Week 37 - Some Long Days

We needed to be on the road by 8:00 to make it to the Amanda rendezvous by 10:00 so were up early. We stopped at Connie’s favorite coffee shop for breakfast to go and enjoyed the ride – chatting, scenery and treats. All good. Amanda arrived, I transferred my bags, hugged Connie and off we went. Oddly enough, Amanda wanted to go to Rapid City for Chinese food, which Connie and I had just driven through an hour earlier. Whatever. The food was really good and leaving from Rapid allowed us to take the interstate home, which saved time in the long run. I sat up front with Amanda so got more knitting done along with adult conversation. It was a long day though and I didn’t walk through my door until 10:33 that night. I unpacked, took a shower and went to bed. The alarm would be a rude awakening the next morning.  

It wasn’t that bad! I felt pretty rested (I had, after all, done nothing but sit on my butt all day Monday….) and was fine at work. Dodie and I had lunch at Noodles and I swam after work. It felt good to be home Tuesday night. 

After work on Wednesday, I was going to Seward to pick up Andrea's fair entries. I had gone last year and enjoyed their farmers' market so had agreed to go this year despite not having anything to pick up for myself. I got some fun stuff at the farmers' market – caramel corn, a piece of strudel and molasses cookies for the junk and sweet corn, green beans and a cuke for the healthy. All good. I decided to take a different way home to see Dwight, a little, mostly dead town I’d never been to. It had a typical Nebraska small town main drag  – PO, bar, café and many empty store fronts. But there was a small junk shop that had the front door open and a Sale Today sign propped on a chair so I went in. There was a 20 something woman in there who said she was cleaning since it was cool enough so she opened. It was a true junk shop but I found a cute little pot for my African violets for $1. She couldn’t break a $5 though so took the 65 cents I had in my coin purse. Fun. She also highly recommended the café, which makes homemade donuts on Sundays. It’s only open for breakfast and lunch so was closed. Then she mentioned that some local poet had a shop in the next block. I asked if it was Ted Koozer (former US Poet Laureate) and she thought it might be. There was a single old store that was all fixed up with “Poetry Made and Repaired” on the window and Private Studio on the door. Cute. I didn't think to take a picture but here's one from the web. And I checked with Gina, the accountant 2 cubies down who lives near there, and it is him. More fun for Dwight. I was glad I went. 

From there I drove to another small town called Brainard, which has a regional high school but otherwise was just as dead, which I found strange. I figured they’d at least have a quick shop or something since they have hundreds of students there every day, but no. Anyway, it was fun exploring and I got to Wahoo just in time to hit The Warehouse. Lorri came over to drop Honey Crisps from her brother’s tree and later Andrea stopped over to pick up her fair stuff. So, it was a busy night but fun. 

After swimming on Thursday, I waited in line at Little Caesar's for not hot, not ready pizza (won't go there again) and brought it to Becky's house. After pizza and salad, I got to visit with the kitten I helped rescue last week. She was full of energy and lots of fun but I felt no compulsion to take her home. Becky had another foster from campus that was dumped near the Military Science building. He was older and very nice but no desire to take him home either. I had so much fun playing with the kittens that I left late and it was 9:15 before I walked into my house. I was absolutely exhausted and could barely keep my eyes open so went to bed early. How nice that the next day was Friday.

Friday was over in a flash and all that was between me and a blissful weekend at home was a stop at the grocery store. The traffic on O Street was so nuts at 5:00 that I detoured over to Vine Street and so had to go right by Goodwill. It was the 10 for $10 sale so I stopped. I found a couple of things on the reject rack outside the fitting room so was going to commit to finding 8 more things (you have to buy 10 to get the price) so headed to the yarn before starting the clothes search. Well, the yarn there is usually priced twice retail (I've complained repeatedly) so I wasn't expecting much but there were tons of skeins of better quality wool and most were priced 99 cents. Score! I went back for a cart and filled it with yarn. I did manage to find 8 more clothing items but most were for friends. I was happy with the yarn, some of whichwas going to friends too. After a stop at Aldi, where I stocked up on fun German Oktoberfest food, I got home at 8:00. It was another long day but I was done. I could not wait for the weekend. 

But you know me. I had booked my Saturday chock full. I woke up early and had had breakfast, stripped my bed and done two loads of laundry by 8:00 a.m. After catching up with Carolyn, I headed to the library to pick up money, deposited it at the bank and met my friend Nancy for lunch at Chips. I left there just in time to grab two cats (Pixel and Tot) for a vet appointment at 2:15. When I got home, I made a cup of tea and collapsed. I was beat! After a restorative cup of tea, I forced myself to get up to do more laundry and mow. I was determined to get everything done so I could cook all day Sunday and not have anything hanging over my head. Success!

I was up early on Sunday too but the pressure was off. All I had on my agenda for the day was cooking and finishing the laundry. I started with French toast and bacon then used my farmers' market produce to make salads - 3 bean and cucumber. Over the course of the day, I interspersed knitting with laundry and more cooking. By supper time I had made cheesy baked cauliflower and a banana cake to take to knitting. On a whim I also cleared out the food corner so had a bunch of stale crackers and such for Lori's chickens to go along with all the produce scraps. 

But when I went to the freezer for an ice cream sandwich after dinner, it was soft. I made the long overdue call to the appliance guy and made an appointment for Monday at 4:00. But when I weighed losing a freezer full of food against vacation time, I called and rescheduled to 1:00. He also offered to come over and check the freezer out quickly and he had the door sealing better immediately so said everything would be OK until the next day. He'd also be looking at the dishwasher and dryer. Like I said, long overdue.