Damn the Laundry, Full Shop Ahead!



I am trying out my new method of multitasking. I am walking at an easy 3 mph on the treadmill using my wireless mouse and keyboard to write. It works nicely. Thanks Kathy and Joe. Now I can write and exercise. I’ll have to write you an acknowledgement when I finish my novel. If I continue to take as long to write that thing I’ll get back down to the 126 lbs I weighed when I left for college.


Once again today we partook of Penny’s favorite outdoor recreation – shopping. I must admit she has a knack for it. She awoke this morning as if she received a message in a dream and pronounced, “The stores at the outlet center should be having their big clearance sales.” Being Friday it is our normal go to Target day so shopping was on the agenda for today already. Today, however, we would be SHOPPING.


0715 hours - We started at Wal-Mart buying some fabric for one of Penny’s throw projects.


0800 hours - The next stop was Target. They had Christmas toys marked down 75%. Most of the good stuff was gone. We did find a couple of items. We made a killing on an item for me – another rolling multi-drawer tool case. This time it was made by Stanley and was marked down to $25. (We later saw the same item in the other Target for $99.99-but I’m getting ahead of myself) Since Penny has had her eye on certain toys that were not there we decided to check at the other Target – it was on the way to the outlets anyway.


0915 hours– Target in Destin. We found this store had more of the items left and we picked up stuff intended for Jack, Sophia, some games for us and maybe K&T and other stuff. Penny even had a card that gave her 10% off the entire purchase. One item I found and we bought, just because it was a great price, was a little movie recorder. I guess it is like a camcorder. I think it takes MPEG movies but I haven’t looked at it closely. It has 256 kb of internal memory and has an SD card slot for more storage. The thing only cost $12.50. We are not sure who it should go to- so I am announcing the cheap video recorder give away competition. Please submit your entry (100 words or less) stating who you think would put this thing to the best (most fun and/or educational) use. Your entry cannot start with “My Dad was killed in Iraq”. Deadline for your entry is “whenever”. Verbal entries are acceptable (telephone). The decision of the judges (Penny and I) is final.


I observed 2 interesting behavioral characteristics at this Target. The first was women dragging multiple carts full of merchandise. One lady had 14 grandchildren she was buying birthday and Christmas gifts in advance . The 2nd behavior was people finding something and pulling out their cell phone to get instructions. How many should we get? Would so and so like this? We also saw this cell phone thing going on at the outlets (but again, I get ahead of myself). We ended up buying everything from extension cords to toys and everything was 50 – 75% off.


1030 hours – Silver Sands Outlet Sandestin, FL. We hit The Gap, The Baby Store, the Lenox outlet, Aeropostale, (lunch at Guglielmo’s Ciao Bella Pizzaria) the Sony Outlet, Hank and Dave’s and Anne Taylor. We got at least something for everyone, guys included. Karen and Christy made out the best. Merry Christmas all!


1530 hours – head home. I left out an important part of today’s adventure – getting stuff in the car. I still had hanging clothes in the car from our last J’ville trip and the tool cart and othert things we bought last Saturday at Lowe’s. I didn’t get them out of the car because I was waiting to finish my storage project. Needles to say with the 2nd tool cart and the boxes of toys and all the clothes our CRV was loaded. I had to document it for the blog .




1600 hours- arrive home. We had a full day of shopping. When I walked in the door I didn’t get the usual greeting from Brie. Normally when we come in she comes ruinning down the hall to greet us. I went back to the bedroom to see if she was sleeping on the bed but she wasn’t there. I called and I heard a distant plaintive meow. I called again and found it coming from behind the closed door to the room formerly known as Christy’s. I opened it and out ran a thankful cat. I keep my shirts hung in the armoire in that room and we always keep the door closed. Brie tends to follow me around and sometimes she follows me into the room without me seeing her. When I leave the room I shut the door. All day while we were out having fun spending the kid’s inheritance there was this poor little (well, not so little) cat, alone and confused wondering why we had abandoned her.

Well, I've covered 3.5 miles while I wrote this. I am a slow writer. I guess that's good for me because I absolutely forget that I am walking and lose track of time. Thanks for keeping me company.