And so it’s been half a decade today that I’ve been smoke-free! Yeah, and 20 pounds heavier, too. At least I can breathe. I’d probably be around 110-115 pounds if I still smoked and was still alive, but not 95-100 cuz of my age. Instead, I’m a non-smoking, middle-aged person between 120-125 and I probably always will be, but like I said, I can breathe!

There were a couple of booms at 11:15 today, an hour after I got up, and nothing else between then and when we left at 1:30. We returned at around 5:00 and had to run the AC for a while when we got in, but now it’s off for the night.

Anyway, I don’t like this booming. Especially if they’re going to go back to doing this 2-4 times a week. I hope not! I could never learn to sleep through that shit. I’m not like Tom. I thought Maricopa was too built up for that shit these days? There’s yet another new house, but it’s pavement that matters. Until these nearby roads are paved, the houses won’t double or triple in value. We talked about splitting our land and selling off the 5 acres between us and the renters before we sold the 5 acres in front around the same time. Who knows how or when we’ll go about doing it for sure, or where we’ll go from here? Only time will tell.

Although I’m doing well so far with my no-nasal-spray experiment, it’s too soon to tell Scot about it, so I said no when asked if there were any changes. I am sneezing a little more, but if I can go a month or two with no 24-hour sneezing fits, then I’ll tell him about it.

Anyway, after informing me of how much time I have left like he almost always does as if I don’t know how to read a calendar, we jumped across the street to Circle K. There I peed, since he didn’t test me yet again, then grabbed some water. He grabbed soda and a cookie bar, then we hit the road to have fun shopping. Of course the car had to give us shit along the way and cost us more money than we planned on spending, but it kind of did us a favor in the end by saving us an extra stop. Originally, we were going to go to the bookstore, Walgreens, an office supply store and a pet store, but instead of Walgreens and the pet store, we went to Walmart, though we do still intend to go to a pet store.

Our first stop was the bookstore and it may be the best one yet! They had an awesome selection. The only other author whose books I like besides authors of horror and suspense is VC Andrews. Most of her books are 5-book series, and normally, I can’t find the whole series whenever I go to stores. This place, though, had not only the full series, but a series I didn’t even know existed! She’s a very repetitious writer, but she’s good. I enjoy her soap-like sagas.

They don’t give much credit for books you bring in, though, so we may use a couple of different stores. A lot of the books I got today were on sale for a buck. I got something like 20 books, too.

Our second stop was an office supply store where I was really surprised to find they didn’t have any ink refills, so I restocked my white and colored paper. The colored paper is the same 5-color pack I had before with pink, blue, yellow, lime and orange.

So I grabbed some M&Ms and we headed for the car. That’s when Tom noticed the leak and found water was leaking from the radiator. Because we knew Walmart was close by, we stopped there so he could get water and other stuff to pour into it.

We split up and agreed to meet by the restrooms. I went and grabbed two 3-packs of flavored Chap Sticks, so I got 6 different flavors. I love this brand. There’s no rollerball to get stuck, and I dig the glittery tubes they’re in. They even come with colored plastic jewels on top of the caps! I think I’ll save them to decorate something with.

The puzzles and porcelain dolls were boring (I’m not surprised the porcelain dolls were a bore), but I apparently meant it when I said no more Barbies unless I found any spectacular ones. This one’s way cool! It’s Barbie as Rapunzel. I now have a total of 20 Barbies, even if they’re all not literally Barbies. Some are brunettes, some are redheads, and of course, I have a black one and one that looks sort of Indian.

Anyway, this one’s got really long hair. After I got her out of her box, I noticed the hair in back was only to her waist, something I couldn’t tell when she was in her box. She came with a hair extension attached to a band with Velcro, so I clasped it onto the ends of the hair in back so her hair was the same length both in front and back. The long part is adjustable. You can pull it long or wind it shorter with a rope in back that pulls it in through the crown of her head.

