Living in a small town

Some of the best things about small towns -
Well, we have Shirley's Cafe (run by SuperWoman - she hurt her foot a while back when a roast she was cooking at home slipped and dropped on her foot - there by proving she not only cooks at home but at her cafe) and the Hungry Mule Cafe - both supplying good All American food and are places where "Everybody knows your name" and that in the morning that you want black coffee and ice water before they even ask.
DH and I went for breakfast the other morning - since we do not currently have a stove (more on that later) and Shirley came out and told me she had been given a ton of tomatoes; Would we like some? I took 2 bags, thinking that we could can them. Then DS' best friend's father gave us another bag full.
Well, we had the world's most annoying electric stove - with burners that worked intermittently and an oven that was not really heating evenly - so we went to the Home Depot appliance sale - no payments or interest for a year - and picked out a great gas stove. The delivery guys showed up on Thursday, hauled off the old stove, and downloaded the new ---- which was damaged badly - looked like it had been dropped; and we declined it.
Well, what we didn't realize was they only deliver in this remote corner of the world on Thursdays. So no stove. Which really didn't sink in by Friday morning at Shirley's Cafe, until we got home to try to set up to can..... Well, we have been talking about getting one of those outdoor Turkey cooker burners....So off goes DH to pick one up and a refill on the propane.
So you haul a big pot of water out to boil, drop in the tomatoes for 60 seconds, and then haul it in to drain and drop the tomatoes into an ice bath. That gets heavy and I still can't lift more than 10 pounds....
So I start slippin; and coring, and quartering. We fill up our quarts with fruit fresh, salt and tomatoes - got 7 quarts and DH cans them at 5 lbs pressure for 15 minutes - another hauling of the canner outside....and I got another 2 quarts of juice.
But the price of the tomatoes was right and all winter we will have to bless Shirley and Joe for our chili!
And DH wisely set aside a tomato to slice and have with our grilled burgers, potato salad (from the store) and beans (our grill has 1 burner).
AND now for the rest of the story:
A couple of years ago, during a bout of insomnia (and some of us in the family may have implied sleep loss induced temporary insanity) DH watched an infomercial and bought us a NUWave succulent chicken infrared oven cooker. Well we may all have teased him rather unmercifully about succumbing to the lure of an infomercial but I just made bread pudding and homemade croutons (so much better) in that very oven. So I think we have to stop kidding him about "now how much would you give for it???!" Thanks, honey! Smart and great at the heavy lifting! You are the greatest.
He is cutting the boards for the new built-ins going in the closet, too.

DS and I have been doing power shopping, getting ready for college. We bought a small microwave (his room mate is bringing a small frig), crock pot, can opener, bowls, some silverware, towels, and such on the first trip. We have twin sheets, pillows etc.
Then DD, DS, and I went clothes shopping - It being the tax free weekend. I even got a pair of jeans and a vest at Coldwater Creek - and we ran into the bookstore for a minutes. We hit Walmart for socks and underwear, too. I had a lot of fun with them.
And finally we got school supplies done finally - Ryan even found foot shaped paper clips.
He leaves for school a week from this Tuesday.