Last night my aunt and uncle, my grandma and I all went to a free concert put on by an oldies group called The Preps. (I had to Google them, did you?) The community next to LL has an outdoor arena type thing where during the summer they sponsor two concerts a week.

It was a lot of fun, and I actually knew about 60% of the songs they sang (lots of covers, but a few orignal hits from their own group.) I especially liked the song they ended with -- I'm not sure exactly what the title is ... but whenever I hear it I'm reminded of an especially tender/romantic scene in the movie Ghost ... "time goes by so slowly and time can change ... I need your touch..."

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I got a call this morning that the Rogue should be ready to be picked up around 4 today. They had to install a new part in the transmission - hopefully that'll take care of the problem.

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My grandma gave me a little money as a thank-you for taking care of her. It doesn't come close to making up for the loss of summer school ... but that wasn't my reason for staying here and helping out. Plus, if I look at it in terms of money I've saved by being here ... gas, food, impulse purchases, etc. I probably have saved around $600 (including what she gave me.) So ... it's something.

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It's really hard to know what to get my grandma for birthday's/Christmasses because she doesn't really have a need for *things*, so today when we were shopping at Walmart I saw she had slippers on her list. So I helped her pick out a pair, and then when we got to the checkout I informed her that *I* was getting them for her. She protested at first until I explained that it was an early birthday present (her birthday is in September.)

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I'm getting ready for my trip to Northern CA tomorrow. I have a long bus/train trip ahead of me, but I have plenty of reading material on my phone and may download a movie from iTunes to watch. Plus I'm sure I can sleep a bit.

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If you remember I had filled up the bird feeders when we got back from San Jose on Saturday. Well, the birds haven't been eating anything from the hanging bags. I thought maybe it was because we were using the larger bird feed instead of the finer grain (which we'd ran out of.) Today we stopped by this really cool store completely dedicated to birds (with a mini-zoo of a camel, goats, etc) and I found out that I was correct. So this evening when it gets cooler (110 degree high yesterday!!) I'm going to go change out the feed in the bags. (I'm also going to do some weeding in the garden. The section I didn't get to very well last time has really sprung up the weeds!)

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Tomorrow will be my first payday of the new fiscal year. Instead of it being my yearly salary divided by 24 like 2011/12, it will be divided by 26 plus the 1% raise. I'm a little nervous about how that final amount will work out ... but one way or the other, I'll be able to make it work. I'll just need to see what I can cut or minimize - probably Netflix .. and then maybe going to cash only for groceries to keep within a budgeted amount... Maybe I'll try calling my internet company and tell them I can't afford to keep them any longer and see what happens ... although I have no where else to go for internet if they call my bluff ...

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One thing I'm really really going to miss when I go back to NM is the extremely easily access to vegetarian and vegan food here. In the normal run of the mill grocery store they have most of one aisle dedicated to canned veggie foods. Then of course there is the university supermarket which *only* has vegan and vegetarian foods ... Then today grandma and I went to Clark's and they were 80% vegan/vegetarian with a HUGE selection of Amy's foods AND 4 or 5 varieties of vegan pizza.

The university market is having a campmeeting sale through the end of July ... so I am planning on making a large shopping trip there before heading back to NM. Half a case or more of Big Franks, 4 or 5 cans of Nuteena (Nutmeat or whatever they're calling it now) ...etc. It will probably take all of my food budget from June and July ... But it will be so nice to have those things on hand (and they keep for a long time.)