Bitch Book

Bought myself a little something today for .50. There were quite a few yardsales today. Bought other stuff besides the book, but nothing really amazing.

Lynn - to answer your question about recipes in the White Trash Cookbook, here's a few to consider: Fried Squirrel (or rabbit), Butt's Gator Tail, Cooter Pie (also instructions on how to kill a cooter. What is a cooter? From the instructions I guess it's a turtle. Ewww....eat a turtle??? Not in this lifetime. Aunt Donnah's Roast Possum, Kiss Me Not Sandwich (spread mustard on 2 pieces of bread and add sliced onions). Potato chip sandwich (bread, mayo and chips). That sort of reminds me of my great creation/invention: The Peanut Butter, Jelly and Frito Sandwich©. Delish! Anyhow I digress....Potato Chocolate cake (a cake that uses mashed potatoes as an ingredient), Russian Communist Tea Cakes, Freda's Five Can Casserole, Jail House Chili, and so on.

Virgin Mary Fridge Magnet Set and White Trash Cooking

Two of my most unusual buys are pictured above. A refrigerator mix and match Virgin Mary and Jesus magnet set (I paid $2) and a White Trash Cooking cookbook (.50). I just gave my mom the same exact book for a Christmas gift (yes, yes, I know I am too kind and generous but that's the kind of person I am). So now I have my own copy. Bought some other stuff too, but nothing quite as interesting.

Oh I did stock up on men's Degree deodorant for .08 (plus tax) I think I bought about 15 of them at Target (on clearance for $1.08 and I had $1 off coupons)

Nice and gusty yesterday

I took my son to the Calvert Marine Museum yesterday for a little bit. The weather was sunny, cold and the windy was gusty. Yeah! Then stopped at a Post Office to drop something off in the mailbox and as I was walking to my car, I see something out of the corner of my eye. Money blowing down the sidewalk. So I ran to it and was able to put my foot on it. Then I noticed it was a $20 bill (and no one else was around). Believe me, I circled the parking lot a few more times just to make sure I didn't miss any more.

Did a yardsale with less than 24 hours notice

Since my husband has to work crazy hours this month, I knew the chances of him having Saturday (yesterday) off from work was very slim. I wanted to sell at the annual Parks & Recs indoor yardsale (yardsale space is a very cheap $5) but I resigned myself to the fact that I would just have to go as a shopper with Jacob. There's no way I'd be able to have a yardsale (set up etc and pay attention to customers) and watch Jacob at the same time. But on Friday, my husband called from work around 11am and said that he could take Saturday off (and therefore be home with Jacob) if I wanted to sell at the yardsale. I was so excited that I drove to the Parks & Recs office to sign up and left my wallet at home. DOH! But I figured I could withdrawl money at my nearby bank so I drove over to the bank to make a withdrawl. But without any ID on me I didn't know if I could. But thankfully I got the teller who sees me a lot (I routinely go thru the drive-thru with my dog to cash checks etc. My dog LOVES the bank since they give out dog treats at the drive-thru.) So I was able to make a withdrawl without any problem. Then I drive back to the Parks & Recs office to pay. Then it dawns on me....in my change purse that I keep separate from my wallet, I definitely had more than $5 in it. I didn't have to waste my time going to the bank and then driving back to the Parks & Recs office to begin with. Double DOH!

There were lots of customers at the sale and I didn't have time to take a good picture of my table when it was full. The above pic was taken a few hours into the sale. I plan on going thru the rest of the stuff that didn't sell and make a donation box to Smile. I did good selling a lot of the "new" stuff that I've been able to buy cheap at stores using coupons, like deodorant, Sunsilk hair stuff and cat food and dog treats. A few months ago I really stocked up on Electrosol dishwasher soap when people were selling free coupons on ebay. I ended up paying about $1 per coupon for a free box of Electrosol, I think overall I have about 40-50 boxes of it in my stockpile. I'm sure if I had more time to organize the yardsale I could have sold some of that for $2 a box.



I made two really good buys yesterday. One was a vintage Redman picnic basket for $3. Not in the best shape but I like these baskets - I think they have more personality than Longaberger baskets. I can never have enough baskets for storage. And the other good buy was a nice computer chair for Jacob for his room and it was only $3. Has the hydraulic lift thing on it so he is having a ball raising and lowering himself on it.

Maybe I can convince my husband to try a new beef jerky???

