New Year, New Glasses SALE! - GlassesUSA.com

When was the last time you decided to buy glasses? Many people are lax on the idea because the thought of shelling out $500 for frames is simply out of the question. Fear not! With thanks to the Internet, you can buy glasses online - for less!

GlassesUSA.com is having a sale! Looking for designer glasses or looking to buy glasses frames that cost under $50? There are three ways to save when looking for glasses frames online:

1) Take $10 off all orders of glasses online over $100 with the code: FS10

2) Buy fashion glasses over $150 and take $15 off with the code: FS15

3) Take 15% off any order with the code: WhatIfs

Even if you’re looking for prescription sunglasses online or reading glasses online - you can save a lot! You can also win a free pair of eyeglasses from GlassesUSA! They are giving away four free pairs of glasses in January. Just try glasses online using their Try-It! Virtual Mirror and then send your choices of frames using the form provided! How easy is that?? Check out their Facebook page for more details: http://www.facebook.com/glassesusa.com.

Disclosure:  This post was sponsored by GlassesUSA.com.  All thoughts and opinions are my own.

It's MY house, and if you don't like it...

No, no, I am not kicking anyone to the curb.  But I AM wondering. I'm wondering.  What if?

What if we hadn't moved to Brighton?  What if we had stayed in Jackson near family and friends?  Well I can tell you!  Our lives would be A LOT different.  But these are the things I wonder when I feel I am living in the Money Pit.

Sure, things seem good to the untrained eye.  But even the untrained eye can see we need a new roof.  We plan to get started on this new roof as soon as we are reasonably sure it's done snowing in these parts.  So, hopefully in June we will start that project.

There is also the hole in our shower.  The one where the tile caved in as I leaned on it.  Nice.  That project is still in the planning stages.  Do we retile the shower?  Do we remove the tile and buy a simple enclosure.  Hmmmm decisions.  And money.

The funny part is how untrained our eyes and ears have become in our house.  For instance every single door hinge in this house makes a noise of some sort.  Every time my girls open and close their doors, whether in sweet serenity or complete anger, there is a squeak, a squawk, or something that screams through the house.  After all this time we have simply gotten used to it, but really, let's invest in some new hinges or at least a nice can of WD-40.

Another annoying problem in MY house are that many of the door handles have minds of their own.  Some knobs must be pulled before turning and opening.  The bathroom handle had to be removed so that we could enter said bathroom.  Let's not forget the door knob that works the best, the one that requires the least effort.  Of course it's the one on my... I mean our bedroom door.  Yeah, how convenient is that?

It's always something isn't it?  I guess I am just happy that I didn't fall through the floor into the basement while showering, luckily I only bruised my elbow.  Little things or big things, there are always things that need to be done.  So don't come here looking for perfection, no sir.  This is MY house...

This is a sponsored post. All opinions are mine.

Welcome Home Mo!

I am so excited.  My dear friend Maureen is moving home from Amsterdam this week.  I have not seen her in person in almost six years!

Mo and I worked together at the first advertising agency I was employed by after college.  In fact she was hired to be a talent peep with me when I was on maternity leave for my first born.  So I come back to work with a new person in the cube next door and I liked her, I really, really, liked her!

I liked her so much that when I accepted a new job about a month later, I brought her with me as soon as there was an opening.  So, I think you get the picture.

Right before I had my youngest drama queen, Mo left me.  Yep, she up and moved to Minneapolis, which is where I last saw her.  And being the jet setter that she is, three years later she moved to Amsterdam!!!!  Her illustrious career has left me in the dust, but that's ok.  She younger, probably wiser, and has now seen the  WORLD.

This week Maureen is returning Stateside to start a new job in Portland.  Talk about one side of the world to the other!  She is stopping off in Detroit so that we can hang out and I can pretend I am young and can hang on a Thursday night :)

I chatted with her earlier this week after the movers had come and cleaned out her apartment.  This is no ordinary endeavor.  This isn't hiring New York movers to move you four blocks north and three blocks east.  This is, "OK pack up my worldly possessions in your truck, load them on a boat (or do they use planes now?) and maybe, hopefully, I'll see them again in a month. Or so."

With a corporate move you generally have the backing of your company so you are fairly safe with who you choose, and not too worried about what is cost.  But if you're moving to escape the economy chances are you are footing the bill.  At least during this recession you have the internet to see what other peeps have to say about Two Guys and their Truck.

When we moved 55 miles in late 2001 we employed all of our friends and family to help us.  We had just survived Christmas and closed on a new house, there was no money for movers.  Now, all these years later, like everything else on the internet you can go to CityMove and see which movers suck and which ones will wrap your Faberge Egg with the most care.  You can also post your own move and let movers bid on the job!  I will readily admit that I check the internet before I do just about anything anymore.  You just. Never. Know.

Anyway, let's all wish Mo a safe trip back to America, and let's all say a silent prayer that her Fabrege Egg arrives in one piece.  Then let's all agree to make a road trip to Portland to see her bad-ass-self.  Personally I will also selfishly wish that her next move is back to Detroit, or at least Chicago, so that I can see her more often.  I know a cool place she can find some movers.

This is a sponsored post. All opinions are mine.

When it rains it pours

The last few months in our house have been a challenge.  Some would be depressed by the laundry list of things that have broken or gone amuck, but I choose to see it as a comedy of errors and try to chuckle at our obvious misfortune, because really, what else can you do?

In the last six months or so we have had our dryer stop heating, the wall in our tiled shower cave in, the microwave stop working, the garbage disposal die, the basement carpet drenched by a sump pump mishap, (yes, another one), the bearings and front brakes go out on the truck, and a pipe rust-out in our well, and that problem led to a whole series of water problems.

My husband's facebook status often showed his dispair and the straw that broke the camel's back came in the form of, well we thought anyway, our refrigerator loosing its ability to keep things cold, or frozen.

The beauty in all of this was the lack of extra money we have in our account right now.  Yes, you heard me correctly, and yes that was an echo you heard reverberating out of our account.  Because if we had the kind of money we used to have, or the unlimited credit we used to have we would have just went out and bought new appliances, or paid someone to rush right out and fix whatever problem we had occur.

But because our money situation has changed so much we have no choice but to compare shopping prices on new purchases, research the mechanical problems, and enlist the help of family and friends who don't mind digging a five foot hole in our front yard on New Years Day, because really who needs water anyway?

By looking for the best shopping deals and taking our time we were able to fix things ourselves (ok Cory fixed them) and let me tell you- a $15 used thermostat is much better than $300 - $400 for a whole new dryer.

So in the end, our new habits saved us a ton of money.  Oh, that refrigerator that supposedly wasn't running anymore?  Well, let's see... when you take the inside of the freezer door off to clear the line for your water dispenser and to make your ice cube maker produce ice that is less sandy (both caused by the sediment that rushes up into your plumbing when you have a pipe burst), you should probably realize that having the door open all that time may set off your defrost cycle.  But fear not!  As soon as you remove all your freezer items and put them elsewhere, your appliance will turn back on, which is what I told my darling hubby would happen, but how would I know that?

This is a sponsored post. All opinions are mine.

Click Click Click (the sellout)

If you're ever visiting my blog and there isn't much new to read, then click on the long column on the right! Or click on the wide bar at the bottom of the page. Some of it's good, some of it's not, but I may make 3 cents off of it and that would be fantastic. So give it a try! Click, click, click!