Lazy Saturday Morning

Last night they had a special half off sale at Goodwill, it was 8 - Midnight. I had been eyeing a black quilted Jacket all week but they wanted $8 for it. Its very nice, but still more than I wanted to pay. So Emery drove us in to town last night for the sale. Sure enough it was still there and now a more agreeable $4. Naturally we found more than just the jacket but I will cover the other finds in another post. Some deserve more attention than just a casual listing here.
But one thing I will talk about in this post that I found at the sale was a cute little electric Espresso machine. It was brand new, all wrapped in plastic, never been taken out of the box by the looks of it. It was a whopping $1. This morning it graced my little cafe table with breakfast. Made a nice little tasting cup of espresso too. Simple to use and doesn't take up a huge amount of counter space like some of the big fancy espresso makers.
Sitting at my table I can look out the front windows and see all the people dressed up and walking to church. Our town is home to a large population of Seventh-Day Adventist. There is a large S.D.A. University here too. We are about half a mile from the church. Ladies walking by in pretty dresses, high heels and men dressed in suits. They all looked so nice, so respectful.
Its a chilly morning and I did wonder about the lack of coats on some of the ladies passing by, but thought of something said to me about 35 years ago when I was dressed without a coat so I could show off my outfit, a kind lady said to me, "dear, aren't you cold ?" After a pause she added, " I suppose not, young girls have their pride to keep them warm." I have never forgotten that. Funny the things that stick in your head.
In the picture of my morning meal, you can see that no matter how continental parts of my life may seem to some, there is the spinning wheel sitting there by the window, used often, and a basket of yarn by the other window. We have such an amazing opportunity in this modern world to surround ourselves with the things we love. Be old fashioned in some ways and live simply and uncomplicated, yet head off to sidewalk cafe's for a bite to eat. Go to art museums that delight the heart, shop for the food we like to eat. Speaking of shopping for food, this past week, I did a bit of an experiment. If you have read my blog for very long, you know I dress up to food shop. Keeps me focused on buying good healthy food. Just doesn't look right to be all dolled up and by cheese puffs and Twinkies. Well, this week I passed by those whopper size shopping carts and picked up a little basket to carry. Now that really made me make careful choices. I purchased enough for a couple meals, no junk. And beside that it made me feel peppy to be walking through the store holding my cute purse in one hand and having this little basket filled with fresh fruits, bright vegetables, bread and cheese, a bit of chocolate too of course.
I wouldn't always be able to shop this way. Laundry detergent, paper needs etc are a bit heavy.
Small changes in our life can make things so different. Behind the handle of a shopping cart you kind of drag yourself around, throwing in stuff. More than most of us need. Of course this kind of hand held basket shopping would have been difficult when all the children were home, but I suppose one could do it if you shopped daily.
Maybe this idea of small dinner plates works well with small hand held shopping baskets. Working on UN-supersizing my life, one step at a time.

A Late morning breakfast of whole milk plain yogurt sweetened with a bit of agave nectar, organic grapes, fresh orange juice, a croissant and of course some espresso.