I was looking for the redemption code for an Amazon gift certificate that I got for Hanukkah and discovered the notification for one that I got for TRex ages ago... it expires this month!  So I just ordered her three new gosling books!  We love the goslings in our house, we do.  And with part of my own gift certificate I got myself an armband for the new iPod.

1) My friends can make me worry sometimes.
2) I am officially an old lady - I even bought an old lady swimsuit this weekend (low legs, high back, pudge-control lining (which really does work, incidentally)).
3) I've overhauled How Very Meta - moved it to WordPress, among other things (though I'm doing a bit of a hack to keep it "located" at my UMass webspace - it's actually being hosted at WordPress.com).

Every weather oracle we consulted about this past weekend said the same thing:

Crappy and rainy on Saturday, rainy Sunday morning but clearing and warm in the afternoon. Warm and dry on Monday.

Here's what we got:

Crappy and cloudy on Saturday, but no rain. Downpours Sunday until about 3:30 pm, then warm and disgustingly humid. Crappy and cloudy with intermittent rain all day Monday.

We made our weekend plans based on the forecast, though, which meant that we thought we were going to be able to go to the pool on Sunday afternoon (and in fact told TRex as much... thankfully her memory is short). Saturday we did our normal shopping in the morning, had lunch and TRex napped, and then we figured we'd use the crappy day to go up to the outlets and look for clothes for TRex for next summer, since everybody's got end-of-season clearances on. As it turned out, we didn't find anything really great for her (just a couple of cute little dresses) but I did manage to convince M that yes, $12.50 for a short-sleeved shirt from Eddie Bauer was a very good price. So in the end, I was the only one that came home from our shopping trip empty-handed.

And then it was crappy on Sunday, too, so we took TRex to the playground at the mall and she ran around and followed the big kids and climbed and so on until a bigger kid (probably 3 or maybe 4) decided that pushing her down was fun (and his parents were sitting there watching and doing exactly nothing about it - I was about to have a talk with the kid myself) and she was getting tired anyway so we left.

And yesterday we went to the library and played with a boy named Sam and brought home two books and a CD and ever since we've been listening to "Where is Thumbkin?" on infinite repeat. "Fumk! Fumk!" *thumbwaggle*

Went to Target today to get some shorts... because we're going on vacation w/ Mom's family next week and I only have 2 pair (not enough for a whole week!) The only reasonable (ie, not hotpants, not distressed to the point of not surviving three washings) ones were some Bermudas that were sadly not on sale (they're starting to put summer stuff on clearance, so I had hoped to find shorts there). But they looked cute and were badly needed, so I got them.

I also found a very cute white, acid green, and aqua blue halter top on the clearance rack. And it looked GOOD on me. WTF? I haven't worn a halter top since... well, I might have worn one in junior high. So clearly I had to get that. And then I thought to myself, self, Mom just told you that there's one evening when you might want to dress up. And this halter top clearly fits the bill, especially when paired with a new white linen skirt and the white sandals I got a while back. Oh yeah.

But it's a white linen skirt. It's not sheer by any means, but ... it's white. So I head over to lingerie to look for a white slip (which I don't own - just a black one). And there were exactly ZERO slips to be had at Target. None. Zilch. Nada. WTF? Does no one wear slips anymore? Does Target assume that everyone already has one? Do people who shop at Target just not care if the whole world can see their underwear? I don't get it.

So I walked over to KMart. KMart had slips in a variety of styles, lengths, and colors. Hallelujah.

I just discovered (in the process of checking on an order that should be shipping very soon) that you can look up your entire ordering history on Amazon by year... I've actually bought a whole lot less stuff from them than I would have thought. But it was an entertaining waltz down memory lane...

I had given up hope of ever finding reasonable new winter boots mid-season, and I needed new ones because the $3 ones I bought at Target last year have sprung a leak. I've been shopping a bunch of times and I found a number of boots that I liked, but there was something wrong with most of them... they didn't fit right, they were too expensive, they weren't warm, whatever. I had found some by Totes that I liked but I hadn't found them for what I thought was a reasonable price for what they are. They've been going on clearance all over the place lately, though, but nobody had them in my size (stupid commonly-sized feet).

Today, though, it occurred to me to go to A.J. Wright when I stopped off at the grocery store to buy Skinny Cows (on sale, hooray!) and milk for TRex. Et voila! They had the Totes boots in my size, for only $18!!!!