keeping time.

the backwards goofy watch.

when i was young i always wore a watch. i once had a goofy watch that ran backwards. i thought i was extra special because i could use it to tell time and everybody else looked at it and got stuck. stuck in time (hee hee). but somewhere in my twenties i developed a distaste for wearing watches on my arm. my parent's indulged my whim by gifting me with a gorgeous swiss army knife pocket watch. sadly the time-changer mechanism broke during my peace corps service, so the watch is permanently stuck on lesotho time.

my gorgeous pocket watch.

since then i have tried to find a watch that could fit into my lifestyle and my budget, but it has been an impossible task. i use my cell phone for the time and i have managed almost perfectly without a watch. the only glitch is my day job. i always have to know what time it is, but i do not always remember my phone. simple solution? get a watch. sure thing. except that i am me and i need a watch that is indestructible, adorable, and comfortable. oh and preferably under $20. ummm...no problem? big problem. i might be the pickiest person on the planet. i know exactly what i want, except that nobody makes it. in my search i did find a few specimens with potential, but considering their fragility or three-digit price tags, they are out of the question.

some lovely, but impossible watches.

what is a girl to do? make my own watch of course. well, sort of. i happened upon a kid's watch that has an easy-to-replace band, a cheap-O price tag, and is hopefully strong enough to survive life with me. i sewed (naturally) a new watch band and am now convinced that i have found my indestructible, adorable, and comfortable watch. time will tell.

the kid's watch that became MY watch.

p.s. all puns intended.

let the drooling begin.

my life is ruled by two lists. the first one is my to-do list. yuck. the second one is my project list. FUN!! occasionally the two overlap, although this is rare. it has become increasingly obvious that the longer my to-do list, the more likely i am to work on my project list. in fact, today i actually added something to my project list AND completed it, prior to finishing my to-do list. oops.

today's fiasco started a little over a week ago when mrs. nipper knapp declared that she was about to sew her first zipper. she is not to blame, it's just that i simply had to tell her the secret trick to sewing zippers, which turned into a zipper tutorial. then i found out that she was in fact making zippered pillows and the next thing i know, i am gazing at our sad and grungy couch pillows, which have seen a little too much life (and drool...ugh). naturally, because i do not have anything else to do, i figured i might as well kill some time making new pillow covers. this is my first foray into making pillows (i used the super-easy tutorial from design*sponge) and i have to say, i am supremely pleased. so mrs. nipper knapp, the mister and i would like to thank you for being the inspiration that provided us with splendid new couch pillows.

our happily mismatched new pillows.

zipper frenzy.

yesterday, a fellow crafty blogger mentioned that she was "tackling her first zipper," which made me realize that i absolutely have to share a zipper trick. this comes from my peace corps mom, lady D, who taught it to me when i was whining about sewing a zipper into a basic seam. this trick will not work for all zipper applications, but is perfect for those of you who just want the basics.

step 1. gather your materials. my plan is to make a little zippered pouch, like the one i found on the three bears blog, so i am starting with two rectangles and a zipper. if you have a serger i recommend serging the edges where you will place the zipper (i opted to serge all of my edges, because i will have exposed seams inside my pouch).

 

step 2. put right sides together and baste a 1/2" seam. baste=set your machine to make long stitches.

step 3. press the seam open. place the zipper face down on the pressed seam.

step 4. match the center of the zipper to the center of the seam and pin the zipper in place. make sure your pins are on the other side of the fabric, because when you sew the zipper will be on the bottom.

step 5. make sure you reset your stitch length so that you are no longer basting and attach your zipper foot. carefully top-stitch on both sides of the seam. i always start from the closed end. when i get to the end with the pull tab i put the needle down, life the presser foot, and carefully slide the pull tab behind the presser foot. then i put the presser foot back down and continue sewing to the end of the zipper. i change the position of the zipper foot and needle to sew on the other side and repeat the process.

sewing with the zipper on the right or the left.

when you get close to the zipper pull, you can carefully slide it behind the foot, and continue sewing straight to the end.

 step 6. use a seam ripper to take out the basting stitches.

step 7. i like to sew another line of top-stitching on each side of the zipper. voila! a zipper. easy peasy, lemon squeezee.

top-stitching a second line.

a finished zipper!

tales of lesotho. part two.

