Well, it WAS a grand day out.

The anticipated severe thunderstorms never materialized here; we got some rain this morning (which was good; we need it) and there were high winds (and still are).

Driving back was a little tough because of the wind. And I kind of wish I had had my camera, because in North Texas, the soil from plowed fields was just getting picked up and carried to (I guess) Louisiana or Arkansas.

As someone who is concerned about soils and soil conservation, it was kind of scary to witness. The sky - it was like driving in fog, except it was brown. You couldn't see the sun. Up here it is not so bad - we have blue skies. I do not know if it's because there are fewer plowed fields up here (and it was just a local problem in Texas) or if the wind direction is slightly different here.

Anyway. I found two new shops: one that does that candy-glazed popcorn stuff (I bought a small bag of vanilla-flavored) and also there is a new quilt shop - a small one, but it's right downtown, and it's always nice to visit another quilt shop. (It's called something like "Happiness is Quilting." (It's on North Kentucky. I would not have found it but a woman in another shop told me about it when I mentioned I was going to a quilt store down there).

So, here's the results of a Grand Day Out:



(I am not showing the quilt fabric; I think that looks more interesting worked up into a quilt.)

I'm particularly happy about finding the Louis Prima CD. One shop, she was closing out her jazz CDs at half-off and I found this one. You gotta love Louis Prima! (or at least I got to). I'm listening to it right now. I just got up and hit the "Again!" button on my CD player so I could hear "Just a Gigolo" again. Heh. I saw a documentary on him on PBS some months back, where they had old footage of people he had worked with and who had known him, and one of the things that struck me was the affection the people had for him - even though he had some problems (I think he went through three wives?), still, everyone seemed to just love him and talk about how energetic and crazy-enthusiastic he was.

The blocks are for the eventual spring-mantel-display. I have some ideas and I did buy a thing or two for it this time. But they're permanent things, that if I store them carefully, I can use them year after year. (I've pretty well decided that unless something bizarre happens - like a count from Monaco falls in love with me and wants to "take [me] away from all this," or my family's lands in Ireland are restored to us and I'm the one selected to go and manage them - I'm pretty much staying where I am now, so I'm not so worried about having to pare down any time soon.)

I also got a verbena candle and soap. Verbena is my new favorite scent. I go by seasons. Just as I find myself drawn to pale leaf green fabric this time of year, I'm drawn to verbena scent. It's kind of the pale leaf green of the scent world I think.

The "Dream" glitter-thing was really cheap (it was an after-valentine's day sale item) and it fits in with the "inspiration wall" I'm slowly working on in my bedroom - finding things I like or that mean something to me and hanging them up on the wall where I can see them, but in a place that's pretty much private to me. And I like glitter.

The red guy is a baby dragon. It's not immediately clear from looking at him. He has tiny gold lame wings and horns. I've already named him Valentino, after Rudolf of course.

You can't really see it but I also found a vintage Czech clip - I think it's Bakelite. It will eventually go on a Sitcom Chic - I have 1824 cotton (the first run of it, even) in the stash for another Sitcom Chic and I think this would make a lovely closure on it.



And of course I went to Morningstar Treasures, partly for the yarn shop. And they had green sock yarn. And even though I have many green pairs of socks, I guess I will have another one, eventually. (Besides: It's Trekking, which is my favorite "large company made" sockyarn).

I also found a bunch of books at Morningstar Treasures:



The owners had bought (apparently sight unseen) a British man's library and these were part of it. They're all by the "Reprint Society," which was apparently a small British press given to reprinting books that (I suppose) had gone out of print from their original publication.

(Incidentally - all those books there represent a total investment of $15 plus tax. I am sure I will get more than that money's worth of enjoyment out of them when I read them.)

They had almost 20 of them but I limited myself to these. Debbie (the owner) said she'd give me a price cut if I bought them all, but I decided I didn't have room. And I already had a couple of the others in other editions. But you know - I'm kind of a completist and if I had let myself, I would have happily bought all of them and THEN figured out where to put them. Because I like them. They're nice cozy-sized little books, about 8 by 5 inches (I don't know what "size" that is - like octavo or something - in the book trade). They're a little foxed but most of the older books I own I bought because I want to read them, NOT because I plan on ever selling them to make money off of them. (My heirs can do that, if people still know how to read by the time I shuffle off this mortal coil.)

The "Dinner at Antoine's" refers to the Antoine's in New Orleans. The others are set in Britain, and there are two that are retellings from Pepys' diaries. (Someday, someday, when I figure out how to stop time, I am going to sit down and read Pepys' diaries. Along with all of Shakespeare, and the Proustian oeuvre.)

The little cat (and it IS really tiny, an inch or less tall) came from one of those funky import-stuff shops that's in McKinney. (you know the kind - they smell like patchouli and the women who run them are nice but seem a little vague). They had both "lucky cats" with one paw up and "lucky cats" with two paws up. Not knowing the exact tradition, I figured two paws had to be luckier than one. (Besides, the yellow cats were my favorites).