_:ne33cef0048f0420e882d519d9ec1e009xb0
<http://schema.org/articleBody>
"This morning Jet and I were playing in the basement to stay out of the housecleaner's way as Jet had a Late Start Day and he had a pile of presents from his ninth birthday yesterday. He'd been really patient, not opening them in the morning because I got up late and not opening them when he got home from school because John was helping with tutoring readers at school until 5. Jet had even planned ahead and did all his homework over the weekend, so he could have his birthday evening free. He opened all the presents from his family, uncles, aunts, grandparents, and us, and he got a very nice haul, and then he asked to go to a local eatery, the Two Dog Diner, here in Longmont for his birthday dinner. We all really enjoy the place, and Jet had a hot dog and sweet potato fries, and I got the macaroni and cheese with a nice gouda, black forest ham, and truffle oil. John had the fried chicken dinner that was still sizzling when it arrived. Yeah, one of THOSE diners. I'm glad Jet has the tastes he has. For his treat he asked for popcorn. *grins* His birthday party had been the Friday before, and he'd invited five boys, three of which stayed overnight, and one of which was able to play with him for most of the rest of the next day. This morning he was busy with all his new acquisitions so I was able to bring the old Thinkpad T42P down in the basement with me, and the darned battery lasted for less than forty minutes. It's five-years-old, so it's no wonder, but I wanted a new battery... After we finally saw Jet off to the bus, I went off and bought a new battery at Batteries Plus. I had qualms when I saw that everything on the shelf was over $100. If you look up refurbished T42's they're only $279 online right now. It's not a hefty machine anymore, but it does what I need it to do and it does it really well. I ended up with a battery that was supposed to be the \"bigger one\" and it cost $135 including taxes, just about half the cost of a whole other laptop. When I got home, I found that it was just 6 Ah. My old battery was 6.6 Ah, so it wasn't going to be anything close to an improvement, and I was able to find 7.2 Ah batteries of the same form factor for just $60 on Amazon, even, with a good return policy. I could have settled for the 6.6, but decided I really like going out with my laptop where I can't find a connection and just write. So I felt really awful, until John just gently shoo'ed me out the door and said, \"If you don't take care of it you're not going to rest. You know it.\" He was so right. I went back to the store, returned the battery, and came home and ordered the Amazon one, and took a very deep breath as I could be calm again. It feels good to only spend $60 instead of $135. The funny thing is that the laptop, after not complaining at all about the battery NOW says that it's time to change it, that the cycle is getting to be too short. So that's all to the good. I also got a little shipment from Jet Pens , which is a little outfit that sells Japanese pens, pencils, and stationary. There's some beautiful, inexpensive stuff on there, and I got a couple of the disposable brush pens, and am finding them very, very useful on manga-style sketches, and a multi-corner eraser for helping clean things up. There's also a tiny Sailor fountain pen with a steel nib that's smooth as anything and slender enough to fit in my old leather 3x5 card case, so I can use it again. I also got one of the $3 \"shaker\" pencils that one simply shakes to advance the lead. That was a lot of fun. It's cool how new pens and pencils make it more fun to write and plan and think on paper. Sunday I painted a bowl for Empty Bowls and the director of the OUR Center said that she was always glad to see me paint bowls for them, as the bowls I paint always bring them a lot of money compared to some of the people that do work for them. I suddenly realized that it only reinforced what the artist had said and the commission that annieroo2 had already asked of me. People are willing to pay for my art. *laughs* Sometimes I'm a little dense, but that got through. With the savings from the battery purchase I should be able to afford one of the art sample books from OAS that I've been wanting for a while. The beginner books don't always have art I *like* or want to follow in them, so I thought it'd be better to be inspired by paintings that made me feel inspired rather than just blah. So it'll be interesting to see what come of my adventures today. Heck, if I sell anything at the show in a couple of months, THAT could all go to art books and supplies, and that would be fun."
<https://liralen.livejournal.com/860965.html>