February 23, 2019 – Times flies by when it rains

         I have no idea how many days it has rained since September, but I would say it is close to 80% and I glance out in the large fields as I travel around the county running errands and shopping looking for half built Arks. Yesterday’s newspaper said we received 4.5 inches of rain in the last week.

         Of course with all this rain I am behind schedule on my updating a few rooms, but then, when you are retired – do you really have a dead line that can’t be extended?

         I prefer to work when I have natural light – sunshine streaming in.  I want to take items out to the shed that don’t seem to have a home at the moment in this house that I need to re-think – keep, toss, or donate.  I’m not ready to think that hard and want to just stack them up and decide on their fate on a warm summer day with the sun streaming into the shed, with the car trunk open waiting for items to be tossed in with abandon. 

         BUT, it is so wet and muddy, it is slippery walking to and from the shed and I am sick of cleaning up the muddy floors time and again.

         But, I can list the successes I’ve had in the last 60 rainy days:

         I got my butter colored paint on the walls, the new floor in the formal living room and hall, the fresh new baseboards installed, painted and caulked, my bookcases put together and put in place and re-stocked with books. When the sun shines – that rooms just “smiles” at me with brightness.

         On the list of things to do this year was to swap two vehicles and get a newer truck.  Mission accomplished; now I have an automatic truck that I can drive instead of waiting around for my husband to drive the old standard truck. 

        

         I haven’t been able to drive a standard for the last 15 or so years and it has put a damper on my “go get something” that required the truck.  Now, even when my husband is in the middle of mowing the lawn and I think I need mulch or bricks or something ‘right now’ . . . I can hop in the truck and get it myself.

         I am much more impatient than I used to be these days – I think that comes with retirement.  But, then, I’ve never been the hurry-up-and-wait type person.

         Sitting in traffic yesterday on my way to turning in a vehicle plate, I happened to notice a sale announced on a community sign.  I rarely look at that sign, but the word COZY simply jumped out at me from eight cars stopped at the light in front of me. Where is all this traffic coming from in the pouring rain I wonder, and I notice Cozy winter clearance sale, Bamboo Sheets, 181 Duke Street.

         I have no clue where 181 Duke Street is, yet it does sound familiar.  I didn’t want to back track to my house for a map and then I started to think, as in think-outside-the-box.  Maybe if I ask someone at the tag place, she would pull her smart phone out of her back pocket and look brilliant.

         DAH! I now have a smart phone and I have a map application and it worked perfect down at Nag’s Head, why not use it here and be brilliant all by myself?  TA DAH – that was simple . . . key in the address and up pops a map with a red balloon and it shows me the landmarks. The place is just 9/10th of a mile from here - that is doable.

         Yes, Smart Phones are Smart and it makes the users life easier.  I no longer think they are a waste of money, I’ve been won over – only took a year or so.

         After returning the license plate, then returning a wood stain that was the wrong the shade and replacing it with another shade at Lowe’s, I stopped for one bag of groceries.  Next, I slipped into the discount store to pick up a couple gallons of water for future power outages [future blog about that].  Then, I turned my attention to finding my way to 181 Duke Street not even knowing what kind of store or outlet it was other than it had Bamboo Sheets and I was in the market for new bed sheets and towels.

         By the amount of vehicles jockeying into the parking lot and the many women trooping into the building, it gave me the impression – this was an actual sale, the type of SALE that's advertised in capital letters.

         Towels, sheets, pillows, mattress covers, comforters, blankets, a sundry of items that an old-fashioned “white sale” at a large department store would display. I was delighted shopping in a rough factory building with poor lighting and little heat. $5 for a set of 200-count Full sheets? $20 for a set of Bamboo Sheets.  Gel bed pillows for $8.

         Rarely do I have shopping prowess like this so I pulled out my Smart phone again and advised my friend, the one who is the shopping-sleuth bargain hunter of all time, of my find and she advised me that the towels were wonderful as she had been there at a previous sale.

         That was all I needed . . . confirmation that the towels would be wonderful.  I filled up my shopping cart and checked out.  WOW – major savings – and I found hotel quality FLAT sheets that I can now TUCK in instead of breaking my fingernails with those too-tight fitted bottom sheets.

         Best part, I didn’t need a coupon and I didn’t have to drive out of the county.  That was my type of shopping – saving money and saving time.

I hope your rainy days have been as productive!