Valentine's Day Eve

This is really funny. I can remember my mom complaining because mom said that my grandma always talked about how busy she was and she didn't seem to do anything. Mom was a teacher, had the two of us kids and we were probably in middle or high school at the time so we probably did keep mom hopping. Now, I get ready to write this post and I'm probably about the age my grandma was at that time - and I'm thinking about how busy I was today. I felt like we didn't stop but then when I go to write what we did . . we weren't THAT busy.  :)

But, here's my "diary" entry for today.

Vince had told me earlier in the week that he wanted to take me out for Valentine's Day but he didn't want to go to Joplin on a Saturday. He said we could go anywhere I wanted to go. So, I said I wanted to go to Louisiana and eat crawfish. Nope, that was a bit too far.  :)  There aren't that many places in town that I like that he likes so I suggested Magic Noodle. I guess you would call it a Thai type place but I'm not even sure. There's a Mexican restaurant in town, very authentic, very nice people, that I went to with Jeremy and Angie before Vince moved here (2020) and I love it. Sometimes when Vince is gone, I'll go there and eat. Vince and I did go there once and I thought he said he didn't like it. But today he tells me that's not true. We were passing there on our way home and he said "We never go there". I said "I love that place but thought you didn't like it." Nope, he loves it too. OK . . Haven't been in 5 years but maybe we'll go there sometime.

I'm kinda getting out of order here . . Vince wanted to go to Michael's and get something and he had a 40% off coupon. It was on the app so I had it too but I only bought stuff that was already on sale. They had quite a bit of Christmas stuff for 70 or 75% off! I got some ribbon, a velvety feeling reindeer and a shaggy red 8 or 10" Christmas tree. I got a little fake green Christmas tree - about 8".  Mostly it was things I could put with my Christmas cross stitched small pillows.

Then Vince wanted new coffee cups so he went to T. J. Maxx, didn't find them there; went to Target and found a couple there. I didn't get anything at either place. In fact, I stayed in the car at Target.

Then we went to eat. Magic Noodle used to be my favorite place but the last few times, it wasn't so great and I doubt we go back. It wasn't horrible but it wasn't great.

From there, we went to Walmart. Vince needed something. I stayed in the car again. My knee is fairly ok but definitely not perfect. I try to stay off it as much as I can so I don't ever mind staying in the car while he goes in and shops. From Walmart, we went home. Said we weren't leaving again probably til Tuesday. Yay!

A while back, on the old blog no doubt, I had mentioned that I was folding linen and wrapping it around comic book board and securing the linen with alligator clips. I use the 2.2" clear ones with teeth. Then I stand the linen up, kinda on its side standing up so when I open the bins, I'm looking down at the folded edge and I can see exactly which linen is what color. These are the bins I've been using. They're Hefty 40 quart Hi-Rise. When we bought the first ones, we got them from Lowe's but Walmart has them marked down now so, for six, it was about $30 less from Walmart.

Before using these, I had my linen stacked in Rubbermaid totes and it took a lot of digging to get to the linen in the bottom of the tote. I love the Hi-Rise totes. It's so easy to find the color of linen I need. I still have several totes that have linen so I'm going to get it all in these Hi-Rise bins.

So . . back to what we did today . . the totes are heavy when loaded. I can pick them up but I had stacked them three high so if I needed the bottom one, I had to move two, then lift the bottom one up onto a table to get to a bottom tote.

A couple of days ago, I asked Vince about ordering another wire shelf unit. In my current sewing room, the lighting is not good. The corner in the back is way dark. Vince has said he'll have lights added but we aren't staying here. I don't know when we'll actually do it but I don't want to spend the money having more lights added. The room/lighting is fine for what most people would want. I could get a floor lamp of some kind and be fine. There was nothing in that corner and I had planned to move the sewing room recliner into that corner, put a magnifying light there and I could sit in there and cross stitch if Vince wanted to watch something on TV that I didn't want to watch. Then I realized almost every wall in that room has shelving units against them and the bottom shelves would be so much fun for the dogs to grab things to destroy. I would never to have the dogs in there and they would not be quiet if I stayed in there and they were not with me. That got me to thinking . . what could I do with that corner to maximize storage.

I had measured and knew I could fit a 60" long, 48" deep shelf unit in the corner. Vince had two he had ordered and had not used so he said I could have one of those. 

When we got back from eating lunch out, we started putting the shelf together. We had the bottom shelf on and Nicole called. She had been to town today and went by Crumbl Cookie to get cookies for Addie for Valentine's Day. They had a Dubai Chocolate Strawberry Brownie today but when Nicole got here, they were sold out. When Nicole told Addie that they had been out of the Dubai Chocolate Brownie, Addie looked online and they had them listed again so Nicole wanted me to run to Crumble, get the brownies and she will come here tomorrow to get them. We stopped putting the shelves together, went back to Joplin, got them, came home and finished putting the shelf together. 

There's a start! I will be able to get 6 of the linen tubs on each of the third, fourth and fifth shelves. I won't need that many tubs for linen. I probably will need three or four more tubs for the linen but I can store other things in those Hi-Rise tubs. They stack so nicely and six per shelf is a perfect fit. That will give me the second shelf and the top shelf for things. Now I have sewing machines stacked on the top shelf and still have four more to get up there but I was running out of steam. 

Lots of work left before I get that sewing room organized but I'm making progress!