Florida storms

We woke up this morning to sounds of strong winds. Turned on the news and found we were under a tornado watch. I always forget which is more serious - a watch or a warning. According to www.tornadochaser.com/saf.htm A Tornado Watch means that tornadoes are possible in your area and a Tornado Warning means that a tornado has been sighted or indicated by weather radar and it is time for you to take shelter. So we're ok but it looks like a lot of rain was coming our way according to weather.com's photo at 9:30am. I marked our area on the map above, it's the red text.

We've had our fair share of storms over the years, mostly hurricanes. In fall of 2004 when I was up at college, we had the big 4 make landfall in FL - Charley, Frances, Ivan and Jeanne. Here's a sat view of Ivan. The media usually plays up the anticipation of the storms, but for this season, the physical damage and affect on human life was very real. I've found it's best to be prepared but not go overboard. Some people flock to the stores buying up all water, canned goods, plywood and other supplies. I'm sure there are some people who don't do anything if a storm's approaching. We like to be prepared ahead of time which means have supplies and have a plan. Even though we are on the grid with most of the city buildings, we do still plan to get a generator that could run the necessities if the power were to go out. We've got family close, so we have other places we can stay if our house is damaged. We've been blessed to not have to exercise our disaster plan. For today's storm, it was work as usual, although I did bring Rufus to work with me so he didn't have to sit at home with all of the wind and rain. He didn't complain.

From Wikipedia, Charley made landfall as a Category 4 hurricane (150 mph winds) near Punta Gorda, FL (southwest coast) on August 13. Charley remained a hurricane across the entire Florida peninsula and passed through Orlando and near Daytona. It made a second landfall in SC on 08/14 and disappeared somewhere near Maine.

Frances made its way on to FL's east coast as a Cat. 2 hurricane (105 mph winds, was 145 mph max) Sept. 5 down near Miami, after sitting off the coast for about 24 hours. Frances was a slow storm which meant lots of wind and flooding rain. It finally moved through FL, touched the Gulf for a moment then went up near Tennessee where it dissipated.

Ivan passed Cuba as a Cat 5 (165 mph) around Sept. 10 and then made landfall in southern Alabama, headed north east across GA, looped back around and hit southern FL. That was a strange one.

About the same time Jeanne was making her way to FL (120 mph winds, cat 3), making landfall close to where Frances had hit a few weeks prior.
Interestingly enough, The World Meterological Organization retired four names in the spring of 2005: Charley, Frances, Ivan, and Jeanne. They will be replaced in 2010 by Colin, Fiona, Igor, and Julia.

While most of this was going on, DH had come up to visit me at school in Tennessee around Labor Day weekend 09/04. After hearing the number of storms that planned to threaten our area, my parents decided to bring my grandparents up for a visit. I guess many other people had the thought to leave the area at that time for a vacation because I heard the roads were packed. They stayed up in TN for a few days and before they headed back, they filled several gas containers with spare gas and strapped them to the roof of the car just in case. There's usually a gas shortage after this many storms in the area. I'm not sure if they ever had to use the reserve on the way home, but at least they were prepared.

From my records, this photo is of my grandparents stairs after on of the 2004 storms, or it may have been from a previous storm. These stairs leading to the beach have since been rebuilt. The seawall sand support has been rebuilding itself since as well. That's the 2nd or 3rd rebuild of the stairs that I can remember since I've been around. Guess that's part of living on the beach.

The story of how we found our house

DH and I were married August 20, 2005. We lived in an apartment at my grandparents beachfront manor for the first few months (we were actually married there overlooking the ocean - beautiful!!). Our apartment was very small, probably just over 500 sq. ft. total. When my grandparents got an offer on their house around October 2005, we thought it was time to look for our own place. We started looking around town - this was during the height of the real estate bubble. Our basic wish list was 3 bedroom, 2 bath with a yard and room for our boat. (yeah, we bought a boat together after we'd been dating for a few months. That's where he proposed to me, and that's for a another post!). Other than those items, I was also looking for a nice master suite with a whirlpool tub.

