Happy Saturday!!

It's Saturday which means we survived another school/work week and made it through the evil Friday the 13th. I'm not particularly superstitious so I wasn't really worried about that. The week was really long for DH and feel bad for him about that. All the changes at work have made him really busy and he was at work early every day, and home late 4 out of the 5. He is even back there this morning making a delivery, but at least he will get mileage for that. On a bright note G had his very first spelling test ever and got 100% on it. Both of my boys seem to be good spellers!!!

I'm very happy that I was able to order G's birthday gift this morning on Ebay. He really wanted both Star Wars Battlefront 2 and Lego Star Wars 2 for our PS 2. Both are relatively newer games so they have a hefty price tag, or at least from what I've seen. I browsed Ebay this morning hoping to maybe catch a deal and I did. I found a seller who was selling both games, supposedly unused, for cheap. The catch is no cases for the games but do include the manuals. My first thought was bootleg copies but they are a HUGE company selling all kinds of things. They had a high approval rating and I figured if they were that big, sold that much product, and were boot legging they would have been caught so I bought both games. G will never miss the cases I'm sure and he will be thrilled to have them both. WE just need to but a new controller for the system and he will be all set for his birthday. I know I have a month to go but I feel greatly relieved that this is taken care of so I don't have to worry about it. Of course this means we have to move buying Halloween costumes back one week but that's Ok, this is taken care of.

I'm a little annoyed this morning at my BIL. This will probably make no sense to other people but it's lodge stuff. He has been master *all* year long and hasn't done a darn thing, nothing, nada, zippo, nothing. You can barely get him on the phone when people call and it's not just other lodge members, but DH too!! He finally did a monthly newsletter(only his second for his year) and DH was waiting to hear on corrections from him, for 4 DAYS, before he could finally get them printed. Now we have to fold and address and mail them all(but this is part of my part time job so that's fine).

It seems that he has finally now realized "Hey, I haven't done a thing and my year is almost over, how much can I jam into my last month and half" and he has planned a lot. First there is a fund raising dinner on the 4th. I'm all for fundraising, it's a good cause for a local returning vet who now has a rare form of cancer. Great!! But you only gave us 3 weeks to plan it, you put it on the Saturday *before* the monthly Lodge breakfast which means we get to give up both a Saturday and a Sunday that week. Not to mention that the breakfast would have been an awesome way to market the fundraising dinner. We get a lot of non-mason seniors at our breakfast who would probably come to a type of dinner like this.

Then there is Sunday Nov 12 which is G's birthday. G was very excited that his birthday fell on a weekend this year because now he can have his party on the *actual* day. Instead DH will be at the lodge for another function for a fellow lodge member...Not even one we like that much and who isn't around that much but he is a big deal in the Shrine so we get to throw a cocktail/dinner for him as well. I told DH straight up I'm not going to that and I will move G's party to the day before but it's still frustrating.

Of course there is a whole host of other problems with DH's brother and his wife who have all of a sudden decided not to talk to the rest of the family. I"m not sure what the deal is but the no longer show up for any family functions, don't call, and instead Dh gets handed a gift, usually at hockey, for DH to then give out. I was really upset when they did the same the ing for DH's mom's birthday in September. I'm sick of being their "message" person because then I get the third degree about where are they etc. I was also disappointed, as well as was D, that they didn't show up for his birthday(I didn't expect them too) or even CALL to make an excuse. They sent a gift, which I then didn't' send a thank you card for like I had in years past. If they can't be a little polite then neither can I.

It's just a mess when the family and lodge stuff and feelings merge. I'm glad his year is almost up!!