I have been looking to sort of fix up the place when I realized that I could use a new look myself. I found some great deals online with coupons to places like Old Navy Stores. I don’t know about you but I love Old Navy Stores. They have some great deals and some even better sales too. But what I liked about this site is it’s linked right to Old Navy Stores online and you can use the coupon when you check out.
Shopping online saves you not only with the coupons but you don’t have to run out any of your gas either. If you live out in the boonies like I do, that adds up quick. Do an online coupon search and you’ll be amazed at how many sites there are like shopwiki. That’s one of my favorite sites because you can find just about anything on there.
Made in USA (free clip art)Whenever making a purchase of an item that I plan to use for a long time, I try to perform what my engineering son likes to call “due diligence.” By that, I mean I will spend quite a bit of time finding out as much as I can about the product. I want to “shop smart” so as to not waste my money on a product that will not perform the way I want it to perform. I will try to find, and Read Full Review material on the product, do some comparison shopping online for it, and even check and see if there have been any complaints or recalls on the item.
In this day and age, I also try to buy American-made products, to support our economy. If we don’t help keep our country working, our taxes will end up going up to support the unemployed! And between you and me, I’d rather not join the ranks of the unemployed, so I always try to keep that in mind as well!
Oil change (free clip art)Today I pulled into the Valvoline quick oil change place near my house. I deliberately waited until after the lunch hour so the the place would not be short handed due to their oil change technicians being off for lunch.
I though I had timed the trip well because there are 3 bays and each bay had 1 vehicle in it. One of the tech’s came up to my car and instructed me to pull in behind the pickup truck in the first bay. I don’t know what they were doing to that truck, but it sure seemed to be taking a long time. It was not just an oil change, that’s for sure.
Another car pulled in and was directed to the 3rd bay. About 5 minutes later the vehicle in bay 3 drove away and the car that arrived at least 10 minutes after me pulled into that bay for an oil. Another car pulled up and was directed to wait at bay 3. The car finished and drove off and the new car pulled in. All together, those were 3 cars got their oil changed while I was stuck sitting behind the truck being worked.
The car in the second bay had it’s hood up and no one seemed to be working on it at all. No cars were ever directed to that bay while I was there. Forty minutes after I had arrived I was STILL sitting behind the truck in bay 1. The Assistant Manager came up and apologized and asked me to move to bay 3. I pulled right in and he promised to give me a $10 credit on my bill.
They changed my oil but because I had a coupon for half price, they did not give me that $10 discount that I was promised. I asked if they would replace the burned out light bulb instead of the $10 credit, but they said they could not. WTF?
I totally feel ripped off and taken advantage of. I don’t think i will be going back to Valvoline again. I’d rather go to Firestone and sit inside their customer waiting area and drink free coffee and watch the TV or read a magazine instead of being held hostage in my car for 40 minutes waiting to pull into a Valvoline bay.
warranty (free clip art)Sometimes when I talk to my friends and family about things they are buying online, I get the impression that they don’t even take the time to view fine print about warranties and whether or not they can purchase a maintenance agreement. Such was the case when Marcel was telling me that he was thinking about buying a dbx ZonePRO 640 Speaker Processor from an Internet retailer. I asked him if he had checked out how long the warranty was on the product, and he told me he had not. What is wrong with people nowadays? You should always find out that information!
Columbus Day (free clip art)Sorry to admit this, but the Columbus Day holiday has always seemed the oddest and least celebrated holiday of all the official holidays throughout the year. We all learned a little bit about Christopher Columbus and several other notable world explorers while in school. And there is some controversy about whether Columbus really discovered America or did he land on a Caribbean Island or even Mexico or Central America instead?
But for me and anyone else who works in retail, Columbus Day means one more holiday to have an excuse for a sale and it is the last holiday before the big Christmas rush. I think the Columbus Day holiday has lost some of its shine in modern years and people are no so much interested in any sales during October unless it means they can get an early start on their Christmas shopping.
Do you know of any sales going on this weekend that will be worth going to the mall to save money on something you really need? I can’t think of anything, and I’m not willing to start my Christmas shopping yet, either!
over flowing closet (free clip art)Now that it is officially fall, the weather has definitely turned chilly. So, it’s that time of year for me to totally revamp my closet. It’s a chore I dread, because I love summer and I don’t want to admit that I cannot wear all my cute shorts and summer dresses anymore. But then again, getting out all my cold weather clothes is exciting. It is like reconnecting with old friends! Hello, Sweater! I haven’t seen you for, what? At LEAST 6 months!