After checking out houses for several weekends, we started to realize that all of the newer homes which were built with the spacious master suite and upgraded kitchens and bathrooms were practically built on top of each other - you could probably hear your neighbors or jump roof to roof. Both of our families knew were actively looking too. We were out at Target one night doing some Christmas shopping and ran into DH's aunt and uncle. We mentioned to them that we were just about exhausted with the housing market. They said they'd keep their eyes out for something that fit our description. Just after the new year, my grandma told me that DH's aunt had called trying to get a hold of us. I called her back and she told us her neighbor had just put a For Sale by owner sign up the night before. I didn't know the exact neighborhood they lived in, but was familiar with the area and it sounded great. We went over to DH's aunt's house to check it out.

The neighborhood was perfect. Older, quiet, no through-street. It was right in town, close to Home Depot, Walmart, Super Target and all shops but set away enough that it didn't feel like you were really that close. The Port Orange City Center was within walking distance - that meant the library, YMCA, city ball fields, amphitheatre and the lake which I knew our puppy would love! The photo to the right is the lake with city hall in the background. (thanks to Grandma BJ for the photo - more of our city center on her flickr site www.flickr.com/photos/21322109@N00/sets/72057594104077648/) Some bonuses about the location - police station and fire station were right near the city hall also, so our power lines would be the last to go off in the event of an emergency! Underground power lines, reclaimed water available, the list went on and on. We saw the outside of the neighbors house. It was standard ranch style. Cute front porch with potential. I've never been a huge fan of brick, but I kept an open mind. DH's aunt's house was the same layout except reversed as the neighbor's house, so we walked through to see the space. 3 bedrooms, 2 baths -check! The house was built in 1979 so there was work to be done, but the frame and basics were there. Then we peeked through the fence to check out their back yard - SOLD! This happened to be the largest lot in the neighborhood. It had a pool, hot tub and lounge area under a screened in patio, room in the yard for our boat (even room on the side of the house to back it in) - everything we were looking for.

I called the lady and set up a time to come look at the house. We already knew that we'd likely put an offer in just based on the location and the yard, the inside could be gutted and redone. One step into the house and we were sure. Now, this lady's decorating style was not like ours at all. She was a grandma and loved to collect things. There was soo much furniture and nick knacks all over the house. I tried to over look it all. I guess had she tried to list it with a realtor, they would have told her to clean the place up. She gave us a tour and then DH and I thanked her and stepped outside. We both knew this was the place. We went back in and told her. We put a deposit down and started all of the fun paperwork. Feb. 1 the house was ours!!
It's taking some time to turn it into our own, but that's one of the joys of buying an older house - sweat equity.
We got in our chair and a half and love seat today. It looks kind of cramped in there right now with the tree. I just snapped this pic after the delivery men dropped the furniture off, so it may need some re-arraigning and definitely a table or ottoman, side table and lamp, and maybe some different art on the wall, but it's already looking great in there. I didn't want to offend Rufus by not including him in the pic.

Rufus at work

I went home yesterday at lunch time and Rufus gave me that look like he wanted to come into work with me for the rest of the day. He's so sweet. I think he knows when I'm not feeling too well and he's always there to cheer me up.

Here's my sweet Rufus actually posing for pics in my office. He's always so well behaved (after the initial jump up in your face to see who you are). This is his typical jolly expression. Seems like if he's not sleeping, then he's 'smiling'. And how can you not feel better looking at this face.
I guess I can catch you all up on how Rufus came into our lives. Once we moved into our house Feb. 1, 2006, our first job was to fence in the yard and get ready for a puppy. I just wanted a puppy, any would do. DH had grown up with standard poodles and he had his heart set on a chocolate pup. We searched and searched the internet. From my email records, it looks like we started looking around mid-March 2006. After countless websites, DH emailed me a link to www.booksleadtoproducts.com/Royal-Standard-Poodles.html on 06/06/06. I emailed the breeder and she emailed me back immediately. She had a dog named Zain who was pregnant by Kodi and due 07/25. Everything just fell into place. She was very helpful with every question I had, and was always available to help us through the process. Her website was very thorough with tons of information and also updated pics of pups with their human families. And her pups were chocolate and most grew to be big poodles - just what we were looking for. We put a deposit on a pup, we were 3rd in line for the litter due in July.

