I spent the day running errands with my friend Patty. We had sandwiches for lunch and set about completing my list. I had several business supplies to track down-ink for the printer, invoice/receipt forms, and business card holders. I found the ink and decided to hold off on the rest. I made a quick detour to the health food store for some flour and went off to hunt yarn. On my way to hunt yarn, my eye caught a sign advertising a sale on canoes and kayaks this weekend. I stopped in and saw many pretty ones hanging in from the ceiling. I hit three different stores and didn’t notice much of a pricing difference for given models. I compared online and it’s all about the same, here are the ones I looked at closely. I’m leaning toward the Old Town Otter, the blue one on top, but it comes in other colors. I can’t see whether the foot rests are adjustable, the seat is. I need to see it, otherwise, I’m looking at one that’s not pictured-camo color Mainstream Sound 9.4.

I rarely seem to make it to GR to use the 40% off coupon at one of my chain stores. The coupon publishes every other week, the opposite of my schedule. Since I was down with wisdom teeth removal last week, I decided to head to GR some time this week to take advantage of the savings. I have to say, it takes some doing to make it all work out in the end. I’ll call that chain, Store H. I signed up for the paper flyer from a different store, we’ll call that Store J. There is yet another chain craft store in GR, we’ll call that Store M. Store M didn’t have a flyer this week, nor a coupon, Store J usually has a coupon for every two or three week period. The coolie thing about stores is competition. Competition is good, so the stores accept coupons that are supposed to be good at other stores. Store J doesn’t have anything I want right now, well, ok, there’s stuff I want, but not badly enough to buy it. Store M has started carrying large skeins of cotton yarn, 350+ yards for about $8. Now, I don’t want to pay that much, so I used my Store J coupon there. Store H has some packages of yarn that I covet. If I use a coupon, for about $15, I can get three skeins with 450+ yards of cotton. Here’s the fun part, the store has a strict one coupon per person per day policy. I can’t rationalize two trips to GR the same week to save 40%. The lovely lady suggested I get a second person to make my second purchase. I drafted a complete stranger to buy my second treasure. Luckily, I had cash with me so it was easy. She laughed over the whole thing and said at least she’d have something interesting to talk about later.

I also found some yarn to use to make some socks for a friend of Granny’s as well as a neat hand spade that has metric and standard depth marks for planting. I can’t wait to plant the garden.

Tags: craft store chain, grand rapids, kayak, office supplies, yarn

For Julie’s birthday, Josh wanted to take her to a concert in GR and discovered that two tickets were the same as the cost of four tickets. He invited Jason and I along. So Josh, Julie, Jason and I went to a Gary Allen/Keith Urban concert. We had a fantastic dinner at a restaurant in GR that none of us had previously visited. Oh my word, it was an awesome show. When I saw the banks and banks and banks of intelligent lights, I wished I had not left my camera in the car. I know I can’t get good pictures of the concert, but I have discovered how to make some coolie color smears with my camera to use as backgrounds or graphics.

Gary Allen was on for almost an hour, then twenty-something minute intermission and out came Keith Allen and extremely talented band for just over 2 hours. All of the band members seemed to be cross-trained so they each played two or three or instruments and they could all sing. They had set up a walkway and mini stage out into the arena. Gary Allen walked down the runway a little, but didn’t use it much nor the mini stage at all. Half way through Keith Urban, they put a video on the screen of Keith playing and the whole band moved to the mini stage. There was enough room for a drum kit and each person to have a stool to sit and play. They did some mellow stuff down there then returned to stage. Had I taken better notes, I would remember which song and at what point in the concert the GVSU Drumeline joined them. It was for the ending of one of the songs, in which the guitar/keyboard player donned a snare drum and joined the line.

At the first ending, the band cleared stage, but they didn’t turn the house lights on, so we all assumed we could clap them back out to sing more. We were able to do that, at first Keith came out by himself and sat at a keyboard/electric piano and played. He was visibly tired, but that didn’t stop him. After a few songs the band joined him again and they did a bunch of covers. Gary Allen was dragged back out to participate in one of the covers, Joker I think was the title. They had an awesome lights the entire show and some video/slide shows that went with some songs. We left just before midnight, had Josh and Julie home by one.

I feel like we went to a concert where the artists gave their all. It was a phenomenal show. I would go again in a heartbeat!

Tags: concert, country music, family, grand rapids