A little better

I got a fair amount done, but my list is too vague. Drat!

Good stuff:
- Made progress on the house. Merry Maids comes sometime Tuesday for spring cleaning, so I have a good bit of decluttering to do before they come. I need as many things off horizontal surfaces as possible. Yeah...
- We bought a lawn mower. The new one is gas but has electric start. The bad news is I couldn't get the electric start to work, but the good news is the pull cord was much more girl friendly, so I did the lawn by myself while Eric was at work. Oh, and it's self-propelled, which is nice. Our yard isn't real hilly, but we do have a shallow swail at the back of the lot that I've had to shove the mower up in the past. Not so now.
- 'Attended' a webinar about social networking. The gist is that to build an effective platform, you'll get the most bang for your buck with Twitter, Facebook, and a blog. The presenter uses Hootsuite for Twitter and Facebook and spends 30 minutes a day on those two. (I spend 30 minutes at a time on FB sometimes, and I don't play games!) Blogging has to be done on a regular schedule, so I've designated Monday as my blogging day. I should be able to come up with something to say consistently once a week. It's a place to start. How is it that I'm coming up with places to start on so many things in the last several months?
- Eric and I saw Iron Man 3 yesterday. Go see it! Some people have said 1 & 2 were better, but I think 3 is the best so far. Tony isn't invincible, and Pepper isn't a simpering wimp. I hate it when script writers make the female lead a simpering wimp, but I equally dislike heroines who are too powerful. Think Princess Amidala in Revenge Of The Sith (the 6th movie but Episode 3) and Lara Croft. Equally loath. That'll preach at a writers' conference.
- We bought Father's Day gifts yesterday. Since ALL of our parents will be here next weekend, and it's Mother's Day, I made a command decision to do Mother's and Father's day together. I'll execute the MD plan tomorrow.
- I have a graduation outfit planned.
- Eric's aunt and uncle apparently didn't get or ignored the e-mail he sent out several months ago about graduation. They found out last week and contacted Eric. Long story short, they're coming, too. That gets our group up to 14 and will take a total of 4 airport runs. :-) Good thing the airport is only 45 minutes away in traffic--way better than the 2 1/2 hour drive from Del Rio to San Antonio. It's going to take 3 cars to get us all to graduation. It's going to be memorable, no doubt about that!
- Did I mention the Alex got accepted to grad school at Western IL Univ? That's where he's been going, so it looks like another 2-3 years there before he has to move on for a doctoral program, assuming WIU doesn't add one before then. He also found another house where the rent is a little less, and he'll have a new roommate who will be bringing a cat.

Ambivalent Stuff:
- I finally broke down yesterday when we were shopping for Father's Day and gave Eric the green light for his Bose surround sound system. He's only been drooling over Bose speakers for 25 years. They're sitting in my dining room at the moment and I have my doubts about whether we'll get them installed before the Ingress. It's more likely I'll drag them out to the garage and deal with it after everyone goes home. Eric, of course, is far more excited about it than I am, but I admit a bit of curiosity about future movie watching experiences. I have a mental list of movies I'm going to watch while he's at work. ;-)

Not So Good Stuff:
- Rain. Lots of rain. Close to 4" since Thursday night. It's still raining. At this point I'm just glad it's not snow.
- More rain forecast for next weekend. Graduation is outside and is slated to last about 4 hours.
- Lawn mowing was harder than it needed to be for the maiden voyage. The spark plug wire had come off during shipping and was hiding. Once I found and connected it, the mower started right up, but it's been so wet that the grass has been growing like crazy, and the old mower left clumps of grass on the lawn, so I finally had to attach the bagger just to keep the mower from choking every row. After that it went a little easier, but I am grateful that we didn't wait for a larger corner lot!
- I'm going to have to mow again before the Ingress because Alex won't get home before everyone comes. Looks like that will be Wednesday.

This Week:
- Mow the lawn
- Finish the house
- MD shopping
- Menu planning and grocery shopping
- Try to get some words in there somewhere
- Pick up in-laws Thursday afternoon
- My side arrives on Friday
- Survive the weekend. We haven't had all the parents together since 1987. Since then, my dad is with someone else, Eric's mom died (1999), and my father-in-law is on his third wife. My mom and his dad got along for our wedding only because I threatened bloodshed otherwise, and Eric's mom kept his dad in line. :-) Yeah, it could be a very interesting weekend! Details as soon as I can get them to you!