"Audra's Day"

Last Saturday, I sort of threw myself a pity party complete with a blended caramel macchiato because I was really kind of annoyed at my mom for not wanting to go to the Ft. Worth Botanical Gardens with me. She knew I really wanted to go and get out of the house, but she wasn't into it last Saturday. She did end up agreeing that she would go with me today though.

I sort of got a late start this morning, just not real motivated to get going, I guess. Before I could get over to my parents house to pick Mom up, Paige called to see what I was doing. She was at Mom's house at the time. I wondered how well this boded for our trip to FW. Mom gets on the phone and said that Paige was hanging out with Pops while Peyton had to go shopping for an Easter outfit with Julie and Madison. I think Peyton was annoyed because she wanted to stay with Paige or go with us, but here's where Mom gets her points back. Mom said that the girls would have to hang out with us some other time because it was "Audra's Day." Yay!

We didn't leave town until sometime around 10 or so. Mom has been wanting to get something to go on the walls in her bedroom. She asked me last night if there was Kirkland's near where we were going. I told her I wasn't sure, but I did know where we would have to pass a Garden Ridge. I don't hate going to Kirkland's or Garden Ridge as such, but going with my Mom is time that I will never get back.

I didn't object to taking her to Garden Ridge, and did in fact take her to Garden Ridge. When we went in, there was a 12 year old boy sacked out in a lawn chair on a rolling cart full of merchandise that his mother was either returning or exchanging or purchasing (it was the return line, so who knows for sure). Mom mentioned something about the boy, and said, "I can identify. There's nothing like going to Garden Ridge with your Mom."

So help me, we were in there a solid hour. I pointed out one picture that I really liked and thought she should get. We skipped it for the time being. She picked up a picture and put it in the buggy for several aisles. Then decided on another one, so I put #1 up. Then she saw something else, so put the second one she put in the buggy against the wall with some others. I went off to the restroom and came back, but she was still staring at them. Then decided against #2 and all of those other ones too.

At this point, I almost threatened her life if we left the store without something to hang on her walls. We went back to the first picture that I liked, and she decided she would get it, and if she didn't like it over her bed, she'd send it home with me. I tell her she does not have to buy anything she does not want.

Then, she goes looking for plates to hang on the wall, which we debate over for a while. She decides after picking out three that we had enough for now because she's used enough of my time.

We finally get the heck out of Garden Ridge, and head back out on the road. Then, we get stuck in traffic on 360 because of a wreck. FINALLY, finally we get to FW. By now, it's like 1:00 and we're hungry. We take the exit for the botanical gardens, but pass some restaurants from the exit before and decide we can just take the back way to get to them. We end up taking a turn that sends us through Trinity Park at 20 miles an hour, towards downtown, and I finally snake my way back to Pappa's Burgers. It was a long detour for a burger, but at least the burger was good.

It was 2:00 before we get to the gardens, the primary purpose of this trip. Paige calls us about this time to see where we are, and she can't believe we haven't even got to our destination yet.

The first thing that we did was go through the Japanese Garden. Here, my mom decides that everything in this section is growing in her backyard. We've decided the woman that owned the house for many, many years, and planted a majority of the plants, had purposefully planted a Japanese garden. (Knowing the woman, that is actually likely.) All Mom needs is some giant Koi and some bamboo and she can charge admission. (Oh, and call her arbor a pagoda.)

We were there for a couple of hours and had a nice time. Our trip home was much quicker than the trip up there even if we did have to wait in line for BBQ at a gas station on our way back to take home for supper.

I'll have to post pictures tomorrow. I have to install some software to get some of the pictures off of my camera since they are stored on internal memory rather than the memory chip.

The camera I got for Christmas is an entire entry within itself. I thought the battery enclosed was rechargeable and could only be charged if I had an easy share dock. But, since I didn't have a charger for this battery pack, I've used rechargeable batteries in it every time I've tried to use it. Except, the camera wouldn't work for longer than 5 pictures (which ticked me off and drove me crazy). I tried to troubleshoot online the other night and was told that I was using the wrong kind of batteries. So, last night I bought a pair of lithium batteries for $5 a pair. I double checked the manual regarding batteries, looked at the battery pack and realized the battery that came with it was not rechargeable - I could have been using this fancy battery that came with my camera, and it would have been functioning correctly the whole time.

So, finally the battery was working, but I forgot to put the memory chip back in the camera after I upload my Rangers pictures the other day. Thankfully, when I got an "internal memory full" message after 10 pictures, I had my other camera as back-up and could use that chip to take more pictures. I don't have the software installed because I've not had to take anything off the internal memory before. Now that I typed all this stupid story about the camera that has contributed to my insanity, I'm too tired to fix it tonight. You'll get pictures tomorrow.

Comments

Unknown said…
So glad you got to have a day all about you, other than the time you sacrificed at Garden Ridge!!
Audra Jennings said…
Hi Ruth - thanks for stopping by and commenting. I'm not much of a cook, but think I'll need to start cooking some muffins.

Penny - today needs to be "Audra cleans her house day", but I hate to clean house and I have other things to do that I'm also procrasting about. I guess it's a good thing I live by myself.