Tony Brewer

I can remember a long time ago (when I was young and naive) I thought it would be a great idea to go Christmas shopping the day after Thanksgiving.  There had been a lot of thanksgiving circulars in the Sunday paper the weekend before, and I had the day off of work (which was unusual because I almost always had to work that day!)

So, off I trotted to the stores to do some Christmas shopping!  I was so surprised to see that the parking lots were so crowded that I could not find a space to park my car for over an hour!  I drove around the parking lot in circles, over and over again, trying to find a space for my car!  Well, I finally found a parking space and went into the mall, only to find myself elbow-to-elbow with mobs of crazy people, pushing and shoving, all of them very ill-tempered.  I vowed to myself then and there to never go shopping on the day after Thanksgiving again!

Well, it was a couple of years after that when I learned that the day after Thanksgiving is called Black Friday, and what it meant, and I came to understand that almost everyone in the world has that day off of work and goes shopping that day!

So I am really glad to have found the blackfridayonline.com website that enables the shoppers to do their Christmas shopping on Black Friday in the comfort of their own home, using the Internet!  I’m looking forward to seeing what the Macy’s store will have on sale for Black Friday; I was given a gift card for that store as a gift for last Christmas and haven’t used it yet – this will be a great chance to use it to buy a gift for someone else!

I was very surprised yesterday to drive past a shopping center that had a sign out in front saying that the Linens ‘N Things store was having a going out of business sale! I had not heard that they were struggling! At first I thought maybe it was just that one store, but I just went on line to the corporate website, and sure enough, the entire chain is going out of business! What a shock! That is where I buy so much of my household “stuff” that I need that I can’t buy at the big giant discount department store!

Teri loves jewelry. She tells me that she loves anything “sparkly.” She has a fairly diverse collection of different colors of clothes, so she likes to have a variety of jewelry to wear with her ensemble. I can’t really blame her for that; I like to collect ties to add variety to my suits!

A few years ago I bought Teri a couple of charm bracelets - one gold and one silver.   Every time she has a birthday I buy her a new charm to add to one of them.  She is always excited to see what I have bought her because every single new charm has some kind of special significance to her, or to our life together.

The lusterforever website has a good selection of discount jewelry. The website offers silver bracelets, watches, rings, earrings, leather bracelets, and pendants, all at discounts of up to 50% off of retail price.  I found a really pretty blue topaz pendant that I know she would love for Christmas, so I’ve bookmarked the site to come back and order it in a few days, when she’s not at home and can’t catch me ordering it!

Earlier today I started thinking about how many people are losing their homes to foreclosures, and was wondering exactly how many of these unfortunate people are going to end up homeless.  I started looking on the Internet for homeless shelters in my area, and then looking for soup kitchens and I am sorry to say that I could not find any soup kitchens at all!  This surprised me because I really had thought that every self-respecting town would have at least one soup kitchen!  I wonder if and when more of them will start to open up, in response to the worsening economy.

I’ve had to wear eyeglasses for many years.  I have always loved to read; when I was younger my “escape from reality” was reading a good book.  My parents noticed that I squinted whenever I would read, and they would scold me for squinting.  I told them that I had to squint in order to see what I was reading!  I can remember that from as far back as around age six.  They never bothered to take me to have my eyes checked until I was around twelve, though, and the doctor told them that although I was farsighted, I would grow out of it and didn’t need glasses.  Well, by the time I was sixteen a different doctor said that I had astigmatisms, a lazy eye, and that I should have been wearing glasses all of my life!  I used to think that people who wore glasses were cool – the glasses were fashion statements.  Now I think that they are a pain in the butt, and very expensive to boot! 

 That’s why I’m so excited to discover Zenni Optical.  Zenni Optical sells a huge variety of eyeglass frames starting as low as $8 per pair!  I found a pair of folding eyeglasses that I think are really cool, and included a picture of them.  The fold up really small, to make it easy to tuck them away in a shirt pocket and only pull them out when I need to read something! 

Anyone who needs a new pair of glasses and wants to save an incredible amount of money would be well advised to consider buying their next pair of glasses from Zenni!