Posts Tagged ‘nothing’

Holiday and After Holiday Shopping

Sunday, January 11th, 2009

I had some great experiences shopping this year before and after the holidays.  Now, I am still not sure where there is a local TJ Maxx by me.  However, I did some shopping at the one in Wisconsin by my family after Christmas.  It is was just liked I remembered — great items for low prices.  With the economy the way it is, we all need to start shopping at places like this.  You get the same quality items — just at a way better price!

Now, the one of the best shopping experiences I had this holiday season was at Marshalls.  We had a holiday party to go to on December 20th.  Now, I personally hate shopping in the month of December, because well, it sucks.  However, my wonderful little girl outgrew her Christmas dress!  It fit at Thansgiving, and it looked like she grew 2 inches from then!  Instead of panicking, Madison and I headed over to Marshalls.  Now, this was high holiday shopping time, and I was impressed.  They had a great selection of kids clothes that were marked, so it was super easy to find what we needed.  The fitting rooms were clean and large enough for me to go in the room with Madison.  On the way to the fitting room, I found shoes.  I was able to try on about 20 different pairs that I liked.  I loved that they had the little foot stockings at the end of each aisle for you to use when you forgot to bring socks.   Being the weekend before Christmas, I was seriously concerned about checkout.  However, they had a great system going and every register was open.  (Nothing irritates me more when you go to a store that is really busy and they only have one or two registers open, and they don’t open any more).  We had a great experience on Marshalls, and I will definitely be going there for more presents and items for my kids.

What are your favorite places to shop and why?

I’ve been busy . . .

Saturday, December 6th, 2008

Which is why I haven’t been posting here too often.  This last week has been a long and trying week for us.  Nothing major has went wrong — just a ton of little things.  I took last weekend off, and I just never got back into the swing of things. The highlights of my week — Will getting diagnosed again with impetigo and we got new cable, satellite, and phone service.  I’ve got a ton of catching up to do, so I’ll be posting a tad later with the other events.

LensShopper

Sunday, November 30th, 2008

If you aren’t lucky enough to have vision insurance or have vision insurance that will only pay up to a certain amount for your contact lenses, you should definitely check out LensShopper.  Now, my vision insurance will pay up to $250 a year for contact lenses.  That sounds like a lot, but if you wear contacts, you know it isn’t.  That only pays for a couple of months of contacts, and then I pay out of pocket for the rest.  My last order of contacts I stilled owed money on after they took the insurance off.  That is where LensShopper comes into play.  Their lenses are a ton cheaper than what I normally pay for my contacts!  They even have even better deals if you order in bulk!  I love that it tells me how long the delivery time is and whether or not the contacts are even in stock.  Nothing is more annoying than ordering contacts, and then after you place your order, you find out their are backordered.  I love that they even make it easy to find the best deals on their site by listing the best deals for each kind of contacts.  If you just want to search out your contacts, you can choose to search by manufacturer, lens type, and even popular lenses.

Now, I personsally use the Focus Night & Day contacts.  I found on their site that I can get a box for $40.95 (if I order bulk) and get free shipping!  I love free shipping!  That is a darn good deal for my contacts!  I would save almost $40 off my normal order of 6 boxes!  I can’t complain about savings like that!  If you need contacts, you need to definitely check out LensShopper for all your contact needs!

Wednesday’s Hero

Wednesday, November 19th, 2008

Gen. Ann E. Dunwoody
Gen. Ann E. Dunwoody
55 years old from Fort Belvoir, Virginia
U.S. Army

Call it breaking the brass ceiling. Ann E. Dunwoody, after 33 years in the Army, ascended Friday to a peak never before reached by a woman in the U.S. military: four-star general.

At an emotional promotion ceremony, Dunwoody looked back on her years in uniform, said it was a credit to the Army?and a great surprise to her?that she would make history in a male-dominated military.

“Thirty-three years after I took the oath as a second lieutenant, I have to tell you this is not exactly how I envisioned my life unfolding,” she told a standing-room-only auditorium. “Even as a young kid, all I ever wanted to do was teach physical education and raise a family.

“It was clear to me that my Army experience was just going to be a two-year detour en route to my fitness profession,” she added. “So when asked, `Ann, did you ever think you were going to be a general officer, to say nothing about a four-star?’ I say, `Not in my wildest dreams.’

“There is no one more surprised than I?except, of course, my husband. You know what they say, `Behind every successful woman there is an astonished man.’”

You can read the rest of Gen. Dunwoody’s story here.

These brave men and women sacrifice so much in their lives so that others may enjoy the freedoms we get to enjoy everyday. For that, I am proud to call them Hero.
We Should Not Only Mourn These Men And Women Who Died, We Should Also Thank God That Such People Lived

This post is part of the Wednesday Hero Blogroll. For more information about Wednesday Hero, or if you would like to post it on your site, you can go here.

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The Preschool Screening

Monday, November 10th, 2008

My public school drives my absolutely bananas.  I wanted to get Madison’s hearing screened just to make sure that there were no problems.  We thought maybe some of Madison’s attention issues were due to her not hearing.  However, my school being the pain in butt that they are wouldn’t do it unless we scheduled her to be prescreened for preschool through the school (which is a joke but I’ll tell you about that later).  Obviously, there is some sort of federal funding they get for this, because I wanted a five minute screening and got stuck with an hour long screening.  I sucked it up and took her.

I swear that they expect these kids to have a flash memory drive in their heads. I could hear some of the things they were testing her on, and from what I could tell, she was doing well.  When they called me up after the testing was over, I was right.  Except for cutting and catching, she scored everything else in the 6 year old range.  Madison is only 4.  I am seriously wondering if some of the attention issues we are having with her at preschool are due to her being bored. That was the good news.

The bad new was that we failed her hearing screening.  I asked what the school would do for that.  The answer:  nothing.  We would have to pay for additional testing elsewhere.  The other thing that ticked me off to no end was that she couldn’t even get into the school preschool if I wanted to send her.  The only kids who get in are those who are considered “at risk” (which Madison is obviously not) and if we made less than $80,000 a year.  Umm, yeah.  We make more than that.  In Chicago, I am not sure if you can even own a decent house making less than $80,000 a year.  Basically, the only kids who get in are those who don’t speak English (because there were several kids like that there) and low income people.  I guess my question is what about the middle class?  Why do we always get screwed?