I Stopped By Target Today

New Two-month-old pictures are up.

I am a fairly lazy person. I don’t know if you know that. My friends, Pookie and Schnookie, came to town back in October and we had a blast. We took a TON of pictures. They, of course, got theirs up on Flickr right away (and they would have done it even sooner if my wi-fi hadn’t blocked them and if I weren’t too lazy to call Time Warner about it).

Part of the reason I took so long is because I’m so intimidated by all their great pictures. I figure after a while, people will forget theirs and mine won’t suffer by comparison. It’s flimsy, I know.

Anyway, I finally got a few up from the first couple of days. The Texas State Fair was so much fun. It’s just a feast of interesting things to take pictures of. And my new 70-300mm camera lens arrived early on the same day as our hockey game so I was able to fall in love with it right off the bat.

I have almost 200 pictures from our day at the Dallas Arboretum that I’ve just started working on. They should be up in a month or so. Heh.

2010: 12/12
POSTED BY: Patty (in Dallas)
CATEGORY: Photography
Travel
4 comments

Stress still has to be relieved.

Lately, I’ve been trying to learn how not to eat when I’m stressed.

Unfortunately, I’ve turned to ebay.

2010: 10/21
POSTED BY: Patty (in Dallas)
CATEGORY: Decorating
Knickknacks
1 comment

Over and Under and Around and Through

Going home from work the other day, I did something I had always wanted to do.

I took all four petals of the classic cloverleaf interchange at I-635 LBJ and Dallas North Tollway.

I started south on the Tollway, then when I got to the interchange, I had planned to take the loop to go east on LBJ.

It was immediately evident that LBJ was going to be an hour-long slog home through 2-mph traffic. So I decided to see if I could go south on the Tollway without having to get off the freeway.

I took the loop to go east on LBJ, then took the loop to go north on the Tollway, then took the loop to go west on LBJ and then took the loop to go south on the Tollway.

Isn’t that fascinating?

2010: 09/27
POSTED BY: Patty (in Dallas)
CATEGORY: Travel
2 comments

Dude! You would not believe the Target I stopped by today.

Today, on a blazing hot (100° by noon), lazy Sunday morning, I had a couple of errands to run. I needed to get stuff from the pet store and some stuff from Target. Since the closest Petsmart is over in Mesquite just west of Town East Mall, I figured I’d go there and then run by the Target over on the side of the freeway by the mall.

I don’t really like that Target, because it’s a small, old, musty, low-ceiling’d relic, but I figured I’d just run in and out for a couple of small things.

Well! When I came around the corner I was stunned. There was a huge, shiny new Target right there where that ratty one used to be! I couldn’t believe it! In fact, I was a little suspicious that maybe they had just glued some decorations on the old one to make it look new. But it said Super Target and had two entrances. And the parking lot looked new.

I was so excited! I went in the front doors and there it was. Bright, shiny and new. They had plastic shopping carts! Much less rattly! The Pharmacy was in the middle of the store. Everything was in crazy places. It’s different from my regular Super Target in that I don’t think it had produce or a meat counter. But that section was much bigger than a non-Super Target.

At one point, I was in the grocery section, and I turned down an aisle of freezer cases with no other customers around. I didn’t notice at first, but none of them was lit on the inside. But when I started down the aisle, the cases lit up. One by one. As I neared each one! I half-expected a choir to start singing. It was like being in a commercial. I resisted the urge to dance around with my cart and pantomime lighting freezer cases with a magic wand.

Later, as I was reaching for my regular brand of deodorant, a guy came up to me and gave me a dollar-off coupon for that same brand. What a store!

I had no idea this place was over there. Apparently it’s been open a while. I could have sworn I’d been there more recently than last fall, but I guess not. Looks like the Medallion Target might not see me quite so often for a while.

Now all we need is a Tom Thumb in this neighborhood.

2010: 08/15
POSTED BY: Patty (in Dallas)
CATEGORY: Target
3 comments

New kittens.

I finally did it, didn’t I? I made the big plunge. I adopted a pair of kittens from the Farmers Branch Animal Shelter.

They are adorable. I’m convinced they’re actually twins, instead of just sisters with a really close resemblance. It took me four days to find the slightest noticeable difference in their markings just so I could tell them apart.

Sure, I can already see that they have different tendencies and different personalities, but it doesn’t help much unless you know which cat to attach those differences to.

Neither one seems to be in charge of the other. They take turns. One is slightly larger than the other, but it’s so slight that they have to be standing next to each other to know which one is the big one.

I’ve settled on names for them:

Boucher — for my favorite hockey player, Philippe Boucher, of course. I figure it’ll shorten to Bouche (Boosh) or Boo-Boo eventually.

Skipper — for my current favorite cartoon character. Anybody ever watch Penguins of Madagascar? You should.

Aren’t they cute?

2010: 06/28
POSTED BY: Patty (in Dallas)
CATEGORY: Cats
Household
3 comments

I have a small problem with annoying noise.

I stopped by Target today.

You know how you’re not supposed to go to the grocery store when you’re hungry? I’d like to add that you shouldn’t get a noisy, wobbly, squeaky, rattly shopping cart when you’re hungry, either. It so infuriated me, that I found myself wishing for a machine gun to spray around the store. Then I saw an abandoned cart in the scrapbook racket aisle and switched to it. It was quiet and smooth and disaster was averted.

It was a good thing, too, because if that hadn’t pushed me over the edge, the fact that I couldn’t find the tools would have. Has Target stopped selling hand tools? The only things that were in the aisle that has always been full of hammers and screwdrivers and small power tools were picture hangers and doorknobs. That did not make me happy. Fortunately, I had a nice cart, which did.

