Hubby has to work Christmas Eve and Christmas Day (after all, restaurant biz) as well as Solstice which is what we usually celebrate anyway. So I’ll be home alone through all of the holidays. Okay, now don’t go all wah wah on me. BFD.

If the U. S. Gov’t can move holidays, so can I. Besides this is really the first year since we’ve been in NM that we made any attempt whatsoever to do much for holidays.

And it’s largely because someone gifted us a tree. A real tree. We are surrounded by National Forest land, and you can get a permit to cut down trees. One of the bar customers cut down a pile of them and brought them to the bar to give away. We ended up with one as a gift. I must say, it is a very pretty tree – one of the prettiest real trees I ever remember having. It still isn’t inside and decorated though – because we don’t have a tree stand.

Meanwhile all this business is still dragging on about getting hubby in to see a nephrologist. Sigh. So we had to get up before dawn yesterday to take him to Las Cruces to draw blood for lab tests – a two hour drive each way. The whole situation has become a royal PITA, quite aside from the hovering fear that he is going to have to start dialysis soon.

So I determined that no matter what – I would make this a good thing. We would have a GREAT day in LC doing some shopping and eating out.

We have always loved to eat out and eat well. Here in town though the best eatery was Dairy Queen, and they just sold their lot to a bank that razed the business to the ground. Seriously. It’s gotten to the point that we buy something frozen on payday and call it good. Really – this isn’t good, it isn’t even satisfactory for us. But there you go.

Hubby spent Thursday looking up things we love like health food stores and Indian restaurants and flea markets on the Internet,and printing out Google maps to everything. Although Las Cruces is the nearest “city” to us we haven’t explored it much in the three years we have been here.

Friday hubby hauls me out of a nice warm bed at dark thirty and puts a coffee cup in my hand and my butt in the car and off we go.

First stop, of course, is to see the vampires. Four tubes of blood later, we head for Walgrens. They have one of the few ATMs that doesn’t charge him out the ass – 2X (the ATM and the Moneycard both charge us) for getting some cash off that damn Moneycard (all I can say is that working for Denny’s is now like working at the coal mine and buying your groceries at the company store – I bet Moneycard is making a killing at this). Anyhow – I recall Walgrens also having lots of fun holiday stuff at low prices. So we get the cash and look at their holiday goodies, but are not impressed.

Next stop – HObby lobby. Oh lord, somebody stop me. This is my Solstice shopping trip. I got a big fushia laptop desk with pockets for things. Due to the space crunch in the trailer, I usually end up sitting on the floor or the couch trying to use a tiny spot on the coffee table. I’m gonna really enjoy this laptop craft table.

For the tree we bought some “do em yourself” little Christmas bulb decorations. We cannot recall what we kept and haven’t been to storage yet to rummage around and find out. We dug through the roomies storage sheds at the ranch Thursday, and found a few things, but not all that much. I thought it would be nice to have some new things. Especially hand made.

From the art department I got a lovely sketch pad in shades of grey paper and a set of charcoal/chalk type pencils with white, black, and pink to work on drawing this beautiful New Mexico sky.

From the beading department I got a nice package that has nine small spools of different colored jewelry wire as well as some black jewelry cord. I didn’t get a chance to go thorough what I have left of my jewelry making things before we left, but I know for sure I can use these things and they will be just what I need to make some things no matter what is in the box. It also occurs to me that now that I am no longer nearsighted, I can probably start working with seed beads again! Which trips the thought that I could also probably do embroidery and plastic canvas, and even knitting again, too. All those things I gave up when I couldn’t see to do them anymore.

ROFLMAO. The Goddess is good. I get older – and can now SEE BETTER.

Of course, the cheif excitement of Hobby Lobby was buying fabrics, notions, and patterns. Nobody, but nobody sells these things in town. I couldn’t even buy buttons to do some mending last month.

I chose a rather vintage hollywood sexy gown pattern I’m going to use to make a few nightgowns to wear inside the house – something a bit sexier than muumuus now that I’ve also lost weight. Hubby chose a pattern for pajamas because he wants some sleep pants and sleep shorts and we cannot find quite just what he wants in the way of sleeping shorts – handy to have someone who sews and can make what you want. I found some gorgeous rainbow colored fabric to make the first gown, and we got a nice soft flannel with a sort of Native American pattern on it in browns for the sleep pants/shorts. The remnant table yielded a beautiful pink, brown and ivory paisley patterned cotton and I got a yard of it to make another shirt. Hubby did his thread choosing magic and we managed to get out for under $100 – barely.

By then it was after 11, so we headed to Taste of India. OMFG. We shared the Vegetarian Dinner, plus vegetable pakoras as appetizer. My taste buds thought we had died and gone to heaven – or at least back to Tulsa. Hubby agreed that we haven’t had a meal that good in the last four years. The service was decent, not great, but it looked like one server was trying to handle the whole restaurant and most people were going to their lunch buffet.

The most pleasent shock of the day was getting out of the restaurant for $30, including tip. You can’t go to Pizza Hut here for under $30 for two people – and trust me you won’t get the service or the food we got. In fact, we consider ourselves lucky if we get the food we ordered, and don’t get it stone cold. This was such a deep pleasure that we are considering driving the two hours each way once a month or so JUST to get a good meal out.

