Couch Shopping

It was subtle, but the sky was still pretty this morning. It actually looked more pink & purple in real life, but you know cameras never quite capture the “real thing.”

Nana planned to take us to Costco tonight (she’s a member, we’re not), so she met us at school this morning to switch cars, so that she can pick up Emerson after school, since she works literally right next door to daycare. We actually kept using that as a bribe at home while getting read this morning, saying stuff like, “If you hurry & let Mommy brush your teeth faster, we’ll get to see Nana at school!” And it worked! She was excited to see her for a few minutes, and still did really well at drop-off, even with both of us leaving her again today.

And after dropping her off, I started up a new audio book on my way to work. This is the sequel to “Shanghai Girls,” which I listened to about a month or so ago, and I’ve heard this one is even better than the first. Or at least that the story makes much more sense as a whole, after this book, since the first leaves you on a cliff-hanger.

Work was absolutely bananas today. With my co-worker Toni getting the new supervisor promotion, that leaves me to do a LOT of the work we used to share, all by myself. My supervisor Tammy helps me out when things get overwhelming, but for the most part, it’s all on me. Sometimes that’s fine and I can handle it, but sometimes we get a bunch of stuff coming in all at once, and I feel like I don’t get a spare second to breathe! Our little 8-person unit actually has two vacant positions right now, so all of us have more on our plates than usual. It’ll probably take another six months or so before both positions are filled, and probably a year before things even back out again. Sheesh, that’s kind of depressing thinking about it that way. Yikes. Crossing my fingers it’s sooner than that though…

Anyways, I did take my normal lunch break today, and ate last night’s leftovers. When you eat it on New Year’s Day, it’s called “Hoppin’ John,” but when you eat the leftovers on the 2nd, it’s called “Skippin’ Jenny,” and “further demonstrates one’s frugality, bringing a hope for an even better chance of prosperity in the New Year.” (I got that from Wikipedia 😉 ) But it was just as yummy today!

Also, I’m going to try to get back into reading more (and not just audio books), so I’m starting off the year with “Little Women.” Can you believe I’ve never read that before? I’ve only read a children’s version when I was around middle-school aged, and I don’t think I even watched the old movies? But now after such rave reviews on the new movie, I am super motivated to read the book first, and then go see it in the theater. Think I can finish the book in about two weeks? That’s my goal, because I don’t want the movie to leave the theater before I finish the book! I have a really pretty hardback copy of the book, but for days I don’t want to lug it to work with me, I also downloaded the e-book version for free, from Project Gutenberg, ^{to read from my phone or my Kindle. (I borrowed my friend Heather’s phone today, so I could take a picture of my phone 😉 )}

This happy little nugget is in the middle of transitioning up to the next class this week (they do it slowly over a few days, for plenty of time to acclimate), but I’d say it looks like she’s doing pretty good in her new class, with new & old friends, and a new teacher!

After work, we all braved the Capital Circle & Tennessee/Mahan traffic to head out to Costco. We had a Christmas gift to return, and we wanted to look a their couches. We tested out a few (not this leather one, but Emmie wanted to do this one), but none were quite right. Our current one is just a little over six years old, but it’s not in the best shape, and it’s time to start looking for a new one. Megan & Bo got theirs from Costco about a year ago, and it’s nice! But no such luck for us tonight. Where else should we look? Honestly, we don’t want to spend a ton of money, so I need to hear some budget-friendly options please!

The return line was super long, so Jeff took Emmie to the snack area for a Sprite and a churro, and then we decided to just grab dinner from there too. And we spent a whopping $8-ish for all four of us to eat!

We helped Nana do some shopping while we were there too, and Emmie was a big helper pushing the buggy.

We headed straight home (after being there for like, 1.5 hours, and got Emmie ready for bed. She specifically requested to wear her strawberry robe, and picked out this book to read. (It was long though, so I paraphrased for brevity.)

She needed an extra lullaby, and then as I was leaving the room (after back scratches and “Jesus Loves Me’s”) we said “I love you” and “I wuvvu too” back and forth, like eight times, and I melted into a puddle.

My back has been killing me this afternoon/evening (long story short, I got a not-so-great bra, and it’s causing issues), so I took some ibuprofen, and I’m gonna just kick my feet up, and once I get comfy, I’m not gonna move again for a while. We are starting up “The Mandalorian” on Disney+ (a Star Wars series), and try to watch the eight episodes before our self-imposed 1-month trial period is over.