Less Hustle More Coffee

Well, good morning! Taking a deep breath this morning and enjoying the one day I have at home this week. Yesterday was a very busy one for me. George was home with the dog, but I got up around 5:45 as I had to be out the door within the hour. A quick coffee and shower, no hair wash or style.

At 6:45 I dashed out the door and headed to Mom’s area in Lebanon, TN to get gas. I sat in the car and pumped as there were a lot of folk getting off the interstate for gas that I was not sure about. You know, people in white vans, etc. Probably not the cheapest place to buy gas but I usually go for convenience instead of driving out of my way for prices. (That may change soon, though).

After that, I went through McDonald’s as Mom wanted a biscuit for breakfast instead of standing to cook. So got that and then on to her house to drop that off and get Fancy. Fancy was very nervous and coughing (her heart cough) but I rubbed her tummy with my right hand as I drove with the left, to drop her off at the groomer. She is heavy enough to make the passenger side ding to remind to put on the seatbelt. lol

They took her at the groomer. There was not a lot a traffic out at 8:00 in the morning – lucky folk. So then what? No stores were open. Then I realized I could eat a breakfast burrito out somewhere. Sonic’s tastes like cardboard to me now for some reason. I need flavor. So I went to Just Love in Mount Juliet.

Storm clouds began to gather. I had a tiny little panic. Not a big one. I knew we were having a lot of popcorn thunderstorms but didn’t I hear the word severe somewhere in some newscast recently? Once I was always atop of the weather and now it has become less of a priority. The time factor I guess. So I grabbed my phone and checked radar as I sat and ate in a nearby Target parking lot as the earliest shops did not open until 9:00 and my Pedi was not until 10:00.

The radar showed some potent thundershowers nearby but where I was there was a “hole” and it was going to miss me except for a little skirting of moderate rain. I smiled knowing that God was looking out for me. He knew I’d be a little freaked out. The clouds were pretty different and ominous looking.

As I finished my breakfast which was really good by the way and they press their tortillas in a waffle maker. Lovely and unique. All of their breads are done in this fashion and yes they have waffles too.

So I headed over to the Dollar Tree as I wanted to do a bit of shopping for Mom’s birthday basket. She doesn’t need clothes and she has a half of a garage of stuff that doesn’t fit in her house already so….what to do? I decided a basket of consumable items would be best. If she ends up reading this blog (she says very adamantly that she does not), then she will know the gist of what she is getting but she won’t know specifics. It pays to tell the truth. It spoils if you don’t, lol. So I’m taking her word for it.

Any snoot, so I go through and get some things from Dollar Tree and found a lot and then went a few doors down to my Pedi appt. I saw they were open and it was only 30 min before my pedi so I thought that it was probably going to do them a favor to show up early as they were not busy yet. So I asked if I could go ahead and they said “sure pick your color”.

It was a very relaxing pedi. I wish I could have gone for the “big one” with the hot rocks and all but this is not the day and age for that. Maybe for my birthday. I stuck with the $35 dollar one. You still get rubbed with lotion and what you need as far as callous removal and such and get to sit with the hot towel treatment on you legs. There are more creams, skin sloughing scrubs, and massages, hot wax and hot stones at various levels. But I went with the basic. The basic is nice enough. I enjoy the massage chairs and the pampering to my feet. And she brought me water to drink for which I accepted when offered and was thankful as I’d forgotten to bring mine in from the car. (Not that I was in there long enough to really need it but I was thirsty from the sausage in the tortilla, lol). I picked a peachy cream color for my feet. Next month and the months after I will begin to go darker. It was a really pleasant time of morning to be in there for a pedi. It was calm and serene instead of crowded. Too bad though that I prefer my Saturday mornings at home, but it is a thought if I decided to do that on a whim. Walking in that time of day is no problem. They allow walk ins and always work you in, but sometimes it is a wait. I had appointments made though because I thought Mom would be with me and with two people on a Saturday – that way we’d have a guaranteed spot with less wait time- but Mom was not able to go. She would go up into space if someone even thought about touching her foot with gout.

Anyway, that was over way too soon but I got through about 200 emails. Since I’m not awaiting anything urgent on email, I’ve kinda let it go some. It had built up to the 600’s and so most of my waiting times during the week I’ve tried to run through them and even unsubscribe to some things.

My next stop was Pop Shelf. I love Pop Shelf. But it is one of those stores you go to about once a quarter when the seasons change. Here is a 10 second video of Pop Shelf.

The store turns itself over and new relevant things pop up. It’s not as cheap as the dollar store, but it’s probably all under $20 bucks and cute little decor things. I imagine the store was made for teens through those twenty somethings of early decorating a house, as far as “decor” goes, but that said – I usually find myself throwing some things in the cart. Yesterday was no exception. I bought a decorative pillow for my recliner. It’s almost the color. I need to get something (shoe polish?) to put on the back of the chair in that white spot. I think whatever Mom put on her hair (purple shampoo?) penetrated that spot from her head. I just haven’t had time to fix it. Or figure it out but I notice how noticeable it is when I post this picture so maybe I will try to figure out how to fix it. Got any ideas? I mean who wants shoe polish rubbing off on the back of their head? lol

I also got this robot for Dexter. It was pretty cheap as dog toys go. But very sturdy. He loves it. He loves when I bring a new toy. He really loves his toys!

