Monica Kochelee

I think that one of the nicest ways a person can spruce up a house is by putting up a really nice mailbox.  When we first moved here, our mailbox was old and beat up and rusty.  It looked horrible!  I have been telling my hubby ever since we moved that I want a new mailbox, but I have not seen any that I like at the local stores.

I finally found a great website www.mailboxixchange.com by the Mailboxixchange Company that has a HUGE selection of the greatest mailboxes I’ve ever seen!  I never imagined there were so many different types of mailboxes out there!  They sell over 2500 different kinds of mailboxes! 

Some look really antique, some look like birdhouses, some look very modern.  Some look very “country gentleman” and some look very “citified.”  They sell quite a few security/locking mailboxes, too.

This site not only sells mailboxes, but they also sell mailbox posts, curbside decor (which includes several nice bird feeders,) and mailbox plaques and numbers.  They sell commercial mailboxes as well as residential mailboxes.  I think I’d like to buy one of the mailboxes that looks like a birdhouse and do some decorative painting on it.  That would be adorable!

We’ve only been in this house for about two years now, and money has been tight, so we take the changes a little at a time, when we can spend a few dollars to buy something to fix it up, we do.  I’m a nut for saving energy (because it saves us money) and I have been asking my hubby for months to buy some of those timer light switches that you turn a dial and the light only stays on for a few minutes and then shuts off.  Most people use those for bathroom exhaust fans, if they use them at all.  Well, I wanted one for each exhaust fan (we have two) AND one for the light to the back deck.  I wanted that one because people are always letting the dogs in and out through that door, and they forget to turn the light off.  So that light stays on almost all the time for no reason at all.

Finally my hubby installed the timer switch on that light today!  You can’t imagine how thrilled I am that he finally did that!  YAY!

I can’t even believe how often I have to buy printer ink for my Lexmark X6100 printer!  It seems like every two weeks I have to buy a new black cartridge, and a new color cartridge.  I think that when I’m at work my hubby and kids must get on the internet and find a lot of things that interest them and run off prints.  Buying printer ink at local stores I found that the best price I could get on a black ink cartridge is about $28, the color about $35.  Buying that much ink gets expensive!

I used to take my empty ink cartridges to an office supply store that would give me $3.00 off of the price of a new ink cartridge, but they recently stopped doing that.  Their prices were so high on the ink anyway it really wasn’t even worth it! 

I see stores that offer “ink refills” for only $10 or $15 but I’ve heard that doing that voids the warranty on printers, and I’ve heard horror stories from friends about how they did that and it gummed up their printer and totally ruined it, so I don’t want to do that at all!

There is a website for a company called Inkers that I’ve found at www.inkers.biz that sells generic computer ink for great low prices.  They offer just about every type of toner and ink ever made for just about every brand of printer.  I looked up the ink for my printer, and they sell it for a lot less than I can buy it locally.  They offer free shipping, and usually ship the same day the order is received.  They ship to the USA and Puerto Rico, average delivery time is 2-3 days.  They guarantee their products for up to a full year, and they give you a 30-day full refund period if not satisfied.

I don’t know how or why, but it seems that every time I turn around, someone is giving me a canvas tote bag!  Don’t get me wrong, I LIKE canvas tote bags, but honestly, just how many canvas tote bags does one person need?

I have about four different sized LL Bean canvas tote bags with zippers (I love the ones with zippers) and I DO use them from time to time.  I have about five canvas tote bags I bought years ago to use to haul my groceries in.  I have a closet that has about 20 unused tote bags, all brand new and plain, that someone gave me a few years ago, thinking I would paint them with a pretty design and either give them away or sell them.

And just about every time I go to some kind of “function” I am given a new tote bag with some company’s logo and slogan on it.  For gift giving occassions, people give me assorted goodies in a canvas tote bag.  I like them all, but I think I have a lifetime supply of tote bags!  So if you are reading this and are wondering what to give me for my approaching birthday, let me give you a hint  - NOT a tote bag!

I know a lot of people who wear glasses. That actually surprises me, because in this day and age of contact lenses and Lasik vision correction, I would expect to see a lot fewer people wearing glasses! A lot of my co-workers wear glasses, and yesterday during our lunch break we were talking about prescription glasses and prescription sunglasses. The price of glasses nowadays is getting really expensive! Seems to me that two years ago I spent over $300 on my new pair of glasses.  I’m due for a new pair in a couple of months, and I dread the expense!

Anyway, several of the ladies were talking about how they want to get prescription sunglasses and weren’t sure how to get the best deal on them. None of them want to spend a whole lot of money on them, and I can’t blame them a bit!  I told them that I had heard about a website where you can order $ 8 Zenni Optical Rx Eyeglasses.   I told them that they can buy their sunglasses online through ZenniOptical.com.  They have a large frame selection, and they give you several different lens options.  You can choose progressive lenses, single vision lenses, tinted sunglasses lenses, sunsensor (potochromic) lenses, tinted suglass lenses, and bifocal lenses.  They can offer the glasses at a really reduced price because they only sell only their own manufactured eyeglass frames direct to the customer.  They have eliminated the middlemen and they have a very small advertising budget