Shopping

  • We came, we shopped, we wrapped and we conquered

    This weekend Gulley and I had our 17th annual Christmas shopping and wrapping party extravaganza. It was everything it is billed to be and more.

    We got a late start this year because Gulley wasn’t free until Friday afternoon. She showed up at my house and unloaded her stuff, including her body pillow. This is just one of many reasons we are best friends, we travel with sleeping comfort in mind. I know some people may not understand it. In fact, last weekend when P, Caroline and I went to AJ’s ranch, I got my body pillow out of the car and my friend Jen said, “That’s just embarrassing. You should’ve waited until it was dark to unload your body pillow.”

    But y’all know what? I don’t care. I’m a high-maintenance sleeper and I’m proud. Gulley and I have discovered one of life’s profound truths, which is once you’ve discovered the body pillow you will never again want to spend even one night away from it. Especially not on a weekend that involves no kids and, therefore, uninterrupted sleep.

    I noticed as Gulley was unloading stuff that she had brought none of her presents with her. The gift wrapping portion of the weekend is a crucial time and I asked where her presents were. She informed me she hadn’t bought any presents yet. And at that moment I knew this weekend was going to involve shopping that would defy the laws of logic and the time-space continuum. Gulley threw down a no-present-purchased gauntlet that was UNPRECEDENTED. We were starting from scratch.

    May God have mercy on our souls.

    And our feet.

    So, we headed straight for the bowels of hell, also known as Toys R’ Us. We loaded that shopping cart until it was begging for mercy, or perhaps that was the woman whose foot I ran over right before I knocked over an entire display of wrapping paper.

    For the record, it is not easy to maneuver a cart that is heavy-laden with My Little Ponies, Polly Pockets and my dreams of creating the BEST CHRISTMAS EVER.

    I’m not sure what time it was when we finally left Toys R’ Us, but it was dark outside. However, we pressed on towards Hobby Lobby to take advantage of 50% off on multiple things that we didn’t need, but LOOK! IT’S 50% OFF! That means it’s only $5.00!

    “What would you do with it?”

    “I don’t know, but IT’S ONLY $5.00!”

    Hobby Lobby sucked out whatever life Toys R’ Us had left in us. So we decided it was time to go home, unload our purchases and eat. Chips and queso have never tasted so good. Well, except for the last time I ate them.

    Saturday morning we woke up refreshed and ready to go. We started the day with some Starbucks (huge shout out to the Venti Peppermint Mocha that sustained me throughout the day) and headed to Target. I’ll sum that entire experience up by saying how do you even begin to decide between the My Little Pony Teapot Palace and the Littlest Pet Shop Rescue Center? It’s like here take my arm…no wait, take my leg…no, my arm. After much debate and deliberation I decided on the Polly Pockets Race to the Mall because I identified with it deep in my soul.

    Except I am not wee like the Polly Pockets.

    Our day included stops at every store in the entire state of Texas, including Bass Pro Shops. If any of y’all are like me and have never been in a Bass Pro Shops, then let me give you a tip, this whole hunting/fishing thing is apparently BIG business. I mean we are talking MASSIVE amounts of square footage devoted to merchandise that is fashion-free.

    Not to mention a Santa Claus complete with a team of eight dead, stuffed reindeer pulling his sleigh.

    The best part was the customer survey questionnaire they hand you as you walk out the door with a question that asks how you arrived at Bass Pro Shops. The choices are AUTOMOBILE, PLANE, MOTORCOACH or RV. Which is so weird because those are exactly the same choices on the questionnaire at Neiman’s.

    After a day of various parking lot situations that almost caused me to lose my joy and allowing my blood sugar to drop dangerously low due to lack of taking the proper sugar cookie breaks, we finally arrived at a few stores a little closer to home. Gulley had a few more presents to buy and I suggested we go look in Victoria’s Secret because I thought they were having a sale on what I believe to be the greatest robe ever made.

    Unfortunately, the robe wasn’t on sale. However, seeing the row of robes folded neatly caused me to wax nostalgic about the night I purchased my robe for 75% off at an after Christmas sale last year. I touched the folded robes and actually said to Gulley, “I’ll never forget the night I bought my robe. It was rainy and cold outside…” I had a faraway look in my eye and a single tear streamed down my face at the sweetness of the memory.

    I looked up and realized Gulley was looking at me like I had lost my mind, and so I never even got to the part in my story where my new robe and I went to pick up some Church’s spicy chicken tenders, mashed potatoes and a Diet Coke and then curled up together on the couch to watch “Sweet Home Alabama”.

    Instead we started laughing so hard that Gulley had to find a bathroom and I literally had to sit down on the floor in Victoria’s Secret because I could barely breathe for all the laughing.

    We realized at that point we were no longer mentally fit to be in public so we headed to the house with our wrapping paper, packages and some cheese. Because we enjoy eating massive amounts of dairy when we’re together.

    AJ came over and assisted us in our wrapping efforts and, four hours later, we were done. Everything is wrapped, everything is festive.

    Now I just need to decorate the tree. And the house. And the yard.

    Other than that, I’m ready for Christmas.

