Happy 2006

Happy New Year. Ok, I know I still have a little of 2005 left. I am glad that 2005 is almost over. Will always remember 2005 as the year that my Dad died.

I am looking to make some big improvements in 2006. In case you haven't figured it out, I am a big packrat. I really have to declutter and have some mega yardsales. I also have to get my house is better order. I used to be very organized, I would match all my receipts to my credit card statements every month - then save the entire bundle forever. But sometime in the past few years, I've been slacking off, so I still have all the receipts and all the statements, just that now they are not matched up nicey nice. I need to start shredding. There's no way I need to look at my Discover card statement from October 1992 and reminisce about what I bought back then. Or look at my cable bill from August 1990 and see what I was paying. But right now, I could. I hold on to too much crap!

On Christmas Eve 2005, I told my brother and my SIL that by Christmas Eve 2006, they are going to see a much thinner Chris.

One good thing that happened in 2005 was the big improvement in the message board program I use for my website. We started off with the usual crappy board I had for years at bravenet and in May 2005 I switched to a different board, which turned out to be totally unreliable. We suffered with that board for 4 months, until September when I found the super awesome board system from Spreebb.com . You can see my actual message board by clicking on the link to the left.

Did a little bit of bargain shopping at Target today, Christmas stuff is 75% off. Also got a bargain the other day at home. I went out to get the newspaper and saw found a dollar bill in my yard.

Happy 2006 everyone!
Chris

Happy After Christmas Bargain Shopping

We spent Christmas in upstate NY - including our dog. I was hoping my dog's other family would watch him but it didn't work out. So we took him to my mom's. Didn't really want to take him to a kennel - since boarding prices are high plus, I would have had to take him to the vets for a kennel cough shot beforehand (another expense). In the past I've also hired a local Dog Nanny to come to the house but the last time I did that my dog ran away (to his other family) and I still had to pay the dog nanny every day regardless. Also in the past I've used a reliable teenager too, but they moved. Taking the dog to NY worked out pretty good I think. My mom lives on a busy road so we couldn't let him off the leash (plus he doesn't listen anyways) it gave us a good reason to get out of the house a few times a day for some fresh air and exercise. Which we need - the above pic is of the yummy cookies made by my cousin Kathy.

Hey, I'm gonna add to this post, but gotta run now and watch Criminal Minds. Will finish this post on Thursday.

--ok, it's Thursday now and I am back to finish my post.

Whenever I visit my hometown I always visit two thrifts - a Salvation Army and a community based one called Captain's Treasures. At SA I bought myself a $1.99 Saratoga Springs t-shirt and a $1.99 vintage Adidas shirt for ebay. Also bought for .99 a vintage melted plastic pellet Santa decoration. At Captains I bought a bunch of new in package Covergirl makeup for myself that I love, only $1 a package. A $1.75 black Aigner purse (for myself), two books for .25. Also a vintage Napco ceramic Christmas sleigh in perfect condition (no chips, cracks etc). It was only marked $1, and the cashier didn't see it when she was ringing up my other items and when I asked her if she rang it up, she said no and said that I could just have it.

My son got to go to Chuck E. Cheese twice (didn't spend a thing there). When a child walked in, they got a mystery sticker that revealed X number of free tokens. The first day he got 10 and the second time 15 free tokens. Plus I had a ton of free tokens from all the specially marked .99 Koolaid Koolburst packages I had been buying.

Also stocked up on stuff at Aldi's and Dollar Tree. I love Aldi's - I wish I had one close to me. At the Dollar Tree, I mainly bought $1 packages of Panasonic C & D size batteries. All those Kacie the Kinderbots I've been buying lately need Size D batteries and they are expensive at regular stores. We use a lot of rechargeable batteries for AA and AAA. I tried going to a Pepperidge Farm outlet store that I went to over the summer to stock up on Flavored Blasted Goldfish crackers for my son, but it wasn't there anymore - they must have moved their location.

After Christmas I went to a few Targets and also Walmart and CVS. Went on Monday with my mom to her Target and she bought a lighted star window decoration. They only had one and she wanted two. But she could live with just one. Spent most of the day Tuesday driving in the car so no shopping on Tues.. Anyhow I told Mom I would check "my" Target and on Wednesday I bought the last one they had, so now she'll have two.

Bought several bags of Dove chocolate on clearance $1.49 each - will give to my husband for Valentine's Day since Dove chocolate is his favorite. (The package does say it's good until May 2006). At CVS, I bought two half priced Celine Dion perfume gift sets. One to give to my mom for her birthday and one either to keep for myself or sell on eBay. Also bought a sale Mary Kate and Ashley perfume set to give to a niece.

Also on Wednesday I went to VV. I bought 4 pieces of clothing for .30 each and some games. Paid $1.50 for The Game of Cub Scouting (for ebay) and some games for my son.

And lastly I went to BJ's Warehouse. My free membership is expiring at the end of the month and I don't plan on paying for a membership. I stocked up on birthday cards to last me thru most of 2006 for people I send BD cards to (greeting cards are half-off the price printed on the cards). The one I like the best (and bought a few of) was a card that said: I looked all over for a nice gift for you but I all I found was crap - then when you open it it says: maybe I should have left the house. LOLOL!! how true!

Nothing much going on. Just busy thinking up a ton of resolutions for 2006!

Happy Ho-Ho-Holidays

I barely got my Christmas cards (bought last year half off of course) mailed out before Christmas. My friend from high school has to show me up (again of course ! LOL) by sending out her custom handmade Christmas cards that have at least 4 layers of acid-free paper and a string "embellishment" for the reindeer reins. All this done of course while tending to her 5 month old twins. She is totally nuts! But she thinks I'm nuts for buying other people's junk.

I'll be busy for a little while, so I may not get a chance to post again before Christmas. Today was a good day at Smile - everything half off. I bought several Hallmark ornaments for .25 each and a few things that I intend to give this year (a new Old Navy stationery set for .50 for a niece, and also a hardcover cookbook (.50)by redneck Jeff Foxworthy to give to my mom.

Til next time,
Chris

My Papa John's pizza bargain yesterday

Didn't get a chance to post yesterday about my Papa John's pizza bargain. I mentioned this in a previous blog posting about how our local Papa John's gives free toppings on Mondays depending on how the Redskins did the following day. Well this past Sunday's game they made 5 touchdowns so that means we can get 5 free toppings the next day. Wait, there's more...if they win, the amount of free toppings is doubled. So yesterday was a 10 free topping day! It's hard for me to come up with 10 toppings that I like, so on a pizza for me I did double pepperoni, double cheese, double onion and bacon. And I still had "free" toppings leftover! On the pizza intended for my husband, he got 3 different kinds of peppers plus every kind of meat.

And remember me talking about bargain in buying the DVD, March of the Penguins? Well yesterday I saw there is a $3 rebate on Minute Maid orange juice. So I will send the rebate in - will do it in my niece's name so she'll get the $3, afterall, I did have to cut off the Proof of Purchase.

If you shop on Amazon.com

Here is another shameless plug, if you do any shopping at Amazon.com, I would appreciate it if you would get to Amazon.com by going thru my link. Thanks!

Went to Smile today and it was a half priced day. Every once in a while they'll do a half priced day and it's great. I bought about $15 worth of stuff. Most expensive thing was a $4 Sony Dream Machine clock radio. For myself I bought a $2 black Liz Claiborne purse. And of course, a bunch of other junk.

