Starbucks Via Taste Challenge Oct 2 - 5, 2009

I saw a commercial tonight that said if you visit Starbucks from October 2 - 5, you can do a taste test of their new Via instant coffee and see if you like the instant or the regular better. The ad also said you would get a free tall coffee on your next visit. You can currently see the ad on the Starbucks website.

I probably won't do it. As a non-coffee drinker, all coffee tastes bad to me.

alli and Butterfingers

I was cleaning out my coupons last night and spotted that I had cut out a "Save $15 on any Alli product" coupon that was going to expire at the end of the month. Since I was doing grocery shopping anyway today, I thought I would just see how much it cost. The grocery store wanted $44 for it so I didn't buy it. Then my next stop was Walgreens (to get the free stuff with Register Rewards again) and saw that Alli was on sale for $29.99 (making it $14.99 after my $15 coupon).

And since I had two $7 Register Rewards to use, plus some others, I figured I could get it very cheaply. One of the *tricks* of shopping Walgreen's using manufacturer's coupons and Register Rewards is that you cannot have more coupons than products. So if I just bought the Alli (one product) and used my $15 manufacturer's coupon, the cash register would have beeped and wouldn't have allowed me to use any Register Rewards since it would be like combining 2 coupons on 1 product (not allowed). So what you gotta do is buy some "filler" items in your order to increase the # of products you are buying. In this case, I bought some clearanced Butterfinger Crisp bars since they are only .22 each. I also bought a carton of eggs (.99) and a Halls's candy ($1). So by buying 6 items, that means I could use a max of 6 coupons and/or register rewards. Clear as mud, right?

So after my $15 coupon and four of my Register Rewards were deducted, I paid $1.18. But then afterward I also got $1 back in Register Rewards for buyng the Halls candy.

A few more buys - Williams Sonoma grill press

Here's my Williams-Sonoma grill press that I bought two weeks ago at a yardsale but I forgot to upload the pic. I paid $1 for it - never used - the seller said it had been a wedding gift. Sells for $24.95 on the Williams Sonoma website. Didn't have my flash on for the pic, so that is why it looks funky.

Also another thing I bought last Saturday but forgot to mention (I had put it in my fanny pack and rediscovered it today) is a new Bath & Body Works candle (not a huge one, but a medium $9.95 sized one) that I paid .50 for.

I did a bunch of Walgreen's shopping today. They have a lot of deals going on which are free after Register Rewards. And the good thing is, several of their free promos (with register rewards) will be running until the end of October.

Also today, I was looking thru the local community college's continuing education schedule for the fall and see that they have a one day "how to declutter your house" seminar for $50. But geez, its on a Saturday. I got places to go and things to buy Saturdays!

My $10 Wii and a Kidney Yardsale

Above is all the stuff I bought today. I had Jacob with me today, I probably would have bought more if I could have shopped alone. Yesterday when I said I didn't have many yardsales on my agenda for today, I had totally forgotten about a big indoor community yardsale that was going on today. But this morning I spotted the sign and remembered.

Best buy of the day (or perhaps $10 down the toilet) was a $10 Wii system. The seller said it was given to them and they already had one and that this model is a Japanese model so it needs an adapter to plug it in. I figured for $10 I will take a chance. I sorta looked in the box before buying, but didn't totally look in the box (it felt heavy and I could see the cords were all still wrapped). Well anyway, when I got home, I saw the controller is missing is so is the Sports game. The console looks spanking new though and has all the other paperwork etc so I am hoping we can buy the replacement parts and get it working for cheap. And our library loans out Wii games for free.

========= Update - after DH researched online about a Japanese Wii - he discovered that he would have to install some mod chip for it to play American Wii games. Which he can do since is handy with that kind of electronics. Even doing that tho, all the commands would still be in Japanese. But believe it or not, there are Japanese Wii websites where people have translated all the commands. Would also have to buy a controller, and a new electrical cord etc. So.....I think I am going to list it on ebay - I see others have sold in the $100 or higher range. So I think I will sell it and then use the money to buy a regular American version Wii (or put it towards my Botox fund).
==============

Other buys:
$5 Little Tikes Spring Garden with 2 veggies & 1 mail. I will craiglist the garden and ebay the veggies/mail - those sell really well on ebay.
$1 nice canvas tote bag on wheels
free - plastic tool box (says .75 on it but the guy threw it in for free when I bought other stuff)
.50 - plastic bin with lid
$2 - Discovery Channel bowling set never used - price tag said was originally $29.99 (!!!) I paid $2 and planned on putting it away for Xmas for Jacob but he saw it and already played with it. I don't think the $2 was worth the 5 minutes he actually played with it.

