Catalog Shopping

I Like Catalog buying :

I have always liked shopping through catalogs. I really dislike going to crowded stores and having to deal with other shoppers.  Going to the big “MART” stores can save you money, but I dislike going to them.

Going to a big Mart store in our area means you will have to deal with shopping with extended family herds. The family herd is usually 2 to 5 adults and 6 to 8 kids. While the adults do their shopping, the kids run around, mess and open products, horse around, scream and yell, and block the paths through the store. The adults do not or can not watch and control them.

As a result many of the products have had to be re boxed and packaged. I try not to buy any package that looks like it was reassembled…there are almost always parts missing. That and having few store employees to help and having to shop around noisy kids make the store shopping undesirable.

With a catalog you do not have to deal with family herds. The shipping fees on something you buy, I figure would be about what you would spend on gas going to the store. If you have a question you can call and almost always talk to someone about it…and the call will take no longer then trying to find an store worker who will not know the info anyway. Most things I buy these days are not a rush item to me, so a few days shipping in not a problem.

With a Catalog you can shop when you are in the bathroom.  It is multitasking at its best 8-). My granddad always had old catalogs in the outhouse. He would shop when he was taking a break at the farm, and the catalogs also had another use. He always said the worst thing Sears did was to go with slicky pages!

Tool catalogs and gardening catalogs are always around our house. I do not need any more tools, I have multiples of most things, but I still like to look. My wife being a Master Gardener is always checking tool and seed catalogs to see what is new and to get new ideas.

My mother and sister were catalog buyers so I come by it naturally. We lived in a small farm town and it was a 40 mile trip to any “real” stores. My wife lived on her boat and cruised for a number of years, so catalogs were also the easiest way to shop.

On line catalogs are almost as good, but with them you can not circle the item so you can come back to it easily. I also dislike using the laptop in the bathroom 8-).  (Think about having your laptop camera on in there.)

Shopping through a catalog also decreases impulse buying. You don’t just put it in your cart and check out as in a store. You have to think about it a little and order it before you buy it. 

We have two on line business, The Seven Seas Lighting, and The Digital Compass Shop. They both have on line catalogs to shop from and we are trying to make them user friendly.  We try to ship products at no charge when possible, and for those products that have a shipping charge; we will refund the charge if the buyer sends us an evaluation of the product.  We have tried to pick the better products for our sites, so we have happy customers.  

A Laptop Nav App.

Laptop Nav App.

I saw an ad for a Navigation App for your lap top computer. It caught my interest since the Digital Compass Shop that we run sells Navigation GPS and the like. Their web page I thought was not all that informative but as I said, it caught my interest. 

I think this would be a great app to have to plan outings and to have as a quick guide for fun outings that were planned on the fly. I would like to compare it to a name brand chart plotter and GPS unit to see how it stacks up. Some of these apps are incredibly good and it sure would be handy. (Going to your boat to use a built in, installed system can be a pain in the back side.)   

Our boat pulls about 6.5 feet of water and if we hook we use the dinghy to explore. This would be a great to have a portable “Chart Plotter” and “GPS” in your lap top for that that has a screen big enough to see. (Without my Glasses)

Check this site out: Laptopnav.com

It looks like a nice app to have for navigation.

Pet Safe Room

   Pet Safe Room Or Cat Lounge.

With the addition of my late sister's cats we now have a heard of cats. Our dog Bosco tries to herd them but the cats know the dog will not hurt them and we often find multiple cats curled up with the dog for afternoon naps.

We do have a Pet Safe Room. The cats and even the dog can be stashed in there when people come over that do not like animals or when we do something that needs no help from the pets.

Our pet safe room has a tile floor for easy clean up. We removed basically everything from the room that needs to be plugged in, so there are no cords for them to pull or chew on. The closet door has a small hook and latch on it so they cannot get the door open and play with all the things stored in it. Cheap cloth painter’s canvas sheets cover the few pieces of furniture in the room to keep the little beasts from damaging them. (We put a plastic sheet down over the upholstered chair with the painters cloth over it…this prevents any liquid that gets on the painters canvas from soaking through to the upholstery.) 

