Happy Boxing Day everyone!

Hard to believe that Christmas has come and gone and that we are now on Boxing Day 2008. This year has flown by, but it truly has been the best year of my life. The good continues too – with finding the best parking spaces today as we ventured out for potential sales. Yes folks, we were those lucky bastards that got the first parking space in front of the door at not one- but three different locations! I mean who does that? Well we did!

Every year on Boxing Day for the past several years, we have somehow ended up shopping in the afternoon. Not that we have any thing in particular in mind when we head out… but we seem to always find something. This year was no exception.

Let me start by explaining – my 30th birthday was last Saturday – yes, I am a Christmas baby. On my birthday James threw a surprise party for me at a hall here in Cambridge. Okay maybe it wasn’t a huge surprise as he had told me before turning 29 that he was going to really get me for my 30th and that I wouldn’t get away with nothing. And the questions for weeks about if I was excited to get my hair done on my birthday – which I was!

Anyhow – for my birthday I got several gift cards to a variety of places, mostly at places where we could get things for our new house. Yay!!!

James and I both talked on Christmas Eve about how we really weren’t as jazzed for Christmas as we were more interested in just moving into our house already! Of course we wanted Christmas, but were looking beyond Christmas. So we figured, lets see if we can find any good deals on anything for the house today.

We waited until after lunch was over (yummm… left over homemade chinese food from Christmas Eve…) and headed out. Linens in Things has decided to close up and we figured the sales will have to have gotten more than the lackluster 30-60% off they had before. That sale was barely worth it as the items were just finally at the prices you could find in other stores. But today we took our chance and found that EVERYTHING was on for 70% off. The store was really picked through, many sections were down to the bare walls and were blocked off. The fixtures in the store were for sale and everything truly had to go. James beelined for the spot where appliances and kitchen gadgets used to be. He was sad to find that nearly everything was gone. I started poking around and fell for this bar stool. No price, and didn’t see any more so I kept on walking. We mosied through the bed sheets and ended up in bathrooms where we found some awesome stuff for our main floor bathroom in brown and green. Very cool – very us.

We wandered to the front to get a cart, as we didn’t have one when we came in. I ran and got the very last one! Came back in and James was admiring a satellite radio. I distracted myself with something a kid was sitting on. He jumped down and it was the same stool as earlier only with a price! It was $129.99. I got all depressed but then went and looked at the sign – with 70% off that meant the stool was $30! They had another one in a box, so we snatched up both and put them in the cart. James nixxed the satellite radio and we headed out. I was grinning from ear to ear and couldn’t stop giggling about the deal we got!

Left there and stupidly went to Staples. Word to the wise – NO GOOD DEALS AT STAPLES. Left there and headed out the only way we could get – which meant driving through Hespeler. Went to two furniture stores looking for tables for our dining room, and discovered some scratch and dent wonderlands. We also checked out an even better scratch and dent wonderland at the Maytag store. I felt really good about our chances of getting a good deal on a fridge for the house!

At this point – thirst took over and we got some McDonald’s milkshakes. I went strawberry, and James made them create a mix of chocolate and strawberry. He was quite giddy with his choice as it seemed to have the perfect mix of flavour. What do you know, I like stools, and he likes milkshakes!

We headed to circuit city – again nothing we wanted and popped into Zehrs. I needed milk – but we also wanted to look at some things for our house. My work gave us two $25 gift certificates at the Christmas party and it’s been burning a hole in my pocket ever since! We looked at floor mats and more stuff for the bathroom – but there wasn’t really a deal to be had – and somehow – no brown. What kind of place has no brown bathmats in this day and age? Either way we kept looking and found some awesome magnetic spice racks that were on sale for $10 off. Not one to miss a good deal, we decided to finally clean up the look of our spices. James was really happy with it as he now gets to play with his spices and I’m happy because they don’t look so chaotic! They’ll go really well in our new kitchen!

After leaving the store having spent only $0.08 – we drove to Canadian Tire across the street. I had dreams of dishes – and James had other bigger dreams. His dreams won – and he finally obtained a food processor. He’s been dreaming of one for months, put it on his Christmas list but didn’t get one. He was grinning ear to ear with the deal he got. He saved $55!!!! A hundred dollar food processor for only $45.

All in all – we spent some money and ended up with a LOT of stuff and good quality stuff. Our new house is going to be so schnazzy!!!