a lightbulb goes off over my head!

i have put up some old entries from another blog. they are listed in the 2009 archives. it's not a lot but it's better for them to be there than somewhere out in the interwebs. at least here, they tell a part of the story.

so far, i have been good about not going to the old haunt of mine, the total snarky witch-fest website. but it's tempting.

i drove to the rotten town and did my grocery shopping. i think i will call this town "cracktown", and the other one "richville". so, i drove to cracktown and did my grocery shopping, and while i had a $100 bill set aside to do the monthly shopping (we fill in with about $15-20 dollars worth of food on friday nights at the tiny store near our house- by the time you figure in mileage, you can buy up to $30 and not spend anymore there than the discount place), i spent only $85. i used quite a few coupons, but i did  a lot of price matching and there were a few things they even paid me to take home. before coupons and in-store savings, my total was $143. so i saved about $58!

$58!

i think i will shake down $58 from the family budget somewhere and put the $58 away for my smartcar. i should do that as well as figure out how much i have saved by not getting a drink when i go out to eat.

wow, i think i have something to send the smartcar people. i have an ad campaign whereby they let me use a smartcar and i can only use my coupon savings to pay for gas and maintainenece. yeah, and if i don't have enough gas for my smartcar, i have to ride the hoopty 1962 schwinn hollywood bike you may have seen as my avatar.

oh wait, my severe arthritis may be a problem here.

unknown component

it's 3 in the morning and i am up looking for food.

what is wrong with me?

they paved paradise and put up a walgreen's

before i moved to the sticks, i lived in one of those towns that has torn down everything with character and replaced it with some type of chain franchise. then they suddenly realized, "hey, we need history!"  so they leave one block alone.

yeah, like a street out of mayberry in the middle of new york.

the idiot mayor even named the one old street "olde town" despite the fact that it was misspelled.

the chains continued to grow. soon the town had chili's, applebee's, starbucks.

and wal-green's.

lots and lots of wal-green's.

i think the rule is, you have to be able to see another walgreeen's from the one at which you are standing. 

on my way to shop at target, maybe a 5 mile route, i passed 6 walgreen's. SIX! if there was a good special, i would stop at every one to purchase whatever sale item i needed.

one year i bought 24 lbs. of hershey's bar s that i made into candy, and i think after i used all the coupons, rebate rewards, store specials and what have you, it was only $6. a quarter a pound for chocolate.

now the closest walgreen's is 16 miles away, in the same shopping center as taco bell and target. across the street is a starbucks. kroger is across the street on the other side of the parking lot.

if i go fifteen miles the other way from my house, i find a wal-mart that closes at midnight, a crappy dollar store, lots of cutesy gift shops that cater to the buses of antique-seeking red hatters, a lot of antiques stores full of broken crap, a wendy's, a sonic, the kfc/taco bell, a waffle house and a popeye's chicken.

i think a walgreen's is required.

just think, i could drive my smartcar right around the drive-thru!

cheap thrills

i made it to walgreen's last night- those rebate rewards were burning a hole in my pocket! i had $11 to spend, so i got 3 bags of dove promises- milk chocolate, dark chocolate and meltaway center chocolate. i also found hubby a treat on clearance- reese's creams!

when i checked out, i got a surprise- a $5 rr for spending $10 on hershey's chocolate. more money for chocolate!

the reese's creams were a hit with him. they are wrapped in a loose package. they are square, not round. he loves them. the only problem is that they were on last chance clearance- which we all know, means it will never be seen on the face of the earth again. i'm still looking for the a-1 garlic steak sauce from 2 years ago.

i found some toddler clothes on clearance at target for my niece's baby. a cute striped shirt was .75 and a sweet pink hooded sweatshirt was $1.25! they were back in the corner of the store where they had been selling bulk packages. i also got a BIG box of frosted flakes for cheap.

