Chicken Paws - chicken PAWS??

The local grocery store (Food Lion) will sell bags of stuff like chicken necks (used by people who go crabbing) but this was a first for me. Seeing chicken paws (???) for sale in the grocery store. I didn't know chickens had paws. Even though they were clearanced, I did not buy. After doing extensive research, I see many different cultures eat chicken feet but no wikipedia reference exists on the rare chicken paw.

Here's something else I didn't buy - a Valentine's Day cake in January. Is it just me, or does it look scary? I've already submitted it to Cake Wrecks



I did stock up on .25 Arizona Iced Teas at Walgreens. There were two flavors that were on clearance for .25 can/bottle. I wouldn't think of drinking iced tea (yuck) but DH drinks the stuff.

Tree and newspaper decluttering

I was so happy to see the Penn Line guys doing tree trimming today - I told them to cut whatever they wanted (but to save the holly trees). Around the perimeter of our yard is like a total jungleland. Done on purpose of course, to keep the paparazzi guessing. Well I'm proud to say its a little less jungleland-ish now. I will just have to deal with the paps now until we get some other type of privacy bushes going. We will have to get our TroyBuilt Chipper Shredder out (purchased at a yardsale by me of course) and do some chipping and shredding. Now the neighbor on the side street has a clear view into our yard. That house was not there when we moved here - it was just an empty lot. They have like 0 backyard.

My house is going to be having a lot less newspapers delivered. Which I am kinda sad about - I love my dead tree versions of a daily newspaper. My daily Washington Times subscription (paid $15 for one year) won't be delivered anymore in our county starting Feb. 1 - due to cuts. It was set to run out in July. And my daily Washington Post subscription ended a few weeks ago, but instead of renewing at a daily rate, I went with Sunday only. Since I figured I still get the daily Washington Times. Oh well. I know I can change my Post subscription, but will wait until they run a special.

But I will still get our local rag - it only comes out twice a week (gotta know the local gossip and find where the yardsales are). My parents always got newspapers and I guess it rubbed off on me. I have noticed my little Pennysaver (just has ads and classifieds) is getting very very skimpy. I guess everyone is putting their ads on craiglist now.

Mystery Food

I did some cooking today - want to guess what I made?

That reminds me, "Mystery Food" was the name of a game my sister and I would sometimes play as kids. Kinda like the challenge they have on Hell's Kitchen where Gordon Ramsey blindfolds the chefs and they taste a piece of food and have to tell what it is. But when my sister and I would play, we just had mystery foods such as eating a teaspoon full of Tang.

Pants On The Ground

Jacob practically had a pants-on-the-ground situation today at school. As he was getting on the bus this morning I thought his pants looked sorta baggy but I didn't really think much of it. When he got home this afternoon I looked at the jeans - they are a pair of Levi's Size 14 that I bought a week or two ago at the thrift and put in the laundry to wash. Normally after washing them, I would have put them aside to put into his stash of "grow into" clothes, but this pair fell thru the cracks and ended up in his dresser drawer. He currently wears size 10.



For those people interested in my David Cassidy coat, I haven't listed it yet, but will do soon.

David Cassidy Garage Sale Coat for sale (soon)

Here's my David Cassidy coat that I plan on putting up on ebay. It's the coat my sister bought for me when we went to the David Cassidy garage sale in Saratoga back in September. (She went in the morning, and I went in the afternoon). I haven't listed it yet but I plan to have it up on ebay within a week. I need to re-do the pics, I haven't quite got the hang of my new camera yet.

Tightwad Gazette Amy Dacyczyn Frugal Zealot Interview

Remember Amy Dacyczyn - the author of the Tightwad Gazette books? If the name is not familiar, back in the early 90's she appeared on the Phil Donahue show and was on the cover of the Parade magazine, talking about frugality (and yardsales). Here is a recent interview that I found on Youtube. Back when she had the monthly newsletters, I even received a subscription as a gift. And I'm sure if I dig around here, I could find the old newsletters, cuz you know I didn't throw them away!

People of Maryland - Fix your flags

I'm interrupting the regularly scheduled programming for a quick educational lesson to the people of Maryland. People of Maryland - fix your flags. I would venture to guess that 50% of the time I see the Maryland flag, it's displayed incorrectly. I don't know why it bothers me, but it does. Back when our Ruby Tuesday had one framed on the wall, it was displayed incorrectly too. I've also seen it flown incorrectly at our local hospital. Even the bumpersticker maker people don't know how to correctly make them.

Here it is on a truck, displayed incorrectly:


At a craft show, the artist painted it wrong.


