I can sympathize with your driving dilemma. :) I have done that myself and have GPS. Sometimes I think I can figure it out myself. Sometimes it works, and sometimes I have to use the GPS. I don't mind if I don't have any time constraints and I have seen some pretty areas that I wouldn't have otherwise.

Your salad and tea break sounds so nice. It is nice to treat yourself like that!

I have only been in one car with GPS so not good on how it works but after being in the one car/vacation rental, I WANT a GPS and plan on getting one when budget allows.

Eld you always find such lovely sounding places to eat. Your own Teapot. Very cool/hot.

I can not find the butt firsts thread so will post my hysterical butt firsts already today. A day that WAS going to be my rest day turned into a butt first day. Friend told me about Capitol One bank card with 1.5% cash back on purchases. OH YEA baby I snapped that one up right away and card is in the mail. I will ditch another card that gives half way useless points only on certain purchases only. Pooh on that. But first I started to remove items from the top of my mosaic storage cabinet so I can work on setting up my Nativity. First time in years. Maybe 8 years to do any Christmas decor at all. So while I am waiting forever on phone to apply for the card I put phone head set on and work on fluffing the garland I plan to use in Nativity decor. Then I moved onto fluffing the little silver Christmas tree I picked up yesterday. Silver tree is really cute now it is fluffed.

Now this is where another butt first some how happens and I do not even know HOW I got from fluffing silver tree to cleaning the pantry??? Can we say Squirrel ??? I think I went to toss some thing off the silver tree into the trash and suddenly I am cleaning the pantry. OK so all of that got done and the dishes in the sink and finally the cabinet top cleared off and dusted. I am still working on the coffee pot. Soon to be tea. Then setting up Nativity finally. I am going to try to stay focused.

I'm thinking of the saying about "seeing something shiny". LOL

I got a lot done today - for me. I got myself going on boxing up the hurricane jar thingies I am sending to my brother. He helped me so much over Labor Day and he liked the ones I have, so I bought him 5 of them and got the flameless candles to go in them. So I had to go to Staples and get bubblewrap and while I was there I remembered I could use some color file folders. I haven't bought any of them in probably 20 years, so it was sticker shot to see they wanted $9.49 for 24 folders! But they will last me at the very least for the next 2 years.

Very near Staples is a Hobby Lobby so I went in search of some garland to put on my front porch railings. I didn't find anything I liked and decided what I already have will do. I'm thinking I will go old fashion and not use any electric lights. Just garland with ornaments and bows and I found a neat piece to use where a wreath would go. I found a couple of other cute Christmas decorations, so I bought those.

Then on the way home, I stopped at Kroger and got a whole chicken (in the oven now) and some cat food for Rocket. Also some ham that I had a little of with a slice of swiss cheese for lunch.

Then I proceeded to wrap the hurricane lamps and box them up and take them down to the post office. I didn't even have to wait in line! I walked right in, and got them taken care of and my brother should get them on Monday!! What a great country we live in!! :) I got a couple of bills paid too and put them in the mail box while I was at the post office.

Now I could use a nap.

As soon as it gets dark -4:30 these days- I start thinking about bedtime. And then about 8:00 I get a hot genealogy lead or one of my "cousins" emails with a new find or a question and next thing I know it's 10:20.

I think your "but first" might be on the Tuesday tea thread I started.

LOL It does seem like the day is over the minute the sun goes down now that it is getting colder. But that is around 5:30-6:00 here. I spent today with my favorite niece. We went to the Crepe Cafe in Covington, KY across the river from us. It was a very small place, just 4 tables and one Bulgarian woman making the crepes. She was such a nice woman and we enjoyed our crepes very much. Then we went into a little shopping district in Covington and went in a few stores. One was a nice shop that had goods made by women in India. It's one of those fair trade stores. I got a few little things there. One is a little cloth elephant ornament. It's made from saris material and very cute. On the way home we stopped at an estate sale where I came across a fabulous find! It's a strawberry Valley Vista pottery dip bowl and trays on a beautiful wooden lazy susan. Here's a pic:

I've seen these before though not the strawberry. It's in really good condition too. I'm so happy with it.

Murraysmom that is a lovely set you picked up. I like the pink.

Another trip to town today. Mostly as a ride along with friend. I only picked up a couple of things. We had a good time and it makes shopping days easier. I did get the final paper work to the bank on Joe's stuff. PHEW. Walked miles in walmart and other stores had lunch at Carl's. I like the lettuce wrap burger.

The rest of my walmart order was on the front porch when I got home. I did get 4 bags of dog biscuits on big sale. I am stocked up with animal food to last me almost through the winter. A good thing. I managed to get everything put away in the areas I had cleared for it. this delivery is going to work for me. And yes I did order some things from Chewy too. Big sale on the cat food brands my kitties like. As much as $5.00 off per case. Glad I only got 2 cases from walmart and bought 5 cases from Chewey.

I'm so glad you could find good stuff at Chewy. They have a Facebook page and I posted a picture of Rocket in one of their boxes. They got a big kick out of it and wrote me a nice note. Nice company to do business with. Did I tell you that when I placed my first order with them, the cat food I got for Rocket was something he was currently eating. Of course after about 2 cans of the Chewy order, he decided he didn't like it any more. Now what to do with almost 2 cases of cat food? I contacted them and asked it I could return at least the unopened case. They told me they would give me credit and to go ahead and donate the food to any shelter of my choosing!! I ordered some other food for Rocket and took the stuff he wouldn't eat to a nice cat shelter not too far from my house! What a great company to work with.

Speaking of Rocket in a box, he was helping me decorate for Christmas today. Unfortunately my Santa collection was in the box he decided to sit in.