July 25 rolled around and we were so excited. I was checking the website for updates every hour. No updates until late in the evening, Zain had only 2 puppies, 1 boy and 1 girl and both were already spoken for. I was pretty sad. I talked to DH about it and he said, so nonchalantly, well, maybe she'll have another in 16 hours or so. I thought that was impossible. I emailed Tes the breeder at 9:30 on July 26 congratulating her on the 2 pups and asking if our deposit rolls over to the next litter. Instead of emailing me back, she called me at work. She had WONDERFUL news. Zain had the 2 pups late Tuesday night (07/25) and then the next morning, nearly 12 hours after the first 2 were born, she had 2 more! And one was our little Rufus!!! He was going to be a big boy. At 3 weeks old, he was already 6 lbs. (average is 4-5). Here's our little Rufus with his brother and sisters at 1 day old. Ruf is the brown one hanging out with his cream colored sisters.We had several name changes before Ruf came to live with us. He started out as Poodie. Not too masculine I know. Then to Maxwell. Then to Moose. And then sometime in late August 2006, he was officially named Rufus after a fond childhood memory of my husband's. He flew all the way from Minnesota to Daytona the evening of Tuesday, September 19, 2006. He was so cute in his little crate. If I remember right, he was about 16 lbs. when he flew down at 8 weeks old. He was so sleepy and groggy from the flight. The breeder or airline had zip tied his crate shut and we didn't have any scissors, so DH sat in the backseat with him on our way home. We were talking to him the whole time telling him how excited we were to finally meet him. When we got home, opened his crate and this little ball of energy came bouncing out. I wish I had video of that. He explored us and the house, we gave him a bath in the kitchen sink and then he finally laid down and I rubbed his little belly and he fell right asleep. Here he is giving me coffee-breath puppy kisses after his bath. Yeah, his breath smelled just like fresh brewed coffee for several months - I don't know why.I'm looking back on my notes (why didn't I make a baby book? I'll have to do that one day) and he got so big so fast:
09/28/06 at 9 weeks old, he was already up to 19.7 lbs.
11/28/06 he was up to 40 lbs. (I'll have to check the vet records for weights in Oct. 2006)
12/05/06 44 lbs.
12/26/06 54 lbs. and he could reach his paws to my shoulders (I'm 5'4)
01/26/07 65 lbs. and 24 inches at the shoulder
05/26/07 85 lbs. and 27 inches at the shoulder (finally stopped the 10 lbs/month around this time! Thankfully!)

It's hard to believe he's grown so much
8 weeks to almost 2-1/2 years old

Weekend recap

This will probably be a short post day - I'm fairly under the weather and may go home early.
Friday was DH's company party at the Hilton. There were over 400 people there! I think they estimated 470 adults and nearly 50 children. We got there around 6:30, had apps and drinks then had our photo taken and went up to the ballroom for dinner. Dinner was buffet style - a nice salad, pasta salad, steamed veggies, mashed potatoes, bread and salmon and roast beef. The dessert table had eclairs, chocolate cookies and bite sized pieces of cake. I was pretty tired after working all day and DH had to work in the morning, so we called it a night around 10pm. Rufus was glad to see us of course. :)

Saturday and Sunday DH had to work all day, so I did some errands, found a mesh chain for our fireplace for $65 (and we're going to try to paint the frame - thanks pedalpower!). I also went out to Beach Street to get some chocolate goodies for Christmas at Angel and Phelps, a wonderful chocolate factory here in town http://www.angellandphelps.com/.

