I’ve been up since 6am, and I haven’t felt this relaxed in WEEKS!
Joseph and I spent yesterday out finishing Christmas shopping and errand running. I can say that I am officially done buying gifts and I’m just waiting for the last couple to come in from Amazon so I can wrap them. Joe was able to take a couple of paychecks of his, cash them, and actually buy gifts himself – with money HE EARNED – this year. I think he did a really good job.
We left the house around 10:30 and started off by going to the golf pro shop in the neighborhood so that Joe could pick up his last couple of paychecks. That sounds like it would be a lot of money, but each check is for one day of work, so they total around $40 each. He already had one check, and all together, he had about $120 to spend. From there, we headed to the bank so that he could get his checks cashed. Then, we headed to the post office for flat rate boxes (clothes to send to the sister!) and stamps so I can pay bills.
Now we were on the fun part of the trip. And by fun, I mean filled with the potential to frustrate and infuriate. We headed into Baytown to the new Academy that just opened. I wanted to get my Dad’s Christmas gift from there. I don’t go to Academy very often, but after this trip, things may change. We always have a hard time finding jeans for Joseph. Wrangler just doesn’t work for him, but Levi does. Target sells Levi’s, but they don’t carry much stock. In Academy, we walked up to several WALLS of jeans from several manufacturers, one of them Levi’s. It was a beautiful sight, I’ll tell you! I got what I wanted for my dad (jeans and a button-up shirt), and Joe found the first of the gifts he wanted to buy as well – a hat for his grandfather. This visit to Academy ALONE made the drive into Baytown worth it!
Next, we headed to Target. After finding such a perfect gift for his grandfather, Joseph was that much more excited to find something as perfect for his grandmother. We came up with the idea to get her something for her crochet projects – but NOT yarn. I also needed to get some sweatpants for Rick, and it was nice to just browse for a bit. Joe not only needed a gift for his grandmother, but he also wanted to get something for me and his dad, but no luck. I managed to find a marker organizer that will magnetically hang from my white board at work, a lint roller since the old one we had was used up, and two more pairs of Christmas socks – one for me WITH TOES!!! and one for Joe. I’m going to need a dresser drawer just for specialty socks soon.
By this point, it was after 1pm, and I was feeling hungry, so we headed to my favorite Baytown Chinese restaurant – Wok De’Light in old Baytown. It’s a little hole-in-the-wall ghetto place in a really poor section of town, but they they have the BEST Chinese! So, we lunched (egg rolls, house lo-mein, sweet & sour chicken), we chatted, and we came up with a game plan for getting the rest of our shopping done. I also gave Joe some ideas for what he could be looking for in the way of gifts for me and his dad.
Satisfied, we headed back up the road to Hobby Lobby where we found a great gift for my mother: a crochet/knitting needle organizer. She crochets like crazy and has all her hooks loose in the bottom of her yarn holder-thingy. This will give her a place to store them all! Perfection! Then we headed across the street to Best Buy so Joe could get his girlfriend her gifts (gift cards to Best Buy and to iTunes). He still hadn’t been able to find anything that he was willing to spend his money on for me or Rick, and I had some household things to get, so we made our last stop Wal-Mart.
Wal-Mart was a madhouse. The employees were perfectly nice and helpful, but the shoppers. Oy vey! People are CLUELESS how to act in public! I needed shower/body care supplies and a couple of cleaners, plus I had some thank you cards I wanted to pick up, so I had to visit every end of the store. I just gave Joe the car keys and said, “Go shop.” Reportedly, he was able to find something for both me and his dad, so all is well. And he remembered to buy a greeting card to put the girlfriend’s gift cards into. I stood in line for two hours (at least it felt that way) behind a man in a wheelchair who felt the need to have the cashier re-bag EVERY SINGLE ITEM he bought. He came back TWICE while she was helping me to have her re-bag something that still did not meet whatever requirements he had. Sir, your wheelchair does not give you the excuse to act like a total douche-canoe to other people. Just sayin’.
Anyway, we finished up there and headed home. I wrapped gifts and packed two boxes to ship to my sister in Maine, took cold meds, and went to bed. It was a good day!
