Lots of *new* shoes

Went to VV this week and bought a several pairs of shoes for .50 each including that pair of navy blue ones for me and pink suede ones for my son. Before I went to VV, I went to Smile and found the sneakers on the bottom far right (those I paid $1 for since Smile's prices are a little higher).

Before you think I am totally crazy for buying pink shoes for my son, I figured for .50, I would try putting some liquid shoe polish I have and see what happens. They are very similar to beige pair he has and likes, so I'd figured I would take a chance. I'll post a pic of the 'pink' shoes, when I finish my experiment.

Tomorrow starts my gift receiving season - anniversary, birthday and mother's day all once a week for the next 3 weeks. But I bought myself my bd present the other day. I got a good deal on a 19" flat screen monitor at Staples. My husband said it should knock out at least 2 out of the 3 gifts. It was cheaper and nicer than the monitor I bought my husband for Christmas last year. I think I even blogged about it - back on Black Friday when I was waiting in line at Staples at 6am to get it. What a difference a few months makes.

I'll post a pic of my cleaned-up dog soon. Yes, he is a scrappy dog even when clean. Here's the story behind Whiskey:

About 12 years ago, Whiskey was a stray that one of my neighbors was tossing food out to but was skittish and could never catch him. The first time I saw him, I could see even from a distance he had a flea collar on. Well one night, my neighbor and I managed to grab him and it appeared that the flea collar had never been loosened and was starting to cut into his neck. So using a knife, we cut the collar off. Well the next day, he was like a new dog and we've had him ever since.

Well anyways Whiskey has always been a little troublemaker - never listens and loves to dig holes to try to escape from the yard (I heard that the terrier breed are known for being "escape artists". On one of his escapades, another family a few streets over fell in love with him so now when he manages to escape, I know where he's headed. The other family doesn't want him permanently, but likes to get visits from him.

Whenever he's over there, I let him visit for a while and then go pick him up. One night (it was an election night), I went to the other family's house and got him (the parents weren't home). So then I drove to the school to vote (Whiskey likes riding in the car.) At the school, I see the parents on the other side of the parking lot. Since I wanted them to know I had picked up Whiskey, I yell "Hey Dawn, I have Whiskey in the car". Since she didn't acknowledge that she heard me, I yell a little louder in the school parking lot "DAWN, I stopped and got Whiskey - I have Whiskey in the car!" I didn't realize until later, how that must have sounded to the voters going in to vote. (But anyone who knows me knows I'm a rum drinker).

Update on dirty dirty dog

Ugh - he got dirty again! Sometime in the middle of last night he tried digging out again but gave up and came inside and the mud dried on him. So he got another bath.

Today I cleaned up and painted an old school desk that I got from my mom's cellar. She had a friend who worked in a school district who would get the discarded school desks and chairs (for free) when new ones were bought. The paint on it was all banged up and lots of little pieces of tape all over the desktop. My mom had about 5 to choose from, so I looked them all over and I'm happy with the one I took. So I cleaned it off and painted it a dark green. Not the greatest pic, but here's what it looks like. It's going in my son's room and I plan on selling the small toddler sized table & chairs that is currently in his room.



Oh I forgot to mention my site was mentioned in the Wall Street Journal last week, here is the link
Wall Street Journal article

Free Scoop day at Ben & Jerry's

Hey, if you live near a Ben & Jerry's scoop shop, you can go on Tuesday April 25 and get a free scoop. Make sure you check out the details (note the time restriction): Ben & Jerry's You should also check the store locator to make sure the scoop shop near you is participating.

I don't live near a scoop shop, but both my brother and sister do.

Dirty dirty dog

Went to a few yardsales this morning and then it started raining which lasted most of the day. My dog freaks out during heavy rain and thunderstorms and he tried to dig a hole to run away. I used to freak out whenever he did, but not anymore. He's sort of become the part-time dog of another family in the neighborhood. So when he gets out, I know where he will end up. He is fixed so he's not out cruising for a date. He was unsuccessful in his attempt today to get loose, but it wasn't for lack of trying.

My big buy today at a yardsale was an outdoor canvas swing, the kind you have to hang from a big tree branch. It looked new and I paid $5.

I am getting a large number of hits on my website this week...if you are reading my blog for the first time, please leave a comment and let me know how you found my page. I think it was mentioned in a yardsale article in the Wall Street Journal the other day. Over the next few months my website will appear in some pretty well known publications: Woman's Day, Woman's World and Better Homes & Gardens.

