It was supposed to be a nice, quiet, relaxing weekend. It started off well.

Saturday we went to the Cube and then walked over to Ben and Jerry's to use the gift certificate Penny'd gotten from Matt's office picnic. And then we went to Sam's Club and stopped at my parents' house to visit. They invited us to stay for pizza, and Penny watched Bambi, and everything was nice and calm.

Sunday started off good -- Penny slept in until 6:30 or so, and we did the usual morning things. Laundry, grocery store, etc.

After Penny'd had lunch and gone to take her nap, Matt went out to mow the lawn and I went upstairs to do some scrapbooking. Matt came into the bedroom about twenty minutes later to tell me that the lawnmower was broken and not repairable and so after Penny woke up and we'd gone to the library, he wanted to stop at the hardware store for a new mower.

Whee. So we did that (and Penny remains adamantly opposed to reading any library books, but is still enthusiastic about going and checking out the book/toy bags, so whatever) and then we did the other. The new lawn mower's box would not fit through the opening of my trunk, so we squooshed it into the backseat with Penny, and it filled up the whole backseat, except for the space the carseat used. And while we were at it, we bought a small, cheapish trimmer, because our bushes are threatening to take over the front porch again already, and last year I trimmed them with manual pruning shears and good lord, but that was horrible.

I'd promised Penny that I would fill up the pool for her to play in, but when we got home we discovered that Ray-Ray was out on the lawn in his plastic pool, so we went to visit with him, instead while Matt assembled the lawn mower.

After dinner, he went out to actually finish cutting the grass, and something or other happened and he couldn't get the mower re-started. So he went and re-filled the gas can and took a few deep breaths, and eventually I hauled Penny back indoors for her bath. Sometime while she was playing in the tub, I realized I was hearing the mower running again, so he'd figured out the problem and fixed it -- but the job that should have been done before Penny got up from her nap stretched until she was just about ready to go to bed.

Poor Matt.

--Liz