Holy Fabric Warehouse!

A few weeks ago I read in someone's blog (I can't remember whose blog it was) about a fabric warehouse in the Twin Cities. It looked interesting enough that I tucked away the information and thought I would try to find it the next time I was in the Cities.  

Hubby has meetings in the Cities this week and I tagged along.  

The warehouse is in the opposite corner of the Cities, but me and my GPS made it there just fine (with a little Travis Cottrell playing along the way).

This place is something like 30,000 square feet and has every conceivable type of fabric there: upholstery, decorator, knits, rayon, QUILTING COTTON, wool, etc. And also all sorts of trim, gallons of buttons, pieces of leather, batting. All the fabrics were 50% off!

I spent two and a half hours in there and my feet are yelling at me now. But it was fun! (Yes, I bought quilting fabric. Grin.)

Weekend Tidbits

Just a few tidbits to highlight our weekend:::

>>Hubby and I spent the weekend in the Twin Cities and conquered our Christmas shopping.

>>I like doing the bulk of our shopping together. I like that we can talk through ideas and come to some good answers. (I guess the gift recipients will truly say whether we came up with good answers.) I like that Hubby likes to shop along with me.

>>As far as doing shopping for each other goes, we have a good system. Hubby got up early on Saturday and went out shopping for me while I got to sleep in. Win-win! Later that day I dumped him dropped him off at a Panera for a couple of hours while I tackled shopping for him. It was a bit funny trying to hide the packages from each other. I wasn't allowed in the back end of the car and he wasn't allowed to look under the quilt in the back seat.

>>The movie theater in our teeny-tiny town closed last summer. Ugh. Now, in order to see a movie, we have to drive at least and hour to do so. So, while we were in the Cities (that's what all the cool people in Minnesota call the Twin Cities), Hubby and I saw two movies. Saturday night we saw Lincoln. My word for that movie is: SUPERB. It's a long movie, but it really doesn't seem like it. What an impossibly hard period of time to be president. The movie gave me a new respect for Abraham Lincoln. Go see it. The other movie we saw was Skyfall. You know: Bond, James Bond. I always enjoy Bond movies. I'm not crazy about all the shooting and chasing and oh-my-goodness-this-scene-needs-to-over-so-I-can-breathe-again moments, but Bond movies are always good. (That movie experience would have been so much more pleasant if someone from the family sitting next to us hadn't got up and walked in front of us TWELVE times throughout the movie...!)

>>We had sometime to kill before one of those movies, so we wandered in the mall and enjoyed a snack of ice cream. We had just eaten supper, but isn't there always room for ice cream? Especially with a name like:

Yum! Yum!

>>Hubby and I are on the lookout for a new artificial Christmas tree. We'd like one with LED lights and on that doesn't look obviously fake. We are weary of stringing the lights and then not having half of them light up. (And by we I mean hubby, cuz he does all that work.) We looked at a few, but there just doesn't seem to be many pre-lit LED trees, or maybe we don't know where to look. So it's looking like we'll drag out the old one and string up those lights again and hope for the best. Oh, and I am over having a real tree. I love the smell and I love the memories we have of going to a Christmas tree farm with the kids and picking out our favorite, but the falling needles and the watering and the fear of it bursting into flames isn't enough to make me want to continue getting real ones. I bet I could find a scented candle to bring in the fresh Christmas tree smell.

>>We just love being in a big city where we can choose from so many restaurants. Sometimes we even get a smidge overwhelmed with all the choices. Sometimes we try new places, sometimes we go for old favorites.

>>Sunday we were able to meet some dear friends for lunch. Always good to reconnect with them. We met in a place that had a large variety of ethnic foods. I enjoyed some yummy and just-right-spicy Pad Thai.

>>Hubby and I picked out some new drinking glasses at Target. Somehow in the last two years we have managed to break five glasses. (And we don't even have any kids at home doing the dishes we can blame it on!)

