I know that Sears often gets a bad rap, but I actually like shopping there for tools and appliances. Our refrigerator we bought awhile back was from Sears and was a Kenmore Elite. Today I needed some Craftsman, and I was off to Sears.

While getting ready Saturday night I was looking for some plum eyeliner. I recently acquired one in a cute Bourjois makeup kit. Our master bath has 4 drawers in the vanity. They have no glide to them and they are really too deep. I had a bunch of stuff in the closet in totes with lids attached. But I had used this eyeliner in the past two weeks and knew it was either on the countertop or in one of the drawers. I looked to no avail and then gave up and used some black eyeliner. Anyway, I knew I needed a better way to organize my bathroom. I remember watching that Bravo show Blowout and the hair stylists stations were actually Craftsman tool boxes. Problem solved.

I check today’s ad and there was an offer where if you bought the Midnight Blue 6-Drawer Roll Away cart, you’d get the 10-drawer chest that sits on top for free (a $219 value). I really wanted red, but as our vanity currently has yellow formica, it doesn’t really matter too much. Plus, I figure that it won’t matter the color if it ends up in our garage in the future. I’m not one of those people that needs a totally matchy garage. If the toolbox works out, then I can always move this one to the garage and replace it with a good-looking stainless steel one when we redo the bathroom someday.

Now, if I could just find an old card catalog…

Behold my Craftsman tool chest of beauty…click this link to view it on Flickr where you can rollover the picture with your mouse to see what’s in the drawers.

So, I am totally convinced that even though I paid a $50 (17%) premium on an in-stock snowblower at a local store that it was worth every penny. And I am also totally convinced that I made the right decision getting the electric snowblower over a gas one. It’s light and makes quick work of the snow. It only clogged about 3 times and that was at the end when I was doing cleanup in some already-thrown banked snow, but it was easy to clear. It worked pretty well and it was pretty cheap. Plus, it’s a Toro. That’s not to say it doesn’t have its quirks, but for something I’ll probably use about 8 times a year- and maybe less in the future with global warming- I am happy.

I have to say that the Snowpocalypse was faking us out pretty good last night. I thought the white death was going to end up the clear death because it was all rainy and then it started freezing. There was a nice layer of ice under the snow on our front steps. It was really satisfying to pour the salt on it and hear it crackle.

Before- note the line on the left where you an see where I cleared about 2-3 inches off the driveway yesterday.

After

The latticework:

It’s a winter wonderland!

So, if you ever buy anything online, I highly suggest you sign up for an Ebates account (and by clicking that link and signing up, I’ll get a $5 Tell-A-Friend bonus after you make your first purchse through them). Basically, it works like this:

1. Go to Ebates and sign up for your account (they don’t spam you)
2. When you’re ready to make your first purchase, use their site to visit the store you’d like to buy from.
3. Ebates takes you to the site and tracks your purchase there
4. You get anywhere from 1-10% cash back after you complete your transaction.
5. They send checks or deposit to your Paypal every 3 months.

I get 6% at Drugstore.com (plus Drugstore gives you Drugstore Dollars for a future purchase), 4% at Amazon, 4% at Overstock, 4% at Sephora, 6% at Zappos, and the list goes on and on. In fact, I am kicking myself for upgrading my Photoshop without checking Ebates first, because even Adobe offers 6% back through Ebates!

And if you’re shopping at a store, make sure you see if there are any coupon codes floating around. I like to use retailmenot.com or naughtycodes.com

Altec Lansing INMOTION

Dude these speakers rock. They sound great and make your iPod into a boombox, then they fold up flat. You can hook non-iPods to them too, but it obviously won’t look as cool.

Harmony Remote
So, I just bought one of these Harmony Remotes on Ebay- the H688. It’s really easy to set-up because you just plug it into your computer’s USB port and tell it what your devices are (I swear it has codes for everything) and then everything is programmed by activity. Plus, it’s super customizable. I did the initial setup and it programmed 95% of all the commands successfully for what I need it to do. It’s pretty rad. I used to have the Sony RM-AV3000, but you can’t update its code database, you just have to fake it and “learn” everything. Plus I wanted more hard buttons. It’s going up on Ebay soon.