How nice to sleep late! How nice for the dog not to bark before nine o'clock, too. :-)

We didn't have a lot planned for today, but were going to take care of our grocery errands since James had to go to Kroger for prescriptions anyway and we were looking for something to grill out at Alice and Ken's tomorrow, and we also needed to stop at Lowes for new A/C filters (the upstairs one, at least, is decidedly furry).

We started out at the hobby shop, though, where we chatted about our trip last weekend. It would have been nice to go this weekend, though, although I'm sure the place is going to be packed: they are having a re-enactment of FDR's September 1940 motorcade through the city during their Independence Day parade (which takes place at midnight), complete with vintage cars, costumes, and David Keith portraying FDR. [story here] Majorly cool.

Picked up a little lunch at Wendy's and started on the errands. We went by Hobby Lobby to see if I could get something to finish up a birthday gift. It was entirely possible because, except for one wall of Fourth of July stuff, there were copious amounts of fall decorations out, with Christmas ornaments even appearing further back in the store. Zowee! It was so nice to wander among the fall decorations, garlands, picks, and swags, and china and resin pumpkins, and scarecrows...there is hope of a better season around the corner. I did pick up the small piece I needed, and we went on to Borders. There was a 25 percent off coupon and Tasha Alexander's new book was out in paperback.

Ah, and there were those enticing bargain book bins again.

The dictionary defines "serendipity" thus:

ser·en·dip·i·ty
n. pl. ser·en·dip·i·ties
1. The faculty of making fortunate discoveries by accident.
2. The fact or occurrence of such discoveries.
3. An instance of making such a discovery.

A few weeks ago I was invited to join Amazon Vine. Each month Vine sends you a list of books; most are advance reading copies. Usually you can pick up to four of them. You receive the books free, but in return you must review them. Until you review 75 percent of what you were sent, you can't ask for any more books.

At my last choice I picked an offbeat mystery novel called The Unscratchables and a historical mystery/romance called The Counterfeit Guest, which takes place in 1797. It was a sequel to The Blackstone Key, a book I had not read, but I hoped Counterfeit would stand on its own.

So I sifted through the bargain books today, found a humorous book about regional candy called Candy Freak and one of Kate Kingsbury's Pennyfoot Hotel novels.

And darned if The Blackstone Key wasn't in there, too. For $4. How serendipitous can you get?

(Oh, and the new Yankee was out, too!)

Picked up the filters and also some sand and PVC pipe so James can shoot off the fireworks we bought safely. Then went to Kroger and found some boneless ribs to marinate for the grill, the rest of the groceries, and I bought a Healthy Choice dinner for supper. It was pretty good, although the "red potatoes" included in with the turkey "medallions" melted smack into the gravy after three minutes in the microwave! I had it with a few slices of baguette.

Now I'm taking a page out of John Kenneth Muir's book and watching "America Rock."

Labels: books, DVDs, food, shopping

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