A Long Awaited Deal

This will be one of my shorter posts due to the fact that my husband should be coming back downstairs withing the next thirty minutes from his violin lesson. It's a strange little story actually.

Patrick is very talented when it comes to music. That, along with many other great qualities, is what swept me off my feet. In college, I would go over to his packed house of six guys, and we would just sit downstairs and he played the guitar and sang Avett Brothers songs while I swooned. I'm smiling just thinking about it...

Okay, my brain is back to reality now. I apologize for the gushy moment. So, he had this strong urge to buy a violin a few months ago, so he did. Easy enough, right? Well, he had NO clue how to play it, and a violin is not a very forgiving instrument. But being a good, supporting wife, I just smiled and told him how good he's going to be after a little practice.

Fast forward a few months.

A couple days after we moved into this house, we met our neighbors on the third floor. They're a nice older couple that truly live the simple life. We learned that Mrs. Janet played in the Bangor Symphony for many years, and now she spends her retirement giving violin lessons. Weird, I know. Needless to say, Patrick jumped on the opportunity. It's turned out to be a great thing because they've become our only friends so far in Maine. Mrs. Janet even took care of Walter while we were out of town. It's nice to have friendly neighbors. I truly recommend everyone have them.

SO HERE'S THE DEAL OF THE DAY. It's even better than my Mio deal, so read on.

Today, I had to go the grocery store, and while I was out I stopped by the Christmas Tree Shops. This store is great. One opened in Greenville while we were there, and luckily there's one here as well. As confusing as it may sound, they don't sell Christmas trees (only maybe during Christmas time). They have a little bit of everything for really cheap. My kind of store!

I've been on a scavenger hunt for the past 7 or 8 months trying to find place mats for my dumpster table. I've bought several, and have returned several. They were either too big, the wrong color, or just looked strange laying on the table. But I do believe in a woman's instinct, folks. I now know why the other place mats didn't sit well with me because today I found these at the wonderful Christmas Tree Shops...

Here's another Walter cameo for ya.

I know what you're thinking, "What's the big deal?" "I could find those anywhere." Yeah, yeah, but let me zoom in a little bit for you.

They had been $1.29. Not a bad price. Then they were marked down to $1.00. Even better price. Next comes the big daddy of price drops. $.10. Crazy! So, I quickly grabbed four and darted for the register. Once the lady started ringing them up, she looked up at me and said, "The register won't let me put ten cents in, so I'll just put eight instead." Yes, people, 8 pennies; a nickle and 3 pennies; a dime minus 2 pennies. I think you get it. So, with tax and all, I got four place mats for $.34. That's better than a yard sale deal, y'all!

I think they look they look great, but maybe that's just the receipt that I'm picturing.

Okay, enough of my daily shpills. Tomorrow: the long anticipated topic of chalk paint. Get excited!