>>I am thankful for a wonderful weekend with my sweetheart. He's just a blast to be with.

(Wait, November is over....I don't need to end with the whole "I'm thankful" thing!)
(But it's still a good thing to focus on being thankful!)

Month of Thankfulness - Day 8

Two days ago I wrote about fixing Potato Bologna for supper and a couple of my bloggy friends said they hadn't heard of it.

It's a Swedish thing. My mom is a full Swede, the second generation born in this country. (Her two grandmothers came to this country when they were girls.) My mom fixes Swedish Potato Bologna for Christmas dinner every year. It's a very simple recipe: Ground Beef, Ground Pork, Onion, Potato, Salt and Pepper. (Right Mom?) The onion and potato are grated and the whole thing mixed together and then put in casings. My mom has a sausage stuffer that she attaches to the kitchen table, the meat mixture is put in the top, crank the handle, then it oozes out through a tube into the casing. I know Mom used to get the casing from a local meat locker (pig intestine --ew), I don't know if she still does. (Mom?)

Anyway.

There is a grocery store chain that is an Iowa based chain and near Christmas-time they carry Potato Bologna. This small town has one of those stores and when shopping there earlier this week, I wandered by the meat counter and saw they were selling Potato Bologna! I did a little happy dance and bought some for us. I will likely repeat that over the next few months several times. To cook it, I boil it for about 30 minutes. Then I brown it in a skillet. My mom says her mother would do the browning step. Mom doesn't, mostly because she makes so much of it, logistically it would take just forever and who has forever when there is a swarm of people waiting for Christmas dinner?

So that's Potato Bologna. Any questions bloggy friends?

Yesterday I took my car to get new tires. I got to go to The Big City! That is a reason for a happy dance for this city-girl-stuck-in-a-small-town. My book and I enjoyed a lunch at Panera (of course), the car got its work done, then there was a little bit of shopping. I even squeezed in a visit with my sister-in-law. I was at a store just a few miles from her house and decided to text her to see if I could stop by for 30 minutes. She was home and said to come on by. I checked the time on my phone as I walked up on the house and was determined to only stay for 30 minutes. ha. I was there for 75 minutes. What can I say? Sister-in-law is easy to talk with!

I am thankful for...
...the traditional foods my mom fixes
...the pretty new tires on my car
...The Big City
...my sister-in-law's compassion (when I was telling her about something hard she got tears in her eyes before I even did)
...a phone call from a friend this afternoon who talked me through a decision I was trying to make

The Music Quest

When we made this last move (two years ago), we did not sort through anything before the movers packed up our stuff. So on this end, we sorted through e v e r y t h i n g before it got put away. We threw a ton of stuff away, gave some things to our kids and a lot to charity. We even had a curb-side yard sale. For that we put some bigger things on the front lawn with a price tag on them. We had an old rug, some old lawn chairs, some giant speakers, coffee table and end table, twin size mattress set. I think we made around $200 from all that stuff.

The last thing we needed to tackle in our sort-through-everything-goal was to go through all of our cassette tapes. We had some pre-recorded cassettes, but most were recorded from vinyl records. We had 150 different albums on those cassettes. So, for the last year, we have been listening to these cassettes in the car on road trips. Some of the tapes made us laugh out loud because the music was horrid. Some brought back sweet memories. There was awful early 80s Christian music, great early 80s Christian music, Burl Ives singing cheesy children's songs, Bill Cosby, Olivia Newton John (yikes), all sorts of types of music. After listening to a tape, we would vote on if we liked it or not. Hubby made a list. Well, a spread sheet, actually, because if you knew Hubby, a spread sheet would be the logical thing to do.

Last road trip, we finished (!) listening to those tapes! So about two weeks ago, armed with his Spread Sheet, Hubby spent one Sunday afternoon on Amazon and ordered 40-some CDs of the albums we liked. He wasn't able to find all of them. The prices ranged from 19 cents to $150. (He didn't pay $150 for any, by the way)  Later that week I found this in the front door that the mailman had left:

And that was only half of them. I don't think the mailman liked us very much that week.

