A Weird Day and Store Eight!

  It was a weird day.  Not weird in creepy (well, one part was creepy) but weird in me not knowing what emotion should be applied to each incident that occurred.  Mark and I decided to go shopping for our Christmas gifts.  We have narrowed the gift list tremendously but still needed to get the job done.  To me, shopping of any kind is a chore.  I braved up and climbed into the truck.  I was going to do this!  Mark knows that I am not much on a lot of the department stores so he took me to the lumber yard! Whoa!  Good move!  I could live in that place and be perfectly happy!  There are so many neat little things there that start the wheels of a crafter's brain to whirring.  I could have filled the truck with doodads had I not remembered that I was supposed to be buying for other folks.  I did find a "freebie" bin and loaded up on scrap lumber!  Projects were mounding up in the brain!  Oh, and we did buy our son-in-law's gift!  He had mentioned something and I made a mental note.  A miter saw and jig saw were purchased.  The beginning of the shopping trip seemed to be a success....I was in hopes that the rest would follow suit.

  It did not.  We drove all the way to a store that I adore in the next town over.  One problem...the store was no where to be found.  My store was gone!  Lock, stock and barrel!  It had disappeared!  I did not know what to make of this!  Just the night before, I had been looking at their ad and, now, poof!  GONE!!!  Befuddled, we went set out to find another store.  As we meandered about the huge parking lot, I spied a sporting goods store. OK!  This may work!  We wanted to buy roller skates for the grandlittles.  Surely a sporting goods store should have roller skates.  Perhaps all would not be lost.  As soon as I entered the store, I knew this was a mistake.  Huge sign..."Sporting Goods"....nary a thing in stock that had to do with sports.  They had shirts.  Lots of shirts.  No skates...nor balls, bats, weights, fishing gear...nothing to do with sports. Shirts....they had shirts.  I went outside and checked the sign again...Sporting Goods...not Shirts.  We drove away shaking our heads. 

  On to Store Three...I bought a bake pan....for me.  This was turning out to be the most disappointing shopping trip in history.  Store Four...(another sporting goods place)....one pair of children's skates but these were far too big for the grandlittles.  We bought a camera.  Hmmm...I am not having fun.  Store Five....(the third sporting goods place)....there sure are a lot of sporting goods places.  When I entered, I could hear people talking.  I never saw a single soul in the place.  I think it was haunted.  No sales folks ever approached me.   No one was at the cash registers (and there were 14 of those).  Nary a person was seen walking the aisles...customers nor sales people.  Mark and I wandered around a bit until it started feeling a bit creepy.  I called out..."Hello!"  My voice echoed in the vast emptiness of the huge store.  No response.  Ok, so if the ghosts haunting this place did not want my money, I would just go elsewhere.  Fifteen minutes in a store without seeing a single person was sort of....ummm...weird.  Store Six...this store was a huge department store.  I was intimidated.  As I was wandering about the place, I noticed a price tag on a robe....$176....for a terry cloth robe!  And it was not even pretty.  They did, however, have men's sports jackets with Santa Claus embroidered on the front!  I started to get one for Mark.  He and I laughed until we saw the price...$322!  Surely, they jest!  Finally, a lady came up to me an asked "Are you looking for anything in particular?"  When I said kids' roller skates, she looked aghast and shortly replied "We do NOT carry such!"  Oops!  I guess this was a mistake. I sort of slunk out of the store hoping that I would not knock something off the rack.  I probably would have been chastised to no end!  Store Seven...we are still looking for skates.  By this time, we have forgotten all other folks on our list.  The grandlittles were the only ones who mattered!  It was skates or bust.  This place told us that we had to order them online.  They did not carry them in the store. I could have done that to start with had I known what size.  Skates are sized totally different than shoes.  There are things like Y-8 or J-10 which do not correlate with kids shoe sizes at all. I had the good sense to ask my daughter-in-law what size the kids wore AND how long their feet were in inches!  My small stroke of brilliance saw me with a premeasured piece of string in my pocket!  Store Eight....SKATES!!!!  We found skates!!  Well, we found one pair of skates that closely resembled the correct size. I whipped out my handy-dandy six inch long string and started measuring! They were close.  I grabbed them and dared anyone to get near me! These were MINE!!!   Good news was...they were Disney "Frozen" skates.  Our little granddaughter would love them!  Bad news was...there was none for our little grandson. As I was literally crawling on the floor, pushing boxes of men's skates to the side, I found some small adjustable skates. These would have to do.  I am thinking the little fellow will be just as happy with his "Paw Patrol" skates as he would with any others.  Store Eight also had knee pads, elbow pads and helmets!  Grab, grab, grab!  Whew!  Also, Store Eight had sales people!  Lots of them and they were of the helpful sort and not ghostlike voices.  I was really beginning to like Store Eight!  Ok, now what else were we supposed to get?  I could not remember.  Eight stores just to find skates blew my mind.  Six hours and eight stores just to find skates also wore me to a frazzle.  It was time to go home.  I will, however, make another trip to Store Eight  to finish my shopping if I ever regain the courage to attempt another trip.  I wonder if everyone else on my list would like something made from freebie scrap lumber...hmmm?  Maybe?