As I mentioned below I said that Food Lion was having the Purina Carvers on sale this week for $2 each. And I had quite a few $2 coupons. Here is my stash. Good thing my dog likes them. Now if only I could convince my husband its a new type of jerky. I did have to pay sales tax (.10 per package).

In a future post, I'll post about some couponing sources online where I sometimes get coupons. The thing with stockpiling is that you have to look at the expiration dates on things and use up the ones that expire first. I have a few months before any of them start expiring. (But really, do you think I'm going to throw out expired dog treats for a dog that sometimes rolls around in poop?)

My new used ugly shoes

I bought these shoes earlier this week. I had intended to maybe put them up on ebay, but I decided to keep them. Paid .75 They are made by Timberland.

Top 10 Shelling beaches in the country

Top 10 Shelling Beaches

My sister in law spotted the above website and sent it to me since we live near beach #6. I would have never guessed since all the shells always look so small and broken to me. (I took the above picture back in January.)

Bargain of the day - Purina Chew-eez Carvers (.10 package)

Food Lion (one of my grocery stores) has the Purina Carvers dog snacks on sale for $2. And guess what? I got a ton of $2 off coupons. So that makes them .10 a package for tax.

Yeah - stupid medical crap from 2006 is over!

I am so happy that I finally got our 2006 medical junk all straightened out from Wageworks (mentioned further below). Today we got a check for $29 which was the last of our account that needed to be paid back. So now its down to $0.00 and everything is accounted for. What a major pain in the butt. Not going to the hassle of using Wageworks this year. Yippee!!!

Two years ago

It was two years ago that I was standing in line at Vintage Value when I got the call that my Dad had died. He had been in and out of the hospital many times in the previous 6 months and had ups and downs. Several times when I thought "this could be it" he would rebound and be able to go back home. But this time was a little different and that very day Jeff was going to check with work to see if he could get flexible hours so he'd able to put Jacob on and off the school bus for a few days so I could fly to New York for a visit. This time of year at the nuke plant is very intense due to the maintenance "outage" and time off is normally not granted. As it turned out the got time off but not how we wanted it to be, since they have to grand time off due to death in family.

The outage is going on now so that means Jeff is working a lot of hours. I'll have to take Jacob with me to an indoor yardsale on Saturday.

p.s. And no, that's not the pic that was on my Dad's funeral home trading card. The poem was, but I changed the pic to one I took. Funeral Home trading cards is probably not the right term for those little prayer cards but it's the name I gave them.

I like Oscar night

Oscar night now always reminds me of Oscar Night 2000, when I gave birth to Jacob. I don't remember much of the awards - actually the only thing I remember was seeing a very preggo Annette Benning and thinking "She looks waaaayyyy more pregnant than me! Why isn't she suffering now like I am!"

Now this is my kinda junk mail! Free money

I got a nice piece of junk mail yesterday that included a free $1 bill. I'm no marketing genius but I think sending free money to people in order to try to get more money is pretty stupid. I figure I already give a lot to charities when I shop and donate at my non-profit thrifts. So I think this dollar is destined to be spent in one of them. (The Warning sticker on the envelope is warning people (postal workers?) that it's illegal to knowingly interfere with the delivery of mail.)

Puffy from There's Something About Mary - .25

My favorite buy of the week was a Puffy dog from the movie There's Something About Mary. Paid .25 for him. Makes me think back to the first time I saw this movie in 1998. My husband and I were on a cruise and we made a stop in Cancun for a day. Since we had just spent a week in Cancun in 1997, we decided to spend a portion of the day at the movies. It was in English with Spanish subtitles. We even got a promo package of There's Something About Mary hair gel.

Pics of party last week at Raven's Stadium

My husband's work had a party last week at the M&T Stadium in Baltimore. Yummy buffet dinner, lots of door prizes - we won a $200 Ipod Nano!!!! - and music by a 22 piece band. I highly recommend them the next time you need a 22 piece band for your function, visit them on the web at Mood Swings I even got dragged on the dance floor once. I uploaded the video to my Myspace page (click on videos there) and you can hear my scream.

Another Wednesday, another snowday (but no snow)

Well it rained yesterday so schools were closed 2 hours early. And they are closed today due to icy roads. Probably just in the northern part of the county - there's puddles in my driveway here in the southern part of the county.