since i was at target, i went ahead and got what i could in the way of groceries. but they were out of gallons of regular red-top milk, i had to buy a half-gallon instead. they had 1/2 lb. blocks of cheese for $2, so i got some sharp cheddar and pepper jack cheese. i also bought triscuits and chiken-n-a-biskit crackers for my husband ( they are like club crackers rubber with chicken bouillon) at $2 a pop.

i picked up my rx refills while i was there and got a $10 gift card for the new one i dropped off to have filled. i like to save the gift cards and spend them on something i really don't need. i bought a cute little metal patio table that folds a few years ago and it's on my front porch right now. otherwise, i buy jewelry, stationery/pens or things to use for gifts.

i seem to have this obsession for paper. even though my son is grown, i still buy school supplies when they are on sale in september. i give them to my niece's children or the church. i have a shelf full of blank notebooks and journals, most bought on clearance, because they make great gifts. i guess i think i could write MY NOVEL if only i had the right notebook.

i also covet pens. but i don't have the big daddy of all pens- a montblanc! i could never bring myself to buy a $100 or more pen, but when i publish my first novel, i will buy it for myself.

but the first thing i am going to buy is a smartcar.

vd

i hope everyone had a great VD. i received a weird little teddy bear on a stick thing the man picked up when he ran out to get the sunday paper...and let me sleep in!

later he took to eat fajitas. YUM!

he didn't do too badly, not for floundering on his own.

he has this history of buying gifts that suck.

for instance, our first christmas eve, he discovered that i had hoped to get a present from him.

so he headed out to the only store open in town- ths was before the 24 hour walgreen's saving the collective asses of many men). i worked in the same shopping center. that's why i knew they were open.

i used to shop there at lunch all the time. i would eat my sandwich and get the non-perishable part of my shopping out of the way.

so he comes home, hides in the front bedroom for a little while and came out with an awkwardly wrapped present.

i opened it slowly- after all, i only had 1 gift- and there it was.

the worst gift ever. like the ones below. except black.

I knew they were the first thing you saw when you walked in the door to this store. right by the check-outs. i could just see him walking in, picking up the first thing without looking at it, then cruising through the quik-chek-out and running back out to the car. all before his glasses had time to fog up.

black ceramic $4.87 swan figurines.

and i was deathly afraid of birds (ornithphobic!)

so after that, i bought my own gifts and wrp them myself, then opn them on the appropriate holiday.

sometimes he surprises me with something. usually something hideous. something from a truck stop.

but the thing is, he thinks about me.

hopefully, i won't die alone.

back to valentine's day, i had offered him a $10 rebate reward coupon from walgreen's, in case he wanted to shop there. i don't usually get out that much and it was set to expire. we ended up going there after my grand-daughters 7th birthday party. he wanted to look for me a valentine.

he ended up buying a red race car model. yes, he collects them. yes, i am talking about my husband.

but that's okay. i have another $10 rr coupon and all the hearts-n-flowerz crap will be 1/2 off!

but i wish i had a smartcar, so i could just drive there now.

a special bonus

since i cheated you out of a picture at the top of the last entry, here is a bonus:

a shirtless 16 year old leif garrett with his birthday cake!

i was going to include the one where he is laying around with nicolette sheridan, but she was 15. i think it is kiddy porn. so you will have to google "leif garrett kiddie porn" yourself to find it!

if i had a smartcar, i would not use it to transport kiddie porn.

always be better

i did something today that i am very proud of doing.

i dropped off an internet message board i have been posting on since 2005. the members had gotten mean. i said something that clearly stated as hard to express, but i was blasted anyway.  i didn't go there for a day or two.

finally i was able to remove the bookmark from my favorites, because there is something so satisfying about it being gone.

poof! it disappeared.

i didn't think about it. i have been doing things around the house.

then i broke, about an hour ago. i soaked it all in. i wasted 20 minutes. then i decided it wasn't worth the time i was putting into it, something so wrong and so hateful. i mean, it went from being a fansite for a certain tv show and now people are on there spouting all their political/religious (two subjects you don't discuss!) bullhockey and just plain being mean and calling people nasty names and saying disgusting things. hey, i just want to talk about the show!

