AS THE TIRES TURN

I finally took the van in to get the tire fixed this morning. It looked flat to me, but Amy came by to follow me to Beeville on her way to Normanna to wrap Christmas presents with Mimi. I went by Stop n Shop (or whatever it's called) to air it up first, but their machine was out of order. So then drove over to Papa's, and they didn't have an air machine. So I just took off for Beeville, and made it okay. After that, I went to Goodwill, (The Metropolitan Museum of Art Activity Book and a teacher's folder from the 70's with a great collection of students' art and copied poetry), Zimmer's Nursery, Walmart, Tractor Supply Company, Taqueria Jalisco, Walmart, again, and back to Skidmore. I went to the parish office because I remembered Annie asked last night on the phone if I was going to stop by today or not, but I couldn't remember why. Anyway, I had the directions for the discloth angels, and some of the plastic mesh she wanted, so I took those. We talked for awhile, then as I was leaving, Father came out and asked me about the Posada.
At the Post Office I had a mailbox totally stuffed with good things. A couple of them are pictured above - a cheery letter from Val, in Canada, with a photo of her really nice washtub water feature, and a mail art postcard from J. Boyd. The front is shown here, I'll show the other side in a few days. Both sides are marvelous - the front has dreamy drawings on it. THANKS Val and J.! I also got two packages - a candlemaking book I got for Annie from eBay, and a painting I won from Stevie. Since I knew the one package was for Annie, I went back to the office and opened them both there, so Lydia and Annie could see the wonderful painting too. I'll be showing the photo here soon. Then when I finally got home, UPS had put a package inside my door - the 20 Posada booklets I bought. Tomorrow I'll take one to Father Sebastian.
Since I didn't have any luck finding something to use for a Christmas tree today.... Allright - I know what you are thinking. You're thinking, "There are Christmas trees everywhere! Why can't she just get a Christmas tree?" Well, now - that would be just too easy, wouldn't it? Buy a Christmas tree for Christmas?! Ppshaw! ...or however you spell it. ANYWAY, I always get some kind of living tree, bush or shrub that will actually grow here...hopefully. Some years I don't buy a tree of any kind, since we have other decorations and little room. And several times I have used a cut branch, spray painted it white and decorated that. The nursery didn't have anything I wanted to buy. I have killed too many of those gorgeous rosemary bushes trimmed into perfect cones. In fact, I have killed many, many other things too, so I refuse to pay over $5 a foot for a Christmas 'tree'. And it has to be something that has a reasonable chance of survival...which leaves out the large, bushy, cheap ($14) Norfolk Island Pines that Walmart is selling. So I cut a (4'-5')limb off of the crepe myrtle late this afternoon. It was a limb that needed to go anyway. Tomorrow, I guess I'll see about setting it in plaster or something, then spray it white.
I had planned on a major shopping trip to Corpus Christi tomorrow, but put it off again. I need to weed out a lot of books, magazines, games and videos/DVDs to take to Half-Price Books, and I STILL haven't done it.
Annie and Lydia invited me to go with them tomorrow to SuperWalmart and Hobby Lobby in Calallen and Goodwill in Annaville, but I don't think I'll do that either. It would be fun. Annie and I would go to Lydia's house in San Patricio, then leave from there. But I'm just so tired for some reason, and I really need to get some things done here.