Tag Archive | shopping

Great cheap vacations

Apr13

Some people like to tell me that I am “cheap.” Those are the people who have a lot more money than I do, usually born with a silver spoon in their mouths. Or they have what I like to call a “Sugar Daddy” or a “Sugar Mamma” in their lives. Because of that they can afford to travel around the world and eat all of their meals at restaurants every day of their lives. Me, I have always had to work for a living. And for the majority of the child-raising lives of my kids I had to work full-time, take college courses at night, and raise my kids on a shoestring. So I prefer to think of myself as “frugal.”

One trick that I learned about saving money back then was to not even bother fighting with their father for who would get the kids on a holiday, like Easter or Halloween. I’d go ahead and let them spend the night before at his house, and the day of the holiday, and even the next day too. I’d put off shopping for Easter candy, or Halloween candy until the day AFTER the holiday and then I’d go to the stores and buy a modest amount of holiday-themed goodies at the drastically reduced prices and when they would arrive home I would give them the small token gifts and they would be perfectly happy with what I had given them.

I became pretty skilled at providing cheap vacations as well. Those days were largely before the Internet was even invented, so I would use a travel agent to line up a time-share condo rental and cheap air-fare if the destination was too far to drive, or I’d arrange to drive to my parent’s house in the Washington DC area, stay with them (for free) and do a lot of the Smithsonian Museums, the National Zoo, and spend some great time with my parent’s at their beach house on the Northern Neck in Virginia. We’d go for boat rides, and picnic on the beach at Shark’s Tooth Island, and hunt for shark’s teeth. My siblings would show up and we’d use the family boat to go tubing and water-skiing. A day trip or two to King’s Dominion, or Luray Caverns might round out the vacation. Good times can be had without having to go deep into debt!

Our Current Big Baby Boy Boom

Feb19

Has anyone else noticed that we are having a bit of a baby boom? Maybe it is just my circle of family and friends that are currently going through this baby business, but it seems like this year I have been bombarded with invitations to baby showers and announcements of new babies landing in my mailbox at the end of the drive way and in my email inbox as well. There is no where else to hide, yikes!

My sister’s sister-in-law just had a surprise birth announcement in her family, so I am sure that I will go buy some receiving blankets and a few little outfits for her new granddaughter here in the near future, then wrap them up and get them in the mail. This is the first girl to arrive of all the other births this year. Everyone else has been having baby boys. And these baby boys are coming out big and strong. I haven’t heard of one yet that isn’t at least nine pounds!

The one thing about baby showers that I enjoy is the shopping for the presents. There is nothing quite like going into a nice up scale baby store and enjoy looking at and touching all the wonderful baby clothes and all of the other tons of baby related items. They always smell so nice and usually everything is extremely soft. I would never order something for a baby over the Internet, that would suck any enjoyment out of the whole ordeal!

Men’s Wedding Rings

Feb15

I remember, back many, many years ago, when I was planning my wedding day, how I struggled with what to give as groomsmen gifts, for the 4 guys standing up for us on our big day. There was no Internet to help with the wedding accessories that are necessary for all the people involved in the process. It was a good thing that it was a wedding attended by numerous bikers, that made it a bit easier to find things, there was plenty of Harley Davidson products that we ended up utilizing and were appreciated by all. But the Internet certainly would have made the whole thing so much easier.

Now that I have found out that my ol’ man lost his wedding ring months ago, but was afraid of telling me about it, it looks like we will be looking online for a replacement wedding ring. Back in the day we would have been very limited as to what we would be able to find in the good old fashioned brick and mortar stores. And since we aren’t in a huge rush, heck it’s been months since he lost the original one and has managed to do without for that long, I don’t see the need to rush right out and buy just any old ring. So far I really like the men’s wedding rings at jewelryvortex.com, but I have a feeling that we are going to butt heads when it comes down to the final decision and things could get real ugly around here.

Burger King In The News Again

Feb14

Over the past couple of weeks I have been hearing that Burger King is in trouble  with traces of horse meat being found in their popular and famous Whoppers over in the U.K. I don’t think any has been found in the burgers being sold over here in the states, thank goodness, since I tend to eat at Burger King a couple of times a month. I had to stop going to McDonald’s, because their food just doesn’t taste good to me any more. I used to love their $1 sweet tea, but that has started to taste too sweet and it makes my teeth hurt just thinking about drinking their sweet tea.

Burger King In The News

Burger King

Thinking about the possibility of having horse meat placed in any of my food doesn’t set well with me. But there certainly could be worse things than horse meat that really make my stomach upset just thinking about the possibilities. I guess that is the chance that we take when we eat out and are at the mercy of the people in charge in the ordering, the preparing and the serving of our orders. I know a lot of people that refuse to eat out because of all of the horrible possibilities that are involved when you place your trust in anyone other than yourself.

Brochure Printing Services Available

Dec26

Even though I am pretty hand dandy on the computer and there are so many things that a computer can do today, I still think that my sister needs to use a professional Brochure Printing Services that will do a bang up job for what she and her manager are looking for. They are putting together a Grand Opening for a book store in the old town mall, which is something that in my opinion we need more of. It is very difficult to find a bookstore these days. I’m assuming because of the Internet and other technology that are making real books unnecessary.  If I want to go to a book store I have to drive a minimum of 50 minutes, that’s a lot of time and gas to buy a book!

Coming from a family of avid readers I’m not surprised that one of us hasn’t worked/managed or owned a bookstore. I’ll only have to drive 20 minutes to get to their selection of new and used books, which I’m excited about. I don’t think I’ll ever own a Kindle, holding a good book in your hands, well there just isn’t anything like it in the world. Plus I like to read in the bath tub, it would suck to drop something in the tub that could get ruined and possibly electrocute myself in the process.