life in the village is slow and quiet, but that does not mean that it is boring, because there is always something to do. always. it is a patriarchal society, so it is not surprising that the males seem to do a whole lot of nothing. if you speak to basotho men they will assure you that they do a LOT of work, but considering they often add "eating" to their list of daily work, i take their assurances with a BIG grain of salt. what DO they do all day? hard to say. some of them spend the day in the fields watching over cows, sheep, or goats. some work in the fields. and some spend the afternoon in the shop drinking beer. no matter what they do, you can be certain that they will come home, eat a lot of food, and make a big mess, which they will not clean up. 

watching cows. bringing maize in from the fields. bringing maize stalks from the fields. drinking beer in the shop.

the women on the other hand seem to do the bulk of the work. not only do the women take care of the domestic duties, throughout the day they are also taking care of babies and children. the concept "it takes a village to raise a child" is alive in lesotho, which means that even those with no children or grown children will still find themselves caring for little ones. whether it is feeding, bathing, or comforting, the children always have needs.

babies go everywhere with their mothers. and grandmothers (far right) help raise their grandchildren.

"a woman's work is never done." her day starts shortly after 7am with sweeping the dirt. yes i know this is a weird concept, but i assure you that at most every house, the women wake up, put some water on to boil, and then step outside to sweep the dirt yard. what is even more disturbing is that after having lived in lesotho for a couple years, i actually buy into this concept, because it makes the house look pretty. by the time you are finished making the dirt look pretty, the water should be boiling, which is perfect, because it is time to do the dishes. this is a standard operation...scraps go to the pig and then wash, rinse, and dry. once there are clean dishes, it is time to make breakfast. the menu varies, but my personal favorite is tea and bread. make six or seven cups of tea and plates of bread and serve it to people. when everyone is done eating there are more dishes. super. and pots. ugh.

sweeping dirt. washing dishes. preparing a bowl of sour porridge.

now is a good time to take a trip to the village water pump to get water. if you are planning to do some laundry, you probably want to take two trips to the water pump. once you have water, you can wash clothes (by hand), or do whatever other chores you had planned...you know sorting beans, taking the chaff out of corn, or shining pots. once that is complete you must start pondering what you are cooking for lunch. my favorite is papa (a thick porridge made from maize meal) with soup, a strange but delicious substance similar to spaghetti sauce. finish cooking, prepare six or seven plates, hand them out, and then add the empty plates to the stack of dirty dishes.

laundry. sorting beans. removing chaff from maize. polishing pots.

at this point it is about 1pm. time to relax. for five minutes. and then you have your choice of options. go to the fields to shuck maize or head over to the neighbor's house to take corn off the cob. i was lucky because my mother-in-law (m'e') was crazy protective of me and would not let me participate in these laborious tasks, so i typically spent the afternoon visiting with friends and family.

bringing maize stalks from the fields. sorting through maize. taking maize off the cob.

but one day i did convince her to let me tag along when she went to take corn off the cob. not a horrible task, because it is one time the women will not yell at me for sitting on the ground (they believe women of child-bearing age should not sit on the ground, because it could make the womb cold....right) and it is a great place to catch up on village gossip. m'e' was pleasantly surprised to discover that i actually know how to properly take corn off the cob. of course i am a whole lot slower than her. she tried to con me into believing that i was as fast as her, but let's be honest...i cleaned 131 cobs (yes, i counted) and she cleaned five or six hundred. in my book, this is not even a contest.

my niece taking maize off the cob. my 131 clean cobs. m'e' and her gigantic stack of clean cobs.

upon returning home, it is time to make dinner. if you have a chicken and the thought of chopping off its head does not make you want to vomit, then you can have meat for dinner. if you are me, then you stick with peeling and dicing potatoes. get dinner started, take laundry off the line, and start a fire in the wood stove so everyone will be warm in the evening. put a kettle of water on the stove. prepare and serve dinner and then add the plates to the growing heap of dirty dishes.

removing feathers from a chicken. cooking papa inside. cooking outside.

now it is time to sit around, chit chat, and drink tea (more dirty dishes). sometime around eight or nine everyone will head off to their houses to sleep (families typically have a few little huts within the family compound, so they do not all sleep together. for example, the mister and i slept in one house, m'e' and female guests slept in the second house, and our little brother and male guests slept in the third house). this is a good time to take a hot bath, so you can be warm before jumping into a frozen bed. after all it is winter and despite the raging inferno inside the wood stove, temperatures inside the house are in the low fifties.

