**Friday night we dropped off BM at school for a "Parent's Night Out." Was a fundraiser for the 5th graders specifically, but I was impressed at the idea (seemed like an easier way to make money than last years' fundraisers). Anyway, BM REALLY wanted to go, so we said, whatever. $20 for 3 hours.

We ended up eating at home, ourselves, and taking LM to Chuck E Cheese. It was crowded as expected, but *too* bad. LM had some fun. We have tokens leftover from birthdays AND MIL brought us coupons for 40 free tokens. In the end, not too pricey of a night.

**We saw a Colombo bakery outlet on our way home Friday night. Chalk that one up to FOUR outlets in our city. (I peeked online but looks like it possibly closed quite a few years ago. I wouldn't check it out anyway because I am bakery'd out!)

**Yesterday I went to aerobics in the a.m. and got to the Entemann's Outlet when they opened. That is a good in strategy! The place was well stocked. I checked out the "free" bin and it had plain wheat bread.

There were piles of empty shelves when we went last Sunday. Yesterday they were FILLED with SanwichThins - costco sized ones at that. Wow - those things must be popular! (Those shelves cleared out quickly last weekend).

I picked up a large bag of SanwichThins, some of the donuts for the kids,& pita bread for dh. I grabbed some crackers since I knew the regular bread would be free then (Or I'd pay for the bread and then get free, something I would never use). The crackers were rather expensive, but divine.

I almost fell over when I looked at the ingredients on the bread. Wheat and flour? I mean, literally like less than 10 ingredients.

I told dh that I hope the store stays open - we are getting spoiled by the high quality food.

I slit the big bag of SanwichThins and gave them to our parents. They hadn't heard of them. Was my plan - but not sure if they would like them. Well, they did!

**I baked the rest of the cookie dough yesterday, and saladed the rest of the eggs. I ended up taking out the bacon and adding vinegar. I liked it better.

**Yesterday we had our Windows 7 party. We did the party to get a free copy of Windows 7.

We had some crazy Round Table coupons (like $5 off one pizza - we have been getting tons of those) so got some pizza. My mom slipped me some cash for the pizza anyway, so we were spoilt.

We showed off Windows 7, and my new Netbook, to the techies at the party. Spent the rest of the day chatting and playing cards.

Our parents came, so doubled as a nice day with them.

With all the bodies, my mom who is sensitive to heat, asked us to turn on the air. Not sure I would count it except that it was getting pretty darn warm (78). So we ended up turning on the air for a couple hours.

I think I can confidently say that is a record - running the AC on Oct. 24? Yeesh! Not normal!

**I asked my folks if they had a lint brush I could borrow. They said no, but I asked my dad for a lesson on cleaning the dryer vents (something I had been meaning to do). Will be my chore for today. Pretty self explanatory, but wanted to make sure I wasn't missing anything. They improvise with the vacuum cleaner, which is a good idea (long attachments). Not surprised at all that they would improvise rather than have a lint brush! But talking to them saved me some money in that area.

It's a good reminder to clean all your appliances. When our fridge gave us issue last year, turns out we just needed to clean the coils or something like that..

I may bug dh about that - that it's time to clean the fridge.

**Since we picked up a bit for the party - I'd say the whole house is clean, but for the kids' rooms and bathroom. Today we will hit those rooms. I don't have much to do but to scrub their countertops in the bath, and to scrub their teeny-tiny floor around the toilet. (The rest of the bath is carpeted - don't ask me why. We had to ask not to have carpet by the tubs. Seemed like a bad idea!) But does mean I have little to scrub. Just the little square around the toilet/tub. Dh has shower duty since I cleaned the WHOLE HOUSE while they were gone. I often ask him to clean the shower - it's just the thing I hate the most. I don't mind any other chores, so work for us...

If we accomplish that today, I could say the whole house is clean!!! Only accomplished because the fam was gone a week. & well, it will last all of 5 minutes, of course. Why I rarely make that a goal!

I even cleaned out dh's car the other day, so we are on a clean record. It needed some major vacuuming. My vehicle was detailed recently, when it was repaired, so I got off easy.

House and cars, clean!!??!!

As usual, just trying to keep up with it, going forward. Will probably fail, but will at least try. I did enjoy having little to do to get ready for this party.

& in November I would like to take some time to detail each room (clean window sills and baseboards. Touch up paint, etc. All NEEDED!). Yeah - that's my November goal.

So yes, a few chores for today, but will take it easy otherwise.

**Work is slowing down quite a bit. In November/December I have quite a lot of holidays, vacation days, and days off for education/seminars, etc. It's always a tough adjustment to go from the slow end of year to the crazy tax season. Crazy begins in late December, so I always enjoy the calm before the storm. I'll only be in the office 3-4 days a week for most of November/December. Which is fine because there isn't a lot to do!