All I can say is there better be school tomorrow!! The kids are off on Friday and Monday for teacher in-service day and President's Day. And the thing is, when schools are closed, Smile is closed. Not going to Smile on a Wednesday throws me off for the rest of the week! And since there was another snow day last Wedneday, I am really not liking this trend.

I did manage to get to VV yesterday and bought a pair of funky red ostrich clogs made by Dansko. They definitely caught my eye and the price was right.

Going to make some cake mix cookies with Jacob today for Valentine's Day. (Take a dry cake mix, mix in an egg and some oil, form into cookies and bake).

Also have to start doing some body maintenance for an upcoming semi-formal party that I'm going to on Friday night. Today my plan is to hide my greys. I was going to have a manicure tomorrow, but right now my nails are so short, its probaby not worth it. I can do my nails myself.

Rachael Ray - Before she hit it big

Well I am still looking thru pictures that I've taken over the last year or two and came across this one. (By the same token, I'm also trying to catch up in my magazine reading....currently reading the October 2005 issue of People and reading how Jennifer Aniston has a hot new romance with Vince Vaughn and Nick Lachey is quoted as saying "everything's perfect" (regarding his wife Jessica Simpson).

So anyways, this book cover is kind of interesting if you're a Rachael Ray fan. I am, I love hearing her mention her upbringing in upstate NY on her tv show since it's only about "10 exits" away from where I grew up. She was on a local tv cooking show with this local tv news anchor. Egads! No wardrobe stylist and she's not even using a Rachael Ray knife! My mom bought the cookbook for a .25 at a garage sale (and no, she doesn't want to sell it). And its even autographed.

Yardsale season still over a month or two away

so no yardsales for me today. I did go to Smile this week and buy a few goodies, like a bottle of Victoria Secret Very Sexy for Her perfume and lotion at $1 each. At VV, I bought Jacob some Super Nintendo games at .50 each.

In going thru my old pictures - I found this one I took several months ago. It's a typical Wednesday morning at Smile - a line of people gather waiting for the doors to open. (Smile is closed Sun-Tuesday so people know that Wednesday is the best day for the best selection - although they continuously put out new stuff).

Have I mentioned lately that I love Staples?!?

Well I do. In today's mail I got a $8.60 rewards gift card from them as my quarterly reward. I'm a member of their rewards program so for every purchase I make, I get a % back (I think it was like 2%) every quarter. But in today's mail they said my Reward percentage has been upgraded to 5%.

Since I'm sorta running low on empty inkjet cartridges, I just bought 150 empty cartridges on ebay (free shipping). I paid .60 per cartridge so that will each turn into a $3 Staples coupon when I recycle them. So for every $9 I spend at Staples, its really like I spent $1.80. Plus I will be getting 5% back. Then if I really want to double dip, I can charge all my Staples purchases on my Discover card for their cash back bonus. (We pay off our credit cards every month so I don't need to be concerned with paying interest etc).

Massive snowfall in Maryland causes schools to be closed today.

We got a whopping .25" of snow (if that!) overnight so of course schools were closed today. No, I am not kidding. Bunch of namby pamby wimps who run the schools here. They say "oh we do it for the safety of the kids...their safety is #1". It's the same school system who sent my child home the first day of pre-k with a loop of yarn around his neck with a name tag. Heck, if I had worn something similar during my years of working at the nuke plant, I would have been written up for wearing a safety hazard.

Photo isn't the best, I should have put a ruler next to it.

Boy, am I really on the ball!

For the past 1.5 years, I had kinda been wondering why no one has signed my guestbook on the main page of my website http://www.yardsalequeen.com. Every so often I'd check it and see that the last entry was from November 2005. I thought about taking it down since maybe it made the website look "dated" or something. Or perhaps that signing guestbooks are so 90's and just something that no one ever does anymore.

So after I updated the website the other day, I decided to do a "test" of my guestbook and sign it for the hell of it. Afterwards I see a notice "guestbook entry will be added once approved by the webmaster". Doh! LOL! I must have changed it to make it so I had to approve all entries because it was getting so much spam and I totally forgot that I did that!

So I logged in to the guestbook account and see hundreds of entries waiting for my approval. LOL! Most are still spam though for prescription drugs and it will take a long time to sift thru page after page of the bad entries. But so far I have I managed to find several legitimate entries among the spam.

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Here's a pic of a male red bellied woodpecker that was at my suet feeder today. Why they are called red bellied, I don't know.