I also stopped at our favorite jeweler Jessups to have my rings cleaned and checked. Of course I checked out the items for sale too. I'm thinking about upgrading my wedding band. It's getting pretty scratched up. We purchased it because it was the style I was looking for, we didn't spend too much time checking the quality of the metal or diamonds (white gold and I don't even know the diamond ratings for this band). My engagement ring is platinum with a perfect diamond, which I love! Our jeweler said they can rhodium plate my rings for about $75 which will bring back their luster. Apparently rhodium plating lasts for about 3 years, which is just less than the time I've had my wedding band. Any thoughts? I just too a quick snapshot of my rings here at the right. I guess with the terrible lighting in my office, this is what I get. The engagement stone is actually quite sparkely and completely colorless.

Sunday was a day of house projects (well, by projects I mean laundry and sweeping). Rufus and I also went to the pet store which is one of his favorite things to do. He's such a gentleman, he walks to the door, sits and waits for me to open it and then he goes straight to the counter, jumps up (2 front paws up on the 3 ft. or so tall counter) and looks for his treats. Everyone loves him. I still get people asking if he's a labradoodle. I also went to lunch with my parents at Buca di Beppos. I hadn't been there in a while. It's still pretty good for an Italian chain. We had the mixed green salad, chicken parm, a side of spaghetti and tiramisu. Everything was great of course. The tiramisu was a little strong on the rum for me.
I didn't take photos, but thanks to http://flickr.com/photos/mariecannabis/2457762077/ for her pic of Buca's tiramisu bowl

On the food front - we had Tijuana Flats for dinner again Saturday night. That place is becoming one of my favorites! DH had tacos again and I tried their nachos - huge!! We also had churros which were delicious! Nothing like a warm piece of fried dough covered in cinnamon and sugar. Dinner last night was ribeye steak (how is it up to $11.49/lb. now?!) and Velveeta shells and cheese - nice, warm comfort food.

The start of the season

Today is Friday! We've got DH's company Christmas party tonight, so I've got to leave work a little early to get ready and be there around 6:30. It's at the oceanside Hilton. I think they're expecting somewhere between 300-500 people. I think their company's up to around 150 employees plus all of their families. DH has to work this weekend, so we won't stay out too late partying. Yeah, if you know us, you know we're not really partiers. Or dancers. But the food's good :)

Since we've begun the Christmas season, I thought I'd show any pics I've taken of our Christmas trees.
Below is our first ever Christmas tree as a married couple, 2005. It was a live tree that made our tiny apartment smell wonderful. I think we used net lighting and just wrapped the tree - easy!

Here's our first Christmas in our house, 2006. This is a live tree too. This was Rufus' first Christmas. Look how little he was here!! He was 4-1/2 months old here...awww!! I think we put more ornaments on the tree that year. Looks like it's just got clear lights and of course bubble lights in this pic. Man, I still can't believe our Ruf was ever that small.

And here's our tree from last year, 2007. This tree below is an artificial tree that we got from Walmart after 2006's Christmas. I think we paid about $25 for it (regular $80). It's about 6.5 ft. tall and is pre-lit with nice clear lights. We used this tree again this year. It's so easy - just snap the 3 pieces together, plug them up and hang our ornaments. There's only 1 present under our tree so far this year, and it's not even wrapped. Actually, it's just an empty box of a remote digital thermometer I got for DH so he can monitor his grilling and smoking. Seeing this pic makes me think of the nice, cold tile days. Ok, it wasn't nice tile (in the photo), well, not nice to us and I'm so glad to have our laminate flooring in!