Been doing some Christmas shopping lately in real stores where they sell new stuff. Today I bought a March of the Penguins DVD as a gift and at one Walmart it was $19.99 and at another one it was $14.98. How crazy is that!?

I've been using some of those $10 JC Penney's coupons that I mentioned in a different post to score some bargains. Here's my JC Penney's buy of the week: spent .53 to get my husband 7 new pairs of Adidas socks. The socks were on sale for $10.50 so after the coupon I paid .50 plus .03 tax. And the package has a bonus black pair of socks, so it was 6 white pairs plus a black pair, for a total of 7 pairs of socks.




Today at the grocery store I saw something that makes me wish my cellphone had a camera. It was this HOT guy and guess what make him even HOTTER? He had a white envelope and he was sorting thru his coupons! I NEVER see any guys carrying coupons in a grocery store, let alone a cute one!

I haven't checked the newspaper ads, but I'm guessing there are no yardsales tomorrow. But that's ok, since I know there are going to be tons of people at the malls and other stores buying high priced stuff to give to people who won't want it and it will end up at a yardsale this spring for cheap! (Am I bad or what??) But it is the truth since I've often bought stuff at a yardsale that still had remnants of Christmas wrapping paper on it.

Till next time, happy saling,
chris

Well on Friday I didn't go to Smile (I couldn't - haha) We had a little bit of snow/ice so they closed schools. So when schools are closed for bad weather, so is Smile.

My husband really outdid himself this year as far as my Las Vegas souvenir. Man, this gift makes me WISH I got another shirt advertising a strip club. I got a paper towel. You read that right. He said while at the bathroom at the Venetian, the paper towels in the men's room were so nice that he had to bring me one. I'm hoping at least it's one that he picked up AFTER he washed his hands, but I can't guarantee it.

Hey, if you are on JC Penney's mailing list, check your mail for their $10 coupon they are mailing out. I got one yesterday. It's good for anything over $10. Earlier this year, I got it and got some great deals on socks. I think I even blogged about it.

Got the software from Estore.com. A word of advice, don't buy the Candyland computer game from them. It sucks. It did not hold my 5 year olds attention at all.

Went to Smile yesterday and today. Also went to Vintage Value. I need to start paying more attention to the books at VV. They are only .10 each. I bought a stack of about a dozen Dr. Suess books in very nice condition ($1.20). At Smile I found yet another Kacie the Kinderbot robot ($2) so I bought it. I figure it will be good for resale eventually. And I got lots of nice t-shirts (.50) for my son, including a I heart NY one, which I heart since I am originally from upstate NY.

Today I bought two pillows that match our sofa, a nice magnetic "chores chart" thing ($1.50)for kids made by Lights, Camera, Action. A bright orange vintage looking metal watering can ($1 - it's brand new, but has a vintage design, I figure I can spray paint it).

I just remembered another neat thing I got at Smile yesterday: a pink Serta sheep stuffed animal. A few years ago I bought a few Serta sheeps at a yardsale and then found out there are people who love those things. They are the counting sheep that appear in the Serta commercials. At the yardsale, I bought #13, which is a desirable number for the collectors. I think I paid .50 for them and they sold for about $25-30. The one I got yesterday is the #3 pink breast cancer awareness Serta sheep. I checked ebay, and I think I will have to hold onto this one until the #3 sheep gets harder to find. Smile sells bags of toys for $1, so the sheep was in a $1 bag along with some other toys.

I got a bargain buying my brother's Christmas gift. There is a seller on ebay (ebay seller name: Elenahume) which has cheap magazine subscriptions. Right now she is offering a 3 year subscription to the Sporting News (a weekly sports magazine) for only $5.99. That is super cheap compared to what it normally sells for - at the Sportingnews.com website, they sell a one year subscription for $19.97 and I got my brother a THREE year subscription. He used to get it all the time, so I know he will love it (I checked with his wife and he doesn't have a current subscription to it).

And that's not where the bargain ends...There is a 10% off eBay/Paypal coupon code that is circulating around the net, so I entered the coupon code at the checkout and I ended paying just $5.39! I'm not going to post the code here since it's going to expire in a few days, but if you really want it, it's posted on my message board in the Reselling Forum.

My husband got back from guy's trip to Las Vegas last night. I wonder if he brought me back any souvenirs - he has quite the track record for souvenir gifts. One year after a golfing trip he gave me a plastic cup emblazoned with "The Witch" on it, (apparently The Witch was the name of the golf course or the drinking establishment at the golf course). Another year on a golf trip he brought me back a t-shirt from the Crazy Horse Gentleman's Club in Myrtle Beach. Just what I wanted.

I gave up going to Nashville last weekend (a relative was getting married) so my husband could take his annual Las Vegas jaunt. But don't worry about me, I think I need to plan a cruise trip with the girls, or else a world's longest yardsale trip! Also would love to go to the unclaimed baggage center in Alabama.

Anyhow, I wanted to mention, my sister had a celebrity sighting while at the Nashville airport - she saw and talked to Paula Deen from Food TV. My quick thinking sister ran into an airport newstand and bought a Paula Deen magazine and got Paula to autograph it for a surprise Christmas gift to my mom. So hey, if you are reading this and know my mom, don't say anything! My sis said that Paula was very nice in person and smaller and thinner than she appears on tv.

My bargains for the week

My bargain of the week was getting a huge dying pine tree cut down (and most of it hauled away) for free. The guys who do the tree trimming for the utility company are trimming the trees in our neighborhood and when they got to my house they asked if we wanted the big dying pine tree to be cut down for free. Of course! The above is a view of it from the front yard and from the back. It's totally cut down and they mulched up the branches and just left us some big pieces to deal with. We have a large back yard so we have plenty of room to let the big pieces decay on their own. I don't think pine is a good wood for burning. Also I asked the tree guys what they do with the mulch and they said they just dump it wherever they find a good spot, so I told them I could use some and so they dumped a few large truckfulls on the edge of our property.

I know cutting down a large tree like that costs a lot of money so I'm glad the utility tree guys did for free. I wanted to get rid of that tree for a long time.



My other good bargain of the week was finding a Longaberger basket for .50 at a thrift store. The handle was broken but I just sawed it off. In Longaberger baskets, I prefer no handles or swinging handles rather than the "fixed position" handles. The "fixed" handles make the baskets look too Easter Baskety for me. The basket I just bought had a fixed position handle so actually I'm glad the handle was broken so I don't feel bad about sawing it off. I also found a vintage felt Christmas elf ($1) for my collection. I will have to take a new pic of my elf collection (I think there's a pic of my collection in my blog archives).

At Vintage Value, I bought myself two nice Liz Claiborne tops for myself (.30 each) and a pair of Michael Jordan sneakers (.50) for my son. And at Smile I bought my son a nice winter jacket for $2 (made by Boardgear). His coat that he has been wearing is a size 6/7 and it's a little big on him. This "new" coat is a size 6 so this one fits him better.

I finally planted my free Stargazer lilly bulbs that I mentioned back in the blog in September or October. I planted 4 in the front of the house and 2 in the back. About a day after I planted them, I saw that some animal (a squirrel maybe?) dug it up but they haven't gotten the others. Geez, you would think that they'd be happy with the sunflower seeds and cracked corn I give them.

