Most years, we wait until December to buy Christmas gifts.  We always feel like we end up doing it very “last minute” though and it always feels so rushed.  We worry about what to get people and settle for choosing the best that we can find. 

But that’s no way to do it.

With a budget in mind, Hubby and I have decided to start early this year.  We’ve said that we’ll keep an eye open for anything that might be suitable for my parents and siblings as well as for our children.  (Hubby’s family is in the UK, so we don’t need to worry about them.)

Today, we went to Wal-Mart again.  I know it seems like we’re there all the time and, frankly, it’s starting to feel that way.  Anyway, we saw a digital picture frame and immediately thought of my Mum.  She is nearly impossible to buy for and refuses to assist by way of a list.  I think it would be fair to say that shopping for her drives me nuts!

But there’s nothing my Mum likes more than pictures of her precious grandchildren.  So we’ve chosen a digital picture frame and added a memory card.  We’ll load up the card before giving it to her and then she’ll have an ever-changing slideshow of photographs of the ones she loves most.  I’ll even get my brother and sister to send me pics too so that no one is left out.

As we made this purchase long before it will be given as a gift, we decided to take it out of the box to test it and make sure that it was working.  And it’s seems fine.  In fact, we liked it quite a lot and would consider getting one ourselves.

The one we’ve chosen is made by Venturer and has a 5.6″ LCD screen.  At just under $60 Canadian, I’d say that we found a good deal.  And I just know my Mum will love it.

* I couldn’t find a picture Venturer’s Digital Photo Frame so I’ve used one of Kodak’s.  But they look very similar.

Look, I know this is a new blog and that I still don’t have a huge number of people visiting and reading through my mundane rants about Wal-Mart, but I do know that people are reading this.  Heck, you are reading this right now.  Why haven’t you commented?  Don’t you want me to know that you’ve stopped by? 

I sure would like it if you said ‘hi’.  It would mean an awful lot.  Please?

We ordered St-Hubert for supper tonite and, oh, what a treat!  We rarely order in.  Now, that’s not to say that we don’t eat our fair share of fast food/restaurant meals.  We just normally go out for the meal.  And the last time we had St-Hubert was when my Mum and step-father treated us to a meal in the restaurant the day before my daughter was born.

(This is significant to me because we have joked over the years that meals out with my Mum causes me to go into labour.  We went out for a pub supper in England the night before my son was born - one month before his due date.  And we went to St-Hubert here in Cornwall with her the day before my daughter was born - 3 weeks before her due date.)

So it’s been 10 months since we’ve had St-Hubert and it was well worth the wait.  Stephen and I filled our faces and had to pretty much roll ourselves away from the table.

To make the meal even better, they told us that it would take 45 minutes and the meal actually arrived in 20!  $9.45 a head for club sandwiches with fries, creamy coleslaw and their world famous gravy.  Yum.

We’ll be doing that again soon!

I was just looking back through my blog entries here at Woothie.com and my eyes settled on the very agreeable picture of Robbie Williams in my post titled “What’s Robbie Williams up to?“.  I hadn’t noticed before that his right hand is, well, holding or at least touching, ummm, himself.

Robbie!  You naughty, naughty boy.

I am altering some curtains for my son’s room and I needed some thread and other things for the job.  We stopped by Wal-Mart today to pick up the few items I needed.  For once, it was a quick stop in the store.  No browsing around!

When I got to the tills, all of a sudden, Wal-Mart was packed with people.  I find that the cashes nearest the doors are usually less packed so I headed down there.  I finally settled on cash 5, I think it was, and was dismayed to see a certain cashier at the check-out.  This guy has been cranky with us in the past, so we generally avoid him. 

But I was already in the queue and decided that I could put up with a bit of crankiness.

When it became my turn, the cashier started ringing my items through.  Without a ‘hello’ or so much as a glance up at me.  I leaned in and greeted him.  “Oh, hi,” he said, and continued ringing up my three items.

In the middle of all this, he glanced up and noticed the woman behind me had only 2 small items and that she was holding them.  He curtly instructed her to put the items on the belt and to use one of those divider bars to seperate her items from mine.  The lady looked a bit shocked at being commanded to put her items down but did as she was told.

The woman behind her, hearing what the cashier had said, started quickly laying her own items on the belt.  Another divider was laying on the belt, apparently not being used.  She grabbed it and lay it behind the first lady’s items.

“No,” Cranky Cashier reprimanded, “that one needs to stay where it was.  It’s helping to keeping the belt straight.”  Huh?  What the hell does that mean?  But OK, whatever you say, buddy.

