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!)