We have been loving Hello Fresh so we thought we’d try a bit cheaper alternative. It would have been perfectly fine had we started with that one and not Hello Fresh. We are really spoiled by all the ingredients for all the meals being separated into bags…because when we opened this box and saw a completely jumbled mess of food Tom and I looked at each other like WHAAAAAT IS THIIIIIIS?!
So we had to split it all up and bag it so we could just grab a bag and go. It wasn’t hard but…like I said, we were spoiled.
You know you’ve reached peak adulthood when you get excited about three new Toto toilets.
After renting for so long and having to deal with (forgive the pun) lots of crappy toilets, really goodtoilets were on my list!! And, frankly, I’m tired of all the plunging and these are supposed to be the best!
Of course the first toilet went in super easy—isn’t that always the way? Lulling you into a false sense of security. Tom raved about how easy it was. The next two weren’t horrible but they each had minor issues—including one seat that was missing parts so we are without a toilet in the master bath until the replacement comes in Monday (local stores don’t carry this brand and it would take Lowe’s another 7-9 days to send the replacement).
I’m homesick for sure, but I’m not sure these are the scents of Michigan…but I’m not sure lilacs, horse crap, cherries, and fudge would be a good combo. (This doesn’t smell bad but it doesn’t really make me think of Michigan.)
I’m super excited about my new $2 Mexican glass glasses to match our Ikea plates but OMG I hate the stickers—they make me murderous. (Yes I know all the tricks to remove them. I just hate that they’re there in the first place.)
A Facebook ad strikes again! I kept seeing the PAWS ad on my feed for awhile now where they take a pet photo and make a watercolor out of it. Yes I know apps can do the same thing but it was only $5 so I thought I’d try it. It is cute and I’d say worth the $5 but it’s nothing super special. But damn Maggie was a cute puppy.
These are the gifts I can choose from for reaching my goal and achieving Ruby SeneSales! I absolutely don’t need knives or a drone…so I narrowed it down to a purse and eventually decided on….
The Hobo Velvet Tote. It was close with the Ralph Lauren tote (because when in my life am I ever going to get a Ralph Lauren anything?) but went with the other because of the long handles since that’s how I most use a purse.
Anna and I stopped by Sam’s today—I wanted to see if they still had clearance Christmas candy and she needed chicken stock. We decided one cart would obviously be enough.
Haha.
Hahahahahaa.
I taught Anna that the reason you go down every aisle is to look for clearance stuff! Today was Tootsie Rolls ($3.47!), Laser tag guns ($14), holiday jar sets ($5), satin pillowcases ($6 for two), and a styling doll head for Katie’s birthday (didn’t want to pay $49 at Christmas but I’ll pay $14.81 now!).
There was another layer, too. Both husbands love Snowdrift Vanilla Porter so we stocked up.
Please tell me we are not alone. Everyone else does this, too, right?
So the problem with my dream 12′ tree is that you need oversize accessories. More ornaments. BIGGER ornaments. A bigger star. A bigger tree skirt. (And this stuff is kinda stupid expensive.) Amazon didn’t have much in the way of 72″ tree skirts (typical ones are 48″) so I called on my friends to help me. And they came through. After we parsed out the $200 skirts, this is what I ended up ordering for $59! Yay!
This isn’t the best pic, but you can see my new Hobby Lobby clearance trees and reindeer above the TV. And the stockings hanging below the TV on hooks Anna gave us since they can’t use them.
I still need to figure out what to do on the topmost shelf…it looks odd to have the regular glass jars, candles, and rooster up there with Christmas all around…so stay tuned.
I love it when a random clothing purchase (the gorgeous tank top I got in my favorite online boutique) just happens to match one of my favorite Lularoe cardigans. ❤️ I’m also legit stuffed into a pair of jeans today for the first time in two or so weeks just to see if I could. They’re not super comfy but I can still button and zip them so I’m calling it a win.
I have always wanted a huge Christmas tree! My dad used to get a 2-story tree and I loved it. My cousin gets a 2-story tree and I love it. But we’ve just never had the room for one—and even if we did at one point…the next house we moved to might not fit it. So when we found our forever house and it has super tall ceilings, I knew what was going to happen. But of course I didn’t want to spend the $900 Costco was asking for their 14′ tree, so I figured I would wait until the clearance sales after the holidays and see what deals I could get.
Well…Costco was out of trees by mid-November so there would be no discount Costco tree. Sam’s Club was even out of them! So I resigned myself to probably paying full price next year.
And then Tom and I ran into Sam’s this morning and while we were browsing…I saw my 12′ slim tree on clearance for $259! WHAAAAAT?!?! Yes, please!
And the best part? Dad and Linda had wanted to get us a housewarming present and we hadn’t really been able to think of anything perfect…so the tree was our gift! It’s soooo perfect!!!
I don’t have any decorations for it but those will come with further clearance sales!!
ADDENDUM: Two days later Anna was at Sam’s Club and told me it was reduced even more so I went back and got $100 credited!
