Defeated!

It is almost 7 p.m. and I have given up the ghost, thrown in the towel, and cried 'Uncle!' in the quest for the missing Thanksgiving shopping list.

On Wednesday evening the hubs and I sat down with the grocery store circulars and mapped out what we needed to buy for Thanksgiving dinner and who had the best deal...between Safeway and Giant. The plan was to take that list to Wegmans and comparison shop.  At the bottom of the list I added some spices I needed to refresh.

Yesterday I went to Whole Foods. I took my list. I got all excited about the bulk spices (where you can buy what you need for 67 cents instead of $5.89 in the bottles in the spice aisle). I came home, I crossed off the spices, and I tore the sheet off the shopping list pad it was attached to. That's the last I remember.

The pad is in the drawer, the list is nowhere to be found.

I've been through the recycling....twice...in fact, the last time I even went so far as to open EVERY freakin' page of the newspapers in case my list had slipped between the pages of a section while the paper was on the kitchen counter.

I analyzed what I purchased at Whole Foods yesterday...nope, it wasn't attached to the jicama, nor was it in the onion basket. It didn't stick to the bags of salad in the crisper in the fridge. I didn't accidentally slip it into the spice cabinet with the bags of spices, and it didn't find it's way back into the reusable grocery bags.

I've been through EVERY cabinet and drawer in my kitchen on the off-chance it fluttered into the colander before we put it away...or maybe it drifted into the napkin drawer....stuck to the Teflon potholder? Nope.

I made peppermint bark this morning...not in the parchment paper box, and it's not stuck to any of the baking sheets I used. Not in the oven either. (Nor the dishwasherr, for that matter).. Not in the pantry where it might have found itself stuck to the almond canister.

As disgusting as it was (and my friend Ann reminded me that it's YOUR garbage), I went through a wet, though thankfully only a quarter full trash can in my kitchen...no luck.

I had wrapped stocking gifts last night...It wasn't in any of the bags, it didn't get rolled up in the wrapping paper, doesn't appear to have found itself wrapped with something (I felt all of the little gifts). It's not stuck to the tape dispenser.

It's not in yesterday's mail, or my work paperwork. I didn't carry it upstairs in a stack of magazines. Checked my pockets, my jacket pocket, the hubs' pockets....not there either.

The dogs don't look guilty, and there's no wads of paper in their beds or their toy baskets.

It's not under the coffee maker, or the Cuisinart, it didn't flutter under the refrigerator, and it's not in the car.

I HAVE ABSOLUTELY NO CLUE.

Obviously, I can be quite tenacious, but I've been on the quest for the missing shopping list, on and off, for the past 10 hours. It's time to admit defeat and accept the realization that, at this point, the only thing to do is just pick one grocery store and go and buy what we need (after spending another 30 minutes or so thinking about just what it is that I need).

Sometime around Easter, I'm sure we will find this elusive piece of paper stuck in some strange place that it never occurred to me to search today. Sigh!

Onward and upward...we're having a quilting bee at my house tomorrow morning at 9 and we're making Triple Dresden tree skirts. I need to refocus. And I really need to refresh my cocktail.

Happy Friday night!

(Oh, and yes, I even took the shopping list pad and tried to shade it in with the side of a pencil lead, in the hopes that the impression from writing the original list would show up---not happening.)