Jacob's Television Debut with the Platt Brothers

For those who blinked while watching American Ninja Warrior recently on G4, here is Jacob's television debut. Very impressive, isn't it? Don't answer.



And of course, here's a shot of me going incognito, with my trusty Sony Cybershot.


It snowed all day yesterday. I put out some of my homemade birdfood today and it attracted a bunch of cardinals.


And this huge bird. Which I think is not a vegetarian.


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If you live near a Chick-fil-a, make a reservation to get a free spicy biscuit next week Get Spicy Biscuit. You know I did.

If I don't blog for a bit, don't be worried. I got some places to go and people to see. And stuff to buy.

Merry Christmas, part 2

Our Christmas is pretty low key here at the castle. It's not until later when I will see a bunch of friends and family. Anyhow, I was just checking my overstuffed email box from fans wishing me Merry Christmas and I was thrilled to see one from my boyfriend David Cassidy, wishing me a beautiful holiday. And in the email he quoted "the late, great Maya Angelou." Ooopsy, someone better go check on Maya Angelou.

Crap. No yardsales today. Merry Christmas.

I hope you are all having a Merry Christmas or a Happy Saturday (for those who don't celebrate Christmas). No yardsales today and all the thrift stores are closed, but don't worry about me, I am having a great Christmas. I am thinking about all those gifts being opened up today that are the wrong size, the wrong scent, the wrong whatever that will show up at the spring yardsales for $1. And I got all those after Christmas sales to get to soon!

And more good news, Christmas won't be on another Saturday until 2021!

Happy Festivus

I don't have much time to blog, since I am busy performing feats of strength, but I wanted to wish you and yours a Happy Festivus.

I spent part of today at our local Chick-fil-a getting free food (using coupons and redeeming my free nugget tray win). MMMMMMMM Chick-fil-a.

I witnessed a Christmas miracle today

What happened to me today can only be explained as me being a part of a Christmas miracle - no other logical explanation is possible. I live in a land where the only NFL merchandise to be found for hundreds of miles is either the Washington Redskins or Baltimore Ravens. Today I found Minnesota Vikings sleep pants for Jacob in a retail store. You have no idea (unless you live in the DC/Maryland/VA area) how unusual of a find this is. Minnesota Vikings sleep pants just don't show up at a JC Penney's in Maryland out of the blue. Unless of course, it's a Christmas Miracle.

I had a coupon to take $10 off a $10 purchase at JC Penneys so today I used it. In the boy's section they had sleepwear for 50% off, and on the bottom rack, hidden behind sets of PJ's were the boys Minnesota Vikings sleep pants priced at an even $20.00. I thought I was hallucinating. Having it priced at $20.00 is another anomaly - since they price a lot of things at $19.99. So since it was $20 and not $19.99, at half priced it was $10.00 which meant I could use my $10 coupon on them. If they had been $19.99 reduced to $9.99, then the coupon wouldn't have worked.



Total spent? 0.00. Since I didn't go to any yardsales yesterday, getting something free today made up for it. And probably no yardsales next Saturday either. But you never know. haha

Decluttering Christmas

Today I did some Christmas decluttering. Last week both Amvets AND the Purple Heart organizations called looking for donations to pick up. Since I already said yes to Amvets, I told Purple Heart that I didn't have anything this time around. They haven't called in YEARS, so it was strange for them to call again out of the blue.

Back when I was child-free and the dang internet didn't suck up all of my free time, I used to decorate the outside of the castle for Christmas. I used to put up 10 wreaths just on the front of the house. I would hang them from the tops of the windows with ribbon, so it involved removing all the screens from the windows before I could hang them. Since my DH is scroogier than me, I handle the set-up, the installation and de-installation of any and all Christmas decorations. And re-installation of the window screens.

It all looked very nice, but well those days are over. I have pictures somewhere, if I ever find them I'll post a pic. Makes me tired just thinking of doing that again. Then have to un-decorate and store them 11 months of the year? The wreaths and a bunch of other miscellaneous goodies are going away later this week to Amvets. I also went thru the coat closet and donating a bunch of coats. And of course I always have books to donate. Speaking of used books, I think now I have over $200 in credit at the used bookstore.
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I'm going to have to bite the bullet and get another replacement driver's license. I still can't find the last license that I lost and I thought it would turn up somewhere by now but it hasn't.

Here's a pic of the free flip-flops I mentioned getting a little while ago. My Dh bought a pair of sneakers at Famous Footwear and got on some mailing list. Well they sent him a "we want you back - here's a $10 off coupon" coupon. So I used it to get these $10 flip flops for free. Just plain dark grey. I am not a flip flop fan but I guess I may wear them to the mailbox or something.

