Most mornings when I have to get up at zero dark thirty (5:00 AM) to drive Frankie to work I’m tempted to just leave my morning bucket of coffee alone and drag my tired old butt back to bed after dropping her off….especially when I’ve been up playing with my laptop until I can no longer see the keyboard to type. That’s what I did this morning and didn’t manage to get my head down until a little after 2:00. And then there are mornings like this.

 My Dell V305 all in one is thirsty. This thing isn’t too bad on black cartridges but it sucks down color ink like nobody’s business! When I first got this thing for Christmas last year it was a big surprise. My old HP Deskjet was on it’s last legs and I had been shopping around for a new printer. My Lexmark All in One was also gasping for breath; print heads shot but the scanner still worked so I was making do, scanning with the Lexmark and printing with the HP.

The girls got a deal on the Dell at Wal-Mart and I even found a set of replacement ink cartridges, also on sale at Wally World so I figured we were in good shape. I printed a couple of photos from one of the photo CDs we had (this was when I was still shooting snapshots with a 35MM SLR) and the prints were pretty nice. I was happy!

Then I discovered how fast this monster drained color cartridges. The set that came with the machine were used up quickly as I printed copies of holiday photos to send to my mom. The spare set didn’t last long either. Soon  I was in Wally World picking up a pair of black and a pair of color cartridges.

I was not real happy as I swiped a credit card at the checkout and headed for the exit with my MasterCard account $140 heavier. Gotta pay that sucker off the first of the month! At least, I told myself, I’m not paying shipping and handling charges ordering these things online from Dell.

After setting all the printer preferences to “penny pinching miser”, printing all documents in black and white draft quality and only printing high quality photos when it was absolutely necessary I managed to make those 2 color cartridges last almost as long as 1 black cartridge. This is when I discovered Wal-Mart no longer carried Dell printers or replacement cartridges……..now they’re only available from Dell……damn it! Time to do some shopping.

This month the 3rd (when my check arrives) is on Saturday so Uncle Sugar coughed up my disability check today instead. This means it’s officially Mother’s Day at Rocket’s house (time to pay this mother****er and that mother****er and, hopefully, when I’m finished I won't be a broke mother****er).

Frankie’s payday just happened to hit today as well and she had a little overtime this payday so the direct deposits made the checking account fatter than usual. To make matters even better my prescriptions through the Veteran’s Affairs clinic are now 90 day supplies (I pay $40) instead of the 30 day refills I was getting through Frankie’s insurance for nearly $200 in co-pays so we have a few extra bucks this month. WOO-HOO!

I happened to be browsing through the Wal-Mart sale flyer that fell out of our twice weekly “newspaper” the other day and look what I found:

A Canon inkjet printer for $30!!!!

Let’s see; pay $50 for 2 cartridges from Dell or $30 for a printer with cartridges.

Hmmmmm, what to do, what to do?

Guess where I went this morning after dropping THE BOSS off at work!

 My first printer, 15+ years ago, was a Canon inkjet and I loved it! The only reason I replaced it was after 5 years of faithful service I couldn’t find cartridges for it anymore. My 35MM SLR and my DSLR are both Canon’s and I love them. There is now a Canon PIXMA iP2600 sharing table space with my Dell V305 which is now a scanner and document printer. The Canon is now my photo printer.

Another nice thing about wandering around at daybreak, naturally with my camera in my lap as I drive,  is this:

and this

and right around the corner from home (please note they did use the deer crossing)

Okay, that’s enough for now.

Sam says we need a nap and I always listen to him.

He’s smarter than I am.

But he doesn’t know spit about ‘lectricity so don’t let him tell you how to rewire a porch light.

He thinks watching my hair stand on end is funny.

Good night!