It's good to have a plan. (Usually...)

So, as I've been whining since I got back from my Dad's after Christmas, I need one more skein of Shepherd's Shades to finish Madman's slippers. (His lumpy-needled-so-sorry-not-done-out-of-yarn-will-finish-soon-I-Swear Christmas present.)
My normal days off have been Thursdays and Sundays, lately. We've established that both my LYS's are closed on Sundays. New Year's Day fell on Thursday. I'd planned to go yesterday, but another one of those Storms-of-the-Century intervened. (The thing you can't see in yesterday's photo is the fact that the snow was falling sideways. Seriously. I hate that.)
So, since I didn't have to be at work till noon today, I hatched a new plan.
I needed to go to the library (I use the regional library which is just outside the same town the yarns shops are in), I needed the skein of Shepherd's Shades from LYS#1, and I had Christmas Cash squirreled away for yarn from LYS#2.
I specifically wanted yarn to make Poinsettia, Ice Queen, Kathleen Taylor's Picot Hem Stranded Snowflake Hat (Rav link), and a pair of these boots:
(from the book "feltFORWARD" by Maggie Pace, which Madman got me for Christmas, specifically because he knew I would want to make those boots!)

The Plan:
Drive into town, get the mail at the Post Office, buy lactase pills at the drugstore.
Drive to the next town, run into LYS#1, buy Shepherd's Shades, cross the street, spend a happy half hour in LYS#2 picking out yarn, drive to the library, spend another happy half hour picking out books.
Drive to work, eat my lunch, start work at noon.

Well, that was the plan...
As Madman was heading out the door to work while I was getting ready to go, he asked if I could please stop at the feed store and pick up chicken feed.
He also said that he had put gas in my car yesterday (he had borrowed it since it's much better in stormy conditions than his is, and I'd already decided not to go anywhere that day), but had used most of it, though he thought I still had a quarter tank.

Real Life:
Getting chicken feed meant crossing the post office off my list. I didn't check my gas gauge when I started the car to warm it up. When I got in to leave, however, I noticed that the "quarter tank" he rather optimistically thought I had was closer to a tenth of a tank in reality. So, no drugstore either.

Plan B:
Drive to town, get gas, get chicken feed.
Drive to the next town, run into LYS#1, buy Shepherd's Shades, cross the street, spend a happy half hour in LYS#2 picking out yarn, drive to the library, spend another happy half hour picking out books.
Drive to work, eat my lunch, start work at noon.

Real Life:
Gas and chicken feed. Check.
Drove to next town. Finally find parking place, much further away than I would have hoped. Walk in biting wind to LYS#1. Find new sign in the window - they now don't open until 11am, which is an hour away.

Plan C:
Continue to LYS#2, drive to library, pick out books, come back through town, hit LYS#1 after they (finally) open, drive to work, eat lunch, work.

Real Life:
I walk up to LYS#2. Luckily, they are open. I squeeze yarn, happily pick out colors, head for the counter.
Now, the lady who waited on me was very very very nice. I can't stress this enough. Very nice. But. She wrote up my sales slip, slowly, carefully, with great attention to detail. Manufacturer, yarn name, fiber content, color name, color number, dye lot. Slowly. Carefully. With much referring back. Slowly.
It took her longer to write up the slip than it did for me to pick out the yarn.
This put me behind schedule. Again.
So:

Plan D:
Very quickly drive to the library, spend 10 minutes picking out books, race back to LYS#1, buy yarn, eat my sandwich in the car on the way to work, work.

Real Life:
Plan D really should have worked. I raced through the library, didn't waste a lot of time browsing the stacks, grabbed a few books (they didn't have any new knitting books - at least not any I could see while moving at the speed of light), and headed back into town.
And there wasn't a parking place to be had. Well, there was one. It was about as far as it could be from LYS#1 and still be in the same town. And it was blocked by a large van whose driver was having a long conversation with a pedestrian. They both ignored me as I waited to try to get by.
So:

Plan E:
Curse the day I decided to make those damn slippers from Shepherd's Shades. Can the whole LYS#1 visit, and head for work. Eat my lunch in my car. Work.

At least I have new stash. Pics tomorrow.