In Celebration

Although starting the day off at the DMV is not anyone's idea of a great Saturday, it did seem to be a big symbolic part of being a resident in a new place. We were begruding the fact that we had to get our licenses today, but it had to be done to get our cars registered, and I'm leaving tomorrow for another week of work in the field. So off we went at 8:30 to the DMV.



It was a lively place with a line out the door and around the corner, but people seemed to be taking it in stride and we met some nice people in line. All in all, it was a good experience and we left with a good attitude about the South Carolina DMV.

In celebration of getting that done, and with so much to do with a new house, we did some shopping. We started out at the nursery to get some ideas of trees for the yard. It was great that some of the native trees we like are pretty common at the nurseries, such as magnolia and redbuds. Funny thing was that many of the trees are deciduous so it was tough looking at rows of trees that don't have their leaves on them yet. How would you decide whether you liked the Silver Cloud Redbud or the Oaklahoma Redbud when you have these rows to choose from?

The nursery man assured us it was a bit early in the year to get a good view of the trees in full splendor, but he walked around and gave us the highlights of each and we took lots of pictures of bare branches and tags so that we knew what was what.

The evergreens, including the magnolia, were much easier this time of year.

After getting tree ideas, we went to the drapery store. I had to drag Paul in there with me, kicking and screaming, but he was a good sport about letting me know what he would settle for and what he would not. He couldn't see the difference between cobalt blue and teal, which was pretty funny, but I was pretty impressed with his pattern design taste. We found a fabric we could both be happy with and then we went on to Lowes to see about curtain rods. We didn't buy the fabric yet-- very pricey, but we wrote down all the info for later use.

Lowe's were much better priced than the drapery store for curtain rods and so bought enough for the master bedroom, which took hours since we had to go through and find 4 matching of everything. Harder than it seemed. We now have curtain rods to hang sheets on if we need to until we get fabric.

It looks like I won't be bringing my sewing machine to the hotel this week! Spinning it is... The sweater is almost done, by the way. Another half sleeve and neckline to do.