Online Shopping

It seems funny that this is the first "repeat" from the few gratitude posts I posted last year, but today I am extremely grateful for the freedom that online shopping offers me!! With everything going on in our kitchen right now and the extremely tight time frame we are working in, I love that I can go online, price compare easily, have free shipping options, great Thanksgiving sales, and read reviews of potential contenders for our purchases. Just tonight we have narrowed down and found the best prices for a new sink, faucet, disposal, and dishwasher! Hopefully those will arrive next week before we leave for Disneyland so that the work can be done and they can be installed while we are gone.

I also like to shop for clothes online. In fact, as I've been trying to piece together outfits for upcoming family pictures I've had SEVERAL packages arrive on my doorstep ;) I order enough to get free shipping, keep 1 or 2 items, and then take the rest back {all of my orders have local stores}!! I'm pretty sure the people at Old Navy are tired of me walking in with my arms full of return items! I do not like to try things on at the store. Period. I also find that a lot of places have "online only" items and typically have my size in stock more often and for a lower price! Since all of the *good* malls are at least a 45 minute drive I find that online shopping is way more convenient for this "anti-try on in the store" girl ;)

Oh, and I recently got a smokin' deal on a Garmin Forerunner 205 GPS watch to use in my running thanks to Amazon's Deal of the Day and a tip from my girl Kasey - WOOT - Happy Birthday to me!

Online shopping saves me time, money, and the headache of wandering the stores with kids in tow ... how could I not be grateful for that? And no, I am not a Black Friday shopper - Cyber Monday is WAY more my style :D

Kitchen Update: We got our estimate back yesterday and had another contractor come out today to give us another estimate. We should hopefully hear back from our insurance claims rep on Friday or Monday to see if the estimate has been approved so we can move forward. We have a contract written up and ready to fax to our contractor of choice so as soon as we know that money is coming from our insurance we can get moving on getting things back to normal!! We are going to get a few granite estimates early next week and hopefully make that decision before leaving town so they can fabricate our countertops while we are gone so they are ready to install as soon as we arrive home!! We need to get our sink here so that they can measure everything correctly so we're crossing our fingers it arrives early in the week. It's nice that in the midst of the chaos I'm finally able to feel a *bit* excited for things to be shiny and new ... and slightly upgraded ;)