Wow, another short weekend. I spent a bunch of time quilting because I will be gone on travel next weekend, and the Wednesday after that is my Color Theory class, so I have to pretty much have the Nautilus/Tentacles quilt done by the time I leave on Tuesday morning. I may have a little time after I get back, on Monday and Tuesday evenings, to finish, but I am not counting on that. So I spent almost all morning on Saturday fusing everything down, and quilting the nautili and tentacles. Of course I had to listen to “Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me” on public radio, so I could only quilt on station breaks during that. So we went out to eat at Jack N Grill, because I was hungry for their posole, and was in no mood to cook.  Ken had a hamburger as big as his head. They have seriously large burgers, with homemade buns, there. We had their queso this time, too, it was also excellent.

More quilting in the afternoon. Then I had to run to JoAnn Fabric to get more fusible webbing, iron cleaner (needed after incidents with the former), and thread to quilt the background of the Nautilus piece. Did get Spaghetti with Parmesan and Bacon made for dinner. This is a Cooking Light recipe and is really good, and is excellent warmed up for lunches for the week. I will say, it does not need a whole teaspoon of pepper, a 1/2 tsp is fine.

Ken had to go into work this morning, and his alarm woke me up and I couldn’t go back to sleep. I had been having bad dreams anyway so I just got up. His alarm alternates between a buzzer and some religious station (because someone on that station is always speaking in a very EXHORTING tone) and I was exhorted right out of bed. He went off to work and I quilted on the background of the piece until a quarter to 11 – at 11 the mall opened, and I had to go clothes shopping.

I do not like clothes shopping. Currently I am not a small size. Designers do not usually chose wisely when they pick their designs to make in larger sizes. They do not look the same as they do on smaller women. The ones that would actually cute seem to be reserved for smaller sizes only. I really prefer to do my shopping at the thrift stores, but sometimes that is hit and miss, and sometimes you just need new stuff for work. And I felt like I had worn the same things to these meetings I am attending this week for four years in a row.

Well, I managed to get 12 different items for about $360. Believe me, I about went into shock spending that much on clothes in one day, but it had to be done. Between Coldwater Creek and Dillards, I got a blazer, 6 sweaters, 2 turtlenecks, 2 pairs of nice dress pants, and a white no-iron (we will see) dress shirt. So that is less than $30 per item, I still like to pay a lot less than that but sometimes you have to buy things that are work-worthy. That bad news was that I had to hem 2 pairs of pants, I really hate hemming. I did most of that during Iron Chef, so that was OK. PS Coldwater Creek is currently having 40% off their already on sale items, plus an additional $20 back if you spend over $80.

Ken had called while I was in the dressing room and said he was going to be at work for a while, so I had an Aunt Annie’s pretzel for lunch (that sounds healthy but I had the one with pepperoni on it, and had cheese dipping sauce, of course….). Also hit Forever 21 which does, surprisingly, have a Plus Size section. Usually I am greatly amused by most of what I see, and I find on thing that works for me, this time it was a belt, which I put on immediately, because my jeans were falling down.

So now I am carrying two very heavy clothing bags, and I stop by the calendar kiosk, because we haven’t been able to find a page-a-day calendar with cat cartoons (usually the New Yorker does one but not this year) so I bought us the Bad Cat calendar, for 75% off, so that was a good deal. I had no idea what day it was for the first part of this month, and we also like to use the daily sheets to make lists and notes on, so this was necessary.

Just to add to my heavy bags, then I go to Williams Sonoma to get a pizza stone. I had a gift card, and I also wanted a knife, of course they don’t have the knife, so I fill out a little card for them to call me when it comes in. Then I trudge all the way to my car with the pizza stone under one arm (huge) and the two bags in my other hand. My arms still hurt from that. Then when I got home, there was a message on the machine saying they found the knife after all and if I was still out shopping I could come get it. Grrrrrrrr. Very tempted to not get it there after all, now, since I am unimpressed with their inventory-finding skills.

I still beat Ken home. I had two pounds of hamburger thawed out, so I made that into meatloaf, knowing he could eat it for meals this week and we could also freeze part of it. (Sorry, no recipes today, I am about wiped out….).

For dinner, I had a tri-tip steak marinating since last night, and put that on the grill. Tri-tip is one of those steaks that you grill and then slice against the grain, it would be too tough to eat just as a regular steak. I think this is a new venture for my Mom and Dad’s butcher, I don’t think I have seen one of those from him before. It was good. Of course, when I planned the menus for this weekend, I thought it was going to be nice, and I thought I was going to be making the tri-tip for lunch. Well, even at lunchtime it was 40 degrees and wind gusts up to 50 mph, so all in all a lovely day, but I got it grilled. Also made Shepherd’s Potatoes, these are excellent, one of my go-to potato recipes now.

I give my mom a bad time about writing every detail of life in her diary each day, but I guess I have inherited those tendencies. Although I don’t have two delightful children to write about. From Mom’s diary – “Caught W. biting the cat today because G. told him to.” Brother W. doesn’t listen to me nearly so well as he did in 1972.