Button, Button, Who's Got the Button?

I do!  I do!  Well, Joy and I do!  Lots and lots of buttons

Now these aren't just any old buttons that you can buy at Hancocks or JoAnns.  These are BUTTONS.  Beautiful, special buttons made of glass, wood, shell, enamel, and even some plastic (shudder), but all very special.

As I told you three weeks ago, (I can't believe it has been three weeks since I last wrote in my blog.  I obviously live a very boring life!) our favorite fabric store, The Cloth Merchant, is closing the middle of October.  They have a wall of buttons.  Gorgeous buttons.  I would call Debbie and say, "Hi, Debbie!  I need buttons for the fabric that I bought last time.  You remember it, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.  She would send me an email with pictures of several buttons and I would call and say send me the blah blah ones.  A couple of days later they would arrive in the mail and I would be delighted.  I wish I had done that more often. 

Joy and I talked about their buttons  earlier this week and how much we were going to miss getting buttons from them.  Anyway,  I got the bright idea of  driving to Tulsa this morning, timing it to arrive when TCM opens at 10:00 a.m..  We were going to shop for buttons, have lunch and then head back home.  I figured we would be home between 2:00 and 2:30.  Now I should have known better than that!  But it sounded good to my husband.  Oh, yes, we were scheduled to have the grandkids this afternoon starting at noon.  I figured DH could handle the kids for a couple of hours without me.

I got up this morning to pouring down rain.  Not the greatest of weather for a Road Trip, but not bad enough to stop us.  I got all dressed, did my hair, put on makeup; the "I'm going somewhere" thing, not the "Its Saturday and I can just whip a brush through my hair, brush my teeth and skip the makeup" thing. 

I hopped into the car and backed out only to discover that the moon roof was not quite completely closed and water had gathered in the corner over my head.  Of course, when I backed out the water ran out of that corner right on top of my hair and down my face!  Forget the hair and makeup!  Oh, well, we are going on a ROAD TRIP.  Woo Hoo!  I did make sure the moon roof was now closed tight and took a paper towel and dried up any extra water that might still have been up there.  Didn't want Joy's hair to get ruined.

I pulled up to the gas pump because I wanted to top off my gas tank.  I didn't want to start out on a 250 mile round trip with just a half a tank of gas.  Just as I was getting my debit card out to go buy the gas, Joy called.  She wanted me to know it was okay if I wanted to cancel because of the weather.  Weather?  Why would a little rain stop us from making our ROAD TRIP?  I'd cancel if we were traveling after dark and it was raining!  I'd cancel if it was snowing or even threatening to snow, or in this part of the country, I'd cancel if the weatherman was calling for ice or sleet.  I don't do those things, but for a little rain, heck no, I'm not canceling a ROAD TRIP!  Got out of the car and went to pump the gas only to discover that there was a leak right over the area where I had to stand to pump the gas.  Drip, drip, drip right on the top of my head.  Thankfully, I had my raincoat on and the hood up.  Didn't take long for the pump to click off.  I closed the gas tank and hopped back into the car only to discover that I had only pumped a couple of gallons and I had just a little over a half tank.  Sigh!  I decided I could get gas in Edmond.  I headed off to Joy's house.  Yes, I did stop before I got there and finished topping off my tank.  No drips on my head as I pumped the gas, but this time the drip was right over my car door.

I walked in the back door at Joy's and greeted Jerry.  He told me Joy would be out in just a minute.  Then he looked at me and said, "I can't believe you two are going to drive two hours one way in this weather just for buttons!"  Really!  I was standing there in my raincoat with my once lovely hair now wet and flat and my face washed clean of all my makeup and he is asking me why we would go 125 miles one way in the rain for buttons!  Didn't he understand?  The buttons were just the excuse!  This was an all girl ROAD TRIP!  Lots of time to talk and laugh and hoot out loud.  Stop and eat where we wanted.  No kids or husbands to take care of.  Good shopping time with someone that understands that you have to pull out five sets of buttons just to find the perfect set.  We were going on a ROAD TRIP!!!!

I tried to explain it to him, but I don't think he got it.  Thankfully, Jerry knows, as does my dear Roger, that nothing should stand in the way of an all girl ROAD TRIP!

So, off we went.  I had to drive slower than usual because of the weather.  I mean, just because it is a ROAD TRIP, does not mean that I wasn't going to be careful.  Joy said if it started to lightening we had to pull over, which I thought was a rather strange thing to do.  I mean, I've never heard of a car being hit by lightening.  I guess it could happen, but unless the road was higher than the trees all around us I figured we were pretty safe.  Anyway, it took almost two hours to make a trip that normally takes 75-90 minutes, but the time flew by because we were talking, laughing and hooting!

TCM was busy when we arrived.  Of course, there was a woman and her daughter standing right in front of the buttons where we wanted to be.  They finally moved and Joy and her sister, Janice, and I hogged the button wall after that.  Janice met us at TCM and helped Joy pick buttons while I picked out some.  I wanted some of all of them and I thought I must have bought a gillion until I laid them out and took a picture.  I had budgeted $50.00 in my head for the buttons.  Oh, that was funny!  I must have spent that in the first five minutes.   I am a Dave Ramsey Financial Peace University failure!  Sob! Sob!  But I do have buttons,  $158.00 of beautiful buttons and I will jump back onto the budget starting tomorrow.  I also bought a couple of end pieces of fabric and a package of Louise Cutting's elastic, so, as Joy reported in her blog, I did spend $200.00. I plan to use each and everyone of those buttons and when the garment is worn out or gets tiresome, I'm cutting them off and re-using them.  My $158.00 of buttons may last me the rest of my life!

We had lunch at a place that Janice knew of not too far from TCM.  Good food and lots of talk, laughter and hoots!  Then back to TCM we went to finish our shopping and pay for everything we bought.  About 1:00 p.m. I had a text message from Roger, "Are you on your way home yet?"  My response was, "Uh......no!"  What?  Did he think we were going to cut our ROAD TRIP short just because the grandkids had arrived?  No!

I don't even know what time we left TCM, but the rain had stopped and the sun was out and we did even more talking going home.  What a lovely, fun day we had.  If we had let a little rain stop us we would have completely missed out on a wonderful day and lots of gorgeous buttons!  Oh, and I was home by 4:00 and fixed dinner and did the dishes afterwards.  Roger even admitted that the kids weren't a problem.

So here are my beautiful buttons.  The top two rows were 50% off and the rest were 30% off.  The big ones on the right side will be used for purses or when I need just one special button for the finishing touch.

Happy Sewing!

Hugs, Phylly