We were late enough to the farmer's market that the ears of corn I bought were rather anemic, but thankfully they still had loaves of fresh bread left. We also got tiny onions and—ta-da, will be having a rainbarrel installed on Wednesday. Hopefully we will at least be having these small rainstorms, where it rains furiously for fifteen minutes to a half hour (a nice rainy day would be better, but I am Not Holding My Breath). Someone was selling the cutest Japanese maples this morning!

We went from natural to plastic, driving to Amy's Hallmark on Delk Road for the ornament premiere. I was restrained and only bought five ornaments, and two of those were for the library tree (the classic Pooh and the bears reading) and one for the Rudolph tree. (The other two were Lady and the Tramp, which is one of my favorite Disney animateds, and Snoopy and the "Beagle Scouts" because Woodstock was always my favorite "Peanuts" character.) I got the candy elf for free and James bought this year's airplane ornament, plus I signed up for the ornament club because one of the exclusives is a bookshop and the other is a snowman that I can remove the stocking from and he will be perfect for my winter village (plus because I fell in love with the upcoming Canadian Santa and he's exclusive to the ornament club).

The purchase I loved the most only cost two dollars: it was a small bag of very thinly cut "filler," which basically looks like tinsel, except it's in copper. I love copper and this seemed perfect to put into the vase I had glass painted to hold a bouquet of autumn leaves.

We also went up to Betsy's Hallmark at Merchant's Walk and found a gift for friends, but nothing more for now. Most of the things I want aren't coming out until October or November, like that Canadian Santa, the "Swingin' Jukebox," and the working View Master.

We made a short stop at Book Nook on the return trip and I was quite excited to find several vintage sports books as a gift for a friend and also a book that a close friend has talked about wanting to find, as well as a book for myself called Christmas the World Over. We were slow approaching the hobby shop, however, because there was a horrific accident right in front of their shopping center: a small car had pulled out in front of an SUV, which swerved, struck the car a glancing blow, and then plowed into a telephone pole so hard that it toppled the pole—which dragged the wires and toppled two other telephone poles. The guys said it sounded like a bomb went off outside.

We finally brought our purchases home and stowed them, then ran to Kroger to get dog food and wild bird seed. We also picked up some sale pork chops to have on the grill. After a trip to Lowes for a new battery for James' cordless drill (we had a coupon that was expiring immediately) and some safflower seeds, we were finally able to come home, relax, and cool off. It is hideously humid out and it took ages, I thought, just to be comfortable.

We usually eat out on Saturdays, so it was unusual to have supper at home tonight. The chops were thin, and grilled in almost a minute, not long after I had sliced up the farmers market cucumbers and tomatoes into a salad. Nothing much on tonight, though, and I didn't even feel like popping a movie into the DVD player. We started watching the Rick Schroder version of Journey to the Center of the Earth, but when we started talking back to the television and asking why, we figured it was time to quit. :-)

Labels: Christmas, food, shopping, television

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