I found a few things for Mom and a few things for me. For me, I bought doggie poop pads, doggie tooth brush, eye shadow, bean dip, salsa, candied nuts, dark coffee K-cups, Justin’s peanut butter (it was cheap), M & M’s, Reeses’s cups (I’ve decided to allow the last two items especially during quarter end months). I also ran into my next door neighbor and we chatted a while.

While in there, I got the call that Fancy was ready. So I went to Kroger and got MORE pure tart cherry juice (their last bottle) and some Buddigs meat for Fancy. Then I went to pick up Fancy. She was a cutie pie. Here’s a 7 second clip. I asked permission to video it.

Then we headed back to Mom’s. And I dropped off Fancy and sat with Mom for a few minutes. I asked if she wanted me to make her some lunch while I was there? She wasn’t really feeling like eating yet and said her stomach was a bit uneasy. But she said she wanted some iced tea and asked if I would make some, so I did. I cleaned the spider webs out of the guest bathroom as best as I could. I don’t do spiders nor their webs, lol. I told her “I don’t do bugs!” It’s just that no one is ever in there and it was a newly built house so over time the critters get in. It was mainly may flies that got in there entangled in the web.

So I told her we’d see about doing something mid week and maybe bringing Dexter over. The problem is, it is quarter end, so I may just have to take her a meal after I get off or something. We are back into the week where George will be needing to work late some nights and I’ll have to be working late the other nights. So I really don’t have a lot of time where I can leave early. We will see how it goes. Time is always a factor -especially the quarter end months b/c getting quarter end done in a regular work week doesn’t get the job done. It requires extra minutes and hours here and there. So I did not want to promise and said we would have to see how it goes.

We could run a meal by or even do meal delivery through Grub Hub, which I hear Amazon will be taking over and will have free delivery for food now for Prime Members. Since she can at least walk, she could pick food up at the door. I’m amazed Amazon is taking this adventure on. That is pretty incredible. I hope they can manage this. Sometimes a company can take on too much by being greedy and then having to right size to keep up. But for me, I’m happy at the thought of free food delivery. However, for the most part, except for a weekly outing of some sort, I’m cutting back on eating out because of the prices. Especially at the sit down restaurants. Their prices are just astounding for what I’m wanting to pay now with the inflation.

Speaking of eating out, I was getting hungry and dinner would not be til later, so I stopped and got a beef crispy taco and a bean burrito. Which is like $4.23. lol. I can afford that. I always get iced water and it tastes so good. That was the best burrito too and it was very messy for my drive. At the red light I acted like nothing was going on, but once we took off, I was licking my arm, hands, fingers because as I reached for that last napkin it fell to the passenger floor board. I laughed at myself. And I thanked God for the burrito being so good even though it was so dang messy for driving, but when you are hungry and want to be home at the same time…..go figure.

But then…..I thought…you know…if I go and get groceries now that we need for the week, I won’t have to get out tomorrow. So I went to Mount Juliet the long way as Kroger was nearby that way and got the groceries.

So once back at home (about 2:30 or 3:00) Dexter was happy to see me and I drove up and dropped off all the packages in the front. It was a big haul with Dollar Tree, Pop Shelf, and Kroger.

Then George said he needed to take Mom’s car full of boxes of items she no longer wants to Good Will. And when he came back he had been to the store too. lol. Items that were not on Alexa’s grocery list so I didn’t know to get them.

While he was gone. Dexter did a couple of things. He sat by the front door awaiting George’s return. They have bonded more closely – especially yesterday while I was MIA taking care of Mom.

He is a mess too. Here is another video of what we do all day long…..Nine seconds. You will see all these again, lol. Sorry for the pee pad viewing but that is a part of our world now.

But the fun part was when he was watching TV. This one is longer – a whole whopping 28 seconds or so. Worth your time.

So, once all settled inside the house, and after taking care and running after “dog dog”, I did laundry and began putting up some stuff. Somehow I got side tracked and decided to do some filming of the Pop Shelf/Dollar tree unbagging to which I left most of the items on the bed and shut the carpeted room behind me as Dex was in one of his two unruly hours of the day. I got sidetracked and began working on the next video (imagine that, lol). And then dinner was ready (Gumbo, Hello Fresh which was out of this world good – George had put atop some rice, and then we had a side of chicken filet and marinated.) And we watched a show about Mark Twain. Then it was bedtime. I opened the door to crawl in bed and all the shopping haul was still all over the bed, LOL! So I had to put all that up. The day was a busy one but it was a pretty fun one.

I was happy to have today to get things done here at home as Mom didn’t feel like going to church and I need a stretch of time to care for us too. I’ve much laundry to do, prep for whatever I will be wearing this week, working on the calendar some. Have some dates to put in. Some things to order (most of the orders are done such as Dex’s dog food which is on Amazon and all the prices are same at all stores so price checks were not bringing any competition, probably coordinated by Purina – just glad we can have it delivered as Dexter plows through it).

I’ll probably get some down time to work on this video and I have a to do list of things I keep forwarding to the next weekend and hope to get some of those things done as well.

Well that is enough for today.

I put a lot of stories on Instagram @lesshustlemorecoffee if you wish to follow me there. Dexter is on there a lot and I’ve recently learned to do some Reels. Stuff – much of which that is exclusive to Instagram. Just fun stuff. Link also in side bar (or scroll down to the end if on iPhone/tablet.

OK over and out. Anxious to start my day. If you made it through all that you are a dedicated reader and I appreciate you. What all you doing this weekend? Is it really Sunday already? The time goes by so fast.