Reason for the Season

After being super lazy yesterday, I vowed to be much more productive today. I started out the morning slow, but eventually showered and headed out to finish my Christmas shopping for Marshall. My first stop was the mall and boy was it crazy! I guess everyone was already off work for the holidays because the place was slammed and so incredibly hot. I had to take my coat off while in there just to not have a heat stroke. I don't understand why stores insist on being so hot during the winter. It certainly doesn't make you want to stay in there and shop. While looking for Marshall's gift, I ended up finding what I had in mind to get my mom. Well, at least walking away with two gifts from here will make the torturous heat more worth it. I finally found what I was looking for and not a moment too soon. I was so over all the people and the heat I just couldn't take it any more. I rushed out of there as soon as I had made my purchase and breathed a sigh of relief once I was outside. For the rest of the day I simply left my coat in the car. I didn't care if I was cold on my way into the stores just to be able to be somewhat comfortable while I was in the store.

Since Whole Foods grocery store is right next to the mall, whenever I am over this way I seize the opportunity to go as Whole Foods is my favorite grocery store. I also wanted to make the pot roast in the crockpot for Marshall that Susan made the other night. I know Marshall says he isn't a fan of roast, but I have a feeling he might like this. So I picked up the roast and most of the ingredients I needed at Whole Foods along with a few extra groceries and headed out. I stopped briefly at Bed, Bath and Beyond and while I didn't find anything in there, when I came out the sky was a beautiful pinkish orange color. The sun had started to set and the sky above the parking lot was amazing. I'm sure most Christmas shoppers didn't pay it any attention but I stopped by my car to marvel at it. I even snapped a picture hoping it would turn out half as pretty as the sky. I think so many times during the holiday season people forget to stop and pay attention to the little things. They most certainly forget the real reason for the holidays and sometimes signs like this in the sky can remind us to pause and appreciate the reason for the season.

My next stop on the way home was Target to pick up a few things. Target wasn't nearly as bad as the mall so I managed to maintain my sanity while shopping in there. Lastly, I had to stop by Harris Teeter to pick up a couple of items I couldn't find at Whole Foods. I was in and out of there in under 10 minutes and heading home. After I put away all the groceries, I wrapped Mom and Marshall's presents. There was still a chance that Marshall would be home later tonight so I wanted to make sure all of his gifts were wrapped before he got home.

The rest of the night I spent cleaning the house. I got into our bathroom and ended up doing a spring cleaning in there. I threw away a bunch of old things and rearranged in there. Eventually, I will do a major cleaning when we decide to finally renovate that bathroom but who knows when we will actually get around to doing that. Marshall eventually got off work around 11:30, but was much too exhausted to then drive the 3 hours home to Wilmington. So he decided to go back to the hotel and sleep for a few hours before getting up early in the morning and heading home. I stayed up until about 2am cleaning and then finally went to bed. In the morning my husband will be home!