While thousands of people across the country shopped the day after Thanksgiving, I took a better approach--I shopped online. :-) I figured out what to get my parents for Christmas--they're notoriously hard to shop for--and picked that out when I got home from their place on Thursday night. It took a little doing, but I found a great digital camera for them at a good price and with free shipping. I absolutely refuse to pay for shipping this year since all the news shows have said so many online stores are waiving it.
As good as I did on Thanksgiving, though, I did even better on Friday--although it was inadvertent. My dad called a little after 10 and said the plumber was coming out around 1pm to look at the guest bathroom toilet. (We were forced to turn the water off because it wouldn't stop running.) Anyway, we'd been waiting a few weeks for this guy and yesterday was the day--whether I liked it or not. Fortunately, though, my dad volunteered to come over and handle this and suggested I could go to their house and write.
First, though, I needed to do some cleaning. I ran through the house dusting and vacuuming everything. The place looks good if I do say so myself. :-)
Thursday when I'd been over at my parents' house, I'd been looking at their TV stand and thinking that wouldn't make a bad coffee table. Okay, so I'm getting desperate! I've been looking and looking and haven't been able to find anything that's a small enough size. The few things I have spotted have all been black or some other dark stain and that's totally not me or my house.
So while I was at my parent's place, I began searching for the TV stand. Best Buy had it and the price was right, but they only had it in black. :-( I started doing some online searches, trying to find the same brand, but in a wood tone--and without paying $60 in shipping on a $90 TV stand. Somehow, I ended up at Target.com. They didn't have the unit I was looking at, but I thought since I was there I'd do a little search for coffee tables. They'd had one I'd almost bought last summer, but it was a really dark stain again and I didn't love it. And Friday, as I'm paging through the hits my search turned up, I spotted it! A coffee table that I liked!
I didn't let my excitement get too high, after all, over and over again I'd seen something I really liked only to find out it was too big for my small space. Except this time, this time it was perfect. Both length and width fit my maximum requirements. Only drawbacks--the table wasn't available in the store and they wanted me to pay for shipping. And like I said earlier, I'm not paying for shipping, not even for furniture. :-)
So began my online quest to find another reputable online outlet that wasn't charging shipping and wasn't jacking up the price of the furniture. And miracle of miracles, I found one! Yes! Their prices were slightly lower than Target and shipping was free. Happy dog dancing. It truly was meant to be. I wasted no time ordering it and two matching side tables. It isn't the coolest coffee table I've seen, but the one that claims that title was almost as wide as my entire living area. :-) This is my favorite table that fits in my small sized living room.
My biggest wish for the coffee table--aside from its size--was that it have a shelf and a drawer(s). Now I'll have room to put my reference books and manuscripts while I work and I'll be able to fold up the step ladder I've been using as a table and put it away. Hurrah!
The only downside? I didn't get any writing done today and my goal was to really pound out some pages.
And the other big news for Friday was that my dad asked the plumber to put up my shower curtain rod in the guest bathroom and he did! I bought the shower curtain before I moved into the house so we're talking about 18 months here and I was beginning to wonder if it would ever go up.
