money well spent

so living out in the sticks doesn't really afford you much in the way of shopping convenience. sure there's a pretty... alright, a really nice Wal-mart about 8 miles up the road... but i love Target. the closest Target is like 15-20 miles - least ways that's what the Garmin says. and as crazy as it sounds, yesterday the boys and i decided to make the trek over to Target. it doesn't really feel like 20 miles, but since it took us a good 15/20 minutes to get over there, i suppose it actually is. hmmm. so that's super handy.

the boys and i also decided that after the enormous amount of gas we used just to get there, we really needed to make the trip worth while... so we searched around long and hard for something extra special and completely unnecessary and in the end put our investment into a snow cone maker! i of course, had my doubts - remembering how lame they were from my childhood. needless to say... i've gotten so damn old that snow cone makers have come a good long way since i was a kid. go figure! we found out they actually work for starters - what a concept! you can now use regular ice cubes (no prefreezing odd shaped cylinders that usually disappear into the depths of the freezer, never to be seen again) and the only muscle required is what you can muster to push a button instead of breaking your arm trying to crank on the manual handle. then there's the added bonus: the shaver blade is all enclosed, so there's no shredding of fingers, knuckles or tongues (hey is was all my brother's idea!!).

all in all: very sweet, lots of fun and a huge hit!