Very tranquil - except for the gunfire

Here's a picture I took Saturday morning after enjoying another free night at the hotel. We go again in January and again in Feb. In the morning I asked one of the hotel employees what the "banging" sound was, and his guess was that it was from duck hunters. I am known for complaining about the neighbors who live near the castle (boy could I tell stories), but at least I don't hear gunfire in the morning. And at least I haven't paid a ton of money for waterfront Chesapeake Bay property and have to listen to gunfire during hunting season.

I got an early Christmas present, a bread hook for my vintage Kitchenaid mixer and used it today for the first time to make bread. Of course I have a bread machine - since I love all things bread, but haven't used the Kitchenaid for bread making. I made ciabatta bread, it was a 24 hour long process. Ciabatta bread is a rustic bread with a bunch of little holes throughout. But why settle for little holes when you can just do one major hole:



I guess I need some practice, but it still tasted good.

some random pics

Here is a mishmash of pictures I've taken over the past week or so. In no particular order.

I was at the Dollar Tree (love the Dollar Tree) and saw this Smart Fit Button. It's for when you are too fluffy and can't get your jeans to button, you just add a button and it extends your jean size about a half inch. No, I didn't buy it but had never seen it before so I took a pic.



I saw Elvis at a local Christmas parade. It was so damn cold. The boy scouts were very zealous in their candy throwing. If I go next year, I will bring a bag of candy and pelt those boy scouts right back!


There was a porta-john truck decorated up for the Christmas parade (don't you see that red ribbon on it?). Woo-hoo I got a coupon for $5 off a Porta-John rental!!



How many copies of Titanic on VHS does one thrift store need?


I bought this vintage Trouble game, just because. Jacob does like playing Trouble and the graphics are different. I hate that the thrift writes in black marker the price on the box.


I went to a store that had a "Going out of Business Sale - Everything must be Sold!!!"They had a measly 10% off of crap. Sheesh. And I mean it was total crap. I hadn't seen these cheesy pre-filled type of stockings in years. I looked at the expiration date that was on it for the candy and it was December 2009.


I really don't see these types of wide open spaced stores anymore. I think there's a reason, they look like they are in a time warp.


But as I was leaving the store - and since I wasn't buying anything - I left thru an empty cash register lane and found a $5 bill on the ground.

I stopped into one of my thrifts and saw they moved the thrift store guy to a new couch.


I took this picture at CVS, They have this cat toy there that retails for $9.99. I don't want to reveal any Christmas secrets, but if you are related to me and live in upstate NY and just got a kitten within the last few months, there's a good chance your kitten will be getting this identical toy. But I only paid .50 for it at my thrift store. And it doesn't have the original packaging. And it only has 1 one of the balls inside. But hey, it's the thought that counts, right?

Happy American Ninja Warrior Day

Here is a future competitor:



speaking of TV - Dexter fans - wasn't the episode the other night a real nail biter?

18 days

18 days til Christmas. Sheesh. I know it's 18 days until Christmas because of the countdown clock on ebay. I guess again time is running out to get things listed to sell before Christmas. But that's ok, it's not like I don't have a bajillion other things I can be doing besides packaging up things to bring to the Post Office.

I did sell at an indoor yardsale last Saturday and made $136. But didn't find much worthy of buying from other sellers. I spoke with one seller who had the worst breath I've encountered in a long time. It was so bad that I just wanted to get away from her.

On Sunday, a very windy and cold day, I took Jacob to a Christmas parade. I've only seen the Christmas parade once, by accident, about 15 years ago. Way too many firetrucks, from all the different little neighboring towns. Even Jacob was bored (and cold) and wanted to go home. I made him suck it up and stay and have fun. haha.

gotta run and watch Pawn Stars.

Didn't we just have Christmas????

Yea! My computer works. Actually my DH fixed it soon after I did that last post. Apparently somehow the memory card in my computer got loose. Thankfully DH isn't afraid to remove the cover off the computer and fix whatever needs fixing. If it was left to me to fix, I would just cry and call the Geeksquad or something.

Well my post that I started writing the other day about Thanksgiving just had a couple of photos that I took during our free hotel stay at Chesapeake Beach Resort & Spa. Pics below. Both DH and I both got the promotions flyers, so we each got a free night for Nov, Dec, Jan and Feb. Not sure if we will use all the nights or not.

I am so not ready for Christmas. Didn't we just have Christmas not too long ago?? And I'm not quite ready for the year to be over - I promised DH I would have my computer area cleaned out and while I've made a lot of progress, I still have a lot to do before the 31st.

And I have to get organized for an indoor yardsale for this Saturday.

Today I took another box of books to the used bookstore for credit. I currently have about $170 in credit at the bookstore. I would have had over $200 but DH used about $40 of it to get some books for himself. So basically we are just exchanging the clutter for other clutter.

I did some black Friday shopping but not much buying. I wasn't impressed with the sales this year. But somehow I managed to leave the house a little after 5am and not get back home until after 1pm.