$2 Atari Flashback game set (price tag says $3, but I offered $2)
.25 set of old tin holiday ashtrays or coasters
$2 Harley Davidson motorcycle helmet. I will resell.
.50 DVD for doggies
.50 two disk country music CD for me
$1 Clinique scrub
$3 Miracle by Lancome perfume
.50 small Estee Lauder pleasures perfume (perfect for traveling)
$1 new nightlight with fishes and the color changes
.50 new bottle of Slime (car tire repair)
$1 set of Rubic cube sheets (ebay)
$1 electric engraver
.25 hippy type sunglasses (hard to see but they are big)
$1 each two digital cameras with a display on the back. A lot of cheapy digital cameras don't have a display on the back. Will give one to Jacob for Xmas.
free - to the far right is a fairly big roll of new berber carpeting. In our garage we have some carpeting in one corner so if I ever clean the garage out (with all my boxes and junk), I could use this carpeting for it.

Here is one sale I couldn't get to (even tho its only like 10 miles away). I wonder if they had the yardsale police there to make sure the buyers remained serious and no tomfoolery was occurring. I wonder how much blackmarket kidneys cost? I doubt they come cheap.



I have a video of these purchases but haven't uploaded it to Youtube yet. I can't get my sound to work on my computer so I don't want to upload anything yet until I can hear what I am uploading.

To see what kind of stuff other people bought this week, check out the Rhoda at Southern Hospitality Blog

==========Update
9/29 - on craiglist I sold the Little Tikes Spring Garden for $20 (without the veggies & mail which I will put on ebay)

Also, I think we are going to keep the Japanese Wii. Since I can't plug it in I feel funny putting it on ebay without being able to test it. Last thing I want is someone claiming that it doesn't work. So this way DH can have fun getting it to work.

Diabetes Testing Device? Sure, no problem - I got a stash.

My brother and SIL were here visiting for a very short while (yesterday and today) - they are now spending some time in Ocean City, Maryland. But when she was here, she couldn't find her glucose testing meter and thought she left it back home in NY. Well....guess who has a stash of diabetes glucose monitors stored in the garage? Yep, I do. Why? Because if a store is gonna pay me to take them, I will. Walgreens had a deal a little while back, buy a Bayer Contour diabetes meter on sale for $19.99 and get $10 back in Register Rewards. And there had been coupons in the newspapers to save $20 off a Contour meter and since I buy several newspapers, I had several coupons. So I got the meters for free, plus I got $10 in Register Rewards.

Only a few yardsales on the agenda for tomorrow. Oh crap. I just realized something. I was thinking of doing a yardsale at the fairgrounds on Oct. 3 but I can't. The actual fair will be going on then, and they don't allow yardsales during fair week. Oh well. Maybe the following week. It will give me time to organize. What I really gotta do is put up a bunch of stuff on ebay. Last week at Smile I bought a $1 lamp that should sell for $150 or so.

Wedding Pics - Saratoga NY - Maryland

This Saturday will be strange - no wedding to go to! I spent the last two Saturdays at weddings. The first one was in NY for my niece. After graduating college, she took a job at some little clinic in Minnesota. You've probably never heard of it......The Mayo Clinic. I hope working for some little clinic doesn't hurt her resume. Too bad she didn't take my advice and go to community college for liberal arts and hope for a job as a clerk-typist stuck in a cube somewhere. (I have a t-shirt that says "I have a Liberal Arts degree. Do you want fries with that?")

Yes, that is a Boston Red Sox Bride and NY Jets Wedding Cake Topper.


My food- shrimp and crab (and rum and coke)


On the polo grounds getting formal wedding pics done:






The day after the wedding, my cousins, sister and I visited The Yaddo Gardens





The Yaddo Mansion and my cousins who like to live life on the edge.



Swampy pond - with duck on log.



And last weekend was the wedding of my buddy Sharon. She was my first friend that I made when we moved here to Maryland.


Beautiful location on the beach


Maryland crab cake dinner. I swear the crab cakes were the size of tennis balls. I felt a little funny asking for a to-go box, but I did! They were huge.

More David Cassidy Moving Sale Pics

Here are the additional pics of David Cassidy's Moving Sale courtesy of Ann (ebay ID Rusticbuilder). She was there earlier in the day than I was, so some of the pics look a little different since there is more larger stuff there.

This is NOT the house - but I thought it was funny since both Ann and I photographed the same house - thinking it was the right house. I deleted the pic off the camera back when I was in NY, so I don't have a similar pic to share. BUT the super long driveway to get to David's rental house is there on the left - see the black arrow.


View of the house - as you see, it was pretty impossible to get a good photo of the front since trees obscured it.



This is the view when you parked the car. The picture that I took with the faded green wicker chairs is underneath the second floor deck.



