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.

New Cat Bed

We went shopping at Walmart on Sunday afternoon, which is a bad time to go shopping anywhere let alone Walmart. Keith needed to get some new work boots and there were a few other things we needed, so Walmart it was and if you are really bored you could sit out front of Walmart and watch people all day long. You do see some interesting folks there. Like the time I was coming out of the store and a man and a woman were coming in with one of those kid shopping carts with the big plastic kid seat thing on it, kind of like those carts with the kid car in the front of them. There were no kids sitting in the big plastic seat, but the full grown woman part of the couple was. Or the heavily tattooed girl we saw as we were leaving whose jeans were so tight and so low cut that she had quite a plumber's butt going on. A plumber's butt that squished out over the top of her way too tight pants. Or the couple that at first we thought were lesbians but then realized that one of them actually WAS a man. With quite the man boob chest thing going on. Both had lots of tattoos of course because hey, why buy your kids some food with your welfare money when there's a tattoo parlor open somewhere?

Anyway, after lots of trying on boots while I not so patiently waited, Keith found a pair that were comfortable enough. When we got home he put the boot box on the floor and about two seconds later Mimi had found herself a new cat bed.

She slept in that box for quite a while that day.

Then yesterday I had my box of ribbons sitting on the bed and hey, a box of ribbons looks like a good place for a nap, right?

Right.

Every time I watch the news this time of year I wonder why the weather reporter doesn't just phone it in because the weather is basically the same every day. It's hot, folks. It was hot yesterday, it will be hot today, and yes, it will be hot tomorrow also. Just put up a big sign that says IT'S FREAKING HOT! and that's all we need to know, you can take the day off and sit by the pool with a glass of iced tea.

Where Did The Week Go? And Some Cats

I don't know where this past week went, but it's gone and it's already the first Saturday in May. And it's been HOT here!

Lucy found herself a new perch up in her tree. There is a fork in the branch and she has been sleeping up there with her backside on one branch and her front paws and head on the other. It looks a little precarious to me but she hasn't fallen out yet, maybe she has a little leopard in her or whichever one of the big cats it is that likes to sleep up in trees.

Yesterday afternoon I went shopping with Joe and Elizabeth to the big super Walmart on the other side of town where they got some household things they needed and I got some ink and some bras that I needed. After Walmart we went over to a discount store that Elizabeth had told me about, Falla's, which was like a gold mine of cheap prices! I found a couple of couch pillows for $3.99 each, a new couch cover (aka a quilt in a solid tan) for $20.00 and a new quilt for my bed for $15.00. Both quilts even came with shams, not that we needed pillow shams for the couch, but they do always look nice on a bed. I'm going to go back and look at the clothes, I saw some tops hanging on the wall with signs that said $5.99 so I think they would be worth a further look even if the store is way far away from our house. We would probably have bought even more stuff but apparently this store doesn't believe in shopping carts or they've all been carted away by homeless people because there wasn't a cart to be found and nobody else in the store had one either.

Here is my new quilt, Bear and Mimi think it is very comfortable. It's reversible, too, with black on the backside, black that would show every single cat hair as you can see in the picture of Bear. Tons of cat hair already and the quilt has only been on the bed since yesterday.

There were just the two of them on the bed but not for long. Everyone but Pepper is enjoying it.

I also put together some furniture yesterday. Keith and I had gone to Walmart yesterday morning before Joe and Elizabeth called about going shopping, and I found this writing desk that looked perfect for in my bedroom, perfect for working on instead of a card table. It was only $40.00 and I'm amazed to say that I put it together while Keith sat there and drank beer and 'supervised' by which I mean annoy the heck out of me. There must have been 20 parts to this desk but it came with good instructions and went together in about an hour. Mimi discovered it before I even had a chance to get it into the bedroom. If it's there I will sit on it.