Oh Simply Exhausted

(My bank account, that is)

For some odd reason, I felt the need to shop this weekend. I don't know why. It was one of those things. Saturday morning, after cleaning and laundry, Mr. Cranky Pants and I took a short ride over to Harbor Freight where I bought a Vibratory Tumbler.
























It's a jewelry thing. Or a rock thing. At any rate, you put media (rice, ball bearings, walnut shells) in the drum, add your items to be polished and let 'er rip. Rip is right. Jeebus, what noise! And it walked across the floor. I was rather alarmed by the noise, the grinding the motor made, and the general weirdness of it. So it's going back to Harbor Freight. In the short time I had it on, I was waiting for it to eat itself. No good. It was 20 bucks off, but still. I wasn't impressed. That is today's post work mission.

After that we chilled around the temporarily clean house for awhile, and put the garden to bed. All the dead tomatoes and peppers have been dug up and put in the burn pile, and the garden hoed and raked. It looks pretty good. The much called for rain started about midnight, so it's a happy garden now.

Since we got all the 'work' done on Saturday, we decided a short road trip was an order on Sunday. Off we went to Gaithersburg, MD to visit my favorite grocery store, Trader Joes. We now have groceries we didn't know we needed (chipolte hummus, brie and some really stanky bleu cheese!) and other assorted 'good for you' items. Ka-Ching! We started for home, but when we tried to merge to go North, we couldn't get into the Northbound lane, darn it. So we went to Washington. Obbie knows his way around the city pretty well, and we were in Georgetown before I knew it. Ah HA! A quick trip into LUSH for some stinky bath stuff, (it was the express trip, there was a totally illegal parking space two doors down from LUSH, and we took the 10 minute risk) In and out, and back on the road again. We decided that we'd stop in Frederick at the Value City, since they have had really good deals on stuff in the past. Now that, my friends is what traffic hell means. Holy shit, I'm glad I won't be near that place for the next month and a half. It's already like Christmas there! Obbie didn't find anything, but I scored a pair of flannel jammie pants, and a pair of chocolate colored corduroy pants.

After much milling about, we fled. At this point it occured to us we were starving, so Obbie pointed the Roach to a Mexican place across the way. As we pulled into the parking lot, I saw a sign that said "Beads and Crystals" AAIIIIGGHH! We looked for the store, but couldn't find it. So we went to the restaurant. Burritos and Cervazas all around. I hadn't had Mexican for a long time, and this was pretty good. After dinner, I asked "please could we drive that way and see if the bead store is there?" Of course we did. And found the bead store. It was small, and had nice stuff, I found some seed beads I liked, and whipped out the card again.

By this time it was getting on to be about 5:00, dark and raining. Time to go. So we pointed the Roach North, and went home. When we pulled in the driveway, I saw a shadow in the big tree beside the house. Hmmm...And as soon I got out of the car, I heard it. "Hoot, hooot hoot, HOOOOOT!" YES! The owl was back! I stood in the wind for a minute talking to him, and was rewarded with seeing him fly out of the tree into the backyard. It always makes me happy to hear the owl.

And thats it. Big day out with some money spendy too. Back to fiscal responsibility again. The next hurdle, I suppose is Thanksgiving, and whatever that may bring. Maxx the cat has an appointment to get fixed on the 22nd, and this time he's going. Having an unneutered male cat in the house is awful, and I cannot stand it anymore. Sorry, Maxx, it sucks to be you. But at least one of us is going to be Thankful come Thanksgiving Day!