so i think i am over it.

and i think i will be a better person for it.

i can spend the time on better things, like laundry and dishes and things that are piled up at the moment. but it's too cold to do anything. i am so stiff. but i did manage to do the sheets and comforters to both beds.

i don't have to spend my time keeping up with grown women calling each other jr. high names. if i do, somebody better get me a leif garrett poster STAT!

uh, a little older please!

no, not the mugshot!

that one's cool! he might be semi-sober!

if i had a smartcar, i wouldn't let leif garrett borrow it. if i did, i might end up on "the smoking gun presents: world's dumbest fat chicks." danny bonaduce and tanya harding will make fun of me.

stupor bowl recap

everybody ate chili. i took a lot of ribbing over the grill cheese bar, but everybody loved it.

i won $31. I was the only one rooting for the saints. everyone else took indiana by a certain point spread. when i said i wanted to choose the saints, the guy collecting the dollars just laughed and said "you won't need the point spread!"

HA!

by the way, the heart candies as poker chips was fun. but i suck at poker, and i kept eating the candy i was supposed to bet with!

some friends of ours invited a couple who are displaced. they are living in a garage (heated and finished out, normally used as an office) right now, but once the husband gets a few checks under his belt, they are getting a small apartment. i offered them anything in the garage they could use, with limited exceptions. i have a lot of dishes and cookware i will never use. when my son met the woman he married, they moved in after 2 weeks. i ended up taking their discards as they combined households. i didn't want him to end up with nothing if she moved out. they have been married since october, so i guess i can get rid of the stuff.

imagine, i will have space again!

sometimes i feel like i have hoarding tendencies. watching "hoarders" on a&e scares me. i can totally relate to those poeple who feel such a connection to their belongings (i still refuse to call it clutter!) because there is one thing i used to own that disappeared during one of our moves.

i'm missing the cinderella cake topper from my 6th birthday cake. cheesy, right? but i remember that as the best party i ever had. i got a cinderella watch for that birthday.

i didn't have another birthday party until i turned 40. my husband took mwe out to dinner, then we went to see friends. they had an all-white cake and champagne for me!

but no cinderella cake topper. i guess i could always hunt it down on ebay.

but it won't be MY cake topper!

the house was warm enough on sunday, but i refuse to use the little bit of propane we have on myself when i am here alone. so i am walking around in MANY layers of clothing.

yesterday i fell in the mud. not just fell, but face planted. hair, glasses, face, entire body. i was taking the dog out while i got the mail and he jerked very hard and very suddenly. this caused me to get both shoes stuck in the mud. as i was bending down to free my clod-hopper, he jerked again and i just fell forward. i didn't hurt my self, but it was very hard to get up. i got back up the hill and threw the dog in the house.

then i stripped on the porch. yep, butt naked. no one can see the porch on my house from the street, so i wasn't flashing anybody. then when i was free of my suit of mud, i grabbed a laundry basket and threw everything in. after i got the wash going, i took a hot bath. but it seemed like everywhere the mud touched my skin, i couldn't get warm. i got bundled up again and went back to bed with the space heater going. yeah, and the dog too. he's a cheap little heater.

when my husband got home, i told him what happened and he was laughing until i told him i couldn't get warm. he stopped laughing and bundled me up on the couch and made me tea. then we snuggled together until i got warm, with the space heater now in the living room and, of course, the dog between us.

it's supposed to snow again. hubby is getting one of the tanks topped off today, so we won't freeze this week-end. hopefully.

has anyone seen the little debbie commercial with all the smartcars?

what has little debbie ever done to merit a dozen smartcars, except addd to the lard on my behind?

smartcar people, please smarten up. SEND ME ONE! please. i promise not to verbally berate little debbie snack cakes anymore as i pass them in the store.

but oh, starcrunch, you are still my first crush!