Here's a quick and easy lesson. Upper top left hand corner is black. Lower right corner is yellow. Easy peasy. Just like this.

My Faux Hell's Kitchen Experience - Robert Hesse

I finally took pics off my cellphone so here's some pics of my faux Hell's Kitchen experience from last week. A local restaurant has a new chef - Robert Hesse, one of the contestants (not the winner, one of the losers) from the tv show Hell's Kitchen - pic above). And since I had a Buy 1 Get 1 Free coupon, DH and I had lunch there last week. DH has flexible hours so we can often go out to lunch while Jacob is in school. Robert was not there - so he didn't get the incredible opportunity to meet me. His loss.

Appetizer - chicken spring roll thing. Appetizer cost more ($10.99) than my meal which was $9.99.


My $9.99 burger/onion rings. Mmmm - 3 types of onions - fried, grilled and raw.




The restaurant is called Catamarans. Before we ate lunch, I went to the website to see their new menu and see they haven't updated their website. sheesh. They've been having these big ads in the newspaper about the Hells Kitchen chef and their new menu etc, but they don't update their website???

If the restaurant sign looks familiar, I had spotlighted it in a previous post.

Junk and Stuff I didn't buy at the thrift store

Sorry - my pic of Saturday's buys will have to wait a big longer. In the meantime, I will entertain you with a few pictures of stuff that I did not buy.

Well, we will probably get a new (or slightly pre-owned) dog someday, but I would prefer one that's alive. I think the "In Loving Memory Mikey" box was empty, but I have no idea how heavy a dog's ashes are. I didn't see a price sticker on it, so I don't know how much the Mikey Box goes for.



The big liquor bottle caught my eye - but alas, it was empty. Plus the owner had used it as a piggy bank and then disfigured it by cutting a big hole in the bottom to get the $$$ out. Did not buy. And since I'm not in the market for an orange and green sofa, I didn't buy the sofa either.

Hookless Shower Curtains - 3rd best invention ever

I splurged and bought something the other day, it wasn't on sale and there was no coupon involved. It's something I've wanted ever since we took our vacation to Myrtle Beach last April and I fell in love. Fell in love with the Hookless shower curtain that was in the bathroom at the resort. My next step is getting a curved shower rod and then I will be all set. But I really don't need a curved shower rod BUT my old shower rod is looking kinda dingy compared to my new wonderful Hookless shower curtain so I will probably get one eventually.

If you don't know what a Hookless Shower Curtain is - click here and be prepared to change your life (if your life involves dealing with those stupid shower curtain rings or hooks every time you need to take your shower curtain down to wash it.) That was a job I hated doing.

I checked Bed Bath & Beyond and they didn't have them - shocking considering they are named Bed Bath *AND* Beyond. The clerk didn't even have a clue as to what I was talking about. Target doesn't have them either. The one I bought came from Walmart.

Well enough about shower curtains. I haven't talked about my great buys from Saturday. I will try to take a pic tomorrow. Today I went to CVS for their 90% off Christmas stuff and stocked up on tissue paper - great for wrapping ebay stuff and I also bought some other stuff. Pics to follow.

p.s. Of course the best invention ever is #1 Yardsales and then closely followed by #2 Slice Bread (but bread comes in #1 in the best food category).

1st Yardsale of 2010 is on the agenda

First yardsale of 2010 is coming up soon for me. Something like 33 hours to go, not that I'm counting or anything.

Choosy and Cheap Mothers Choose Skippy

I'm trying to declutterize the kitchen pantry - but today I totally stocked up on Skippy peanut butter. The huge 26.5 oz jar of creamy Skippy were on close-out clearance for $2 each at Food Lion. I will swing by the other nearby Food Lion tomorrow and see if they have more of the regular creamy Skippy (not Naturals), since that is the kind I use for Jacob's PB&Js. So all the pb in the above pic came to $10 even.

I like feeding the backyard birds, and here's a recipe I use for making homemade bird suet.

Mix with hands (yes, it's messy):

* 1 cup peanut butter
* 1 cup Crisco shortening (or cheap generic kind)
* 1 cup flour
* 4 cups cornmeal

I form it into fat hamburger patty size shapes and place in suet feeders. Refrigerate leftovers.

I suggest the newspaper amends the title

Here's our local rag - I subscribe since I have to know where the yardsales are. I wonder what an ammend is. I'll go get my dictionary and check it out.