Went to NY for Easter

I've been busy this week - and last - so I haven't had time to write. My son's school spring break was last week and part of this week so I went to upstate NY to visit my mom and family. I still haven't caught up on all my tv watching when I finish writing this, I'm going to watch the latest Sopranos episode that I missed when away.

There's a Chuck E. Cheese (CEC) not too far from my mom's house so I took my son there twice and used free tokens that I had gotten off packages of Koolaid Koolbursts and my sister gave him a large quantity of tokens for his recent birthday. Every once in a while Koolaid Koolbursts will have special packaging advertising CEC and have a token coupon worth 10 free tokens. It's really a good deal since I can buy the Koolbursts for .99 and get $2.50 worth of free CEC tokens. Well on my way there, I noticed smoke in the distance and as I got closer, I saw a car was on fire. It was kinda weird since traffic was still going by etc, it didn't look like anyone was trapped inside considering someone opened the trunk. But I'm thinking "I know I moved away from home a long time ago, but have things changed so much that cars just catch on fire and no one does anything?? I was stoppped at a red light when I snapped this pic. As my light turned green, I saw the firetruck arriving.

Whenever I visit my mom's, there are 5 places I try to go (make it 6 if I include Chuck E. Cheese. But I read that a CEC may be opening close to our house which would be great). The other places are: Aldi's grocery store, a Dollar Tree dollar store (which I think are better than your average dollar store), the Freihoffer bakery thrift store, the Salvation Army and a community based thrift store. Oh and I left off another place: The Golden Krust bakery in Cohoes. Unfortunately this time I couldn't do that since it burned down to the ground a little while ago.

My bargain at the Freihoffer store was on Boboli pizza shells at .75 each (still with good expiration dates). I've had them years ago when I bought them in a regular grocery store using a coupon and on sale. But haven't seen them on sale in a long time. If I was to buy them around here, I'd be charged the full price at $3.69 and really, I don't think they are worth that. And since I stocked up on sliced pepperoni ($1.39 for 8 oz at Aldi's), I am set!

I still have more to write about my trip, but the Sopranos are calling!

Another Saturday of mediocre yardsales

It started pouring today at around 10am, so not many people had yardsales today. Only went to about two and two more had signs posted with their raindate on it.

At one yardsale they had a big rubbermaid type tote full of free live white mice. They were giving them away. The seller took one out and it jumped out of her hand and their cat got it. I know Petco and other places sell white mice as food for snakes and stuff, I just don't want to think about it (or see it happen in front of my eyes). Ok, I know I am a wuss. I think we have or had mice in our attic and even then I don't want to see a dead mouse and just put out the Decon poison rather than seeing a dead mouse in a mousetrap.

My good bargain of the week was a free haircut (no, I didn't do it myself!) A coupon booket came in the mail earlier this week (coupons for various local businesses) and the coupon for the hair salon said first three haircuts on Friday are free til the end of May. So since I needed a haircut, after my son went to school, I got in my car and drove to the hairsalon. Got there about 20 minutes before they were set to open. The parking lot was deserted so I knew I would get the first free haircut. Did give the stylist a $5 tip.

Another freebie I got the other day was some free digital pics at CVS. They had a 5 free print offer this week.

Did (of course) do some shopping at my thrifts this week. Can't really remember what I bought except for a few DVDS for $2 each (Bridget Jone's Diary and Forgiven).

Been busy doing some interviews...

Yardsale season is definitely picking up (even though I went to a bunch of crappy ones last Saturday.) I've done 3 interviews in the past 3 days from media people wanting to interview me for yardsale stories (did 2 newspaper and 1 radio). I get nervous when I do live radio interviews (much prefer when they tape it to play back at a later time).

Yesterday I had to go to my son's school, so I stopped at Catholic Charities on the way. Bought two ice-cream scoopers for my collection at .50 each and a $1 VHS called Jasper to the Rescue. It's a 10 minute video on bed-wetting done by Disney. On the website it sells new for $19. For a 10 minute video! But of course if someone has that problem and it helps, then it's money well spent. I'll put it up on ebay eventually (I want to watch it first - not that I need it but just out of curiosity). I have so much junk to sell that it's ridiculous. Last night I even had a dream about storage space. I definitely need to declutter!

You know I was thinking about those ratty looking jeans I saw at Penney's the other week. If anyone was to donate them to my local thrift store, they wouldn't be considered nice enough to put on the sales floor. The volunteers there carefully inspect the clothing before they put it out and if there are holes, rips, etc, they won't put it out.