A Journey & Some Junk

Today after five long days in the house, we ventured out.  The roads were dicey and I was happy to be come when we sere done with our errands.  We weren't exactly hurting for groceries, but it's funny how when you are cooped up inside all you can do is think about the things you need (or mostly want) to go buy.  Before the storm hit, we went to stock up on groceries, but I kind of went overboard on the candy/cookie baking supplies and not on real food.  I have made Vegetable Soup, Guacamole, Snickerdoodles, Sugar Cookies, Chocolate Chip Cookies, Peanut Butter Fudge and Vanilla Walnut Fudge in the past few days.  The cookies have been frozen so we will have them on Christmas.  I am SO tired of being in the kitchen!  I don't have a dishwasher, so every time I make something, that is more dishes to wash.  it's a vicious circle, isn't it?  The funny thing is, I like being in the kitchen puttering around on cold snowy days like these.  But, then I go all crazy making things and then I am almost immediately sorry.

Since the roads were a mess and we only went for groceries, do you think I squeezed in a bit of thrifting?  OH YES I DID.  We stopped by Papa Murphy's for a pizza (Mama needed a night off from that kitchen!) and Goodwill is right next door, so I HAD to run in.  I just HAD TOO!  

 They were wheeling out the carts of new items and I JUMPED on them.  I scored a few goodies and $4.50 later, I was on my way again.

This old conical wooden pestle looked like it could become a Christmas Tree with a little repurposing.  But, even though I think making things out of "junk" is an awesome thing to do - I can rarely actually bring myself to DO it.  It has such a lovely patina on it.  I will probably leave it as is and just throw it in my old dough bowl.  

 This will go to the booth - a cute old Swanky dresser caddy.  

Two great old boxes of flash cards - Mammals and Reptiles.  The Mammals are great - the reptiles are okay if you don't look at the s.n.a.k.e.s.  Creeeeepy.  

And a nice book - Santa Calls.  The Bean and I have a love of Christmas Books - you are NEVER too old to read a good Children's Christmas book!  

When I went back to look at the books, there were two guys with book scanners looking up all the books.  I have never actually seen any scanners before so it surprised me to see them scanning all the books.  At most thrifts, there are signs saying, 'NO BOOK SCANNERS".  When I walked over to look at the books, I really expected them to throw their arms up over the books and yell, "NO - You can't look at the books because we are scanning them!"  But, when I walked over, they told me to tell them to move if they were in my way and asked me what sort of books I was looking for because they knew what all was there.  Now, wasn't that nice?  I've ran into a lot of nice people lately.  People that I didn't expect to be nice are really, really nice.  Maybe the world is changing.  That would be nice, wouldn't it?