I Feel a Little Like a Thief...Almost

I love me a good deal, y'all. And the one thing I like about shopping is finding some steal that I can feel good about paying our hard-earned money for.


I enjoy the thrill of looking for the best deal for the best quality. And when it fills a need for our family, it's like I've hit the jackpot! You know, if we like...played lottery.


So I share this in all earnestness and enthusiasm...because this deal made me almost feel guilty.


Seriously.


But I got over it in about 30 seconds.


DH and I love the holidays. We really love the holidays. By holidays, I am specifically referring to Thanksgiving and Christmas. And more generally, I'm referring to November 1 through January 1.


We have a lot of fun and meaningful traditions that we do for each. For example, for Thanksgiving, we have a glass jar that I put out on November 1. I buy a special, pretty pad of paper (not sticky) and put that inside the jar with a pen. From the first of November until Thanksgiving Day, we all have been writing on a piece of paper something that we notice we are thankful to God for. We don't sign them, we just write what it is, fold it, and drop it in the jar.


We've been watching it slowing fill up through the month, and on Thanksgiving Day, after dinner, we will gather together in the living room and take turns pulling a piece of thankfulness from the jar to read aloud.


After the day is over, I collect all the papers in a plastic baggie, write the year on it, and seal it up to store in our desk. Talk about leaving a legacy! I can't wait to peruse through them in about 10 years with my grown and/or almost grown kids. Wow. The last 10 years went pretty quickly.


*sigh*


So anyway, back on track: we love the holidays. And we love to have people over for the holidays, too. Which gets me back to my original purpose of this post: steal of a deal.


We have a family of 7 coming over for Thanksgiving this week, which I am so excited about. However, in the area of dishes, I have enough of the everyday china that my grandmother gave me when we first got married, but it's blue and yellow and green. Very "spring-y." Then I have our regular dishes that have roosters on them, but I only have a place setting for six.


And our budget is stretched, to say the least.


What was I to do? I'll tell you what I did: I prayed. I asked the Creator of the Universe, the One Who Sees all things, good and bad; the One Who is eternal, and knows how many hairs are on my head today; the One Who has already done way more for me than I could ever deserve...to provide me with some new dishes. Yep.


And you know what? He cared. He listened. He provided. He's so good to me.


Get this:


I asked Him if it was His will that I spend money on new dishes, then for Him to just let me find what would work for the fall, be inexpensive, and then provide the money. If not, then I was okay with that, too. Shortly afterward, I had the idea to check with Garden Ridge Pottery online to see what they have.


Turned out they don't offer shopping online, but they post their current circular on their website.


Lo, and behold, they had a teensy, weensy picture of some dishes that were on sale...a whole set for $7.99.


Yeah, that's what I said. No way.


But I had to find out. The sale was to end the next day, so I needed to go check this out. I stopped by five other places just to make sure I wasn't going to get a better deal somewhere else, because come on, this was too good to be true.


I pulled up to Garden Ridge and prayed one more time. Lord, it's all up to You. I want what you want. I don't want to spend money where you say I shouldn't, so please lead me.


Here we go, You and me, Lord.


I walked back to the dishes section of the store. My eyes were constantly scanning for piracy waiting to be had. And then I saw them: Boxes of autumn-colored dishes with raised embellishment around the rim. Exactly what I had in mind.


Each box contained a 20-piece set...for exactly $7.99. I couldn't believe my eyes.

So I bought three sets...$120 worth of dishes (retail) for $24 bucks! Deal of the century. Our God knows how to delight His girl!