It turned out to be a nice day, if I didn't sleep worth a damn. Not sure what causes this, because I certainly was tired when I went to bed.

We started out at the Farmer's Market, but almost didn't find a parking space. I wish when they had a running event downtown they'd find somewhere else for the runners to park! We were lucky to find someone who was leaving. At the market we bought corn on the cob, cucumbers, grape tomatoes and scallions ("some people call 'em onions, but they're really scallions..."), boiled peanuts and chicken salad for James, and some brownies and cookies for desserts.

Then it was off to the October ornament premiere from Hallmark. We went out to Betsy's Hallmark at Merchants Walk since we had to buy only one more ornament to get $10 off. Plus I had reward coupons totaling $12. So James was able to get his Huey helicopter. I bought a small ornament for the mini tree of a cardinal and a snowman, the "Peanuts" Thanksgiving ornament, and I had to get the Crayola 64 crayon box, because it is exquisitely done—they do all 64 different colors!—and brings back memories of the days when I bought myself a new 64 box every year for Christmas. Mom would only buy me a 48 box; had no idea why I needed more colors, but she didn't draw and I did! So when I got a big enough allowance, I bought them myself: they were 68¢ at W.T. Grants. I would then buy a $1-$2 whatever blank calendar at the stationery counters at Woolworths, and go home and make a calendar for the next year, illustrating each month with a scene from a story I had written in the previous year (using last year's crayons, of course, since I didn't want to spoil the new ones). I also had to put the crayons in proper order before I could use them: black and grey first, and then the browns, then the six spectrum colors from violet to red, and finally the pinks and orchids, to end with silver and white. (Gold went with the yellows, copper with the browns.)

We finished up with a trip to Trader Joe's for chicken sausage and other things we like; the place was filled with everything pumpkin: pumpkin cake, pumpkin "pop tarts," pumpkin muffin mix, pumpkin soup, pumpkin bars (James bought some; they're like Fig Newtons, but with pumpkin), pumpkin seeds of course, pumpkin candy...oh, yeah, and real pumpkins! We got home at noon, having finished all our errands for the day. I read a "Dear America" book and worked on crafts most of the afternoon, and took out the dog...again. :-)

We ate tonight at the West Cobb Diner, which is at the intersection of Dallas Highway and Barrett Parkway, with a big bunch of friends to celebrate John Bouler's [muffled] birthday and Jessie Elder's 20th birthday. We'd found John a computer gadget, a Marvin the Martian thumb drive, and we gave Jessie a blue crystal necklace and the book thong I made. We'd never eaten there before and the food was quite good, at least the turkey and dressing is! Alice said the mac and cheese was excellent. We shared some chocolate cheesecake for dessert.

Finally home to relieve (pun intended) Willow and watch Too Cute on Animal Planet.

Labels: birthday, Christmas, food, friends, memories, shopping

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 10:40:00 PM

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