the girl with the most cake lives up to her name

 

i caked out this week-end. i made little cakes and decorated them them for valentine's day. i am going to take a picture of them to post here. i think they are cute! they are made out of my easy pound cake recipe. we make it a lot in the summer for strawberry shortcake.

i can't really bake or make candy very well, things that require great attention to the numbers and the timing. i am a math tard, so i end up cooking the mixture too long so that it scorched the vanilla, giving my so-called fudge a bitter oily weirdness and texture kind of like silly putt and bubble gum together. it tasted like poison.

once when my niece (who i will call roxie from here on out) was little, she got into a pan of fudge i made and smeared it all over herself. we ended up taking her and the walker she was in outside and hosing her down before bathing her. that fudge never got hard and tasted like tootsie rolls. so we cut up squares of waxed paper and made homemade bobo tootsie rolls. they would have made great gifts, but first off, baby hands have played in it. while family doesn't care because the baby slobbers all over everything anyway.

i tried several times but could never duplicate the recipe. i started writing down everything i included in my concotions when i made them, so if they were good i would make them again, and if it sucked, i could tear it into little shreds analyze the recipe and figure out what went wrong.

all i remember about the tootsie roll thing was some corn syrup and powdered cocoa. don't try this at home!

the cakes are for our superbowl party. i am making the obligatory chili ( real chili and the kind with beans) along with boiling a big pot of hot dogs. i used a lot of coupons at the store, so i will have to find the receipt and give you the 411. i saved a lot and i got great garnishes: shredded lettuce, green onions, shredded cheese, sour cream, tortillas, macaroni, olives, pickles, relish, onion slices, salsa, oyster crackers, tortilla chips, saltines and i think i shall have a grilled cheese bar.

because i'm fancy like that.

 i am putting the bread and cheese on a long table next to the foreman grill and a glass sugar box of softened butter and a can of pam cooking spray. the chili and the toppings are on the other end of the table.

i put the silverware packets and drink table in the door of the kitchen, so there is no back up when everybody is getting they grub on. and also they will stay out of my freakin' kitchen.

as much as it pains me to admit this, i am using foam ware- bowls, cups, plates. i got them free becuase the place hubby worked at was going to throw them away. so i guess  can feel not quite so spendthrift if it gets used, rather than chunked without ever having been used. i hope clean up is a breeze. heck, i'm almost green...

a few of the other wives offered to bring dessert also. i hope there will be brownies to be brought. i am trying to lose weight, so i will only get one bite if each dessert. i am making a big salad to go with my no-beans bowl of red and i am drinking water. i have not eaten a single bite of the cakes i made.

there will be no children, thank you, jesus! one of the couples oldest son offered to baby-sit each kid for $10.00, so he is making a nice tidy sum.

i will have to make it easy on everybody and put my dog jack in his crate outside if it's not too cold. he is a parson russell, which is different species than a jack russell and the AKC doesn't issue papers for it because it is under 12 inches high. if the children are gone, the dogs must be put up also. only fair!

i could care less about the game. the ladies are playing girlie pink poker in the dining room, using those valentine's conversation hearts instead of poker chips. i got a free set of pink poker somewhere off the internet, but the chips disappeared. candy will have to be a substitute.

if i had a smartcar, i could teach the dog to drive and he could go buy is beer. because he is 9 in dog years times 7 people years= 64 years old. we can't let that old maniac dog out on the road!

shortcuts

we came up with a temporary solution to the no propane problem.

my hubby can get propane cheap at his job, but there is no way to carry the big tank to work for filling. right now we have a small tank that holds like 7 gallons attached to the heating system. we are only going to use it if it snows. we have an extra tank to swap the current one out when it is enpty, so it can be refilled

we started saving for the next BIG purchase. we are saving $15 a week for the next 2 months, then dropping it down to $10 for the rest of the year. we are doing that because i need to make up for the month of january, before i lost my propane innocence.

