Recent (?) Media and Junk

Yea!!! I fixed my photo storage issue I was having on my computer. So hopefully I will be blogging more soon. Well pretty soon I hope. I'm getting ready to go to my high school reunion this weekend. Kinda hard to believe that it's been a few years since I graduated. Shenendehowa Class of "insert # here" Rules!!!!!

I've been trying to clean up my computer area (for the millionth time) and found these magazines where YSQ appeared in. I just haven't updated my media page in forever.

Nice to be in the Reader's Digest, since this magazine tends to stick around for years in doctor's offices etc.



I like being in Woman's World BUT since it's a weekly magazine, not much of a shelf life.


Who even knew that Pilot/Flying J gas stations had their own magazine? And that people pay for it??? That would explain all the trucker fan mail I received. Don't be mistaken, that is not me on the cover. I don't play guitar.



And now for the junk. Here is what I bought last weekend. Most expensive thing was the $3 new glass shelf. Everything else ranged from free - $2. (Christopher Radko Shiny Brite elves were .50 for the box)





And I paid $1 for the excellent plastic soaking clothes rack. But it didn't even come with directions. How am I supposed to assemble?



I guess it doesn't matter since the real reason why I bought it was because it creates a gentle and beautiful life. Can't beat that for a buck!

Magic Crystal Valley here I come! (someday)

Had a great day yardsaling yesterday. I bought some Bitch Soap and fridge magnets that look like chewed up pieces of gum.

But the best part was I met a woman who lives locally and has the largest Cabbage Patch Kids collection in the world. How the heck did I not know about this??? I just can't wait to go to the Magic Crystal Valley But it will have to wait. I already have places to go and people to see later this week.

oh crap, I'm getting a cpap.

I can't remember if I mentioned this or not here, but a while back I went and had 2 sleep studies done. It's where you get electrodes stuck on your head and all around, have a big fat elastic waistband put around your middle, then you get to sleep while someone watches you via a camera in another room. Very relaxing! I wasn't having any problems sleeping (or so I thought) but my DH thought I had sleep apnea so my doctor recommended having the tests done.

Turns out, I need a CPAP machine. Oh lucky me. So apparently I have been not breathing (dying??) 20 times per hour every time I sleep. I get up fine and I am ready to hit the yardsales or go to Walgreens everyday. My CPAP gets delivered tomorrow. So from then on, I will be breathing thru the entire night. What a concept. So I can just imagine, if I start getting up even MORE relaxed and full of energy every day, how much more efficient I will be at shopping!

Still catching up: Washington Nationals, Miss Geico Racing and Junk

Still catching up on blogging about what I've been up to last few weeks. I got free tickets to a Washington Nationals game so we took the Metro into Washington. The Washington Post newspaper had a deal that if you sent in $100 worth of receipts from certain stores during a certain timeframe, you got 4 free tickets. So of course, all I had to do was go buy a $50 gift card to Walgreens and one to CVS (for me to use later), and ta-da I had a $100 in receipts.



I had been wanting to eat at Ben's Chili Bowl for a while now. And since DH saw it on the Food Network, he was all for it. I had a hamburger with chili on it and it was delish.






We had some time to kill before the game started so as luck would have it, there was a free event near the ballpark sponsored by the Boys & Girls Club. Jacob got his face painted and I won a Spanish radio station t-shirt.



At the ballpark. Jacob got his picture taken with the presidents (who are filthy dirty). This pic came out the best out of the presidential pics.






View from our seats. What's Jacob pointing at?


The pointy monument AKA Washington Monument. The clouds looked cloudy but it did not rain on us.

Another view from our seats:


Then the other weekend, there was some high speed boat races featuring Miss Geico Racing going on locally in Solomon's Island. An end of summer party was held at the local firehouse. Tickets were $15 a person (free for kids 12 and under). But of course, I managed to score one free ticket (a radio station had a live broadcast a while back so I stopped by) and got the one free ticket which I thought was sorta stingy but it all worked out. DH didn't really care to go anyway. So just Jacob and I went. And while there, I signed up to be a designated driver, so I drank my fill of free diet pepsi. Score!

Some of the crew from Miss Geico with Jacob and a woman who could be my twin.


Yardsalequeen.com is not an official sponsor of Miss Geico, but if they were smart, they would add it. They have a Miss Geico Gecko boat, a Caveman boat but no Maxwell the Pig boat??? That is a travesty that should be rectified.


