Once upon a time...

Once upon a time, in a land far, far away, there lived a boy and a girl. After spending every possible minute in each other's company for almost a year, the boy and girl found an apartment and moved into it together. This apartment was not overly large, but even so, the boy and girl needed some furniture to make into a home.

Being young and living in central Ottawa, they spent a lot of time in the Byward Market and regularly drooled over the offerings at Phillip Van Leeuwen furniture. It was there that they made their first major joint purchase - a very large, very comfortable camel coloured couch with massive striped throw cushions.


This story, of course, is about me and my hubby, and the very same couch that is still anchoring our family room, 11 years, 3 houses, 2 dogs and 2 kids later. It's been the scene of many hours of tv watching, afternoon naps, and family snuggles. In fact, hubby came home from his business trip last night to find the little guy and I asleep at opposite ends of the couch where we had been watching the hockey game. It's looking a little faded but otherwise is still in amazing condition after daily use.

We're actually shopping for some new furniture right now, for our living and dining rooms. When we made the decision last week to decorate these rooms, I got a little overexcited and went directly to UsedOttawa.com to post our perfectly good but not exactly stylish couch and coffee table for sale. I had over 20 replies to my ad in 5 hours, and the next day they were sold to the person who responded mere minutes after my ad was posted. Unfortunately, this leaves me with an empty front room (where the kids are currently enjoying the large expanse of free floor space).

We are hosting a holiday party in a few weeks and of course, custom order furniture takes much, much longer than that to arrive. Sigh. We I have been tempted to buy cheaper, in-stock furniture so that our guests will have a place to sit at the party, but that would mean compromising on both style and quality. I don't need something that's going to last forever - after all, I'm sure we'll want to update our decor again someday - but I also don't want something that's going to sag and pill after the first use. I want something that is going to give us many years of enjoyment, like our family room couch. I think we're going to wait for the right furniture, and I'm thinking of hanging a disco ball for the party and making the living room into a dance floor ;-)

Strangely, I was perusing the paper this morning and noticed an ad for Phillip Van Leeuwen's renovation sale, and then a few hours later I received a notification that @PVLFurniture was following me on Twitter. I think it's a sign!

Free shippping at Lululemon.com (no expiry!)

This just in! I came home to excellent news in my Twitter feed: Lululemon has just announced that their complimentary shipping promotion is now here to stay. And I'm pretty flattered that they actually notified me directly via Twitter, how cool is that?

You had me at 30% off

I'm sure I don't need to tell anyone that this weekend there is a coupon for 30% off everything at Gap, Old Navy and Banana Republic. Just in case, though, here's a link (it ends tomorrow, so you've still got time!)

Hubby and I were at the mall today to drop off a dress at the tailor, and we had to walk by Banana to get there. I casually mentioned that I had the 30% off coupon in my purse (printed off just in case I was at the mall) and did he want to go in and see if he saw anything he liked? You can see where this is going. I zeroed in on a sweater I'd been eyeing and sought his opinion. He loved it, so I decided to try it on. On the way to the changeroom, I fell in love with two more sweaters and took them in to try too. One (thankfully) didn't flatter, but the other two fit like they were made for me. I couldn't decide which I liked better, and neither could hubby. I told him he was supposed to say, "Just buy both!" but he made me choose.

I picked the original sweater (light grey with a deep cowl neck) but I can't stop thinking about the second one. It's teal with a shawl collar and would add a lovely punch of colour to my wardrobe. When we got home, I was taking my new sweater out of the bag and noticed a little piece of red paper. What's this? Coupons for 40% off a single item for each of the next three Wednesdays? Teal sweater, here I come!

I've said it before, and I'll say it again: I'm a sucker for good marketing.

They picked me!

Remember when I posted about the Tassimo Twitter giveaway? All my groveling finally paid off. In 7-10 days, I am going to be the proud and grateful owner of a shiny new Tassimo coffee machine. Eeeee! I can't wait to try all the different drinks and see what all the buzz is about. The best part is that I was forced to really get engaged in Twitter, and it's really addictive fun learning how to use social media effectively.

I'm all legit

Last night I purchased a domain name, this morning I set it all up, and effective immediately you should be able to access my blog at www.missshopsalot.ca!