I ought to call this one "weekend without James," because he was not home for about half of it. This was no fault of our own, and we did the shopping at Publix after dinner Friday night, so the bulk of the shopping was done and what time we did have together was maximized.

On Saturday we woke up after getting a full eight hours sleep, and after breakfast and some dog romping, James went off to his monthly club meeting. (He brought last year's Hallmark jet ornament, which was 72nd scale—"his" scale—and which he'd decorated in appropriate decals. Apparently it was a hit with the guys and he wants to do the same with this year's F-16.)

I am hoping to get back into both my art and my calligraphy, and have been assembling new supplies piecemeal with coupons. I already had the Sharpies I'd bagged at a Really Good Sale at Office Max and a few coloring books to whet some creative movement, and then had bought a set of fifty Crayola colored pencils with a coupon last weekend. Today I went to Hobby Lobby intending to get some sepia pens, but the only package they had had been opened, so I settled instead for watercolor pencils and a clever brush with a water reservoir. I have never had patience with watercolors and end up making my paintbox cakes all muddy, but I love Susan Branch's work and hope the watercolor pencils will give some inspiration. They have a nice paintbox if I want it, but not as good as the British one Mother bought me so long ago with all the fascinating paint names—wonderful names like "chrome yellow," "red ochre," "vermilion," "crimson lake," "burnt sienna," etc.! Got a good eraser, and two tiny cross stitch kits as well.

Had a $10 off $30 coupon for Petsmart, perfect for a 33 percent off bargain, so I made my way across the street to the next shopping center. Got two bags of Tucker's food and some puree to reach the $30 limit, said hi to the budgies, including the wide-eyed babies with stripes lined down their forehead, and met the cutest Boston terrier puppy (brown and white rather than the usual black!) named Champ.

I thought there was a 40 percent off coupon to Michael's, and since I was almost closer to Hiram than to any other Michael's location, I just went there. Turned out it was a 20 off all including sale items, so I just got a pencil sharpener, but finally found buy-one-get-one free frames for the two Sherlock prints I bought last year at 221B Con. They are an odd size, 11x17. Came home by Barnes & Noble, but no clearance goodies left except small games, and stopped at Dragon 168 to pick up lunch.

Lunch was great, but I had to roll my eyes at myself. I'd forgotten 11x17 frames are actually 10 1/2 x 16 1/2. The prints are exactly 11x17, so the frames were too small. Luckily, James was wanting frames, too, for some prints he received at Christmas, so, after he arrived home from the meeting, we went back out to Hiram, exchanged my frames for the right size, and James got some of his own. I also picked up some cheap brush pens. Figure they won't last long but I can practice with them. Then we had supper at the IHOP and saw an absolutely spectacular sunset on the way home.

I started one of the little kits tonight while watching Britcoms. I'd bought it because it reminded me of someone, so I wanted to work on it to send to that person. Much later, when my stitching hand got sore, I wandered into my craft room, intending to finally put the prints in the frames.Arrgh! One of the frames was broken! It was not broken at Michael's, so all I can figure is that on the way home (my frames were sitting between us in the truck) one of us messed it up while buckling seatbelts. The frame had split at one corner and the plastic was cracked in two places. I fixed the frame up with superglue to use anyway; they're worth $16 each and I can't afford to replace it. I'll have to live with the cracks. (The second print I left to frame until Sunday. That frame was fine. Disappointing.)

James was working at home on Sunday, so he set up the computer before bed and it worked fine. But this morning, as I was getting up after a rather sleepless night with one of those nagging dreams, he came in the room disgusted—now he couldn't get it to connect to his work network, so he had to go in. The stupid dreams had made me very foggy. (I can't explain these stupid dreams because I never remember them well when I wake up, but this one involved two items with very similar serial numbers that did two different things. I kept getting them confused and doing them the wrong way.) Anyway, I wanted to get to Kroger early and was delayed by a trip to the bathroom, so I skipped breakfast altogether. Yeah, I know, that didn't make the foggy any better. Picked up the milk and some pork for dinner tomorrow night and the usual burritos and a newspaper and two Flonases for James since they were on sale plus I had a coupon, too. It was a beautiful, cool morning—I even had to put on a flannel shirt to walk Tucker—so I just stuffed everything in an insulated bag and went on.

By this time it was 10 a.m. and Office Depot was open, so I stopped there for a flash drive to back up photographs, checked out the Goodwill next door (mostly clothes and junk), then went across the street to Michael's. Today was 30 percent off everything, no sale items. I picked up the bright metallic pens I saw yesterday, a children's drawing pad (for scribbling) because they were half off, and some fluorescent pencils (also half price). I think I have my art kit topped off now! And, I confess, I stopped at Best Buy to check out the phones (the Droid Turbo 2 is very pretty) and the Surface Pro 4. The paint feature is fabulous. You pick a tool, a texture, and use the pen, and it is pressure sensitive. I was oil-painting a picture of a red panda.

Came home and re-watched the season finale of Big Bang Theory (like Penny, I am tickled with the idea of Leonard's father and Sheldon's mother hooking up) and finally watched the season finale of Sleepy Hollow. Bit of an anticlimax; Abbie got axed less than halfway through (the takedown of the Hidden One was pretty blah), then we got a "great beyond" sequence right out of the series finale of Quantum Leap, the Headless Horseman was resurrected just to kill off Pandora, and now Ichabod is being pursued by government types because George Washington set up a super-secret paranormal defense organization way back when. Hmmm. Well, I'll keep watching because Tom Mison is very, very cute. But I wonder which way they are going now. The show was really about the chemistry between Ichabod and Abbie.

Finished the cross stitch kit this afternoon, as well as a project for a gift and tidied up my craft room yet again—there are so many things in there I just have room for nowhere else, like a shape cutter for scrapbooking, and a gift someone sent me that I want to use, but we don't eat that kind of food anymore, and I wish I could put them anywhere else!—and got the new pens all corralled.

When James got home we had the leftover chicken stirfry for supper and watched the last three Hawaii Five-0 episodes of the season. The Steve and Danny bromance reached its peak when Steve got shot and Danny donated him part of his liver. I'm wondering of they ended up with this episode because they didn't know if the series would be renewed or not. At least Gabriel Waincroft is dead! Now I just have to catch up on Elementary.

Wonder if Alaska: the Last Frontier is coming back. Usually it has started up again by the time the network series are having their finales.

And finally the penultimate Call the Midwife of this season. I know the spoiler, so I am doubly sad the season is coming to an end.

Labels: art, cleaning, cross stitch, pets, shopping, television

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