She came with a musical hairbrush and pink pumps. Because her beautiful gown is so long, I took off her pumps and gave them to another Barbie in a short pink dress that needed them. Her dress is stunning. It’s pink and lavender with gold accents to match her gold crown. There’s a chiffon-like layer hanging in front that’s speckled with gold glitter. Even the sheer frosted sleeves are nice. The pearly sleeves are just as shiny as the rest of the dress. The sleeves are tapered in at the elbows with rosebuds. There’s a rosebud at her chest too, and a rosebud attached to a pink ribbon that covers the Velcro band of the hair extension.

I wish I could send Mary pictures of her and the fish, but I can’t for two reasons. One is that I don’t want to get it back, and two is my color ink is shot. The cartridge is simply too old and we don’t have the extra money right now for new ones. I emailed pictures to the other Mary.

After Tom grabbed ink and car stuff, we headed for the fish section. There I got clear plastic jewel-like rocks to scatter across the bottom of the tank. They don’t show up all that great cuz they match the mix of neon colors in the gravel, but they still look cool.

Then he showed me their fish and I became pretty certain we wouldn’t be getting guppies. Guppies are dull-looking compared to what we got and what we’re going to get! I never knew such fish existed. I forgot the name of the ones we got, but for nearly $4 each, we got 3 small neon-colored fish. We only got 3 cuz we want to make sure they live before we get anymore, but oh how colorful they are! I got a pink one, a lime green one, and a royal purple one. The whole fish isn’t colored. Just the outer top part and part of their undersides. It almost looks like someone tried to trace them with markers. The rest of the fish are rather transparent. They all only have one color, but they’re so neat! They go so well with the gravel. They also had blue, yellow and other colors, too. It’d be nice if they were a little bigger, but I totally dig them. I never thought I’d get into fish, though they could never replace rats. In fact, if the only two animals I could have were fish or guinea pigs, I’d take the pig.

Then there were the bettas. They were way cool and I intend to get a few of these. These are bigger colorful fish that need no filters or pumps. They even need to live alone or else they’ll fight. Only the males are colorful, from what we saw. They have some that are solid metallic blue colored, some are aqua and royal blue colored, some are emerald and blue, and some have reds in them. All they need is a small little bowl like what you’d stick goldfish in. I thought I’d throw one in the office, one on the kitchen island, and one in the bedroom.

We have to wait about a month before getting the algae-eater so there’ll be enough algae build-up for them to eat.

We still have to get stuff for them to swim through and hide in and maybe some sort of backing for the back of the tank. Tom said they have these really cool reflective backings. We might get them a live plant to nibble on too, though we can’t stick too much in there. The tank’s only 15 gallons.

As always, I hated the city noise and the crowds so it was so nice to know we were leaving the city and didn’t have to stay and live in it. It was also nice to be able to see pregnant women and not feel a stitch of depression or envy like I would’ve 5 years ago.

When we left the store, I noticed a couple of Mexicans sitting in a car next to ours with their hood propped open. I was like, oh great! Just what I need! To sit in this city a few feet away from them all over again. Just when I thought they’d blast base while Tom propped our own hood to pour the stuff in, the guy in the driver’s seat relieved my fears by letting me know when he made a call with his cell phone that his key had broken off in the ignition. He wasn’t about to thump no base through my skull!

I went through my closet and drawers and pulled out things that are too small, yet nice enough material to use for sewing. Once I had it all accumulated, I decided I had enough and didn’t need to stop in a sewing store for material. I thought I was going to have to stop for closures, but nope. Tom beat me to it. It was actually at the grocery store that he found hook-and-eye clasps, snaps, elastic and Velcro. This Velcro, however, isn’t recommended for sewing. That’s okay, though. I’m sure it’ll come in handy for something else one of these days.

I decided to make a ‘joke’ file and keep all my jokes together in one place. Mary’s going to be in for a ton of laughs!