Dennis was a shopper. He was also a brand guy. Televisions had to be Samsung. Telephones had to be Panasonic. Bicycles had to be Trek. Tools had to be Craftsman. Appliances had to be Kenmore. Computers…well, he just built those himself after he bought all the brand-specific parts. And he always knew how to find a deal.

The year we got married, we drove to New York to spend Thanksgiving with Dennis’s mom and sister. He loved Black Friday shopping. Me? I don’t like to get up early at all, and I would rather sleep on a bed of nails than be in a mall on Black Friday. Back then, they didn’t have online deals like they do now. So that Friday morning, Dennis was awake early as usual and leaned over the bed to put his face right in front of mine and just kept whispering, “Naaaancy. Naaaaaaaaancy.” When I finally opened my eyes, he said, “Now that you’re awake, do you want to go to the mall?” He truly loved to shop.

We weren’t wine buyers when we first got married so we didn’t always have wine on hand, and we had talked about the fact that we never had a nice bottle of wine in the house when we were having dinner. When we went to Disneyworld the year after we got married, we were in France at Epcot, and I reminded him of the wine discussion. We were in “France.” We should buy a nice bottle of French wine.

After asking some questions about our tastes in wine, the salesperson helped us pick out a semisweet red. When I asked what we should pair it with, she took me over to another section of the store where they had a book that listed all the different wines and what they would be best with. While Dennis waited for me, the cashier rang up the wine and gave him the total. He told her, “Oh, you’ll have to wait for my wife. I’m married. I’m not allowed to carry money.”

It was a joke he told often, but we did always discuss big purchases. Dennis’s tastes were on the more expensive side and mine were…well let’s just say they were not. His default department store was Macy’s. Mine was Kohl’s. Every year he would buy an Estee Lauder perfume and makeup gift set for me. If I had to buy my own, it would have been CoverGirl. Don’t get me wrong, I could go crazy in a bookstore, but when it came to everything else, if it worked, I didn’t care who made it or if it was inexpensive. And I rarely spent money on myself.

One year, pretty early in our marriage, Dennis decided to buy an everyday watch for me when the one I had finally died. My idea of “everyday” is a $20 watch from Kohl’s. He bought a beautiful silver and gold solar Timex that was about $100. I love it. I still have it, and it still works. But when I told him that it was a dress watch and I thought he wanted me to have an everyday watch, he said, “That IS an everyday watch.”

After our daughter was born, I started baking all of her birthday cakes from scratch. The first couple of years, I just had a hand mixer. Dennis was a follower of QVC and HSN (shocking, I know) and came across a deal on a KitchenAid stand mixer set. It came with a bunch of attachments and even a bowl to make home-made ice cream. He’s the one who found my Ninja 4-in-1 Cooking System (since discontinued) on one of the shopping channels after discussing it with a friend, and I became a Ninja convert.

One year, I asked him for a new set of pots and pans for Christmas. (I never knew what I wanted for Christmas, so it was almost always something for the house.) I had seen a decent set at Sam’s Club for about $120 that had all the basics. It was good enough for me. It was definitely not good enough for Dennis. He researched and checked reviews for weeks, looking for the best brand of pots and pans before he settled on Circulon. And he didn’t just buy the basics. I got pots and pans, but I also got a stovetop grill pan, a griddle, square pans, and he spent way more than $120. But five years later, I still have every piece, including the pot that I burned horribly and was able to save because Dennis was determined to buy a quality set.

A few weeks before Dennis passed away, I saw an ad for a tote bag that I really like. Knowing that he was going to be asking soon what I wanted for Christmas (yes, he had already started counting down the days), I sent him the link. He had actually already seen it and saved it so that he could order it. He never got the chance, but I told him that I would order it and put it under the tree from him. It should arrive within the next week or so.

Some of the greatest things I learned from my husband are an appreciation for quality, the ability to look for a good deal, and the belief that I deserve to spend money on myself once in a while. I’ll miss discussing the next big purchase with him, but I know that I’ll look for something better than I would have before I met him. And I’ll choose to buy something with him in mind.

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Book Review

⭐⭐⭐
3 Stars for Love Sold Separately by Ellen Meister

287 pages
Publisher: Harlequin/MIRA
Publication Date: August 25, 2020
I received an advance copy of this title from NetGalley and Harlequin/MIRA.

Publisher’s Description

Bright lights, big trouble…

Dana Barry has nothing against rules. She just knows they’re meant to be bent. So it’s no wonder the single, twentysomething actress loses her day job. Now her life is a mess…that is, until she hears the Shopping Channel is auditioning. Relying on her knack for knowing what makes people tick, she lands a gig on air. But before she can say office politics, Dana is caught in the biggest drama of her life. The star host—a diva who terrorized the entire staff—is found dead. Dana knows the prime suspect is innocent. The heat is on, and Dana thinks she’s ready for it…until she tangles with the tall, dark and smoldering detective in charge. It’s more fuel than she needs right now as she’s trying to launch her career. But Dana’s never been afraid to take chances…even when a single spark could ignite everything.

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Main Characters:

• Dana Barry – a 20-something out-of-work actress who lands an audition with the Shopping Channel as an on-air hostess
• Megan Silvestri – Dana’s best friend and business manager/agent
• Kitty Todd – the current star of the Shopping Channel, a diva who no one really likes, ends up dead and starts the whole murder mystery
• Lorenzo DeSantis – the sound person for the Shopping Channel and the prime suspect for Kitty’s murder
• Sherry Zidel – the tough-as-nails decision-maker for on-air hires of the Shopping Channel
• Adam Weintraub – the producer of Dana’s daily segment, a dedicated family man
• Charles Honeycutt – president of the Shopping Channel
• Ollie Sikanen – Kitty’s assistant who becomes Dana’s assistant after Kitty’s death, clingy and sensitive
• Ari Marks – the detective on the murder case

This was my first title by Ellen Meister, and I am undecided whether I will try another.

Dana is a struggling actress, working at Hot Topic and living off of her residuals from a previous gig doing commercials. When she loses her job for being rude to a customer, she goes home and gets drunk and stoned. At this point, I don’t like her. She’s rude, judgmental, and immature. Her best friend/business manager Megan comes over and tells her she has an audition with the Shopping Channel in less than an hour and she needs to get un-drunk and un-stoned.

She goes into the bathroom to shower and change and decides to take some Dexedrine, which her ex took for ADHD and left in her medicine cabinet. At this point, I like her even less because now she’s added irresponsible and lacking in any kind of common sense. When she actually gets the job…well, let’s just say I don’t like when people get generously rewarded for bad behavior.

The fact that Dana earns the job as an on-air hostess sets the stage for her to get caught up in a murder mystery, but I don’t think this should be categorized as both a mystery and romance. I know that “love” is in the title, but Dana doesn’t appear to be looking for love. After demonstrating attraction to one man (on her very first day of work while she gets high with him), she meets the detective investigating the murder and immediately looks for a ring to see whether he’s married because she finds him attractive but doesn’t get involved with divorced men. And there isn’t enough romance to keep the story going. It’s really about solving the murder.

The story is set up so that Dana discovers a number of clues about the murderer because of her acute attention to detail (think television’s Psych or The Mentalist). Fans of Murder She Wrote will probably like the format, but I found Dana so unlikable that I didn’t care about her enough to enjoy the story. I wasn’t invested in her advancing in her job, solving the murder, or getting the guy.

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