More Staples bargains

I went to Staples the other day and went a little overboard on stickies. I couldn't help myself, they were on clearance for only .50 a package. I used one $3 coupon so my total came to $0. If you've read my blog before about Staples, then you know I buy used inkjet cartridges on ebay for about $.75 each and then I recycle them at Staples in exchange for a $3 coupon. So actually all these stickies "cost" me around $.75 since I had to buy the empty inkjet cartridge to begin with. And of course I used my Staples Rewards card so I should earn a few cents back in a cash back bonus.

Gotta check your grocery receipts

I was at the grocery store today and bought some broccoli crowns ($1.29/lb on sale) but the cashier charged me for regular broccoli which cost more. I brought it to the cashier's attention and she just nodded. When I look at the receipt, of course I was overcharged and had to go to customer service for my $1.15 back. So it pays to check your grocery receipt for overcharges.

Tis the Season for gift receiving

Today starts my three weeks of gift receiving. Anniversary, birthday and Mother's Day.

Went to a bunch of yardsales on Saturday. I need to be more careful in what I buy. Last week when shopping at VV during a .35 clothing day, I bought a cool looking retro inspired men's shirt with martini glasses embroidered on it. I get it home and notice a hole right in the front. Ooops. So then I thought "Well, I'll just cut the buttons off and throw the shirt in the textile recycling bin". I look again, and see someone had already cut the buttons off! (VV does not weed thru the junk - they put it all on hangers). I always cut the buttons off old clothes (that aren't suitable for donating) and save them. As if I really need a bunch of buttons. But it's a habit I can't stop.

Yardsales on Saturday were ok. At one community sale a seller had a bunch of boxes of monogrammed stationery from Tiffany's. The monogrammed letters were some unpopular letters like Y and Q. As I was standing by her table, she held up a box of Q stationery and said to her friend "If you go by the name Queen, these would come in handy". How did she know???? (I wasn't even wearing my crown). And no, I didn't buy it.

Happy Belated Earth Day - we celebrated by buying a gas powered hedge trimmer

Earth Day was this past Sunday - we went to a nearby town for their Earth Day festival. They had closed off the streets. When I took the above pic, my back (almost) was to Vintage Value. It just about killed me to walk past it and not go in. My husband would have had a shit fit.

Afterwards we ate lunch at a Mexican restaurant and then went to Lowes and bought a gas-powered hedge trimmer. Happy Earth Day. Here's a money saving tip for saving money at Lowes - get 10% off your purchase at Lowes (the coupon is good to save up to $500) Lowes 10% off coupon link I found this coupon by actually buying a Lowes coupon on eBay - many people sell the coupons on ebay, even though the fine print on the coupon says that coupons cannot be transferred. Well after getting the coupon from the ebay seller, I did some research and found the special Lowes website. Anyhow it takes a day or longer for the coupon to arrive (by email). So give yourself some leeway before your planned Lowes shopping trip to give you time to get the coupon.

Recap of my trip to upstate NY

I never really mentioned what I did over spring break (visited my mom at my childhood home - neither of which is pictured above). My son and I were there for a week. We went to Chuck E. Cheese (twice), did indoor glow-in-the-dark mini golfing, went to a children's museum and also a science museum. Saw part of a planetarium show - we had to leave when the stars starting spinning - Jacob didn't like the spinning part.

Also drove around some of my old stomping grounds. Had to do a driveby at the old bachelorette pad, which I think has turned into a crackhouse. And also did a touristy thing and did a driveby of an Extreme Makeover House (the show will air May 20 - give or take a few days). Both houses are pictured above. I'm sure you can guess which is which.








And a trip to upstate isn't complete without some special foods. Had to buy Paska bread for Easter and that involved going to a little kinda rundown city for an old time real bakery. Another food item I love to have is a fish fry. Here is the place I went for fish frys on Good Friday. Not that I'm very religious and am afraid to eat meat on a Friday or anything, I just like them since they taste so good. Look at all the people waiting in line to order - even though I'm not considered a "local" anymore, even I know to call in the order and go to the pick-up counter rather than waiting in a Disney World type line that wraps around and around and out the door.



