You’re Never Gonna Believe It!

I actually made it through a weekend COMPLETELY within my points!!!!!!!!  Me!!  I don’t know what it was, but this weekend, I just found myself feeling like it had all clicked in my head again.  Of course, we’ll see what happens after this weekend trip!

Saturday was a totally crappy day.  We were crunched on time for one thing.  For another, I was seriously unhappy with the new digital camera I had bought last weekend, and finally decided to return it.  (It was a Canon PowerShot SX120IS.) The specs were awesome and the features were incredible in theory, especially for someone who loves photos as much as I do. Unfortunately, the image quality left a lot to be desired. Even the photos out in full sunlight were really, really grainy and unclear. After I returned it to Best Buy, I was perusing their other cameras and started talking to one of the workers there, who expressed amazement that I hated that camera, because it was the favorite of all of the employees. It’s always possible that I got a bad one, but I did a search for that camera and “grainy” and it seems a bunch of other people have had that problem with it.

But I looked at and tried out several other cameras that I had checked reviews on, and even some that I didn’t and listened to what the employee had to say. As I was narrowing it down to two or three, another guy came up and was really giving the employee a hard time, really questioning her and drilling her (much like I was) but he was just being ornery. We had asked her which was her favorite of the ones we had narrowed it down to and when she told us, he pulled out his iPhone and checked the reviews for it and luckily, saw that it was $25 cheaper online – a price she matched, of course. So I’m glad he was standing there! We both ended up getting the Sony Cyber-Shot DSC-H55, a fairly new camera from what I can tell.

As soon as I left the store, I had massive buyer’s remorse and second-thoughts.  I was worried that I’d get home and it would be just as crappy as the last one and I really needed a new one for my trip this coming weekend.  But so far I’m really happy with it – it is MUCH better than the other one as far as pic quality.  Here’s a test run pic with the new one:

Anyway, the rest of Saturday blew – I went to probably six different clothing stores and couldn’t find a single shirt that I liked.  Not. a. single. one.  Okay, I know that it’s summer, but does every single shirt have to be sleeveless, teeny tiny short sleeves, or made from really thin knit??  Newsflash! Not all overweight people like to show their arms or wear something quite that clingy!  So that was discouraging.

Then, my car was acting somewhat funny – so hopefully it gets me to and from work tomorrow.  After that, I got home and went out to mow and the self-propelled motor part wasn’t working.  I tried just pushing it, but that darn thing just didn’t want to move!  So overall a crappy day, and I STILL stayed within my points!

Today was much better, I gave my new camera a tryout around outside and decided that I liked it.  I was able to find a new shirt that I liked at the one store that I haven’t been to lately.  Then we found out that my aunt will be in town this weekend after all, so she will be able to look in on my dad – we had thought that she was going to be out of town.  So that is a MASSIVE weight lifted off of our shoulders.  My mom is feeling much better about us going.  Then, when we went to the grocery store, my mom took a detour and decided – randomly and completely unexplainably – to drive past the house of one of my brother’s friends.  We were so glad we did, because we saw this in the driveway:

It’s my brother’s truck!!!  My brother’s truck was his baby.  He spent the majority of his time working on it and well, babying it.  After he died, one of his close friends (who can be a bit wild at times) bought it from us.  We had hoped that he would cherish it, too.  Well, even though he kept in touch for quite a while, we kind of lost touch.  And we totally understand that – life goes on.  But we had wondered if he still had the truck and really were hoping that he hadn’t wrecked it or anything.  It’s been at least three years since we’ve seen it.  But as we started to drive by, my mom was like “is that his truck?!?”  And then as we passed, we KNEW that it was, because it has “You’ll always be remembered” stenciled across the top of the back window.  His friend had that added after he bought it from us.  But seeing that just made us feel that much more relieved.  We tend to believe in silly little signs like that – that maybe it’s all going to be okay and that my brother is somewhere keeping an eye on us.

Anyway, silliness aside, today was much better and we are really really getting excited about the trip.  I’ll admit I’m a bit nervous and overwhelmed about the trip – not looking forward to dealing with security after Saturday’s events in NY and knowing how rushed we’re going to be – but the excitement is starting to win out.  I mean, I’m actually going to get to see the Lincoln Memorial and the White House in person, for God’s sake!  (Of course, I’m sure that doesn’t mean much to those of you who have seen them time and time again!)   It’s just exciting knowing you’re going to get to see things that you’ve heard about all of your life.  The excitement I’m feeling actually reminds me a lot of the excitement I felt at going to CA last year (almost a year ago exactly).

On the “Lbs.” front, here’s a great new review:

What Would Toto Watch?  “Lbs.” – Pound for Pound a Seriously Original Drama

Okay, that’s all for tonight!  I’m off to finish watching a History Channel special on “Secret Societies” with my dad – interesting and odd so far!  Hope you had a great weekend!