We were both up early this morning. James' boss had told him that if he wanted to make up some of the time he lost this week for doctors' appointments, he could work four hours some time today. Unfortunately he hasn't teleworked in four months and had forgotten the VPN password. He did do his time card. So as we were up so early, we did some cleaning out: we packed up three grocery bags of items James can't eat anymore to give to Alice tonight for her church's food pantry. We had built up a bunch of snacks on one corner of the dining room table that we never ate at DragonCon, so I put some up, put a couple of things in Alice's bags, and packed up the Jif-to-Go containers in one of the two shoeboxes that held James' packets of no-salt seasoning. I took the others and, arranging them in rows, fit them into one box, with room to spare. Yesterday, I had bought BOGO the little Weight Watchers cakes for desserts, but we had no room to store the boxes, so I lined them up neatly in one corner of the table. I also threw out some empty boxes downstairs.

Eventually we went to Trader Joe's. For once we were not going there for chicken apple sausage. Instead, knowing all the "pumpkin everything" would be out by now, we were hunting the harvest sauce which they had last year only in the fall up to Thanksgiving. This is a tomato sauce that also has carrots and butternut squash in it. We bought only one bottle last year, to try it, and by the time we got back there, it was Christmas stuff and it was all gone. Today I bought six and I will go back for more next month so we will have some for all year.

Trader Joe's was truly as "pumpkin everything" as last year, and more. Pumpkin candies, pumpkin chips, pumpkin drinks, pumpkin crackers...ravioli, soups, coffees, teas, cookies, you name it. We also picked up some nuts, juices, and even two Kind bars for a snack, as we were headed for Michael's to spend the special half-off coupon for today. James got metallic colored pencils and I got more charcoal pencils, these with sepia and red ochre. This is the Michael's that took over the old East Cobb Borders Books. Still miss Borders...

After that we headed home. It was blazingly hot and is to continue hot at least through tomorrow. James hoped it wouldn't be so bad so he could go to the Fly-In at Peachtree-DeKalb Airport this weekend, but there was no way either of us could function in that sun and heat. Instead we came home to chill out (literally). I found the Canadian Swiss Family Robinson series online and lost such track of time that it was 4:30 before I knew it. I had to rush to buy and print out an Amazon certificate for Aubrey Spivey, who turns 23 today. I had her gift ready (a pendant), but this was an extra gift "from Tucker and Snowy" for helping out when James was in the hospital. She stopped by almost every day to take Tucker for a quick walk and say hello to Snowy.

Aubrey's birthday dinner was at Keegan's Irish Pub. We took over a back room and had a great time. Juanita and David are all excited about their upcoming trip to New England, which will include a balloon ride over Maine! Aubrey likes to bake, and got some nifty baking gifts—the pendant we got her was a little cupcake with colored stones in the "frosting."

On the way home we stopped at the Publix across from Sprouts and did find the low-carb low-sodium wraps. And I got those damn bananas and we picked up a couple of clearance items.

Came home late enough only to watch As Time Goes By and Are You Being Served? and didn't go to bed very late. Expected a good night's sleep, but...sigh...

Labels: food, friends, shopping, television

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 10:39:00 PM

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