What I Did On Tuesday

WARNING: Some of you may find this post rather boring. But for me, yesterday was the best “taking care of business” day I’ve had in a while. I started I writing this just before heading to bed Tuesday night; while I still had a small but satisfying sense of accomplishment. So here’s the reason why:

Although it’s usually on Monday, today was my day to go into Bowling Green and  do some errands.  

The change in schedule was directly due to the timing of my eligibility to donate plasma at the Bowling Green Biologicals like I have been doing for the last 4 months. I won’t go into the details (if you really want to know ask me when we talk) but donating plasma is essentially giving blood and getting paid for it. I usually do it on Monday and Wednesdays. Last week I went on Tuesday and Thursday. Because you can’t donate more than twice in any 7 day period, I couldn’t go back again until Tuesday this week.

I left my house at about 11AM; first, stopping by my church to drop off a packet of information to our church secretary. She’s going to Walt Disney World with her family very soon. As of yesterday hadn’t done much planning.  When it comes to arranging an enjoyable Walt Disney World vacation her pending departure is the equivalent of a blink of an eye. Because of my own experience, I felt she really needed some basic Disney World trip planning advice; so I collected some vital information for her.

Next on my agenda was a stop at the Daily Newspaper office to pick up some copies of the Sunday paper that included my granddaughter Aria’s birth announcement.

Once I got to the Plasma center I could tell from the number of people in the waiting area that it was going to take a lot longer than the usual hour to donate. I decided to leave and go back later when it wouldn’t be as crowded.

I rearranged my list of things to do and headed for the car wash. It was time to clean out my Saturn Vue. The interior had gotten so nasty that over the last couple of months I refused let my wife or anyone, other than my dogs, ride in it. But an upcoming short road trip with my daughter-in-law, Heather, and one of her friends on Friday meant I had to get it clean enough to allow them to ride with me.

I went through the automatic car wash to get the exterior clean and then spent about over an hour detailing the interior.

With a newly cleaned vehicle it was time for me to take care of the most important task of the day. Today was my other daughter-in-law, Brandi’s birthday. We had already celebrated with her at our house on Mother’s Day. But I wanted to give her something special on her special day.  

She told me she was going to be at Cheddar’s restaurant for lunch with her cousin around 1 o’clock. I arranged to meet her there. I gave her a couple of special cupcakes from GiGi’s because everyone needs to have cake on their birthday. She seemed really happy with her surprise.  

I got a special reward for my act of kindness. My granddaughter, Aria, was with her mommy. Although she was fast asleep in her baby carrier I still loved getting to see her. She continues to be the most beautiful baby in the world.

I left Brandi and her cousin to enjoy their lunch together. After a brief stop for some lunch I went to Wal-Mart. I was there to stock up on the beverages Paula and I drink every day in order to stay hydrated. I bought about 40 bottles of Powerade Zero and 60 bottles of flavored sparking water. I know that seems like a lot but it’s a month’s supply for two people who down at least one of each type of drink daily.

Each time I do this kind of shopping my cart gets really full; almost to the point of overflowing. I get some strange looks as I make my way through the store to the checkout.  I return each of those looks with the phrase “I’m really thirsty.”

Once at the checkout lane I emptied the cart onto the conveyor belt by flavors. The checker was an older lady named “Darlene.” She seemed a bit overwhelmed by the size of my purchase. Add to this her problems with opening and doubling the plastic bags and you get the reason it took me 15 minutes to get out of the store.

By coincidence, the person in line behind me was a woman, named “Vicki”, who goes to my church. I kept telling her that I was sorry she had to wait so long. She was very patient and even offered to help bag the bottles.  

Shopping at Sam’s Club was next but before that I made a quick trip to the Lifeway Christian Store in the Greenwood Mall. I needed to get some things to prepare for our church’s Vacation Bible School in June.

Sam’s Club store was really crowded and it took me about 30 minutes to get the ½ dozen items on my list. By this time it was close to 4 o’clock. I was tired and decided that I wasn’t going to go back to donate plasma.

I wanted to go home but I had one more stop to make. I needed even more groceries from the Kroger store. I bought just over $100 worth of food but only paid just over $40 because I used my Kroger Card rewards checks.

While in the store I had the pleasure of running into another church member, Laura, along with her 3 daughters. At one time or another, over the past 8 years, I’ve had the privilege of teaching each of them in Children’s church. The older two ran up to me and each gave me a hug. That made my day.

Once the 3^rd and last shopping trip was completed, again because I was tired, I decided against the 10 mile bike ride I had planned as part of my day. So finally after all day “in town” I headed home.

The bike ride would have been difficult anyway.  All the groceries I had in the back of my Vue were piled on top of the bike. I wouldn’t have been able get it out if I had wanted to.

But wait there’s more.

Once I got home I had to unload all the groceries and drinks and then put them away. That done, I just sat and relaxed on the love seat for a while.

Soon, after they stared at me while wagging their tails for about 15 minutes, I decided to take my dogs for a walk. The 1 mile trek through our little town made them very happy.

Now at this point you would think I would be satisfied with all I had done all day; but I wasn’t. The missed bike ride from earlier still bothered me.

So at 7 o’clock I got on my bike and rode around “the grove” for about ½ an hour. When I got back to the house I discovered that my trip had been long enough to make my digital odometer go over 100 miles. That was the topper for the day.

When my wife got home from Praise Team practice at church I drove to Wendy’s and brought back supper.

The rest of the evening consisted of cutting up and sweetening the strawberries I bought at Kroger, watching some TV and writing this post.

So there you have it. That’s my story of my busy outstanding routine day of errands. Like I wrote at the start of this post you may have found it boring. However I’m hoping that at least some of you found it a somewhat engaging and overly detailed account of a day in my life. I promise to choose a more interesting topic in my next post.