Happy Days Are Here Again

Good news! Brendan's recovery has gone very smoothly. He felt well enough to go back to work yesterday, so Family Mooch Week is back on track! We're leaving tomorrow morning for Sugar Land, and I'm really looking forward to getting out of Abilene and visiting our families.

I've already confessed my penchant for estate/garage sale shopping, and I just have to brag about my latest finds. Brendan and I have needed new lamps since we moved in, but retail-priced ones are ridiculously expensive, even at discount stores. I've been making do with an old one from my dorm days, but poor Brendan didn't have one and has been mooching off the light from my lamp during bedtime reading. Our church put on a giant garage sale this weekend, so I woke up very early on Friday to get my hands on some discount lamps, and found these beauties for a total of $7. The lampshades that came with them were heinous, so Brendan and I made a trip to Target to replace them. Here are the results!

My lamp! Brendan picked out the lamp shade; he's so stylish.

And here we have Brendan's lamp. I think it looks very Parisian.

So, funny story about the lamps... we took the lamp bases to Target so we could pick out just the right shades. The two bases were in my cart, which I was wielding down the shampoo aisle, when a woman stopped me and asked, "Where did you get those lamps!" I feebly replied, "Umm, at a garage sale..." She looked mildly amused and walked away. I must admit, I felt like a loser at that moment, but in hindsight I should have triumphantly bragged about my finds and responded, "But I got them for $7!"