A Few Random Things

There are a few things, and pictures, I want to share, but none of them are quite enough for a regular post.  So here’s a very random post, with lots of pictures.

I love grocery shopping, and I love getting great deals on groceries.  Today was one of my best deal days in a long time. 

A Publix opened here last year, practically across the street from Harris Teeter, and they seem to be in competition with each other more than any of the other local grocery stores.  Harris Teeter has been sending a month’s worth of $10.00 off of a $50.00 purchase almost every month.  There are four coupons in each flier, and they’re each good for a week.  One of my coworkers found out that Publix will take them too.   I haven’t used mine there yet because overall I prefer Harris Teeter. 

If you’re not familiar with Harris Teeter, they typically have at least a few buy two get three free sales every week.  Their loyalty card is the VIC card, and if you link an email you get extra sales and specials attached to your card every week, usually for only a few days.  This week it was $5.00 off of a $30.00 purchase. 

One of the many things I love about Harris Teeter is that the discounts don’t come off of your total until the very end.  It makes me really happy to see the total suddenly drop, especially when it drops from $254.69 to $85.14.  The receipt says $86.00, but 86 cents of that was rounding up for a donation. 

I meant to take a picture of the items in the cart because I knew this one was going to be good, but Harris Teeter seems to take it as a personal affront if you spend more than 10 seconds in line, so I got moved to another register before I had a chance to get any pictures.  Hopefully this one of the groceries in the trunk will give you an idea.

It’s hard to tell, but it’s five bags of frozen shrimp, five packages of shredded cheese, two packages of Boca burgers, ten ears of corn, a bottle of multivitamins, 2.37 pounds of cherries, a package of hamburger buns, and a small bag of cat food. 

And here’s the receipt.  I’m not sure how well you can read it, but the shrimp alone at normal price would have cost $179.90, so significantly more than what I paid for everything.  I had a coupon for a free bag of Purina One cat food (which is the brand we normally feed the cats) and the rest of the coupons were store coupons.  The vast majority of the savings came from sales.  The total saved was 66%.  My goal is to keep it around 50%, so I was very happy with that. 

Honestly, back when I was a diehard couponer I could save a much higher percentage than that sometimes.  It took a lot of time to track down coupons, it took a lot of ink to print them, and it was for a lot more processed food.  Now I tend to stick with store coupons, shopping sales, and the occasional manufacturers coupon if it’s easily accessible, and for something we normally use anyway.  Most of what I bought today fits in with our new style of eating, so that made paying a lot less even better.  Okay, enough about groceries.

We made a decision not to have a garden this year, or add a lot of new plants.  As I’ve mentioned, we’ve been working on getting rid of clutter and organizing the house.  There’s only so much time in a day, so we thought it would be better to continue focusing our time and energy on the house. 

We’ve stuck with that decision for the most part.  I can’t resist snapdragons, though, so we bought a few, and I planted them in the flower beds.  They’re very low maintenance, so haven’t really taken our focus from the house.  This one in particular is doing very well.

We also bought a shepherd’s hook, and a hanging basket to put on it.  The basket is a mix of purple and yellow flowers.  The dominant color seems to change from week to week.  This week there seem to be more yellow flowers.

Last week there were more purple flowers.  And they matched my nail polish, so I had to get a picture.

We’ve finally been able to find cotton candy grapes this year.  We had them for the first time last year, and they quickly became my favorite kind of grape, and one of my favorite fruits overall.  The only place we’ve been able to find them is Sam’s Club, and they don’t have them most of the time.  I check every single time I go in there, and they finally had some on Tuesday.  I’ve been happily munching on cotton candy grapes all week.

There’s a white squirrel in our neighborhood.  I’ve been trying to get a picture for a while, but hadn’t been able to.  White squirrels are somewhat common in a neighboring county, but not so common for us.  This one seems to live, or at least spend most of his/her time at the other end of our street, and I just haven’t been able to get a picture.  A couple of weeks ago s/he was closer to our end of the street while I was out for a walk and I was finally able to get a picture.  It’s not the best picture, so I’m hoping for another opportunity to get a better picture.  

And because no post is really complete without a cat picture, I’ll leave you with Howard’s latest picture.

So what have you been up to this week? 

So Much For Blogging Regularly

Well, I didn’t  wait quite as long in between blog posts this time.  Once again, my absence has been mostly due to everyday life.  There have been a few bad things, a few good things, and mostly just average things going on.

Our neighbors invited us over for Easter.  Nick was sick and didn’t get to go, but I went.  They made a delicious dinner (I brought sweet tea, per their request), and they sent lots of leftovers home with me for Nick to enjoy.  The best part, though, was that I got to hide and hunt Easter eggs for the first time ever.