Ok, so this isn't one below is not one of our Christmas trees, but it's one we saw while we were over in Orlando last year. We went over for a weekend before Christmas and ate at Shula's Steakhouse in Disney's Dolphin Resort. In case you're thinking about it, skip Shula's. It was dark (yeah, too dark for a 25 year old's eyes), the food was wayyy overpriced for the quality (I'm ok with paying $50 for a good steak or fresh seafood, but it wasn't worth it), and there were many-a-crying children. The Dolphin was decorated nicely though. This huge tree is actually made of poinsettias. It's probably 30-40 ft. tall. This year we've got tickets to Mickey's Very Merry Christmas Party on 12/19 which I'm very excited about! (they sold out last year before we got tickets)

The story of our flooring

It's a pretty quiet week around here, so I thought it'd be nice to take this time to document some of our house projects.

When we moved into our house on Feb. 1, 2006, we quickly discovered the previous owner was a chain smoker (indoors) with a dog that was prone to accidents inside the house. DH and I are not smokers and I can't stand the smell of it. The clean clothes we had in our closet all smelled of smoke, there were nicotine outlines on the wall from where her photos were hung, yellow stains on the white cabinets. We quickly painted everything with Kilz primer which is a wonderful odor blocker and then we painted different rooms different colors. Mostly all neutrals. The best day was when we got rid of all of the nasty carpet, chiseled up the tile and laid laminate flooring down in the whole house (except the bathrooms). Start to finish, the whole flooring process probably took about 6 months worth of weekends. The laminate floor shows more dust and dirt than we noticed with the carpets, but I know the carpets were just holding all of that dust and dirt in. So gross to even think about.



The flooring is from a local flooring company which we just happened upon one weekend. We had planned to purchase from Lumber Liquidators in Orlando, but we'd have to drive over there and pick up 1600 sq. ft. of flooring. This is the type we had planned on getting from LL 8mm royal mahogany. So we decided to check out a couple local places to see if they had similar product in our price range. We ended up at Georgia Floor Direct in Ormond about 15 miles north of our town. They had big floor samples and we found a product similar in color called whisky barrel with the attached underlayment and it was twice as thick = better quality. The edges were bevelled, water resistant and there was wood grain texture marks which both made it look like real wood. The guy gave us a great deal and saved us from driving all the way over to Orlando. We got just over 2 pallets and by the time we were done, we had about 15 boxes left over plus about 5 that were damaged from the forklift operator loading them onto our trailer which they took back and gave us a full refund (that was over $500 back!). Yeah, the whole process of loading this pallet onto our trailer was an interesting experience. The forklift forks weren't long enough, and the driver couldn't drive the forklift onto our trailer gate (he tried, but it bent) so he got the pallet on there and then proceeded to poke and prod the forks into the boxes of wood floor. 5 of the boxes were physically damaged and thankfully he wrote that on our receipt to make sure we'd get credit for them since they were near the bottom of the stack and it would have taken forever to get those damaged boxes out then at the store.

Seems like I always forget to do before pics for the 'before and after' gallery. Well, here's a sort of before of our living room after the walls were painted and after carpet was pulled out (picture cream colored stained carpet if you want) before the laminate went down. And then there's the after. LOVE IT!


We've since replaced the baseboards and plan to do simple crown moulding and some small accessories to complete this room. Don't mind the specs on the after photo, it was probably dust in the air from the whole process. Glad that's over! On a side note, the big double window on the right will be replaced with an impact resistant new window which will help with blocking out the sound from our street and also help with energy efficiency since the windows in our house now are all contractor original single pane glass with aluminum frames. But that's for another day...

By the fireplace

It's another cold day here in Port Orange. I do enjoy these cold fronts. And yes, a cold front for us here usually doesn't reach below 30-something. I don't know what they'd call it if it got below that here. People would probably be at a loss for words. We get to use our fireplace on cold nights like we've had recently. We had some leftover wood from last winter and used that up a few weeks ago, so I had to go searching for some wood last week. I was at Target doing some shopping and tried to get wood there - nope. Lowes was next - nope, just little chopped up wood for outdoor fireplaces. I guess we could have used that but it was $10 for a little bag. No thanks. Then it was on to Walmart and just when I thought I'd have to go chop down our own tree, Walmart came through with a $6.00 box of wood. That wood, paired with the starters also from Walmart didn't produce as nice of a fire as the wood from last year. The Walmart wood was split, which I thought was suppsed to burn better. Oh well, at least it looks pretty all stacked up. Here Rufus and I enjoy the fire while DH takes our pic.