As I was going to the science museum (and driving by my former apt) I drove by Union College which has this cool looking building.



I took Jacob to an indoor bouncy/slide place which also had a bunch of video games. Well anyways, I saw this one for toddlers plastered with all kinds of Danger signs on it and thought it was funny.

Bought a brain and a book today

I paid $1 for the jello brain mold and .50 for a book. Pretty slim pickins at the thrift today. Supposed to be a nice weekend, so there should be lots of yardsales this weekend. Then what happens is after the yardsales many people donate the leftovers to the local thrift. Many times I'm shopping on a Wednesday and I see stuff that I passed by the previous Saturday at a yardsale.

Motorcycle fixed. Glasses bought.

My husband got the motorcycle fixed. Get this, it was a measly $3 part that broke and made it impossible to change gears. Back when he bought the motorcycle, he found a website that sells the tech manuals that you download for about $10. The nearest BMW motorcycle repair place is probably over an hour away, so having that manual saved us the hassle (and money) of getting it fixed there.

The above pic is of a couple of glasses I bought to give to my Mother-in-law. Last year when she visited us, she told me she was looking for those kinds of glasses - vintage glasses with a rubbery texture and with a swirl design. I looked them up on ebay, so I knew what I was looking for when I scoured the thrifts. Well it took almost a year, but I finally found them (a set of 5 for $3). Yes I know I could have bought them on ebay for her, but I love a good challenge. And also by not buying them on ebay and lining the pockets of some ebay seller, my $3 is going to help local animals (bought the glasses at a non-profit animal welfare thrift).

Went to the dentist on Monday

I had a 10:10am appointment on Monday to get two fillings replaced. (Personally, I think whenever a dentist can't find any new cavities or other problems to address, they go with the standard "these fillings are looking old, they need to be replaced"). You know you are addicted to thrifting when you schedule your dental appointments to coincide with the nearby thrift store - Vintage Value - for their .35 clothing days.

Anyhow as I was enjoying the 80's music, during a break in the drilling I mumbled to the hygenist "Is this Sirius?" and she said yes. And she said she enjoyed the continuous music, but misses hearing the local news.

Little did we know. God Bless the Hokies.

Message Board is down - Happy Friday the 13th

Just a quick note to say that the message boards are temporarily down. So don't worry, its not you so no need to email me since I am aware of the problem (its not me either) When the boards are down, I always say "temporarily" down, but who knows...minutes, hours? days?? Probably not days though.

Just got home - went out to lunch/shopping with my husband this afternoon and rode the motorcycle. The motorcycle broke down on the way home and we had to pull over while he tried to fix it (gear shifter is broken). Thankfully some guy also pulled over and offered his help. Something is still wrong with it, but I'm glad we made it home without me having to call a taxi.

Happy Friday the 13th.

Made $2.50 at the thrift today

Just a quick post but I had to share a funny thing that happened at the thrift today. I found a large rolled up laminated map of the USA with a $1 price tag on it. Another customer sees me with it and asks if there's any more. I say "No" and he looks all depressed and goes on to say he's wants a large map like that to put thumbtacks on all of his travels. Meanwhile I'm thinking it would be a good thing to put on a wall for Jacob to learn states, cities, capitals etc. So anyways the guy goes, I'll give you a dollar if you let me buy it. I pause. Then he goes, how about $2.... $2.50??? I heard myself saying "sold!". (There will always be other maps around....). Now if I was nice, I would have just let him buy it. But did you see the book I bought the other week???

Keeping my promise

Well yesterday I said I would write again today. So....in order to keep my word, I am writing.

Will write more soon about my trip to NY. Don't have time right now and I'm tired.

