For your drooling pleasure....

Rachel had one of her best friends over today, and as usual when she has a friend over, she wants to "make something." LOL Wonder where she gets that from??? Her friends love it when we bake...we've made snowman cookies, flower cupcakes, and more. Today, we made oreo fudge. OMG...I should have chosen something else. Anything else. I love oreos, and I love fudge. Need I say more? The picture says it all, I think. I need to take up a new hobby...like running. Or maybe coin collecting.

Speaking of running, Lauren and Justin had a cross country meet today at Forest Park. Lauren was kind of disappointed on Thursday when the coach told her she was going to run in the freshman race instead of the JV race...well, she ended up getting a medal...she placed 23rd out of 280 runners! Wow. And, she was the only girl on her team that even got a medal. Not even the big star of their varsity team got a medal. So she was happy.

I forgot to mention that I baked chocolate chip banana bread this morning,too. My grandmas recipe. No pictures, though. Like I said, I obviously need a new hobby--one that doesn't involve food! I haven't popped any buttons on my clothes lately, but I can't help but wonder how much weight I've gained the past few weeks.

I have to write about something funny I did today. Well, what I did isn't funny, but it made me chuckle. I bought something from a pawn shop for the first time ever. Actually, I walked into a pawn shop for the first time ever. I felt like such a smarmy person going into a pawn shop, I don't know why.

Rachel needs a new clarinet, and I obviously don't have a whole lot of money to spend on one. So this morning, I googled music stores in St. Charles MO to see if I could find a good used one because the music store near my house didn't have any used clarinets right now. Well...one of the things that came up on Google was a music store called Chesterfield Music. I called, the guy on the phone said they had a couple of used clarinets, gave me their address and directions, and when I got there, it was NOT Chesterfield Music...it was a pawn store! LOL I almost didn't even go in. Seriously, can any of you see me in a pawn shop? Bet you'd like to have a picture of that.

They had 2 clarinets. Both were in good shape...they gave me a wipe to clean off the mouthpiece so that Rachel could play them and make sure they worked. One of them sounded great except for one note she tried to play. So I called our music store, let them listen over the phone to Rachel playing...she told them what she was trying to play...they said it sounded like some key (that I don't know what the heck it's called because I know nothing about clarinets OR music) needs a new pad. They told me the clarinet was a good brand, so I bought it for $60! It had been marked $100. Then I took it to the music store and it will cost about $40 to get in good shape...cleaning and new pads. At some point I will have to get her a better one, but for now it will be okay. So I got a clarinet for $100!

And the best part of my day??? My son took me out to dinner!!!! Tony took Justin and Lauren and some of their cross country friends out for hot wings. I do not like hot wings, at all. Brandon said he was in the mood for Bandanas barbeque, and that he would pay if I took him. There is something so satisfying about your kid buying you a meal.