First, welcome to several new friends I’ve met through memes in WoW and Slash fic writing… hooray!
So far, it’s been a very successful weekend. I have tomorrow off (hooray, Patriots’ Day!), so I’ll be able to devote a good chunk of it to writing, exactly as I’d hoped would happen. I’m feeling VERY pleased. 
Spring Cleaning success – hooray! And the weather has turned out surprisingly good… the original forecast was for scattered showers all weekend. We had just a bit last night, but otherwise it’s been partly sunny and mild. All of the tree leaves are exploding. The only downside is my allergies – but after this winter, I’ll deal with sniffles!
Erich, Matt, and I tackled the mud porch today. Since last year when we finally found the time to empty her apartment, we’ve had all of Debby’s kitchen/clothes boxes stored there. We went through all of the boxes – we have a ton of stuff to donate. I’m also keeping quite a bit of stuff, including a crapload of Le Creuset cookware (which is awesome, because the stuff will last forever if I take care of it). Easily $600 worth of it.
It’s funny – just yesterday I replaced my cute (but horribly designed) cat teapot with a very nice red Le Creuset one from Whole Foods. It was expensive ($60), but again.. if I take care of it, I may not have to buy another one for decades. It heats up quickly thanks to the design, and against the all-black stove? Very sleek looking. Anyway, most of Debby’s cookware matches the red teapot – just by chance. Not that I’d care anyway, but I thought it was amusing.
Once we emptied the porch, Erich put together the industrial-strength wire racks. Now all of my large kitchen appliance stuff stores nicely on the shelves, off the floor, and easy to find. We’re probably going to get another set of shelves so I can also keep the tupperware & larger baking dishes out there, too.
It’s great to feel like my kitchen is going to be all put together. Especially now that I’m starting to find more of an interest in cooking. My schedule doesn’t allow for a lot of cooking on weeknights, but I think I’m going to make it a personal interest goal to make one good meal every weekend from scratch. Somehow, I don’t think the guys will complain.
Tone and Robin came down last night for dinner & “BBC TV Night.” I made a cajun rub pot roast recipe I’d tried a few weeks ago that I thought was very good. The original recipe called for pork, but the spices were pretty hot, and I think they were overpowering. I toned them down just a bit and switched to a beef roast this time. It came out excellent. Add some baked sweet potatoes & apples, plus a cold asparagus w/goat cheese & raspberry salad from Whole Foods, and it was a very good meal.
After dinner, we watched some of the Red Sox game, and then switched over to the Red Dwarf special from Easter weekend. It was pretty good, although it’s odd to see them aging after watching the DVDs from years past. Tone had already watched Who, so we didn’t watch that. He’s itching for new Torchwood eps… and so am I. Has anyone heard rumors of broadcast dates?
Managed to get into a rare event… a well-organized “For the Horde!” group yesterday morning – downing the king of Stormwind in about 5 minutes once we were in the room. Unfortunately, the new patch seems to be playing havoc with the achievement… and no one got credit for it. *sigh* I put in a ticket, and got one of the “we’re working on it…” emails in return. So hopefully I’ll see something. When that didn’t work, I didn’t pursue the other leaders. Had stuff to do yesterday anyway, and they were heading over to Darnassus and Exodar, which I’d already done. I did ask the raid leader to please keep me in consideration for further runs, though, if he decided to go again.
I’m enjoying the new patch so far. I’ve been doing the daily quests toward the new jousting levels, and having some fun with those. I love the 30 minute cooldown on the hearth, the fact that I no longer need an ammo bag (and *gasp* 1,000 stacks of ammo?!? Yay!). I think the duel-specialization was a bit of a ripoff, but did it anyway. Fishing dailies are always fun (I should hit 450 in fishing sometime next week). I maxed cooking and first aid this weekend. Skinning’s been maxed for a while. So that will just leave 10 points in leather working to finish.
Hopefully I can get some heroics in this week so I can gain some faction rep. With our raid schedules being delayed a few weeks due to personal schedules, I want to take advantage to get some currencies to spend on things.
The Jeep is officially dead, so I need to go clean it out. Without even getting into the electrical issues we brought it in for, we’re looking at over $1,700 in repair work – oil leaks, all four brakes/rotors, etc. With the car being 12 years old and having 185K miles on it, it’s just not financially viable at this point. 
We’re going to donate it to the Salvation Army, who will either fix it up or break it to sell for parts. They tow away for free, and hey, we’ll get a nice tax break on it – better than I’d get for junking it or trying to sell it on my own. I’m a bit bummed – it was the first car that I owned. But the thing has been a money pit for years. So now I’m just at the overwhelming “OMG I have to buy a car?!?” level. Used, of course. It makes a few of the money plans change for the year because I would like to have a car of my own to use. But we’ll see. It depends how things go for a loan and monthly payments.
Busy busy busy…