bathing in a bucket.

sleep for ten hours and the whole process starts over. thank goodness i was never left alone to do all of this work. between my sisters and nieces visiting, we always had at least three females performing these chores, but not all women are so lucky. after one month of doing only a fraction of the daily work, i am completely in awe of the women who do all of this work virtually unassisted. here in the states we aspire to have luxuries like fancy cars and big houses, but thirty days in lesotho and suddenly running water and electricity seem like precious luxuries. i cannot even describe the heaven that is dishwashers, washing machines, and grocery stores. i only hope i can sustain my appreciation until the next time i visit the village.

next installment...only in lesotho.

tales of lesotho. part one.

for the month of july the mister and i headed off to lesotho (southern africa) to visit his family. we departed on july 6th and surprisingly our departure was totally uneventful. we followed my handy to-do list and waltzed out of the house precisely on time. shocking to say the least. two hours at the airport, ten hours on the plane, and we found ourselves in paris for a 15 hour layover. super. one minor glitch...the mister is a citizen of lesotho, a country which has no visa-waiver policy with france. sans visa the mister was not allowed to leave the international terminal of charles de gaulle airport. lucky for me, i am married to a wonderful man who took control of my luggage and sent me off to wander through paris. i did not have any kind of plan. i had a rinky-dink map from the airline magazine and i was just hoping to find the eiffel tower. after some confusion (streets going every direction with names that are all long and sound similar) i did find the major sights, but it just was not the same without my mister, so i just walked. and walked. and walked. i walked from notre dame to the eiffel tower to the arc de triomphe. for those of you unfamiliar with paris that is about 9km of walking. a little between-flights exercise.

not surprisingly, i arrived back at the airport totally exhausted. the mister was there waiting for me...obviously, he could not leave the world's most boring international terminal. we got some food and watched a world-cup semifinal along with an international assortment of soccer fans. sometime around midnight we boarded our plane for yet another ten hour flight. ugh. we arrived at o.r. tambo international airport in johannesburg sometime around 10am. immigration. baggage. customs. and then we spot the mister's brothers and best friend. 

the mister's older brother, best friend, younger brother, and me.

talk about fish out of water...these village boys looked so out of place inside this vast steel and glass building. they were thrilled by the bathroom...automatic soap dispenser and faucets? apparently it took them a few minutes to figure out how to make the water come out. they then explained that we had to take a bus to the car. they could not fathom paying for parking, so they parked miles and miles away in the employee lot. oh-kay. after the bus ride and some walking we arrived at the car and piled in. but then the car would not start. oops. so we all got back out and gave the car a push start, which was a good taste of where we were headed. the next seven hours were an uneventful journey through the countryside of south africa, a painless jaunt across the border bridge and voila...welcome to lesotho.

the family. falimehang, tankiso, the mister, masta, janki,
and m'e' (my mother-in-law).

it was past 8pm when we arrived at the mister's childhood home in a village called ha makebe. since this is our first time in the village since we married, i know we will have to go through some of the traditions for the newly married, but am not exactly clear on what that means. the unknown is leaving me a little bit anxious, but i am trying to remain calm. when i wake up the next day i am informed that i cannot leave the house until my hubby's sister arrives and dresses me. ummm...okay. trying to roll with the punches, but being indefinitely cooped up inside a 100 square foot house is making me feel a tad claustrophobic. luckily my best friend motlalile showed up right before panic set in. tears, cry, tears, cry, i am so ridiculously happy to see her and the hours fly by.

kiss and hug with my darling motlalile and her brother.

finally my hubby's sister, masta, arrives and the festivities begin. step one, masta and my mother-in-law dress me, which amounts to helping me put on the traditional outfit, complete with blanket and headscarf. step two, all of the women of the family gather in one room, while the men are outside. the men bring a sheep to the door and my mother-in-law explains that the family is giving me this sheep to welcome me to the family. great. except for the part where they slaughter the sheep to feed to everyone in celebration of our marriage. step three, my mother-in-law gives me a new name. she names me marethabile, which means "we are happy." step four, my little sister, along with any girls who want to join us, takes me to a village water source. sort of the lesotho version of a parade, except in this case it is showing the new wife where to find water, so the wife will know where to get water for washing clothes, dishes, etc. 

