Another long, but good, day

If I need to be some place at a certain time, I need to get there first, before I pick up a book to read or a knitting project to work on. Thursday, I had two places to be - Grace Church at noon for the 'Vintage Grace' luncheon and Stephanie's house at 7 pm for the charity knitting group of Grace and First Presbyterian Churches.

I figured that if I left my house at 11 am, I'd have time to stop at Dr Winkler's office to pick up a lab order and get to the church by noon. Just as I was picking up my purse and knitting bag, Alyssa called. So a few minutes lost. About ten miles before Paducah, they were clearing away an accident or a disabled vehicle. About ten minutes lost there. Then when I got to Dr Winkler's office, the receptionists didn't know anything about the lab order, and had to go looking for it. Another ten minutes. It was about 12:25 when I arrived at Grace. Everyone else was eating, but there was planty of food left, so I got my plate and joined one of the tables of other senior citizens.

I left there a few minutes before 2 pm, and went to the library. I picked out two books in a series my sister had told me about. The series is about some Norwegians who settled in eastern North Dakota about the same time our great-grandparents came from Norway and settled in Minnesota. I sat there and read the first few chapters before checking out the books.

From there I went to the lab at Western Baptist Hospital to pick up the jug for the 24-hour urine collection - I hate those things - and to find out if I could return it on Sunday. I could, but not to that lab. Instead I had to go to the one in the basement. It's sort of the inpatient lab, while the one on the first floor is the outpatient one.

Next stop: Hobby Lobby. At the Gourd Patch Festival last weekend, a woman liked a short capelet that I had in Tyea's booth, but wanted it a bit longer for her mother. Fortunately, I was able to get the same kind of yarn I'd used for the other one.

Then I stopped at Books-a-Million to buy a Webster's New World Children's Dictionary for Lexi. It says that it's for third through sixth grades - perfect! I plan to give it to her on Tuesday, but I'll wrap it in Christmas paper and say it's an early Christmas present.

By this time, it was about 6 pm (you know I didn't just run in and out of either Hobby Lobby or Books-a-Million), so I went through the drive-through at Burger King and then pulled over into one of the parking spaces and resumed reading while I ate my sandwich. I was under a street light, so there was plenty of light to read by. When I looked up and realized it was completely dark, I knew I'd read longer than I had intended. When I started the car, the clock read 7:16. The question then was, "Can I find Stephanie's house in the dark?" I did, and was there for an hour or so talking and knitting. It was after 9 pm when I got home.