Ear Tubes Surgery - strip from the waist up!

I forgot to mention that I did have the tubes put in my ears last Thursday and I survived (and I even did some thrift shopping afterwards). I went to the part of the hospital for outpatient surgery and was led to a little room by a nurse and was told to strip from the waist up and to put a gown on. And I'm thinking, what the heck??? Is the Doc gonna throw in a complimentary breast exam? So a few minutes later a different nurse came in and I questioned the reason behind the bra removal and she told me to put it back on. And if that isn't bizarre enough, I wore my glasses thru the whole procedure. Heck, even when I get my hair cut I'm told to remove my eyeglasses, but surgery on your ear drums - it's ok to leave them on. LOL!

My ears felt a little funny the rest of the day, but now just a few days later, they feel fine. I just can't go underwater, scubadive (which is fine since I hate scubadiving), and be careful about getting water in them when I shower. And now that tubes are piercing my eardrums, I cannot "pop" my eardrums anymore. I go back on Friday for a check-up, (and probably a hearing test) so it will be interesting to see how the results compare. I know one thing is much better - the "crackling" sound I often had inside my ears is gone which is nice.

More Cheap Yardsale Liquor and Yardsale Food

Well actually I think it would be considered Moving Sale Liquor. Went to a pretty big indoor moving sale today - the seller happened to be someone I remembered from working at the nuke plant (she worked there the same time I did). She was selling food 5 for $1 since she had to really reduce the amount of weight for the moving company. Here's a pic of some of my buys, there's more but it all didn't make it into the pic. I got (free) two gallons of deck stain and deck protector. She also gave me that bottle of Smirnoff Vodka for free too. The Bacardi was $1.50. She was pulling things out of her cabinets left and right, but that was all the liquor she had. The deck stain will come in handy since I need to re-stain Jacob's swingset.

Another gift for my mom - Meditations for Miserable People

At a moving sale today, I bought this book for my mom, it was .25

Ok, before you all tell me what horrible daughter I am, let me tell you a little story. A few years ago my parents went on some senior citizen bus trip to somewhere (most likely a casino). They were all given a blank name tag and told to write their name on it with an adjective describing themselves. Example: Jolly Joe, Sassy Sue, Lucky Louie and so on. What does my mom put? Mean Mary.

One of my buys from last week - Russian Matryoshka Nesting Doll

I guess I forgot to post about what I bought last week at the yardsales. For $1 I got a set of Russian Matryoshka nesting dolls (you unscrew it and inside is another doll, then unscrew that one there is another one and so on). Not sure if they are from Russia but they definitely were not made in China. Will be a gift for my mom at Christmas. I think she'll like it since she is 100% Ukrainian and it's a pretty Matryoshka with a cat, not your run of the mill bland looking doll.



Another memorable buy was a big STACK of pink Depression glass plates and bowls and 4 old pink swirl Fire-King cups and saucers, all for $10.

We had a big thunderstorm tonight, I hope it doesn't dissuade anyone from having their yardsale tomorrow.

I think I may be able to do some thrift shopping tomorrow

Tomorrow I may have some time to do some thrift shopping at Vintage Value. But first I have to deal with a little appointment at the hospital to have a medical procedure done. ACKKK - I hope really its nothing and I'll be in prime condition to do some thrift shopping afterwards. I'm having tubes put in my ears. It's normally a procedure that kids have done rather than adults.

Went out on the boat again last week and took this pic.

Remember the supposed squirrel proof birdfeeder I bought?

I bought a "squirrel proof" birdfeeder a few weeks ago for $2 at a yardsale. Thought I would share some pics on how much the squirrels love it. They eat - without disturbing the lever that hides the seed - then leave.

eBay clutter! Oh the Horror!

I was looking at some pics I took earlier this year and found this one. Aye yi yi. I really need to start selling again on eBay. I am happy to report my desk area DOES look better now, I have a real computer chair (bought new) and my new fancy big flat screen monitor.

