I had a few minutes to kill while I waited for photos to be printed, so I popped into Mr Price Home.  Now I’ve been eyeing out a huge corner leather couch effort from Coricraft for our lounge.

In fact, our couches are finished… and desperately need to be replaced… so I went wandering around the big furniture section for a change, and I came across this couch… (photo taken with phone hence the quality)

I love it! I love the retro feel to it, and it’s so well priced!

So now I’m thinking… 1 3-seater and 1 2-seater couches!  But I am concerned about the longevity of Mr Price furniture.  Hmm, what to do.  It’ll definitely be cheaper for me to go with Mr Price.

what I did do though, was follow through with my last blog post… and bought a new rug for the lounge.   What a difference that small change has made to the room already!

Somewhere along the line my priorities when it comes to spending money changed.

I used to spend a lot of money on the house.  Buying new things, and making sure the house always looked good.

Nowadays that’s not the case.  I don’t bat an eyelid blowing a few grand on a new piece of glass, or a dress or a pair of shoes, or kids clothes…  but my oh my… let me go into a home shop (which I do regularly) and I’m so loathe to spend money.

Even R500 on something that I know will make a major difference to the way my house looks is questioned in my mind.  It’s crazy man!!

I need to stop this.

I think my plan from now on, is to buy one thing for the house every month.  That way I should be ok with the amount I’m spending.  And I’ll get my house back into the shape I want it.

It has to happen.  I just have to do it.  I cannot handle the way my house is looking at the moment.  We haven’t really bought anything new since we moved into this house 4 years ago, and I think it’s looking shabby now. We need new curtains, new couches, new rugs, new TV, redo the dining room chair cushions etc etc.

And that makes me feel very stressed to be here.  I don’t like it any more.

I need my sanctuary back.

I just LOVE that line… it’s from Yuppiechef… and it just spoke to me when I got my box of goodies today, taped up with tape covered in that saying,  that I ordered from them on Tuesday.

A while ago there was a Twitter auction run by @nosh4noah raising funds for Noah. Noah is 3 years old and lives in Cape Town and his mom needs funds to get him the therapy he needs… he’s on the autism spectrum.  So of course I helped… and won !!  My prize was a R250 voucher for Yuppiechef which I’ve been very slack in using!!

Anyhoo, I decided that this week I would get my butt into gear and start buying Christmas gifts… but first I needed to use my voucher. I bought myself the new Jamie Oliver cookbook.  Yeah, I know, I have a few of them… but hey, this one is about quick meals and I so need some inspiration on that front!

So, I bought myself the book, and a gift for someone which is why I’m not showing you everything that was in the box.  And then I actually went back to the site on Wednesday and bought more… for someone else too!

My box arrived today, at the office.  Not bad timing hey?  I just LOVED the way it was packaged… down to a personal little card an’all.

It was a fab experience shopping from them.  In fact, while I was buying another gift from @Home this afternoon, there was a lady behind me in the queue who found the tiniest tagine dishes.  I commented about the size and she mentioned she was actually looking for the big one, and she hadn’t been able to find them anywhere… I told her to try Yuppiechef.  LOL!! I will be shopping there again, that’s for sure!

Really glad that I could help a little boy get some therapy at the same time as quenching my shopping need!

Gina sent me a twitvite a few weeks ago for a Sale on Cybersass‘ gorgeous Sass Designs dresses.

So I duly put the invite in my diary… and went along this afternoon.  I got there a bit late and missed Sandy demoing how her original dress works… but watched her tie a short a-line dress into the most incredible variations!

I’ve been eyeing these dresses out for ages… and when Gina showed up in one for her maternity shoot a few weeks ago, I decided that I needed one too.  So this was an ideal opportunity!

They were all so stunning, but I eventually bought the Sass One Dress in the Original shape… in fuschia pink

I actually want to get more, I want a black/gray double layer short a-line dress too, and a floral short one too.   I nearly bought a poncho/skirt too.

I wasn’t the only one that was tempted, and it was so cool that everyone (Philly-girl, Gina, Nadia, Rubyletters, Leigh-Ann, Tanya, and their friends) looked so good in her dresses too

So you know I like shopping and clothes right?  Well, this competition is right up my alley…

To celebrate the release of our Summer 2011 collection Tashkaya Fashion is running a competition on Facebook and Twitter from Monday 15 November 2010 to Monday 6 December 2010.

The total prize is valued at R4000. The prize will consist of Tashkaya clothing to the value of R1000. If you have “liked” Tashkaya on the Fan page or followed on Twitter you double the size of your prize to R2000. If you win you get up to 5 bonus prizes (Valued at R400 each) to give to any of your friends who also entered the sweepstakes via your invites.

If you enter via Twitter then for every person that enters through the link in your tweet you get an extra entry.  So make  sure you re-tweet your entry, the more people who enter via your tweet the better your chances of winning!

