Frustrations

Most of you know that JoAnn Fabrics is one of my favorite stores.  Today however, I left the store extremely frustrated.  I decided to take a few hours off of work this afternoon to run some errands.  I was feeling pretty proud of myself after finally going to the post office to mail the packages and getting my car's oil changed.  I recently started doing more sewing again and had realized I needed to buy some backing fabric.  When I said this to Rob over the weekend he said..."you need to buy more fabric??? can't you use what you already have??" If you are a quilter you know the answer to that....if you don't have appropriate backing fabric, you wait until fabric goes on sale or you have a good coupon and you hit up the store.

So JoAnn Fabrics was having a sale and I figured it was the perfect time to get some backing fabric. I even put some of my unfinished projects in a bag to attempt to match colors.  When I get to my local store it has a "Store Closing" sign out front.  They are opening a new store across the street and down a block.  When I went inside they had signs up saying the fabric I was interested in was 25% current price.  Well me knowing that the flyer that came in the mail had the fabric at 30% off, I'm thinking I hit the jackpot.  I start filling up my cart, head up to get it cut and learn that the flyer prices do not apply to this store since it is in liquidation.  And then the lady said "Go ahead you can swear".  I didn't...but said some choice words in my head.  There were a few fabrics that I wasn't sure I would find at the other location, so I decided to buy minimal amounts.   But those backing fabrics that had originally brought me to the store remained on the store shelves. I don't know this for sure, but I do believe they also increased the price on some of their items.  One of the backing fabrics I saw was marked at $5.99 when the last time I bought it I think it was marked as $3.99.  Now pricing has been going up due to the gas prices, so maybe that really is the price, but be sure that the next time I am in another JoAnns I am going to check the price of that fabric. The sad thing is that there are probably a ton of people that don't realize they are actually not getting a good deal.  I overheard someone at the cutting counter that was all excited that the entire store was on sale.  Sad.

Speaking of gas prices...what is with the price these days?  Here in Indiana we currently have gas priced at $3.44 (well that was the Kroger price).  Just a few days ago it was above $4.  Now I am not complaining that it has drastically reduced, but the last time it dropped, a few days later it was back over $4.  How does it swing in price that fast?  Also I find it interesting the difference in gas station prices.  When I got off the highway on the way home tonight, the BP was listed as $3.46.  The Shell on the opposite corner was $3.69. One block down at the Admiral the price was $3.39.  Shell always seems to be much higher priced at this location, and you rarely see a car in the lot when the BP and Admiral are overflowing.  I wonder why they aren't dropping their price too.

And my last frustration of the day is solicitors.  So often we get people trying to sell stuff to us at our front door.  But today I had someone approach me in the parking lot after I walked out of JoAnn Fabrics.  It was, as always, a high school kid trying to pay for some activity. They always have a sketching looking piece of paper that explains what they are trying to accomplish but the font is so small it is hard to read.  This time the kid just wanted me to donate money, not buy candy or magazines or anything else.  I told him I was sorry but I didn't have any cash.  Didn't he see I had just walked out of JoAnn Fabrics???  :)