And for my junk - here's stuff I bought one Saturday a few weeks ago. I think the Pandora's Box from the 70's is neat. Stuff was cheap - most things were less than $1 and nothing was over $3.

Ice Cream, Pretzels and Atlantic City

Here's a bunch of pictures from a mini-vacation we took way back in August. I think I have my computer working fine now (knock on wood). For our mini-vacay, we only spent 2 nights away but we crammed it full (just the way I like my life in general!) First day - drove to Pennsylvania (a couple of hours away) and stopped at the Turkey Hill Experience. Jacob loves Dutch Chocolate Turkey Hill ice cream so I figured we would make a quick stop. I didn't want to actually PAY to go thru the Experience (I read some bad reviews) so we just looked around in the part that was free, took some pics, ate some ice cream and bought a few souvenirs in their gift shop. I'm not going to pay $11.50 per person to go thru some fake manufactured touristy experience when a Ben & Jerry's tour only cost $3. And it's better ice cream. (I think I may be in Vermont later this month.)


Next stop was learning how to make pretzels (another one of Jacob's favorite foods) at the Julius Sturgis Pretzel Bakery.



Then we had some time before dinner so I'm like "let's go into Lancaster and find an Amish market or something". I should have done some research beforehand. Because we ended up instead finding the seedy part of downtown Lancaster - and there wasn't a single Amish in sight. Drove right passed the Lancaster jail (no, I didn't ask if they gave free tours). So we gave up on finding an Amish market and just went out to dinner and relaxed at the hotel pool in the evening. Here's Jacob pretending using a pay phone - no doubt there for the Amish to use.


Next day, we got up and drove to Atlantic City. As we were leaving the Lancaster area - we spotted the Amish places - guess what? They live outside the city on farms. Who would have thunk it?? It was about a 4 hour drive or so to mini Sin City. We checked into the Showboat Casino. DH headed for the craps table and Jacob and I took a walk to the Abescon Lighthouse



Bonus points if you can read Jacob's t-shirt. No fair googling it. The woman working the temporary tattoo parlor on the Atlantic City boardwalk knew what it said. The shirt came from the Salvation Army during one of my trips back home. I think I paid $1.99 for it (new, with the tag so I know what it says). Notice that yellow round thing on top of the lighthouse? After you climbed the bajillion steps to the top, you could walk around outside.

View from the top of the Abescon Lighthouse:


Outside of the Showboat Casino. The big casino being built next door is called Revel. It's not open yet - it looks amazing. I really liked the location of our hotel. I was glad it was close to walk to the lighthouse and semi-close to the amusement park area.



Jacob won 2 angry birds. I don't even want to know how much they cost.


This wasn't my first time to Atlantic City - I used to go with friends pretty frequently in my single days. But never rode one of those push carts. So Jacob and I did that in the evening - I had been so tired from walking all day. I didn't even mention the couple of hours I had to myself where I went shopping!



One store I found on the boardwalk was nothing but pure junk. I think I spent $10 there on various items. Of course I need some $1 umbrella hats and a $1 Atlantic City hat for Jacob and some expired energy drinks. I passed on these vintage bubbles - I remember these from my childhood! They were .25 each and were very goopy and gross.


Outside the Showboat.


On the last day of the mini-vacay, we woke up in Atlantic City and then drove down the coast of New Jersey, stopping in Margate City to see Lucy the Elephant





Then continued driving down to Cape May, NJ and saw their lighthouse. Did not climb. Climbing one was enough for this trip.



Then in Cape May, boarded the Cape May ferry. That took us to Lewes, Delaware and from there it was about another 4 or 5 hour drive home (to relax!).

My Current Dilemma, Part 2

I'm having problems with my computer's picture software - so no pics until I figure it out. (I think what is happening is that my hard-drive is so chockablock full that I'm unable to see thumbnail pictures and instead have to individually click on pictures by file name (such as DSC5847, DSC5848 and so on). And doing that is a major pain.

I love my new freezer. Now I am glad the old one broke. But I had to unload my entire shelving unit full of stockpiled pantry items - to move the shelf - so the new freezer would fit. Hypothetically speaking (of course), it's normal to have 8 cans of sweetened condensed milk, right?