I bought my son a bunch of kid's software this week. I buy it from www.smart-estore.com I've bought from them before and it's good software, but you don't get jewel cases or any instructions/paperwork with it, you just get the disk. Anyhow, early on I've realized that you have to be "smart" when buying from smart-estore. If you go their regular website (www.smart-estore.com), you see software for $5.95. But I've found other links within their website that offer the SAME software for $3.95 or even $2.97. To see what I mean, check these out: $3.95 Smart E-store and $2.97 Smart E-store If you do order any, at the check-out you can use coupon code GET10 to get 10% off.

Sunday

Well I never finished my post from Thanksgiving day. There was more that I wanted to say but I never got back to the blog that day.

I forgot to mention my buy at my regular VV store on Monday. In their toy bin I saw my son's current favorite toy: Kacie the Kinderbot robot. I bought one (new in box for $3) at a yardsale a few years ago, and so now we have a "backup" and it was only $1. When they were at Target, they were $39.99

Well in my previous post, I said I wasn't one of those crazy early bird Black Friday shoppers. Well I guess I lied. I was at a Staples at 5:30am on Black Friday waiting in line to buy a 19" flat screen monitor for $199 for my husband for Christmas. But at least I am not one of those tent people camping out at Walmart. I steered way clear of Walmart that day. So while some of you may think I am super cheap because of all my yardsale buys, I don't think I am since I *do* spend money at regular stores (but I just like to get a great bargain). Also bought my husband a 512 MB MP3 player (off ebay) as a gift recently.

We live about an hour away from a regular indoor shopping mall so I didn't go to a mall on Black Friday but didn't manage to hit these: Staples, Giant (grocery store), Target, Bath & Body Works (twice), Belk Dept. Store, JC Penneys (for free mini snowglobe), CVS, VV (yes, they were open and they even had a sale - fill a huge bag of clothes for $3), BJ's Warehouse, and Ace Hardware (for their One Day sale).

I had two coupons for Bath & Body Works: free item (up to $12.50) with any purchase and save $10 off $35 purchase. Well on Black Friday they had a sale on their fancy room deodorizers for $5 (normally $12.50) - but they don't call them "room deodorizers", they call them "Wallflowers". So I used both coupons and I bought a bunch of the room deodorizers as gifts plus a candle (to give to my sister in law). As I checked out, they gave me another $10 off $35 purchase coupon. So then after I left, I started thinking about what am I going to do for gifts for my son's 5 teachers (1 teacher, 2 assistants, 1 Speech Therapist and 1 Occupational Therapist. So I thought what the heck, I'll give them "Wallflowers" and I went back and bought more and used the coupon they had just given me a little earlier.

Today I got "my" Christmas gift from my husband - a Sony S90 Digital camera. It was no surprise since I'm the one who saw it on sale at Target ($199) and he told me to buy it. We had seen that model before at a different store and liked it. My current digital camera is held together by duct tape (I dropped it and the battery compartment won't stay closed on its own).

Oh here's something I forgot to mention the other day, I did a phone interview with a writer from Better Homes & Gardens magazine. They are doing an article about yardsale safety in their April '06 issue and I should get a mention of yardsalequeen.com in it. Knock on wood.

Happy Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving. It started off pretty rough for me - wasn't feeling well last night or this morning. But I snapped out of it and I'm feeling better and cooking a turkey breast.

I plan on doing a little bit of Black Friday shopping tomorrow - but I don't plan on going crazy and set my alarm for 4am or anything.

Yesterday was the only day this week that Smile was going to be open but I didn't go (actually I couldn't go and it drove me nuts. My 5 year old son had off from school and I won't take him to Smile anymore since he is not a good shopper). I did go to both Vintage Value stores on Monday though. They have two stores and I normally don't go to one since it's a lot smaller and further away, but I went on Monday and found several nice tops for me (and they also have .30 days so my new-to-me clothing was .30 each, Liz Claiborne, St. Johns Bay etc).

My buys this past week

Went to my thrifts this week. My favorite buy was this Espirit purse for .50 at Vintage Value - looks brand new, no marks or anything inside. Since I went to VV on a .30 day I also bought some clothing including a new looking Johnny Knoxville Jackass shirt (probably for me) and a Ralph Lauren short sleeve buton down shirt for my husband (each were .30). At Smile I bought my son a Fisher Price tape recorder with microphone for $1, a reversible talking Veggietale Larryboy plush (for ebay) and bunch of other little stuff.

I had to stop at Walmart for something the other day and I wish I had had my camera in my car. I parked my car next to a grassy patch and when I got back to my car, I see someone had parked their Amish horse and buggy next to it. Acck...with all the car traffic at the Walmart, I feel sorry for the horse who must be scared.

Bought two turkey breasts (.99 lb) at the grocery store for Thanksgiving. We'll have one next week and save the other one for later.

My buys

My favorite buy this week at Smile was this great vintage picnic basket for $3. The manufacturer's label depicts a Native American Indian and the politically incorrect name Red-Man Quality Baskets Peru, Indiana. I just love it because of the design and the fact that it will be great for storage. With all the stuff I buy, I gotta have my storage! As I was walking around the store with it, one lady came up to me and said "wow, what a great basket". I love it when that happens, it just reaffirms that I think I have a good eye for junk.

I also bought some other stuff, a Boy Scout uniform shirt (for ebay) that was .50, a very cute battery operated dog (called Artlist Collection dog) that barks and wags his tag furiously ($1). Plus other stuff.

Today was another beautiful fall day and there were two large outdoor yardsales, one at a school and one at a church. Bought some Christmas sock monkeys at $1 each, an old green handled egg beater $1, a Smokey the Bear ashtray $1 and two sealed boxed sets of the 80's tv show Five Mile Creek at $3 each (pictured above). I had never heard of it but knew that the boxed DVD sets of any program usually sell for $25 and higher. I put one of them up on ebay already.

My husband took off half a day and we went out to lunch to a Lonestar. Then stopped at Target to look around. Just bought one thing. They had electric 6-sheet paper shredders on clearance for $2.48, normally $9.99. It fits over a trash can. Or in my case, I'll shred whatever needs shredding into our paper recycling bag. (I'm a big recycler). I don't think I'll need to do a lot of shredding, but as it is now, I tear up credit card applications etc.

It was a beautiful Fall day here in Maryland. Found lots of yardsales but I had my son with me so I just went to a few and was home by 10:30am. The best buy was a set of 4 like new patio cushions for $5. If you've ever priced patio chair cushions, you know they aren't cheap. Of course I bought a bunch of other stuff, but nothing to write home about.

Forgot to mention that a year ago yesterday was when I got filmed for movie "Zen in the Art of Yardsailing" by
ThUnderground Films The last I heard they were still in the editing phase, I'll probably get edited right out of it - LOL! Here's a photo of me with the director and the sound guy. My house is a mess as usual, but they did rearrange somewhat for the filming.

My buys

First let me say that the Message Boards are back to normal (they were only out of commision for a few hours the other day). If you haven't checked out the boards, please do, the link is there on the left.



