Frank wanted a coffeemaker for work. Nothing fancy, nothing expensive. At home we’ve had a percolator (electric) for years, but he wanted a drip one for ease of use. He’s been keeping his eye out for one for weeks. One day I was at Goodwill and saw an old coffeemaker that brought back childhood memories with its beige color, brown and orange “coffee brew strength” accents. My eyes lingered on it, and I moved on.

Wouldn’t you know, my husband nabbed it and slyly brought it to the checkout? Ten bucks. “Hey, a guy at work brought one of these for the breakroom a few years ago (at his old job), and it was the best drip coffeemaker.”

Normally I would have let it leave my house and not complained. I have no problem using cups, plates, bowls from Goodwill. I do have a some reservations about using things I can’t scour clean, that have inside mechanisms that I can’t inspect with my own eyeballs… Irrational thoughts of someone running their own urine through a coffeemaker. You know, things like that.

So, being the good wife I am (and having a strange magnetism towards this happy-looking little coffeemaker), I took it upon myself to clean any imaginary urine out of it by running vinegar through it 8000 times. It honestly didn’t look like it had been used at all. Although each time I ran the vinegar through there was always a bit of sediment (looked like dust) floating on top of the water. Finally I just went to the store and got some official coffee cleaner. Ran that through a few times and the water was crystal, spanking, clear.

After all that cleansing care, it seemed right to also do a “test run” and make some coffee.

“You like the coffeemaker, don’t you?” Frank sighed, seeing the signs on the wall.

I ignored his insinuating question.

In turn it seemed right to actually drink the coffee.

Frank’s eyes rolled, accusing me of latching on to the maker, and also assuming his search for a coffeemaker was not over, as it seemed it was when he walked out of Goodwill with his Norelco DIAL-a-BREW II.

Thankfully, we found a cheap-o special deal during the Christmas Special Frenzies a couple weeks back, ’cause that DIAL-a-BREW makes one mean cup of coffee, and I’m not letting it go.

Do you see a difference between these two jackets?

At the beginning of the winter season, Frank’s aunt purchased a jacket for Carlito from Land’s End ($70). A very nice jacket, perfect for his ski trips, daily use, sledding, etc. She got the jacket with matching hat and gloves – very nice, practical gift. He wore it thorough most of the season until the zipper broke, and we had to exchange it for another one. It was an easy exchange, I’ll give Land’s End credit for that.

Twords the middle of winter, though, Sal’s jacket broke. He had been using a hand-me-down from Carlito, but that was too snug. Well, during one of my Goodwill trips, I found a duplicate of the jacket Carlito’s been wearing – in Sal’s size and in excellent condition – at a fraction of the cost ($7). I picked it up, checked the zipper, looked for tears… nothing. The only difference was the name label inside was cut out. I could definitely work with that. Score.

Sal’s jacket is the smaller, on the left; Carlito’s is on the right.

Last night I sat down with Frank and had a late evening snack of cheese and vino.

I used our “new” wine glasses. They’re “new to us” second-hand finds (Goodwill). I loved them because, well, I had the same glasses years ago, so they were nostalgic, but also because the glasses of today are fun, but ridiculously humongous. These little baddies remind me of Italian spaghetti house vino glasses. Simple.