CLAY AND WATTLES

Marble Weekend

I went shopping yesterday. Totally not my thing to do. The Christmas crowds were already so thick I could hardly get through them and the noise! Sometimes I lament that there is not much to do around our little town (no big book stores, no Target), but I am so spoiled to shopping online now that one day of this is really all I wanted, and I had my places picked out to go. It wasn't like I was wandering mindlessly trying to check people off a Christmas list. But I wanted frames for the two 16X20 oil paintings Mama had done. My first stop was Hobby Lobby and I found what I wanted (frames), plus some nice holiday paper with really good intentions of making a few cards for "select" people. But maybe not. Anyway, it's pretty paper. And some vellum, too.

This is the still life I found that I had not known Mama had painted.

I had seen this portrait before but didn't know where Mama had put it. We found it in her bedroom closet. She had started an identical one and evidently gave up on it and finished this one. It's Amy when she was around one year old, painted from a picture I had sent to Mama.

I went to Target, Lowe's, Kohl's, Arby's, Regis (and got my hair trimmed/layered a little), Candy Craze (so easy to fill up a plastic bag of goodies; mostly bridge mix), and Bath and Body Works, by far the most crowded store I went into. And... I did not go to Barnes and Noble! I figured I'd spent as much time as I needed to in a book store last weekend in Oxford. I also met another author (Keven Brockmeier: A Brief History of the Dead) at our county library Friday night and bought his book. My last stop before going home was Office Max for some linen finish paper.

I got home around dark and Paul got home around 8:00 or 8:30. (Mississippi State got beat by Arkansas 45-31 in Little Rock). I would like to have gone with him, but all the walking. Well, I did a lot of walking in Jonesboro, but walking at War Memorial up and down those golf course hills... We each had a pretty good day. His team lost, but he did get to redeem my ticket.

Today I talked to Sher (we talk almost every day) and she finally told me what I can take to her house for Thanksgiving - a carrot/pineapple cake. I found two recipes for carrot cake in Mama's recipe book and she said, yes, the pineapple one is the one she likes. I'm also going to take the 50# bag of candy I got Saturday and make her help me eat it. (Just kidding, not 50#; only 15#...) Plus, the neatest little round Cokes I saw at Wal-Mart today - decorated on the plastic coating like a Christmas ornament! Very cute. There was a whole wire bin of these little round bottles at $1 each, so probably five or six hundred dollars worth of Cokes selling themselves by way of cuteness - some ad executive's brainstorm! We'll have to have peanuts in them. Coke and peanuts. And carrot cake. And bridge mix. Not to mention all the healthy Thanksgiving food she'll have.

I got prints of the Holly Ridge B&B pictures; also some of Sanctuary House, Mama's visitation, her house, the family at Mike's. Some didn't turn out well - they were too yellow, especially Mama's kitchen - made without flash, so I guess the computer thought, okay, we'll do mellow yellow instead of white cabinets. I thought I'd enhanced them. But most did turn out okay, and I'm glad to have paper copies of them. Now I'm current on prints and can start over for the holidays! I've decided it's too risky to have pictures in electronic form only. And there's nothing like sitting with an album with someone you love looking at pictures.

Paul "raked" leaves (with the leaf blower) and the yard is bare of fallen leaves - it looks nice and clean, but I do like a carpet of fall leaves. When O and I walk around our block, it's nice to hear the leaves crunch and rustle underfoot.

This afternoon Paul had to mark a grave at the cemetery so Oscar and I rode there with him. O and I walked while Paul made a trip back home to get his tape measure. He was in the Camaro and had forgotten that the measure was in his truck. O and I made a figure 8 loop around the roads and he had a great time running as far as the leash would let him. I always clean up after him, no matter where we walk.

We did go to Sunday School and church this morning. I'm always glad to be back after I've been out like last weekend. So I really don't have an excuse for not going tonight. I just didn't. Paul made popcorn for me and I ate it for supper, gave Oscar a few kernels, read the Sunday paper and dozed in my recliner.

Tomorrow is flu shot day at work - bright at early at 7:30. Thanksgiving week. And only three days to work. I'm thankful for a 4-day Marble next weekend.