359 - I have found the promise land

I adore Saturday. I think I like Saturday even more than Friday night. Friday nights I'm tired, and don't much feel like doing lots. Saturday morning is my favorite. Sunday morning is OK, but you know that tomorrow you'll have to go to work, so there's always that little cloud over your head. Saturday you know you have a whole 'nuther day to lounge around.

So today I got up, fed the girlies, did some cleaning, had some waffles and lounged around for an hour or so. Hubby got up and lounged too (He's wicked good at lounging. He never feels compelled to get up and clean. Seriously. Never. *snicker*)

I made phone calls, one to my step mother - who wasn't home, but I expected that. One to my friends Sarah and Dan, they were home and it was great to talk to them. They're talking about buying a house. I plan on keeping every sticky-outie extremity crossed for them. They're the nicest people I know and deserve so much happiness.

The tow truck called. Chelsea's car died yesterday (I didn't blog it simply because I was too tired) Seems as if her fuel pump has gone and her car is now d-e-d. I told her to call my auto club and have them tow it. They called saying "There are no keys in the car", I said "Yes there is, the steering column is broken, we've never been able to take the keys out." Anyway, I ended up having to call Gene and Chels to tell them to get there quick, then I realized the tow truck driver had said the wrong address so I called him back and found that he already had it and was driving. So I called Gene and Chels back to tell them to turn around and get back home to meet them. All crisis diverted (other than an unhappy teen who wants her car fixed. ugh.)

Ray and I decided to go cash our checks (OH.. yeah. Checks came! YAY!) Check cashing is a bit of a pain in the ass here since we're not all set up and we don't have a TX license yet and blah blah. So I'm hoping we'll get direct deposit soon. We ended up deciding to go get some of that spray to keep cats off stuff at Target. So we made our way over there, shopped a bit (I got some cool desky stuff for work, a scratching cardboard matt thing for Lucy cus it's her fav, some Pyrex dishes cus they didn't have any here and a kit kat bar. Yum.) Then I said "You know Ray, I really wanna go to the Galleria. Want to come with?" I assumed he'd say no. It's a mall. I believe men's testicles actually shrivel in some sort of autorepsonse way to malls in general. But he said "Yeah. K". So off to Galleria. I asked directions of "Frankie" our friendly Target store employee dressed in cheerful red. Frankie told us how to get there, and Ray navigated with our nifty Taxi Map Book (Do you know... our city is so big it has a book with 200 pages of maps!). We got there and there was GAWD awful traffic. Chicky at work told me that it was like that... I should have listened. heh.

We pulled into the parking garage and were bumper to bumper for quite awhile. I'd say we tried to find a spot for a good 15 - 20 minutes. The parking garage there has to be 2 football fields long. Then we went down to a lower level. Yep.. so big they have 3 levels of 2 football fields long parking lots. Amazing.

we went up into the mall and I swear... had it been quiet for just one moment... you would have heard angels singing. I do believe it may just be some sort of retail heaven. Now, I was going for just one store, Torrid, but let me tell you what I walked past;

Betsey Johnson.... I swear I nearly died. Betsey bags in the window, cooler than cool fashions... my fav designers store right there. *sigh*

Tiffanys, Dior, Armani (A/X), Urban Outfitters, Vittons, Coach, Dolce & Gabbana.... the list goes on and on. It was truly miraculous.

I hit Torrid cus I love it, then we wandered around for a bit. The place is MASSIVE! We went into two wings and it was hours. We ended up eating at the Daily Grill. I had a really great Chicken penne pesto. Very yummy. My hubby had the meatloaf.

Now here is the super cool part.... we drove home and decided to skip the highway and do Westheimer instead. So we're driving down the road and I see Restoration Hardware and get all happy . "I'm going to have to come back to go there!" Then I see Crate and Barrel.. and about 10 other big time "Girly furniture type shops" (as hubby called them) WOO! I said "I swear if there's a West elm here too I'm going to cry!" and hubby points to the left and says "West Elm". Oohh!! I'm SO going back there without him. hehe.

Then there was a whole section of antique places. Neat looking ones tho, not the boring kind we have in NH. Then a section that was all cool 'retro' shops. A section with a ton of tattoo parlors. A section of all fast food places. It's weird how they all sorta grouped together.

We made it past there, Ray laughing at me the whole time, and then went to Randalls to go grocery shopping. We got yummy stuff, and now we're home happy and half asleep... well.. I'm half asleep.

OH... Hubster took pictures of our birdies. We have a mamma and daddy bird who squawk and jabber at us constantly, and a baby bird who does the same, but he's too baby to fly. He hops around on the bushes down in our yard. We became worried that maybe that's why the parents are yelling at us... perhaps baby can't fly yet and they think we'll hurt him. I also worried that maybe baby fell and he can't get back to his nest, so Ray and I put a dish of water under the bushes for him in case he needs a drink. So here are our birdies :D

It's Saturday... I'm going to eat some of my Blue Bell ice cream (best damn ice cream ever!) and snooze on the couch for awhile. :)

Happy Saturday!

P.S. - Random weird Texas thing I have noticed:
All the traffic lights are hung horizontally, not vertically like at home. So instead of the read being top, yellow center, and green bottom - its red on the left, yellow center, and green right. I hate it. Seriously. I never notice that there's a light. I've been blowing through lights all over the place. Ray teases me, I tell him to shut it. The South is freakin' weird for hanging their damn lights like that and they deserve to have me blowing through them.... I'm just sayin'.