Thanksgiving Week and A Scam

Hello friends, I can’t believe that Thanksgiving is just a few days away. We are going to have a very quiet day around here. I think it will be just me and hubs and maybe my nephew and his girlfriend. We are having ham instead of turkey. I will do the traditional sides and a couple of desserts. It seems a little strange because for so many years we had such huge gatherings. Sometimes twenty and thirty people and often several places to visit. I say if you still have that many people to celebrate with enjoy it while you can.

I had a great weekend. We planted fifty tulip bulbs. I am hoping it is not too late in the season. Hubby and I had a great system. He used his drill with an attachment and dug the holes and I placed the bulbs in the ground. I can’t wait until spring to see if they come up. I will be so excited and grateful if only a few survive. I am hoping some critter does not dig them up. That has happened before, and the critter mentioned is one of the cats.

I got scammed:
I can’t believe as old as I am I fell for such a scam on the internet. For weeks I had been seeing those adorable gnome advent calendars. Some were on Facebook and some were on TikTok and a couple of other social media platforms. I thought they were adorable. They were $39.95 and each day starting in December you would open one of the little gnome windows and get a different gnome. They were a great size and the ad showed some people putting them on their Christmas tree as ornaments and some made a little garland from them. I couldn’t wait to get them. Now to be honest, there are some real gnome advent calendars out there, but you have to watch carefully to see what you are getting, I didn’t, and that was my fault. So lesson learned.

***Look how big they were supposed to be.*** ***And cute!!!***

The day the package finally arrived. I went to the Post Office to pick it up. I was expecting this huge box that I would probably have to wrestle to the car. I opened my PO Box and, instead of a card telling me to come to the counter to pick up my box, there was a locker key. The locker keys are for the larger boxes in the Post Office. But there was no way my big box of gnomes could ever fit in one of those. Right??

And to beat it all it was one of the smaller locker boxes. I opened it and there was a small box maybe an 8 x 10 size. Oh well I guessed, this was something else that my husband ordered. But no, it had my name on the box. I took it to the car and I could actually carry it in the palm of one hand. Once in the car I opened it and there was the gnome advent calendar box I had seen online. Only this one was incredibly small and well no, just no. It couldn’t be. I opened one of the tiny advent windows and a small hard trinket fell out. What???? I opened up several more and each had an ugly little hard plastic trinket not much bigger than a charm for a charm bracelet.

I sat there staring at the box with the cold hard realization hitting me. I had been scammed!!! I had been scammed out of $39.95 plus shipping. Close to $50.00 in total. As I looked at this little pile of kids toys I couldn’t believe that someone could sell this. But wait!! There were three bigger gnomes in the box. Sort of ugly they were. But they were there. As I looked at this I started to laugh. I couldn’t stop. If anyone had seen me in my car that day they would have wondered why I was laughing so hard. They would probably shake their heads and say “yep she’s finally lost it”

I was so disappointed and mad that I had allowed myself to be scammed. I went back to the ad and started reading the reviews, something I should have done before ordering, they were terrible. A hard and expensive lesson learned. I was too embarrassed to take a picture of it. I gave it to one of my co workers and she was going to give it to her little sister. She said she would enjoy playing with the little trinkets. So if she liked them it is not all wasted.

I sent an email to the company asking for a refund. Of course I have heard nothing back and certainly have received no refund. It’s funny but this is reminding me of the time when I was about eight years old and wanted to send away for 100 little dolls. They were only $1.99. You can read that post here

I guess if it sounds too good to be true it probably is.

I hope you and your family have a wonderful Thanksgiving. Enjoy friends and family and be sure to love on each other as much as possible. Now I am off to knit on my sock for a little while.

Always remember

Love your day your way!!!!

It’s Thursday, Let’s Catch Up!!

Hello and happy Thursday. How has your week been so far?

I am backing up to last week. I did get the three extra days off last week. On Wednesday I took my sister to Knoxville to UT hospital to have a procedure done. We arrived early and got out before lunch so that all worked out great.

I will have to say, for most of my time off, I have been a knitting fiend. Well let me add crocheting to that as well. I worked on my nephew’s afghan, a pair of socks and another cap. I also googled how to make a daisy granny square and did a few of those. So as usual I was all over the page. I did spend one day cleaning my house and then another day cleaning my mother in laws house. This house now belongs to us so we are responsible for it. It needs some improvements so we will be working on it as we have the time.

Look at all of this. The yellow is the cap I am working on. The red and gray is the sock and you can see the trial granny square I did.

This is the daisy granny square. This was my first one. I have some different colors. I plan to make several and use them for a pillow. I used these colors just to experiment.

This little bag I use to put small knitting or crochet projects. I used it this time for the cap I am knitting. These are actually make-up bags but they fit so well into my purse and I can take my knitting anywhere. People are always curious when they see you knitting or crocheting and want to know what you are making. I am always happy to share and even teach them a stitch or two if they are game.

I finished an entire sock on Sunday. I started the second one, which is never as much fun, and I will wait until I have completed the pair to show you.