Observations of a Power Shopper

This weekend, Hubby and I headed to the Big Cities and spent the whole weekend shopping. Although it feels good to have it all done (well, I have a few more things on my list to get), it seems a little strange to get it all knocked off at once. In the past we have relied on the internet or several shopping trips to tackle that shopping list. (This small town does not have the kinds of stores we like to buy things at. The lack of selection here just annoys me.)

We took off Friday night, had supper at our second favorite barbecue place along the way, and headed on up to the Big Cities. We made a few stops as we got into town and scored some great gift purchases.

Saturday morning, Hubby let me sleep in (smart man), and did shopping for ME! (smart man again!)
We spent the rest of Saturday tackling the malls. Since I am a blogger, I have several observations I'd like to share. You're welcome.

:: First of all, I find it fascinating that it is necessary to have Mall Cops. Sad that people can't behave while shopping. But then not everyone shops when they are at a mall. At the MOA there are a lot of people just hanging out and mulling around. Thus the Mall Cops.

:: Speaking of the MOA, why is it that the only two stores we wanted to go to were at the opposite ends? Sigh.

:: A helpful tip -- stopping right at the top or bottom of the escalator is not an place ideal to try to figure out where to go next. People tend to pile up behind you. And get cranky.

:: We experienced the opposites in salespeople. One lady helped me find just exactly what I was looking for. Perfect. Another guy was just a smidge too cheerful and chummy. But he did give me credit on a punch card for some shoes I told him he sold me last summer in addition to some shoes I bought yesterday. (Who said all Christmas shopping excursions had to be just for other people?? Grin.)

:: When I am in the restroom, whether it at home or in public, I consider it a "no talk zone". Whatever someone needs to say to me can wait until I'm done, thank-you-very-much. I was in a public bathroom last night and two girls came in, went into stalls on either side of me and had a conversation with each other. Awkward.

:: I think this is the first year that Hubby and I did all the shopping together and I decided that it is a really good idea to continue this holiday tradition in the future. Not only is he fun to be with and carries the packages and drops me off at the door and picks me up at the door, his list making talent and talent of plotting out the best strategy is priceless. He even keeps track of the money spent, which is probably a better method than my philosophy of stopping only when it feels like I bought enough. (yikes)

:: Hubby likes to stop for fuel. For us. Not the Car. We had a great bagel break. Yum.
 
:: Shopping with Hubby means getting hugs and kisses while we fight through the crowds. What a wonderful bonus!

:: We actually had a cashier wish us a Merry Christmas!

We ended our weekend with a long lunch with some very dear friends. I hate that we live so far apart, but I am very thankful to have friends that you can share anything (and I mean anything) with. We try to see them as often as we can. I hope we helped refresh them a bit today as they have had a stretching couple of weeks with some pretty tough things happen in their families. I've been thinking about what I can do for them to encourage them. I may need to make a trip to buy them a card. And then a phone call later in the week. Any other ideas?

Tomorrow is Monday and Hubby has to go to work. Sad.

I guess I'll start my week off with laundry. Yippee.

And I should see about getting those beds made that are still unmade after the kids' visits Thanksgiving weekend. (That darn maid has been slacking off on her job again. Must have been shopping with the handyman.)

But I do have the gift wrapping party tomorrow night with Hubby to look forward to! WooHoo!

October Photo Journal -- Day 27

Ready for today's totally exciting photo?

Are you sure?

I'm sure it's nothing you would expect....

Ta Da!!!

I thought these new carts at Target were really neat! :) They were very smooth to drive and certainly easy to fill up.

This was obviously taken before I filled it up. I only spent 13 cents more at Target than I spent yesterday at IKEA. I laughed when I realized the totals were so close.

By the way..... I love Target. :)

We're back home now. It's always hard for me to come back to this small town. But just for a couple of days before we take off to see our kids this weekend! I am so excited to see them.

