Fun Day in Cootieville!

Boy did we ever have a fun day today! Denis let me sleep in this morning (CootieGirl kept me up from 4:30 – 6:30 a.m. so I needed sleep). We skipped church and I slept until about 11 a.m. – obviously I was sleep deprived over the past week and needed the sleep. It was fabulous and I’m completely rested up and ready for another week now.

But it was the rest of our afternoon that really rocked…

After giving CootieGirl a much-needed bath, we headed out to JC Penney to look at blinds for the sunroom. For the past two years I’ve felt slightly exposed on the back section of our main floor because our sunroom windows have had NO covers – no blinds, no curtains, no NOTHING. Granted, we have a backfence so it’s not like we’re being oogled while we’re watching television, but I still have wanted to put something up for a little bit of privacy just in case. Well, we lucked out because today JC Penney had all of their blinds on sale – 60% off. Plus an additional 10% if you paid with credit card (15% if it was a JC Penney card). So, we got three large blinds for the sunroom for less than $600! I’m totally thrilled, and they’ll be delivered in the next three weeks. Elsewhere in JC Penney we picked up some new steak knives and some shirts for Denis (and one for me).

Then we headed over to a few more stores, where we picked up some shoes (one pair each for Denis and me, two cute pairs for CootieGirl) and another shirt for me.

During our shopping we got a call from Ace, who said they were at a discount furniture store that had a loveseat and sofa for $1300 that would go well with our current recliner. We have been hoping to replace our mismatched sofa and loveseat but after pricing some pieces last week realized we just couldn’t afford to get new stuff. Then I considered sewing slipcovers, but we discovered that the only fabric Denis and I could agree on was $30 a yard (and we’d need 22 yards for the sofa alone). So I gave up hope that we’d be able to get a “new” sofa and loveseat by the end of this year. But Ace called and mentioned this store, so when we were done at the mall we drove over to the furniture store they mentioned. We found the piece we thought Ace was talking about, and I hated it (it later turns out they were talking about another set, but I didn’t like that either). Then Denis wandered over to a set sitting in a far corner of the store, and sure enough we both liked it. Even more happily, we discovered the sofa and loveseat together cost only $1098. That’s $100 less than just the loveseat we had seen and liked last week. So we snagged them. They are being delivered tomorrow because the warehouse has them in stock. TOMORROW, people! Once it arrives I’ll recover all of our pillows (and the ones that come with the furniture tomorrow) with pretty, colorful floral and plaid patterns that will add a bit of femininity to the rather masculine furniture we’ll end up having. Here’s a photo of Denis sitting on the set we’re getting – it was taken with the phone, so it’s not the best of quality, but hey – beggars can’t be choosy.

Ace and Anthony met us at the store (they were coming over for one more look at something they were interested in), and approved of our choice. It’s going to be GREAT in our living room and we’ll finally have matching furniture and we can work towards making it more cohesive by the end of the year with pillows, curtains, paint on the walls, and newly restored hardwood floors. It’s going to be magnificent.

Then Ace told us that Circuit City was having a major sale on DVDs (some as low as $9.99), so we drove over there and bought a few titles to add to our collection.

All in all, a fun day of shopping, all thanks to our refinancing the house. We calculated that by December we’ll have paid off today’s shopping spree with the money we’ve saved on the refinancing. Not bad!

As much as I generally hate shopping, today was fantastic.