Saturday Report: Beating the Rain...

We always try to make the most of our weekends whether it be a trip to HEB Plus for my week supply of veggies, fruits and yogurt, hitting a garage sale or two or doing some yard work. Today, we got an early start and just got home with only a slight rain to wet our groceries in the back of the truck.

Several weekends ago, we got together with some of our neighbors and did a garage sale of our own. Basically, the neighbors brought over their junk, combined it with our junk, then we all sat around and drank coffee and ate donuts and such while strangers came and dug through our collective junk. The goal of these events is to have all of our junk gone by the time the strangers leave.

Silver Creek makes a good neighborhood for Saturday garage sales because as long as the weather cooperates, you can count on any number of other people with the same idea. And once garage-sailer's get the spirit, they drive around and hit them all. Of course, there are the early birds who seem to be coming just to buy up anything that will sale on E-Bay or at a flea market some place, but I don't mind.

This morning, we noticed that some folks down the street from us were having a real doozy of a garage sale so we made our way down. I bought a bunch of picture frames and then the "incident" occurred. A lady was looking at a 36" TV for a hundred bucks, and she was using the phone to call someone to ask about buying it. I saw this and thought that perhaps if the lady didn't buy it, I'd get it just to have - I mean, how can you pass up on a 36" color TV for a hundred bucks, right?

When I showed my wife, she told the garage sale proprietor that we would take the TV. Just then, the lady on the phone came up and said she would take it. The proprietor said (and rightfully so) that she would sell it to us since we had basically pulled the trigger first, but I instead said that if the lady on the phone wanted it, she could go ahead and take it. I didn't want to cause a problem and really, I had no idea where I was going to put the TV in the first place. To me, it just wasn't a big deal.

My wife saw it a different way. What I didn't see at the time was that the lady on the phone was gathering up other stuff and setting it aside, yet when a man wanted to actually purchase something the lady had stacked, she told him that the item was already taken. I guess the analogy would be like going into HEB just before Thanksgiving and setting aside all the turkeys, affectively taking them all off the market of other buyers. If you intend to buy it, put it in your cart and get to the register.

In the end, I felt like it wasn't worth a scene but after we left, I started thinking I should have just said "You snooze, you lose" to the lady and taken the TV.

What do you think? Am I just too nice for my own good?

One of the projects that my wife wants to work on is tiling our back patio. Her mother had hers done a few weeks ago and it sure does look nice. So, we have been thinking about it and decided to go to this place over off of Bandera and 410 called Floor & Decor. Wow! Talk about a huge selection and a place you could really get lost in looking at all the different styles and ideas.

We ended up deciding on a checkerboard pattern using a beige and a brown so it will sort of match the house trim and the deck. I'll take a picture when we do it. But I wanted to point out how really helpful the staff was at Floor & Decor. I'm a frequent visitor to Home Depot and occasionally Lowes, but I find the service at these places to be less than exciting, so I was pleased with the folks at this place.

Anyway, we had a nice young lady named Yen help us out and she was all too happy to pose with the huge load of stuff we bought. Imagine the workout these people get during a regular shift of work.

Believe me, I had to unload it all when we got home.

After dropping it all off, we made a quick run out to the HEB Plus. Walking in from the parking lot, my wife pointed out this little hot rod that warranted a picture.

So what 16 year old (and please, let's hope it is a 16 year old) thought this would be a good look for his "sports car"? These are the things that make me giggle. I especially like his awesome rims.

I got to see our friend Carol, one of the cooking ladies (pictured at the top of the page) who works the main "featured" cooking demo area. She made some serious vittles today including some sort of stuffed chicken, some awesome ravioli and this pasta that she had perhaps been a tad bit generous with the horseradish. Geeze, my innards are still yelping.

Anyway, we got all our stuff and hit the parking lot just in time for a little shower action. Yep, taking the truck to go grocery shopping isn't necessarily the smartest thing I did today.

How was your visit to HEB or around the neighborhood garage sales? Tell me about it.