On Wednesday, I was at a CVS store and they had all their Halloween Candy priced at .50 a bag. The above pic is a small sampling of what I bought (I ended up buying 16 bags, but gave a lot to my dog's other family. Long story, my dog lives part-time with another family). The previous day at Walmart, I got some other candy. I bought bags of Hershey Kisses and some other stuff. I think I'm going to make those cookies with the Hershey kisses in them. But if I had known I was going to get so much candy at .50 a bag at CVS, I would not have bought the candy at Walmart.

On Wednesday at Smile, I bought several bottles of nice perfumes at $1 each. Sunflowers (Elizabeth Arden), Velocity (Mary Kay) and Calyx by Prescriptives. I had never heard of the Calyx but I knew Prescriptives is an expensive brand name.



On Thursday at Smile, I bought myself a Jack Daniels cowboy hat. It was only .50 and it looks brand new, and it's my size. Now I just need to find a rodeo to wear it to. A while ago, a regional shopping mall had a phrase in their ads "Buy the dress, the party will come". So I guess I could say something similar, Buy the cowboy hat, the rodeo will come.

The Mary Moo Moo that I bought last weekend for .10 bit the dust. I accidently knocked it over and it fell about a foot and a hefty chuck broke off. It surprised me how easily it broke.

It's going to be a nice day tomorrow, so there should be lots of yardsales. I'll have my son with me, so I may not get to a whole lot.

Message Board problem

My message board is having technical difficulty...hopefully it will be fixed soon. I'm not going to start up a back-up board until I hear news about how long the downtime will be.

Buys last few days

Went to a few yardsales yesterday (Friday yardsales are very rare here). And bought this fish windsock decoration. It was brand new and never assembled - the original price was $26.99, I paid $4. And bought another Little Tikes wagon ($10) for my son, it's nicer than my other Little Tikes wagon. At Smile I bought two old (1940's) University of Maryland college yearbooks. $2 each. I never see yearbooks for sale, so I felt compelled to buy them.

Today went to a few yardsales and an estate sale. I bought a nice lamp for .10 - yes, .10! It doesn't have a lampshade though (but I'm sure I can find one cheap at a thrift store). Also bought a Mary Moo Moo figurine for .10 and a cow bobblehead for .10. The bobblehead is a particular brand that my mom buys at gift stores, so that was a good find. And at the estate sale I bought a bunch of full bottles of various cleaners for $1.50 - cans of Scotchgard, Shout, Armstrong floor cleaner, Spot Shot, Rug Doctor Pet Stain remover, full can of Lysol etc - all for $1.50.

In the afteroon, I took my son to a trick-or-treating event in a local park Ann Marie Garden . They get about 50 vendors to set up booths along the trail and give out candy. The admission cost is $1 per child or a can of nonperishable food. The park is affiliated with the Smithsonian Institute, so they do have a bunch of sculptures on loan. Admission is free, except like today, when I had to bring a can of food.

Missed out on a pizza bargain...

I really don't pay attention to football much at all. But in our house we root for the Vikings, not the local teams (the Redskins or Ravens) - but shush don't tell anyone, I don't want my house TP'ed on Halloween! Well anyways, at our local Papa John's pizza, every week during football season they have a promotion. For every touchdown the Redskins get during a game, the next day you can get a free topping on a pizza. And if they win, the toppings are doubled. Well anyways, because of all the touchdowns last game, on Monday I could have gotten a 14 topping pizza for the plain cheese pizza price. Can you imagine 14 toppings on a pizza??? I was reading about it, and Papa Johns was telling people that getting all 14 toppings would result in an inadequately cooked pizza. I will have to pay attention to the Redskin scores from now on.

And speaking of the Redskins, I met a Hogette today and got a free autographed poster and football card - LOL! For some reason, the Hogette that lives in our little town was at Smile (in full Hogette regalia), making an appearance and giving aways posters. Had him personalize the poster to The Yard Sale Queen and the card to my son.





Heck, even when I actually met a pro football player in person I never thought to get an autograph. Many years ago when I was flying first class (I had a free upgrade coupon), I sat next to Dave Meggett when he was with the New York Giants. Very nice - he even ordered a rum and coke and gave me the rum bottle to stick in my purse for later. I love my rum and cokes! Actually what was pretty funny was that my husband was actually sitting back in coach at the time (he didn't have an upgrade coupon) and here I was chatting away with a pro football player.

Anyhow, didn't buy much today. Bought a .25 spoonrest to replace the one my husband broke and a $1 baby sling for ebay.

Spent $17.50 yesterday

Went to Smile yesterday and spent more than usual. Above is a few things I bought, $1 McCoy planter and two pairs of Easy Spirit slingback shoes ($2 a pair). No, they aren't mismatched, I bought a black pair and a tan pair, but only took a picture of one of each. Also bought a navy blue blazer/jacket for my son. It was more than I normally spend ($5) but it was in perfect condition and from Nordstrom. It's too big for him now, but will fit in a few years. I always buy things like this for him and put away for the future. I'm sure he'll need to dress up occasionally when he's older and I think its good to have some items like this on hand, so I don't have to run out and pay full price. Also bought a fancy Christmas dress for a little girl ($3) for ebay. I know this doesn't add up to $17.50, but I can't remember what else I bought.

No plans on doing any shopping today.

Another new lamp

Went to Smile and Vintage Value today. At Smile I bought 10 Wade figurines at .25 each. I collect them, since they are small and I can find them pretty cheap. Since I am cutting down on my "collections", I can still collect Wades, since they are so small and don't take up much room. They are a small giveaway that comes in Red Rose Tea (I don't even drink tea.). You can see what they look like at Red Rose Tea

At Vintage Value, it was a .30 clothing day. I bought 4 pieces including a like new Girl Scout Leader sweatshirt (for ebay) and an orange t-shirt for my son. I got a notice saying that his school is having a "Harvest Day" on October 31. Costumes are not allowed that day. No parade around the parking lot. Sheesh - his old school allowed Halloween parties and costume parade. Well anyways, his new school wants children to wear orange and black on Oct. 31. Oh boy, does that sound like fun.

Well anyways, at Vintage Value I bought this awesome floor lamp for $4! The camera flash washed out the beige color of the ribbed lampshade. Has a cracked glass (?) decorative thing at the center. As I waited in line to pay for it, several people commented on what a nice looking lamp it is. Here is a photo of my new lamp, and the photo below is the old lamp which it is going to replace. My old lamp is at least 17 years old, the gold is discoloring at the base and the shade has some paint splatters. Wanna buy it? It will be at my next yardsale.

Oh, I forgot to mention, about the "rumage" sale sign I saw, I'm going to be sending a copy of it to the guys at ThUnderground Films. They are looking for pics of funny or unusual yardsale type signs. See my website for more details: click here

I also forgot to mention what I bought at yardsales this past Saturday. I had my son with me, so I didn't go to many. I bought: $2 lead crystal decanter, a large 6 drawer plastic upright storage dresser (I love storage...). Paid $3. Later in the day, I went to BJ's Warehouse and happened to see a similar but smaller one for $19.99

Also bought a nice Welcome sign for $2 (painted on a piece of heavy slate), got a fancy fake diamond ring for free and 17 music CDs for .10 each. I had picked out about 10 when I saw the ".25 each" sign. But then when the seller was ringing me up, she said "oh, how about just .10 each". I love it when sellers reduce the price on their own. Anyhow, when she said that, I said I'd get the rest too. And they are all pretty decent CDs of mainstream artists (Bon Jovi, Janet Jackson, Bonnie Raitt, etc.)

