Cropping and Shopping

I've been taking a break from cross-stitch for awhile and instead, have been focusing more on reading and scrapbooking. Friday night, Nadine & Wendy and I went to a four-hour "crop" that was a fundraiser for the Leukemia Society. For $10, we got four uninterrupted hours of scrapbooking. There were about 30 people there, some of them major scrapbookers - the big travel suitcases with all of their supplies and scrapbooks that were 4 and 5 inches thick. One woman even had this whole stacked tray set-up for her work area that blew us all away. There was also a representative from Creative Memories on hand and we could use any of her tools, as well as purchase any additional supplies.

It was a very productive evening for me. I finished three pages and started a fourth, which I managed to finish Saturday afternoon. I've been focusing on all of the vacations M. and I have taken together over the past nine years. I only need to finish the trip I'm working on now - our 2000 trip to Kentucky, plus our 2001 trip to GSMNP, then the scrapbook of our "pre-baby" vacations will be complete and I can start a new one of family vacations. I also have about 5 pages of a baby scrapbook complete so far. There just aren't enough hours in the day!

On Saturday, H. and I went shopping and it was extremely stressful. I thought things were supposed to get easier as she got older! First, I tried to have her picture taken at Sears, just on the spur of the moment, but they were completely booked - I guess everyone was having their Spring/Easter pictures taken. Then we went to Penney's to shop for shoes. I did manage to find two pairs of shoes for H. - dress shoes for Easter and a pair of white sandals for summer. I was in search of both black and brown shoes. Most of what was out was spring and summer shoes, so there wasn't much to choose from for standard wear-to-the-office shoes. I bought a pair of brown shoes in the same style of black that I already have. The one pair of black shoes I tried on were way to small and when I asked for a 10 1/2, the male clerk smuggly told me they don't carry anything larger than a 10. Great! Thanks Al Bundy.

Then it was off to shop for jeans, second only to bathing suits on the shopping experience spectrum for me. The only jeans that I have recently worn have been Sears' "Crossroads' brand. Well, since they took over Land's End, they discontinued that line. So I tried on Penney's St. John's Bay brand and I actually liked them and found two pair to buy. I also bought a rather stylish, hip pair of faded, striped stretchy jeans. My sister would be so proud that I bought these all on my own!

But while I was looking through the table of jeans for my size, I sat my purse down on the table. Then we walked away. I didn't realize until 10 or 15 minutes later that I had forgotten my purse. I retraced my steps and when I got back to the jeans, my purse was gone. I asked the clerk in the shoe dept (a different clerk) if anyone had turned in a purse and she said no, but they have a lost and found upstairs. Just as she said that, I hear my name being called on the paging system. I running all over the store trying to find the elevator since H. was in the stroller. I can't find it (nor can I find anyone to ask), so I risk life and limb and take the stroller up the escalator. Customer service has my purse, completely intact. Thank you to the anonymous customer out there who so kindly and honestly turned my purse in! Before they called my name, I was thinking how stranded I was. My wallet, car keys and phone were all in my purse. I didn't even have any change on me to use a pay phone.

At this point, I'm completely exhausted, sweaty and thirsty from our trek through Penney's, so I go to get us both some lunch. When I take H. out of her stroller, she is soaked through. She was so wet I thought she had spilled her cup, but no, it was definitely a diaper leak. And she never said a word or fussed at all. So I inhaled my lunch, spilling ketchup all over the front of my shirt in the process, then hurried back toward Sears to use their dressing room to change H. I changed her head to toe, thinking that I need to start packing an extra outfit for myself, too, in the diaper bag. And I must say, the dressing rooms in Sears are ten-times cleaner than the ones in Penney's, atleast at this particular mall. The ones in Penney's looked like that hadn't been vacuumed in days (or weeks) and there were leftover clothes in every one we went in. And this is the norm whenever I shop there. In Sears, the carpet was very clean, a bonus since I had to change Hayley, and there weren't discarded clothes lying all over the place.

Anyhoo, after all of this, I was ready to go home, but I really wanted to stop by Michael's and get some scrapbook supplies, especially since I had some momentum going from the night before. So we breezed through Michael's and went home. H. fell asleep in the car about 10 minutes before we got there, but miraculously, stayed asleep for her regular nap when I carried her into the house and put her in her crib. I crashed on the couch and watched "Hollywood Baby Boom" on E!. I didn't have the energy to do anything else. I was so tired that night I couldn't even make it through Nashville Star - I fell asleep right after George Canyon sang. I was surprised when they didn't eliminate anyone because of a "technical glitch" - it was a very low-key announcement and no one seemed to mind. I tried to imagine the same situation on American Idol and decided the reaction would be the total opposite.

So Sunday was a day of rest, spent outside with H. running around the yard for most of the day. It looks like spring is truly here now and I'm very thankful for that. All that fresh air for H. and she falls asleep in an instant!