Thrifty Thursday - Free Revolution Doses

As I’ve said before, we use Revolution for Duke and Chuzoo’s heartworm and flea prevention.  They’re much cuter than a box of Revolution, so I thought I’d take the opportunity to share pictures of them on the way back from visiting the Poinsett Bridge.  Pretty much any excuse to share pet pictures works for me. 

In case you’re not familiar with Revolution, it’s applied topically once a month. If you use it for any of your fur kids you probably know that they’ve had an ongoing deal where you get two free doses when you buy six doses. 

We’ve always bought the six doses at a time.  The vet we take the dogs to is over an hour away, and I don’t mind making the drive to take them there, but I don’t want to do it once a month if we don’t have to.  So we typically buy six doses, get the two free, and don’t have to worry about getting more for eight months.  It’s dosed by weight, so Chuzoo and Duke are on different doses.

We had to take Chuzoo for an appointment last week, and while we were there we learned that this is the last month that Revolution will be offering the free doses.  Apparently they’re switching to some sort of rebate program in February.  Our vet’s office didn’t have a lot of details about it yet, but seemed to think it wasn’t going to be as good or convenient as the free doses.  It also seems like there may be some issues with the rebate program that will have to be worked out. 

We could have waited until next month to buy more Revolution for Duke, but we decided to go ahead and buy it while we were there.  It saves us a trip, and we were able to get the two free doses.  We just bought Chuzoo’s last month, so we’re well stocked on his.  Hopefully by the time we need to buy it again they’ll have worked out any issues with the rebate program.  If nothing else, our vet’s office should know the ins and outs of it by then, so they can tell us what we’ll need to do.

If you’re a fellow pet parent I’m sure you know how nice free doses of a monthly treatment are.  And if you’re a fellow pet parent who happens to use Revolution, you may want to go ahead and stock up this month.  If you know anything about the rebate program I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments. 

So what about you?  Is there anything you buy several months worth of at once to get a month or two free?

The Poinsett Bridge

We enjoyed a rare treat on Saturday.  We had a day that was sunny and relatively warm!  Temperatures reached the mid-fifties, which basically doubled Wednesday’s temperatures, and was a vast improvement over barely getting above freezing the rest of the week. 

We decided to take advantage of the nice day and spend a little time outside.  We’ve been talking about going to the Poinsett Bridge for a while now.  It’s really not terribly far from home, but somehow we had just never made the time to go see it.  In keeping with the plan to actually do things this year, and not just talk about doing things, we decided to go see it on Saturday.  I took Dramamine, we loaded the dogs into the car, and we drove to the bridge. 

The Poinsett Bridge is almost 200 years old, and is thought to be the oldest bridge in South Carolina.  It was built as part of the roadway connecting the low country of South Carolina to the mountains of North Carolina. 

It was a very pretty, very curvy drive to the bridge.  If you have plans to go see the Poinsett Bridge, and have any issues with motion sickness, you’ll want to take Dramamine or whatever you usually do to keep from getting sick. 

The bridge is part of the Greenville County Parks system, so it’s well marked, there’s plenty of parking (across the road from the bridge), and there are a few walking trails around.

There was still some snow on the ground when we went, and everything was very muddy.  We didn’t think about the mud when we decided to go.  I’d like to go back sometime when it’s dry, and when there are leaves on the tress.  I think it would be even more beautiful then.

I didn’t actually take any pictures on the bridge.  It was really muddy, and I didn’t want to traipse through the mud.  In all honesty, too, I think the bridge is much more impressive viewed from below than from on top or walking across it. 

The creek is very pretty, and the moss and ferns were incredibly vibrant against everything else that’s still so colorless.  I always seem to be drawn to water and greenery, so that’s what most of my pictures are of.

I’m glad we saw the bridge.  We both enjoy history, and it was neat to see how people used to travel back and forth between our two home states.

Can you tell I liked the moss?

This made me so happy!  It looks like spring is coming, despite the snow.

Dream A Little

We almost never buy lottery tickets.  I think we maybe average buying one every year or two.  Nick isn’t usually inclined to do anything that’s so likely to be a waste of money.  Lottery tickets are mostly sold at gas stations, and I barely put gas in the car, so I rarely think about or have the opportunity to buy a ticket.  Every now and then we’ll buy one, though.  It’s fun to dream, right?

Nick’s dad almost always gives everyone a lottery ticket or two at Christmas or birthdays.  It’s kind of a fun little bonus gift.  It’s fun to think about what you could do if you actually won.

This past Christmas Paul gave us each a lottery ticket, as usual.  Neither of us won anything, but we did spend a little time thinking about what our winning the lottery fantasies are, of course the winning millions and millions kind of fantasies. 

