A Starbucks Kind of Day

AAA finally came yesterday, loaded up the van, and drove off at 10:45 a.m., which meant I managed to get on the road to run my errands around 11 a.m., two hours late, as the thermometer was somewhere in the high 80s and climbing. I picked up the mailbox keys and then headed to the nearest Starbucks for a small attitude adjustment. Refreshment and liquid energy in hand, I hopped back in the car and headed to one of our quilt shops in the area, Stitching Station.

Yes, I found a few things I couldn't leave the store without. I know many of you have been eyeing and buying fabric from the Holly Jolly line, and since I couldn't let all of you get ahead of me, I splurged on a jelly roll and a charm pack as well as a fat quarter from another line. I really like the print in that fat quarter and it looked nice with the Holly Jolly fabrics, so I thought I'd get it. Do I know what I'll do with these? Nope! I have visions of the braid quilts that Sharon has been making as well as an idea for a log cabin top, but whether I'll finally settle on either of the projects is a mystery right now since I have a lot of other projects to work on this weekend. I suspect I'll need to get a bit more of this fabric depending on what I finally decide, but at least this is a start!

When I wandered over to the pattern section in the store, it was quite a treat to see patterns by bloggers I "know." I couldn't pass up Elizabeth/Late Bloomer's cute Halloween applique pattern, although I can't imagine finding the time to get to it this year. But you never know! It was just too cute to not buy! And although I didn't buy any of her patterns, I saw several of Little Miss Primitives' patterns for her Raggedy Old Annie dolls. Cute patterns, but I have to keep stopping myself from wandering into other crafty areas for right now--I have too many quilt projects in progress and it's waaay too easy to get distracted! These are two fairly new designers whose patterns I haven't seen very often in shops, so it's fun to see them getting more exposure.

After the quilt shop, I stopped at Blockbuster for some DVDs to watch while I work on some applique in the next few days. I somehow managed to come home with SIX! I really was only going to rent four, but when I went to the register, I was told I could get two free older movies, so I picked up the second and third Harry Potter movies. I think I'm probably one of the last people on the planet who hasn't been totally immersed in Harry Potter, but believe it or not, I've only seen the first movie and I haven't read any of the books. So now I have plenty of DVDs to entertain me while I do hand work.

After that, the grocery store, which took a long time and cost a lot of money, but I rewarded myself with yet another Starbucks iced latte. If not for me, I'm sure Starbucks would go under. Oddly enough, I was flipping through channels last night and saw that Biography had a story on Starbucks, so I watched that. For some, it's Harry Potter; for me, it's Starbucks! I'm a total groupie! I told my husband, by the way, that after the fiasco with the van and having started the whole thing with the darn mailbox keys, he owes me 27 Starbucks iced lattes. I sure hope he remembers that on his way home from work tonight.

Driving home from the grocery store at 2 p.m., the temperature was about 100 degrees and I thought I just might die until the A/C finally kicked on a couple blocks from home. Then I had all the groceries to put away, and after that, a little nap was in order. One thing led to another, and by the time I finally made it into the Sweat Shop, it was 9:30 p.m. The first day of vacation that wasn't! I hope to do better today--maybe I'll have something to show you all tomorrow.