My bargain today happened while at Food Lion. At the meat counter, a meat clerk was marking down a big bin of 93% lean hamburger to about $1 a pound. I bought 9 lbs of it. It was NOT past the sell-by date. I'll freeze it.

More about our trip

I finally downloaded the pics I took of our trip to Wisconsin (to attend a wedding). The wedding was held in a little town outside of Milwaukee. I finally got to go to the Taste of Home (magazine) visitor's center and the surrounding stores and had lunch at the nearby restaurant with my mother-in-law from San Pedro and my Wisconsin sister-in-law.. I bought a few things at the Reiman Publications store but spent less than $10.

On our drive there, we stayed overnight in Dayton, Ohio and went to the park at the river and saw their big fountain. Since it was late in the season, everything else was closed.

The wedding was held on a Saturday afternoon, so in the morning, I had nothing really to do...except go to a few yardsales! As it turned out, it was raining in Maryland that day, so I didn't miss any good yardsales back home. One thing I noticed about Wisconsin, is that they call their yardsales and garage sales "Rummage sales", or even in at least one case, "Rumage" Sale.

There were only a few sales, and I only found one with stuff worth buying (no, I didn't buy a big Packers blow up - that sale didn't have anything I wanted). That day I bought a cut glass pitcher for .25, a pair of sexy Aerosole shoes ($1) and a bunch of VHS for .25 each, including one of the old show: Ma and Pa Kettle. And when I went to Smile this week, what did I find? Another VHS of Ma and Pa Kettle, so now I have two to put together and sell on ebay.

The wedding was fun. Jacob and I viewed the wedding from a special sound proof booth...haha. Geez, I wonder why.

On the way back, we stopped briefly in Chicago to visit one of my internet emails friends who I have met a few times before. Took some pics of the Sears Tower while driving past....it takes a lot of skill to photograph the Tower while it's being partially obscured by a tractor trailer.

Just got back from Wisconsin

We took a roadtrip to Wisconsin to attend a niece's wedding. Will write more later. Oh and of course I went yardsailing in Wisconsin on Saturday and bought a few things. And of course I took lots of pics.

Geez, what the &*$%@#! is going on with all the stupid spam comments??? (see the below post with the 12 spam comments). I changed the settings on the blog, so from now on, if someone wishes to leave a message, you have to manually type in a code first. A real pain but maybe that will help with the stupid spam comments.

Today my favorite church had their semi-annual yardsale. They have awesome prices - so many things are marked .05 or .10. I spent $3.50.

My favorite buy of today was a pair of lamps for our nightstands. Since we got rid of our old bed with the built-in lights, we needed lamps for reading in bed. I love them (paid $5 for both), here's what they look like:

I went to Smile both on Wednesday and Thursday. I sorta collect old tin spinning tops (if they are cheap enough) and I found one for $1 this week. Also bought a vintage (?) apron with embroidery for $2 (for ebay). Also bought some Baby Einstein vhs for .50 each.

Almost bought a Sony S90 digital camera on clearance at Staples today, with a coupon it would have been $209. I was going to buy it but they didn't have any more left. Sheesh, then why do they still have it on display?? That irks me when stores do that.

Free Hat with Haircut

I spotted this ad in our local newspaper and it amused me. Ok, you all know I love free stuff...but this ad doesn't give me confidence to get a haircut done tomorrow if they have to give you a free hat afterwards....

My buys from last Saturday:

.25 bottle of Canoe cologne
.25 each, bottles of Estee Lauder products (foamy gel cleanser, deep clean mask, lotion etc)
.25 small cookbook: BBQ with Budweiser
.50 large baggy full of Mighty Beanz toys
.25 two brand in package (fake) diamond tennis bracelets

Then at a church yardsale (where nothing was marked), I filled up a grocery bag full of stuff and then at checkout, the cashier would name a price. My bag of stuff was only $2. In my bag, I bought two brand new packages of freezer storage containers, Blues Clues software, a new zipper pull with my son's name on it, a Plankton (Spongebob character) watch in decorative container, a few books, a Tweety bird ceramic spoonrest, several small toys, a button that says "I am not your maid" and some other junk.

Buys this week

I went to Smile on Wed, Thurs and today (Friday) and bought stuff each day. (They are closed Sun-Tues so that is why I never have any Smile purchases on those days - haha). On Wednesday I bought some vintage melted plastic Halloween decorations (paid .50 each, they are destined for ebay since there are a lot of people who collect vintage Halloween). I also bought a bunch of women's books (by authors Lori Wick and Beverly Lewis) for .50 each that should also sell well.

Also bought some vintage souvenirs (.50 for the Bermuda tray and .75 for both of the Florida ones). I love Bermuda - I went once back in my 20's for Spring Break and would love to go back someday.

Also bought some Beatle's music. For $2 I bought "Snoopy's Beatles Classiks on Toys". It features the Peanut's Gang doing renditions of Penny Lane, She Loves You, Yesterday etc. all done on children's musical toys.

For $4, I bought two nice storage bins with hinged lids. The kind that small stores use when restocking their shelves. They were probably stolen from somewhere and somehow ended up at my thrift, where they had them for sale.

On Wednesday I went to V V (it was a .30 day). I found a great Dockers Golf shirt in my husband's size for .30. Also bought a vintage Rainbow Brite doll (.50) and a vintage Halloween witch decoration for .50.

Today at Target my bargain was on some clearanced Tilex cleaner for $3.48 - it was specially packaged and included two Clorox Bleach pens. I bought two. I just love those Clorox Bleach pens and it was cheaper than buying the bleach pens individually, and plus I got the bottles of Tilex.

In the mail I got another free coupon for a can of Starbucks's Doubleshot. I got one a few weeks ago when I filled out the info at www.doubleshot.com (click on where it says "This one's on us" and today for some reason, they sent me another.

Also in the mail was a certificate for a 60 day free membership at our local BJ's Warehouse. That works for me! I always hear good things about shopping at Costco, but we don't have one anywhere close, so BJ's is the next best thing. Pretty soon I'll have some new local stores to shop at, we are getting an Old Navy, Best Buy and a Ross. Right now if I wanted to shop at one of those, I'd have to drive 50 miles. But soon, they'll be within 20 minutes of my house.

My dog came home for a visit tonight. He's been steadily living at his adopted family's house for about the past month. His other family lives a few streets away and every so often he comes "home". After living here for 10 years he decided he wanted to live elsewhere and found a new family on his own. He has been going back and forth for well over 2 years now.

Yippee, tomorrow is Saturday!!!

$1 worth of junk

In a post from last week I mentioned buying $1 worth of toys at V V. Well, above is a picture of what I got. Some of the things included a 80's vintage knockoff Strawberry Shortcake type doll, a bunch of vehicles, some Little Tikes toys, a Rescue Hero guy, some Simon games and other toys.

Also in a previous post I mentioned the crappy spelling at my local Food Lion. Well I called their headquarters to ask about it and they were very surprised about the spelling on the sign and would look into it. Well, its been a few weeks and the sign is still there, so I took a pic of it. Shopping carts are provided 4 .....UGHHH!



