Too bad I don't like pastrami

My deal today was on pastrami. Too bad I don't like pastrami. But I bought it anyway since DH will eat it. It's meat and it doesn't live in water, so it's fine with him.

There are two Food Lion grocery stores within 3 miles of my house. The old one and the new one. The old one is considered the old one for a few reasons. It's been around longer. And it's where all the residents of the nearby retirement community (and me) shop. Lately I've been noticing it has better deals than their other location. Like their *manger specials* at the deli. Plus, since it not as busy as the new one, so lots of things tend to get marked down a lot more frequently than at the other store.

Clutter on Wheels | Valuables Circa 1991

I may be selling my clutter wagon soon (aka my Mazda MPV) and getting a new vehicle that I can clutter up. So the search is on for where I put the MPV's title. Today I totally emptied it out. (I know not to keep the title in the car, but it had to be emptied anyway). It's all cleaned out except for a nickle that is lodged between the center console and the seat but I can't reach it, and that bugs me. Of course I didn't actually clean it out as I went, I just threw everything in a big plastic stripey bag. (If you don't know what a stripey bag is, you need to start shopping at more flea markets.)

I remember looking for the car's title a while ago and didn't find it, but I figured I would check the safe deposit box at the bank one more time. It's where we keep all of our valuables. Except for car titles apparently. And since all of our valuables cannot fit into an actual safe deposit box due to size issues, a while ago (1991) I took pictures of our valuables. So in case of theft or hurricane or something, I would have something to show to the insurance agent. We lived thru Hurricane Hugo in Charleston SC, so I've seen the devastation that a large hurricane can do.



Just look at how awesome our entertainment system used to be. It's where we kept all of our VHS and CDs. And of course we had cable tv, (the cable tv box is under Homer & Bart). Jacob looked at the picture today and asked how old he was when the picture was taken. Like negative 9.

p.s. And I just want to note that my CD collection is much larger now. Since of course, CDs will be around forever, just like my cassette collection.

My impressive centerfold spread

As promised, here is my centerfold spread. See where that pen is pointing to? Yep, it's me and the boy in the centerfold of the exclusive freebie local newspaper.

The other week when we were staying overnight (for free again) at the hotel, the next morning there was a fundraising polar bear plunge, so we had to go watch. And not plunge.

This woman had the hairiest armpits:


I think if the Guinness Book was there, they could have classified it as the world's smallest polar bear plunge in history.


Here's a short video


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We had a dusting of snow last night, so of course schools are closed today.

I totally missed Joey Fatone's yardsale

Ok, so I am totally bummed. Not only couldn't I go to Saturday's Clean House yardsale out in California, I also missed Joey Fatone's yardsale in Orlando.

I will just have to drown my sorrow and think of better times. Like the glorious day I spent at David Cassidy's garage sale. That makes me feel better.

Oh and I was recently in a centerfold. I can cross that off my bucket list now. More about that later.

Annapolis on the Cheap / Turning into a Groupon Addict

I think I've turned into a Groupon addict. One day last weekend, we had planned on going to Annapolis for the day to do some shopping. Annapolis is basically a town where every other car on the road is either a Lexus or a BMW. It's not exactly known for its bargain shopping. Unless of course, I am there. It turned into a day of using coupons, groupons and deals. Annapolis is a good 45 miles away and a real pain for us to get there (mostly on a 2 lane road) so we only go once in a while.

Since I knew we were going to Annapolis, during the previous two weeks I bought two different Groupon Coupons that were good for stores in Annapolis. Our first stop, was at a bakery where I was able to get $15 worth of yummy bread and muffins for $7 (using the groupon coupon). I love all things bread.

Then *shock* we went to the shopping mall. DH is strange in the way that he likes to buy books that haven't been previously owned by someone else. So he got a book at Borders (using a 33% off coupon that I had gotten via email).

At Bath & Body Works, I bought a $2 clearanced Wallflower fragrance thing (I use them) and got a free travel sized item (using a coupon I found on the A Full Cup website.

Then Jacob was hungry, so for a snack, we went to the food court and I got him a free kids meal at Chick-fil-a using a coupon he received thru school for a good report card or something. It took sheer willpower not to order a Chick-fil-a sandwich for myself.

Then went to Toys R Us and bought Jacob a new bicycle. I know, I know, I'm sure I could have eventually found a good used one at a yardsale. But I thought it would take a while to find the "right" one. He needs a medium sized bike, not a kiddie bike but not an adult sized bike either. So since I had a bunch of Toys R Us gift cards to use, and plus for Christmas he got money for a new bike, he got a new bike. We have a Toys R Us Visa card that is always sending us gift cards based on the amount we charge. And if it's a monthly bill, such as the electric bill or cable, it's gets billed automatically to our credit card. We religiously pay our credit cards off - in full - every month.

