AS RANDOM AS RANDOM CAN GET

I am sick as a dog but I wanted to get a post in because the days are only going to get busier now that I've lain in bed for days.  I'm sure Abby brought it home from school, a hacking cough and head pain, then The Husband got it.  I didn't think I would catch it as my hands are always in some sort of soap or disinfectant pretty consistently throughout the day (one of the perks of my job).  Friday I was out enjoying my new found freedom of having a car again, now that the weather is (was) cooperating and I started to feel it coming on.  So, I'm living on tea and honey and if I had the energy, I'd go out and get a good chunk of ginger to grate in this.  Don't you love this mug?  Son Kevin brought it home from Ireland for me last year,  Inside it says, "Wooley Jumpers"  Ha!

By Sunday I didn't bother to get out of bed.  Fever and chills, hot and cold.  Head filled and aching, chest gurgling and burning.  Okay...I'm getting gross.  I tried to read but the pressure in my head made my eyes hurt.  I slept a lot with my warm little companion on top of me.  Aren't pets great?

Friday, before I fell ill, it was 65 degrees and sunny.  I was walking on air.  First I headed to Target to exchange a few things.  I had bought The Husband some nice lightweight athletic pants.  After his two surgeries, he took to wearing his pajama bottoms and a T shirts around the house a lot.  And now when he comes home from work, he changes from the suave guy in the nice suit to...I don't know, a stranger in pajama pants and a two day old T shirt.  I also found a nice pair of khaki cargo shorts and a light cobalt blue button down shirt with the sleeves stylishly rolled up and I thought he would look fantastic in it.  Got it home and he's barely looked at it.  He's stubborn like that.  "I like my Tommy Bahama shirts."  he said.  "But you're living in the 90's"  I pleaded.  "I liked the 90's"  End of conversation.  So there I was, retuning these fashionable clothes, but I consoled myself by taking a nice leisurely stroll around the store and spending my credit on whatever pleased me.  A new book, a pedometer to track the 10,000 steps I will never take in a day, a straw hat for vacation, and a new purse.  I was very pleased with myself.

Have I ever shown you how different our Target is.  You know, in the city, everything is built up up up.  Space is a commodity.  So is parking so we have underground parking and you take an escalator up to the store.  Now this may make you wonder, well, how do you bring your cart and purchases back down?

Easy.  There is an escalator just for carts that rides right alongside you as you can see from the picture I snapped.  Yep, that's my cart.  Going a little quicker than me I'd say.

And then there it is for you at the bottom.  Genius!  I thought you might like this.  Or not.

I've been on a quest to find the perfect grocery store since January.  The major chain in the Chicago area that I shopped at for 28 straight years closed 

shop and left loyal shoppers (and employees) scrambling.  So I have been going from store to store for weeks; Mom and Pop stores, Big Box stores, and one other chain.  None were as nice as the one I loved.  It had a little Starbucks in it, a wonderful bakery, really nice employees that were familiar with me and the kids (from when they were little!!).  I was really sad!

So I finally settled on this market.  I've been in it before just to pick up a few things but I thought it was expensive.  Much of the inventory is cultural and I can't read the labels.  But they have the best produce department, meats and bakery.

 

It's a fun sort of place and the people are very nice.  A little small but okay.  I'm just mourning the old store.

Look at that cheese display.  And they make many, many delicious take home meals; wraps, enchiladas, fancy salads.  They marinate meats so they're ready to pop on the grill.  They have some different cuts of meat that I have to get used to.  And I have figured out that chicken is pollo.  And it turned out that my bill was smaller than any of the previous stores I'd been to.  So I'm pretty happy.

And while I talk about my fun Friday, whizzing to and fro in my very own car, I promised some of you a picture of the precious roadster that sits in the warm garage all winter.  After The Husband rightfully returned my keys  back to me, I proceeded to clean out the candy wrappers, empty water bottles and old newspapers.  He in turn took his little rodent of a car for a wash and wax.  Something's not quite right about that scenario.  And you know what?  We had snow yesterday, yes, in April, and he was back in my car with Precious in the garage.  Thankfully I was too sick to care.

  

But he made it all up to me.  He stopped off at Costco for his weekly supply of pies, cakes and cookies and he brought this home to me.  It's a whole bag of plants, 65 of them!!  Purple Coneflowers, Liatris and Kniphofia (which I'm not familiar with). I almost cried!  It was so thoughtful!  He knows the way to my heart.  I haven't been able to plant seeds of any kind but these can go right in the ground (after the snow melts). Wow, isn't he sweet?  All was forgiven about the car. :)

These arrived in the mail from Amazon.  I was perusing my bookshelves and I felt that my little collection of gardening books was a bit outdated (if that's possible).  And I wanted to celebrate my renewed spirit of getting back into the gardening so I treated myself to these.  I can't wait to sit down with them.  I have a diagram of all the perennials I planted last fall, thank goodness because right off the top of my head I can't remember, so I'm going to read up on those and highlight them.  The Internet is wonderful, but nothing beats books like these.

And in a bit of a different direction, if any of you ladies follow Susan at Between Naps On The Porch, she has a weekly feature of taking you into her library to have a look at a particular book she loves, most of them decorating.  She wrote about this one a few weeks ago and I promptly found it and it arrived with the gardening books.  

I would say I am more of a neutral decorator and that is more of what this book is about although the title doesn't imply that.

I love this living room.  It's interesting but not cluttered, it's classic but has some modern elements.  It seems to be made up of pieces the homeowner loves, not what fits.  And it stays pretty neutral with just the pops of yellow in the flowers and orange in the pillow.

And these bedrooms.  Can you say dreamy?   When my living room started to look too neutral, I asked a really great designer/blogger what I could do without messing around with bringing in a color (and what color?).  She advised me to bring in textures and a variety of tones in neutrals.  I think these rooms are perfect examples.

End of my decorating lecture.  I have no expertise or credentials whatsoever as you all know.  I wonder where this post would have gone if I had added a shot of whiskey to my lemon/honey tea as my dear daughter suggested.  

So lastly, and I'll try to keep it brief.  Remember me ordering these napkins from Pottery Barn?  A few days later I caved and decided to order the matching dessert plates.  And they were unavailable.  Just days after the catalog arrived.  I kept checking the website and they just disappeared.  A trip to a PB store didn't change anything.  Friday night I happened to check out the website just to see what was new and a little survey popped up with a section for comments so I took advantage of that to tell them about my disappointment with what happened, basically having 3 sets of napkins and no matching dishes.  

I was really pleasantly surprised to receive an email the next day from Judy, a representative of Pottery Barn.  She wrote to me directly regarding my problem and gave me a viable explanation as to how they estimate what to keep in inventory, etc., and then how sorry they were that this occurred.  Since it was not possible for me to return the napkins since it had been 30 days, she offered me a merchandise card of equal value to use at the store.  I thought that was wonderful!  And I told her she had me looking at Pottery Barn in a whole new light.  I also said I was going to rave about this on my blog and I gave her my link.  She said they loved when bloggers shared what they (PB)offer on their website.  So thank you, Judy.  Now doesn't that make you want to run out to the nearest Pottery Barn (outlet??).

Thank you all for reading this far if you have.  I now have to get a good night's sleep and get out tomorrow with my shopping list and hunt down a ham for a crowd.  Thankfully I got this bug this weekend and not next.

I wish all of you a happy and blessed Easter.   Enjoy what will hopefully be a beautiful spring day with the ones you love.  :)

XO,

Jane