Category: shopping

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Shopping for Roses and Chocolates for Tomorrow

Tomorrow is Valentine’s Day, so I need to get out of the house and go shopping for roses and chocolates for tomorrow. I don’t usually buy roses for anyone on Valentine’s Day, but my sister and I thought it would be a nice thing to do for our mom, since our dad passed away last summer. Mom had a hard time with the first Christmas without him, and he used to always give her a dozen yellow roses on Valentine’s Day.

The color of roses and types of flowers that you give to people are supposed to have certain meanings, like the color red for roses means love. So we had asked Dad why he gave our mom yellow roses instead of red ones. He said that because she was born in Dallas, TX, that the two of them had always had a private joke about her being his “Yellow Rose of Texas.” So he always gave her yellow roses whenever there was an occasion for flowers.

My sister and I agreed to go in together and split the cost of the roses, and I will take them to her in the morning on my way to work. We could have them delivered, but we want her to get them first thing in the morning, so her entire day is brightened and she doesn’t have to spend all morning being sad, missing him.

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Car Trouble This Morning

On my way to get in my car this morning and head out on errands, I noticed that the right front tire seemed a little low and bulging. That tire seems to having trouble, needing air every couple of months. I have had it checked at the tire store several times for a nail or leak, and they never find anything wrong with it. But that tire keeps losing air when the other three tires never give me trouble. I think the tire store just doesn’t want to admit that they sold me a bad tire and should give me a replacement under the warranty. I don’t know how to prove this other than taking the car to a different tire store. In the meantime, I have to drive straight to the gas station and get air in that tire before I drive it on the highway.

Anyway, not only was that tire low, but when I started up the car the warning light on my dashboard came on with the brakes light. Oh, no! I really do not have the money in my budget or the time to deal with new brakes for my car. I hope that it just means the brake fluid is low and not that the brakes are really going bad. I guess I need to take the car for an oil change and have them top off all the fluids. If that doesn’t make the brake light go off, I will have to find a way to get the car in the shop for a brakes job this month and move some bills around in my budget so I can pay for the repairs and keep my car running.

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A Peaceful Christmas Eve

Here it is Christmas Eve and everything is ready for the big day tomorrow. I have been really good about planning things out and getting my shopping done early enough so that I’m not in a last minute panic like I was last year.

The grocery shopping was probably the worst. I went around 4:00 in the afternoon and the place was jam packed with people. It was so crowded I could hardly make my way up and down the aisles. I had a list with me to help speed things up, but it really didn’t help much. I was stuck in the human tide of going up and down each aisle anyway.

I wrapped the very last gifts this afternoon and have been able to enjoy a nice, quiet dinner and I’m actually heading to bed early. I hope Santa likes the chocolate chip cookies that I baked for him, and that he is good to me – and you!

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Only One Week To Christmas

Wow! Did you realize that Christmas is only one week away? I think this is about the right time to start to panic. Do I have all the gifts bought? Do I have plenty of wrapping paper and ribbons? Where are the gift tags that I bought on sale last year for 80% off? I know I put them someplace safe so I could use them this year and not have to spend top dollar on gift tags.

The dinner menu is starting to worry me. Do I have all the things I need in my pantry other than the turkey? Do I even want a turkey this year? I have been thinking about getting a Honeybaked ham instead. But it has always been a tradition at my house to have turkey on Thanksgiving and again on Christmas. Of course, that much turkey makes everyone pretty much sick of turkey and we don’t even think about having turkey again for several months – it’s just too much. So maybe it makes more sense to get a ham this year and start a new tradition?

Thankfully I got all the Christmas cards written and mailed last weekend. I don’t have that hanging over my head any longer. This year was tough to send cards – I have not been good about keeping up with everyone’s address changes. One card to my niece already came back as undeliverable because she moved and I forgot about it. So I have to call her and get her new address tonight, then find a new envelope to get that last card mailed out to her.

