I spent the last day of my 4 day weekend being very productive. Firstly, I slept in. Mmm it felt very nice to sleep in :) Then we got up and shortly after that we headed to Walmart. We knew that it would be a zoo there, but I had decided that I might like to hang some outdoor Christmas lights this year so we went there looking for a couple of grocery items for our potluck tomorrow evening and some Christmas lights, hooks and a ladder. We managed to find all of those things at Walmart plus we found a Christmas tree (we had quite the time last year trying to find a passable artificial tree).
I was very close today to deciding to NEVER shop at Walmart again, but it just too darn convenient and cheap. Today there were a number of lengthy lineups at the tills so I picked the shortest looking one and stood in it. Keep in mind I had a cart with a Christmas tree box in it, as well as numerous other boxes of lights and whatnot, as well as a six foot step ladder. We were standing in line when this manager type (one of the ones with a red vest instead of the blue ones...not sure what that denotes) came over and kindly told us that till one was open and that we should go down there. As soon as I managed to pick up my ladder with one hand push my cart with the other out of the way, I noticed that she put the closed sign up on the till where I was standing. We made our way down to lane one (we were standing in lane 10 or 12 originally) only to find a line that was as long, or possibly longer than the line we had been in at the last till. That really ticked me off. I thought she was sending us down there to a newly opened till. And she didn't offer to give me a hand with my obviously cumbersome load of stuff. I was plenty annoyed but we did finally make it through the till and paid and were on our way.
I know that there is a labour shortage in the city, but most times when we grocery shop at Extra Foods they take one look at me, then at Jason and ask if we need help taking our groceries out. Every time they ask I say, "No, we're fine." because I have a cart so I am able to manage and whatever doesn't fit in the cart can sit on Jason's knee. Well at Walmart Jay couldn't really carry the ladder, so I awkwardly propped it on top of the Christmas tree box and hoped that no one got in my way!
After that schmaz we came home and I proceeded to spend the next couple of hours hanging Christmas lights. With the little plastic clips it is super easy, however I would say that attatching the clips to the strings of lights was the most time consuming and frustrating part of the whole thing. Each time I attatched one it pinched my thumb, so after 245 clips my thumb is a little sore. However for about the last 70 or so I put on a glove so it would pinch the glove and not my finger. We bought 6 strings of 35 lights (12 feet long each) and thought that might be enough. I knew by the time I was on the second last string that we would need at least one more. So after swearing off Walmart I had to go back for one more string of lights and one more box of clips. I wondered if the last string would make it the remainder of the way across the garage, but as I hung the last string the last bulb stretched perfectly to the far corner of the garage! Sweet!
The lights that we chose to hang up are green LEDs. I am not the hugest fan of LEDs but I have always liked the green and red ones the best. I have seen a lot of houses with LEDs hung outside and they look quite sloppy like the cords are all tangled up but the people just hung up the lights anyway. I hoped that ours would turn out looking okay. The clips that we bought attatch to each bulb, so our lights are perfectly straight across the eavestroughs and I think they look very nice. I think the messy lights look silly.
Also in there Jay made meatballs for our potluck tomorrow and I cooked them and washed up all the dishes. *sigh* It has been a busy day and I don't think I will feel guilty about sitting and playing some Super Mario Galaxy this evening (I rented it for the Wii yesterday and so far it's quite fun!)
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