The windows are sealed so the cats cannot get out but can see out. Any vent that a cat could squeeze into has been covered and baby proof electric outlet covers are in the electric sockets. The dominant feature of the room is a large cat tree scratching post. We have washable bedding and pillows for them to lounge on easy to clean stuff).

We feed the beasts in the Animal Lounge in the middle of the floor. I try to give them only a ½ hour to eat. I pick up their feeding dishes and save any uneaten dry food for their next meal, and wash the dishes and do a quick wash of the floor. If I do this we have no ant problem, if I do not, it takes a week to get rid of an ant problem. 8-) They have a water dish in there room and also another one in the kitchen so they always can find water.

They have an outdoor, screened litter box they use and that keeps the mess out of the pet lounge. Only if they have to be locked in the room do they get a litter box in there. 

The cats more or less keep the dog out of “Their Room”.  Bosco goes in only with caution.

When we were living on board our boat, the cat we had would not let our dog in the bow cabin, or the head. Those were Cat Property. The cat allowed the dog to use the rest of the boat. 8-)

We put a carpet around the mast in the main cabin for a scratching tree, and that saved the wood and the upholstery for the most part. The boat proved to be harder to make pet safe then the house. That made it easy when we moved on land…we had experience. 8-)

The main thing is we want our pets safe, and a pet safe room is a place we can put the animals and not worry about them.

Announcing the Nautica Lighting collection from Lustrarte

      We are excited to announce that we have just picked up the Lustrarte line of lighting fixtures for our Seven Seas Lighting Store. These nautical décor lighting fixtures are quality, made in Portugal and are UL approved. The link will introduce you to these lighting fixtures.

      The Lustrarte collection of nautical design lighting is sold all over the world and has an old world charm and the flavor of the sea.
      Inspired by the travels of Portuguese adventurers, Lustrarte has style and quality in a nautical decor. These long lasting, durable fixtures are solid brass and produced under strict quality control.

The NAUTICA collection is unique, distinctive and elegant and gives the nautical ambiance you want. They could make your own home look and feel like a seaside estate. 

Moroccan Rugs are now CHEAP !

Moroccan Rugs are  now a very good buy.

Moroccan and Oriental type rugs are incredibly rugged and wear like iron. My brother and my parents and had bought a number of them for both their beauty and as an Investment. Up till the events of 9-11 they were considered a safe and good investment.  Now, no one wants things made in that area of the world.

Today Moroccan Rugs have lost almost all their value. A rug that was worth $ 800.00s ten years ago, will only sell for $ 75.00 if you can sell it at all. The quality of a rug that has 300 to 500 knots per inch and is wool or silk now has little resale value.

These rugs now are an incredible value if you are looking for a high quality, almost indestructible, and often pleasing color and design. I have a silk rug that is over 75 years old, has about 500 knots per inch, and is soft, colorful and it still looks almost new. If you spill something on it, it is so tightly woven that the liquid just sits on top of it. Our dogs and cats love it (dog and cat pee just rolls off it). Even used hard and somewhat abused it looks great. Today’s resale value on the rug is zip.

Because we have pets we have tile floors for easy cleanup and it is a way of controlling fleas. The Moroccan rugs are our throw rugs. We also have a rental property that we are going to have to pull the carpet out of. The carpet lasted less than 2 years and it is now trashed. Our plans are for the rental are to put tile down and then get a few High Quality Moroccan throw rugs for it. It will be cheaper to get a high quality rug then put a crap carpet back in.  The Moroccan rugs will stand up to even renters. 8-)

To tell you how durable these rugs are, one of rugs we have had been in the entry way of the house and after a hurricane I thought we really had trashed this rug. When we were cleaning up, I was pressure cleaning some stuff when I saw the rug. I figured the rug was trashed anyway so I pressure washed it. It came out beautiful. I am not recommending this method of cleaning rugs; I was just totally surprised it did not damage the rug. 

The prices of these fine rugs are now at throw-away prices. They will outlast almost any other rug you can buy. The value for what you get for the money you will spend is unreal.