We'd like to replace the brass fireplace door and frame with something black. I can't seem to find replacements anyplace in town, they just say we have to order it. Same goes with the replacement mesh curtain - can't find it anywhere, and don't even know how to order it. I did find the original brochure for the fireplace doors. They came from Sears but I still couldn't find anything for wood burning fireplaces on their website.

I did just find a website that offers replacement mesh screens up in Pennsylvania. They range from $51-$70, so that may be the way to go. Although, a new glass door replacement is around $300 and includes the mesh screen. Maybe we can just paint ours with a fireproof black paint?http://www.fireplacedoorsonline.com/acatalog/Black_Replacement_Spark_Screens.html

And we love Norm and This Old House - here's tips on installing or replacing masonary fireplace doors http://www.thisoldhouse.com/toh/how-to/overview/0,,1154375,00.html

This is the closest pic that looks like our corner brick fireplace with the mantle (ours is a dark brown stained wood) and this is what ours would look like with the black frame.Eventually I'd like to change the brick to ledge stone or similar style.

And while I'm talking about ledge stone - I've also been thinking about changing the columns out front to a ledge stone base style as shown below. We may screen in that whole area, and if we do that, the columns would be hidden in with the screen. Just looking at options... From the newer houses, it looks like ledge stone is the new brick. I bet if we wait about 5-10 years, brick will become the new ledge stone. That's why I enjoy traditional, timeless decor.

“Rumble in Race Town”

Just guess how romantic our next Valentine's Day will be....we just found out there will be an MMA event at our Ocean Center here in Daytona on Feb. 14, 2009. Yeah, we'll probably go. Xtreme Cage Fighting's (XCF) “Rumble in Race Town” is a new event on the night before the Daytona 500 (Nascar racing). There will already be a million people in town. Maybe we can have a nice dinner at Hyde Steakhouse across the street and then head over to the event. We'll see...

Yesterday was your typical Monday after a holiday weekend - pretty quiet. I went to our lovely new Publix at lunch time for our weekly grocery shopping. I'm starting to think Publix really isn't that much more expensive than Walmart for grocery items. You get what you pay for and the quality at Publix is consistent. I'll probably start buying more than just meat and produce from Publix, but stick with the paper items (TP, soap, etc) at Walmart or Target. The whole experience at Publix is so much nicer. Less people, more helpful, smiling associates, better quality products. I'm finding it's worth the extra $5-10.

Last night I drove my mom to her church dinner (car battery was out) and came home to a house full of icicle lights! DH went up on the roof after he got home and hung all the lights. Beautiful!

In other news, the newest Will Farrell movie comes out for rent today. I'll be going to Blockbuster in an hour or so to make sure we have it for this weekend. DH is a big Will Farrell fan. I think he would have been invited to our wedding had we had his address. I like him too. John C. Reilly is pretty funny too, but I can't help but think of him in Chicago the movie whenever I see him. "Cellophane, Mister Cellophane, been my name, Mister Cellophane, 'Cause you can look right through me, Walk right by me, And never know I'm there...Never even know I'm THERE". I'm a Broadway fan too.
Note - we loved the movie!

