Gah! Stop the merry-go-round so I can get some sleep!

Yesterday was all about work. I did another order, and tried to explain to a vendor why we can only pay maintenance fees in arrears. (Well, because it's a law. A Washington DC type law.) Prepped some other orders to go. And ate at my desk, again, because during what should have been my lunch hour I was moving out all the fall items and putting them in boxes preparatory to decorating for Christmas.

But before the decorating...comes finishing the Christmas letter to go in with some of the Christmas cards, which must be labeled, stuffed, and stamped. And some of the Christmas cards must go into packages which must be also be packed, taped, and labeled.

So what I did Thursday night was write the letter, and it was pretty much finished when we went to bed.

This morning, like an idiot, I thought maybe I could finish it and print the letters and pack the cards into the gifts and mail them today on the way to the Apple Annie Craft Show.

This moment of insanity fizzled out about 8:30 a.m. I had to fish or cut bait; I couldn't do both. So I headed to Apple Annie, feeling guilty about wanting to go have fun.

When I arrived at St. Ann's Church, no one was parking on Roswell Road yet, but the parking lot was full, as well as the lot across the street. The policeman directing traffic said you could park at the church down the street and take a shuttle. Except I didn't feel like sitting in a school bus for a half hour waiting for it to be full enough. I did that during the Smoke Rise show.

So I decided to do my other errands in the area and then come back. If there was parking then, so be it.

I started at Borders. I was looking for a book for a gift, but didn't know what to get. Instead I bought A Christmas Miscellany and, since it appears I never met a linguistics book I didn't like, a British book on the remainder shelf, The Story of English, as well as the winter Birds and Blooms and...oh, my ears and whiskers, the December issue of the British Country Living. How did that happen? It usually comes in around the 10th to the 15th!

From there I stopped at Bed, Bath and Beyond for a small purchase, then went on to Michaels. I wanted to get some decorative unbreakable baubles for the wreath on the front door. I had always deliberately under-decorated it because I wanted lights on it. Well, since I can't seem to keep a working string of lights on it, I might as well fill it out a little. I bought two large red baubles, and three each green and blue ones. (Put them on tonight after we got home. Not bad.)

Next, Trader Joe's, stocking up until Twelfth Night: peppermint Joe-Joes (like Oreos, only with candy cane crumbs in the creme), almond bark, peppermint bark, chips for James, oyster crackers, a few other things. Then Hallmark. The other two musical houses were out; James is going to make a display on his desk at work. I had a $5 off coupon they sent me for my birthday and innumerable Gold Crown reward coupons, so I pretty much got them for free.

Then I headed back to St. Ann's. It was after noon and, sure enough, there were many spots in the parking lot. The past two years they were putting an addition on the church and parking was at a premium, and the rent-a-cops wouldn't let me in the parking lot, saying it was full, even though I could see a dozen empty spaces, which is how I ended up parking on Roswell Road for two years in a row.

This is a juried craft show, so only the best crafts end up being here. I bought a few small things—a pine cone star, a twig star, a tiny basket with tinier pine cones in it—and was not about to spend a large amount of money until I came upon a vendor who grows her own papyrus, turns it into paper, and does marvelous calligraphy on it, like illuminated medieval manuscripts. She had a lovely one, trimmed in a small drawing of the Holy Family and surrounded in holly. I was mesmerized. Of course I couldn't afford one made of the real papyrus, but bought a print of it. What I bought was this verse, but stylistically done more like this. It's breathtaking.

Also bought a little sheep wreath from a vendor who did assorted primitive items.

Finally headed home, but stopped at the home of the "prim lady," who was having a sale today. I got the cutest little white Christmas tree, about a foot high on a wooden base, with pipe cleaner candy canes at the end of each branch, for ONE DOLLAR. Can't beat that with a stick.

Oh, I did stop at the post awful on Lower Roswell Road to get my Christmas card stamps and ran into a funny. A lady in front of me had a box that she was just about to mail when she said "Oh, I guess I need to repack this." I saw that a corner was loose and was about to say "They'll tape that for you," when I noticed it was wet, too. She said it was a fruitcake and apparently the rum was seeping out, took the box and left. The lady behind me in line looked at me and I looked at her and I said, "Wow. I hope she doesn't let people drive after they eat that fruitcake!" Imagine, there's so much rum in it it's leaking out of the box!!!!

Also got gasoline and, oh yeah, finally got the car inspected.

When I got home I went back to finishing and printing out the letter, but at that point it was time for James to come home. We had supper at Williamson Barbecue and then went to Bruster's for dessert: James had peppermint ice cream with crunchy candy cane bits in it and I had cappucino, which has a faint taste of cinnamon in it. I burped up cinnamon and barbecue sauce all night. Sigh.

On the way home we drove through Life University, which is brave with "the Lights of Life" once again. They have about half shifted over to LED lights and, lordy, is it bright! I notice that with regular lights the blue ones have the faintest color; in the LED ones the blues are the brightest!

And from when we got home to a quarter to Monk's series finale, I printed letters, put them in cards, put all the cards in envelopes, printed the labels, covered the labels with tape because the #$!%!$!$ printer ink won't fuse to the labels (even though they are laser printer labels), put on the stamps, put the cards that went with packages with the packages, taped up the packages, labeled the packages...argh. You know, I love giving gifts. It's one of the joys in my life. But I really, really, really despise prepping packages for mailing.

And finally at quarter to midnight, I could log onto chat where the four of us (James, Rodney, Jen and I) were about to watch the very last Monk...

Labels: Christmas, crafts, decorating, food, shopping, television, work

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 11:49:00 PM

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