So What's New With You?

So what's new with you?  Apparently, the biggest news around this town of mine lately is that the new Taco Bell has reopened.  Pretty exciting stuff, don't you agree?  What?  You don't think that's exciting?  Perhaps if you knew the whole story you'd understand why it is exciting.  


Several months ago, they tore down the old Taco Bell.  There wasn't anything wrong with it as far as I could tell, but they tore it down anyway. 

 They then began building a new, bigger and better Taco Bell in that very same spot.  I have no idea why they didn't just put an addition on the old building, but I suppose they must have had their reasons.  So Taco Bell has been gone from my town for several months now while the new building was being built.


They finally finished the new building, and about a week and a half ago, they reopened for business there.  At meal times now, ever since it has reopened, long lines have been forming around the building.  The parking lot is full.  Cars fill the lane that goes by the drive through window and are backed out into the street blocking traffic.  It has been this way every day!  I am quite puzzled by this.  They aren't having any special deals or prices.  

And, it is not like we don't have other restaurants in town, because we do.  We have many restaurants of all types including others that serve tacos and other Mexican fare.  Have the people living here missed Taco Bell food so much that they can't stay away from it now?  It's like the whole town is jonesing for a taco fix.

So, like I said, apparently this is pretty big news in my town.  Now, do you see why it is so exciting?  No?  Well, I don't either (I was kind of hoping one of you could explain it to me), but there's no denying it has been a very popular place to go recently.  I suppose eventually all the excitement will die down, and then we'll go back to being excited about the weather when it changes.

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So what else is new, you ask.  (The Taco Bell news wasn't enough?  You want more?  You're really a glutton for punishment, aren't you.)  One thing that is new is I have a new passenger riding along in my car keeping me company now.  

Yes, I do realize you are jealous and you wish that Darth Vader was riding along as co-pilot in your vehicle instead of mine, but what can I say---only a few are lucky like me.  Why is Darth Vader riding shotgun in my car?  Well, allow me to explain.


My older son was home for the holidays for nearly three weeks.  He flew here, leaving his car in Florida, of course.  While he was here, he borrowed my car several times.  One of the times he borrowed my car, he went to a white elephant gift exchange with some of his friends.  He came home with Darth Vader as the gift he received from the exchange.  So ever since the gift exchange, Darth has taken up residence in the front seat of my car and has been going everywhere with me.  My son left today flying back to Florida without Darth. I'm not sure if it was intentional or not that he left Darth behind (I'm thinking, yes, it probably was intentional. haha!), but in any case, Darth remains, waiting patiently in my car for our next car trip, wherever that may be.


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My third bit of news... (Seriously, you are still here?  After reading the first two parts of this post, you are still here reading?  Bless your heart.  You are indeed a dedicated blog post reader or a good friend of mine, or maybe just a little touched in the head. ).  

Anyway, my third bit of news is that I have a new laptop computer.  I am finally getting rid of the giant dinosaur desktop that I've been using for years now.  As my younger son so quaintly put it, "Welcome to the world where everyone else lives, Mom."


I'm going to be transferring all my photos and documents from my dinosaur desktop to an external hard drive that is the size of a deck of cards and holds 1 TB of information.  No, in this case, TB doesn't stand for tuberculosis or tablespoon.  TB stands for Terabyte which is the equivalent of 1,000 gigabytes of storage.  Those who have been reading this blog a while know that I sometimes get carried away when I take pictures.  Now I will have a place to store all those pictures without slowing down my computer.  I also have a new printer to go with my cute little laptop and deck of cards external hard drive.  The printer also makes copies and scans documents and sends faxes.  I think it might even walk the dog, fix dinner, and wash the dishes if I can figure out the right buttons to push!


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Now you're up-to-date on what's new with me here.  So tell me, is there anything new with you?  If there is, you can tell me about it in the comments below. 


 While you do that, I think Darth and I will put my car into warp speed and head on over to get in line at the Taco Bell.

(In case you couldn't tell, and I'm sure that you could tell, the only photo in this post which is mine is the one of Darth sitting in my car.  The rest  came from elsewhere and were just added for comedic effect.)