Then had a late lunch at TGIFriday's I get the TGIfridays emails, and they had sent me a coupon to "Buy 1 meal, get 1 half off", so we used that. And I showed my TGIFriday's frequent diners club (or whatever they call it) and got free chips and dips as an appetizer.

Then afterward, to keep us hydrated for the ride home, we got 4 smoothies from Robeks. I paid $10 for a groupon coupon for the 4 smoothies (which would have cost around $24 if we had paid out of pocket).

If you haven't already signed up for Groupon, please please please use my referral link below.



I haven't made any major purchases using Groupons, but when there are some good deals for $10 or so, it's a great way to save money and try out different stores. I even subscribed to get the Groupon emails from my old hometown. There was recently a restaurant deal at my brother's favorite restaurant in upstate New York. So for $12 I got him and his wife a $25 Groupon gift certificate to use at the restaurant. They are not really computer people so chances were very slim they would have known about the deal themselves.

Clean House Yardsale

I found out when the next yardsale will be for Style's Clean House. It's this Saturday 1/22/11. Where: 1612 N Leeds Ave, Ontario, California. From 9a-1p. Unfortunately I cannot make it to this one, but if you can - bring a large sign that says "visit www.yardsalequeen.com". Or you can just yell it very loudly and often. Thanks.

Only thing missing is a banjo player. Ten four that.

This was in our local news recently.



And apparently we were also terrorized by a unicorn.

Tree Decluttering (for free!)

Long story short - a couple of years ago, the tree trimmer guys that trim the trees around the power lines came by and lopped off the top of a cyprus tree that's in our yard near the power lines. They generally don't cut down cypress trees for some reason or another. Well after that, one of the big branches started slowly drooping down over a flowering cherry tree and also birds started a nest.

Well the birds are gone and not making babies this time of year so I figured what the heck, I'll call the power company and see if they will remove the tree. The worst they could say was "no". Since I think by lopping off the top, it made the tree weaker and droopy. Plus, I didn't want to pay some tree company a few hundred dollars to remove it. Even though when we bought our house it was brand new, it's in an older neighborhood where the power lines aren't buried.

So I called last week, and ta-da, they showed up today, looked at the tree and came back with their bucket truck, chain saws, chipper and shredder and removed the tree for free. You know I like free!









p.s. and see that scary cloudy sky? Oh boy, I'm scared. Yep, schools were closed 2 hours early today because of a chance of snow. It did not snow.

So many deals, so little time (for blogging)

Well I guess I blew my own personal new years resolution to not go more than a few days without blogging. Oh well, there is always next year. I've been quite busy in the past week scoring a lot of good deals at CVS and Walgreens.



But here now for your viewing pleasure is the multi-phallic Christmas castle that I passed on buying while at a thrift store in NY after Christmas. Original thrift store price was $9.99. But when I saw it, it was marked 75% off so it would have been $2.50 had I felt the need to own it.

And also during my trip to NY, here is something I took from my childhood home, with my mom's permission. (It was still being used, so I bought and installed a generic .50 light switch replacement from Lowes.)

I remember this from my childhood and thinking how fancy and special it was. Now that I got it home and look at it all cleaned up and in good lighting, I see how cheap it is! LOL! It's made by Hartland Plastics. But I've never seen another one in all my travels and yardsales I've gone to. So even tho it's probably not valuable moneywise, I still like it and will find a place to use it here at the castle (which ironically, actually does look similar to the one picture above - haha).


And finally, I've discovered the reason behind my love of diet coke (and diet pepsi). As a child, it was given to me medicinally. Of course this bottle is still in the medicine cabinet at my mother's house. Why wouldn't it be, the bottle is only about 40 years old and still has some left in it. So now I won't feel guilty about chugging my endless bottles of diet coke and diet pepsi - I see it as basically a healthy beverage with medicinal qualities and I should drink even more.

Back in the land of Mary

I am back from my post Christmas / New Years Eve trip to upstate New York. Very successful trip, I didn't have to visit any car repair places nor did I have to show my spanking brand new driver's license to any uniformed people. (Yes, I bit the bullet and shelled out $20 for a new replacement license. I think I will hold on to this one, the DMV woman scared me when she told me that if I keep losing it, eventually I would have to visit the main DMV office 75 miles away. Since after a certain # of replacements, they start suspecting people as running some sort of illegal alien/driver license scam.

No pics of my travels yet. But just wanted to do a quick post. I will be attending my first yardsale of 2011 this coming Saturday. It's an indoor church yardsale, it's always the second Saturday in January.

I did do some bargain shopping when away, got Christmas deals at CVS, Target, Walgreens etc. My deal was CVS was awesome - will post about it later. And did some food shopping at Aldi's. I browsed the local Salvation Army but did not buy anything, even the multi-penis shaped Christmas castle. pics soon.