Sweet Accomplishment

This appears to be a week of accomplishment. Not that it's gone smoothly.

Yesterday was the worst. I really had only 2 goals - bake the zucchini I shredded a few nights ago into a chocolate cake and zucchini bread and go down to Denny's house and reformat his hard drive. Before I was out of bed though, I received a call from my first customer requesting 4 copies of the DVD I created for her. Not a bad thing. So that became my first priority.

I burned the DVDs without a hitch. Then I went on to make the labels and ran out of color toner 2/5 through the first sheet (I only needed 2 sheets). OK, so I have to go to town to get toner. Walgreens advertises that it'll refill your cartridges for a discounted amount, so I've been wanting to give them a try.

While I was burning the DVDs I was gathering the ingredients to make the zucchini stuff and realized that I didn't have enough cocoa for the chocolate cake and no bread pans to make the bread. Another reason to go to town.

Since I had to go to town anyway I decided to hit the PO and mail the completed projects that I had for my folks and sister. I'd also get the new battery for the Montero that I need to sell.

So I pulled the old battery out of the car to take along, grabbed the stuff to mail, the old empty toner cartridges and headed for town.

I got gas first - no problem there. Next I hit Walgreens with my empties. They warned me that they don't always work, especially if they've been empty for a while. But I needed the color one the most and it just ran out. HP is the best for successful color refills so one should have success. I decided to go do my other stuff and come back.

So I headed for the PO to mail my stuff. Grabbed a box and packed up the stuff for the folks but had no tape. Got to the counter and was informed that I'd have to buy tape, they don't provide tape. I have tons at home so I paid for the box, mailed my other package and carried the folks' package back out to my car. On to Walmart.

I grabbed the old car battery and put it in a cart to avoid having to pay the core and to assure that I'd get the right replacement. Everything went well there. It was even a Walmart battery that I was replacing so I just looked for the same number. The first one I laid eyes on was a perfect match. I also found the cable end replacements without too much difficulty. The baking pans I chose to buy remind me of some either my mom or my granny had when I was little, very retro, I couldn't resist. I had to kill time so I looked at the toner cartridges. A new color one was only $4 more than the refill I was trying to get. So I called to see if they had success refilling mine. So far the black one worked and one color one failed and they were evacuating the second color one. So I gave them more time and called again - not done yet but they're sure it'll be fine. I was running out of things to look at so I decided to chance it and went to the checkout. I still had to pay my core charge and then go to the service desk for the refund, $9.

Back to Walgreens. Nope, the second color one failed too. All I got was a black refill which was the less important one. Their color cartridge was $3 more than Walmart's and they couldn't sell it to me at the Walmart price. Grrr.

From here everything turns around. I went home, printed up the labels, taped up the folks' box, and put that all in the car. Then I took the battery down to the Montero (it was parked in front of Denny's house), installed it and drove it home.

I headed down the hill to deliver my product and finally get that package in the mail. I managed to find my customer driving around the Safeway parking lot, looking for a parking spot so I delivered the DVDs right to her car. The PO was empty so I walked right up to a clerk and got my package mailed.

From there I proceeded to go to Rick's. We ran to his ex's to deliver a check for his daughter's cell phone bill, then to the library to pick up a couple movies, one being the "Bee Movie". We went back to his place, he cooked up this little marinated pork roast for dinner and we ate and watched the movie. It was a good movie and an excellent dinner. After being out of sorts all day Rick seemed to be in a pretty good mood by the time I left.

I had earlier contacted Rach about going in my hot tub so I had to get back to set up the umbrella since it looked like it would start raining. I haven't gotten to use it yet but was excited to see how it would be to use it. I didn't extend it completely but kept it at an angle since it's so huge and my tub is so small. That way we could still have open overheadish and still see the sky off that direction where it was tilted up. It rained on and off the whole time but we were snug as a bug in a hot tub!

So, after all that, again, my blog is supposed to be about my accomplishments. OK, here's what I've accomplished this week thus far:

• I sold my van! (to a very happy mother and son for $300)
  
• I burned and delivered 4 extra DVDs to my first customer ($20)
  
• I burned and delivered 17 extra DVDs to my second customer ($85)
  
• I got my projects for my sister and parents completed and mailed
  
• I installed the new battery in the Montero and moved it into the place that the van used to be

In writing that doesn't seem like so much but some of those things have been months in coming, and the van has been years! But I still have 2 more days this week. I'm still gonna get that computer wiped and that zucchini cooked, today.