Practically a Day in the Life post, but not quite.

I had a busy day - off to the store before breakfast because I forgot until too late last night that it was Julia's turn to bring fruit for 25 kids. I also forgot that the store doesn't open until 7:00 am...fortunately the dinky little in-a-pinch store opens earlier and had a whole box of bananas and they were in great shape. I bought 30 bananas and five big carrots, since there was no other kind of fruit for sale. (Are avocados a fruit?)

Joanna came while the girls were eating, so I had her peel & slice the carrots for me.

Got the girls to school right on time, took the food in, went to the gym. Carlos usually splits the dance class into two parts, with two different kinds of music, but today did cumbya for the whole hour - my favorite!

Quick (cold) shower at the gym, and off to pick up José, who wasn't where he said he'd be. I finally mustered my feminine wiles and asked a newspaper vendor if he would let me use his cell phone. I don't think he really wanted to, but he did. Called José and found out where he was, went there and got him.

Alex has been working a lot lately, and also recently signed a larger-than-usual contract, so although he's not home much, he's taking some interest by proposing some home improvement projects. My job with José today was to buy 33 square meters of paving stones so we can spruce up the front steps and sidewalk.

We went to the stone place and found that the stones cost half what we had been told to expect to pay, so that was nice.

...And now Alex is ready to go out for dinner, so I'll have to tell you the rest another time.

Or not. Here it is in a nutshell: 33 square meters is a lot of stone, and heavier than you'd think. Nobody was sure how it would go, but in the end the guy's truck made it up here okay and I was only 15 minutes late to pick up Julia which, as we established earlier in the week, means nothing.

Julia is growing out of her clothes and gets out of school at noon on Fridays so I took her to the thrift store, where we got 26 items of clothing for $12. There is actually a three-tiered pricing system, so really I got 20 items for $4, four items for $6 and two more items for $2.

And some of it was for me!

Right. Now I'm going out for dinner.