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I took most of today off and spent the day shopping. It was great!! Mom, April, Katie and I started the morning at Linens N Things. They are having a going out of business sale. Or so they claim. Katie and I were there a few weeks ago and everything was marked down 20%. Today, weeks later, they’re at 30%. JC Penney’s on the other hand, had marked everything down 90% and was already closed by the time we got there. Who’s better at this I ask you?? What is LNTs game?? I’m told that all of the stores are closing so they can’t be planning to ship what doesn’t sell off to another location. Heck, JC Penney’s could have done that. Is it cost efficient to have staff, utility bills and rent while you take your time marking things down I ask??

I digress. We then picked up the boy for lunch at Red Robin (his choice) and headed to Cockrell Mercantile. Now I’m admittedly not much of a cook. This honestly is because by the time I get home from 12 hours of work each day, I don’t feel like doing ANYTHING. Back in the day, when I worked at Sugarloaf I could arrive at 7am so that I could leave by 3:30p (and take a half hour lunch) to get to the boy’s school in time to pick him up. I cooked. I tried new recipes. I spent time with the boy. I was less cranky. Again I seem to digress.

Anyway, Cockrell Mercantile is a great way to spend a Saturday morning/afternoon. Day trip to the country!!  (Katie actually yelled her hello’s to the ranchers from inside the safety of the air conditioned car. ) There are 4 buildings brimming with all things girly. Well, maybe not ALL things. I didn’t find any booze and that’s quite girly. I bought 4 delicious candles for me, 3 nice candles for the boy, a pink spatula, an avocado peeler that I can’t wait to use, a new tea ball and a morning brew tea blend and some spice bags so I can create my very own sachets. I feel very crafty. I feel very country with the glories of still living in the city. I also found a beautiful tea cup and saucer that I would have paid their prices for except that it had a peacock on it. Not a fan of peacocks.

It was extremely hot today and one of the buildings is not air conditioned. It’s also the pottery/discount building so fortunately I didn’t find much in there that interested me as I don’t plant things so I scurried on into the main building. OH!! I also bought some seedless black raspberry preserves. They have some very tasty salsas, salad dressings, preserves, and oils there. MMMM. In between buildings was a bit harsh because we all wanted to wait for the rest of the group before we ventured into the next one. It is also a fairly popular store so I did get to spend quality time avoiding the strangers that didn’t seem to mind bumping into me. It was worth it though. I only make it out to Cockrell’s about once every two years so it wasn’t too difficult to justify to myself the money spent today.

I did work for a while this morning though and I will be going in to the office to play catch up tomorrow so today’s time with the family (and Katie) was the only “life” balancing I’ll get to do this weekend. Sucks but what are you gonna do?? The job at Sugarloaf paid a lot less so I guess having a life is a fair exchange for getting to buy things. No??