As we were sitting around talking after dinner Lori asked me if I wanted to help hide eggs for the kids to hunt.  I had never done it before, so I jumped at the opportunity.  Lori hid eggs in their front yard, and I hid eggs in their back yard.  When it was time to hunt them, Lori hunted with the kids in the back yard and I hunted with the kids in the front yard.  It was so much fun!  I had no idea what I had been missing out on for so many years.

The neighbors have said we’re invited for Easter next year.  They said we can do Thanksgiving, and they’ll do Easter.  I love that we’re establishing holiday traditions.  We are now in possession of our very own Easter eggs.  The neighbors gave us some, and one of my coworkers gave me some.  I’m looking forward to filling them to take to hide next year.

I’m still very, very, very slowly losing weight.  My weight loss total is now at 55 pounds.  I still have a long way to go, but it’s still ever so slowly moving in the right direction.  Sometimes it gets discouraging thinking about how much I still have to go.  It doesn’t exactly make me feel good that I’ve lost 55 pounds, and still need to lose more. 
The nice thing, though, is that I’m starting to notice some positive differences in how I feel.  I feel a little better in general, and I have a lot less trouble with my feet hurting.   People at work all started noticing around the same time, too.  Honestly, it was a little strange.  No one commented at all for months, which is fine.  I’m losing weight for myself, my health, and the future Nick and I want to have.  But over the course of a week or two, it seemed like half the people in my building started telling me I looked like I was losing weight.  I guess there’s a certain point where it does become noticeable, even to people who see you every day. 

We’ve been watching The Golden Girls on Prime.  Nick had watched reruns as a kid, but had never watched the whole thing in order.  I had never watched it at all.  In our defense, Nick was two and I was three when the pilot aired.  We’re about halfway through Season 2 now.  I love it, and am totally addicted. 

The rose bushes we bought on clearance and half dead a few years ago are absolutely thriving.  It still surprises me a little bit every year when they come back, and that they’re doing so well.  Neither one of us thought they had much of a chance when we planted them, but decided to give them a try anyway.  I’m so glad we did. 

Nick taught a first aid class for the Boy Scouts a few months ago.  Our neighbors are actively involved with them, and it came up about Nick teaching.  I think he was happy to get the practice in before he taught a class for work, and the kids really seemed to enjoy it.  They gave him a very sweet thank you card.

I’ve been trying to learn how to crochet.  I need a hobby that doesn’t involve food!  It’s taking me a while to catch on, but I’m enjoying it so far.  I’m left handed, which makes it difficult to find someone to teach me.  I’ve been using You Tube videos so far.  My aunt has also said she’ll help me whenever they come to visit.  She’s technically right handed, but does a lot of things left handed.  She said she’ll practice her left handed crocheting so she’ll be ready to teach me.  She lives in Florida, and there’s not a definite date lined up for a visit yet, so I’m hoping I can learn the basics before I see her, and then she can help me with some of the more advanced things.  I’d love any tips or recommendations anyone may have for learning.

We are still working on organizing the house and getting rid of clutter.  That seems to be another slow process, but we are seeing progress.  It’s a small thing, but now that we’ve organized our board games and made them much more accessible we seem to use them more often.  

I know that’s a really small thing, but I’m beginning to think that’s kind of the point of having everything in your home in good order.  It makes all of the many, many small things you do throughout the day or week easier.  We still have long way to go, but I am planning some posts with some our progress.  Maybe it won’t take me months to get around to them this time. 

So what have you been up to lately?  

So That Was 2018

And the first quarter of 2019!  They say time flies, and I think they’re right.  I had intentions of posting lots of things long before now, but somehow that just didn’t happen.  It’s always a little daunting trying to figure out what to post when I haven’t posted for a long time.  I decided this time I’d go with 19 things that have happened since my last posts. 

1.  We had a wonderful Thanksgiving.  We took lunch to the hospice house, and had friends over to dinner at our house later that evening.  We’ve gotten fairly good at getting everything in and set up at the hospice house, and had everything done exactly on time.  As always, they were incredibly kind, and made me cry.  One year I’d like to make it out of there without turning into a sobbing mess in the parking lot.  Fortunately, the festivities at our house didn’t make me cry.  We had tons of food, and had a great time sitting around talking and playing games with everyone.  We seem to have a regular crowd now, too which I love.  I finally have Thanksgiving traditions! 

2.  We had a big (at least for us) snow storm the first weekend in December.  We were both off of work for a day because of it, and it took over a week for all of it to melt.  I’m never happy to see snow, but that was our biggest snow event of the winter, so at least it was over with early.

3.  We now own a generator.  We lost power during the early December snow storm in 2017, and were woefully unprepared.  The 2018 snow storm was predicted to be very much like the 2017 snow storm, down to the same dates and accumulation, so we decided it might be time to invest in a generator.  All of the stores locally were sold out, so we ended up going to South Carolina to buy one.  We searched Home Depot, and bought the closest one on-line, then went to pick it up.  We didn’t lose power, but are still glad we have the generator.  Between snow, ice, and rain/wind from hurricanes it seems like we’ll be using it eventually. 