My Current Dilemma

I've been so busy the last few weeks with school starting up, shopping, cleaning up from Hurricane Irene, shopping, exercising (yes - I've used my treadmill more over the past 2 weeks than I have the past 10 years (I signed up to go to my HS reunion next month!!!) and doing even more shopping that I haven't posted much lately. But now, here is my current dilemma:

Remember my organized chaos picture from a few years ago? Click here for a reminder. Long story short - the freezer has died. It is 24" wide and fits nicely into its current spot. New freezers are all 28" wide and won't fit into that spot. We bought a new freezer today. Needless to say, I have some re-organizing I need to do.

It wasn't worth to get our old freezer fixed. We bought it new around 1993 or so and it wasn't frost-free. So over time, ice would build up and then it would have to be defrosted. But now - the new freezer which I got a great deal on from Sears (had a 25% off coupon plus they threw in an extra 5% off). With tax, it came out to less than $400 plus it has all the bells & whistles. Frost free - now that was worth it in itself!, digital temperature control, interior light - none of which our old freezer had.

But now I just have a bit of work to do to get it to fit in the old freezer's same spot. Stay tuned for an updated "organized chaos" photo.

Don't worry, Atlantic City pics are still on their way. I haven't forgotten.

Cocks Road

Yeah! My computer is fixed! A new $20 power supply thingymajig did the trick. I still need to find time to write a blog post. So until then, just enjoy this blast from the past. Supposed to have been Cox Road.

How the hell

How the hell can this be September and me not have a single blog post to show for it??

My computer is dead. It better just be temporarily dead since I have years of pictures stored on it. I am using a laptop now - so I don't have access to pictures. I know you are waiting patiently to see my latest vacation pics. I am waiting to receive a new power supply for my computer.

I also have years of old (mostly unanswered - my bad) emails stored on my computer since I use Microsoft Outlook for my main yardsalequeen.com comcast email account. So, if you emailed me within the past month or so and haven't heard back, you probably won't hear from me in a while. I can read current email thru the comcast website (but past emails are on my harddrive). I know I promised one tv producer guy I would do something (make a short video) and that has been put on hold until I get my regular computer working.

I have an update to the weird looking cat I saw in my yard a few weeks ago. Of course I am not 100% sure if it was the same weird cat or not. But if not, it was a twin. Rocky wasn't feeling good so the nice man at Animal Control took him away. He said he was going to a wonderful place called rainbow bridge where he'd get to play with other weird looking cats just like him. So I am happy about that. I will show more pictures of Rocky later when I get my computer fixed.

Day 3 of no electricity

So Hurricane Irene cancelled all the yardales this past Saturday morning because it was raining so hard and then in the evening we lost electricity and haven't had it back since. (I am currently at a secret undisclosed location where I can use a computer).

Hopefully we will get power back today, fingers crossed. And hopefully schools will be open SOON!!!

Our $149 HP Touchpad Deal

So last Saturday as we are driving to Pennyslvania, my DH says something like - starting today there is a deal on HP TouchPads - the price has been slashed from $449 to $149 - we should try to get one. I had never heard of this deal before but if it includes stopping at a store to do some shopping, I'm in. First we stopped at Walmart - they had none. Then we stopped at Staples where they were $449 and they didn't have any on the shelves. BUT a very helpful employee offered to order us one, have it delivered to our local store and they would honor the Walmart $149 price (for a 32g).

So we ordered one and yesterday it arrived and we picked it up.





And I picked up my 300 free personalized mailing labels (from an email coupon I got) while I was there.

Note to self: earthquake proof the royal throne area

I've had a busy past few days - took a mini vacation with the family (more on that at a later date) so I missed yardsaling on Saturday. We got home on Monday night.

Yesterday I was home alone (the guys had gone golfing) and I was making up for lost computer time when I heard the house creaking and cracking. My first earthquake! It seemed like it was just out of the movies - you know when they show an earthquake scene with glassware rattling. Then it stopped and I did what seemed logical - posted it to my personal Facebook page at 1:52pm "I think I just felt an earthquake!". The earthquake hit at 1:51pm. Then resumed surfing.

I didn't check my upstairs royal throne area until later in the day and found this. My Longaberger basket full of stuff that was on the back of the throne fell spilling the contents. So now I better earthquake proof my house since I need to keep all of my half full bottles of lotions and medicines I don't use. If you come to my house and need a bandaid or are bleeding profusely and need a box of bandaids, I'm your person.

Now who wouldn't want soiled clothing???

Although it sounded very tempting (haha), I did not buy any soiled clothing last weekend.