Happy Belated Easter

Ok, I really have a good excuse for not blogging lately. I was in upstate New York for a week. I went OVER a full week with no computer access at all. I could have checked my email when I was at my brother's house but I decided just to go cold turkey.

The weather was too cold for garage sales (they haven't really started up there yet anyways). But I had a good time shopping at Christmas Tree Shop They are only located in the Northeast. I was barely 20 feet into the store and was putting stuff in my cart left and right. Also did some Kohl's shopping. I love the Kohl's that is near my mom's. There are a few in Maryland (but not 3 miles away like it is when I stay with my mom) - but the ones near me are at least 45 miles away. The weird thing is when I do go to the Kohl's that is closest to me, I never find anything. I think it has to do with the layout of the store (2 stories and in a mall) but the one near my mom is one level in a strip mall. Easier to navigate or something.

Here's a little trick I did at Kohl's - I did my shopping late at night by myself (heaven!) and had them put my stuff "on hold" for a day. Then the next day I brought my mom and went and picked up my merchandise at Customer Service and took it to the register where my mom bought it and got the Senior citizen discount of 15%.

It's been a long day (and week!). Will write tomorrow.

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.

Tempest Video Game is fixed

We have a full sized Tempest video game that we bought in the early 90's (before ebay) and for the past 5 years it hasn't worked. My husband knows about electronics (I figure if he can explain in detail every aspect of how a nuclear power plant works, he should be able to fix an old video game). And ta-da, he did. Another situation of: why didn't we fix this years ago.

No yardsales yesterday.

I love Staples!

I am a Staples shopping addict because of the $3 coupons you get when turning in HP, Dell and Lexmark cartridges for recycling. I buy the empty cartridges on ebay and then take them to Staples for recycling. Sometimes I find the cartridges at thrifts super cheap (I bought one earlier this week at a thrift store for .25 which I turned in for a $3 coupon). Today I found these Crayola marker kits on clearance for $2 each, so I bought 3 and used two $3 coupons for a grand total of $0.

JC Penney shopping (yes, I shopped retail!!)

My husband had the day off so we spent several hours shopping and having lunch. The other day I printed out a 15% coupon to use at JC Penneys from taking a survey at http://www.jcpsurvey.com (you enter in the data from a previous receipt). I "splurged" and bought myself this cute Rolfs wallet. Original price was $36, on clearance for $16.99, then 50% off that, and then additional 15% off. Price came out to be $7.22 plus tax.

Yippee - after suffering for over 30 years - going to fix the furniture!

I wish I knew these things existed 30 years ago!! When I was in the 3rd grade, my parents bought me a nice bedroom set (twin bed, a chest of drawers and big long dresser with mirror) that I used forever (and still is in great shape). Except the sliders on several of the drawers are broken. When I was a kid, I overstuffed the drawers and broke a little plastic piece that the drawers would slide on. But of course I still continued to use the furniture but had to be careful when pulling out the drawers since they would not stay open on their own.

I mention it to my husband today how it would be nice if he installed some new sliders or something in the furniture so it wouldn't be a pain for Jacob to open the drawers. I figured it would be impossible to find the exact plastic part from decades ago but my husband was sure that "drawer technology" hasn't changed much over the years. And voila! Right at Lowes and at less than $2 a package are the little plastic dohickys that we need. If only I had looked for them 30 years ago! Anyhow, I am so excited about finding these!

Happy February

Happy February. My son did his schedule for the month - I thought it was cute.

Well I'm biting the bullet and not going to Smile today. I have so much stuff to do at home. Plus, it's snowing a little and no use going out and getting my car dirty unless I really have to. I hate getting all that water on the floor of the garage from melting chunks of snow stuck to the car.