Front entrance (the first door closest to the camera). The house was a duplex, so the neighbors had the door further down the pathway. Can you even imagine being next door neighbors to David Cassidy???? I'd be bringing over a plate of cookies every day, if you know what I mean - haha.



Living room.


Other corner of the living room


One of the upstairs bedroom. When I shopped the sale, the master bedroom furniture had been sold and was gone. So I did second best - I did bounce on the mattress that was in one of the spare bedrooms.



If anyone else has pics of the event they want to share, just contact me (contact info is over there to the left) and I will post them.

And for my regular blog readers (who aren't necessarily David Cassidy fans), thanks for putting up with all my recent David Cassidy posts.\

p.s. If anyone knows when Sylvester Stallone is going to have a yardsale contact me - I must attend. After my David Cassidy era, I then went thru a John Denver phase (don't ask), then I was into my Sylvester Stallone phase. And I don't think that John Denver will be having a moving sale anytime soon.

Just so you know I am not a total hoarder....

here is what I decluttered this week. I am able to get rid of stuff. A local company that recycles scrap metal and batteries came to my house and carted all this away for free. We had a total of 8 dead car / motorcycle batteries in our garage. And my DH thinks I am a hoarder. I'm not the one who wants to store useless batteries in the garage. Inside the box was a few more batteries plus a dead riding lawnmower engine. I got the kid's bike for free, but it would have been too much work to fix it.



While I was in NY, I managed to go to a few other garage sales. But when I say
"a few", what I really mean is "a lot". But I was good since I really only wanted to buy what would fit in my suitcases and not make it go over 50 lbs. Kudos to Southwest Airlines for allowing two free suitcases per passenger! At one sale I bought this chaise lounge for $5. I knew it wouldn't fit in my suitcase, but my brother (who is visiting soon) will bring it when they drive down here.



At a church sale, there were some 1976 vintage magazines for .10 each. The article titled "I make money from Garage Sale Antiques - so can you" caught my eye. I haven't read the whole article yet, but one of the tips was *interesting*. It said to show up very early at the yardsale-giver's house with a bunch of your stuff and offer it free to the seller. In exchange for giving them your free junk, see if they'll let you shop early.

If an earlybird did that to me, I would tell them to pack sand. And that I didn't want or need their junk.



The magazine, despite it's age, still has useful re-decorating ideas, like this - the bath beautiful. I bet it would be hard to find a matching green toilet and tub. My mom just remodeled one of her bathrooms and got rid of a blue toilet (but still has the blue tub).



Stay tuned for MORE David Cassidy garage sale pics. I heard from another customer who was at the sale earlier in the day than I was and also took pics.

Me in my Sexy David Cassidy ......hat

Me in my sexy David Cassidy hat pic #1


Me in my sexy David Cassidy hat, view #2:




Due to popular demand, here I am modeling my sexy David Cassidy hat (which apparently belonged to his son Beau Cassidy) but I just know David must have worn it, it looks like his style - haha. I thought it said "Bean" and didn't even know what his kid's names were until I got home to Maryland and did a wiki search on David Cassidy. David, if you are reading this and you likey what you see....call me. Being the yardsalequeen, I'm already accustomed to dealing with the paparazzi. And I will keep it on the lowdown. If my husband answers the phone, just say that you are a telemarketer. As a bonus, the hat will also come in handy the next time I want to rob a bank and/or convenience store.

I spoke with my sister last night and she mentioned she bought me something at the sale - a coat - I told her to wrap it up and give to me at Christmas. So....hardcore DC fans, don't forget to check back later to see what I got.

The night before the garage sale, my sister had dinner in Malta at a restaurant called the Ripe Tomato. I didn't go since I was having dinner with my friends that night. She heard some DC gossip from one of the waiters there and when I was at the garage sale, one of the employees working the sale told me the same gossip. I won't repeat it here, but if it's true the news will be out soon.

To the person Ann who commented on my blog about using one of of my pics - how about we do an exchange - you send me the pics you took during the sale so I could share them here with other DC fans? I'm sure they would love to see more pics. You can email me at yardsalequeen@comcast.net

My sister told me last night that during the garage sale, she was told that the proceeds of the garage sale/moving sale was going to charity. I was not told that and nor was it mentioned in the craigslist ad. I think the organizer of the sale could have done a better job with advertising (it was not in the local newspapers - just craiglist) and they would have had better luck with signage if they had bought some Sassysigns and next time have some yardsale royalty run the sale!

What I bought at David Cassidy's Garage Sale

Over the last few days I've gotten some nice emails from other David Cassidy fans who have found my blog. I am kicking myself cuz if I knew David Cassidy still had soooooo many devoted fans all over the world I would have bought up all those towels I saw for sale and cut them into 1" squares and sold them for big bucks and now I would now be dictating this blog to my full-time assistant that I could have hired with all the money I made, while my butler feeds me bon bons. But alas, I didn't think about doing that. Crap.

