our unexpected Saturday

When we woke up yesterday we had no idea that before we went to bed we would be watching a movie on this

in our family room!

After we had eaten breakfast, Justin asked me what I thought we would do that day. I answered that we needed to do a little cleaning, but then I wanted to read my book (I started the Stephanie Meyer book, Twilight, and LOVE it), and then try to work on some cards and perhaps start my curtains. However, after a little cleaning, I convinced him to go for a walk with me. :)

After our walk, I was checking my email and noticed that I had an email from Sears talking about the special they were having on TVs. Of course, just about everyone has specials on TV around this time of year because so many people want a bigger, better TV for Super Bowl watching. We (on the other hand) have no idea who is in the play-offs and may be playing in The Big Game. Our reasoning for wanting a new TV is because the TV in our family room has been slowly dying.

We noticed it months ago - if you pause something (either a DVD or on the DVR) these spots start appearing. One spot is purple and the other is green. The longer something is paused, the darker they get. Once you un-pause, they start fading away but it is getting to the point were they don't completely fade. So sometimes you are watching and if someone's face is right where one of the spots are - green or purple face. Another problem the TV has is that on occasion, the picture goes out while watching. If you turn the TV off and then back on, the picture would come back, but would go out again unless you leave the TV off for a while. Luckily, that only happened about 3 times over the last 6 months.

It looks like it could be any size from the picture, but we got a 32" Sony Bravia because we didn't want to spend too much and we wanted it to fit in the armoire that we have in the family room. But we did want something bigger than the 27" that this TV is replacing.

Getting a new TV was the next thing on our wishlist, but we had kind of been thinking that it would wait until we got our tax return. This is what I love of financing. We bought the TV with no interest and no payments for 18 months. So when we get our tax return, we get to earn interest on it for over a year before we actually pay for the TV. This is how we have made all of our big purchases since we moved into the house - refrigerator, family room furniture and bedroom furniture, queen size bed for the guestroom and our grill. All financed with no interest (most with no payments), all paid in full so we never paid any interest charges - and we have extra $$ from the interest we earned from each of these things.