If All Shopping Was This Easy

  I admit it.  I am slacking.  The Little Bayou House is still not fully decorated, the shopping has yet to be finished and not one cookie has been baked.  Pain in my right side has kept me from doing all of the things that I love to do during the holiday season.  For the past four months, I have been prodded, poked and given all sorts of medicines. (None of which helped. by the way.)  Then as quickly as the pain came, it disappeared...for one day.  One day!  I was pain free yesterday and accomplished more in that twenty four hours than I have in months. This morning, thinking all was well, I started with gusto!  I was painting gourds at 5am and decorating the toy room for the kiddos by 7am.  All was going well until 8am.  Then, as I reached up to hang garland, I felt the stabbing pains return.  Ugh!  When will this stop?  I doubled over in agony and the garland still dangles precariously from the shelf.  It can wait.

  Yesterday, Darling Daughter, Elizabeth did take me shopping but after several hours of searching for decorations for her house, I bought one gift....for her.  While I pondered over several gifts for others, she spied lamps for her porch and lamented that she would love to have them.  Yep, I stole her idea.  She is now getting four solar lamps as her gift.  I have to admit that they are really nice lamps.  I had a grand idea of getting a porch swing for her but who knew that they would be out of stock during December?  Doesn't everybody sit on their front porch in the dead of winter?  Obviously not.  So, the lamps will suffice and perhaps the swing can be an anniversary gift later in May.  I (and she) was happy with my purchase.  Still, that does not mark a lot of folks off of my shopping list.  

  Hopefully, I will complete all of the pending chores in time for the big day but if not, folks will just have to understand.  One day of being pain free is just not enough.  I am trying....I am trying.  I do have Elizabeth's gift, though! Now if I could just get everyone else to tell me what they would like, life would be easier.

 

The "Art" of shopping!

Mark and I headed out to do our Christmas shopping.  I am late in doing that, too.  I hate shopping!  I hate going to stores!  I hate making decisions about gifts for other people!  I always have this fear  that the gift that I think is perfect for someone will be the most despised thing in the world.  Still, I was game and climbed in his truck for the trek to the store.  As soon as the seat belt was fastened, he asked me where I wanted to start.  "The lumberyard!" I answered!  Yep, that is a weird place to do my Christmas shopping but if I had my druthers that was where I was going.  So, we wound up in the lumber yard.  Stores like Lowes and Home Depot do not just sell lumber AND I stand corrected..they are "Home Improvement Stores" not lumber yards.  Those have become a thing of the past.  I had several items in mind that perhaps I could find in one of these home improvement places..one being a large wall clock.  Darling Daughter had expressed a wish months ago for a very large clock to go over her mantel.  This could be a great gift! (If I could find one.)

Entering the store, I waltzed up to a clerk and asked him where the clocks could be found.  After stammering a bit, he shrugged and said he did not know.  Well!  That was more than unhelpful!  I strode over to a young lady, "Where are your wall clocks?"  She was most helpful in telling me that they should be in the flooring department.  Alrighty then...in the flooring department.  With Mark in tow, I headed that way.  BIG MISTAKE!  Mark should know by now that I can never enter a store without art projects in the depths of my mind.  Somewhere back among the dust and cobwebs of my brain, something clicked as soon as I saw the lovely boxes of tile!  Oh, my!  The wheels of my mind whirred with excitement!  The tiles were art just waiting to happen!  I glided down the aisle softly caressing the tiles.  Then the whole world stopped spinning! I came to the glass tiles!  These things are incredible!  No, I would never consider putting something that fancy in the Little Bayou House but as a craft project, those could be quite impressive!  I was hooked!  I wanted those tiles!  I needed those tiles!!  I had to have those tiles!!!  So, I bought tile.

Eventually, Mark managed to pull me from the flooring department and we, once again, started our Christmas shopping.  The store was huge and had all sorts of stuff out for Christmas.  This made it difficult as the "gift selections" were stuff like cute little baskets filled with cookies and hot chocolate or fluffy powder puffs and lotion.  These are not gifts that I give!  I looked for things like a hand wood plane.  You would think any proper lumber yard would have that!  Again, I asked..again, the same guy..again, he was baffled. We explained just what a wood plane was. "We do not sell woodworking tools here." he replied.  WHAT?  I am in a lumber yard..ok, home improvement store..and you do not sell woodworking tools?  Oh, something is highly wrong with the world! (Perhaps it had something to do with me causing it to stop spinning while in the flooring department..I don't know.)  Anyway, we did not get Son any special woodworking tools.  Nor did we get that large wall clock.  They did not have any clocks..even in the flooring department! (But we did buy tiles..pretty, pretty tiles to be used in crafts!)