4.  I did a lot of baking in December.  I toyed with the idea of trimming down my list, but people started talking about looking forward to certain desserts, so I baked for all of the usual people, and a few more.  I’m happy to do it as long as people are happy with the desserts.  My car smelled amazing the last few working days before Christmas when I was delivering all of the desserts.

5.  We took small gifts for everyone in both of our vet’s offices, and people seemed to like them.  Both of our vets sent us very nice cards, which we really appreciated.  I found some cute cat and dog wrapping paper on an after Christmas sale, and I’m really excited about using it for this year’s gifts.

6.  We had a great Christmas with my sister, Nick’s mom and step-dad, and our friend Alex.  My sister and I are pretty excited to finally have Christmas traditions.  We had lots of great food, watched Christmas movies, and everyone seemed very pleased with their gifts. 

7.  We went to our neighbors’ house for New Year’s Eve, and had a great time.  Everyone made appetizers, and we played Trivial Pursuit.  They have a really fun edition that lets you challenge other teams, and the competition was fierce, but fun.

8.  My car got hit at work.  Again.  For those of you keeping track, this is the fourth time in nine years.  It was a hit and run, and some of the security cameras weren’t working, so we ended up filing the claim with our insurance, and paying our deductible.  That’s all I’m going to say, because nothing else I have to say is very nice. 

9.  Actually, I do have one nice thing to say; it’s definitely a good idea to ask people who are car enthusiasts for recommendations when you need to choose a body shop.  We asked for recommendations the first time this car was hit, and have been very happy with the work the shop has done every time. 

10.  Our neighbors gave us a cat shaming calendar for Christmas.  And our cats destroyed it last month.  I can’t imagine why the neighbors thought of us when they saw a cat shaming calendar.

11.  Nick got his lifetime membership at the fire department.  You’re considered a lifetime member after 20 years of volunteering.  He received a plaque and a nice ring at the Christmas dinner. 

12.  2018 was the year of buying large appliances for us.  Our dishwasher died the week after Thanksgiving.  It had been hobbling along for quite a while, and it was used a lot the week of Thanksgiving, so it wasn’t that much of a surprise.  It’s never fun to replace something like that, but the new one is awesome.  It’s so quiet!  And there’s really no pre-rinsing required. 

13.  I’ve lost 40 pounds.  It’s slow going, but it’s finally the right direction.  I’m hoping the fact that it’s slow means it will last.  I still have a long way to go, but this is a pretty good start.

14.  Nick got his General Instructor certification.  As I understand it, he can teach anything he’s certified in at work now.  He worked really hard on it, and not everyone passed the class and state testing, but he did, and is looking forward to doing some teaching.

15.  February gave us false hope for spring again this year.  We had some warm days, great for reading in the hammock, but they didn’t last.  This week has been fairly cold, but I’m hoping that’s the last of the cold weather for us.  I’m ready to be warm.

16.  We went bowling for the first time in a VERY long time in February.  We had been talking about going, but just never did.  Someone from another department was moving away, and invited us to his going away party, which was dinner and bowling.

17.  We were able to get back in touch with someone who retired from our vet’s office.  She retired very quickly due to medical reasons, and we were disappointed not to see her anymore, or to have had the opportunity to at least wish her well.  At Christmas we asked the office about forwarding a card and gift to her, which they were happy to do.  We included our phone numbers, and she called us.  We’re working on plans for dinner. 

18.  We’ve been watching Tidying Up With Marie Kondo on Netflix, and have been working on organizing the house.  More detailed posts are coming.

19.  The vast majority of my time seems to be taken up with mundane day to day tasks.  I cannot think of an especially interesting 19th thing to share, but it also feels like I’ve been almost non-stop busy since my last post.  I’d love to know where the time goes.

So that’s pretty much it for me for the time since I blogged last.  How have things been with you?  I’m looking forward to catching up with everyone, and I’m definitely planning to get back into posting at least semi-regularly. 

Throw Back Thursday - Frankie’s First Christmas

There’s just something about kittens and Christmas trees.  They don’t seem to be able to resist them. 

We got Frankie the weekend before Thanksgiving in 2009.  We put our Christmas tree up on Thanksgiving weekend, so he was fairly certain it was a special toy for him.

Fortunately, he was a tiny little guy at the time, and didn’t damage the tree. 

Do you have any kittens climbing your Christmas tree? 

Music Monday: Gayla Peevey - I Want A Hippopotamus For Christmas

Now that it’s December, I think it’s officially alright to start posting Christmas songs for Music Monday.

This is my absolute favorite Christmas song.  It’s so cute and happy.  I think it’s impossible not to smile when you hear it. 

We’ve also dubbed it Howard’s official Christmas song.  We just change it to Howard-potamus.  I think he’s pretty happy having his own Christmas song.