At David Cassidy's garage sale, I did buy one article of clothing. (And I still have not seen what my sister purchased while there). The clothing was all disorganized and they wanted $5 a piece. I didn't feel like digging around in a cardboard box. $5 per piece of clothing is considered highway-robbery in my book. Or maybe I am just too cheap. But then I grabbed a red hat and the seller guy said it was $1. So I bought it. The extra benefit of this particular hat is that I think in some countries, I think I could use it as a Burkha if need be. Will post a pic of me in my David Cassidy hat/Burkha soon. I am calling it my David Cassidy hat, but in reality it is his son's hat Beau. How do I know? Cuz "Beau" is written in marker on the underside of the hat. I had no idea what it meant at the time but I did a"wiki David Cassidy" online search and saw that Beau is his son's name. But I am sure David must have borrowed it from time to time, you know to run out to the mailbox in the cold upstate NY winters. So therefore, it will forever be known as my David Cassidy hat and I will never ever wash it (unless of course it gets really dirty). And I may even request to be buried in it - when the time comes in 60 or 70 years.

And since the DC fans who have contacted me really liked the pictures, I thought I would add the rest of the pics.

This is what I ended up buying - a sheet of Saratoga Box seat tickets (expired of course) with David Cassidy's name on it for $5. This is not the sheet I bought - I bought ones with Aug/Sept dates on it. But there was a stack of them.




This was the lower entry to the house - sliding doors to the unfinished basement. I think that wicker furntiture was for sale. This faces the lake.



Another view of the garage sale sign with the Rodgers Lane street sign. I don't think that for-sale sign was for the rental house (just another house that was for sale on the street) and also don't think it was his garbage can either.



Hanging out on David Cassidy's patio - all the stuff was for sale.



Saratoga racing mementos (several times a racing season, they give out a freebie of some sort).


stayed tuned for me in my David Cassidy hat.

My apologies....

If you visited my site yesterday, you may have noticed that Kanye West hijacked the yardsalequeen.com website for a short while, as seen above. First he steals Taylor Swift's limelight, and then tries to steal mine. I think I have the issue resolved.

Today I am busy preparing for my yardsale tomorrow so showing my David Cassidy goodies will have to wait.

David Cassidy Garage Sale Moving Sale

Here's the Craigslist ad for the David Cassidy moving sale / garage sale. I know what you're thinking "What is David Cassidy doing living in upstate New York?" He owns several race horses (see pics on his official website and Saratoga Springs NY is home to the oldest race course in the USA. In the pic above, I covered up the name of the antique store - since they have removed the craiglist ad off of craiglist.





Here's the scoop (from what I heard) - the wife hired a local antique store to run the sale. The Cassidy's had a nice house somewhere in Saratoga, NY which they sold in the springtime. They didn't want to move out of the area immediately so they temporarily stayed at this rental house (with a beautiful view of Saratoga Lake). But now David is living in California working on his tv sitcom Ruby and the Rockits (which I just found out has been canceled).

My sister lives closer to where the sale was, so she went there in the morning and bought a few things, including a pair of pink leather pants. The pants fit my fashionista niece so I guess I will have to find pink leather pants on my own. The womens shoes did not fit me since they are a size 6.5

The signage for the sale wasn't great. I didn't get there until the afternoon. There was a sign on a car to turn left and go up hill, so I went up a gravel pothole filled hill - I felt like I was out four-wheeling in my mom's Buick Century. The road was bad. So I went back down that hill and then I spotted a very long gravel driveway so I figured I would try that and that's where the sale was. They should have put another sale sign on the long driveway. I think David Cassidy owes my mom a car wheel alignment.

The house was a duplex rental house with a nice view of Saratoga Lake. The unfinished lower level was where a majority of the stuff was for sale. In the main part of the house was furniture, tv, artwork, bookcase, kitchen stuff.

Here is one of David Cassidy's rental house bathrooms.



View of Saratoga Lake (pic taken from the backyard at David Cassidy's rental house)




Miscellaneous David Cassidy stuff.


Shoes. No I didn't sniff the man shoes for possible David Cassidy scent.


Magazine on the coffee table was conveniently opened to the recent People issue with the David and his daughter interview.


David Cassidy lightbulbs and microwave and miscellaneous.



Living room furniture.


Oh no, say it ain't so. David Cassidy Flowbee!!! acckkkkkkk (....it sucks, it cuts)


David Cassidy birdcage.


One of the bedrooms:


I gotta run now, but I will post pics of the stuff I bought.