What a day!

A girlfriend graciously volunteered to pick up CJ from preschool yesterday and keep him for the afternoon, so that I could drop him off at school and immediately head out to do some Christmas shopping. Santa is now done with his shopping for gifts and stockings, and I am done shopping for my kids, for my niece, and the baby-to-be (can't resist doing a little shopping for the baby that is finally making me an auntie!! *grin*). Got started on my mom. Have ideas for my dad, and Dan pretty much said he's shopping for himself this year (works for me!). I was stressed BIG TIME about when I would get time to shop without any of my kids, so this worked out beyond perfectly.

The only downside was that the entire outing was marred by the fact that my van's heat hasn't worked in several days (and our high temps for the day have been in the low 30's, so yeah, it's been COOOOOOOOLD driving around in my van!!), so I was FREEZING my buns off driving down the road, and THEN, the van was trying to red-line and over-heat. WHAT?!?!?!?!?!? I filled up the coolant tank and hoped that was the fix, but NOPE. Now I have to take my van in for repairs and they can't get me in sooner than Thursday morning, and have ZERO estimated time-frame for when they'll have it ready for me. I have to coordinate who is going to come pick me (and Connor) up after we drop it off, and exactly WHEN I'm going to squeeze that into our day. ha!

The broken van ruins several plans for the next few days, but hopefully we'll get things worked out. My extremely generous neighbors have granted us permission to use their extra vehicle for the time-being, but I don't want to put a lot of wear and tire and miles on a vehicle that isn't mine, so I will still be limiting my outings to only ones of real necessity. At least I know I have a way to leave the house if I NEED to.

Dan somehow wound up having to pay for one of his employees parking tickets (long story, don't ask, I'm not pleased!)

I got zero cleaning done on the house to prep for J's play-date after school.

However, I am almost done with my Christmas shopping now (YAYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY!!!!!!) and finally get that weight off my shoulders. Now to fine time to tackle making the 40 greeting cards my neighbor ordered from me (which she will probably get for free as a huge thank you for loaning us her vehicle and saving me having to rent one!!!!!)