A New Tree and Some Walmart Shopping

We got a new tree for our new flower bed in the front yard. Keith worked so hard at making this flower bed, a big reason for a big flower bed out front being less grass to mow. Not that we've (I've) had to mow it as much lately since it's mostly dead, but anything to cut down the area of lawn that will need mowing this winter if it ever rains is a good thing. We've had a hard time coming up with plants that don't fry in the hot sun in that flower bed, though, we had some shrubs that shriveled up despite watering them so I looked for plants that said right on their little labels that they could withstand hot sunny sun beating down on them all day long.

So far, so good, I've only lost a few of the smaller flowers.

I found some huge trees over at Lowe's for what I considered to be an excellent price, $55.00 for oak trees and $60.00 for maples. We decided on the oak but how to get this tall tree home? Joe to the rescue with his truck and we drove the short distance from Lowe's with a tall (but skinny) oak tree in the back of it.

It was a few days before Keith was home long enough to get it planted, but planted it is and I really like it and hope it survives.

It's kind of like a fat woman who wears a big fancy necklace to draw the eye up to her face and away from her stomach, when you drive up to the house you don't see the brown lawn as much, your eye tends to look up at the tree instead.

I went over to Walmart this morning to get cat food and all that kind of stuff and to also pick up a few groceries to make something for dinner tonight. I was going to go to Target and then up to Vons or Winco, but our Walmart has just almost finished expanding into a super Walmart with a full grocery store inside, and hey, one trip to one store is way better than two trips to two stores, right? I didn't think I would really like Walmart's grocery department, the rest of the store is always so junky and crammed full of crap looking, but I guess every Walmart in the world is like that. So far, the grocery department looks pretty darn good, probably because they aren't quite done stocking it all and it hasn't had a chance to get filthy dirty yet.

I was pleasantly surprised to find some products that are hard to find elsewhere, like the Glory brand of canned southern style vegetables. I don't care for collard greens but they make a canned skillet corn that is delicious, and on their corn label they have a picture of canned honey carrots that I've always wanted to try but couldn't find anywhere, and whaddya know, Walmart has them. They also have another brand of canned southern stuff and I found some canned squash with vidalia onions that looked worth a try. I also found some new Dole soups that come in a box, a sweet corn soup and a vegetable tomato that look like cream style soup according to the picture on the package. The vegetable tomato sounds kind of like V-8 juice, so we will see how that tastes.

I don't know if I will buy any meats or chicken there, the jury is still out on that, but the last time I was in there I bought a single piece of carrot cake that Keith and I both thought was delicious and only $1.98, not bad for a little sweet after dinner.

It was kind of handy to get all (well, most of since they didn't have the brand of cat litter we use) my shopping done in one trip, and it being still early in the morning I didn't have to fight the usual Walmart crowds.