returning from our walk to the village water source.

step five, i sit in the house and meet a gazillion relatives, all of whom expect me to remember them when they return the next day. sure, no problem. step six, the final step. my aunt comes in and tells me to refuse the sheep meat when it is brought to me. she then leaves the room and comes back with a plate of cooked sheep, which she offers to me. i refuse it. she offers again. i refuse again. she nods and leaves the room. then she returns and gives the plate to everyone else to eat. the mister and i were rather confused by this tradition. why offer me the meat if you want me to refuse it? but whatever. the others are delighted to eat sheep. in fact, my little brother's best friend ate so much sheep that i nicknamed him mr. sheep. 

mr. sheep leading the way to finish off the entire sheep in one sitting.

the next day was a saturday, which in the basotho culture is the day for feasts. this particular saturday there were two feasts in ha makebe, so there were a ton of visitors from the surrounding villages. i sat outside while everyone came to see me. i got a taste of how zoo animals must feel, because everyone wanted to see the new "makoti" (newly married woman) and take pictures with me wearing the basotho blanket. but i was thrilled with the chance to get to know the mister's family. 

the mister and i wearing basotho blankets.

 his older sister kept me entertained with her attempts to cook the sheep's head. 

the sheep's head. gag.

she spent four hours laboring over that head...YUCK...only to forget the cooked head in the pot outside. by the time she remembered, it was dark outside and the head was gone. dogs stole it and we had to listen to them howling in the yard all night, looking for more meat. oops. not exactly how she planned things, but it sure did break the ice.

next installment...a glimpse into village life.

laundry list.

i am a slave to my lists and i create lists for everything. in two hours, the mister and i are departing on a month-long trip to lesotho. in order to prepare for the trip i wrote endless lists of things that needed to be done, purchased, packed, etc. i wrote lists for my lists. at some point in the last week i was trying to accomplish the tasks on no less than five lists. the hardest part is distractions. i never fail to come up with forty-three unlisted activities. some of the distractions are play and some of them are essentials that i somehow neglected to add to the list. yesterday i discovered that laundry was not on the list, so i did three loads of laundry. then comes the important question. do i add "laundry" to the list just so that i can experience the satisfaction of crossing it out, or is that just nonsense? on a normal day i would probably add it to the list, because that's what i do. but yesterday i seem to have gotten distracted from my distraction and never actually accomplished the inane task of writing something on my list just to cross it out.

speaking of laundry..egads. it wouldn't be so bad if you just had to do it sometimes. but if you wait too long, the job becomes exponentially more painful. i dream of the day when the mister and i will have a laundry machine inside our home. that would be swell. but for now i have to save up quarters and trudge down the hallway to the communal laundry rooms. although i did buy some fun new laundry baskets that just happen to be my favorite shade of avocado green. scrumptious. seeing my pretty baskets makes the job a little less yucky. the funny thing is that five years ago, when i was in the peace corps and had to wash all of my laundry by HAND, i swore that i would never ever again whine about washing laundry in a machine. i guess i have to eat my words, because i sure am whining! i am guessing that after this trip and a month of doing laundry by hand, i am gonna be thanking my lucky stars that when i return to the u.s.a. i will get to use a machine and i will not be so picky about that machine's location. perhaps i just need a trip to the village every couple years to remind me how luxurious my life truly is.

on that note, i wish thee well. the mister and i will be spending the next month in his childhood home..a little village in lesotho. we'll be living in a hut with no electricity or running water, and bathing in a bucket. yup, that's right...bathing in a bucket. a month off the grid. no iphone, facebook, blog, internet, computer, television, etc. i will be listening to lesotho radio and having good ol' fashioned face-to-face conversations. happy july to you!!!!!

luggage tag tutorial.

as you might remember, back in december i was trying to figure out how to label my luggage when i had a breakthrough...fabric luggage tags. the mister and i are in need of more luggage tags, so today i got busy sewing. i decided to document the process and create a tutorial for those of you who like to sew. if you are not into sewing, fear not...i also sell these luggage tags in my etsy shop lerato designs.

materials: scraps of colorful fabric, light-colored fabric (i use unbleached cotton), interfacing, thread, and string (i use cotton twine).

sew together lots of bits or keep it simple with just one or two fabrics.

