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


=========
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.

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.


--------------------
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.
========

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.