At least around here, that is.

See, I was all set for a nice quiet weekend. I knew I needed to head out for a bit yesterday because a) I needed milk and onion powder b) The checkout girl at CVS had mentioned she'd seen my aluminum-free Adidas deoderant at the Dollar Tree (normally $3.29 each & she mentioned this as I was getting it as a BOGO special) c) I wanted to head to a store called Old Time Pottery to get 2 more of the wool/cotton doormats ($4.99 vs retail $18.99!). No problems, all these places are within 2 miles of my house. I got steak and shrimp out to thaw for dinner (more later YUM!) and headed out.

Stop One: Dollar Tree: They did not have my deoderant. No big whoop, since I'd just bought 4 tubes BOGO, but it still would have been nice. They did have some interesting linen spray and candles that looked much nicer than $1 and a plethora of the Pirouline style cookies, so I picked up a linen spray, candle, and canister of cookies each for $3 before tax. I wanted to 'test drive' them, as it were, because if they're worth a darn I'll stock up and make up some gift boxes to keep on hand. The verdict: cookies are YUM, and the linen spray spells very nice (if you're into vanilla, me not so much). So I'll be heading back for some more of each, and get some $5 gifts (including packaging!) stashed away.

Stop Two: Old Time Pottery.

HOLY !@#$ WHERE DID ALL THESE *&#$(^@ PEOPLE COME FROM?!?!?!????

They were everywhere, packed into this store like animals being led to slaughter. Shuffling up and down the aisles, stoned from the scented candles and cinnamon brooms, carts overflowing with every red, green, gold, and ivory knick-knack and whatchamajigger they could pick up.

This is where I realized: I'm stupid, and everyone else here is absolutely insane.

Luckily the holiday rugs weren't in the regular rug section, so I fought my way back and tried to enjoy the relative peace. Found my two rugs, and also picked up a wool dust-mop refill and bag of buttercreme scented tea-lights on sale. The candles will last me a year, until they go on sale again.

Stop Three: PetSmart. I really hate this store. I spotted a dead hamster in their hamster display once and spent 10 minutes trying to find someone I could tell to remove it, so now every time I go in I have to check all the hamsters as part of my attempt at keeping children from being scarred for life.

I also hate that they're the only store that carries the food my cats like and the litter my DH likes. And this time, they didn't have either one of them. ARGH!!! This litter is made from dehydrated orange peels and is the only thing that completely hides the smell without smelling like a poopy pissed-on flower bed (sorry for the visual!). It's like a crap shoot as to when the store wil have it in stock (sorry for the pun!).

Someone had emailed me about a post where I mentioned using Feline Pine, and I do like the stuff. Unfortunately, it can't hold a candle to this orange peel litter. Oh well, I'll have to make another trek later this week and buy all they have once it's finally back on the shelves.

Stop Four: Garner's Natural Market and Cafe. A safe haven from the weirdo Christmas zombies. Picked up onion powder, milk from a local dairy, 32 bean and barley soup, and 4 lbs of organic clearance pasta. A great way to end a very frustrating trip out.

Spent the rest of last night trying to recover. I cooked 1 lb of shrimp and about 1.5 lbs of steak (4 total, since this is how they were packaged and frozen), and dinner was a massive amount of surf & turn along with herbed corn and wild rice pilaf with lentils. TOtal cost for the meal was between 10-15 dollars and I could have easily fed 4 people, but now I have surf&turf leftovers for lunch next week. Classy!

Today has been a no-spend day and I've done nothing productive other than poke around the board. The night is still young, though. Breakfast was venison sausage biscuits wit sauteed onions. DH got bored around 1 and wanted to head out, so I mentioned we could try the metal detector we borrowed from his dad. He wanted to head to a local park (which I know would mean stopping somewhere and spending something on the way), so I asked if we could try it in the backyard first. I've never done it and actually need to find 2 of the cats' collars back there anyways. After about an hour we found part of an electric motor, a nail, a bolt, one of the cat collars, a dart, a long piece of iron, some buried barbed wire, and some metal plant tags. DH was bored at that point and went inside to watch TV.

Anyways, tonight's supper will not consist of the pork picnic roast I managed to char on the grill. Stupid hot grill! It's no problem, since I had 2 hamhocks just waiting to go into a pot of beans, not to mention the 32 bean and barley soup I bought. So that's simmering away right now, and I'm trying to get up enough motivation to be productive. My luck, I'll find it about an hour before bedtime and won't be able to sleep...