step 1. cut out a 3.5"x4.5" piece from your light-colored fabric (we'll call this the white piece from now on). cut out a 3"x4" piece of interfacing. sew together a collection of scraps and cut a 3.5"x4.5" piece from the assembled pieces (for an easier luggage tag, you can skip the assemblage and cut a 3.5"x4.5" piece from a single colorful fabric).

step 2. iron your interfacing onto the back of the assembled piece.

step 3. place the colorful piece with the white piece, right sides together.

step 4. sew around the edges with a 1/4" seam, leaving a 2" gap on one side.

step 5. trim the corners, to make it easier to the turn the tag right-side out.

step 6. turn the tag right-side out through the gap. use a bone creaser, chopstick, or some other pointy tool to push the corners all the way out. tuck the open edges in, pin, and press flat.

step 7. top-stitch around the edge of the tag (no more than 1/8" from the edge).

step 8. sew a tiny buttonhole on one end of the tag. open the buttonhole with your seam ripper or scissors.

step 9. cut a 13" piece of string. thread the string through the buttonhole and tie it off.

step 10. use a fine point permanent marker to write your contact information on the light side of your tag. enjoy traveling in style!!!

world cup fever.

i grew up in a house where soccer reigned supreme. my brother plays, at one time my mom coached, and my dad is a referee. somehow or another i was never bitten by the soccer bug. i was content with gymnastics and volleyball. to be fair, my mums only coached for one year when my brother was a wee little guy mesmerized by the bugs climbing up the side of the goal post that he was supposed to be defending. after her brief stint as a coach my mums returned to her first love...tennis. but to this day, soccer has maintained its grip on the males of my family. little did i know that i would one day marry a man who lives and breathes soccer.

needless to say, i was prepared for this world cup to be a big event in my life. this the first world cup the mister and i are experiencing together. this is also the first world cup to take place in africa, so my african husband's enthusiasm can certainly be described as fanatical. you are probably wondering why this affects me. well, we live in a small house and we only have one television. to make matters worse, the mister works 8am-4pm and the soccer matches all take place between those hours.

since i love the mister lots and lots, i went to goodwill and purchased a vcr. yup. everyone is getting rid of their vcrs and we are purchasing. go figure. sadly, while our remote is happy to control the basic functions of our "new" vcr, it is unwilling to delve into the wonderful world of timed recording. great. but who needs to set a timed recording when you have a wife at home to press "record." that's right kids. every morning i wake up at 9:55am to go to the vcr and press record. i go about my business and then at 2:25pm i change tapes and press record again.

oh and did i mention that i spend all day avoiding all mention of scores and soccer? you see, when he gets home, i love to discuss anything and everything with my husband. if i know the scores of the games he is about to watch, it is torturous to keep mum, so i do everything in my power to avoid knowing the scores. i was watching tennis today and they did a quick "sports rundown," which included discussion of the day's world cup matches...i turned into psycho lady standing in my living room yelling "nananananananananaannaana" so that i would avoid hearing the scores. that was the moment that i realized i was bitten by the soccer bug. i might not actually like soccer, but apparently i am stuck with it.

receipts running wild.

as a child growing up i quickly learned that credit card receipts must be saved, put in order, and matched up with the monthly statement. my parents use this system to check for mistakes on the statement and to keep things organized in case they need to return a purchase. there was a special box for my pops to put his receipts (a yellow cardboard box that is still in use) and every month i watched my mums painstakingly take care of putting everything in order. once all was checked and the bill was paid, the receipts were wrapped up inside the statement and filed away. this probably sounds a bit neurotic, but in my parent's house it just seemed like fabulous organization.

is it any wonder that i feel the need to save every receipt that comes into my life? it took a little bit of training (and begging), but i managed to convince the mister that he too should partake in this persnickety ritual. sure thing. if i am gonna be a crazy loon, i might as well ensure that those nearest and dearest also lose their mind. 

