when your kids get older. Now that the oldest is 15, he can be left in charge of his siblings while I do errands, and it's SO much easier than dragging them around with me. When your kids don't go to school, you don't get that free time during the day, so they end up coming everywhere with you, which can be good or it can be hair-raisingly horrible.

I have had a few dental appointments recently where I have been able to leave the children at home while I went into town. Yesterday, I had another filling (I had to pay for it myself, which just goes to prove I've had a lot of work done this year because the insurance plan is maxed out)!

After my appointment (during which my dentist used a laser instead of a drill - so he didn't need to numb my mouth - which is a first for me) I went over to a place called Lensmakers to see if they could replace the lenses in L's glasses. His recent eye test had confirmed his vision has changed a little, enough that he was complaining about his glasses, so rather than buy a whole new pair of glasses we thought we'd just get the lenses changed. His current frames are still good - the strong flexible metal ones - and I didn't want to have to make a special trip back to Costco (I'm not a member so I have to arrange to go with someone who is, and I wasn't sure I could wait for them to make new glasses as we're going on holiday soon).

Lensmakers were able to replace the lenses in an hour, so that gave me an hour around town. First place I visited was Michaels. I bought a couple of balls of yarn to finish filling the box which I will be offering at the weekend as part of our four-box-blog-contest-equinox-giveaway. Did you read that carefully? Yes, you'll need to read the blog this weekend because there'll be lots of chances to win stuff.

I then went into Wal-mart with the intention of phoning the boys at home to make sure everything was OK and to let them know when I'd be back (no, I don't have a cellphone, I think they are creepy, but that's a subject for another day). While I was in there, I thought I'd just wander around the clothing aisles, and whaddya know.......two soft cotton long-sleeved tops and a winter jacket just jumped into my arms. (When I got home, I looked at my fall-winter wardrobe and realised that I am finally getting some sort of a co-ordinated colour scheme going, rather than "it was two bucks at the thrift store so it was cheap so even though it's not perfect it'll do".)

By the time I'd flexed my credit card muscles for the fourth time that morning, it was time to go back, collect L's glasses, and get home for lunch.

So, despite repeating myself, read our blog on Saturday and Sunday because you just might be glad that you did!