JoAnn's (again) and Preparing for Fall

We were insane again.  I woke Tif up at about 7:15am and she said that if I wanted to go to JoAnn's she would wake up and go with me.  I said I wanted to go.  She thinks I'm insane.  Which I probably am, so no biggie.  We waited in line again and each got a $10 gift card.  It's not tons, but I have never waited in line for a grand opening before.  Now I can say that I have.  While we waited in line, Tif showed me this little video of a woman who finger crochets.  Now, you may have heard of finger knitting and arm knitting (which I plan on doing soon), but I had never heard of finger crochet.  It just seems like it would be awkward and difficult.  Well, I was proven wrong.  The creator of the video uses this method to make ribbed blankets using three strands of regular yarn.  And it looks like a lot of fun.  So I picked out three colors - blue, green and cream.  And they look really good together.  Tif got yellow, gray and white, which looks good too.  After purchasing these awesome finds, we stopped by the 2nd to last Farmer's Market of the season.  We got mom a huge Blue Hubbard squash and some zucchini bread.

Then we headed home to get some work done.  We had a list of important things to get done, and we got through pretty much the whole list in what remained of the morning.  We put the new windshield wipers on mom's van, then we started draining the sprinkler system.  Our system doesn't need to be blown out, just drained.  So we set it to drain and then went to the next task:  removing the air conditioners from our bedroom windows.  Since we weren't really involved in the set up of said air conditioners, we were apprehensive as to taking them out.  And they are heavy suckers.  It proved to be easier than we expected (but the units just as heavy).  We were quiet proud of ourselves for getting that done.  Then we closed up the the sprinklers for the season and put away the hoses.  By the time we were all done and put away, it was almost noon.

Well, JoAnn's had 50% off coupons to celebrate the grand opening, and on a previous trip mom had found an upholstery fabric that she really liked, and wanted to buy to recover her bed rails.  So we went back to JoAnn's with mom to get that.  They have a really cool method of cutting the especially wide upholstery fabric.  There's a machine off to the side of the cutting tables with rollers in it.  The bolt is set on the rollers and the fabric is pulled under a little overhang up to the cut line.  Then the associate pushed a button with her foot and the fabric automatically fed and measured.  She also got it wrapped around a tube so the fabric didn't have to be folded.  It was really cool.  Anyway, when the associate cutting the fabric gave mom the ticket, we noticed that the fabric was on sale - about 40% off.  Well, the 50% off coupon does not work on sale items.  But it just so happens that I got a 20% off any purchase coupon, so I gave that to mom for the upholstery fabric.  All in all, everything worked out at JoAnn's.

After that we went to Walmart to pick up some groceries and ingredients for appetizers.  We have linger longer after church tomorrow and both Tif and I signed up to bring an appetizer.  She's bringing Sweet and Sour Lil Smokies, and I'm trying out a Crock Pot Pizza Dip.  So we got the ingredients for those, picked up a McChicken and headed home.  I'm not sorry to say that we ate lunch and took a nap.  It was an early morning, and a fairly productive day already.  After we woke up we cleaned up from taking out the air conditioners and decided to make broccoli soup for dinner.  I don't know where mom found the recipe, but it's really good.  Then Tif and I watched "X-Men:  Days of Future Past and she did some laundry.  It's been a good day, and surprisingly hasn't felt very long considering the hour in which I woke up...