Saturday, December 21

[gottawonder]

Today I am grateful for:

Decent weather.

A good day in the city with my sweetie. It was just a day to get out of the house and do something fun.

We went to the "Re-Store", and it filled a need I hadn't been ready to admit that I had. I hadn't been able to find our Christmas decorations, as they are all in storage. I normally just put up a tiny little tree with some ornaments and call it good, but I hadn't put out much of anything for decorations yet. The ReStore had lots of artificial trees and all their Christmas stuff was 75% off. I bought a really nice six foot artificial tree with lights, and bags full of cheap ornaments that look great for about $25. It also fits my personal manifesto of trying to buy things used wherever possible. Christmas stuff especially, because of how people keep getting rid of stuff so they can get new decorations. We put the tree up this evening, and I'm actually really enjoying having a full-sized tree after only having a tiny one for the last 15 years.

We found two pairs of jeans for my sweetie. I insisted that we find jeans for him, because his nice jeans meant to wear to work are all wearing out (at his work place, it's casual dress; nice jeans and shirts). He keeps getting me to patch them, but I think he should have decent clothes. It's very tough to get him to shop for clothes; he hates the whole process and is fussy. We were fortunate to have a great, helpful guy at the clothing store who did a really good job of listening to my sweetie about what he did and didn't like for fit, and kept finding him more cuts and washes to try. That guy literally pulled about 15 different pairs of jeans out for my sweetie to try as he ruled out the pairs he didn't like, until we got two pair that he liked. These are kind of his Christmas present.

We were in the West Edmonton mall, and we haven't been there for a couple of years. We have been there a fair number of times, and it's funny to think we have reasonably easy access to something that is such a land mark.

The Pottery Barn was closing that location, and everything was 40% off. A lot of it was gone already, but we found two place settings of some really nice flatware, and we're thinking we can use these for having nice meals together as a special treat. Like Christmas, birthdays, and maybe when we just make an effort to have a real sit down meal instead of a bowl in front of a screen. Kind of like how people had nice things just for Sunday and holidays. So, this was like a present for us.

I made some more progress on the stuff in the dining room. It's going slowly because I want to put things away properly, in a spot where they actually belong that makes sense. I could just throw it all in boxes and hide it upstairs, but then I would still have to deal with it later, and I want to put it where it belongs, and can be used. I've already been doing the thing where you buy more glue because you can't find any, or you can't find any Sharpies, and so on. I'm also starting another box for things that can go to the thrift store as I find things we don't use.

That I actually just really enjoy being with my sweetie. I found someone I can have interesting conversations with. On days like this, we're walking around without a real agenda, and we're just talking. We talked about what the West Edmonton Mall was like when it was new (it was a BIG deal), and about this one sculpture we drive by that was a big controversy when the city bought it, and he actually likes buying nice household stuff, and on our drive home which is a little over an hour, we mostly talked about art, which is something he is more and more interested in as I learn more, and we go to the art gallery together, and we look at stuff online. It's nice that he takes an active interest in the things I like. The other night we spent some time researching European draft horse breeds, because he likes draft horses, and watched some YouTube videos about horse breeds and so on. We talk about science stuff a lot, books, biking stuff (that's his thing); we're both just very curious people who are willing to be interested in just about anything.

This summer was very stressful for both of us, and we really didn't get the chance to just talk or be together that much without it being about house stuff and working on house stuff. We were both freaking out most of the time. It's nice to have some time again just to be together.