I have to get our health care account for 2006 straightened out. I swear it's driving me nuts. I hate it. I am so glad we are not going to use it again this year, not worth the hassle at all. In 2006 thru my husband's employer we used http://www.wageworks.com you put in a certain amount of money (your choice of how much) and the benefit of that is that you're issued a debit card to use in stores for over the counter medicines and doctor co-pays. Well the real benefit is that you don't pay taxes on that money, as long as its going toward your health. Ugghh so last year they changed it and now you have to submit receipts for everything you used the card for. Otherwise you will have to pay THEM back even though its YOUR money! What a frickin headache. So not worth the hassle. Well on the plus side, I am getting pretty good at using the fax feature of my scanner/printer since I have to fax them all these forms and receipts and then do it again when they tell me I'm using the wrong form.

Shit Man was fixed today

Yesterday the kids didn't have school so I thought it would be fun to take Jacob to Annapolis for the day and go to the Chuck E. Cheese. I also wanted to check out a Children's Museum that is there. I saw from the museum's website that they had a special for January: if you brought in 3 empty baby food jars per person, you'd get free admission (normally $3 a person). So since baby food was .49 a jar, I spent approximately $3 on babyfood instead of paying $6 for admission. Annapolis, overall, is a pretty upscale town. The parking lots are full of Lexus's and BMW's. So I was expecting the children's museum to be something special. I was not impressed. It looked like a gutted rambler house that they filled with plastic germy yardsale toys. They did have some other things but I doubt we'll be going back.

I was hugely disappointed that the Annapolis kids also had the day off from school - and I think the majority were at Chuck E. Cheese. It was a zoo. Jacob didn't even want to stay - way too many people.

So since we definitely didn't fill up the afternoon at Chuck E. Cheese, we went to "our" museum in Solomons. Coming home around 5pm I passed this Antiques store sign and got a laugh (I'm easily amused). I passed it this morning and it was still the Shit man, but by this afternoon shit man had been fixed.

Went out to lunch with a friend today - ate at one of those Japanese places where they cook your meal right in front of you.

Let's play.....NUCLEAR WAR!

Bought this game at VV the other day, looks like a fun little game for the family called Nuclear War. On the side of the box it's described as a comic cataclysmic card game of global destruction. And described as a game for all ages, so I'm thinking ages 3+. Paid .50 for it.

Shaving Brush Collection

I thought I would share a pic of one of my collections - this is my shaving brush collection. I look for them when I'm yardsaling but I'm not fanatical about buying them. I don't look for them in high priced antique stores or buy them on ebay. Just look for ones priced cheap at yardsales. They are lined up above the lighting fixture in my bathroom. I guess my fascination with shaving brushes started early - here I am with Dad getting my first shave. The brush that is second from the left belonged to my grandfather.

No Yardsales today (too cold)

No yardsales today - well there was one moving sale advertised but I didn't go. I figured all the vultures would be out early. Well I don't know about the vultures, but I know the hawks were definitely out - I took a picture of one in my backyard today. He/she was checking out the birds at my birdfeeders.

I have several birdfeeders in my backyard. I usually buy the "deer corn" for the squirrels in big 20 lb bags. That reminds me of a funny story - I was doing an interview last year for a newspaper and the interviewer asked me what I bought the last time I went "real" shopping at an actual shopping mall. I had to think a bit and then I told her - 20 lb bags of corn at a Dick's Sporting Goods. How sad is that! haha.

I also buy 50 lb bags of sunflower seeds from a hardware store and I make suet for the woodpeckers. Here's a recipe that I use:

Mix together using your hands the following(it's messy!)

4 cups cornmeal
1 cup flour
1 cup peanut butter (chunky or regular)
1 cup Crisco shortening (or generic)

Shape into patties and put into a suet feeder. Refrigerate leftovers.

If you don't have a suet feeder - you can use a plastic net (like the kind that is usually on a frozen turkey). Then just put the suet patties in that and tie it closed and hang (if you have squirrels in your area, they will get to it in about 2 seconds flat). Othewise you can also smear the suet right into the bark crevices of your trees. Or wait and buy a suet feeder at a yardsale for .50 and then make the suet.