There are things we would do to help out our families and a few good friends.  We’d like to travel.  Neither one of us have really been anywhere, so travel would be high on our list.  Of course quitting our jobs, with an appropriate notice.  That would  free up a lot of time, and we wouldn’t spend all of our time traveling, so we’d have a lot more time to volunteer.  Nick would probably spend more time volunteering with the fire department.  I could spend a lot more time cooking and taking food to the hospice house.  We would donate to various cat rescues, and a few other causes that are very near and dear to us. 

We both agree that we wouldn’t want to move.  Our house is small, but we like it, and are happy here.  We also have the best neighbors in the entire world.  We’ve often said that if we won the lottery we’d be far better off to give some of it to the neighbors to do whatever they needed or wanted with their house, in hopes that they’d never move.  They’re really that great.  There are certainly things we would do to fix up our house, and buying some of the land around it and putting in a pool sounds nice.  Really nice, actually.  Moving to some huge house in a strange neighborhood doesn’t.   

I’m not sure if our list makes us the most boring people in the world, or just really practical, and fortunate enough to know what we would want.  Either way, it’s fun to dream a little every time Paul gives us a lottery ticket.

So what about you?  Do you buy lottery tickets often?  What’s your winning the lottery fantasy?

Thrifty Thursday - The Chicken Tikka Masala Substitution Edition

On Saturday I decided to make Chicken Tikka Masala for dinner, and I made a substitution that I’m calling a win on multiple fronts.

We’re doing a Pantry Challenge this month, so we’re making a real effort to use what we have on hand, stay out of the grocery stores as much as possible, and spend a lot less money on groceries this month.  I decided on Chicken Tikka Masala for dinner because we had chicken breasts in the freezer, cream in the fridge that was fast approaching its use by date, and some fresh ginger that really needed to be used.  It also sounded perfect for dinner on a cold and windy night.

It was so cold here on Saturday!  We had been in the mid fifties on Friday.  It had rained all day, but it was at least warmer than it had been.  On Saturday we were back down to the low twenties, and had crazy high winds.  Going out to the grocery store, or anywhere for that matter, wasn’t much temptation.  I had absolutely no interest in changing out of my nice warm pajamas, or leaving the house.

The only problem was that the recipe I was using called for a serrano chili, which we didn’t have.  The recipe also called for canned tomatoes, which we have an abundance of.  Harris Teeter put their brand of canned tomatoes on sale for 37 cents a while back.  That’s cheaper than Aldi, and the cheapest I’ve ever seen canned tomatoes.  Most of our favorite recipes seem to be tomato based, so I thought it was a good idea to stock up.  As usual when there’s a great sale on groceries, I went overboard in my effort to stock up.  We have a lot of canned tomatoes!  And that’s just one of the many, many reasons why we’re doing a Pantry Challenge this month.

 Since I really, really didn’t want to go out, I decided to substitute canned tomatoes with chilies for the serrano chili and canned tomatoes.  I’m very happy to report that it worked out perfectly, and that the Chicken Tikka Masala was delicious.

I was thrilled:

1.  Not to have to go out in the cold.  That was honestly the best part of my successful substitution.

2.  That we stayed on track with the Pantry Challenge.  I most likely would have ended up buying more than a single serrano chili if I had gone to get one. 

3.  That I have a new substitution that I know works.  It’s much faster and easier to open a can of tomatoes with chilies than it is to deal with coring and chopping a chili.  That’s good to know for busy days when I need to get dinner ready in a hurry, and want to make things as easy as possible.

So what about you?  Have you made any recipe substitutions to use what you have on hand lately?   Is the cold weather enough to make you do whatever you can to stay home? 

Innocent Bystander

The innocent bystander

A few nights ago we were watching TV in the living room, and we heard a very ominous sounding crash from the bedroom.  We decided to investigate since it sounded like the kind of crash that should really be checked on.  And Caroline wasn’t in the living room, which meant there was about a 99.99 percent chance she was involved in the crash.  Usually when Caroline is involved in something it includes mayhem and destruction. 

We went into the bedroom to find Caroline watching the water from the gigantic water bowl we keep in there gush across the floor.  We didn’t see her do it, but we’re pretty sure she knocked the bowl over while she was running around doing her speed kitty routine. 

The perpetrator 

We cleaned up the water; lots of towels and sopping, and dragging the soaked dog bed to dry out outside.   We also checked to see if Caroline was wet.  Her front paws were a little wet, so we dried them off and went back to watching TV.  We were a little surprised that Caroline had managed to spill that much water and not soak herself, but she seems to very rarely be the victim of her own misdeeds. 

A few minutes later Howard came wandering into the living room, absolutely soaking wet.  The poor little guy was totally soaked.  Our theory is that he was just hanging out in the bedroom when Caroline knocked over the water, and happened to be close enough to the bowl to get doused.  He probably ran, not wanting to get any wetter, so we didn’t see him while we were cleaning up the mess.

We dried Howard off and gave him some treats to make up for him being the innocent victim of Caroline’s antics.  Howard loves treats, so he seemed pretty happy with how it all worked out.