Shopped 'Til I Dropped

Over the last two days, I shopped until I dropped . . . not only physically, but I also I dropped a lot of money in several stores along the way!

I hate shopping, most of the time.  Over the weekend, as I was getting the kitchen decorated for Christmas, I realized we were missing a few things.  There are, I think, four things I change out in the kitchen depending on the seasonal color scheme:  A utensil holder, a dish towel peg rack, the kitchen chair cushions, and the throw rug.  For winter and summer, all of those things are RED.  For spring and fall, they aren't--I use a beige crock to hold utensils, a green dish towel peg rack, beige chair cushions, and a mostly blue rug.

The first thing I couldn't find was our scrolly red-painted metal utensil holder.  Upon close questioning (there might have been a little gentle torture too), Hubby confessed he may have stuffed it into a random box without thinking about why it was sitting out on a shelf.  So it will turn up someday, but with all of the Christmas boxes filling what garage space wasn't already taken up with boxes of books waiting to be picked up by the Wild Child, we have so many boxes that it's hard to get to all the OTHER boxes that might hold the scrolly red metal utensil holder.  So it probably won't be found soon.

The big thing, though, is that we can't find the red throw rug.  Where could a red throw rug have gone?  It was too large to go into a box; Hubby usually keeps it rolled up and stored in the garage wherever it will fit nicely, but there's nothing out there that looks like a rolled up rug.  And when rugs go rogue (i.e., when the rubberized backings start to molt or the fabrics fade or look ratty for one reason or another), we cycle them onto the garage floor, so Hubby's feet are warmer when he's out there creating pot people or other creatures.  But there was no red throw rug on the garage floor.  Hubby thought maybe the weaving started to come apart and we had to throw it out . . . but neither of us truly remembers that happening, and you'd think we'd remember since it would have happened in late September when I got out the Halloween/fall decorations.  So, for whatever reason, the rug's gone AWOL, and I needed a new one.

You know how it is when you go shopping for something specific, right?  Of course, you never can find it--not easily anyway.  Monday's lunch hour was spent at Marshall's.  Monday was also the day Hubby detoured to the Walmart rug department when he was there looking for outdoor Christmas lights.  Tuesday's lunch hour was spent at Target (aka the $100 Dollar Store).  After a late dinner on Tuesday night, a trip to Kohl's seemed like a good idea.  (They were open until midnight, and at 11-something p.m., I think I was the only customer in the store!)  I finally found an extremely similar replacement throw rug at Kohl's--hurrah!  But along the way, with all that shopping, I found a lot of other things I didn't even really know I needed.  I hate that.  And I love that too.

I have a few gift exchanges coming up and several other things I needed to shop for, so now I've done that at least; now I can stay out of the stores until I think of something else I need to shop for.  Which will probably be on Thursday or Friday, the way the season's going so far.  Happy shopping!