Yardsale Bargains from Saturday

I had a good morning yardsaling yesterday and then after I went to Smile thrift (boy have I been missing that place since it's been a whole two weeks since I've been able to go), JC Penney's for their clearance sale and then did some grocery shopping. I left the house at 7:30am and didn't get home 'til about 1pm. It was nice to have some "me" time.

My yardsale buys:

.10 each - 26 CDs, various artists. This is twice this summer that I found a seller who was selling CDs for only .10 each. I sold a lot for $1 at my mom's garagesale the other week. I bought more than half of what they had - left the ones where the CD was missing (I pulled the case for them, was heavily scratched, was a totally obscure artist).

$5 new in package Grampa's Weeder garden week pulling tool. Their website is www.grampasweeder.com. Original price sticker says it was $19.99

$3 Dora sleeping bag (keep)
$2 pretty glass candy bowl (pic below)
$1 Green Glass (I think it's Vaseline glass or depression glass) canning jar with ceramic lid
$1 three compartment foldable laundry bin that pops up
.25 (for both) two Leap Frog small toys
$1 package of Burt's Bee sampler items
FREE - new in package inflatable snow tube
FREE - Boyd's Bear small pillow
$2 pair of Cabela's pants for me
$2 Tony Stewart Woman's blouse (resale)
.50 1994 Patrick Ewing Starting Lineup action figure in package

At JC Penney's I got Jacob two t-shirts on clearance for $1.97 and two Plug N Play 7 in 1 casino game thing for tv, Orginally $30 on clearance for $5.97. My husband's birthday is coming up and the other one I'll give to my casino-loving mom. But chances are I'll show her how to use on Christmas day, but then it will be too "electronically difficult" for her to do it on her own - even though there are probably two steps to do it. She has a simple VCR and we've written down instructions for her, but she rarely uses it since it's too confusing for her.

Woman's Day July 11 issue

I should have mentioned this earlier but I'm quoted (and my website) is mentioned in the current issue of Woman's Day that is one the newstands now - the date on it is the July 11 issue.

So if you are standing in line at the grocery store checkout, take a look at page 15. Not sure how much longer this issue will be sold before the next one is out.

My free Stargazer lillies

Back on September 19, 2005 I blogged about getting free bulbs from Brecks.com - I chose Stargazer lily bulbs - the squirrels ate most of the bulbs that I planted in the back yard, but the ones in the front yard came up nicely. Here's a pic I took earlier in the day:



I hope they multiply. But the funny thing is, when I was visiting my mom last week, she got ANOTHER Brecks catalog with no-strings-attached $25 coupon that she didn't want, so I'll end up ordering more bulbs for free - again!

Kohl's shopping bargains

I forgot to mention, I did do some "real" store shopping last week. I love the Kohl's near my mom's house. Last Friday they had late night hours till 11pm so I was able to do some shopping after I put my son to bed (my mom was still home so it wasn't like I left my son unattended). There is a Kohl's near the mall here in Maryland (the mall is 45 miles away so I don't go there very often). But still for some reason I don't like that Kohl's as much as the one near my mom. I've figured out why - the one that I like has high ceilings and everything is on one floor so it's easy to navigate. The one "near" me is two stories and has regular height ceilings. Plus when I go to the one near my mom, my husband isn't tagging along and rushing me.