Instead here are some other buys of mine:



$2 NWT Kohl's bathingsuit for Jacob
$5 lot: wicker basket, gameboy (for resale at Play N Trade), embroidered bib, scrabble game (I'm collecting a bunch of tiles - to sell on ebay to crafters), heavy duty plastic birdbath (not in picture)
.50 blue thing is a Tupperware container for small odds & ends
.50 vintage Tupperware ketchup & mustard containers
.50 German Shepherd socks (ebay)
$3 new Longaberger candle
$1 - green mesh ball thing is a birdfeeder
$2 - lot of California Raisins
.50 - vintage cartoon glasses
.50 pedometer

Here Kitty Kitty

During summertime, when schools are out, I usually curtail my thrift store shopping. I don't totally eliminate it, but I do cut down. I am glad I stopped into my favorite thrift the other day and bought a few items, including this Good Luck Kitty tin for .50 (it originally held some sort of candy and was made in England by George Horner & Company.) I also bought myself a new bottle of Gwen Stefani LAMB shower gel for $1.

I love shopping at my local thrift store - you never know what you will find - anything from vintage stuff to current stuff and at cheap prices. I am not a big fan of chain thrift stores (like Goodwill or Salvation Army), I prefer the small independently run thrift stores. Don't get me wrong, if I am near a Goodwill or Sal's, I will stop in, but it's not my favorite.

The countdown for back-to-school has begun!

The scary clowns are back

If you weren't scared by the scary clowns I bought at a yard sale the other week, here they are again. But one somehow got decapitated; I think the one on the left is guilty.

Yardsales this past weekend were so-so. I now have horns. It's not something you typically find at a Maryland yard sale. It was $5. Will resell on Craigslist or something.



Another buy was this handmade unused bird-feeder for $1. I am kicking myself because the seller had two (but I liked this one better). For a buck I should have also bought the second one.



I hate typos. Now I don't want to hear about any of MY typos, my forte is finding typos in other people's writings. You can't imagine how much gas I wasted trying to find Cestnut Drive! ;)



Speaking of typos, I saw this on Good Morning America and cringed. The girl who wrote "Good Morning Amarica" on her sign should have been banished to the back of the crowd.


Better late than never, here's a pic of some of my buys when I visited New York in June. Some old meter thing $5, new Dansk silverware $2 and a $10 Canon Canonet camera. I had an identical camera in high school and loved it and this camera still has a good value on the resale market (+$100)

My reincarnated Whiskey Dog is famous again

I saw my reincarnated Whiskey dog yesterday - he's appearing in a full length movie - Spy Kids 2. Here's a picture from the commerical. I'll watch it when it's on tv and fast forward to get to his scenes.

Reason #749 - Why Yard Sales are so Awesome

Reason #749 - Why Yardsales are so Awesome

You can buy stuff you never knew you wanted, needed or existed. Like this Virgin Mary Toast maker for .25 (at that price, the bread was not included).

Yard Sale Buys, Critters and Martina McBride

Here's some of the stuff I bought last Saturday. Prices ranged from free to the most expensive thing - $5 for the old typewriter and the ream of paper. I thought it was odd that the seller said "oh the paper goes with the typewriter", as if I'm actually going to use the typewriter and will be needing the pink paper to type on. Well duh - of course I won't be using the typewriter, it doesn't have a ribbon. If the typewriter model isn't anything special, I will remove the letters & numbers and sell just the keys to some crafty person. The Fireking Jadeite dishes were $5. Next expensive item was the double sided Hooters flag for $3. Pyrex was .50 each (with lids!)

Majority of the things were .25 or .50. For .25 each, I had to buy the scary beaded clowns. And I got some more vintage spice tins to add to my collection.




And as I said in my previous post, I had some critters in my yard recently. Including this weird looking stray feral cat who ate sunflower seeds that had spilled on the ground. I've named the stripey stray cat Rocky (since it's one of my all time fav movies.)



My other little friend is my pet dragonfly who visits from time to time. He doesn't like to be petted much.




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Last Saturday night I did my volunteer bartending gig for a Martina McBride show. She is awesome. Somehow I got assigned to the super busy bar but I managed to take a few breaks here and there. There was no photo line, but they did allow people to get up close to the stage near the end of the show. Here's some pics and videos:






Song list:


Opening act was Courtlyn Carr. I was busy bartending so I didn't see any of her show. But afterward she stayed around and signed autographs and took photos. Good thing I changed my clothes at the last minute before leaving the house because I almost wore the exact same outfit! How embarrassing would that have been.