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work stretch in which I worked 7 of 8 days, including two Thursdays on which I worked both shifts. Last Friday, I was off so I took my good church friend to Grove City Outlet Mall in Grove City, PA for a girls' day out. We used to go once every 2-3 years, then the mall started emptying out and we stopped going. But a customer recently told me the GC outlet mall was filling back up, so we decided to go. It was a nice day; we didn't buy a ton (we both got a couple items at the Chico's outlet--which BTW is NOT regular Chico's clothes at a discounted price but rather all different clothes that are *slightly* lower quality but still wear well and look a lot like Chico's colors/patterns--and we both got fudge at Fudgie Wudgie's) but we enjoyed walking around and seeing what's new and what's there that we remembered. To fill (almost) all the store fronts, they added a few places that are not outlets but are full-price stores (Old Navy, Bath and Body Works, plus an Ulta is set to open there in a few weeks). We used to always have lunch at the Elephant and Castle next door to the mall but it closed so we ate at the slightly better than average Mexican restaurant that went into the building (and kept a lot of the decor) There was a few tense moments on the way home, both due to road construction and the usual bad driving that comes with that, plus I completely forgot NONE of the exits off of Rt. 11 that we passed had gas stations (they all were just exits onto rural roads that would eventually lead to small towns), so we were down to 13 miles left to go before we finally limped into the Flying J off of I-90. But it was a really nice outing...

And then Saturday I woke up with a full blown...something. Cold? Sinus infection? COVID? I thought my sniffles the day before were due to the crazy summer weather--we had a few days where we started off in the mid 50s and ended up in the low 90s--but no, this was something more. I masked up and went to work Saturday evening and then stayed home from church yesterday. I didn't care about spreading my germs to entitled rich witches but I didn't want to infect any of our senior saints. I kid, I kid...I didn't want to infect anyone but we don't have the manpower right now to swap shifts, especially since I'm a key holder, plus I knew by the time I'd been there an hour, everyone would be done shopping for the day. I really think we should close at 5:00 on Saturday nights since the only people who usually come in after that are either seeking a/c or heat (depending on the time of year) or else waiting for a table at one of the nearby restaurants.

Today I had to take my car in for an oil change. Luckily, I woke up (almost) snot-free but I again took precautions not to share my germs if possible. One good thing about COVID, I guess: it normalized wearing masks in public...anyways, the oil change took longer than I was expecting for no reason that I could really discern, and I could see my car sitting outside ready for me for at least 15 minutes before they came to inform me it was ready to go. The service also cost a bit more than I was expecting, though when I got home, Dad looked over the itemized bill (I also had the tires rotated) and said that yeah, he thought they charged a bit high for the labor but the prices for all the parts was fairly reasonable. Once I was done, I met my cousin (who lives about 10 minutes away) at Ruby Tuesday for lunch. We used to have several RTs near us; now this one, about 40 minutes away, is the only one left in the area. They had a good deal today though: the endless salad bar + a single patty burger and fries was just $9.99. So at least I saved a few $$$ on lunch.