Last week I spent about $25 at Kohl's and got: $7 Go Diego Go shirt (orig. $14) for Jacob, $1.99 each (orig. $4.99 ea) two nice dishtowels with embroidered lobsters on them, $7.50 double sided birdfeeder (orig. $29.99) and a patriotic bunting $5.99 (orig. $12) I did try on some clothes for me but since I only had about an hour to shop before it closed I didn't have time to really shop for clothes and still look at everything else.

back from upstate New York

I just got back from visiting my mom in upstate New York and going to my neice's graduation party. I'll post some pics later. Since I'm always telling my mom she needs to have a garage sale, I stuck my foot in my mouth and said I would have one during my stay this time. Boy do I really need a vacation (and a strong drink) now! It was a ton of work for one person (me!) to do. My mom is not much help when it comes to stuff like setting up tables, putting up signs, displaying things, you know all the stuff that needs to be done when having a garagesale. The tables that my mom has are ancient and must weigh 50 lbs each. Which I had to lug from one garage to the other. And then back when the sale was over. And of course all the stuff she wanted to sell was down in the cellar. And with all the rain, water was leaking into the cellar so I had like a mud pit I had to cross everytime I wanted to bring something upstairs.

Oh speaking of the rain, did you hear on the news about that section of highway in upstate NY that crumbled and 2 truckers died? I drove on that highway on Monday afternoon and the highway collapse happened on early Wednesday. How awful. I am really lucky I drove to NY on that Monday since I heard that on Tuesday that area got torrential rain all day. Today I drove home on the same highway and there was a detour because it will take months to reopen that stretch of Route 88. All the rivers and creeks in that area were a nasty brown color.

Well that's it for now, I have a lot of reading on my message board that I need to catch up on.

Yardsale Buys today and Cypress Swamp visit

Been raining the past few days so not many last minute yardsales. Only went to a few sales and mostly bought food items. Strange but true. Bought a 12 pack of Diet Coke with Splenda for .50, a big box of Act Popcorn (16 packages of popcorn) for $1, a gallon Arizona iced tea .25 (I hate tea in any form, but my husband drinks it). Also bought a bunch of kids books at .10 each and a big spool of fencing wire for $1 - to fix where the Whiskey dog keeps digging out.



The other day was awfully hot and humid - so I figured the best place to go was the local Cypress swamp of course ;-). Above is a pic. That's the way I like to enjoy nature - see it but not get dirty. No charge to visit the cypress swamp and nature center.

Greetings from a pretty ghetto area of Southern Maryland!

The local news is all over a story about Hilary Duff refering to a nearby town as "pretty ghetto" in an issue of Elle magazine. Hilary Duff Joel Madden Good Charlotte article

Actually the local DJ's (Don & Mike) refer to Waldorf as the "Armpit of Southern Maryland" which is pretty accurate. The Waldorf I know has lots of sprawl, townhouses and traffic. I do like the Dollar Tree that Waldorf has - man, that is so ghetto!! Would have been really funny if she had said that the area was "pretty armpit-like" rather than "pretty ghetto".

Boat ride on the W. B. Tennison

Haven't bought any bargains lately (hard to really shop at the thrift store with my son) so if I don't have any bargains to post about, I'll just talk about what's going on at yardsalequeen.com headquarters.

Yesterday I took my son out on a boat ride, my son loves it and it lasts about an hour. It's $11 for the two of us. He'd like to go out on it everyday, but I told him we'd do it once a week during the summer. Usually they only do one boat ride per day, but yesterday was a busy tourist day at the museum so they did a second cruise. We got on the second cruise and there was only about 15 people on it which was nice. The boat ride goes under the long two-lane bridge that we regularly go over. My husband wants to buy a sailboat and go out sailing on the weekends, and I'm like, well if we did I wouldn't be going out on Saturday mornings, that's for sure!

If you happen to see the current issue of Woman's Day (dated July 11 and it has popsicles on the cover), look at page 15. That's where they put my interview and yardsalequeen.com is mentioned. A much better spot than last summer when I was all excited about yardsalequeen.com being in Woman's Day and it turned out to be a two sentence blurb buried in the middle of a article.

Yardsale Buys

My favorite buy from yesterday yardsales was a squirrel proof bird feeder ($2). It has a lever on it and when lightweight birds land on it they can eat the food, but when a heavy squirrel gets on it, the lever falls and blocks the food. Well in theory anyways that's how it's supposed to work. The seller had other birdfeeders too, but the thing was, there was still seed in them all. Yuck. The cheap birdseed too - millet.

