20 posts tagged “shopping”
Yesterday the weather was a stunning 70 degrees and sunny. I was determined to get out and enjoy the weather so I grabbed my poo covered running shoes and my poo making dog and we all headed to the park for a nice run. A few weeks ago I accidentally wore my runners in the back yard and stepped in a few fairly large piles of Luna poo. Since then the shoes have been abandoned on the back porch. I couldn't help but laugh at how desperate I was to get some exercise, I was willing to wear stinky poo shoes! Jon joked about how I couldn't wear poo shoes to the gym this winter. So after a good hour at the park we grabbed the spending money we had received for Christmas and went shoe shopping.
It really is a rare occasion for me to buy new shoes. I'm not one of those women who's wardrobe consists off a matching pair of shoes for each outfit. In fact from day to day I only wear two pairs of shoes, my clogs and my running shoes. My clogs are from the 80's, they were my mothers, and their genuine leather is now cracked and faded. My runners were a discount floor model so one pair is awkwardly off color, and were now covered in dog poo. It really was time for new kicks and the shoe store was discount central after the holiday. I found a nice pair of $75 Asics marked down to $45, and a pair of the most comfortable $99 clogs marked down to $34! They were both a great find and and even nicer Christmas gift to myself.
I got my Christmas bonus today, most of it is going into savings but I took $20 dollars out to treat myself to a little Cyber Monday shopping. My heart pounded as I made the decision to buy myself a bikini, it has been about four years since I've been able to squeeze myself into a two piece but with my recent 34 pound weight loss I'm sure I can rock this little brown suite! And how can I pass up a deal like a $4 bikini!
Next month I will be free of my 2 year contract with At&t Wireless. The chains will be lifted soon enough and I'm starting my search for cheaper cellphone service.
I've been without a land-line for about seven years now, and most of my communication is done via email, so I don't talk on the cell phone often. I have the lightest family plan offered w/ 500 minutes. And even with the two of us sharing a plan I have over 4,000 rollover minutes that I've acquired over the year. Its painful to know that I have all of these unused minutes and I'm paying over $80 a month in cell phone bills.
I'm really interested in one of those "Pay As You Go" plans held through a major carrier. So I'm reaching out to my VOX neighborhood for help, if anyone has any experience with one of these plans I'd really like to know your point of view.
Since Jon has taken the big step of registering for fall classes, I'm rushing to get him prepared for his return to college. A laptop purchase was at the top of my list and I had been shopping around for weeks, until I discovered a jaw droppingly amazing deal today. Geeks, prepare to be awed: The newly released HP Pavilion Tx2500z (omg tablet!), AMD Turion 2.2 Ghz processor (puma platform, screams!), 12" High-Def Touch-screen (sooo touchable!), 4GB DDR2 System Memory (count em' four!), 320GB 5400RPM SATA Hard Drive (serious space), and ultraportable at 4.59 pounds! It is the ultimate dream machine for an architect and the perfect match for Jon.
Thanks to the VOX and HP gods, I received a $300 gift card for my banner design and have been hording the winnings until the right deal came along. And the real kicker... I found a coupon code (NB4796) that gives a $500 discount! <squeal!>
Cost + $1,404.00
Coupon - $500.00
Gift Card - $300.00
Shipping + $0.00
Tax + $54.24
---------------------------------
Total $658.24
I was in an absolute panic because the coupon for the $500 discount had been available for almost a week and is scheduled to expire after 2,000 people use it! The Tx2500z is five times the machine we thought we could afford, so I jumped at the opportunity and I made the purchase, without Jon's knowledge! I had planned on keeping it a secret but the laptop is scheduled to ship on July 22nd, which is a whole month away. I just couldn't imagine keeping something like this from him for that long, so this afternoon I set up this lovely greeting message on his computer desktop.
He about fell over in his chair when he saw it!
I'm a shoe-in for the "Best Wife of the Century" award.
I'm not quite sure why, but lately I've found myself taking offense and reading into things way too much. Call it stress, hormones... whatever you'd like, I'm in a funk.
In the past when I would feel this way, I would go home, turn up some good tunes, run a warm bubble bath, light a few candles and soak in the tub for a hour. Unfortunately, since moving to my house this past fall I have only been able to take showers, our tub is so small it is nearly impossible to sit in let alone lay down to soak. So my relaxation time has been taken away, without a substitute.
