Errands and oven mitts

After today, the cold rain that we've had for a few days will end and it will warm up. I'm looking forward to that. The kids haven't been able to play outside much lately, and they are getting restless. I am, too.

My cat will go to the doctor for her shots on Friday. Both my kids are coming. They are afraid of dogs so the time in the waiting room may be a problem. Back in Michigan, my veternarian had a waiting room for cats and separate waiting room for dogs. I liked that, except I had a hamster at the time.

I just got off the phone with an old friend. I know her from elementary school. I'm trying to make arrangements to see her and her family when I'm home for a visit in June. She married someone I know from middle school. Time will be tight on the visit since there are so many people I haven't seen in years I hope to spend a bit of time with.

Today J and I went to Target after dropping N off at preschool I needed a new curling iron. Yesterday evening I noticed one of the plug prongs on my bathroom floor on the old one. I had to throw it out. Of course I ran into people who know me as I wandered around Target with my hair incredibly straight and hanging in my eyes because I couldn't curl it this morning since I had no curling iron. I tried to find one made in the U.S.A., but all of them were made in China. I finally settled on the cheapest, but the barrel is slightly larger than I prefer. I like an odd size, 5/8 ", and very few places carry it. I'll have to keep my eye opened and just use this until I can find exactly what I want.

I also needed oven mitts. They, too, were all made in China. I'm getting sick of everything I want being made in China. I'm trying hard to buy from the U.S. or other countries that at least pay a living wage and that have and enforce environmental laws, but it's tough at the stores I shop at. Also, it takes quite a while to find the country of origin marking on most products. I think the "Made in the USA" should be in big print on the front of stuff that's marketed in the U.S. so I can preferentially choose it when I can afford to.

I needed new oven mitts because my husband charred mine last weekend. For Christmas I got him a stand alone burner to melt his beeswax in so he wouldn't leave a waxy mess on my stovetop any more. He was in our screenporch, which he has comandeered for his many bee-related projects, melting wax in a double boiler on his burner. Fortunately he stayed with it. He didn't realize his water had boiled away, and he scorched the bottom pan. He set it on the oven mitt when he removed it from the burner, but it was hot enough to char the mitt. He told me he'd take the old oven mitts, and that I should get new ones. Okay, I did. I let my daughter pick out the color, and she chose the black ones. Maybe she was thinking black would hide char marks better.

Well, it's 10 p.m. now so I need to begin getting ready for bed.