Shopping Trips, Crazy Drivers and End Tables

I made the 100 mile trek to the “big city” with Mom and the sister-in-law today. Mom is getting ready to start a kitchen remodel and needed to go to Lowe’s and Home Depot to look for stuff (yes...it's a 100 miles to Lowe's and HD). This was the most boring trip ever. I’m glad I went and really needed to get out of the house, but this was not my idea of a fun shopping trip (of course, I don't really like to shop, but I could have used some Starbucks). I’m glad my SiL was there, because I would never have been able to feign that much interest. I did help out with the lighting choices and came up with a new idea for what to use to replace the old fluorescent light in the kitchen, but mostly I helped push the cart while the two of them went over every little reason why an item was good or not. Mom did take the SiL and I out to eat at Chili’s, so that was fun.

Here's Mom and SiL looking through sink drain insterts for the new sink. This took at least 15 minutes and Mom decided to wait and buy one later.

Saw this in Home Depot. Apparently a bird had gotten in the store and pooped on this bag of gloves. I might be talking about my blog too much, because my SiL knew exactly what I was going to do with this picture.

While driving to Chili’s, Mom pointed out a car that was driving down the road with almost the entire windshield covered in snow/sleet. I just had to take a picture. The lady has the window down, presumably so she can see. We were talking about how crazy she was, and then my SiL realized that she probably had cleaned off her windshield, but not the top of her vehicle and it had slid down onto her windshield while driving. We figured that was probably the case, but it was still stupid of her to be driving around with four inches of sleet on the roof of her vehicle in 40 degree weather. It was bound to come off at some point. I’m supposing it slid down when she came to a stop at the last stop light. Right after seeing this vehicle, we saw another one that was almost as bad.

Here's the crazy driver. This was the best I could do and had to do a little tweaking on the picture to get it this good. I think you can see how much of her window was covered in sleet and that she has her window down. This is NOT in a parking lot!

On another note, I have inherited a very interesting end table. This thing has been in the family for about 40 years. I think my CG’ma bought it to display a Japanese doll she brought back from a trip to Japan. Anyway, that’s my first memory of the table. At some point my mom took it and I believe it became a display case for a stuffed owl (a real one, not a toy). Well, it needed a home because Mom is also remodeling the basement, and she called all around and no one in the family wanted it. I told her I had no room for it or I would take it. Today, when we got back from shopping, I saw this table sitting out in Mom’s backyard in the middle of all the sleet. I guess she didn’t know what to do with it, so stuck it in the backyard until it could be carried off somewhere (BTW: this is not like her; she NEVER just sticks stuff in the back yard). It just looked so sad out there that I decided to take it home. Now I have to figure out what to do with it. Any suggestions? It is the size of an end table, but is really a glass display case. I am in the middle of cleaning it up, but really have NO room for it and nothing to put in it. Let me know if you have any grand suggestions. When I was in high school, I wanted to turn it into an aquarium, but I’m pretty sure that’s not very feasible.

The Glass End Table (Display Case?)

Just a thought… Have you thanked your mail carrier lately? I was surprised when my mail lady came during the winter sleet storm. She wasn’t even more than an hour later than usual. I was struck with the thought of her out there on all these country roads by herself, making sure that we all got our mail. I left her a kind note with a few of my freshly made frozen cream cheese balls. I just wanted her to know that she was appreciated. She left me a note in my mailbox saying, “Thanks for the kind words. Sometimes I think I need it! Candy was delicious! Thanks.” When I saw that note, I was glad that I had gone to the trouble to say thank you to someone who probably doesn’t get thanked very often. I remember what it was like to be out in that weather…and I was in a giant snow plow!