So we went out today. I went to Michaels and bought two Cuttlekids die sets that were marked down…this one and this one. These dies are designed for a special kid-safe die-cutter machine, but I think they should work just fine in one of the machines I already have. If not, at least I’m only out eight bucks.

I also got this I Taught Myself Knitting kit…it was only ten bucks, I’ll probably get more out of the DVD and online videos than I will from the book, but the other stuph in the kit made it a great deal. I WILL get the hang of this someday!

The Ulta store sucked. The saleswomen were VERY annoying, didn’t want to leave me alone so I could just browse. When salespeople are constantly up my ass, I don’t feel comfortable shopping there, and I’ve most likely to leave without buying anything.

I did manage to find the Bare Escentuals selection, and was disappointed…not a good selection AT ALL. Mostly starter kits and some other basic items, not much in the way of anything else. Nothing special, no cool lip kits, only one or two eye kits…BO-RING.

What kind of annoyed me was the amount of space devoted to drugstore brands, like Maybelline and Cover Girl. When I go to a specialty makeup store, I don’t want to see the same stuph that I can get over at Target or CVS. I also want to be able to test the stuph out, if they had that for the cheaper drugstore brands, I didn’t see it. I want to see something special, something that I can’t buy just any old where. I don’t think I’ll go back into that store…and if I want to avoid having to go to the evil Burlington Maul to shop at Sephora, I will just have to pony up for shipping and buy online. Although I do like the fact that you can try before you buy at the store…oh well, what can you do?

We had a nice lunch at TGI Friday’s…they make the yummiest broccoli & cheese soup! After that, we went to Shaw’s for grocery shopping. Fewer annoying people than last week, but I was still pissed because they didn’t have a couple of the things I was looking for. The first was split peas…I need them to make split pea & ham soup with the bone and leftover scraps from the Easter ham. Sheesh, who the hell heard of NOT having split peas in stock, they are a common enough item. It was just like last week, when I was going crazy looking for a generic jar of plain apple jelly, and they didn’t have it.

The other thing I was looking for was miso. I want to try a couple of recipes this week from the Christina Cooks book that I just got, it’s a part of my mission to get us to eat meatless meals at least once or twice a week. For our first effort, I chose recipes with not too many “weird” ingredients…a spicy lentil soup and stuffed roasted red bell peppers. The peppers are stuffed with a savory combination of brown rice, corn, and spices. Mike likes lentil soup and stuffed peppers, the only “weird” thing is that the soup calls for miso. Shaw’s does have a health food section, as well as a small Asian food section, but no miso was to be had there.

So we went to the evil Stop & Schlop, because it’s a bigger store, and I know they have a larger health food and Asian food section. I did find miso, and the split peas, too. Nice to know that this place is good for something. It’s improved since they remodeled the place, but some things haven’t changed, and I want to minimize the time I spend in there as much as possible.

I’ll be talking more about our attempt to become part-time vegetarians over at c-m dot net.

Yawn. I’m kind of tired now. Maybe I’ll check out my new knitting book, and see if it is any easier to follow than the other books I have.