Day 39: With one final day left in my jaunt with shopstinance, I bought something! This week about 15 people asked me what the first thing I was looking to buy would be, so wouldn’t it be fantastically anti-climatic if I avoided all the pressure of closing this journey by failing it early? Even more ridiculous, what if I failed this challenge by buying something completely uneventful and unnecessary like this scrunchie?
My new scrunchie!
Viva le 80s
OK, just kidding, I didn’t buy anything.
Mother’s Day started out with more cleaning. Had so many dishes left over from yesterday’s baking session that I needed to do two loads in the dish washer. This was followed by finishing my laundry and putting it away. After which I did a living room and kitchen sweep. Made another eggwhites lunch because it was easy and I bought a costco pack of eggwhites, and had fresh squeezed orange juice to go along with it.
At 2:30pm Kumi stopped by, because the real gift to any mother on Mother’s Day is treating themselves to a visit with me. I said this to her as soon as she walked in the door, and she does her full bodied laugh. Oh how I adore Kumi because she laughs at my terrible jokes and allows me to feel funnier than I am.
She mainly stopped by to try the scones I made for my mom, and had posted to Instagram. I made extra and packed up a box for her last night to pick up today, after she visited her mom. We chatted about the good old work days and where people are now as I continued to finish up my errands: folding towels while watching Silicon Valley and then prepping the marinade for the Nomiku dinner I would cook for my mom later on in the evening.
At around 4pm it was time for us both to get going. I packed all the supplies I’d need for dinner: Nomiku, potatoes, green beans, marinade. The rest I was going to buy before reaching my parents house about 30 minutes away.
The list:
- Tulips — Bought at Safeway, not beautifully wrapped but the flowers were pretty. They are my mom’s favorite flower.
- Strawberries — Didn’t plan out a real dessert, so the best dessert is nature’s candy.
- Catfish — Braved Marina foods on a Sunday. I should get brownie points for this as any Chinese market is a madhouse on Sundays.
Finally arrived at my parents’ house at 5:30pm, and my first instinct is to throw away everything they have sitting on their counters. Their home looks like it’s ‘on the verge’ of being featured on Hoarders. Move everything out of the way that I wouldn’t be using for cooking and start looking for a vase to put the flowers in. Interior to the cabinets I was transported to a museum of appliances by decade. Pushing aside history, I eventually find two vases that will fit the oversized bunch of flowers I had brought for my mom.
When my mom wakes up from her nap, she comes downstairs and her voice sings when she spots the flowers and notices that I’m cooking. A friend of hers calls and she beams while coyly saying she’s too busy to talk as her daughter is making dinner. Once she sits down at the dining table she eyes the scones, and asks if she can have one before dinner. My answer is, “Absolutely! It’s your day.” While she noshes on that I continue to cook, she pronounces that my scones are delicious and proceeds to eat another.
For dinner I made sous vide catfish, with stir fried string beans and toaster oven potatoes. Dessert was plain strawberries.
My mom was ecstatic the whole time and it felt great to show how much I appreciate her. It was probably the best gift I could have given myself on Mother’s Day.
Then while eating dinner we realized, I forgot my Dad’s birthday last week.
Fail.
Bought: 0
Pinned: 0
Sold: 0
Returned: 0
Gifted: 0
