The ‘gloomies’ finally disappeared this afternoon with breaks in the clouds & periodic sun.
The big shopping trip for Thanksgiving took place this morning - walked out of the store at noon. The parking lot was filling up as we left. I suspect people held off going out earlier because of the morning rain. There are 3 items remaining on my list I need to find & that should happen Monday in the ‘big city’.
The decorative flag is securely back on the tree. If it blows off again, it will be because the plastic holder has broken, which could happen if we get wind gusts in the 50 mph range like last weekend.
The battery is out of Little Red. Again, the metric set of nut drivers came to the rescue for getting the 2 nuts on the battery terminals unscrewed & the nut on the metal rod holding the battery in place. When I pulled the battery out, I was surprised to see it was a ‘Cub Cadet’. Little Red is a Craftsman. Fingers crossed Lowe’s will have a battery that will work, especially since that’s where we bought the mower.
We made the trip today to the ‘big(ger) city to get some things we cannot get at the small Walmart & Food Lion around here. It’s a 45 minute trip to a college town with plenty of traffic once we get there - ugh!
So as we enter town, the first place to stop on the right is Aldi’s .... we ended up with a shopping basket full (mostly paper towels), but I did find 100% pure Grade A Maple Syrup for $4.99 ... at Walmart it was over $7 for half an ounce less ... score!
Next stop: Kroger. I needed some ‘hot’ Rotel for a recipe & Walmart & FL here at home only have ‘mild’. Kroger had it - $1.69/can, on sale for $1.50. If you bought 5 cans, $0.99. I bought 5 cans so I can make 5 dishes for potlucks etc. Score again!
Next stop, Lowe’s for a mower battery. There was zero info on the battery box, but a Lowe’s employee, older guy who knew a few things, just happened to come by & offered to help. I had looked the battery up on line - he wasn’t shy about getting into the box so we made sure the +/- terminals were properly situated. I knew enough to have the old battery to save a $15 core charge. The battery gets mixed reviews - hopefully, the positive reviews will apply to the specific battery I bought.
Next stop headed back out of town on the main street - Lenscrafters. Thank goodness there was one in town & my cousin had told me how to find it when I saw her last Sunday. Both pairs of my glasses needed fixin’. My everyday pair was all out of whack because I ran face first into a wall last summer ... it was pitch black in the garage, I didn’t know where the light switches were (new house!) & I misjudged how big (or small) the stoop was in front of the door into the laundry room. I ran smack dab into the wall, full stride & mangled my glasses & ended up with a black eye. So, I had to wear my ‘good’ glasses, the ones I reserved for church, funerals, parties, etc. About 3 weeks ago, I lost one of the nose pieces. I take my glasses off to knit & they have fallen off of the sofa arm a couple of times - I think that is when the nose piece broke off. Fortunately, I could still wear the glasses without discomfort other than with only one nose piece, they were loose & driving me nuts.
The NICEST girl at Lenscrafter replaced the missing nose piece and the other old one, plus tightened the glasses up a bit - perfect! She took the mangled ones and made no promises she could bend them back enough without breaking them, but somehow, she did! She gave me new nose pieces on that pair as well. This made my day/month/year to have both pairs of glasses back and fitting well. The whole trip was worth it just for the glasses so this was another SCORE!
As we traveled home, mom mentioned there was a BBQ place she had spotted on previous trips and she wanted to stop & check them out. I pretty much knew where it was along the road so we found it easily. The nicest young guy waited on us and we bought a pound of BBQ & brought it home. We both liked the BBQ a lot. The place just up the road from us is seasonal so they will be closing soon (ice cream stand is closing Nov. 30th & BBQ closes soon after). The new place is a restaurant so we can get BBQ there all year. I told mom now every time we go to the ‘big’ city, we’ll have to get BBQ on the way home - she agreed :-)
We left around 10, didn’t get home until 3:30 so it was quite the day away from home. I have gotten used to rural roads & very little traffic so having to wait through two stoplight cycles at times due to long lines of traffic, no shopping baskets at Aldi’s because so many people were in the store (we finally got one), a full parking lot at Lowe’s (but I did ‘guess right’ as to where to find the batteries), & more traffic until we could get back out of town ... whew! Give me 2-lane rural roads, fields, cows & mountain scenery over ‘city’ life any time :-)