Yesterday I ventured out to do some Stash Acquisition. The day was so lovely, in the mid-seventies and sunny, the sky was such a beautiful blue with some fluffy clouds that looked like they had been painted there by Bob whatever his name was on Public Television.
First I stopped by the quilt shop to drop off some Christmas samples I had finished, and catch up with Cat and Julia. Then after a run through the drive thru at McD's to pick up a diet Coke I headed out to our local Ben Franklin. Sadly BF is closing in October due to downturn in business over all this Covid madness. Being a locally owned franchise cannot be easy in this market. They don't do internet sales although I think they WERE doing curbside pickup.
For me, the joy of Ben's was the browsing. They have nearly every craft you can imagine. Markers, crayons, beads, yarn, embroidery floss, framing for your projects, fabric and fabric and fabric... and of course all of those cute kitchy things that have sassy sayings and need dusting but don't really serve any purpose! And costume jewelry, if you needed a holiday pin for your sweater or coat this was the place.
Things are now at 30% off, so I thought I'd wander up there to see what they have in DMC Floss. Turns out that the floss is in very low supply, but I did pick up about 40 skeins that I didn't have, so I'm filling out my chart. I got most of the very low numbers (1-35) that came out within the last couple of years, plus some of the 3000s, of which I previously had none. This price was 55 cents times .7 which makes them a bargain at like 38 cents each!
While I was in Oconomowoc I stopped at my son's house. It was kind of an emergency... I had decided I didn't need to use the rest room at Ben's, but once in the car, it became more urgent. He lives literally five minutes up the road, so I figured if he was home I'd have a visit and use the facilities in one stop. And if he had not been home I would have gone to McD's, and probably purchased another diet Coke! That would be over my one a week limit, but oh well...
So I texted, and sure enough he was home. One of the grands needed him to be chauffer that day so he was working from his kitchen. So we had a nice chat, I got a hug and had a nice little break from all my heavy shopping!
😁
On the way up there, I had encountered the dreaded summer plague of the midwest, road improvements. I realize we have a short summer, but sometimes - and I used to work for traffic engineers so I totally get it that the road have to be maintained and all that. But do they have to jazz up so many of my normal routes?
Mike P would say yes, you travel the most popular roads and they get more wear and tear and need improvements more frequently. And you know EVERYONE hates potholes!!
SO I was in the tiny town of Genesee, most famous for being the home of Ten Chimneys, the home of Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontaine, and on a two lane highway I got stopped in a line of northbound traffic for about five to seven minutes.
Once we got started again I could see that the southbound lane was about 3 inches lower, so it must be a complete overhaul. About halfway through, I got stopped again by another flagman so a small road grader could cross the road. Altogether the delay was about 15 minutes, or about 1/3 of my normal trip.
And that is the big story of a summer Tuesday in Wisconsin. The late Walter Cronkite might say "and that's the way it is, August 18, 2020."
Keep calm and sew on...