Another upside to revamping my closet this weekend is that I will need to go shopping and buy a few new things to update my wardrobe. Cleaning out the closet makes room for new stuff! I want to get a couple pairs of new jeans, a rain jacket and this year I am looking for a pair of new boots. Shopping will be my reward for getting this chore done over the weekend.
This girl who used to work with me keeps popping up around town. I have seen her at a couple of restaurants, at the YMCA, and in the grocery store. I always make an effort to go up to her and say hello, ask how she is doing, etc. But she is a new convert and last night, when I saw her at the grocery store, she started preaching a bunch of stuff about being saved and told me that I am going to Hell. I’m sorry, but I don’t want to get into a deep religious discussion in the produce section of my grocery store.
I think the annoying part was her judgment of me and attempt to convert me along with her. She asked me the most bizarre question and since I didn’t give her the answer she wanted, she started attacking my personal beliefs. I had to raise my voice and tell her to back off – in the middle of the grocery store! Good grief!
Oh, her question to me was, “How do you know that you are going to Heaven?” and it wasn’t really about her caring about me so much as an attack on my beliefs. That really pissed me off. If you want to talk about religion with me, invite me over to your place some night and we can share a glass of wine and talk about it in a constructive conversation. Don’t ambush me in the grocery store and tell me that I’m going to Hell.
The grocery store had box cake mixes on sale for $1.50 per box and then matching frosting on ale for $1.50, too. So add in the cost of a couple of eggs and some oil, the electricity used for a hand mixer and the oven to bake the cake, and you can make a cake for under $5 – that’s a pretty good price. You cannot buy a bakery cake for under $10 these days, so making it yourself does save some money – plus you know exactly what is in the cake. I know that I use real butter – not margarine, shortening or lard. I know that I use real eggs and real vanilla extract – not powdered, dry or imitation anything.
But now that I have seen a recipe for making a yellow cake from scratch, I wonder why I have been using a box mix to bake cakes? I can use regular flour and some baking soda and have just as good a cake as what comes out of a box. It just means I have to measure out a few more items. Big deal! I have decoded to make the next cake from scratch and not buy any more box mixes. And I am going to experiment with the amounts to make just one cake layer instead of the traditional 2 layers, or just 6 cupcakes instead of a whole dozen.
Justin was trying to explain to me why he wants to buy and install a bigsby vibrato on his guitar, and I just didn’t seem to “get it.” I thought his guitar sounds just fine the way it is. He finally decided to go online to this YouTube video, which is a demonstration of a “before and after” the installation of the bigsby vibrato on a guitar. I have to say I was very surprised to hear that it really makes a big difference in sound! Amazing!
I wish there was a Farmer’s Market close to my house. I don’t know of any except the one downtown, and I hate to drive downtown. I end up spending an extra $10 in gas to go all the way downtown and an extra $10 to the trip for paid parking. So the cost of fresh vegetables is already $20 before I even pick out the first one.
The last time I went to the Farmer’s Market, the price of vegetables was not any cheaper than what I can buy at Kroger grocery stores. I’m not sure there is much advantage to shopping at Nashville’s Farmer’s Market other than you are supporting local farmers and local businesses rather than a big grocery store chain like Kroger and whatever farms they decide at a corporate level to buy from.
There is a little place on the side of the road that sells fresh vegetables and fresh flowers on Lebanon Road. I don’t usually take Lebanon Road to go anywhere, but when I know I am going that way, I usually stop and buy a few things. I went by there yesterday and found lots of summer vegetables. They are a little cheaper than Kroger and the owner tells me that all the produce is grown locally. So I don’t mind supporting this guy and his wife.
I tried to grow some tomato plants on my patio, but they did not produce much. The tomatoes are so small and colored funny that I ended up throwing them out. It was nice to find a fresh picked, field grown tomato at the vegetable stand. One slice of their tomato covers the entire piece of bread! So I enjoyed a fabulous tomato and mayo sandwich last night. And I’ll have another one tonight for dinner, with a couple pieces of bacon and some lettuce on top.
