Barney Towels

This week I convinced my boss that he could give me Friday off from accumulated overtime without the business coming to a complete standstill so I’ve been enjoying a beautiful long weekend. We took a trip across to the far distant land and had a great day of shopping and eating. We had breakfast at a truck stop on the way over and they gave us so much food that we could have easily shared one plate. We both kind of waddled back to the truck when we were done. Thankfully we had an hour or so to digest on the drive in before the serious work of shopping began.


We started off at the building centre where Hubby went hunting for a finial for the top of the king-post in the gazebo. He hadn’t been able to find one of the right size at home but he came up with the perfect one right away, so he was happy. Then it was off to Costco where I got some new t-shirts for myself and a few other things. After that we went to Homesense where I bought some new towels in a bright purple colour. The salesclerk who was ringing in the purchase said something about the colour looking like Barney the dinosaur and Hubby quipped back that he would never be able to look at the towels again without thinking about what she had said. The poor girl, she took him seriously and got all worried that she had insulted us. We spent 5 minutes trying to convince her that he had been joking with her but I’m not sure she believed us. Anyway, my new towels are much more “aubergine” than “Barney”.




After that I went to the Value Village while Hubby toured around the Future shop. I got myself a great pair of denim shorts but he came back empty-handed. Princess Auto and the pawn shop were next but there was nothing we wanted there. So it was off to the big mall where we sped around all 130+ stores in about half an hour. The only reason that I was in there any longer was that Hubby convinced me that I should take the opportunity to get my hair cut. Mastercuts had an opening so I took it and $50 and 20 minutes later I had a new ‘do. On my way out of the mall I bought a new quilted wall hanging to replace the snowman one that has been on the wall in the family room for the last 8 months and then went to collect Hubby from Chapters where he had been waiting out the make-over.


At that point it was time for supper at my favourite Chinese restaurant where we had our favourite dinner; the Schezuan Combo. Mmmm... My mouth is watering just remembering; I didn’t slobber on your monitor just now, did I? At the end of supper, as I was reading my fortune cookie message which said that I should be open to new ideas, Hubby said that he would like us to go to the new casino before going home. Well, what could I say but okay. We agreed that we would spend up to $20 and then quit. We actually spent $25 but we had a great time buzzing from one machine to another and we were there for over an hour and a half. We both agreed that that was enough and if we were to stay any longer it would likely become boring. It was fun while we were there, though!

On Saturday, Hubby worked away most of the day on the gazebo. He spent hours redesigning the secondary roof because he thought the first design looked too much like a space ship had landed on top. I’m glad too because I was thinking this all along but I didn’t want to hurt his feelings by saying so. I spent my day going from nursery to nursery looking for some last minute bargains to fill out the few bare spots left in the veggie garden. I’m glad I went too because I found some awesome yard sales that I didn’t know were on. I got a great old enamelware pot for cooking mussels or clams that will double as a witch’s cauldron at Halowe’en, some beach glass earrings and a few other baubles. I had to go around one place three times before I was sure I had seen it all! Did I mention that I love yard sales? We had BBQ’d hamburgers and fresh beets and carrots for supper. The garden is doing great this year and this may be the earliest we have ever harvested beets. They were very tasty and I had a big helping of greens to go with them. The tomatoes, cucumbers and the gourds are doing great, too as you can see in the pictures. We ended the day with a huge fire in my outdoor fireplace and toasted up a few marshmallows before going inside.







On Sunday we declared a moratorium on the usual housework because it was going be just a scorching day. Hubby cut the grass while the temperature was still relatively cool and I made a nice lunch and did a bit of laundry and then it was off to the beach! It was a perfect day at the shore; the water was warm and clear (although there were a few too many jelly fish) and we found a nice secluded section of sand to lie out under the umbrella. Hubby got to swim on and off all afternoon and he even convinced me to wade in a couple of times. Of course, as soon as I got in up to my waist I noticed two crabs edging over on the sandy bottom to get my toes so my swim only lasted a few minutes. It was refreshing while I was in there though. Dinner was BBQ’d spareribs with more of those beets and carrots. The weekend finished up with a glass of wine out on the front porch looking at the moon and stars.
I can see more long weekends coming up soon.