If you are going to cheat...cheat BIG :D

Woke up to a cloudy and humid day.  I needed to swing by the post office as well as pick up some more individual packaged salads and avocados to go with the turkey leg I shredded yesterday.  I do not know if that is the proper terminology as you know my culinary skills are not the best...is it shred or debone?

I took this picture from across the street. This parking lot
does not belong to HEB and is closed to the public.

As usual, I got a late start and the parking lot at the regular HEB was over-flowing so I headed to "little HEB" on Pecan Street which is smaller and less crowded. When we moved to Del Rio this was the biggest grocery store in town.  Being a one car family like most at the time we walked to the store for groceries.

As can see it has a small parking lot and is
caddy-corner to the Val Verde County Courthouse.

They say you should not go grocery shopping on an empty stomach because you tend to purchase items you had no intention of buying.  However, at the bargain price of .74 cents for a 16 oz On The Border Café Style Fiesta Size chips a few made their way into my shopping cart.

The store specials are valid from Wednesday to Tuesday.  Since I never saw the 30-pack of Natural Light for $16.98 on last week's ad, I swung by that aisle to see if they still had it this week and they did.

Not having had a chance to have eaten all day I decided what the heck...I would cheat again this week...so headed to Whataburger while it was still early 3:24 p.m. and the dinner crowd had not arrived.

Went to run more errands since we are expecting severe storms this evening and rains for the following couple of days.  Believe it or not, I was still hungry so if I had already cheated why not make it worthwhile and at the same time avoid Del Rio's version of rush hour traffic?

So stopped at Burger King and had their $1.00 Café Mocha Frappe.  I do believe I consumed about 5,000 calories today...and guess what? I do not feel even the least bit guilty :D

This evening we had severe storms, thunder, lightning and in the northern part of Val Verde County close to Comstock, Texas a tornado but it was in a mostly remote area.  I decided to shut down my computer, modem and cable box to be on the safe side after the City of Del Rio Emergency System called the citizenry.

Good night.  May you all have Terlingua Dreams.

Heat / Deceit / Thunderstorms

Summer arrived just a couple of days ago and I am already sick and tired of it.  In the West Texas desert the heat wave starts early, we are lucky to have two or three weeks of Spring and then boom...the temperatures soar. I really should not complain when I know that Arizona, Nevada, and California are having record setting temperatures much higher than Texas.

It is always a challenge to get mother to let me turn on the A/C as she is always cold. The electric bill is larger in the winter than in the summer because she insists on it staying at 80 degrees.  When I finally turned it on, it was apparent there was a problem so I called the service technician.  He did not have very good news for us.  The coil was leaking in three places and it would cost $2,650.00 to replace and 2 to 3 weeks to get it as it had to be ordered from the manufacturer.

Called another company for a second opinion and they gave us an estimate of $2,200.00 and 2 weeks to get the coil. They told me that my unit was not registered with the manufacturer otherwise it would have had a 10-year warranty and not the 5 years it had.  That really made me mad because even though I have selective CRS for some things, I do not for others. I vividly remember going to their office to pay for the unit and the lady giving me the paperwork and telling me "I have already registered your air conditioner with the manufacturer."  I remember it as though it was yesterday because I had no idea you had to do this.

We bought the Goodman to replace the first unit that lasted 30 years of heavy use.  I can not believe we only got six years out of it.  Now the company that installed it said it no longer sold Goodman because they broke down very frequently.  I remember going with it because of the price. A saying my father often quoted came to mind "Lo barato a veces sale caro" alluding to the fact that inexpensive things, in the long run, end up being costlier.

The first company was trying to stir me to a new RUUD unit but when I went online the reviews were terrible and after learning my cheap unit was not even registered after saying otherwise we decided to purchase a new unit from the second company.  I had never been quoted three prices before, cash price, Paypal price, and Discover Card. So much for saving up for my Derksen storage shed :-(

We were under severe thunderstorm warnings yesterday but they did not arrive until 1:00 a.m. so once again I was up making sure water did not get in the house.  We are expecting more rain this evening.

To my delight every day I have gone into town this week, the price of gasoline has gone down by a penny. Today regular gasoline was selling for $1.97 a gallon.

Good night.  May you all have Terlingua Dreams.