Weekend of deals.

This weekend was spent attempting to get our house into at least acceptable living conditions. While we succeeded in a few rooms, there is still a lot more to do--I have a feeling next weekend will be spent doing much of the same thing. We have visitors coming the next weekend (the Cutsevichs'!) so that gives us a good deadline to get everything in order.

But we did take a little time off to score some ridiculous deals this weekend. Brian and I decided we needed to get some bikes since we are pretty close to downtown and the Hyde Park area we love so next spring/summer we can take to the town! At first I thought a cruiser would be nice, but Brian talked me into a regular hill-friendly bike--nothing crazy, just something that could potentially get us to the Vealitzeks'--although I fear I will never make it up the hill to their house on any bike that isn't actually a car.

We decided $100 was our limit (per bike) so we took to Craigslist. There were a few bikes I was interested in, but a little purple number posted for $95 caught my eye. We went out to visit the bike in Star, Idaho (WAY further out than Brian or I expected), luckily I liked the bike and the lady sold it to us for $80, which is good since we probably spent the $15 difference in gas to get out there (however, we did also purchase our two pumpkins and 15 gourds out in Star for $10 total!). I felt great about this buy as it had only been ridden a few times and when we saw similar bikes at Wal-Mart later they were $150+.

Speaking of Wal-Mart, that is where Brian got his bike--he reached out to a few people on Craigslist but no one got back to him so we headed over to check out a bike he had seen online for $90. He tried another bike when we got there that was a little bit more expensive but darn his long body, his knees were hitting his arm as he peddled around the bike area. He then tried the bike we had come to see and it was perfect! Boom--we came in under-budget! :)

In addition to the bikes and pumpkins, we also found Brian a kick-ass pair of cowboy boots! I had been to an estate sale in Boise on Friday for my Etsy shop (found a bitchin' old military coat for $20!), and ran across a few pairs of cowboy boots. They were listed at $30 and $40/pair. When we went back Saturday afternoon (on our way back from Star) we stopped in and they were still there! Brian tried them on and one pair fit fine, although it did cause him to say "I feel like I'm wearing high heels." This was the $30 pair, so we went out to the ladies running the sale and I offered them $20 for the boots and the other five things we had come across on our way out of the house (new tarp, work gloves, etc.)--they said yes! Score. On a side note, I had left my favorite travel mug there the day before and they still had it. :)

Wow, that was quite the long post about bikes and cowboy boots. But you know the feeling when you score a good deal, electrifying! ;)