Its been one of those weeks – a sister is visiting from New Mexico but staying in NYC (from Sun) and her husband joined her on Wed. Tomorrow we are celebrating the fifth birthday of the first grandchild and first nephew and then on Saturday we celebrate the second gc and nephew’s third birthday. For that party the small village’s fire company is sending over one of the fire engines and will let the children climb on it and talk to the firemen and they get little souvenir hats, etc. The weather is predicting highs in the hi 30s – let’s pray as its BITTER COLD tonight with a horrendous wind child.
Anyway, Monday and Tuesday were ERRAND days – Village Sister and new mom needed to have presents returned at two different malls in the area – about 30 mins apart over the Tappan Zee bridge over the Hudson River. Also I had errands at JoAnn, Target, Home Depot and Barnes and Noble to run – so Monday afternoon off I went.
The last time I drove around doing errands was in Baton Rouge Louisiana – I would drive when I was visiting on trips home on vacation,etc. Its funny how the memories of the driving around BR come back as I am negotiating the new landscape of Westchester, NY. My driving skills have come back without any problems – even parallel parking is now almost perfect. Still driving in new terrain I find a bit stressful.
So Monday I went to the first mall (on this side of the river – Nordstroms and then Bloomingdales) and then went across to the other mall (Palisades Center) And there after the last return at Macy’s did my errands. Its a funky mall – a bit ragged around the edges but there are signs of some attempt to upgrade it. However its definitely a destination mall with Target, H&M, Macys, a huge B&N and other largish stores like JoAnn, CompUSA, BJ , etc. Interestingly the Home Depot sits at the north end of the mall and has no entrance into the mall.
It was a successful trip as I found most of the items on my list – however the Target was really dismal – a really lower end version of their stores. It was running late so I skipped Home Depot and it was starting to sleet/snow and I wanted to get back before it got really treacherous.
On Tuesday, headed out again after visiting with the N Mexico sister and Village sister and the nephews. It was a much better day – clear and cold but not as cold as today. This time went to Home Depot first and was able to get most of the items – except for one item – a two step stool which they had at the other one up the highway.
The new Kitchen light
So I ventured up the highway (adventurous aren’t I) and found a super store Target (much better and had several of the items the other one didn’t) and then across the highway to the Home Depot curiously way back behind two strip malls making it a little cumbersome to get to but with its own entry back on to the highway (87).
And so my debut as a cross-Hudson River driver has happened!
Last night we were treated to our first significant snow of the season – last week’s lasted about two minutes. Here is a shot of the backyard .
oh and I upgraded my cell phone (FINALLY) ….for $10 (since the old one is five years old!!!) Meet Katie the Katana phone.
And today installed an underdesk keyboard and rearranged my worktable – SO SO much better for typing etc (as the post attests I fear in its longwindedness!)
