Pattern Winner and the Honey Pot Excursion

I didn't mention in yesterday's post because it didn't quite fit in with my subject for the day--my son's (not so) tidy habits, but yesterday morning I called in to the office and told them I was taking a mental health day. So, instead of heading off to work, I spent a nice day just puttering around.

In the morning, I got dressed, more or less as usual, and headed out to two thrift stores, both Goodwill. Of course, I found a few good things. I was chatting with Lorraine (Granny Loz) today and found out she collects honey pots, so I thought I'd show you (and her!) a photo of one I found while I was engaged in recovering my sanity--I thought its goldenrod yellow glaze would look great in the kitchen hutch for fall:

Can you see the little lady bug that found its way into the Sweat Shop? I thought I'd capture her in the photo. I've since taken her out to the patio and set her free to eat all the bad bugs in the garden--or at least all the aphids.

You may have heard about all the fires in California. Although none of the fires are very close to us in Sacramento, we ARE getting quite a lot of the smoke, and its been settling in our valley, making our air quality horrible! That's what I was driving around in yesterday, so I didn't stay out too long. The best thing I found at Goodwill, though, was a new quilt shop! Actually, it was right next door to the Goodwill store. It sure looked cute but unfortunately their grand opening was TODAY, I think--darn! I guess I took the wrong day off! As I plastered my nose up against the glass, I could see several women working, filling the shelves with fabric in preparation for the opening. I may just need to go back on Saturday and get some photos to share with you!

I got home from my shopping trip just before the Wild Child and her boyfriend stopped in on their way back home from surfing, so we had a nice but short visit. After they got back on the road, I spent the rest of the day cleaning house and rearranging "stuff." Seriously, if you had suggested that I might take a day off work to clean house, I would have laughed and said you were nuts, but that's what I did, and I enjoyed it! Which only goes to show you how much I needed a mental health day, right?! Still, not only does it mean that I'll get more play time this weekend instead of cleaning, but I can come home to a nice, clean house after work this week, which is guaranteed to make me happier. Mindful, of course, of the old "all work and no play" axiom, I DID take a few breaks to do a little reading, so it wasn't all hard work. Sadly, though, there was no quilting done--hard to believe!

And speaking of quilting, I bet you're all wondering who won the Hat Trick quilt pattern, right? I had 36 entries, so when the Boy Child came home from coaching his girls' soccer practice, I asked him to pick a number between 1 and 36--and he picked 15: Tracey in CT! Congratulations, Tracey! Please email me your snail mail address and I'll get the pattern in the mail to you this week.

Thank you all for entering the pattern giveaway--sorry you all couldn't win, but I'll have more giveaways in the future. In fact, a friend of mine just sent me another Schnibbles pattern--I'm sure I'll show you that pattern soon. I'm glad you could stop in and visit!