One, sleeping late, but you knew I'd say that. :-) Next came breakfast, and then a nice long walk up and down the street with Tucker. We had a cold front blow through last night with a great flapping of the shades, and this morning had a nice bite of cold in it, with clouds over all. After the walk I let Tucker go upstairs while I removed the winter decorations from the foyer. These went all in one box, even the Avon snowman, so perhaps the big box with the main floor decorations won't be as much of a puzzle box this time.

The front door was still bare, as I took the winter wreath down a couple of weeks ago, so I removed the spring/summer wreath from the garage, pulled out the bag from Michael's, and sat down at the couch with my wire cutters. The old flowers on the grapevine wreath base were faded from the Georgia sun and dusty and sad. I stripped them all off and then cut the new flowers off the bunches I had bought at Michaels (they're made to go directly into a vase; I take them apart one stem at a time to distribute on the wreath. The plastic stems worked right in the twisted grapevine; no floral wire was even needed. The blue daisies were the base flowers, with yellow ones distributed in between, and a sprinkling of purple puff flowers dotted here and there. I added a monarch butterfly, a bee, and a little "stuffed" goldfinch on a nest, used some floral wire to make a hanger, and voilà, wreath. (You can't see the goldfinch here; he's behind the vertical leaf in the center.)


I was starting to get a bit peckish, so I thought I might stop at Barnes & Noble to see what they had in soup; on my way there, I pondered stopping at the Smyrna Library to see what they had in their perpetual book sale, but thought I might do it on the way home. But it turned out I stopped on the inbound leg, because as I was approaching the entryway, there was a mother duck and her seven ducklings in the middle of the road. The Library is right next to a little woodsy area with a gazebo where people get married and a little pond, and ducks and geese nest there all the time. The ducks are a weird combination of Pekin (barnyard) ducks and wild ducks, and come out in the wildest color patterns. This one was black with a white head, but the duckling were all the same color, fuzzy yellow-grey with stripes on their backs. I had to stop in the library parking lot to get some pictures, so I ended up there first anyway. I found a hardback copy of a book I love, and a couple of other things, too, but, alas, I discovered the book I picked up for James he already had. It only cost me 50 cents, so no biggie.


The soup at B&N turned out to be tomato basil, which would have been Indigestion City for me, so I just looked around. Picked up the new Harry Dresden book in paperback with my coupon. They also had Nook HD covers on sale for 75 percent off (since they're phasing out the HDs in favor of the Samsungs); I've been wanting a thinner cover and snapped up one.

On the way home I stopped at Panera for a bowl of soup, and at Publix to pick up a couple of things, including more oatmeal. Since they aren't including the lower sugar kinds in the BOGO sales anymore, I am buying plain for home and mixing a teaspoonful of maple syrup in each batch. I even bought an easy-pour bottle of maple syrup to make this easier.

Once home I cleaned up the mess from making the wreath and put my work clothes in the wash, made the bed and concatenated the winter decorations on the dining room table. James got home a bit early, so we went to the West Cobb Diner for supper. Broiling hot in there! Come on, guys, it's not that cold. Dinner was good, but, wow, was the dressing salty. I think someone accidentally seasoned it twice.

After supper we went to the West Cobb Barnes & Noble to see if there were any books James would be interested in (he's still got the two 20 percent off coupons he got in the mail). He found three magazines only, and I got this year's "Country Sampler" home tours magazine as well as Erik Larson's new book about the Lusitania, which was 30 percent off. Perturbed to notice afterwards that my membership card did not "ring up" and I didn't get the additional discount. Will need to go back and see if I can fix that. $3.80 is $3.80.

Watched Night Court for the remainder of the evening. Part two of "Hurricane" was hilarious, with Harry and company having to deliver four expectant mothers' babies in the courtroom during a hurricane.

Labels: animals, birds, books, crafts, food, magazines, shopping, television

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 11:28:00 PM

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