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Have a Nice Cup of Hot Tea

This week while grocery shopping I went a little crazy in the tea and coffee aisle. I decided to try several flavors of teas and bought boxes of teas from several different brands to really experiment with teas.

The tea of choice in my house while growing up was Lipton Tea. My mother would not buy any other brand. She used Lipton for hot tea and also for iced tea, although we did not have tea often. My dad preferred coffee and drank a cup in the morning before leaving for the office, drank more coffee while at work, and had a cup of coffee after dinner each night with dessert. But in the summer time, mom would make a pitcher of iced tea once in a while, rotating that with various flavors of Kool Aid and lemonade or orange juice.

So I limit my coffee to just one big mug of Starbucks home brew in the morning. If I drink anything else throughout the day it is usually just plain cold water or a cup of hot tea. I still have Lipton on the shelf, but I decided to try some different brands this time and have several boxes on a dedicated shelf in my kitchen cabinet next to the microwave so that I pick a flavor to try each day. This afternoon I am trying a blend of green tea with mandarin orange. It smells heavenly and the taste is very mild. I think I found a winner!

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Too Hot to Go Outside

Wouldn’t you know it? We are having one of the hottest summers on record with a bad drought and today my car’s air conditioner quit working. I had just finished grocery shopping at Kroger and loaded all the groceries into the back seat and as I drove out of the parking lot a funny smell started coming out of the air vents in my car. I turned off the radio and heard a funny squealing noise, too. The smell was awful and I could actually see it pouring out of the vents like smoke, but it didn’t smell like smoke. I don’t know what it smelled like – but it was bad!

I turned off the A/C and drove home with the windows rolled down. Thank goodness it was not raining or I would have either gotten soaked from the rain by leaving the windows down, or soaked in sweat by having to leave them up. After I got the groceries put away I called Firestone and told the service manager what happened. Of course, he told me to bring it in, but I can’t go without my car for several days – especially not on the weekend. I asked him for a ballpark figure of what it would cost and he said probably between $800 and $1,500, depending on what is wrong. He can’t tell me without looking at it.

So I am just going to have to wait for my next paycheck and drive with the windows down for a week or so. That stinks – it has been so hot lately. We have had weeks of temperatures in the 90’s and feeling like in the 100’s. It is too hot to even go outside and cut the grass or walk with the dogs. I just want to stay inside where it is cool and just hide from the heat as much as I can.

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The big, beautiful, yard

I know I had mentioned earlier how big the yard is.  I think we have about 2 acres with beautiful trees surrounding the house. The thing I forgot to mention was the fact that this yard belongs to us which means the upkeep belongs to us as well.  Which means another purchase from the Home Depot or Sears.  This yard calls for a large lawnmower and I don’t mean one that you push either. For a yard this size you need a lawnmower you can ride on.

I decided to get on-line to see the different brands of lawnmowers and the different price ranges.  Sears seemed to be the only site that offered reasonable prices and a huge selection of lawnmowers. I chose one that was roughly $2000 with an extended warranty.  I figured you usually get what you pay for.  I made a good investment and I’ll have the best looking lawn in no time.

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Peppermint Bark

Santa brought me some Godiva peppermint bark candy for Christmas. I found a big bar of it in my Christmas stocking! I have never had it before and figured that if it is Godiva, then it HAS to be good. And it WAS! I love this stuff – I hope to find some on clearance at Target or KMart so I can stock up!

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Cake Decorating Class

The local craft store here has classes at the store for ll kinds of crafts. I went in looking for some Christmas decorating ideas and saw that they have a cake decorating class on the weekends. The classes don’t start until January. I’m sure the Christmas shopping takes precedence over crafts classes in December.

I’m going to see if my girlfriend, Felicia, wants to take the classes with me. She likes to decorate cakes but is self-taught. She always talks about wanting to learn more professional methods – this might be the best chance for her to get thatunder her belt and it will give me someone to ride with.