To enter go to the Facebook page www.facebook.com/tashkaya and click on the Sweepstakes tab.  Or you can enter via twitter here http://wildfireapp.com/twitter/233/contests/69219.
Remember you get an extra entry for every person who uses your tweet to enter, this will increase your chances of winning even further.

Cool hey?!

When Exmi asked me a few months ago to participate in a new secret blogging project, just for girls, I was intrigued, and of course I said YES!

How could I not?  It sounded like such a cool idea… a bunch of girl bloggers from all walks of life, at varying degrees of technical proficiency… all reviewing the latest and greatest gadgets from a chicks point of view.  Brilliant plan!! Plus the fact that I like them all, and we get together every so often to talk about the gadgets and have wine… like a book club just better!!

Anyhoo, Girl Guides is finally live… in a beta version…

Check it out, and let us know if there are any issues with it

Oooh and also read my review of the Macbook Pro… which is why I bought it in the end

I can’t wait to play with my next gadget actually!

I’m about to go shopping, I need a bit of a break, and I had the following thoughts…

I need to go shopping to get new printer cartridges.  This is a necessity.

I would like to look for new shoes while I’m there, because I need new shoes of course, what girl doesn’t?  I have no qualms buying shoes, but will try and not walk into Aldo’s or Nine West, because I can’t justify their prices.

I’m currently earring-less, because I realised this morning that for some reason, I only put the one on… the other one is now in my car.  Weird.  Second time this week that I’ve done that.  I would like to buy another pair of nice earrings because mine are a little old and sad. But again, I wonder about whether I should spend that money.

I’ve finished a bottle of perfume.  I would like to get another bottle, yet I wonder about the waste of money.

However, get me wandering onto a camera site like Orms or SACamera or a new site to me CameraQuip, and I have no qualms about spend x times the amounts mentioned above on a new lens, and I immediately start scheming about how to justify the cost of buying a Canon 5D Mark II.

Or, take me into a kids clothing store, and I have no issues with filling bags with clothes and shoes for the boys.

Another example, is this morning, when I was trying to work out whether I should buy a new car, just because my back gets sore in my Jazz! And you know how I am about new cars!

Is it just me?  Maybe it’s the fact that the things I ponder about are for me personally.  I immediately think it’s a waste of money, and can think of hordes of other things to buy instead.

Oh hell, enough of this thinking, I’m going spending!

Finally got a Macbook Pro… now I just need to set it up…

YAY!

… can’t think of anything else to say… I’m too tired… goodnight

You know the bed I blogged about over the weekend?

My oath it’s a large bed! Connor can barely climb onto it because it’s so high.

The king size duvet is dwarfed by the bed.  WTF now?  Can you get extra width duvets?  That’s gonna cost a fortune I’m sure.

But I must say… the sheets from that Time and Again collection from Mr Price are divine… 400 thread count and OMG so soft

Right… I’m off to do the big test… the comfort test… I’m exhausted and need to sleep

I have the day off work tomorrow… and I’m going to hopefully find more linen… and have coffee with my mom… before a photoshoot

**update** the bed was awesome and the duvet size wasn’t a problem because the bed is so wide

Apart from photoshoots, and meeting Angel at the venue for her wedding next week and my dad’s 60th birthday today, I actually did do something about the house for a change this weekend… we bought a new bed.

We’ve been threatening to get a new one for the last 2 years… seriously 2 years… we’re sad that way.  Every time I’ve given it some thought, there have been more important things to buy with the ludicrous amount of money that bed cost.

In fact, until yesterday, I must’ve been living in lala land about the cost of beds!

Anyhoo, yesterday morning, I threw all my toys out the cot when I got squished in bed yet again by the small “monster” aka Connor… and decided that we needed a King sized bed… today… another day was not going to go past without something happening.

So off we toodled, and bought the bed, which is being delivered tomorrow.

And that resulted me (with Bradley in tow) in traipsing through Cresta, World Wear centre, Lifestyle Crossing and Retail Crossing centres looking for duvets, linen and blankets for our new bed (because our old bed is queen sized).  And that was all done between 9:30am and 11am this morning. Poor kid was exhausted

OMW, what crud in the shops!! My first port of call was Woolies - NOTHING interesting (apart from the duvet inner which I bought there because they were better quality and cheaper than @Home).  @Home actually had beautiful grey embroidered duvet covers by Margaret Muir (and I had a 20% off voucher from a magazine that I’d bought)… but no sheets… so that was USELESS!

Eventually after going to 3 Mr Price Homes, 1 Woolies, and 2 @Home stores I bought one set of Time and Again plain duvet covers from Mr Price Home… so now I’m on the hunt for another set.

As for blankets and electric blankets… that was a fruitless search… I couldn’t find any.

At least I have some linen for when the bed arrives tomorrow.