I just want to thank everyone who shopped with me this month. I am so very thankful for each and every one of you! When you make a purchase with my SMALL business, it means a lot for my family! And I love spoiling all of my customers, too…giving gifts is my love language.
Kim Kruse, Michelle Galvez, Cheryl Malato, Brianna Powvens, Jannie Louise Sandifer, Kristin Huff, Heidi Leafblad-Habel, Lindsey Mares, Britt Nickelsen, Rebecca Whitley, Ashley Bouchard, Pam Kozu, Stacy Bishop Stark, Anna Bennett Chang-Yen, Ann Balat Gasperini, Rachel Young Wehrle, Jackie Moens, Amber Bookhout Dennis, Leah Waters Cossarek, Suzie Girard Teal, Jami Wallis, Clarencene VanVuuren, and Monique Morrison-Meyer!
Do you know how some days masks don’t really bother you that much at all while you’re shopping? Today is not that day. I feel suffocated. But I still wear it.
So we did a few minor updates to the half bath—mostly courtesy of Amazon Vine—new mirror, lights, and shelves plus we bought a toilet paper holder and towel rack (pipes to match the shelves). I absolutely love it.
Looong story short the house fridge died so we initiated a warranty claim. They couldn’t fix it so they cut us a check for $2k. We had already moved our old fridge from the garage to the house so we did have a working fridge… but we needed to decide if we were just going to buy a garage fridge or if we should get a brand new fridge for the house and put ours back in the garage.
It would obviously be cheaper to just buy a garage fridge, but even the cheapest new one was $500 and it was small. We looked at the local sales forums and there wasn’t much. We only considered buying a brand new house fridge because ours is getting a little old (8) and it would be our luck that it would die shortly after spending money on something else.
But in the end we lucked into a special order (and dented) return at Lowe’s. It’s a restaurant-type cooler—no freezer, which is fine since we have the full upright. Plus Tom’s military discount. Plus a rebate. So now we have leftover for our dishwasher if they come back in stock and go on sale!
Here’s my new toy—a facial steamer! I’ve wanted one for awhile now and it went on sale during Prime Day!
I’ve never done that before it was definitely a learning experience. That little machine packs a lot of punch. It was really hot and I had to keep moving my face farther and farther away. They said not to be closer than 25cm but in my mind I was thinking millimeters so yeah…I was too close. And I had sweat dripping down my face after just a minute. And it is no joke when they warn you that the heated washcloth will be burning hot.
It felt really good and my skin felt glowy. I recommend it!
I’ve forgotten to mention that I now have an electric scooter. It came about quite suddenly around our anniversary. We were at a friend’s house a ways away in the neighborhood and were joking about how it was a little too far to walk to easily and Tom mentioned I should get this scooter that he saw on a deal group. Everyone joked about how awesome that would be so I bought it as an anniversary present!
I will say the first time on it was super scary as I’ve never really even tried one of the kids’ manual scooters, but turns out it’s pretty fun.
Anyhoo, it makes it very convenient to bop down to a neighbor’s house for a quick drink.
Remember we don’t have a tree anymore—last year we got a real tree because we didn’t want to get a new artificial tree until we saw the house where we’d be using it.
My dream would be to have the 14′ tree because our living room can definitely hold it…but $900?! Also, that would limit the tree to that room only. So realistically I’d want the 9′ tree so it could go in either the living room or the front room. Tom doesn’t want either because he wants real trees but those are easily $85-100 a year. So we’ll see.
We have been leaving the kids for short amounts of time to go run errands. Tonight we decided to run to Aldi.
Owen generally texts us at some point just to check in and let us know they’re okay. This was today’s conversation.
I about died when I read his WTH comment. I mean yeah, technically swearing, but it fit perfectly. I actually couldn’t stop laughing as we were walking through Aldi.
Katie loves running so when I was clearance shopping at Kohl’s today I picked up a pair of running shoes for her (like not just generic tennis shoes). She was SO excited she wanted to go out and run immediately. So Owen went around the block with her on his Segway.
The margarita motherlode! It’s not my favorite flavor but it will do!
And then it was the start of an unexpected round robin to buy some new bedroom furniture…
The movers ruined some of our bedroom dressers so we knew we’d have to replace them eventually. (We also realized they were like almost 20 years old—and they’ve been moved a bunch of times—so it was time. We’d also been looking at new headboards.)
So we were at Costco and saw a set we both liked (!!) and one piece was on sale…but we weren’t ready. Well…the more we thought about it, the more we decided it was a good idea since it was a good price and if you see something at Costco you need to grab it otherwise you’ll never see it again.
I wanted to do some due diligence though so we went to a local furniture store just to see what they had…and it was slim pickings. So we went to our local Costco to see what they had (we had been at the Wisconsin Costco earlier). Well, they were almost out of everything (!!) but they had two pieces of floor samples that they sold us at a discount (!!) but that meant the rest of our day was trying to get that stuff home AND going back to Wisconsin to grab the other pieces while they were still in stock! And borrowing a friend’s truck to do it. Gah! That was NOT what was on our schedule for the day!!!
We managed to get everything but the king headboard (we ran out of time before they closed)…and shoved everything in our already-full garage!
