Domestic Geek

Every year I try to add one thing to my Christmas decor and bonus if it can also double as a craft room decoration. A few weeks back (it makes me ill that I saw Christmas stuff that long ago), I was at Michaels and saw the neatest little needlework shop in the Lemax Christmas village series. I nearly had a stroke when I saw the $54.99 price tag, though. I was really disappointed until I reminded myself that there would be many sales/coupons between then and Christmas. I was getting a little irked, though, when I kept coming across 50% off one item coupons, but couldn't use them on this because the Lemax stuff was already on sale.

Imagine my hopefulness when I saw the email subject line from Michaels in my inbox this morning that said "This is One Coupon You Don't Want to Miss." SCORE! The one I was hoping would show up - 25% off total purchase, including SALE ITEMS (because Yay!, the Lemax stuff is 40% off this week, too).



So, 40% off of $54.99 brought that down to $32.99. The additional 25% off brought it down to $24.75. With tax, $26.63. I probably can't beat that and still be able to find one in stock.

It's going to stay in the box until I get up to South Dakota again the week of Thanksgiving. Hoping its all in one piece and the light works.

I was doing my usual surfing today and since I've purchased shirts from The Mountain, I get targeted ads for them on a lot of pages that I visit. I keep seeing ones about their new holiday shirts, but I've been ignoring them (since I'm kind of anti-Early Christmas). When one shirt caught my eye in my Facebook feed, though, I decided to click over and I saw a shirt I just have to get! Of course, they are currently out of my size, so I left on note on their wall asking if they would be getting it back in stock any time soon.

BEHOLD - Grumpenezer Scrooge!



ETA 11/11/13 11:37pm: The Mountain page admin left a comment on my post this morning that shirts were back in stock - one is on its way!

OK, I'm actually talking about pillows. Marcus just loves that line from Planes, Trains & Automobiles so much that we quote it all the time.

Anywho, the pillow I bought 3 years ago finally got to the point that it was no longer comfortable. I got good use out of it. In addition to being slept on every night at home, it's been to Tennessee, Missouri, North & South Dakota, Colorado Springs...just about any place we've traveled in the last 3 years, I've taken that pillow with me and loved it. I wasn't really wanting to try to find another water pillow at this time. Since I use Marcus' pillow when I nap, I knew one like his would be sufficient. He uses a Sealy Posturpedic Extra Firm that he got at Sears. I've been putting off going there because I really hate shopping and I hate shopping at Sears even more. Unfortunately, I also needed vacuum bags, so I gave in and went in as I drove past it on my way home today. Good thing I procrastinated — the pillow was 50% off. SCORE!

I'm sitting here enjoying a strawberry banana smoothie that Marcus made in our new blender. He's been looking for ways to get more fruit into his diet and he found a smoothie recipe he liked on cooks.com. After he procured the ingredients, he asked me if we had a blender. We did, but sadly, it's the one I bought back in college (sometime between 1984-1986). The poor thing didn't have much power when it was new and smoothie making was definitely a strain for it. The final straw was the sparking it made. Every time Marcus used it, I crossed my fingers that it wouldn't start the kitchen on fire.

Sunday, we went to Bed, Bath & Beyond armed with my 20% Off coupon that I got in the mail. He had already done his research before we went and he wanted a Cuisinart Blender/Food Processor combo (he hates my old food processor and wants to toss it). We picked the BFP-10CH PowerBlend Duet™ model because it had an additional $20 mail-in rebate. $60 after coupon and rebate isn't too shabby a deal!

Tonight was the first chance we had to try it out. Worked like a dream! Can't wait until summer when I can make watermelon smoothies. Yum!

I finally caved today and bought myself my first eBook. I vowed a few months back that if a digital edition of something I wanted was available, I wasn't going to bother getting the hard copy of it. I'm tired of the dust they collect and the space they take up. I felt like doing to some light, cheesy reading, so I purchased the next book I had yet to read in the knitting mystery series by Maggie Sefton, Fleece Navidad (I'd put one of those Amazon Associates links up like I used to, but I can't thanks to the feud between the state of Colorado and Amazon). The books in this series are corny and predictable, but they're basically set in Ft. Collins and I like reading them.

I downloaded the Kindle app for my iPhone and the application for my Macbook and I'm all set. Reading on the iPhone is a little rough, but will do in a pinch. I totally enjoyed reading with my Macbook in bed. I do that while surfing blogs all the time anyway. Someday, when I've got the funds to get one, I'll enjoy reading on an iPad.

I hope that more reading material becomes available digitally (magazines, etc.). I know some people just love the feel of turning pages, but I'll gladly give that up to rid myself of the clutter.