In yesterday's mail (Friday) we received our biannual (I think that means every two years. If not, that's what I mean.) notification that one of our cars is due to have its emissions tested.

In the past the notice always sits around for several weeks while we put off doing it, and it is always in the back of my mind eating away at me until we get it done. This time I wanted to get it done right away.

The closest testing station to us opens at 8 AM on Saturday, and you need to have had your car running for at least 15 minutes prior to the test. So my plan was to get up at 7:45 AM so we could get 15 minutes of driving in and be there right when it opens at 8 AM and get the testing taken care of. I wanted to get there early so we didn't have to wait in line for 45 minutes.

We didn't quite leave at 7:45 AM. It was more like 8:20 AM and we got there about 8:45 AM. They have an electronic sign out front that tells you how long the wait is. When we pulled in it was only 3 minutes! And actually the wait was zero, and we were in and out in about three minutes.

They have four or five lanes you can choose from. There was one lane with no cars waiting or in the test stations so I picked that one. The waved me in to the first station and told me to kill the engine. They took off our gas cap and screwed a cap on that had a hose attached to it. I think this is to make sure there are no leaks in your gas tank. I think they pressurize it and then monitor the pressure for a couple minutes.

We passed that and then they waived us on to the second station inside the building. For this one I had kill the engine and the get out of the car. The guy got in and plugged into the car's computer interface under the steering wheel. Their computer downloads any fault codes and operating data and looks for anything that would indicate poor performance. Bad oxygen sensors. Cylinders not firing. Stuff like that. It took just a minute or so. He got out of the car and printed out our certificate and we were on our way.

After that we went to Einstein Brothers bagels for breakfast. I had a spinach and bacon breakfast panini and Sheri had a blueberry bagel with a schmear, and a coffee.

After we went through the paper and did the crossword we talked about what to do next. Sheri didn't sleep well the night before and probably tossed and turned for at least three hours. Therefore she was starting to drag and didn't feel up to much. I didn't have much more energy.

We decided to make a few stops and then go home for a nap. We went to a local grocery store that carries HoKa turkeys I wrote about last weekend. We just wanted to see how much they were, what sizes they had, stuff like that. We think we are going to buy one to eat over next week's three day weekend.

We went next door to Trader Joe's to get some food for the afternoon and evening. I was still full from breakfast and Sheri was not feeling too well, so shopping for food just didn't work.

We left there with nothing and were going to go home. I remembered I wanted to try the different flavors of water I wrote about a few days ago so we stopped at that grocery store and I think we bought almost ten different flavors, and they still probably had about ten flavors we didn't try. We tasted the wild cherry which we liked, and we tasted the tropical which we didn't like. It was supposed to taste like a mixture of mango, papaya, passion fruit and banana, but I didn't taste any of that.

We went next door to a hardware store to see if they carry the Venta humidifier we have been thinking about. They did but we didn't buy it. At $430 it is going to take some more thinking.

We went home and Sheri took a nap. I turned out to be restless so I made a batch of Chex mix, but it wasn't really a mix because I just used whole wheat Chex. No nuts or pretzels or stuff.

switching to Reader's Digest mode

Sheri got up. We watched a movie early. Didn't really eat dinner. I'm starting to feel a little gurgly. Sheri threw up, but nothing came up. She got hot and dizzy. Laid on the bathroom floor. I brought her a fan and a cold wash cloth. Felt better. Read for a few minutes. Turned out the lights and went to sleep by 9 PM.

I am going to finish up this post. Look up a few things on the web, and then try to finish one of the books I got for Christmas; In God We Trust: All Others Pay Cash.

Tomorrow we don't have too much planned. I need a haircut. Sheri wants to go shoping for some clothes. I will probably go to CompUSA and the bookstore while she does that for an hour or so. And that's about it so far.

I already have my desk fan packed in my computer bag for my first day at work on Monday. I will also load it up with some other office essentials:

Chapstick
Gum
Favorite mechanical pencil
Pad of paper
Desk calendar book
Box of tissues
A few protein bars

That's all I came up with so far.