Now I find myself grumpy and shopping for soaking tubs. A dangerous mix!
Less than two weeks later all of the prints were sold out, quicker than I had expected. I count my lucky stars that a few days ago a package arrived with our very own 23 X 40 Scott Hansen "Progress" print!
When I found out about the Design Within Reach warehouse sale in northern Kentucky, my heart leapt.
This sale is for those of us who covet modern furniture, but cant afford it. Discounts reach up to 80 percent off overstock furniture and returned goods. It's first come, first serve.
The plan was to drive the hour and a half north to the warehouse and just see what they had available. Unfortunately even if we were to find a $1,950 Bantam Sofa on sale for $450 we still couldn't afford it. Not on a whim and I'd be too tempted to put it on the credit card. So after much internal debate I've decided to stay home this weekend and use the $40 we would have spent on gas to paint our blue exterior shutters a more attractive shade of cream.
I figure its a better more responsible use of my weekend than facing the temptation of beautiful clean-lined furniture.
The weekend was a rush of little things that seemed to pile up quickly.
It started with the lawn, mowing, edging, fertilizing, spreading seed, pulling weeds, digging, laying topsoil and 100 sq feet of sod. Then we made the big decision to tackle our diseased tree. We inherited a fruiting pear tree when we purchased our home which just happened to be infected by fireblight, a disease that makes the tree look as though its branches, fruit and leaves have been burnt by fire. After months of debating and staring at the ugliness of it all, we finally made the decision to eliminate the 60% of the tree which had been infected. I'm not sure how its going to handle the drastic prune especially since there are baby pears fruiting on each branch but I figure if it does not survive we'll tear it down and replace it with something that has a resistance to the disease. I'd really hate to have to tear it down, only time will tell.
My arms are still suffering after three days of trauma from the fantastic tennis match Jon and I had on Friday. It ended with a tie, the both of us winning a game. I wore my HRM (heart rate monitor) to see what an hours worth of tennis would do for my weekly workouts and I was shocked, 870 calories burned in 50 minutes! Thats more than any other exercise I've attempted so far. I've made a new goal to have a few games of tennis each month.
Double dated at the movies, saw the new Indiana Jones and hated it.
I then brought out my sewing machine. When Jon was accepted to the UK architecture program I'd planned on making him a zipper case for all of his drafting tools. With the little practice I had at sewing I tried my best and failed miserably months ago, so with this second attempt I was astonished at how easily things were coming together while working without a pattern. Five hours later Jon has a handsome, black canvas, wood button clasped, zippered case filled with all of his drafting tools. I was thrilled with the end result, though I have to laugh at myself for it taking so long, five hours to make a 12 inch pencil case! The Project Runway contestants would die laughing at me.
Rented and finally watched "The End of Evangelion" which had rave reviews but just felt like a Japanese acid trip to me.
Somewhere lost in the four day weekend I had also managed to do some thrift store shopping, and bought a gorgeous Anthropology blouse for $2! The find of the month, thank you thrift gods!
I introduced 5 plump, possibly pregnant, goldfish to live in my rain barrel and eat mosquitoes and algae. They are all named Funguys, like the fungus the eat. I gave them a group name to make their singular deaths less traumatic since I easily get attached to my little animal friends. One Funguy has already passed, Four are left. So far, I'm OK :)
Lets not forget the hours spent staring up at the maple canopy, swaying in my hammock to the cool spring breeze.
With my birthday right around the corner and the Christmas season soon to follow its time to publish my wish list.
1.) To-Go Ware Stainless Steel Lunch Box @ $15.95 2.) Yoga Monster Mat @ $25.95 3.) Polar F4 HRM (Blue) (10% w/ coupon code “star”) @ $89.00 4.) Kata Digital Camera Rain Cover @ $40.00 5.) Petal Necklace @ $32.00 6.) Cable-Knit Handbag (White) @ $24.50 7.) Owl Pendant @ $8.00 8.) Sigg Water Bottle (1.0-Liters) @ $19.00 & Sigg Knitted Pouch @ $11.99 9.) Craft Table (Husband Made) @ $?
Have I mentioned how much I love living in middle America? Shipping an item to South Florida would take a minimum of twelve days. Here in Kentucky its instant, I ordered a wireless router yesterday and its at my doorstep literally within 24 hours, free crappy shipping turns into one day!
