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When today began I thought it was going to be a lousy day. I fell asleep really early last night -- around 9 pm -- then woke up at 2:30 and couldn't get back to sleep. Needless to say I was tired and cranky when the morning finally rolled around. (On the bright side I did watch a great movie in the wee hours, The Thief of Baghdad). Plus the weather today was horrible, rainy and cold, and I so much did not want to leave the house, but we had tons of errands to run, really too many. But as it turns out, we got everything done and everything went great.

First we took the pet portraits by David to the frame shop. He had given me one of Jane yesterday, so now we have the set. We went to Arete because we wanted to match the beautiful frame they had done a couple of years ago for the uncut sheet of the tarot deck. There were a few scary moments where we thought that the frame we wanted had been discontinued, but then the guy found the right sample on the wall, whew! We're having all three matted together and put into one frame. It's a little expensive, but good quality framing always is. I think it will be worth it in the end.

Holly (the owner) remembered me from when I used to work across the street years ago -- good golly, it's been almost 10 years now! But we were helped by her husband, who I hadn't met before. They brought us into the back to show us their new computerized mat-cutting machine. It was amazing. They type the inner and outer sizes into a computer, and the machine leaps into action. They can cut decorative shapes into the corners and even cut the mat into shapes besides rectangular. The computer came with all kinds of pre-programmed shapes, and they said they could install Corel Draw and have it cut any shape they wanted. It kind of reminded me of those computerized sewing machines that do embroidery. They let me pick a shape for it to cut for me; I picked the mongoose. Why on earth someone would want a mat cut into the shape of a mongoose, I don't know. But it was still really cool.

(I can imagine practical uses for the mat cutter, for instance if you had a portrait in an oval frame, you might get a mat cut to silhouette the shape of the person's head. But I think that kind of thing would be really rare. He didn't even suggest the decorative corners as an option, so I'm guessing they don't do much of that either.)

After the frame shop we met Alicia, who gave us videotapes of the current season of Project Runway! Yay! I have a lot to say about this show, but I'm saving it for another post so this one doesn't get too long. We hung out with Alicia at Caffe Driade, and besides the videotapes she also gave me a bottle of BPAL Sugar Cookie. Double yay! Alicia rocks!

After seeing Alicia we had to stop at the supermarket to pick up a couple of things for dinner. We happened to notice a jewelry store next door to Whole Foods and stopped in. And we found our wedding rings! I promise I won't go on and on about it, because there's nothing more boring than people talking incessantly about their wedding plans. I think that's even boring for the people in the wedding.

Anyway, we really didn't know what we wanted when we walked in, but somehow the second set of rings she showed us were perfect. The rings are on this page, mouseover the ones called "Simple Bands" (the ones on the top right and bottom left). The price tags were well out of our price range & we were concerned about that, but then she offered us a substantially lower price, much closer to our budget. It really couldn't have turned out better.

Tomorrow we're going to go to one other store and see if they have anything we like better, and then if not I'll go back to the first place on Tuesday morning to place a deposit. I have to take Thirteen to her acupuncture that morning, which would have me driving right past the store around the time they open.

After all our successful errands, we came home to a big pot of chili that we had put on before we left, and Georg made awesome cheddar biscuits, and now we're watching Project Runway. What a great day.