Not planning on doing any shopping today. I should get busy and start some ebay auctions. Looking forward to watching the Big Brother finale tonight. I'm hoping for Maggie to win - never liked Ivette. Of course I wish that Kaysar or Janelle would win, but that's not going to happen.

I didn't do any store shopping today, but did manage to some free flowering bulbs from brecks.com. I'm on their mailing list and so is my mom (who has ordered from them in the past). Well in early August I got their latest catalog in the mail which had a special coupon on front: spend $25 and get $25 worth of stuff free. Well when I visited my mom in early August in New York, I saw HER catalog which had a much better coupon "$25 Gift Coupon - no strings attached". She had it ready to go in the trash since she said she wasn't going to order anything. I pointed out the coupon to her and she still told me she didn't want to order anything and told me to take it. So today I ordered some pink lily bulbs and with shipping it came to less than $25 so it was totally free. I ordered online and instead of it being shipped to her, it's going to be shipped to me.

Some of my buys this week

On Wednesday I think I had a "personal best". I hit 4 thrift shops in one day. If you saw where I live (out in the boonies), you would realize for me it's not an easy feat. Went to Smile (forgot what I bought, but I know I bought something of course). Then went to SPOT (a Humane Society thrift) and paid .75 for a talking SpongeBob Squarepants (already have one, but something went bad on the speaker). Then to Catholic Charities (where I bought nothing). Then to a thrift called HELP - which was having a .25 any pair of shoes sale. I bought my son a pair of watershoes and a new pair of men's Chuck Taylor high tops. Also bought a vintage Lands' End windbreaker ($1) for a newbie boater. The right arm is marked Starboard and the left, of course, Port. So with tax, I spent $1.57

With the price of gas, I also coordinated other errands that day, so it wasn't like I was just driving around trying to go to as many thrifts as possible.

Had a routine dentist appointment yesterday, which is located near V V. So even though it wasn't a .30 sale day at V V, I went anyways. Turns out they were having a "fill a bag of small toys for $1 sale". So I bought a big bag of toys, most is stuff I can resell at my own yardsale. I'll try to show a picture of it early next week. When I left the dentist I had to schedule my next appointment for a cleaning, so I made it for a Tuesday (rather than a Thursday), since Tuesdays are .30 days at V V.

Today my husband was off work and he wanted to go to the mall (an hour's drive away for us). We are going to a wedding next month and he needed either a new suit or new sportscoat/jacket. Since he's a big guy, he can't shop for that kind of clothing at a typical department store. So we ended up at Men's Wearhouse (man, they really want to rope you in and buy the whole "look". I think spending $29.99 for a tie that won't get much use is ridiculous!) So anyways, the bill came to +$250 for just a jacket and a shirt.

But even I bought something at the mall!!! Yes, even I shop at malls occasionally. What did I buy? Maybe a new outfit or handbag??? Heck no. At Dick's Sporting Goods I spent $15 on 80 pounds of shelled corn to feed our backyard squirrels. Apparently hunters use shelled corn as bait to attract deer - which I think is very sneaky and should be considered "cheating". I personally am not a fan of hunting.

Last Saturday my son (5 years old) went yardsaling with me - I normally don't take him since I can cover more ground without him. He only found one thing that he wanted - a very masculine studly stallion horse (.10). Ok, Ok, I know it looks like a girly My Little Pony knockoff, but I assure you it's meant for a boy.

I also bought the above funky vintage polyester "Tony Alamo of Nashville" western shirt (.50). The back has more embroidery and rhinestones. It's handwashable so I'll wash it and then put it up on ebay. At a church yardsale I bought a vintage Mattel Wizzer set ($1) - identical to what I had as a kid. Well actually I still have my childhood toy, so now I have two. They'll be on ebay eventually.

Yesterday I had some shopping to do (yesterday was the last day of my free pass to BJ's Warehouse, so I wanted to pick up a few things there before the pass expired). We used to be a member of BJ's Warehouse - one opened up locally about 2 years ago, and they had a special promotion for memberships when it first opened. But since there's just the 3 of us in our family, it's really not worth the annual membership fee so we let it expired. Maybe we'll join again in the future if we need to make a big purchase there.

So anyways, since I was close to V V, I went there too (and it was .30 day - clothing is just .30 each). I bought 8 pieces of clothing ($2.40 total). A couple of tops for me, a pair of Dockers khakis for my son, some shirts for my son and a couple of baby items (for ebay), including a smocked Feltman Bros. baby outfit.

Today I am staying home and won't be buying anything.

Went to Smile and bought a few things: $1 decorative windsock for outside (you will never find a %*!?%$ windchime at my home, but I think the windsock is cool and of course it's quiet and not obnoxiously noisy like windchimes are). I absolutely hate windchimes. And for $2 I bought (for ebay) a pair of military maternity camouflage pants.

Then went to Ace Hardware - they had a bunch of stuff on sale that you could get free once you mailed in the rebate. So I got all the "free" stuff and it came to about $20 (a person could go broke saving money). Now I just got to mail in the rebate - which I know I will do since I am good about that.

Then went to McDonald's for lunch (used a coupon) and I tried one of their new premium chicken sandwiches. Ugh, never again. I think I could sue them and win for their misuse of the word "premium".

Well I found my camera so I thought I would take a pic of my new $8 umbrella, that actually matches the patio furniture. The new umbrella will replace my old Budlight umbrella which is rusty, dirty and of course didn't match.

Today was a day I stayed home and did not go to Smile. My husband drove to Virginia with a few coworkers to play golf at a particular course. At least they are all chipping in for gas. I could have driven his truck to Smile, but I just decided to stay home for a change. A woman came by and bought our old waterbed so I am glad to get rid of that.

I spent a good portion of the day organizing and counting the Campbells Soup Labels and Boxtops that I have (a little over 600). If I don't get any more, I am hoping it will be good enough to win the contest that I mentioned in the previous post.

Went to Smile and didn't find much - that was expected since they kinda got cleaned out due to their half priced sales last week. I did find a talking Dora the Explorer action figure ($1) for my son. If someone bought it for their daughter, it would be considered a doll, but since I bought it for my son, it's an "action figure" - haha. About 2 months ago he discovered watching Dora and loves it. We tivo'ed "Go Diego Go", so it will be interesting to see if he likes that too. I also bought a nice patio umbrella for $8. I misplaced my camera, so no pics today.

Also today I stopped by my son Jacob's old school. I wanted to check on the status of their annual Back To School Boxtops for Education/Campbells Soup Labels contest. Last year my son was the winner of the school's contest since he submitted the most: over 2,000 boxtops & labels. (As the winner he received a school logo t-shirt, some free goodies from the cafeteria, a visit from Principal to his class, etc). I posted a request on my website click here and lots of people from around the country donated them to me. Well this year, he's at a different school but I still want to do something special with all the labels & boxtops I received. So I checked with Jacob's former teacher and I plan on donating the labels & boxtops in the name of another special needs child (one of my son's former classmates, the child is blind and has some other disabilities). I think it would be great to have the winner of the school's contest again be a child in the "Special Needs Pre-K" class.

So....if you happen to have a stash of Boxtops for Education and/or Campbells Soup Labels and don't know what to do with them, I would love them!! The contest ends Sept. 20 - my info is on the link above.

