Well, it was a busy but profitable and happy day.

First, we did sleep well, which is always a good thing. James got up first and I came muzzily back to the world a little while later. With dressing, morning prep, breakfast, and dog walking behind me, we girded up our loins and headed out the door. As we drove to our first destination, I was busily slapping return address labels on the Christmas cards.

James stopped for gas at Sam's Club, and I ran in to buy some Clorox2, which was on a good sale (saving $4.00), and as I trudged to the back of the store I passed bags of Halo mandarin oranges, also on sale. The oranges turned out to be providential, as you'll see!

First we were headed for the Apple Annie Craft Show, held at the Catholic Church of St. Ann on Roswell Road. We had a really nice time going from classroom to classroom looking at all the artists and their work, although there was an overabundance of jewelry artisans. Not that any of the items were bad to look at: all of it was lovely, including some intricate bracelets of chain mail, many gemstone bracelets, and some pendants that looked like landscape scenes but were just really different minerals curved within the stones. There are always things I love but cannot afford, but I don't begrudge the artists what they charge for them; having done crafts I know these gorgeous items take so much time to work.

I did buy some of the lavender spray from the Wolf Creek people which I use to scent the bedsheets; it's supposed to help with sleep, and it does smell sweet. And even with all the little carry bags I have, I bought something from the missions sale: a brightly multicolored bag with a llama on the front, made in Bolivia. It will fit a tablet or even two in it, and even has small pockets.

James had his fun in the nursery school bake sale room: we got about six desserts, including mint chocolate cookies, peanut butter cups, pumpkin oatmeal chocolate chip cookies, etc. Also bought some toffee candy and two squares of fudge from the mission bake sale.

Of course we stopped in the church before leaving, to say a prayer. It was cool and dark in the sanctuary, and I prayed for everyone I knew and then some. I find such peace there.

(We had also parked the truck in the handicapped parking spaces, right next to the church's Christmas tree lot. It smelled divine! Miss the spicy pine of a real tree, but they make me too sick to want to have one.

So, with all the baked goods we would have been fixed for dessert for a week, but then we followed that up with a trip to Trader Joe's. We always go in December to stock up on their only-for-Christmas goodies like peppermint bark, peppermint puffs, and the piece de la resistance, the Candy Cane Jo-Jos. Jo-Jos are Trader Joe's version of an Oreo, and at Christmas the creamy interior is studded with candy cane pieces. They are wonderful, with the sharp chill sting of peppermint in every bite. We bought a box each of the items I mentioned, and then an extra set of the peppermint Jo-Jos and the peppermint bark to put away for darkest July and a taste of heaven when summer has gotten on our last nerve.

We came home by way of Kaiser, where James needed to have bloodwork done for the nephrologist to make sure the blood pressure medication wasn't messing up any of his numbers*, and to pick up nearly $150 worth of prescriptions (and two were missing!). Oy! The oranges I grabbed at Sam's served us in good stead, because we never did get lunch! The moment we got in the door I started some chicken roasting (the thighs we got at Publix yesterday) which we had with chicken-flavored noodles. I also put some Christmas things on the hearth and on the media shelf, and put up the little "ethnic Christmas" display in our bedroom (the Scots and Italian Santas and ceramic trees and other little things).

Chilled out for the rest of the afternoon with The Incredible Dr. Pol, the news (oh, well, you can't really chill out with the news, can you, not these days)?, the nightly game shows, and finally Hawaii Five-0.



(*Well, hurrah, bloodwork looks to be okay! In fact, his A1C dropped from 9.7 to 7.6! I guess exchanging granola bars for snacks at work for nuts and hummus on crackers and snack portions of cheese did the trick.)

Labels: Christmas, crafts, food, health, shopping, television

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