A Sale and a Tam-O-Shanter

I'm not sure if everyone has heard but one of the major bookstores here in the U.S. has filed for bankruptcy and is closing 200 of its many stores throughout the country. I got an email this morning, telling me that the store in Springfield (the nearest big city to us) is closing and that everything in the store, with few exceptions, is on sale at a nice discount. Since I recieved a gift card from them at Christmas and hadn't used it yet, I thought I'd drive into town and see if I could find anything to spend it on. I asked John if he'd like to come with me - the idea was that he could go to the Man Store and I could go to the bookstore and then we could have a nice lunch out. Firstly, it's a good thing he was planning on dropping me off and then driving across the street to the Man Store (Lowe's) - there was not one single parking place in the area of the bookstore. I told him that I knew exactly what I wanted and that he should hurry at his errand and come pick me up. And off we went in our two directions. Immediately upon entering the store, I realized that I shoudl call him and let him off the hook for hurrying. I went thru the store and picked up everything I wanted, then got in line and called him. Here is a bit of the conversation:

Me: Hi, Honey...just wanted to tell you that I'm in line. You probably ought to take your time coming to get me...I think there's probably an hour and a half till I get to the register.
John: Are you serious? I can take my time at the Man Store?
Me: Yeah, I'll call you if I get done any faster.

I was standing at the very back of the store, at the back of the line, looking toward the entrance. You can see from the picture that there were literally hundreds of people in front of me - IN LINE! I think it probably took about an hour to get to the serpentine part of the line at the front near the registers. I called John almost exactly an hour later and told him I was 5 people from the front of the line and he might want to consider starting to drive over to get me. He was actually arriving at the store as we spoke. We then went to a lovely restaurant and had lunch at 2:30 in the afternoon. We both deserved it!

On a cheerier note, I've been knitting on a year-long Knit-a-long project since the beginning of January. The finished project will be a hooded celtic cape, telling the story of an Irish girl and her country. Along with the monthly distributions of the next parts of the cape, the designer has included accessories - socks, mittens, gauntlets, hat, shawl, elbow-length gloves, and a tam. I've never knit a tam before and decided to try one. I love this tam!

The pattern is really easy and intuitive....a lovely knit!

You know, they say that some folks have heads made for hats and some don't. I honestly don't know if I have a head made for hats but I really like this hat.

Thanks to my Mr. Wonderful for the photos....

And thanks to you for stopping by.