Didn't know what time the car place would call, so yesterday I was up just after James left, taking down the Christmas things in the library and in the foyer, and putting up the winter decorations in the foyer and then on the porch. I was just done with the porch when the call came, so I grabbed coat, credit card, and coupons and was picked up to be taken back to the car place. (Poor guy, I gave him the wrong directions. I always give directions from the freeway and I forgot he was coming from the opposite direction, so he took a left instead of right and ended up in the wrong place.)

Now poorer, I was on my way. The most piss-ant thing about the credit card thieves is that here was 1000 points I could have put on my Borders card! The car does sound better. I stopped at the library, returned one book and came out with two. Heh.

Stopped at JoAnn, where I got a few sale trees and an "ice pond" mirror for my "winter park" on the china cabinet. Got a discount winter basket and snowflakes and what looks like white Easter grass [to simulate snow] for the foyer at Michaels. Still no new Yankee at Barnes & Noble. It's been so hard to find in the last year.

Stopped at the central library to look up a book on the way home. Came out with four. Definitely incorrigible.

Set up the little "winter park" on the china cabinet when I got home. This is everything of Hallmark's winter park except for the Christmas tree, plus three of the snowman gardening ornaments and a little snowman playing with his husky dog, plus the trees and the glass "ice pond." It's not spectacular, but cute.

Everything of Christmas except for the things in the hallway (the Rudolph tree), the village, and the big tree was finally put into boxes and set in the library. It all has to go into the closet in a certain order, so it was just staged. One box was still open for the hall things and the remainder of the Christmas things on the room divider behind the tree.

When James arrived home we went to Trader Joe's to get Thai ginger carrots for "Hair Day," then tried to eat at the Longhorn nearby. It is off the main road, so we thought it might not be crowded. Fat chance. They have valet parking, of all things, at night, and the wait was an hour. We went to the Flying Biscuit Café instead. There is not much I can eat there; lots of fried and Mexican. They did have a good chicken soup and I had a side of turkey bacon. James got a mixed green salad with his oven fried chicken and macaroni and cheese, and I ate most of that. The biscuits for which the café is named are quite good, though, high and fluffy, just like James' and Alice's.

Completely forgot about Monk last night; I heard my alarm go off, but I was so busy reading that I didn't pay attention. Good thing there was a repeat tonight.

The "Hair Day" luncheon turned out to be definitely Asian-inspired: the main course was teriyaki chicken, and we had our carrots, and others brought potstickers, hot and sour soup, and fried rice, and our hosts made the most delicious Chinese salad from one of the Paula Deen cookbooks. Oh, and the usual Mexican dip, of course. I loved the Chinese salad, although I received distinct complaints later on from other regions about the cabbage in it.

We dropped by the hobby shop later in the afternoon, and then stopped at MicroCenter. James bought himself a useful little gadget on their website and picked it up at the store, an Asus EEEPC. It's a pint-sized, very inexpensive laptop preloaded with Linux, a wireless card and a modem, and other software including Firefox. He thought it would be a good thing to have when we go away for a weekend or on vacation instead of towing a heavy laptop with us. We can get online, check mail, download photos, and it has Open Office, so I can keep a travel diary or notes. Later on, it connected immediately with our computers when networked in by cable, even though they are two different OS's. Cool and all that.

We came home after that. I put up the Rudolph tree and the two small trees, one for our room and one for the spare room, intact into the box that had been left open. Next year I will just straighten and tweak instead of having to decorate. Then James helped me put the village up and put most of the plastic bins in the closet. I didn't intend to do the rest tonight, but then I realized if I didn't do it tonight, I'd have to do it tomorrow. So I started with the nativity set, then started plucking tinsel off the tree...eventually, after two and a half hours it was all done, tree covered and stuffed back in the closet, boxes back in place, the winter decorations on the room divider, the carpet vacuumed and the rocker back in place (boy, that corner looks naked now, with just a chair).

I did forget to put away the garland and the paper angels that James' sister made for us—we call them "Bandit's angels" because Bandit always looked up at them when they went up and seemed to miss them when they went away—but we can take the box with the Rudolph tree, etc. back down tomorrow and put them up. All I need to do now is put the clock and other things back on the mantel. I wish someone made a plain winter village. It's like in the minds of the decorators that winter ends at Christmas. I was so happy to see winter decorations when I went to Kohl's on December 26!

Labels: books, cars, chores, Christmas, computers, food, shopping

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 11:51:00 PM

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