Welcome to the Holidays

Began a busy day with White Christmas and baking. No, this was for me. I used up bits and pieces from other baking and made Cranberry-Coconut-Chocolate Chip Muffins. I never did get to try them. Soon after I pulled them out of the oven, I had to hurry off to work for my 7 hour day.

Boy, was it busy! I guess everyone finally came out of the malls and left work early. Most kids got off early today, too, if they didn't get off yesterday. If people weren't picking up small things they'd forgotten, they were grabbing fruit, vegetables, and meat that couldn't be purchased too far ahead, or more gift cards. The lines were down the aisles for a lot of the afternoon! At one point I was asked to stay late. I did end up staying an extra 15 minutes when they couldn't find a relief for me.

When I finally made it out to dinner, I ate at Bassett's Memphis BBQ in Audubon Crossings Shopping Center behind the Acme. The parking lot was filled to capacity, but Bassett's wasn't too bad. The girl I ordered dinner from said it had been busy earlier at lunch, when people were still doing a lot of shopping. I had a delicious meal of Grilled Chicken Sandwich with onions, tomato, and lettuce, wavy fries, a diet Stewarts (glass bottle) root beer, and such a large container of cole slaw, I ended up taking more than half of it home. I really enjoyed my meal, with NCIS blaring in the background and people passing to and fro in the windows in the front of the restaurant.

By the time I went back to the Acme to do my own grocery shopping, it was still a little busy, but nothing like it was earlier. I was able to get in the express line without a fuss and get my regular Friday errands done. I needed to restock fruit and vegetables, like apples and grapefruit. Grabbed chicken cutlets on sale; replaced the ground chicken I used for tacos last week. Also needed to replace the pumpkin I used for the pudding pie and the white cake mix that became the Candy Cane Cupcakes, and to restock honey, almonds, and Wheat Chex. (The latter two are still on sale.)

My schedule was quite a surprise! I did ask for tomorrow off, and I figured I'd get Sunday...but not Monday and Tuesday, too! As of right now, I don't work again until Wednesday! I'll be working 7 1/2 hours that day, but hey, a four-day weekend is a four-day weekend. Now that's a Christmas present. It does mean my paycheck after next week's won't be great, but we get paid for holidays whether we work them or not, and that should help.

There was another Christmas surprise sitting on Miss Ellie's patio when I arrived home. Linda and James Young's box had finally arrived. I took it upstairs with everything else and opened it right away. I put everything aside but the small glittery red bundle. I grabbed that too hard and it fell open, revealing a lovely silver necklace with a key that has the word "believe" etched on it. Oh well, early present. Thank you, Linda and James! I'll wear it to Cape May County tomorrow. I finished White Christmas, enjoying the delightful numbers and rolling my eyes at the silly romantic-comedy contrivances in the middle, then put the remaining presents in the back and headed for a much-needed shower.