2010: 06/19
POSTED BY: Patty (in Dallas)
CATEGORY: Household
Pointlessness
Target
3 comments

It’s an uphill battle.

I saw this today on the street. I don’t really know what to say about it. I’m not even sure if I’m surprised.

Still, it’s for fun. It’s an amateur.

But this one…

Probably not a lot of words with four s's. But this is one of them.

This one is carved into a plaque, bought and paid for, and hung on the wall of a respectable and (loved by me) establishment. If they didn’t ask for their money back, they don’t deserve their money back. My lovely sister (in Keller) and I saw this on a recent trip. We both knew immediately it was wrong, but I admit we had to write it down to be sure of the correct spelling. I haven’t checked other locations, but once I do, I’ll let you know if they’re the same. I did have my lovely sister (in Tulsa) check hers for this sign, and she reported that they don’t have a sign about unlicensed weapons at all.

2010: 05/31
POSTED BY: Patty (in Dallas)
CATEGORY: Pointlessness
Spelling and Grammar
Tips and Tricks
1 comment

High Plains Drifter.

Since I’m back on the unemployed list, as of last Wednesday, I figured I’d take a quick road trip to relax, enjoy the car, and see some stuff I’ve never seen before. I picked Palo Duro Canyon State Park in the Texas Panhandle, just south of Amarillo.

To start the trip, my car’s GPS and Yahoo Maps had a knock-down, drag-out fight about how I should get to Amarillo. My car insisted that I get on I-35W and basically head for Oklahoma City to catch I-40 and go west. I sided with Yahoo and wanted to take US-287, but the car kept trying to force me onto I-35W. I finally had to just get myself west of I-35W and then start the GPS.

I’m glad I did, too, because that was just a lovely drive. The road was so smooth that at one point I hit a minor bump and realized that was the first one in two hours. I stopped for a Coke at the Dairy Queen in Childress and they had some impressively chewy pellet ice. There were tons of wildflowers along the way, mostly Indian Blanket and various tiny yellow daisy-style flowers. I was too nervous to pull over to take pictures, though.

I reached Amarillo and checked in to my hotel at around 6pm and was happy to discover that I was just a couple of exits from Cadillac Ranch and I still had a couple of hours of daylight.
Read more

2010: 05/20
POSTED BY: Patty (in Dallas)
CATEGORY: Photography
Travel
Weather
8 comments

I’m serious. I love Target.

Who thinks of these things?!

This is the kind of thing that makes me love Target. Maybe other stores have a little plastic sticky-strap to attach to giant packages of rolls of toilet paper so you can carry them, but I have never seen it. I actually said, “Wow. That’s pretty cool,” to the cashier.

Little things like that are what make this country great. Minor annoyances are solved. That’s why people like me have enough free time to be awestruck by such a thing.

A trip to Target at 7pm on a Tuesday night almost always leaves me with a warm, fuzzy feeling. Sometimes if I go on the Saturday before Christmas I might wonder what I think is so great about it, but most other times it’s nice.

I also bought a new shower curtain, finally. I have a vintage bathroom with seafoam-green tile and a pink sink and bathtub. I wish I had the matching toilet, but I haven’t found one in that color yet. I painted the walls pink to match the sink and it’s pretty strong, but my plan was to hang a lot of pictures and stuff. That, um, hasn’t happened yet. I’ve been needing a new shower curtain for a really long time, but it’s hard to find one that goes with the vintage pink and green. They’re not the same greens and pinks you find today. But this time I decided I just had to have one, even if it has to be Spongebob or something — I had overnight guests last weekend and I was MORTIFIED by the condition of my shower curtain and liner.

As usual, when I am forced to find something, I find something I like. I’ve been down the shower-curtain aisle at Target a hundred times and I don’t remember seeing the one I picked. Now that I have to have something, I love this one! It matches the walls and the little shelf thing. I have some pictures I’m about to hang and now I wish the frames were dark brown instead of white. Maybe I’ll come back to that later.

I bought some other random stuff, too. I forgot to get Advil and I’ve since forgotten to get it at the grocery store, too.

The tension aches in my back are getting better, though. Maybe it was all because my shower curtain was so bad.

Update: I wrote this post before I actually hung the shower curtain. Now I’m thinking it’ll be okay to tide me over, but I need to keep looking. What do you think?

2010: 05/13
POSTED BY: Patty (in Dallas)
CATEGORY: Bath and Beauty
Decorating
Household
Target
5 comments

Their house is famous!

My mom and dad have their house on the market these days. It’s a beautiful Victorian in a town full of Victorians in Central Texas. They have worked hard to fix it up and every time I visit I have to spend at least an hour over the course of the visit just wandering through the house and marveling at it.

I’ve taken hundreds of pictures of it over the years and I still love to whip out the camera and get some new ones. You can see some of them on my Flickr page.

Today, the house appeared on the New York Times web site in their real estate section! It’s so exciting! You should check it out.

The NYT sent a photographer up from Houston to take some pictures for their site and you can see them in the slideshow to the left of the article. He has a much nicer camera, a MUCH wider lens, and some nice lights, so his pictures are much more professional than mine.

The 13-foot ceilings, though, make the furniture look tiny when you get the whole room in the shot. You just don’t see ceilings that high every day.

If you know anybody that wants a lovely Victorian in a small town in Texas, be sure and let them know about this one.

Update: My dad happened to catch the local Bryan, TX newscast and they mentioned the house, too!