mom2thegirls

Oh DUH! Next time I'll wear my glasses and read the entire post. Sorry!

Was this just a Saturday only sale? All the prices are now double.

Shipping $6.99 first item, $1.99 each additional item.

By DAVE CARPENTER AP Business Writer CHICAGO (AP) -- OfficeMax Inc., struggling to keep up with its competition in the crowded office supplies business, said Tuesday it will close 110 retail superstores across the United States and make other restructuring moves in the first quarter. The company also said it will close its wood-polymer building materials plant in Elma, Wash., and five retail stores in Canada as part of a shake-up that will result in $187 million in pretax charges. The moves represent the latest attempt by the Itasca-based company to shake out of the doldrums after what its largest investor has blasted as a "dismal" financial and operating performance recently. It wasn't immediately clear if the restructuring was enough to satisfy that investor, K Capital Partners LLC, whose managing director, Brian Steck, demanded changes in November in a scathing letter to the board of directors. Steck's office in Boston did not immediately return a telephone message Tuesday. Analyst Anthony Chukumba of Chicago-based Morningstar Inc. said OfficeMax has been falling further behind both industry leader Staples Inc. and No. 2 Office Depot Inc. despite two years of changes, which most recently include a new store format featuring boutique-like shopping areas, soft lighting and a cafe. Chukumba said it's good strategy for OfficeMax to cut its losses and close the stores now rather than continue operating them with weak results. "Clearly, the U.S office supplies superstore market is becoming over-stored, so I actually view this as a good move," he said. OfficeMax did not disclose the locations of the stores targeted for closure by the end of March or how many jobs would be affected. The company will be notifying the stores involved over the next week, spokesman Bill Bonner said. In a regulatory filing, it indicated that all the stores to be closed are superstores, which comprise the vast majority of its approximately 950 U.S. stores. OfficeMax still intends to open 70 new stores this year and expects to have 887 domestic retail stores at the end of this year. It said $46 million of the restructuring charges will be applied to the fourth quarter of 2005 and the other $141 million will be incurred in the first quarter. The company is expected to move this year to a new headquarters in nearby Naperville. Besides reporting disappointing sales, it also has suffered from internal problems. Sam Duncan, chairman and chief executive officer since last year, called the closings "a difficult but necessary step toward improving our company's overall performance." He said it resulted from an assessment last year of each store's results and growth potential. The company said it plans to record pretax costs of about $141 million for the domestic store closings, roughly $41 million for exiting the building materials business, and about $5 million for restructuring its overseas operations. Shares in the company rose 13 cents to close at $26.66 Tuesday on the New York Stock Exchange. The stock dropped 19 percent in 2005. (Copyright 2006 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

I almost was. The SIMS complete collection we got on sale at BB wouldn't load on the computer. Now, I wasn't trying to load it, the teenager was. I had her turn off Macaffe, reenter the code, do a clean boot etc., everything I could think of to get this thing to load. I'm thinkin', "Great. Of all the ones at BB, we got a lemon." This went on for a few days. Lo and behold she tries one more time on Wednesday. Guess what she was doing wrong? She was entering the code, which was in all caps, in lower case letters. Once she used caps, badda-bing, it worked. Now she is very happy. Its nice when there's one less reason for a teenager to be grumpy.

My order came in today. I had them deliver to my work and in hindsight, I should have had it sent to my home address. I probably would have gotten them on Saturday (Christmas Eve). No biggy. The order was complete and now I don't have to read the same books over and over again.

Does L.E.I. make jeans in long (I mean really long ~36") inseams. My 16 yo is almost 6'2" and we can NEVER find jeans long enough for her.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!!!!! My niece turns 18 on the 27th.

Countdown to opening the first presents: 3 hours 1 minute. We are expected at dh's sister's house by noon to eat, and presents will fly at 1pm. Then its back to our house to rest our tummys. We will open our own family presents (and Santa's) on Christmas morning.

Just ordered two packs, one for my teenager and the other for her boyfriend. They're going to use them as note cards for their Honors English class this next semester.

I'm seeing it at the reduced price. Anything else a good deal here?

It's tradition to get my mom a 1 pound box of Russell Stover assorted candy. She'll eat two pieces a day until its gone. ( I didn't get her will power gene.)

After receiving our first bill of the heating season, I've turned it down from 68-70 to 65. Our bill tripled from October/November (~$120) to (~$360) for November/December. And it ain't even got cold yet. January/February are out coldest months. I've banned all cooking with the gas oven, and only essentials will be dried in our gas dryer.

Cool idea!

I was 3 or 4 and I kept asking my mom how Santa gets to all the children at midnight. She kept insisting he did and I kept asking her "how". Finally in frustration she blurted out, "time zones, santa does it by time zones." I paused and said, "nope, that wouldn't help either." I was more interested in Rudolph, anyway.

It took a while but my last item from fye.com is on its way!!! I am now officially done. Except for wrapping, of course.

Thanks for your replies. I snooped around in "My Account" and finally figured out how to check on "My refund status". It says its still pending. This is obviously going to take a while. Until then, they won't get any more money from me even though I'm totally out of ink. Thanks again!

There's a long story behind this, but I'll shorten it up. I ordered the wrong kind of ink, dell told me to refuse shipment and they would credit my visa credit card 3-5 days after they confirm the return. Dell confirmed the return a week later. That was two weeks ago and all I get are assurances from customer service workers (in India) that tell me Dell will credit me. Now they tell me its taking longer because of the holiday season. Has anybody had this kind of problem with Dell? Is Dell customer service by phone any better? I wanted to have a written record so I've been contacting them by email. Help?!?!?!?!

The Capitol One credit card commercials with the barbarians are hysterically funny.

Walgreens has holiday pencils cheap this week. My kids also like the plastic slinkys.

TRU instore. PS2 hardware, extra controller, Dora game. My older daughter is getting the hardware and extra controller and the little one is getting the Dora game.

I just came from a TRU in St. Louis. They had 12 mario bundles and the last two were bought right behind me.

Mine got here today!

I'm still able to buy clothes for my 5yo dd, but my 16yo dd is almost 6'2". She needs an inseam of at least 36 inches and she won't wear guy jeans. We got lucky at Value City (B&M) one day and found 2-37" inseam junior jeans and one 39" inseam junior jean. We were high-fiving ourselves after that purchase. Well, ok I high-fived her, she barely had to raise her hand.

Yep, Santa presents are wrapped in Santa paper. This way when dh is handing out presents he can say, "...and this is from Santa!" Everything else is wrapped in themed paper. One year I did different snowmen papers, another it was deer/reindeer, etc. My dh calls me a Martha wannabe. I think not.