It's Saturday so no big surprise, I went yardsaling. When I got home, my husband handed me Sunday's Parade section which has an article on "Are you a packrat" and goes into hoarding etc. One of their tips said you had to stop the flow of junk into your house, cancel all subscriptions etc. (We get all the sale ads along with the Parade section a day before most people do).

The way I am headed, they will probably feature me in their next article about pack rats. I just signed up for another newspaper subscription. That makes 4 that I get. Aye yi yi. Well let me explain (I can rationalize almost anything), I subscribe to the local rag (only comes out twice a week, it's good to know what's going on locally, it's not like we have our own local tv station), I have a free subscription to the New York Observer (which is only once a week, I just read their "Love Beat" engagements. I signed up somewhere online for a free subscription and it keeps coming), The Washington Post (daily) and now I'll start the Washington Times. I couldn't resist, a Mon-Sat delivery was only $20 a year. Super cheap compared to the $178 a year I pay for the Washington Post. So I'll save money by letting the Post subscripion expire and just buy it on Sundays (for the coupons and all the sale ads).

At least (not yet anyways), I don't hoard the papers, once I read them (which is daily), they get recycled.

Anyhow about today's yardsales - I didn't buy much. I think my best buy was at a yardsale held by a woman who sells Mary Kay. She had a bunch of samples and had a deal "fill a grocery bag for $2". I could have gotten a ton more, but didn't want to be greedy or take things I wouldn't use.

I missed out on buying some cheap Longaberger baskets by a matter of minutes. I saw antique dealer woman had gotten at the sale moments before me and they seller had stuff super cheap. I didn't even want to know what she sold them for since it probably would depress me.

The Navy's Blue Angels are in town today and tomorrow. Our neighborhood association is having a free picnic at their waterfront clubhouse this afternoon. So we'll get an excellent view and not have to deal with the crowds and traffic at the navy base.

New Boards are up!

I just finished up creating the new message boards. They should be awesome since unlike the last board, this will be ad-free!

Just got back from Smile, they will be closed on Saturday due to Labor Day weekend. So normally when they are closed for a holiday, they generally have a half priced sale sometime during the week. Well when I got there today, I saw the big "Everything half priced today and tomorrow" sign. Today I spent $3.50 and got:

$1 Casual Corner dressy navy blue pants for me
$1 new replacement mop head for my "As Seen on TV" mop
.50 bottle of bath gel (scented Angel Cake)
.25 new Conair folding brush with mirror. I can tell by looking at it that it is new, no hairs or other crud on it.
.75 4 books (two kids books were .25 for both, and two adult books were .25 each).

I bought a paperback of The Secrets of the Baby Whisperer and a vintage wild game cookbook. A few of the recipes: Big Horn Sheep Patties, Fried Rabbit, Roast Opossum with Dressing, Fricassee of Young Raccoon, Squirrel Stew with Dumplings, Pigeon Pot Pie, Short Ribs of Moose. In the back of the book there is a section "What To Do After the Kill". Pretty yucky. The book is from 1967.

I've been working on getting new message boards. Actually I got a new ad-free one so I just need to customize it similar to the previous boards.

Today was a big shopping day. Here's where I went: bank, Smile, library, JC Penneys, Food Lion, dollar store, CVS, Shell gas station (gas was "only" $2.63), V V, Target and Giant (another grocery store).

Got some pretty good deals today, even at the library! When I was checking out a book, they had stacks of Chick-fil-a coupons good for free kid's meals and free ice cream cones. Totally free coupons with no expiration dates. The chick-fil-a cow was promoting reading to kids. I think I'm feeling the need to check out some more books tomorrow...

At Smile I bought Jacob a like new swimming life vest for only .50 (the kind where the floaties are built right into the suit. Also bought a tub of K'nex for $2 and some other stuff.

At JC Penneys according to my receipt, I "saved" $167.76 (but actually spent $14.87 including tax for 8 baby outfits (marked down from $22.99 to $1.77). I'll put them on ebay next spring. Reminds me of a quote from Peter Walsh of the Clean Sweep TV Show that I should try to heed "You can go broke saving money".

At VV, it was .30 day and bought 3 pieces of clothing and two vintage 3M Bookshelf games at $1 each. One is an ebay dud (game called Contigo) but the other called Acquire should sell well.

I found a gas station (Shell) who had gas for $2.63 today. Meanwhile everyone else (including the discount stations like Sheetz and WaWa) were at $2.79 or higher.

Here are a few of the things I bought yardsailing last Saturday. After I took the pic I remembered a few other things I bought but forgot to include in photo. Like a brand new Rubbermaid dish drainer (.50) and a baby's bubblebee Halloween costume ($1). It kills me since I just bought a brand new dish drainer a few months ago (paid full price at Walmart) since I knew I would never find a new one at a yardsale.

Here's what I bought, some stuff to keep, some for ebay:

.10 pack of index card organizer (exactly that I needed)
.10 set of vintage ceramic spice jars
.50 each - printer cartridges
.10 package of Bic lighters
$1 brand new sealed Baby Einstein VHS
.25 each - two new bottles of Banana Boat sunscreen
.10 bottle of lavender shower gel
.25 new Glamorise bra, size 54C (I'll keep you guessing whether it's for me or ebay)
.25 each 3 books by Dave Pelzer
.10 roll of crepe streamers

Well it's Sunday night - had a good weekend. As usual went yardsaling Saturday morning (I will post my buys tomorrow). Then in the afternoon we drove to Annapolis (about an hour away). Stopped at Trader Joe's for the $1.99 dried pineapple that I like. The primary reason we went to Annapolis was to go to a crab party bbq held by one of my husband's coworkers. And actually the guy was one of my coworkers too back when I worked at the nuke plant. He has a very nice waterfront home on the Chesapeake Bay. They have their own pier and crab pots so there were plenty of crabs to eat. When we first moved to Maryland, going to a crab feast was a new experience. A typical crab party has paper covered tables, rolls of papertowels handy (because it's messy), and a bunch of wooden mallets to whack the crabs with and of course, plenty of Old Bay seasoned crabs. Some people will sit for hours and eat crab (it's a lot of work). I ate 1 (but needed instructions - it's been a while since I ate crab). So I gave up and ate a hotdog, much easier!

Afterwards we stopped at Chuck E. Cheese so Jacob could play some games. There is a Chuck E. Cheese in Annapolis so we might as well stop there to play considering it was on the way home. (We don't have a Chuck E Cheese in our town). I have tons of free tokens from buying the specially marked packages of Koolaid Koolbursts.






Then today I took Jacob to the pool at the nuke plant. After next weekend it will be closed for the summer. So after we swim, we have a routine. We go to their fishing lake and walk around it and throw rocks. The above two pictures are pictures I took earlier this summer, you can kinda see my car in the distance in the second photo. Then we go to the McDonald's drivethru for mcnuggets and ice cream (for him, not me).

So after going thru the McD drivethru, I went to the KFC drivethru for our dinner. There was a coupon in the paper for a $11.99 8-piece meal. The coupon specifically said "Does not include a free chocolate cake". KFC has a special going on that if you buy the 8 piece meal at the regular price, you get a free cake. Well my bargain of the day was that I used the $11.99 coupon and they still gave me a free cake anyways. Just what I don't need....

