It's a Thursday kind of day

Last night's dinner was easy, but a fail as far as the noodles were concerned. The small grocery store in our town is part of "Western Family" grocers so I have been trying some of their store brand items. Some ok, some not. The egg noodles were not. They pretty much just fell apart when boiling. I mixed in with some beef tips (Hormel, heated in microwave) and we ate them anyway, but I won't be buying those again.

Same thing with their jam. I like raspberry jam and tried their store brand. Ugh. It hardly even had any taste and was a strange texture - almost like a hard jello. In my recent Walmart order, where I needed to spend $35 to get the free 2 day shipping (hey - did I mention that my Walmart orders are now getting here in 2 days?! I like it!) I ordered some raspberry jam. It had really good reviews LOL. Made in France. It came yesterday, so I opened it up and took a little bit on a spoon. Now that is raspberry jam! and the texture is right too. It's called Bonne Maman. Cute little jar too. I'll be having some on an english muffin for lunch today.

Tonight's dinner (I think) will be the easy frozen skillet Bertolli chicken marsala with potatoes. I think it's DH's fav, so good to have once a week. Tomorrow we'll do steak again.

We had another beautiful sunny day yesterday. They seem to be every other day or so, in between clouds and rain. Today is clouds and supposed to rain this afternoon. Saturday is supposed to be sunny-ish and high 60's. I can't wait. We have lots of yard work planned (though mostly it will be DH and his friend doing it) and DH will be able to put the grass seed down and get that going. He got to mow the lawn yesterday. It took him all of 15 minutes, haha. He was going to drive over to our friends place and mow for him. He has 3 acres of lawn (and of course a riding mower - actually 3 of them)) but DH decided he'd better first do it on a day when friend is doing it, so he can ride one of his others and make sure he's mowing it like friend would want it mowed. (is there more than one way?! LOL). He would love to just go spend a couple of hours mowing over there - take the dogs and let their dogs out of the pen and run and play.

For some reason I was thinking tomorrow was one of my half day Fridays, but then I realized this morning it's not. Last week was, so it's not until next week. I need to make an eye doctor appointment, which will have to be in the city, so I'm going to see if I can get in at Costco optical next Friday afternoon sometime. That's where I got my last glasses (though not my exam) and was very pleased with the glasses and especially the price - less than half what the optometrist office wanted for lenses and frames. They aren't part of my vision insurance, but the insurance doesn't cover a whole bunch anyway and I can submit an out of network claim. I will have to pay a $20 copay either way and they will cover another $50 of the exam (I think they run about $100). If I was seeing in network they'd cover the exam cost in full after copay, so I might be out another $30. Either way they only cover $100 towards lenses and frames. I think I've had these glasses a few years now and definitely can tell I need a new prescription. Some of the smaller numbers and words while working on computer are hard to read, as well as trying to read the guide on the tv (even though I made it bigger, LOL). Time to get it done.

Ok, I'm off to try and figure out why my work outlook will not do a smiley face in my emails anymore. When I type :) instead of a smiley face I get a square. I thought it was happening to everyone in the office because I'd see a square in recieved emails, too. But just recently commented on the square is annoying me and found it it's just me! I'm trying google a solution, but so far nothing is working. I'd like to figure out out myself without having to put in a ticket with our IT folks.