Independent All The Way

Even through Black Friday shopping is often at the large chain stores, everything Hubby Tony and I did today was at small independent businesses.

This morning we got an early start. After dropping Foster Cat Smokey Joe off at the clinic at 7:45 am for a checkup (the vets work the shelter cat in during down times) we headed toward a local cafe for breakfast. My intention was to eat light, but by the time I sat down it was a couple of hours since I rolled out of bed and I was starving. I managed to pass on the larger items, but my two eggs came with a choice of meat (in my case a huge ham slice), hash browns, and toast. It was so good I couldn't stop until everything was gone. 

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Even after lingering over our coffee, when Tony and I left it was still too early for most small stores to be open. To kill time we walked through an Ace Hardware (a chain, but independently owned) where we had a nice chat with the manager, then continued our walk in the neighborhood around the store.

ornament

We headed to downtown Maplewood, which has many small independent stores. At a fair trade store we chose a black cat felt ornament I wanted for the Christmas tree to honor Smokey Joe (handmade in Nepal from natural New Zealand wool). We also splurged on a felted wreath, and found some Christmas gifts that will be easy to mail to the out of town adult kids.

On the way out of the store Tony and I started talking about making the fair trade items the inspiration item for gift baskets and what else we could include. Stopping in several additional stores didn't lead to any additional purchases, so we decided to head home.

After a couple of hours of housework and paperwork I hadn't heard from the vet office yet. Tony and I decided we were on a Christmas present buying roll and left to shop in the Webster Groves Old Orchard shopping area. At one shop we bought something for the baskets. At a book store we got a book that was on one of the grand's lists.

When we heard that Smokey Joe was finished we were only ten minutes from the office. We figured the cat was more than ready to be out of his carrier, so there was no stopping on the way home.