Thrifty Thursday

I snuck off to Goodwill last night after work.  I used to only go on Friday nights as it was when everything was half price, but they suddenly got rid of that around Christmas time.  I guess no one was shopping on the other days.  And now they have bizarre promotions on different days.  I can't keep track of them so I just wing it and hope for the best. Yesterday was a buy-one-get-the-second-for-1 cent deal, but I think it only applied to clothing.  I rarely have the patience to look through the clothes so that didn't help me out at all.

Here's my haul:

Check out the cute starfish.  It's real.  And very fragile.  I have a thing for starfish.  Not like my thing for turtles, but pretty close.  I got some really great pictures of orange and green ones (starfish, not turtles) while we were on a catamaran trip the last time we were in Cuba.

And Hawaii is our favourite vacation spot so anytime I find travel/history books on any of the islands I grab them.  This one has some terrific photography in it.  In fact, I think the cashier wanted to keep it - she kept flipping through the pages as she was ringing the other things up.

I grabbed a few paperbacks for vacation (9 more days!) 

I love Lee Child.  Do you read the Jack Reacher series?  I don't even want to talk about Tom Cruise playing Reacher in the new movie - makes me want to cry.  Can you imagine Jim Cavaziel (Person of Interest) in the role?  Perfect.  Okay, so maybe I'm willing to talk about it a bit. 

I almost always buy my books at used book stores.  I just can't justify paying full price for books.  Gift cards are about the only thing that will get me into a Chapters.

This tin pail is a great size.  I have a smaller one that I use for scissors, hole punches, pliers, etc., but it's quickly becoming too small. 

The pink and white fabric inside is a pair of pyjama bottoms.  I can't go to Goodwill without buying a pair.  They are my crack.

I bought this spirally metal thing and I have no idea what it's for.  I thought that it might look cool at Christmas with some garland strung through it and some little beads or lights or berries added.  Any thoughts on what it is?

This lantern was the prize of the day.  Our Goodwill doesn't have bargain basement pricing - a pair of shoes I was looking at were $50! - but this was eight dollars.  Not bad.  It's sturdy and in good shape.  And the handle isn't flimsy so I could hang it if I wanted to.

I also grabbed six matching cloth napkins.  They are very soft and very white.  I might make some more pillows with them.

All together it was a good night.

Pyjamas - 1.87
Napkins - 2.94 for six
Book - 3.49
Paperbacks - 2.49 for each
Lantern - 8.08
Pail - 99 cents
Starfish - 99 cents
Metal Swirl - 99 cents

Total - 26.82

Found any good deals lately?  What thrift stores do you frequent?  We also have a Value Village and a Salvation Army (all three stores within a block of each other) along with a H4H Restore.



Under-Stair Storage

We were pretty lucky to purchase a house with a fully-finished basement.  Not many in our neighbourhood are.  While our tastes don't match those of the previous owners (full wet bar, pool table taking up entire main open area), I have to admit that they did excellent work. 

There is a smaller open area at the bottom of the stairs that they used for a playroom.  They had an old schoolhouse chalkboard and storage cubes along the walls.  We'd like to take the storage one step further and have built-in shelving under the stairs. 

Currently the area looks like this:

A pretty good blank slate to start with.  I didn't take a picture of the closet under the stairs but it looks something like this (though full of paint cans, luggage, and rolled up area rugs).

source unknown

I'm picturing doing something like this. 

via pinterest

 Unfortunately, I think Tom is picturing something more like this.  

Woodworkers Workshop

I'm hoping for fewer coolers and sleeping bags,

and more knick-knacks and pretty wicker baskets.

Like this:

Supra Remodeling

And this:

House to Design

And this:

SAS Interiors

And this:

Better Homes & Gardens

Do you think that if I post enough pictures I'll convince him? :-)

Eggs Benedict

There is a little diner we go to almost every Saturday morning called Tom's Restaurant.  It's a tiny little place in an industrial area of town, but the food is good, the prices aren't bad, and the staff members are always friendly.

Tom (my Tom) tried the Eggs Benedict one week and got hooked.  It's all he'll order now.  And he talks about it a lot.  So yesterday he decided that he was going to make Eggs Benedict for dinner.  This makes me laugh because neither one of us really likes eggs.  I can handle scrambled, but poached eggs?  The thought kind of gives me the shivers. 

But I came home last night and he had all 4 burners going and english muffins in the toaster.  Having never made it before, I think the hardest part for him was estimating the timing for each part.  And he's not exactly used to someone hovering over him with a camera while he cooks.  We ended up having everything ready (yes, I lent a hand) and were still waiting for the hollandaise sauce.

He fried up some sliced potatoes,

Got the peameal bacon going,

He even put each egg into a big spoon so that he could slide it into the boiling water.  Can you tell he did some research?

I realized that you can't take an appetizing picture of an egg poaching.  This is as soon as it went into the water.  You don't want to to see later.

He didn't want to make hollandaise from scratch (or let me make it), so he just bought a package that you add butter to.  Unfortunately he missed the part about bringing it to a boil, so that's why there was a delay. 

He layered a toasted english muffin with a slice of peameal bacon, a poached egg, and then the hollandaise sauce.  Homefries on the side.  The diner serves orange slices with theirs - where are my orange slices?

Tell me your arteries aren't hardening just looking at the butter in that sauce.

The eggs ended up being a bit overcooked, but otherwise it was okay. 

I'd give it a solid six out of ten.

Not bad for a first try.

I'm even willing to let him make them again.