Just Simply Holly

The kids were asking me the other day what we were going to do for their dad for Fathers Day. It wasn’t until they asked me that I realized that it’s only a few weeks away. My husband is like most other guys, he likes tools and gadgets. Since I don’t know enough about the types of tools he really uses and needs for work, I decided that the best thing we could get him for Fathers Day would be in the gadget department.

Since he purchased a new laptop a few months ago, he doesn’t need a new computer, so there’s one thing to take off the list. He also purchased a new MP3 player recently, so I can take that off the list as well. Then I remembered something he said the other night when we were watching a movie. We have an old and very cheap surround sound system that does not work well, and he said something about how nice it would be to get a better system that actually worked like it was supposed to!

So I clicked on over to Buy.com to see what kinds of surround sound systems they had the best deals on and found an awesome Harman Kardon CP40 5.1 channel home theater system with a DVD player AND a powered subwoofer that I could snag for way less than the normal retail price!

I’ll admit that I’m not the most technical savvy person when it comes to stereo type equipment, so I hopped on the phone and called my sister who is. She and I both looked around the Buy.com website for a while, checking out the great deals that they have on every type of electronic gadget you can imagine. My sister couldn’t get over the amazing prices they were offering on their weekly deals and she even snagged up one of these Digital Spectrum pink digital frames that they have on special right now for $59.99!

Anyway, back to me and my search for a surround sound system. Buy.com had several to choose from, and it was not an easy job trying to narrow the choices down, each different system had it’s own awesome features, but ths Harman Kardon just seemed to jump out at me as the best system and the best deal!

And I really like the fact that it comes with a built in DVD player, the one that we have right now is a combination DVD/VCR and we lost the remote for it in the last move, so you actually have to push the buttons to work it, which is a pain, especially with my old eyes….LOL!

Now all I have to do is figure out which day I can order it so that it will be shipped to the house on a day that he’ll be at work and won’t see it so that he’ll be surprised when he opens it on Fathers Day!

Yeah, I know, we just got past Christmas. But to be honest, we’re only a few weeks away from Valentines Day! And if you plan on buying a gift for your special someone online, then you really need to start thinking about gift ideas soon! So here are some of the things that I’m going to put on my Valentines wish list for my hubby:

• Chocolate, especially those chocolate covered raspberry basket things I’ve seen at a local chocolates store!
• Although I’m not usually a flower person, for once I’d LOVE to get a dozen roses!
• Jewelry, or more specifically, diamond pendants!
• Something to make me feel pampered like a manicure or a pedicure!
• Dinner and a movie!  Let’s face it, as parents we don’t get many date nights, even though our kids are teens!  You can’t leave these two alone for more than an hour without the cell phone ringing with one of them on the other end whining about something the other one is doing.

So, what kinds of gift ideas are you going to give your special someone for Valentines Day this year?  I’d really love to hear some of the neat ideas that you’ve come up with!

I apologize for my absence, it’s been a busy couple of days preparing for Christmas with my mother tomorrow and my husbands company Christmas party that was held tonight. But is has truly been an amazing chain of events that started with my amazing experience Thursday night that changed me in ways I cannot explain.

As you may have noticed from a few of my comments, I was EXTREMELY blessed last night. This website/blog was one of two that was drawn in a big Christmas drawing and I won $1,000.00 from the wonderful folks at PayU2Blog. With the financial struggles that my family has been going through this amazing gift could not have come at a better time. But in all honesty, if it weren’t for a VERY special person in my life, who happened to introduce me to PayU2Blog, I’d never had even been entered into that drawing. So I decided that the right thing to do with my wonderful gift was to share it with them. Yes, my family could have very easily used all of it, but I’d also like to think that I’m an unselfish person, and when I see that someone that is important to me needs something, I help if I can.

Sharing my gift started the most amazing chain of events that have literally brought me to my tears dozens of times in the past 24 hours! We had been waiting for our landlord to come home from work Friday so that we could take Decembers rent over to him. We had already gotten the money orders before the PU2B drawing, but the landlord didn’t call to say he was home until after the drawing, and after I had shared my winnings with my friend. My husband went over and gave the landlord the rent, the landlord wrote out the receipt showing the rent was paid in full, turned around and handed my husband the receipt then handed him part of our rent back saying “God just told me that I needed to give this back to you. I will not take it back, your rent is paid in full for the month, use this for heat or Christmas presents, but I will not take it back”. My husband tried to tell the landlord no, that he would not take it back, but the landlord wasn’t taking no for an answer. When he got home, he was in tears, he looked at me and asked “Holly, what is going on, this type of stuff doesn’t happen to us (i.e. winning the drawing then the landlord giving us part of our rent back even though he marked the receipt paid in full)”. I didn’t know what to say to my husband because I was in just as much disbelief as he was.

So, let’s do some math real quick before I go on. I won $1,000.00, but gave half of it to my best friend. $1000.00 - $500.00 = $500.00. Then the landlord gave us back $250 of our rent. $500.00 + $250.00 = $750.00.

Tonight was my husbands company Christmas party. I’ve been upset with his employers a few times over the months that he has worked for them and I wasn’t too thrilled at the thought of going to this. But I also felt that it was important for us to go because this is his employer and they were shelling out a pretty penny for this party because it was their first one ever. So we asked my sister if she’d watch the kids so that we could go and not worry about them being home alone at night, and she said sure. And since I had been lucky enough to win the drawing the night before, I now could afford a nice outfit to wear to the party, which was a bonus for me because I never spend money on clothes for me, unless it’s jeans, or flannel PJ’s….LOL! So we got ready and took the kids up to Michigan, then headed back down here to go to the party. It was a wonderful party, the food was awesome and we were having a good time. About 2 hours into the party they announced that they were going to give everyone a ticket and they had door prizes for everyone, but that they had five “BIG” door prizes. There were approximately 50 people in attendance, they kept drawing numbers and mine kept not being called. They were down to one last “BIG” door prize left, it was the whopper of them all, a $250 gift card, and guess who’s number was drawn? Yup, you guessed it, MINE! I had to do everything I could to keep myself from falling apart right there in front of everyone. They had no idea what had happened to me in the past 24 hours, and I didn’t feel like embarrassing myself because I got over emotional…LOL! So I went up and accepted my gift card and sat back down and looked at my husband. He had tears in his eyes, because he knew what I knew!

As much as we could have used the entire $1,000.00, I knew that I had to share my winnings with my best friend. And within 24 hours of sharing my wonderful gift, I had in turn, gotten back exactly what I had given. Me, the person who NEVER wins anything, EVER! I can’t even win on a $1.00 lottery scratch off ticket. And it all started, with a single evening when I stood with a group of people to make our voices heard about the injustices to people that commonly aren’t heard. We were all there to let them know that they mattered to us! And I opened up my heart that night to the reality that I am very blessed even when I don’t think that I am!