Went to Target yesterday and returned a $15 blow up pool that I bought for my son. I inflated it (thank god we have an air compressor) and by the end of the day, it had a hole in it. I knew when I saw how cheap the plastic was that it wouldn't last long, but one day???!!!! I thought I threw the receipt away, but I found it so I was able to get a refund. Went to K-mart and bought a pool that I think is a little more heavy duty for $24. I hardly ever shop at K-mart but a similar pool at Target would have been $30. I swear you walk into our K-mart that we have here, and it feels like you've entered a time-warp and it's 1973 again.

Also went to a jewelry/gift store since they mailed out coupons for a free watch battery replacement.

Today Jacob and I went to the museum again (they had extra activities going on today due to Father's Day) and he and I were able to go out on a little rowboat for a while.

Calvert Marine Museum Solomons Maryland

Since school is out, we've been going a lot to the little museum near our house (The Calvert Marine Museum). I bought a family membership in May during a half-priced membership day (Normally $50, I paid $25). Jacob likes going to see the fish and the otters. We also climb up to the top of the Drum Point Lighthouse. The above picture is of Jacob outside the otter habitant and the Drum Point lighthouse is reflected in the glass. We are definitely getting our money's worth out of the membership fee. If I was to take Jacob there - and not have the membership card - it would cost $9 for the both of us. So since we usually go at least 3 times a WEEK, we definitely got our money's worth.

Free twin bed (only cost us $99)

I visit a local community type website that has free classified ads, you know I have to check out which yardsales are added every week. Well anyways they also have a "freebie" section where people post stuff they have for free. The other day I saw someone was giving away a 3 year old boxsprings for a twin bed (they switched to a bunk bed so they no longer needed the boxsprings). And that was exactly what my son needed. Jacob sleeps on a twin bed - the exact same one I had when I got my own room in the third grade! Really - the same frame, headboard, boxsprings and mattress. Geez, you would think a twin bed would last a lot longer than 35 years - just kidding. The fabric on the boxsprings finally tore and my son was pulling out all the padding and the actual springs were visible - yes, it was made during a time when actual springs were in boxsprings.

So I called about the boxsprings and we picked it up the other night - looked brand new and it was made by Serta. So then we stopped at BJ's Warehouse (since it was nearby) and saw that we could get a new mattress for only $99 so since we were in the truck, it just made sense to get one. So for $99 my son got a new bed (still has the same headboard that I had as a kid).

Before anyone suggests that I check out freecycle.org - yes, I know all about them. I just never had any luck with it. Seemed like the "good" stuff was gone quickly and you really had to read the emails ASAP. Also seemed there were a lot of greedy people on it. Someone would post something like: I have these items to give away, let me know if you can use any of it: a pack of diapers, a hammer, 10 cans of lima beans, 5 kittens, 2 yards of polyester material, 3 spare tires, 5 big landscaping rocks and a hairdryer. Then someone would say "I'll take it all!" Come on, how could anyone need all of those things. People were just getting greedy and all the constant emails were annoying. That's why I prefer the little local website where I found the boxsprings.

My Bargain at CVS Pharmacy : Razors .20 a package

I had some coupons for free packages Bic Shavors Comfort that were due to expire on 6/18 and I couldn't find them at the grocery store or Target, but I found them at CVS the other day. The coupons value was for up to $5.29 off a package, but at CVS they were on sale for $3.99 - which was good since the regular price at CVS was $5.89. So since I had to pay tax, they were just .20 a package!

Results of my pink shoes experiment

A few months ago I mentioned here that I couldn't resist buying a pair of pink suede shoes for .50 - for my son. They looked just like a similar beige pair that he likes and wears often. They are definitely not pink anymore. I put both liquid shoe polish and waxy shoe polish on them so now they are a one of a kind creation.