That about sums it up. Did bits around the yard today. Wiped down the inside of the pool and then the outside of the pool and folded it up and put it away for the summer. This is the first time we've managed to do that before the end of October so I'm proud of us.

We laid out tarps over the old greenhouse foundation so that by next spring all the weeds and stuff will be dead without us using poison to do it. It's also cheaper than buying poison to do it.

Stacked wood and covered it with tarps, though I still need to do some more rearranging and bring wood up onto the porch. So far we haven't had a fire at night yet but the days are getting cooler and I don't imagine it will be too much longer.

The dryer is completely dead now, not just halfway dead. I think it is repairable but I'm not sure I'll bother. It still heats up but the drum doesn't turn. I had used it a bit too much this month because of the rain combined with the laziness and the kidney infection. We had a nice couple of days so I've had stuff out on the line as well as some stuff in the house on the drying racks.

I just need to get caught up during the warm spell so that when it gets rainy again it won't be hard to dry everything in the house. I may buy another drying rack or two to increase my capacity. Of course, once we start using the wood stove stuff will dry within a few hours since the racks are in the same room. So maybe I should try to hold off on that purchase.

Rose stayed home sick from school today. She caught a cold from her best friend who was out Friday (and today). She was in total whine mode. I know she is sick and miserable but she is also ten and can be sick and miserable without being a whiny PITB. Of course, I have not got a great amount of tolerance because she has oh so kindly shared her cold with me and I'm already on antibiotics for the kidney infection, so didn't really need another thing on top of that.

Tobias seems like he is getting stuffy and he felt warm tonight so it is just possible that he will be down by Wednesday if I am any judge. Well, I'll save on gas this week by not having to go to soccer practice with sick kids and I don't have to go to the open house at the school tomorrow which is worse every year with the boring. I think they devise ways to make it more tedious each year.

I was supposed to schedule an oil change for the car this week but that may get pushed to next week. I'm not driving that car until I can take it in. Fortunately, I don't need to.

I drove DH to the airport tonight and he is safely off to work. Filled up with gas at Costco for $2.57 a gallon. Oh, I bought a coat from Land's End online tonight and ordered a new knob for my dishwasher ($28 for a one ounce piece of plastic?). I had to use the credit card but will make an online payment to the card tomorrow in the amount of the two purchases. I really wish these online companies would allow you to make check payments online. So few do.

I really had a hard time buying that coat. I haven't got one anymore, the one I've used for the past ten years just fell to pieces the last time I washed it and I've been using DH's extra coat (work gives him a coat every year) when I've needed one but it is really too large to be comfortable. It is hard for me to find warm enough coats (we live in the mountains) that don't contain down or wool. I am allergic to both, so when I finally found one after searching about 18 different sites, I was thrilled. Wasn't happy about the price of $89.90, but since everything comparable I looked at was $149 or upwards, I guess it it okay. Shipping was $8.95, and there was a bit of tax, came to total of $106 something. I really like the colors, too, imperial blue and deep navy (is there a non-deep navy?). And since I will probably have it for another ten years, that works out to just over $10 a year, so that isn't too bad.

I wasn't too thrilled on the $28 for the dishwasher knob, either. I've been using pliers to turn it on. That's easy as it starts when you get it to the right place. Problem is, I don't know when the knob gets to the dry cycle so I can turn the machine off. And I'm not sure where off is. So it has to run all the way. Now we don't do heat cycle at all, but still, it runs for about fifteen minutes after the wash/rinse is complete and that wastes electricity, so we bought the knob.

I'm tired so I'll end my whine now. Kudos to those of you who waded all the way through it.