After spending a good part of the morning making phone calls to various tyre dealers, I can now talk 4WD Tyrish. (Or is it Tyre-ese?) Passably, at any rate, although I still use the 'My husband has given me the job of ringing around' line, to cover any technical inadequacies I might put across. It's sad that I play the 'female' card, but it works. And then you can blow them away when you can ask intelligent questions and sound like you know what you're talking about.

I got better as I progressed, to the point where I felt qualified to make a "pffft" type judgement on a place that didn't automatically give me the information I needed. (What do you mean I can only get Highway tread in that size of tyre? - What about the 265/75 R16 ATR which can substitute for a 275/70?) Consumer power, yeah, go me. Reports have been made to Marc via email, and scheduled for Skype discussion some time later today. The deadline for 4 new tyres for the Landcruiser is 24th November, when it will need to pass rego.

So I am onto it, and feeling all so efficient. I even compiled the information in a 2 page Word doc, printed it out, and highlighted stuff. PA of the month here. And despite feeling like I'd wasted the morning sitting on my backside, I have at least made progress on one of the items on the list of Things I Must Do This Week.

The saga continues with the acquisition of the cargo barrier. Remember Bob? He got someone else to ring back last Wednesday.. Marc took that call when he was home early that day, and I was out rescuing kids from a thunderstorm at Touch. They have a price for the barrier, but still need to confirm the freight. Five days later they are still unable to get that component of the final price because the one and only dude at the distributing company that deals with the freight aspect has been off sick. My god, it's not as if it's rocket science, or an issue of high national security. I'm constantly amazed at the places I strike where the absence of one employee brings sales (or dealing with customer complaints) to a grinding halt. (And why a price doesn't automatically include freight I don't know...)

So, more waiting. I rang today to hassle them.. and they were chasing it up today. At least they rang back this afternoon and left a message that they haven't forgotten about it.

Tomorrow I intend to make a speedy trip to town to make some t-shirt exchanges (Cait's twilight comp netball team.. story behind them is worth a post unto itself, but I am realising that you can't detail every little drama in your everyday life.) I forgot to take said t-shirts on Friday AND Sunday. *le sigh*

Then I am going to turn up at the school library to do book repairs. I've been feeling guilty about my lack of involvement in the school this year, so it's a last ditch effort to make amends before the end of the year.

This week the grass will need mowing - I insisted to Marc that I could do it and he should spend Saturday doing other stuff. We've had a lot of rain, with warm, humid weather in between, so the grass is going ballistic. How I wish I could send some of this precipitation west where it's needed.

The other major thing on my mind (apart from the extreme lengths to which I go to (on an everyday basis) to put off the normal, everyday domestics) is that I will have to start planning for Christmas. And which, unlike most normal people, stresses me out to the max. I am an insane mix of 'I Hate Christmas' and ' Must Make Personally Produced Greetings and Presents.' I am also OIC Present Buying (it was written in the fine print in our marriage contract apparently).. and of Packing to go away without overloading the car with too many bags of this, that and the other.

The tension is mounting, and I'm ripe for a big whingey post on my Christmas Blues. Soon. Very Soon. Before I fall into a screaming heap of gibberish over it all and come over all incomprehensible about it.