    And to snuggle up with my robe. After all, it’s almost our one year anniversary.

    **Edited to add that I fixed the link to the robe.

  • Blah, blah, boots, blah, blah, zucchini, blah, blah, pizza

    I already mentioned that I started my day on Friday by horribly disfiguring my thumb in an accident of idiotic proportions. In fact, I tried to dodge the “how’d you do that?” question from P because I didn’t want to see the look on his face that would confirm my brilliance, but eventually, there was no other way to explain how I’d sliced my thumb open in my car without telling some lie about huge shards of glass hidden under the drivers’ seat. I had to ‘fess up.

    And the look? It did not disappoint.

    Anyway, Caroline and I forged ahead with our morning o’ errands with our first stop being Cavenders Boot City. She has outgrown all of her boots and she has to have boots to wear to the ranch, not just because it’s the obvious fashion statement for a day in the country, but also something about tall grass, stickers and snakes. I was living in fear that the day would come when P would offer to take Caroline to the ranch for the entire day, and I would have to decline this offer of freedom because our child has no boots.

    We walked into Cavenders and headed straight to the shoe section. I measured her foot on a handy little mat with various renderings of foot sizes, and figured out she’d need a size 9. I was looking through the array of size 9 boots, preferably in hot pink (only because snakes don’t like hot pink, not because they are the cutest) when a salesman came up to help me. He threw us into a state of confusion by showing Caroline way too many boot options and trying to convince me that she really needed an 8 1/2. I tried to explain that her foot grows at a rate of speed NASA wishes they could achieve, and therefore, I like to buy shoes a little bit bigger so that we can get more than 2 days of wear out of them, but he kept pulling down the size 8 1/2’s.

    I expressed my sympathies over his apparent hearing problem and continued to try to find a pair of size 9’s. Finally, I found a pair that Caroline and I both liked and checked the price tag. $59.99. Oh, Cavenders, you’re not fooling me with that price tag, I can round up and I know that’s really $60.00. I’ve seen the state of Caroline’s boots after she’s been to the ranch and there was no way I was going to pay $60.00 for something that would be covered in mud and scratched beyond all recognition and cuteness. Money was no object to Caroline though, and she wanted those boots. I promised her, as God is my witness, that she would have a new pair of boots before the morning was over, and we headed to a new store that sells boots.

    We walked into Target and went straight to the shoe section. Lo and behold, hot pink boots at 50%, bringing the grand total to $7.84, which even rounding up, means they were just $8.00. Caroline declared they were the best boots EVER and we happily took them up to the cash register. She is now ready for any spur of the moment trips to the ranch.

    The rest of the morning was spent running other errands, most of which involved buying various Little Mermaid paraphernalia for her upcoming birthday party while thinking about how bad my thumb hurt. I could have used a granola bar and some Gatorade.

    P has had a sinus infection due to allergies since last week, and on Saturday morning, I woke up and realized I had caught his “allergies”. My throat was sore and scratchy, my nose was all stopped up and I was tired and achy. Plus, my thumb hurt. So, I decided we’d have a pretty non-eventful day.

    I spent most of the morning cleaning out the playroom. I took a garbage bag in with me and showed no mercy to the legions of Happy Meal toys that had taken up residence. I scraped dried playdough off various surfaces, put pieces of puzzles back where they belonged, and put clothes back on Barbie. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, that Barbie is a tramp.

    Finally, the playroom was clean.

    Elephant drawing on the chalkboard was done by Bops. You can have your own copy for $59.95. Today only.

    Later on in the day, I realized that sad truth of motherhood, which is even though you may not feel good, your child has massive amounts of energy to burn. And since we don’t have a child-sized hamster wheel for her to run on, I decided to take her to the pool, even though I told her I was just going to sit on the side. And that’s what I did, I sat on the side. Did I mention it was next to two other mamas who are both 5’11 and weigh 98 pounds?

    Oh, I’m exaggerating. They really weigh 105.

    There is nothing that builds your self esteem like sitting between two supermodels while experiencing raging PMS, having braces on your teeth complete with snazzy rubber bands hinging your jaw together, and a head cold that causes you to sniff and rub your nose repeatedly. I have never felt more attractive or lovely. I was a Glamour Don’t caught between two Glamour Do’s.

    So, after we got home, I decided it was a good time to make zucchini bread using what can only be labeled Gigantor Zucchini, which one of P’s customers gave him. This thing had been sitting on my countertop staring at me menacingly for days. It was intimidating. But realizing it was about to go bad (and who wants anything that size to go bad on them), I decided it was time to bite the bullet, or cut the zucchini as the case may be.

    It made enough for two loaves of zucchini bread.

    And still, there was enough left over to save for grilled zucchini for Sunday night’s dinner. It was the zucchini that would never end.

    For Saturday night’s dinner, I spent hours getting dinner ready and this is what we had.

    I know y’all are all very envious of this magnitude of culinary brilliance, but rest assured, you too can heat an oven to 400 degrees and have a pizza like this, with 100% REAL CHEESE, in 16-18 minutes.

    I even managed to do it with my thumb covered in a Care Bear band-aid.

    Let’s see if Paula Deen can do that.