it sucks to reply on space heaters for warmth! i am frightened of them. i use the one that has a timer on it. i always set it for 4 hrs. so that if i forget to tun it off, it will just shut off via the timer. i am careful that they are never used in an unoccupied room. when i turn it on to warm the bedroom at night, i leave the door open and a small bedside light on. i am so frugal/OCD about the lights, i am continually noticing the light is ON and must be OFF ( i leave the light on also when i am cooking something at night that is simmering,or if i'm doing a load of laundry that must be taken care of immediately, i.e.he needs his work sweatshirt for a tv promo tomorrow and he got it dirty yesterday. i also do this when i cook.) or my world will fall apart.

i also make sure i don't have anything close to the space heater that could get set afire. i also make sure that if i throw off a blanket in my sleep, it won't land on the heater.

i read on another website that they saw a smartcar and it looked like a deathtrap. poor smartcar, the internet is talking bad about you. let me make it all better...

getting back on track tuesday

i have been coasting through things. i need to get my crap together and clean up the house tomorrow. it's very dirty, not at all flylady. i made the little journal, but they send SO many emails and ithe lasy thing i need is more encouragement to stay on the computer.

the last few days have not been the best ever. we ran out of propane. now it's already february and we are down south, so logically, we shouldn't be getting anymore snow. we made the decision to just buy another heater for the time being, and we will begin saving for next winter's propane. if i can stick away $10 a week, i will have enough for an entire tank next year. i can't wait to make the little can to hold the money. i will have to get creative. i will post a picture when i get it done.

as you can see, i tend to flit and flutter from thing to thing and never accomplish anything.

i think i'm gotta go make a list of things to do and go to bed. then i will get up early in the morning and get THINGS done!

my list:

1. get a smartcar
2. finish laundry
3. finish dishes
4. prank call the people at smartcar and tell them to send me a free car...OR ELSE!

and if they know what's good for them, it will be white! or blue, red, silver, or black- the only colors they come in! not that i'm picky or anything.

mellow monday

i am not sure what mellow monday is going to be yet.

so i am going to tell you a story about my mother's household hints.

back in the '70s, heloise was queen. she had all her hints and tips, i mean, heloise could give you the hook-up. my mother read her way into heloise's inner circle of hell. she knew what to do in any situation. she was ready at a dime to give you a hint or tip that might change your life.

my mother wore cat's eye glassses and had a big red bubble-head bobble-head bouffant. looking back, she looked like a member of the b-52s. anyway, we were driving back from my grandmother's house in alabama, and my mother spotted someone ahead who needed the help on she or heloise could give. so she put the pedal to the metal and took off like a bat out of hell.

ahead was a yellow mustang, with a rag hanging out of the gas tank. i guess the rag was to keep the gas from all evaporating or else the car was a giant size molotov cocktail. my mom headed toward it, all the time muttering, "gotta that rag out" over and over again.

she got abreast of the guy. he goes to the trouble of leaning over to roll down the passenger window.so he can speak with her.

"STICK A POTATO IN IT!" she yelled at him. he leaned back in his seat, thren leaned forward to stick his middle finger up at us. then he hauled butt down the highway.

my mother's mutterings are going from "gotta get the rag out" to "i hope that sumbitch catches fire and burns in HELL!"

i sat in the backseat, playing with my wooly willy my grandmother got for me. i wasn't going to get into at the moment, so quiet was good.

about 10 minutes later, we passed him on the side of the road. there was a cop behind him, and he was writing the guy a ticket.

as my mother passed the guy, she gave him a one-finger salute of her own. i felt really back for the guy. i remember he had on a headband, like almost every white boy in in 1974.

later my mother "got her face done" (i.e. '70s make-over) and she looked like david bowie as ziggy stardust. her next look, which she stuck with, was a red afro, like carol from the bob newhart show. now she is doing the diane keaton thing but only wearing turquoise.

eventually "gotta get the rag out" came to be used commonly, meaning, "cut the crap." "stick a potato in it" became our family's version of "shove it."


i bet if i had a smartcar, i would never have to stick a potato in it.