 

the mister likes to haul around his receipts until the ink rubs off. i unwaveringly file these "blank" pieces of paper.

and then i realized that the process of organizing this mass of paper fell to me and i hate to admit it, but in my house it has never happened smoothly the way that it does in my parent's house. the sheer volume of receipts is daunting and the statements arrive at awkward times, so i fall behind and the next thing i know, the mister and i have a receipt drawer that is stuffed so full that it will not shut properly.

clearly the mister and i need a new method. first thing i had to give up the notion of putting the receipts in chronological order and matching them to the credit card statement. seems easy, right? except that in my book this is akin to total chaos and my brain is not so easily convinced that this is a good idea. but then i looked at the receipt drawer. seven months of receipts. eek. okay fine. no more chronology. once i made it past that hurdle, we quickly slid down the slippery slope towards anarchy. the mister and i now have a shoebox and sandwich baggy sorting system. snazzy? nope. effective? maybe. 

organizing the madness.

we are hopeful that using an all-stars shoebox means we are on a path to greatness.

clearly there are still signs of my hyperactive organizational tendencies, but maybe the mister and i will manage to retain both our receipts and our sanity. if you hear of a couple drowning in receipts, please throw us a rope.

ikea mi amor.

i went to ikea today. i needed cheapo bleapo blankets, which as it happens are readily available in ikea, but secretly i wanted to visit with their minuscule, yet delectable, stash of fabric. i wandered around the place for at least an hour. what is it about this place? i often leave there with a whole lot of nothing and yet the prospect of a visit is enough to leave me giddy with excitement. in homage to this swedish treasure, i have made a list of the top ten reasons why i adore ikea...

10. they make simplicity cool and take the blah out of the ordinary.
 9. there are lots of bright colors, stripes, and polka dots.
 8. the prices are pleasant.
 7. they encourage excessive amounts of organization.
 6. everything has a swedish name, which makes it all seem more interesting, despite the fact that the names are incomprehensible (to me).
 5. there is a restaurant inside the store, just in case you are famished in the middle of your visit.
 4. there is a little nook where i can buy stupendous fabrics at spectacular prices.
 3. they banished disposable plastic shopping bags in favor of gargantuan and indestructible blue totes.
 2. environmentally friendly is not just a punchline.

and the number one reason that i love ikea...

1. i am certain that they give good hugs.

movin' on down to the west side.

oopsy poopsy, i seem to have once again wandered off on an unannounced hiatus. sorry about that. i am back and with an updated dandelion design. i have been hibernating...alternating my time between the couch and the sewing machine. ain't life grand?

today the mister and i went on a "quick" shopping trip, which turned into a seven hour adventure. only us. we leave the house and something inside our brains (okay fine, my brain) snaps and we enter some sort of time warp reserved for shopping. now i am still semi-banned from shopping, but we were on a mission to find gifts to give to our friends and family when we visit lesotho. the mister has already taken care of buying the "big" gifts, but today was the day to find all the filler stuff. my territory. to stay on budget we decided to visit dollar stores, but my favorite one closed last year. my attempts to find a replacement store have been greatly hindered by my instinct for self-preservation which has prevented me from entering the seedier neighborhoods which are home to the best discount shopping experiences. so i dragged along the hubby and we found not one, but two fabulous stores.

the first one was almost too much for me. i was not sure if it was a good idea to get out of the car, but i did. once we got inside i was thrilled, because the place was a gold mine. i even found a hot pink house dress. yay! and then the announcements started. some sort of live video and audio surveillance. the voice on the loudspeaker kept saying that we were being watched live and police would respond to any suspicious behavior. and then she asked the clerk a question to which the clerk was required to respond. all of this over the loudspeakers! the mister and i were kind of dumbfounded and wondering what we had stumbled into. we took it in stride and then the announcements started again. and again. and again. we got a little paranoid that maybe we were the suspicious characters, but we persevered. and we emerged unscathed.

the next store was a doozy. a GIGANTIC store with the world's most random collection of stuff. which i suppose explains the name of the store...."stuff." no joke. once we got over the name of the store we entered and discovered that two large and noisy fans are responsible for the climate control. result...sweltering. we wandered the aisles with sweat dripping off our brows. by the end the mister was ready to melt. but we found.......MSG! whaaat? don't get me wrong, i have seen this stuff on ingredient labels my whole life..my mums is allergic to it, so naturally the name is seared in my memory...but i have never actually realized that i could purchase a bottle of monosodium glutamate. never a dull moment in a dollar store.

seven hours, three dollar stores, two kmarts, and costco = nail polish, lip gloss, perfume, pencils, socks, radios, and shoes. might not seem like much, but finding the perfect bargains is a lot of work. today's trip was glorious. total success.