Frames and preparing

I've been trying to find a nice frame to purchase online for the picture DH had made into a print for framing. It's large: 40x22. Frames are expensive, no way around it. Plus, this is going in our living room, above the tv and will be a focal point, so it needs to be nice. So, I've spent hours looking. It's hard because I'll see one I like, but then look closer at the details and it's only like 1.5" frame width. It needs to be something bigger, for the size of the picture. At least 2.5 inches, preferably about 3. Then I found one I liked, but it was 4.25 inches, which seems too wide to me. Ugh.

Finally, I find one I really like. Of course it's one of their most expensive ones, but ok, that's the frame. I go to put it in my cart and it says "$95.50 oversized carrier shipping fee". What?! Geez. Well, ok....I did use a 20% off coupon code, so that will cover quite a bit of the shipping. Then as I go further into the ordering process I realize that isn't the shipping fee. There's an additional $56 to ship it ground! C'mom!! I"m not spending over $150 to have it shipped!! That's just insane. 

Apparently, this is a "peak" surcharge UPS is adding to shippers who ship over a certain number of packages a week and extra per package for oversized. I also read an article about it that said this surcharge is supposed to end today 1/16. So, I will check back next week and see if this online framing company is still charging the fee. Otherwise, I guess I'll keep looking.

I stayed up past my bedtime to watch a movie with DH. Around 10pm one of the dogs threw up. At least on the hard floor and not carpet. After I went to bed he threw up 2 more time (though nothing really came out of him). Now this morning he doesn't want to eat his food. Poor guy. I hate when they don't eat. Hopefully whatever is wrong will pass soon. Most likely he ate deer poop again. Of course it's always my fault (rolling eyes).

We spent the afternoon yesterday looking through some of our emergency supplies and making sure they all get put in one area, so we have them easily accessible and know where everything is. We want to get a larger first aid kit. We have quite a few things. A fire starter kit and a water purification kit, a solar phone charger, etc. I think I will also order a 4 pack of MRE's. DH wants a small bag of these items to leave in the car. 

Like I told dh, living where we do, it's unlikely we'd need to "bug out". More we need to prepare to "bug in". I said we have the gas grill I can cook on, but what do we do for a propane supply? buy more of the tanks? His eyes lit up and he said "remember that like 4 foot tall propane tank from years ago, when I tried to use it to heat the garage? Well, I still have it and it's full of propane and I've been wondering all these years what I should do with it. Now I know. We can keep it to use for the grill, if necessary".

We always try to keep our car gas tank filled up, rarely do we even go below half. If we are in town, we top it off, no matter what. Plus, dh has a few 5 gallon jugs full, for the lawn mowers, so if we couldn't get gas at a station, at least we could fill up for one tankful after we ran out of our current tank.

Remember the friend I tried to text a week before Christmas and she never replied? Well, out of the blue I get a text from her last night. They got a new puppy. I guess their little dog passed away on Christmas day. I didn't realize she was 10 years old already. I thought she was a pup when they got her a few years ago, but apparently not. We texted back and forth a bit. Then I asked a follow up question to what we were talking about and no reply. So strange, LOL.