From there, because it was close, we visited a little strip mall with a JoAnn’s fabrics, Dollar Tree, and one of the health food markets. At JoAnns I couldn’t resist a nice, big hematite donut and a round charm to go with it from the jewelry making department. We drooled over the beautiful fabrics and chose a few for “next time”. They had a pajama pattern we looked for at Hobby Lobby, but they were out – so we went ahead and bought it because it has a top I really like.

Dollar Tree was fun, as dollar stores usually are. The ones here in town, trust me, everything is NOT a dollar – in fact, very little of it is. We got stockings for everyone (including a white one for Pearl), and an elf hat for me with a jingle bell. We bought a skirt for the tree, plus an extra that I’m going to put on the little table next to the chair I read on in the living room. The little table, bless it, is unfinished and sort of ugly and I keep it covered with a towel or some bit of fabric or other. I’ve decided I’m going to make the best of that by making lovely covers with different fabric to go with the season this year. We spent $12 and walked out with two bags of goodies. Now THAT is a dollar store!

I’m gonna pan the health food store a little, so I won’t name it. First, walking in I almost walked out. The seafood section in the front causes an almost unbearable stench throughout most of the store – for a vegetarian anyway. I did my shopping with both hands cupped over my nose and mouth trying to cover the stench with the smell of my soap so I didn’t have to rush out and vomit all that good Indian food up.

They were a large store – larger probably than our little locally owned grocery store – but they didn’t have as much health food as our local general grocery. They were what I’d call a yuppie no guilt health food store. Where you can buy really high priced items that proclaim they are the healthiest version of goat yogurt, gourmet cheese and meats, wines and so on. In the end we bought the Not Dogs I’ve been craving for months and can’t get here, rice lasagne noodles (we can get them here but they were a little cheaper there), and two bottles of booze. One was the Makers Mark our roommate likes so much – the shelf showed the price to be $20 and change which is a GREAT price on it so we got it for his Christmas. The receipt showed the price as $27 which is MORE than it costs at the local grocery store – so that was basically a rip off. The other bottle was a whiskey hubby has been wanting to try, and again the shelf said it was a good price and we haven’t seen it here. When we got home and checked the local store, (and the receipt for the health food store) we paid $1 too much. Not a big deal – but we don’t trade with stores that put incorrect prices on the shelf then charge more at the register. Oh – and we got a big bag of the wasabi peas hubby likes for part of his Solstice treats. All in all – we won’t be going back there. No biggie – there are a few other health food stores to check out.

We did find the Bach’s Rescue Remedy salve, and it was about $1 cheaper than we can find it even online. They had real essential oils and I purchased peppermint and lemon so we can make up some Heal Potion. I can never find what I’m looking for here, plus the only store that dependably carries them is one of the local stores that I will not be trading with anymore due to their elitest attitude. I mean, if you don’t want my money I won’t FORCE it on you. There’s a lot of that sort of crap in town, sadly.

Anyway! We got what we went after and then some and at the time was pretty slap damn happy!

Our last stop was the mall. Yes, I know – but we had to get to Barnes and Noble. First, one of hubby’s favorite authors had a new book come out in paperback. Second, Amazon refunded my money for my Llewellyn’s calendar after trying to send it via FedEx. FedEx never contacted me in any way, by mail or phone, just sent my order right back to Amazon – Amazon wouldn’t tell me what service they were using to ship – guess what two companies just went on the “we don’t trade with” list. Not so much they are bad companies, just that I HAVE to know which shipping service is being used, because apparently the only people in the universe who can find my address is the U.S.P.S. I have an in town address that can be shipped to – but I have to know which shipper so I can give them the town address (and pay a buck to pick it up) if needed.

Barnes and Noble was crowded and noisy – but ahhhhh, bookstore. We didn’t browse much due to the crowds though. They didn’t have the book hubby wanted, but had another new one by another favorite author – so he is happy. They had my Witches calendar, so I’m happy. We got the hell out of there – LOL.

That was it for us – we inched out of the parking lot and down the busy street, got our butts on the highway and headed out. Stopped on the way home to fill the gas tank 22 cents a gallon cheaper than it is at home and came on in.

Once home, we stopped at the local Walmart to get a tree stand. They didn’t have one. Stopped at Alco. They didn’t have one. Stopped at the local grocery to check the prices on the whiskey and felt we did okay (this was before we checked the health food store receipt and discovered they screwed us for $7).

Got home, got the stuff out of the car, and fell into bed with books, a dab of gourmet cheese and very prosaic cheapo saltines. And very shortly thereafter fell asleep.

And a good time was had by all.

Well, except we still don’t have a tree stand.

And Merry Christmas or Happy Solstice to you all.

Maybe by next year I’ll have the pagan ecards website back up and working, too.

For the next few weeks I hope I’ll be sharing lots of photos and scans of art, jewelry, and new clothing.

I wanted to illustrate this with a photo of our pretty little tree or me in my elf hat or something, but it seems the camera is in the car and the car is in town with the hubby

BlessedBe

Summer

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