Tuesday

Days seem to never go as I have planned. Maybe I’m just a poor planner!

Vince and I have been talking about both our vehicles needing shocks. Vince said “The real problem is there are no pot holes in Texas! We’re not used to hitting rough spots in the road!”

This morning he woke up and said he was taking his car back to the mechanic and having him look at the shocks. Ahhh . . a few minutes to myself. I did a few chores, ran a comb through my hair, put on an old comfy pair of sweats and a worn out, soft T-shirt and settled into my chair to knit. Phone rang. It was Vince. “The car needs shocks and he’s going to keep it. Can you come get me and we’ll go to a “few places”. Great . . 15 minutes after putting on comfy clothes, I changed into jeans and a decent shirt, slapped on a bit of makeup, hit the hair with the flat iron in a few places so it looked like I had tried to make it look better.

The mechanic is probably 20 minutes away . . if you go the right way. I didn’t. I thought there was a road that cuts through from our road to the road that would take me directly to Carthage. When the road I took turned into a dirt road, I figured it might not be the right road. Then, it just ended so I had to backtrack. Thankfully Vince didn’t ask what took so long and I didn’t volunteer that I got lost. Not really “lost”, just took a dead end.

While we were driving back to town, his phone rang and his new glasses were ready so he wanted to go by and get those. On the way to Walmart he asked if I wanted to eat at Magic Noodle and I pretty much always want to eat there so we did. Then we went to Walmart. Walked around forever in there and had a few things in the cart. Got to the front and the lines . . there were at least 15 people ahead of me waiting for the self-checks and the few cashiers that were working all had lines that were backed down the aisles. I looked at what was in the cart and said “There’s nothing in here I need this bad” so we left. If stores don’t open more registers, holiday shopping in most stores is going to be a nightmare. It was the same at Home Depot, Lowes and Target (so said Vince – I didn’t go to those places). I’m done with shopping but there are still things I may need between now and the first of the year.

One thing I really wanted was ticking fabric to cover my ironing table. Walmart didn’t have anything that would work. I would use heavy duty canvas type fabric – most anything but they had nothing; nor did they have anyone anywhere near the fabric department to cut fabric. Vince suggested going to Hobby Lobby but I told him JoAnn’s was more likely to have it but he didn’t want to go that way and then I remembered T. J. Max was right by JoAnn’s and knew if he got in that store, we’d never get home so I will order the ticking for the ironing board.

Then he asked if I wanted to go to the new Aldi. Not really but he did so we went. It was just another Aldi but they did have butter that was regular $2.99 on sale for $1.79 so I grabbed six pounds of that. With holiday baking, I’ll go through more butter than usual. Vince got some cheeses he likes, some wine and I did get an advent calendar for Boots. I already had one for Rita (because I thought it was for Boots – the dog on the front should have been a sign). I have an order to pick up at Walmart in the morning and even though a few things might have been less at Aldi, I didn’t want to deal with going back through my already placed order and deleting what I bought at Aldi so . . I didn’t really get anything.

On the way home we stopped by the appliance shop and looked at gas stoves. I think I am going to switch everything to some kind of stainless. I just don’t like the look of the white gas stoves and I know as soon as I buy a white stove, the fridge or the dishwasher is going to go out and I’d wish I had just switched everything to start with instead of continuing with the white. I told Vince . . I’m willing to wait and save for a while so we can buy everything at once (main stove, second wall oven, microwave, dishwasher, fridge, vent hood) so we can get all matching appliances so long as he hooks up the camp stove in the garage and IF the power goes out, I’ll have a way to heat food and boil water for a bath. He liked that idea.

Came home, put everything away, sat and knitted with Boots for a couple of hours, fell asleep for an hour, got up and unpacked boxes til I could no longer safely walk because of the boxes in the floor. Here I am . . I’m going to knit til bed time.