We haven’t done a lot of Christmas decorating around here. We actually ordered a new Christmas tree and it should be here tomorrow. We did put life sized Santa at his post in the upstairs window. Kitty Kitty loves him and she loves to stand beside him. Crazy kitty.

Outside view of Santa in the window. I love coming down our driveway and seeing him in the window.

On Monday I left work early and took my car to Knoxville back to the dealership to have that dark window tint removed. If you missed an earlier blog post where I bought a new car, the story is I didn’t realize how dark the tint on the windows actually was until I drove it at night. It took about three hours to remove the tint and they gave me a tiny loaner car to use. I did a little shopping to kill the time. I was so glad to be able to see through the windows. The tint on my new car was just too dark for me. It made me very nervous driving in our rural area at night.

This loaner car seemed very small to me luckily I only had it for a few hours.

Tuesday night at dusk we looked out the window and couldn’t believe this beautiful purple hue. The clouds cast a purple reflection onto the water. I have never seen the lake this color. It had been cloudy all day and at dusk just a tiny bit of light was trying to shine through. It was just beautiful.

I hope your week is going well and you are gearing up for a great weekend. I am off to work on some knitting. I don’t know what is wrong with me I just feel the need to knit or crochet. I better take advantage and get some projects finished before Christmas.

Always remember

Love your day your way!!!!

Hello November

Can you believe that November is here? The end of the year is quickly approaching. Daylight Savings Time ended this past weekend. We got an extra hour of sleep. I am one of those people, and I have been called strange because of it, who likes this time change. I love that it gets darker and cozier early in the evening. I love that the sun comes up earlier in the mornings. There is just something about the winter sun this time of the year that makes everything look softer and cozier. Yes, that is the second time I mentioned being cozy. I guess you can see where my mind is at this time of year. Warm fires, blankets, books, hot coffee or cocoa, you get the drift.

***Just look at these warm temps. It feels like spring outside. Come on cold air!!!***

***Sunrise this time of the year is especially beautiful!!***

I told you last week that I bought a new car. Well, new to me anyway. The car has tinted windows. I really didn’t notice how dark they were while I was test driving it. It was a sunny day and I just didn’t notice how dark the windows actually were. I guess I was just focused on how well the car drove. That is until I had to drive home late one night last week and I COULDN’T SEE!!!! It was so dark!!! The side windows are so dark I can’t see my rear view mirrors at night. Not only were the windows extra dark but we live in a rural area where there are zero street lights. It was very scary. I decided to call the dealership and see what they could do. They have been very helpful and they are going to take the tint off and bring my windows back to factory standards. I am so relieved and I can’t wait to get it done. I am just being extra careful at night when I have to get out.

This past weekend was a lazy one. Other than driving my car back to Knoxville and getting it checked out, and having lunch with my sister, I was very lazy. I worked on my nephew’s afghan and watched it grow a little bit. I finished a hat I had been working on and immediately started another one. I then decided to start a pair of socks. I like variety and I like to be working on more than one thing at a time. That way if I get bored with one I just switch to another.

Tomorrow is Election Day. I already voted. I early voted a couple of weeks ago. Once again we live in a very rural area, and for our district, if I don’t vote early at our local election office, I have to drive several miles out into the country to place my vote. I just have to add here, please pray for our nation. A lot of changes are coming, either way the election goes.

***The weather Sunday was almost perfect. If you look close you can see shimmering sparkles on the lake.***

Hubby’s birthday is this week. He loves pie. He will want his favorite pumpkin pie. If he can choose between cake or pie he will always choose pie. I myself am a cake person.

I leave you with a picture of Gus. He was stretched out in one of his favorite spots without a care in the world. And that is just the way it should be.

Have a wonderful cozy week and always remember,

Love your day your way

Friday Favorites

Hello and happy Friday!!! I have a few Friday Favorites to share with you.

Remember on my previous post I was decoupaging the pumpkins? I finally finished and I guess I’m ok with the way they turned out. I didn’t finish them until the week before Halloween but I think they look fallish. So I will keep them out through Thanksgiving.

I love winter weather folklore. I always find it interesting, all the ”signs”, that the old farmers use to predict planting and just how cold it is going to be. Have you heard this one about the caterpillars. This one is from the Old Farmer’s Almanac.

I also love making chili when it gets cold outside. I made some last week. We always have plenty for leftovers. I also love putting chow chow on mine.

I can’t remember if I showed you this carry-on bag that I got a few months ago. This one holds quite a lot and it can be put under your airplane seat. It has wheels so you don’t have to lug it through the airport. My arms and shoulders are saved. I also added the bigger suitcase. Of course you know I would pick the ones with cats.

Have you ever tried these Sea Salt Caramels? I get them at T.J. Maxx. I know a lot of the food they have is questionable. I have tried some things from there and not liked them. But these caramels are delicious. I always have to get a bag when I am there. See? I already tore into them before I took the picture HA!

Yesterday was Halloween and several of us at work decided to dress as Care Bears. I was the pink Care Bear. I bought a pink sweatshirt at Walmart and ordered the ears and the rainbow iron-on from Amazon. It was super easy.