Friday Happenings

This has been a busy Friday and Thursday was busy too. Here’s how I think and how Vince thinks. One of us doesn’t think normal thoughts (me!). We were at Aldi yesterday and they had 4 pounds of sugar for $3.08. It’s been a long time since I bought sugar (probably years) so I thought $3.08 for 4 pounds was a bit outrageous. I grabbed my phone and did a bit of calculating and the Aldi sugar was .77/pound. I went to the Sam’s Club website and their sugar was .60/pound if you buy a 25 pound bag. I said “No, not paying .77/pound when I can get it for .60 per pound. Then, we got home and Vince did the calculating and said “We’ll save $4.25 per bag of sugar if we buy 25 pounds from Sam’s but we have to drive all the way to the other side of Joplin. I would have paid .77/pound since we were already at Aldi.” I told Vince . . if we buy three bags, we’ll be saving $12.75. He said he still would have bought it from Aldi and been done.

We went to Sam’s this morning, got three bags of sugar. I told Vince there were three things I needed from Sam’s but, as it always happens, we left there with two carts full. We bought several big containers of olive oil, a couple of the variety packages that have 6 packs of pasta, a box with 6 packages of spaghetti. I bought a sweatshirt that zips up the front. If I get one that’s a bit too big, the sleeves cover my hands so I can go out with Oscar, hold the leash and have the sleeves hang down past my hands to help keep my hands warm. The basement stays a bit chilly in the winter and before Oscar, I would wear a sweater but his nails destroy sweaters. The wine I like was $2 per bottle less than at Walmart. Yep, I love a good, cheap, sweet wine! 🙂 Two bottles will probably last me two years! I bought zipper storage bags, zipper freezer bags, both quarts and gallons. I bought a box of 200 kitchen trash bags. Vince picked up a few things he wanted – a couple of packages of wiper blades for all three vehicles . . that’s all I can remember but he had other stuff. I got a bucket of kitty litter. Every time I go to Sam’s, I buy weird spice combinations. I can’t even remember what I bought today but I’m anxious to try it. I wanted to buy a big box of green tea which is what I use for kombucha but they had no green tea. We bought no meat, no veggies – nothing fresh, nothing cold – everything goes in the pantry or on the shelf.

We left Sam’s and were heading south on the big, busy street through Joplin and a police officer with lights flashing went through the intersection in front of us. Vince said “Oops, he’s after somebody.” He wasn’t going terribly fast, then there was another, and another and as we got about 8 to 10 car lengths up, there were probably 15 police cars at a hotel on the right. Then, as we traveled, we met probably a dozen more and some of them were from neighboring towns so we figured it was more than a speeding vehicle. I kept watching the Joplin News First Facebook page, knowing they would report on it and sure enough . . an “attempted” armed robbery with shots fired at the hotel at 10:15 a.m. Who would think about that happening at that time of morning??

From there we went to T. J. Maxx. You know how I feel about shopping but if I have to shop, I hope it’s at T. J. Maxx. I never mind going in there because that’s one place I could spend too much and Vince is usually ready to leave before I am and that’s probably the only place that happens, but it would at a cross stitch shop.

I bought some hair products, a pretty pumpkin glass soap dispenser for Nicole. I buy these little acrylic makeup drawer organizers for my 100.3 silk floss (which is on a spool). I can put each color in one drawer. They’re $20 at Amazon and they were $14 at T. J. Maxx. There were three there but I only bought two of them.

That was the end of the shopping. Got home, got the car unpacked and things somewhat put away.

I had taken about 15 pounds of tomatoes out of the freezer before we left. When we got home, I got them all peeled, cooked them down a bit, put them all in a large container and will finish that project tomorrow.

My friend down the road told me she has nothing on her calendar tomorrow. She’s so busy and she wanted more elderberries so I figured tomorrow would be a good day for her to process elderberries. I went out and picked three grocery sacks of elderberries for her. I had already given her three sacks full. I called her to tell her they were picked and she said she would come by. I told her the front door would be open . . just come in. Vince had been downstairs but he came up about the time she arrived. She opened the door and said “JUDY”. She about scared Vince half to death because our doors are NEVER unlocked. He said “WHAT THE HECK ARE YOU DOING?” then he realized who it was and he was kinda confused. I told Vince . . I was busy in the kitchen, she called and said she was 5 minutes from here and I told her the door would be open . . come on in. He couldn’t believe I had done that. Heck, I remember when doors were never locked.

There were more elderberries to pick but it was in an area where I have to use a step stool to get up on a ledge to get to them and I didn’t want to do that til Vince was outside to call 911 if I broke my neck so we went out and I picked the rest of the elderberries. You know what I’ll be doing tomorrow – finishing and canning pasta sauce and juicing elderberries.

Hoping to get a bit of stitching done before bed time!