Year end purchases

I neglected to write about some purchases we made at the end of year.  I am ridiculously excited about them.  I mean absolutely ridiculous!

I have to provide a little bit of background.  We put up two Christmas trees each year.  In our front room is a large tree we purchased seven years ago.  I had never loved the tree, but it suited our purpose and was pretty much the only thing we could find at the time we purchased it.  The other tree is in our family room.  It is only a little shorter, but much thinner.  I brought the tree into our marriage and it is every bit of twenty years old, but still looks wonderful.  It doesn't begin to look real, but I love that the tree is a very green tree.  I love this tree.

This year, the cats really did a job on the tree in our front room.  They never actually climbed the tree, but they sure did enjoy bending the bottom branches.  Because of how the tree was put together, bending them back wasn't really an option.  They were especially destructive on one side of the tree, and the tree looked ridiculous by the end of the season.  I really wanted a new tree, but refused to spend a lot of money.  I checked online the day after Christmas, but I still thought the prices were ridiculous.  I didn't want anything fancy, and I didn't want anything pre-lit.  I didn't really have time to go out and look because we had things happening.  It just didn't seem meant to be, and I really didn't worry about it.

On New Year's eve, Andrew and I needed to run some errands.  We found a tree that was $89 originally, and was 75% off!  And the best part was, it was a very green tree just like I wanted!  As you can imagine, we were both absolutely thrilled!  When I took down Christmas this year, it was really nice to just take the crappy tree out to the curb.

We were also able to purchase a new vacuum cleaner.  I had asked for money from my in-laws for Christmas so I could buy a new one.  I bought it the same day as the tree, and I am suddenly in love with vacuuming.  I want to vacuum everything!  Honestly, I am a little ridiculous about it.  These were some awesome year-end purchases we were able to make!