Tony Brewer

I’m sorry to admit that I spilled some coffee on Teri’s new rocking chair cushions. I’ve tried everything I can think of to get the stain out, but I’m afraid that one of the products that I used actually bleached out the cushion and made it look much worse than it did with the coffee stain on it! I had seen the “care tag” on the cushions and saw that it said to “spot clean only” so I tried various cleaners on it, making things worse with each attempt. Teri was very upset with me because she had just bought those cushions a couple of weeks ago. So I promised Teri that I would buy her a new set.

So I have gone online to the thecurtainshop.com website to buy her a new set. I was most pleased because I see by their website that their rocking chair cushions are machine washable! That is a big bonus to me, in case I spill coffee on THEM! I can just toss them in the washing machine and won’t ruin them!

I was noticing that the website also has a very nice selection of curtains, valances, bedding sets, comforter sets, quilts, and curtain hardware.  They offer free shipping on  purchases over $100, and a price matching guarantee.

This morning Teri and I went to Wal-Mart to do our grocery shopping, and to buy other things we need (like a Hancock DVD!) One of the things we bought was two printer ink cartridges, one black ink, the other was color ink. The black ink is $7.00 less expensive than the color ink. Imagine my dismay when we got home and I was inputting the purchase into my MSMoney program when I discovered that the cashier had rung up 2 color cartridges and no black cartridges. So I paid $7 more for the black ink cartridge than I should have. What an aggravation! So now I’m going to have to go back to Wal-Mart and go to the customer service desk and try to convince them that the cashier had made an error and give me my $7 back! Teri tells me that she noticed that the prices on everything she was taking off of the shelves was at least 1% higher than last week. I wonder if that is a temporary increase due to fuel prices, or if that is going to be a permanent increase. I hope it’s a temporary one! (They still aren’t selling the Hershey’s Goodnight Kisses hot chocolate I like so much, doggone it!)

For the past several months I’ve been meaning to install the microwave that Teri’s mother gave us.  It is one of those microwaves that fits over the stove, and it takes some muscle, some power tools, and a little bit of patience.  Teri has been very patient about getting it installed; she hasn’t nagged me at all!  The truth of it is, it has been stored in the garage ever since we got it and I needed the room in the garage.  So I figured that instead of hauling it into the attic or down to the basement (where it would stay forever and a day) that I’d just bit the bullet and install it.  Of course that meant removing the existing exhaust hood and emptying the cabinet above the stove.  And drilling with my cordless drill!  (That was fun!)  And I got to make a huge mess of the stove top because I didn’t think to cover it with a drop cloth.

Was Teri mad?  No, she just told me that since I made the mess, I could clean it up!  And she was amazingly quite calm about it too!  I didn’t think that was the proper show of appreciation for the work I had done, but I decided that I’d clean it up and maybe next time I’ll remember to put a drop cloth down underneath where I’m going to make a mess!

Anyway, it’s all installed, and works great, and the little microwave that we had sitting on the kitchen counter is now stored in the basement, waiting for the next time we need a back-up microwave.

Several years ago Teri and I decided to stop using “live” Christmas trees, and only use artificial ones.  I don’t know what the “correct” environmental thing to do here, but we’ve always felt bad about killing live trees just for our holiday festivities.  So we have bought several artificial Christmas trees to decorate our house over the holidays.

Yesterday Teri and I went up into the attic and dragged out our big artificial Christmas Tree. We had forgotten how big and heavy it is – we didn’t set that one up last year (we used a smaller tree last year.) It sure was awkward! I remember now that when we hauled it up into the attic what a hard time we had! It barely squeezed through the hatch! We’ve agreed to store it in the basement from now on! It’s a 7′ tall tree, pre-lit. It only took a few minutes to put together, there were only three sections and the stand to assemble. Unfortunately, after it was all assembled and plugged in, we found that one of the sections of tree has a string of lights that won’t light up. We’re sure that everything is plugged in correctly, so we have to assume one of the lights is burnt out (or missing) on that string, or the string is shorted out.

I don’t want to spend hours trying to troubleshoot that string of lights, so I guess I’m going to just dig out a string of lights stored in one of the decorations boxes and string it on that section of tree. Yeah, I’m feeling lazy all right! But at least the tree is up, and hopefully we’ll be decorating it over the next couple of days.

We live in a society that loves status symbols. Let’s face it, most people would love to live in big fancy houses, (with a staff to care for them!) drive big fancy expensive cars and wear expensive clothes and jewelry. We are definitely living in a country full of “haves” and “have-nots.”

With the economic crisis facing the country, even the “haves” are starting to cut back on their spending, looking for bargains wherever they can find them. With Christmas coming, they would be well advised to check out the luxury watches on clearance at the thewatchery.com website.

The watchery.com website is the most discounted luxury watch retailer on the Internet. They have a beautiful assortment of ladies and men’s luxury watches, many of them are on clearance.

They have a wonderful selection of Tag Heuer watches, some as much as 65% off! Their Movado watches are an astounding price of up to 89% off! And one of the biggest names in luxury watches, Cartier watches are being sold for up to 60% off!

The picture that I’ve included in this post is a picture of a beautiful Movado watch that I found on clearance for under $200! I think that would be a wonderful Christmas gift for Teri.