‘Tis the Season to Shop

Dec 082011
 

Everyone who hates to got to a physical store this time of year and deal with angry, shoving people, raise your hand.

I’ve never hid the fact that Christmas has become such a commercial holiday, and each year it seems to get worse  The stores start “decorating” for the holidays before the Halloween crap has been removed from the shelves.

And the music?  I can take one solid day of the stuff and then I want to shove in the ear plugs.  One can only take so many encores of “Grandma Got Run Over By A Reindeer.”

No, I’m not a Scrooge, but the winters are long enough up here in the Northwoods without having to extend it 2 months with Christmas advertisements and promotions that start in October.

So it is this time of year that I am grateful that I have this:

I know that I have mentioned this wonderful benefit before, but when you prefer to do most of your Christmas shopping online (like I do), having Prime on your side makes shopping just a little bit easier.

Only 3 Happy Bunny Calendars in stock “so order soon?”  Cool!  It’s a Prime purchase so I don’t need to worry about filling up my cart to cut down my shipping cost.  I can order just the one item and the shipping is free.  And I get it in 2 days!

*Happy Dance*

I figure that the money I plunk down each year for Prime pays for itself around the holidays.

Granted, my UPS guy has to make more deliveries, but he’s a nice guy and even thanked me for my business when I warned him I was doing my shopping last weekend.  Gotta love that kind of attitude!

Sure, I’ll still be venturing to Wally World to pick up odds and ends and stocking stuffers, but the big stuff I’ll let the UPS guy carry for me.

His back is better than mine.

 

This is not a promotion for Amazon Prime.  Amazon doesn’t even know me even though I buy lots of stuff from their sight every year.  Hey, when I like something, I talk about it.  You should know that by now.

It’s Official

Dec 062011
 

Even though the calendar hasn’t made the official proclamation yet, Winter has official descended on the Northwoods with the 6 inches of snow that we received Saturday night.

I can say with a fair amount of certainty that this batch will be around for the remainder of the season because the temps don’t look like they are going to be above freezing for a while.

Now I’m not sure that the tire got fixed, but with this much snow Rick had no choice but to bring out the snowblower.

When you live up here, these things are a necessity.

What would take hours to complete by hand is done in about 1 hour, depending on how many paths Rick wants to do and how much snow fell.

Another necessity of living in the Northwoods?  Make friends with the guy that plows your street.  When you do, you can almost guarantee that you will not have to wait 48 hours to have your street plowed and he won’t leave a 3 foot hill of snow at the end of your driveway that you have to shovel out.

It’s the little things that make winter a bit more bearable.

 Comments Off on It’s Official

A Tree of Memories

Dec 052011
 

It seems that I’m not the only one taking a trip down memory lane when I look at the decorations on our Christmas tree.

My cousins Dee and Julie were playing a different kind of “Where’s Waldo”, only this time it was to find our Grandma’s handiwork.

Each Christmas, Grandma L would give everyone a Christmas ornament as a present.  These were created with her own two hands, and every year it was something unique.

Sometimes it would be crocheted with yarn…

or starched and dazzling with glitter.

She would find the most amazing patterns and materials to use.

Who would had thought that over 30 years later, these small keepsakes would still look this good.  Maybe it was all the love that she put into them when they were created.

Many years have gone by since Grandma L passed away, but her memory lives on in numerous Christmas trees across the country.

What special keepsake do you have on your tree?  Send me a picture and the story behind it and I’ll have a special Christmas post to share them all!

 Comments Off on A Tree of Memories

You Mean What I Know

Dec 022011
 

Sometimes it’s hard to explains things to someone else, especially when it’s over the phone.

This can be especially difficult when it’s something that could possibly be visual, but only to the person trying to explain.

And accountants?  Yeah, I think we have the weirdest way of explaining things, because if you don’t know the language you have probably drifted off into a coma after 3.7 seconds.

But when you are trying to explain a simple concept (well, it was simple to me) to someone in the same profession and they are not visualizing what you are saying, then you might as well have put it into a Power Point presentation and emailed it to them in the first place.

Which I never thought of doing because I thought my initial email explained it quite simply and thoroughly.

Guess I was wrong.

So after giving several simple example scenarios to my fellow accountant, we were finally on the same page and my simple idea was good, but not going to work.

Damn.

But I had the last laugh:  I transferred him to my supervisor (who isn’t an accountant) to explain to him what we had talked about.

Let’s just say that conversation took considerably longer.

 Comments Off on You Mean What I Know
 Newer Entries