Compared to yesterday, it was a leisurely arising before making the weekly visit to the hobby shop. We had already exchanged Shrek the Third last night after dinner (along with a visit to Borders, where we bumped into our Thanksgiving hosts, the Butlers), so we were free to go out to Trader Joe's and get another pumpkin tart and then visit the toney-titled "Avenue at West Cobb," where I picked up a tin of peppermint bark at Williams-Sonoma as a treat for Christmas. A lot of people sell peppermint bark but they are all disappointments after you have eaten Williams-Sonoma's. The box lasts for two Christmases, so it's an affordable luxury. We also stopped by Bath and Body Works and bought two Christmas gifts; that leaves us with two left to get.

In addition, went into Border's and found Madelyn Alt's newest "Bewitching Mystery." I was looking at the Susan Wittig Albert books and think I might like to read all the Beatrix Potter series, or at least test out the first one. There's an interesting-looking herbal daybook based on her China Bayles mystery series, which I have never read.

We stopped at Wild Birds Unlimited on the way there and bought a magnetic Christmas cover for the mailbox. They had three that I liked, one of a pair of cardinals on a snowy branch, one a sketchy nativity scene, but I bought the third, an arrangement of three enlarged postage stamps, each with a wild bird on it. There is a gelato shop next door, so we decided to try some. It was flavorful, but I found it too sweet.

Unfortunately as the day went on and the clouds built up leading into some fairly inconsequential showers tonight, I started developing a migraine. I managed to get through BJs (and the coveted Prilosec-on-sale) and we stopped to pick up dinner at the Atlanta Bread Company instead of eating out, but it was almost an hour before I could enjoy my Asian salad (chicken breast, romaine lettuce, diced tomato, mandarin oranges and slivered almonds with Asian-sesame dressing) and enjoy my parcel, which was my copy of Flax: Police Dog from Germany. This was a book written in the 1920s that I enjoyed as a library book when I was a kid. Today it would be considered an odd choice for an elementary school kid but this very old-fashioned library didn't have many choices. (I remember complaining to my mom that the newest book they had there had a girl driving a car with a running board. I was very bitter about it. Now I'd give a lot to see those books again!)

Anyway, James indulged in something he's wanted for a while: a GPS unit for the car. We didn't have a lot of money for such a gadget, so we got a low-model Magellan that BJ's had on special ($90 off with the coupon). He was itching to mess with it, but it doesn't come with an AC power cord, just the car jack, and he didn't want to go out in the garage. We had AC adapters, but all were six volts and this gadget needs five volts. He mused so much about maybe Walmart having one that after we got done watching Torchwood (with James complaining mightily about the next-to-the-last scene and me agreeing but not complaining), we went to Walmart.

Man, we should shop here at 10 p.m. on Saturday all all the time. I think there were less than two dozen people in the store. We found adapters with adjustable voltage, but not one that adjusted to five volts. Since we were there anyway, we finished the shopping: yogurt, bananas, chicken broth, all that exciting stuff. No one was at the checkout line. The cashier was chatty and friendly. We were home by eleven! Yow.

Incidentally, passed a dozen houses with Christmas lights already blazing.

Labels: books, Christmas, shopping

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 11:19:00 PM

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