Category: Shopping

When Sundance Catalog showed up in my mailbox last week, the image on the cover, of a teardrop trailer captured my imagination. The idea is simple: a small trailer that can be pulled with nearly any vehicle and contains your entire array of camping accoutrements, ready to go. The back opens up to reveal a galley kitchen for meal preparation and the interior contains a mattress and some storage. Of course there's tons of variations on a theme, with canopies and TVs and pull-out tables.

Sundance's version of this American classic, unfortunately is a bit out of my price range … it runs $24,000. But classic teardrop trailers were made to be economical as well as practical. Many of them were built from plans or kits sold by outdoor magazines, and indeed, some people today still build them themselves. I personally think it would be a very fun, if expensive, project.

– Wikipedia article on teardrops
– rollin oak teardrop trailers
– cozy cruiser teardrops
– a DIY teardrop

In our very suburban community, garage saling is in full swing. Our semi-annual (the one where it's twice a year, that's semi, right??!) garage sale was held last week and apparently the neighborhood where our babysitter lives is doing it this weekend. Thanks to Matt's schedule, we've gotten some great deals on what we need the most … baby stuff!

We have purchased so far:
1. a full sized high chair for $10 – we already had one for Ms Tabby, but I'm going to be watching our friends' baby on Mondays, so we needed an extra
2. a small baby high-chair that gets strapped to a bigger chair, good for travel – $5
3. a BRAND NEW Baby Bjorn (regularly $80) – $10
4. a baby backpack for hiking – $8
5. a cute colorful play gym – $15, which I thought was a bit steep at the time, 'til I found out it retails for $55
6. tons of baby clothes
and the piece de resistance …
7. a PINK jogging stroller – $25

I have the best husband ever, seriously.

As previously mentioned, my car went to the shop yesterday. Along with an oil change, Matt had them check out a couple of minor things, including some harder shifting from the transmission. They couldn't find a cause for this and speculate that it may be the beginning of the end for my transmission. It still probably has a couple of good years left in it, but it's making me face the fac that someday I'll have to get another car. *Sob*

I love my car and this is all that much more crushing because since the folks at Honda couldn't leave well enough alone and have had two new body styles since mine, so the new CR-Vs don't look a thing like mine! And I like mine so much … it's all sporty. And the new ones look like mini BMW SUVs which is OK, but not me.

Matt, of course, wants me to get some leather-covered mom mobile (I probably should start embracing momish things, though, now that I think about it) with GPS and heated seats. Silly boy. I don't like leather, and I think Loki would be paticular murder on a nice car.

Maybe when the time comes I'll have to get Continue reading “Car Love”

On the weekends, we like to go out to breakfast. There's a little place not too far from us where I can get eggs benedict and Matt can get a lunch item (with excellent fries). So we go there and have breakfast. After that, we usually run errands. Last time, Matt talked me into going to a bike store with him. Though I like bikes, these stops are usually a bit boring for me because I sit around and hold Loki's leash while Matt talks shop with the guys in the store about moutain and road bikes. But this time the errand paid off … they had an Electra catalog and I found the perfect accessory for my new bike. A bell!! And not just any bell … a bell that coordinates perfectly with my bike. Now I can run people off the sidewalk with my bell and my huge wicker basket full of library books. Wheeee!

I saw on the Readymade Blog where you can customize a pair of Chuck Taylors to your specifications (within their parameters of course!) and even put your name on them (sorta like Nike ID, i suppose). If I didn't already own a bazillion pairs of sneakers, I might have to get them …

Anyhoo, you customize the inside and outside color of the shoes (so you could have two-tone shoes if you like) and then the stripe on the back, the tongue, the laces, the stitching and the rubber color. You can also have about 8 characters in Arial or some scripty font for a personalization. Sadly this is not enough room to write something snarky or witty (“Felony Flyer” or “60-Buck Chuck”). More's the pity.

Well, sad to say, my old Dell DJ gave up the ghost just before we left for vacation. It was a great MP3 player, but a few too many drops eventually did it in (clumsy me). So I went in search of a new one. Actually, if you wanna get technical, Matt went in search of a new one…. and he found the Zen Vision: M by Creative. It's cute. It's green. It plays videos and displays photos as well as playing music. The interface is quite a bit different than my Dell and right now, I find it a bit cumbersome, but I think with time I will like it.

One very cool thing is that I can use the AC adapter from my old MP3 player to charge this one…. especially nice because it didn't come with an adapter and could only be charged via USB. It also came with a piece of software for exploring and managing the files on the device which has a good interface and works pretty smoothly. So far … I like it lots.