Cold Tuesday

Day started out as usual, juice, drugs, cereal and coffee.  Read the Trib and try to work some puzzles.  But in the back of my head was a thought.....a pleasant one....one placed their yesterday by Ron.  It's one he's been trying to get to stick for three years but finally accomplished by buying us a second home.   Now we need duplicates.  No more hauling things back and forth.  Most of everything we need we already had in the 5th wheel but a few things weren't meant to travel.
The sewing machine and surger are two of those things.  I ended up buying an inexpensive surger.....oops, Santa brought be an inexpensive surger to use out there and I decided to leave my 35 year old Singer sewing machine there too.
The surger I got for my birthday last year rode to AZ and back in it's carrying case, never leaving it's case.  I decided it was just to big to deal with out there so it's back home in it's niche in the sewing center.
So we've been looking around for another sewing machine for here in IL.  Don't need anything real fancy.  The embroidery machines are fantastic.  They make beautiful designs but they cost a lot of money too.  I started out in Lockport, went to Cresthill and then Joliet ending up in Morris.  One of my first objectives was to buy one close to home so if it needed service it would be close.  Well the price knocked Lockport out before we left the store.  I know prices have gone up since we got mine but I'm not prepared to make that kind of commentment for a machine I won't ever use most of the features.
Cresthill went well, I actually had it down to a machine but I had already decided I wasn't buying that day.
After some email back and forth with my daughter in law, she uses sewing machines everyday, I learned of a place in Joliet on Essington Rd with a connection to Morris and decided to give it a shot.  I really liked the one the clerk showed (not that she informed me she had bought one for her grandma) and placed it on the top of my to buy list.
One last stop, Morris, The clerk asked questions on what I would use on it, types of fabric and such.  She sat me and Ron down and made sure I knew what a certain machine would do.  Ron even paid attention.  The price was more in my line so today we went back to Morris, had lunch at R Place and bought a sewing machine.  Before I even paid for it she took it out of the box and sat me down to run it myself so I knew what to do.
I realize this has gotten a little long but I wanted anyone who might be interested in a new machine that there are a variety of price ranges and abilities out there.
BTW, lunch at R Place was a bland experience except for  the soup.  Should have stuck with the breakfast.