Upstate New York Visit - Recap

Jacob and I went to upstate NY for about 5 days after Christmas. DH was "on call" for work so he couldn't go. Stayed at my mom's house - my childhood home. Got to visit family and shop. Within about a 3 mile radius of the house, there is a lot of shopping nearby, including a Salvation Army and a community based thrift store. There's a Kohl's, a Target, Aldi's, Super Walmart, Cracker Barrel (I like looking in their gift shop), Toys R Us etc etc. Majority of those stores were built after I moved away, over 20 years ago.

And since I went after Christmas, I was able to get some after Christmas sales. My mom likes to go to the racino so one day after dropping her off there, Jacob and I did more shopping - and I hit a Bed, Bath & Beyond with my 20% off coupons. (You know you can just keep your 20% off coupons, even if they are expired and use them. You can use one coupon per item so really once you get on the mailing list, you should never pay full price for anything there. The cashier let me use 3 coupons on 3 different items in one transaction).

One morning, I dropped my mom off early at the racino and next to it is a harness track and they were exercising the horses.



My brother and his wife live in downtown Albany. We were going to visit them late in the afternoon, so before that I took Jacob (again) to the observatory. Behind his head in the picture is a building called The Egg. I remember hearing about it as a kid when it was being built. And remember being sooo disappointed when I actually saw it. I was expecting to see a full egg shape, not like a third of an egg. And I kept wondering when they were going to finish it (and make it a full egg shape).






And the David Cassidy Garage Sale lives on! One of my gifts from my sister was something she purchased at the David Cassidy garage sale back in September which I blogged extensively about. Will do a separate post about that. I plan on ebaying the item she gave me, its a size Small and I don't wear a Small (I wear an XXS to be exact - haha).

The drive back to Maryland really wasn't that bad yesterday - hardly any traffic on the roads, no accidents.

p.s. I did have more food in the car. My niece (who will be a May 2010 graduate of UVM gave me a box of Vermont Chocolates. Also forgot to mention the box of chocolate covered cherries I received as a gift from my mom. Christmas isn't Christmas without a box of chocolate covered cherries. Also bought a package of vanilla creme cookies for Jacob from Aldi's - to have at my mom's house, but he never opened the package. And forgot to mention a Jelly Belly dispenser that Jacob received as a gift that came with a bag of Jelly Bellys and he also got an additional 2 lb package of them. Also, I freeze Flavor-ice popsicles to use in my cooler to keep stuff cold, (and then he can also eat them while we are in NY), so I also had bunch of frozen/unfrozen Flavorice in the car too.

p.s.s. I think I need to hold off on my Alli diet a little longer.

Back from celebrating NYE in New York 2010

I am back from my spending my exciting New Years Eve in NY (and spent several post Christmas days there too). Today I drove 497.5 miles. Don't have any pics to share today. I am too beat.

You know how once in a while you hear a newstory about how someone got stranded in their car for days in a blizzard or similar situation and the people have to survive on what they have in their vehicle? Well I've come to the conclusion that when I travel, if something like that were to happen to me, I can pretty much survive for a minimum of two months. And when the rescue people find me, I'll be 10 lbs heavier than when I started.

Here's a partial list of things I had in my car upon returning from New York:

one 30 double-roll pack of Charmin toilet paper
6 packages of Target Christmas tree cookies (75% off)
one fresh pineapple (Aldi's for $1.89 - how can I pass that up? I can't)
3 tins of butter cookies (Target)
1 package of hot chocolate mix (Target)
several cans/bottles of diet soda (I only drink diet soda in order to keep my girlish figure)
about a dozen individual sized packages of Doritos and Cheetos (snacks for Jacob in the car and to eat in NY. Did not touch them the entire time but at home he eats them like crazy).
1 bag of pretzels (Jacob snacks)
6 tubes of clearanced Christmas walmart gumballs
several individual sized packages of skittles and M&Ms
bag of uneaten McNuggets and fries (did you think I would just throw them away?????)
package of Portuguese sweet rolls from The Christmas Tree Shop
package of Goetze Caramel Creams (from Christmas Tree Shop.)
package of Pistachios (gift for DH)
packages of microwaveable popcorn (to eat in NY. Jacob ate about half of the popcorn I brought).
two packages of dried cherries (Aldi's)
two boxes of fudge (75% off sale at Target)
one big can of popcorn (post Xmas gift from Mom - bought after Xmas on sale)
one box of Hershey's Pot of Gold Pecan Clusters (75% off sale Target)
unknown # of Smarties
one package of pomegranate tea (Aldi's)
four packages of cookie mix (75% off sale at Target)

And that is just what I can remember. There is probably more. The toilet paper I bought at Toys R Us, believe it or not. It was on clearance - I had to buy $25 worth of stuff so I could use a $5 off $25 coupon I had. I also had two $10 Toys R Us Gift cards to use too.