What A Day. What a Weekend!!

Sometimes things just come together. Yesterday was a plain and all around good day. I made a killing at Goodwill and painted one of the frames and framed one of the Lynn Barron watercolors. Then I found a Michael's coupon so instead of waiting until Don's next payday to get the photo tinting pens, I can get them now and at 40% off. Then TODAY happened.

Don and I weren't sure when Kris woud arrive in Modesto from Tahoe so we went to morning Mass at St. Anthony's instead of evening Mass as we usually do. Later we went to Hamilton's Cafe in Hughson. I had not been there in a couple of years but mom used to like going there very much when she lived at Samaritan Village. Later, when she moved to St. Thomas Assisted Living Center, I took her there as well.

Hamilton's holds a lot of happy memories for me. Kris won a drawing for a giant 6 ft. tall Christmas stocking filled will all sorts of goodies. She was 18 years old. She kept some of the goodies but much of it was distributed to kids that we knew. And whenever Toni can manages a trip from Long Beach, this is a major destination place for food when she is here.

Hamilton's is a small, hole-in-the-wall place that serves up great food at good prices. They are never open for dinner but they ARE open everyday of the year because some of the locals would be lost with nowhere to go on Thanksgiving or Christmas morning. Staying open, in this case, is a good thing.

So, Don and I are having breakfast and I remember a piece of furniture I saw at Goodwill yesterday. It was a huge one piece buffet/hutch unit. For 30 years, I've wanted such a unit. As the years have gone by, it has become less and less likely that it would ever happen and consequently my mom's china, my Christmas china, Franciscanware, crystal and silver, and linens have all been stored in boxes to be taken out and used from time to time on special occasions only.

The unit is a simple colonial style and I thought it was a style that Don would like. I knew he would like the price - $199.95 and it looked entirely unused. I would love to know the story and I'm thinking I will go back and talk to the Goodwill manager tomorrow and find out where it came from (if she knows). Anyway, I mentioned it to Don over breakfast and he agreed to go see it. It sounded like a good possibility. So I kept my fingers crossed that it would still be there and it WAS. We found out from Sharon, the manager, that they had had it for 2 weeks listed at $350. They had just dropped the price. How lucky was that???

Once it was paid for, we had to figure out how to get it home. Enter Ken from work. He agreed to help and as it happened, his dad and mom were visiting from Lake Don Pedro and his dad's truck was loaded with stuff HE planned to drop off at Goodwill. So, Ken, his dad, and Don headed back to Goodwill with two trucks and I headed home to empty the small cabinet/hutch I had and cleaned it up to give to Ken and his wife, Rachel.

Talk about the end of an excellent weekend. I even collected two more Michael's coupons for a total of three. I have some serious looking around to do at the regularly priced items. I'm in such a good frame of mind from the total downer I was early last week, that I'm even looking forward to work tomorrow. Well, sort of anyway. LOL