Long weekend

I just love long weekends.
It all started Wednesday night - DH and I finished up some final house preps for Thursday's company. We also brined all 3 turkeys. Yeah, 3. It was just a simple brine - water, dark brown sugar, kosher salt. Early early Thursday morning around 5:45, we got up and got the turkeys ready for smoking and frying. The smoked turkey was rubbed with butter, garlic, pepper and seasoned salt and then stuffed with coca cola, 1 apple, 1 onion and garlic powder. It was good - next time we'll leave out the onion and add an extra apple instead. The 2 fried turkey's were rubbed with Cayenne pepper, black pepper creole seasoning and garlic powder, then filled with some Italian dressing. The smoked went in around 6:15 am and was ready around 1pm. The fried took about an hour start to finish. The birds were delish. We had a lot of food to accompany the turkey - sweet potato casserole, sweet potato patties, green beans with ham, acorn squash, cranberry stuffing, mashed potatoes, herb rolls and more! Apps were deviled eggs and Parmesan puff pastry. And for dessert - pumpkin pie, pumpkin cheesecake, apple pie and pumpkin bread. Yeah, we're still eating it all.

Friday DH and I went out around 8am for some black Friday shopping. We were on a mission to find some furniture for our den. Started out at American Signature - their sales weren't really sales. The same living room set we got 2 years ago is the same price. Then to Ashley Furniture where we had great help from the manager/interior decorator. We found a set we loved and she helped show how we could place each piece with sketches. The collection is called Logan Stone. I have been thinking about a chaise lounge, but for the space, 2 chaise's would only make seating for 2 people. Here's a nice chaise sectional combo. It's too big for our den.We decided on the chair+1/2 and the loveseat. I also loved the tables they had with it and the ottoman, but we decided to wait until we get the furniture in to see how it all looks. Loveseat is on the right in this photo. And the chair+1/2 fits both DH and I comfortably.Since we were there between 7am-9am, we got a coupon for 20% off our purchase, which made the already affordable pieces really affordable. We got up to the counter to pay and were told it was additional $100 (well, $99.99 as the quietly spoken woman said) for delivery. We said we'd just pick it up, but she said that wasn't an option, unless we wanted to drive to Tampa. Now I still don't know what the huge sign notifying customers about their pickup policy was for since we didn't have the pick up option. We decided to look elsewhere. It wasn't the extra $100 that made us leave, it was that no one told us about it before hand. Why didn't they just have a weekly delivery to their store and give people the option to pick it up. We went to Rooms to Go after that and I kept comparing everything to that set at Ashley. We decided since that room's been empty since we moved in, we didn't have to get anything that day. But we decided to make one last stop at Haynes Brothers since they didn't look too busy. We walked right in and they were also having 'beat the clock' sales. We walked around and saw a couple pieces that would have been ok, but I told the sales lady I had to ask about any extra fees beforehand. Then I told her about the adventure at Ashley earlier that morning and she said 'oh, we carry Ashley furniture and will get it for you at the same price and deliver it for free'. I was happy!

So next time we go to get furniture, we'll look at Ashley's showroom and then order it from locally owned Haynes Bro's. (hopefully, we'll see how the whole delivery process goes within 5-10 business days).

Then it was back home for some Thanksgiving leftovers and out to Target to check out their sheets. We ended up getting a 2 pack sheet set in camel (only 300 TC) for $40 and also a chocolate brown duvet cover for our comforter for $20. The 1000 TC sheets were sold out in king size, so we got a raincheck for some in pewter gray. I'm looking forward to 1000 TC. I had wanted to get Walmart's 500 TC set for $20, but didn't want to get up at 5am and risk my life with the other early shoppers. I put one of the 300 TC sets on last night and didn't really like the way the color blended in with our oak headboard. DH convinced me that it wasn't that big of deal, so we'll keep them. They were actually pretty comfy last night.

Saturday and Sunday we did some housework, more shopping and did some of the Christmas decoration. The tree's up and decorated, most indoor decor is out and we've only got the icicle lights left for the outdoor display. We had a tornado watch and 40 mph winds yesterday so DH didn't get to get up on the roof to finish the lights. Hopefully we can do some today after work before it gets dark.

Oh, today's the first Monday of the month, that means it's Dog Night at Ritters!