My message boards are down yet again. It has been so frustrating lately, when I switched to the current system, I thought it would be a big improvement. But now I am ready to ditch this message board as well and look for something better, a board that doesn't have ads and tracking cookies.

I don't have time right now to write about my yardsale buys today but will do so either later this weekend or Monday.

Went to Smile this morning and bought myself a pair of Crazy Horse (Liz Claiborne) jeans $2. And a "The North Face" men's fleece jacket for $2. Usually men's jackets are $4 but the cashier just charged me the $2 sweater price. A lot of times they'll price certain brand names a higher price just based on the brand, which is stupid. They'll put a $4 price (instead of $2) on a very used Eddie Bauer shirt just because it says Eddie Bauer. Same with the Gap or Old Navy, they'll mark it higher just because of the label. I guess the clothing sorters at the thrift have never seen the bargain racks at Old Navy. And then they are clueless about brands like The North Face, so its priced at their standard price. I subscribe to the Washington Post, so I know that I read about how last winter people got shot and mugged over their North Face coats, and here I can buy one for $2.

Also bought two videos ($1 each) but they turned out to be duds for resale on ebay. After Smile I went to another thrift (called The Spot - the proceeds benefits a local animal group). I bought 3 Thomas the Train videos for $1 each. My cousin's son is a Thomas addict. Afterwards I picked my husband up at a local motorcycle repair shop where he had dropped off his bike for some work. We went to lunch at a mongolian barbeque and did some Walmart shopping. Bought 50 lbs of sunflower seeds (around $12) and a $2 clearance sheet cake pan with lid for my mom for Xmas. I noticed on my recent visit, she made a sheet cake to share with her friends at Bingo, but only put plastic wrap over the top. So this cake pan with the lid is a better way to carry a cake.

I put a free ad in our local Pennysaver to try to sell our old waterbed. The ad will run starting next week, it would be nice to get rid of it.

Thursday

Went to Smile again today and bought myself a pair of like new Union Bay sandals for $2, pictured above. Also bought my son a pair of Stride Rite sneakers $1, and a talking plush Eeyore (with batteries) who flaps his ears for $1

Then went to our Food Lion for a few items. They are re-doing our store, upgrades etc. Well they even replaced all the shopping cart corrals in the parking lot to new, nice looking ones. Anyhow, there was a professionally made sign on the side of the cart corral: "Shopping carts are 4 your convenience...." Sheesh - what spelling - using "4" for "for". I called Food Lion headquarters to tell them I thought it was tacky and they agreed and are going to look into it. I mean,that's the kind of grammar you would see when someone uses a handwritten sign and is trying to sell a car or something, not proper English for a corporation to use.

Much better day today

My son's bus schedule has been changed - thank God - to just a little over two hours a day (total) so I have calmed down.

Today was my first "big" thrift shop shopping day since June. Very hard for me to go thrifting with my son. I went to both Smile and VV. At Smile I bought the above pictured nightstand for $3. I just liked it - it does need some work - I'll probably paint it rather than refinish it. I like the way the the top had a curve and the way the legs stick out at a bit of an angle. Also at Smile I bought:

$1 each - two (new in package) Balzac toys
.50 Chutes & Ladders game
.25 package of Avery colored sticker dots (good for yardsale prices)
.25 Spongebob Squarepants book with googly eyes (original price was $7.99)
$1 bag of someone's used refridgerator magnets. There were several of the cartoon "Love is" by Kim magnets so I think they would be good for ebay since there are a people who collect "Love is" stuff
and a few bottles of Bath & Body Works stuff for either .25 or .50

Then I went to Vintage Value which has .30 prices on Wednesdays. Bought Jacob several pieces of clothing including a t-shirt with his new school's logo on it. That was a great find, considering the thrift is probably 40 miles from where his school is located. Also bought myself a .30 Target Isaac Mizhrahi shirt.

Got my tire fixed and oil changed too.

My bargain at the grocery store was for my beloved Diet Pepsi. The store had buy 10 2-liters for $5, so that is .50 each (you had to buy 10 bottles to get the sale).. There was a 10 bottle limit (I also bought 10 yesterday). So that should last me a good 20 days.

Oh I guess I forgot to mention what I bought yardsaling last Saturday. My best buy of the day was a ton of Bionicle toys at .25 each. They normally cost $7.99+ each and I probably got 30 or more of them.

What a crappy day

What a sucky day. Sorry but I need to rant. Imagine you have a 2 hour commute (one way) to your job, that would suck wouldn't it? Now imagine if you're a 5 year old doing it. Well that is my son. I am so po'ed right now at our local school system (Calvert County Public Schools). My son has apraxia (which is a disorder which affects his ability to speak) so they wanted to put him in a special class in a school that is 25 miles away. No problem, I thought. But I would never have imagined him having to be picked up by the bus at 6:30am for a 9am school start time. The school didn't even tell me until last minute - literally - about his pick up time. The past few days they kept telling me "oh the bus driver will call you with details but never did. So again I called the Bus Transporation office today at 6:15am only to be told they had mis-typed our phone number on their list so the bus driver wasn't able to call. We're in the phone book! So anyways I'm talking to the guy (remember it's still 6:15 am) and he said the schoolbus would be there momentarily - sheesh - my 5 year old is still blissfully sleep in his bed. The bus arrives at 6:30 and one of my high school neighbors actually got on the bus thinking it was hers and the driver had to shoo her off. Her bus comes later, around 6:45.

I followed the bus today so this 2+ hour commute they made is not an exaggeration. On my way home I stopped at a grocery store and noticed a nail in one of my tires. I made an appt to get that fixed tomorrow.

And this stupid blogger is still giving me problems about adding pictures. I still have vacation pics to add below. It's driving me nuts. And my message boards are down...again.

Well at least I have Smile (thrift) to look forward to tomorrow. That is, if I don't get a flat getting there.

What I did on my summer vacation

I drove to upstate NY with my 5 year old son and spent a week with my mom. Talk about excitement! We did all kinds of exciting things like going to the Senior Citizen center for the free bread distribution on Tues & Thurs. I got to take her to her eye specialist appt and to top it off, I got to clean out both garages! And I found not just one but TWO dead mice.

Seriously though, I did have a good time. I saw a Brian Wilson (old Beach Boy) concert at Saratoga Performing Arts Center. I used to see tons of concerts at Spac (including ones I wasn't crazy about since I used to usher there). The highlight of the concert was drooling over a hottie tambourine/guitarist/zylophone musician (not Brian Wilson). Luckily since I keep a pair of binoculars in my car for reading far-away yardsale signs, so I was able to see good at the concert. The tickets would have cost $35 but my sister got two free tickets thru her work. Look, I paid $0! Another highlight of the concert was seeing a super long line for the men's room (possibly a first in history!) - while the ladies room had none. The ladies room was huge - it was great, there was a never ending line of stalls.



I also got to visit with some friends, including an old high school friend who just had twins. Omigod, I wouldn't want to trade places with her - be a 42 year old with a 14 year old and twin newborns!!! Aye yi yi!

And of course went garagesaling with my mom. Two of my more unusual buys was a goofy hat ($1) and a vintage kerosene heater ($3) for resale. Some people like these vintage heaters to repaint and decorate etc.

I'll add some pictures to this entry soon. The blog editor keeps giving me error messages tonight so I will fix and do it tomorrow.

Jacob with his $1 goofy hat