So Lady #2 puts the bar back and simply stands there looking awkward.

Cranky Cashier turns his attention back to my purchase and tells me that it comes to $3.12.  (Hey, big spender!)  I hand him 2 toonies, a dime and 2 pennies.  I tell him how much I’ve given him ($4.12) because I fear not getting my loonie and having to bicker with(read: kick the crap out of) this cranky cashier.  As I hand him the change, some of it falls amongst the bags.  He glances down, easily retrieves one penny, counts the change in his hand and tells me that I owe him a penny.

It fell among the bags, I wanted to tell him, but simply couldn’t be bothered.  I handed him another penny, accepted my loonie change and quickly left him behind.

I work with the public and I always, always make it my priority to greet people and to be polite and kind.  Why can’t Wal-Mart staff do the same?  I rarely get greeted when I walk up to a cash there and often come close to having an associate roll their eyes when I ask for help finding something.

But they must be doing something right: I keep going back.

I grew up in Montreal, Quebec, where you can buy beer at any corner store.  Or ‘depanneur’, as the French call them.  Just head to the fridges at the back of the store and walk in to scan towers of cases of beer.  Every brand and quantity (6, 12 or 24, regular, king-size cans and bottles), it’s all there for the taking.  Or buying, obviously.  And wine too!  The only cut-off is that you need to be 18 years of age and you need to make your purchase before 11pm.

But we live in Ontario now, where they do things differently.  You cannot find beer or wine at corner stores here.  Instead, you need to find a beer store for the beer and a wine store or a LCBO (Liquor Commission Board of Ontario, I believe) store for the wine.

We wanted both today.  We so rarely have any alcohol in the house and I have been itching for a beer.  And we’ll be visiting my Mum on Monday and thought that it would be nice if we brought a bottle of wine.

We visited the beer store located behind Wal-Mart.  Whilst there, we returned our empties and got $4.50 for them and then purchases a case of 12 beers.

I always choose Molson Dry because I find it tastes nice when you drink it but that that beer taste doesn’t linger on the tongue after you’ve swallowed it.  And I like that.  But I always struggle when I’m in the beer store because I really, really like the taste of Rickard’s Red too.  Rickards is slightly more expensive.  Both beers are brewed by Molson. 

I struggle with the choice because I am often in there without Stephen and I worry about choosing a different beer in case he doesn’t like it.  But I’ve discussed it with him now and, although I chose Molson Dry this time, next time, we’ll splash out on Rickard’s Red.  It’s good to have a change every once in a while.

The city of Cornwall is planning to build a shopping mall or at least a strip of shops on the other side of Tollgate, near the Home Depot.  Wal-Mart will be moving there from its current location near the bridge on Brookdale. 

For those who don’t know Cornwall, I’d like to tell you that we don’t really have a good mall.  We have Cornwall Square, located off Pitt, down near the water, but that’s not really much of a mall.  It’s tiny and there’s really nothing there to look at.  We very rarely go there because we never have any reason to.  Sometimes, one just fancies going to a mall.  So we give it another try and we always leave disappointed.

So, to me, this new mall sounds devine!  I can’t wait.  I’m so excited to see what’s going to be there.  And with it being so close to the already established Home Depot, it’s not like it’ll change anything as far as the neighborhood goes.

But we keep getting these papers left in our mailbox from disgruntled residents who are adamantly opposed to the location of the new mall.  The reasons they give are as follows.  And I quote:

1) thousands and thousands of cars generated by this huge development will FLOOD onto nearby streets.

My response:  Why?  Anyone who knows Cornwall knows that Brookdale is the main strip and there’s no reason for cars to end up on the dead-end streets that surround the area of the new mall.

2) the 24-hour noise, light, truck anf car traffic will DESTROY the quality of life of this residential area.

My response:  Huh?  You mean the area that houses the 24-hour a day operation that is the massive Home Depot.  Trucks coming and going all night already.

3) Runoff from cars and trucks will DRAIN INTO neighborhood creeks and streams.

My response:  Do we have any creeks and streams?

4) a 24/7 Wal-mart will INCREASE crime in this quiet and safe area.

My response:  Why?  Does Wal-Mart only hire ex-cons or something?

(By the way, I didn’t choose those capital letters.  That really is as we’ve received it.)

So you see, I think that the person who wrote this and who now is urging us to contact our councillor is a little cooky.  I want the mall.  I think it’s a great idea and that it will not change the neighborhood.