October Photo Journal -- Day 26

I spent a good part of my day at these places.

 I knew I was in trouble when I saw that IKEA has Christmas things out. I restrained fairly well, but did not come out unscathed. :)

Christmas Shopping

Since I said on Wednesday that I only had about 10% of the Christmas shopping done, I thought I should get my rear in gear and tackle that project.

Yesterday I drove to a not quite as big as The Big City, City and got busy. The first store I went to has SO MUCH STUFF it was crazy. I spent most of the time maneuvering around the other people and all the stuff. I decided pretty quickly that Christmas shopping wouldn't be so bad if it weren't for all the people.

A notable item about my trip is that I drove my husband's car.

(He needed the bigger vehicle for something I will post about in the next couple of days.)

The good news is that I didn't kill it once! (It's a standard transmission and my car is automatic and sometimes when I switch, I forget the little detail of, Yes! There is a clutch!) Once, when I was down shifting I thought I was grinding the gears. At least it sounded like it over the radio I had blasting. I realized later it was just the cup of mostly ice I had in the cup holder and I was hitting it with my hand... :) The bad news about driving a different car is I kept forgetting which car I was driving when I went out to the parking lot. I had to remind myself that I was looking for a Little Red Car, not an Oasis Green SUV.

I had a nice break in the shopping while I had lunch at Chipotle. Yum. Somehow I always feel strangely out of place when I walk in there and there are mostly 20 something people...mostly men. Oh well. This middle-aged lady loves the food. I park myself at a table and pull out my book and enjoy myself and the yumminess. I think I was there for an hour, engrossed in my book. I can get lost anywhere if I have a good book.

I did manage to get quite a bit of the shopping done, so that's good.

On another note...

I managed to finally find a purse I like! It is bigger so I can stuff a book into it, but not so slouchy everything jumbles together so I can't find anything. I even bought a green one. Not brown or black. I am so proud of myself. Now I just hope my $25 purse holds up for a while. I have usually spent a lot more than that on a purse for the quality, but then get tired of it before it wears out. So I thought I'd go cheap on the theory that it will wear out about the time I get tired of it. We'll see how my theory holds out.

(I know all this information about my life is so riveting. :) But hey.... just being real. Sometimes my life is just that riveting.)

On the home front...

The festive decorating around the house hasn't happened yet. I do have a red candle on the table AND I have the oh-so-festive Red & Green M&Ms in a red bowl on the kitchen counter! I know! The Christmas spirit is overwhelming! Or maybe I should say, underwhelming.

I thought I would show a picture of my festive M&Ms. My almost-son-in-law let his OCD show up the other night.
Do you think we should be worried about him or our daughter? (Since she's going to marry him and all...)

IKEA

A conversation with my mom today reminded me that I never posted about my fun trip a couple of weeks ago to one of my favorite stores: IKEA

I first discovered this store when we lived in Singapore. When I was in the mood for shopping at Target (which is nowhere to be seen in Singapore), IKEA was my substitute there. It doesn't sell the same things as Target, but it was a great substitute. I was so excited when I heard there were building one in the Twin Cities several years ago.

I was on the hunt for some bowls for decoration for Caleb & Amanda's Rehearsal Dinner I headed to IKEA.

Here is my cart right before check-out:
Yep, I found a few more things than just the bowls. Those stacks of plates? Only 99 cents each! I bought 50 of them for the rehearsal dinner. I was excited to find them! I was so exctited I think I may have done a happy dance right there in IKEA. Really.

I'm glad to have a chance to use the plates in some other way after the wedding. (Maybe they'll make good gifts someday...)

Something else I love about IKEA is the quirky things found there. I thought this comforter was cool and took a picture of it and told Caleb I thought of him when I saw it. He was a bit taken aback that an outline of a body reminded me of him until I explained it was because I thought he would think it was cool. He was relieved to hear that. :)