Dr Copa Scrip for Success

My wife has been cleaning the house frantically today, trying to get it ready for the big family dinner that is happening later this week. We are planning on having three tables of eight people each through out the house, and that means that we will be seating people in rooms where a lot of clutter has accumulated over the past year or so. I offered to help her clear out some of the clutter, and she agreed to let me simply transfer a lot of the stuff into cardboard boxes and move them into the garage on a temporary basis.

While I was doing that, she was sifting through a lot of the items and sorting them. I was amazed at how many corporate gifts and promotional items she has accumulated over the past couple of years. I’ve always admired her skills in smart ways to save money by saving and using those types of items, but I have to admit that between the two of us I think we have collected enough cup cozies and personalized pens and magnets to last us a couple of years. In fact I’m thinking that maybe we should offer to share some of them with the family members that are coming to join us for dinner. Maybe they would like a few cup cozies for themselves!  We can use them as coasters during the dinner and let people take them home with them!

A few weeks ago my wife and I went to the local Costco store.  We found a set of really cool LED nightlights that changed colors every second  they have a light sensor on them so that they only come on when it is dark.  We bought a set and brought it home with us.  We plugged them all in around the house, and we thought that they were really cool!  I said to my wife “the next time we go to Costco, let’s buy another set for my mother, she would LOVE them.”  So, we went to Costco yesterday to buy another set, and they were all sold out.  Lesson learned, we should have bought a second set when we bought the first set!  Oh well…….

What a pain in the neck aluminum wheels are to clean!  I spent approximately two hours apiece on each wheel, cleaning and polishing my wheels.  Unlike chrome, you have to stay on them on a regular basis.  They make a special cleaner for them that works really well.  But because of the type of material they are made out of, you can’t really wax them.  But now that I’ve finally got them looking good, I’m going to try to clean them every week because I like aluminum wheels.

My wife and I have been talking about how we are going to survive this coming holiday season. The family wants us to have the big holiday meals at our house, and that means we will be spending extra money on food, as well as buying things like holiday table cloths and decorative accessories like centerpieces. And of course, my wife has been talking about wanting one of those e-reader things like a Nook or a Kindle.

I have no interest whatsoever in going shopping on Black Friday or anyplace where the crowds will be crazy, but I do want to save as much money as possible. Before doing any running around I’m going to be looking at the Savings.com deals online to see if I can get a good price on the things on my shopping list. After all, the price of gasoline is still crazy high, and with all of the cold and wet weather bothering my arthritis and fibromyalgia, I’m in no great hurry to be going very far to do my shopping. In fact, I’m perfectly content to let my fingers do all of the work for me in the comfort of my own home. Many places are offering free shipping nowadays, and when you consider the fact that many online stores have better prices than a lot of the retail stores, it’s a no-brainer for me to take a good hard look at using the Internet to help me with my holiday shopping.

My wife and I own lot of shiny things.  My wife – she enjoys wearing shiny jewelry; I put shiny things on my vehicles, and in my house.  On my vehicles, I am all about chrome! (Especially on my Harley!) In the house, it is all about blomus stainless steel! When we moved here we had to replace all of the kitchen appliances; the existing ones were all broken.  My wife wanted almond colored appliances, but I lobbied for a blomus kitchen and stainless steel or brushed aluminmum applicances.

I won that little negotiation, much to my surprise!  My wife was just happy to be getting all brand new kitchen appliances and really didn’t care what color they were, as long as they worked! So we got a Jenn Air gas range, a GE side-by-side refrigerator with water and ice in the door, and a brand new GE dishwasher as well. A new over-the range Maytag microwave oven and we were good to go!  I also want to expand and buy some blomus fireplace accessories to put beside the fireplace in the family room. After all, why stop with just the kitchen?