Category: General (Page 10 of 11)

I like to find a really good deal, whether it’s that really cute sweater that’s 80% off at Kohls, a great pair of jeans for $8 at VF Factory Outlet, or at the grocery store.

This week I went to Smith’s to do some shopping. Smith’s is not one of my favorite stores. In fact, I haven’t been there in about a year, and really just don’t like the store. I went this week, though, because they are having a kick-butt deal on certain”superbowl snacks”. If you buy 4 Pepsi (not Dr. Pepper–I made that mistake) 12 packs (for $10) and four Lay’s products for $5, you get a $5 instant rebate, making your total for those 8 items 10 bucks. Then, in their add, there’s a rebate form for a $10 rebate if you send in all the proof of purchases for the Lays and Pepsi items. So, in a sense, the items are free.

Of course those rebate people know that only about 1% of the people who intend to send in the rebates actually will, because they make them such a pain. You have to cut all the UPC’s off the bags of chips, and the UPC’s off the pepsi 12 packs, and send them along with the receipt, and write in blood why you think you deserve a rebate… Sorry. Got a little carried away there. But you get the idea. But I WILL fill out the entire rebate form. Yesterday I emptied two of the bags of chips and fritos and packaged them in individual lunch sized bags so I could safely remove the UPC code, and tonight I’ll do that with the other two. Why? Because it’s part of the bargain hunt, and I, my friends, am a bargain hunter!

What’s the deal with socks? I know we have enough socks around here, in fact I usually buy one or two packages (6-12) of socks each year for each person. So, if we do the math, that would mean that each person has at least 12 socks that are in working condition. Times 7 people, that would be 84 pairs of socks, or 168 socks–minumum. So, why is it that at least once a day I hear someone say “I can’t find any socks”? Does their slacker mother never do any laundry? I wish. I even swoop around the house “tidying up”, as they call it in the Velvateen Rabbit, and collect all the socks left in the mudroom, family room, living room, kitchen, or wherever the heck they leave them.

Can someone please explain it to me?

Don’t you just hate it when…

–Your son’s teacher calls and asks if you knew he was failing her English and Math classes, and that she’s been sending notes home since before Christmas outlining the assignments he was missing, and that the term ended last Friday but she can turn in grades up until the end of school the next day, so he can spend all night trying to find, do, and organize all those missing assignments?

–You realize after your daughter unloaded the dishwasher that those dishes didn’t get washed?

–You get out your 72 hour kits (after a very motivational talk on Sunday) to take stock and update, and find that there must have been weevil eggs hiding out in something you put in there, so now there are dead weevil carcasses in the crackers, around the toilet paper and other places you’d rather not think about (thankfully it’s not an emergency and we have time to get new weevil free things put in there)?

–You get to host a playgroup of four and five year olds for the third time in a row?

Yeah, me, too.

Well, I finally won something–4 tickets to the Auto Expo going on this weekend! I know you are SO jealous. If you are nice to me, maybe I’ll let you go with me!
(I also won tickets to “the Rat Pack Remembered” at the Desert Star Theater, so it turns out it actually is a good prize).

Hooray for me. Now, if I could just win that trip to Cabo San Lucas!

Ryan is back, and we’re happy to have him!! Yesterday he fixed the dryer hose that I broke while trying to paint around the dryer, and took off the shelf in my laundry room, so today I can finish up (I hope–I’m now tired of that project, and I’ve got to get back on track with the mountains of luandry that we seem to generate around here). It’s mustard yellow, by the way, which I know sounds kind of like a gross color, but I think it looks really cool.

I haven’t won anything in days—weeks, even! I may be losing my touch! I’ll have to redouble my efforts and WIN something soon. I’ll let you know. I’m sure you are worried about my well being.

1- THE DVD PLAYER FOR THE CAR
In the past few weeks I have bought 3 (count them….3) dual screen DVD players for the car. The first one I bought at ToysRus, using the gift card, so I didn’t have to charge it. I got it on sale, got a free DVD with it, and used a coupon for 20% off, saving me another $50. So, it was an all around great deal. Until we opened it on Christmas day and Ryan informed me that one of the screens didn’t have a working backlight, therefore you couldn’t see the movie on the second screen. So, back to ToysRus I went to return it. They didn’t have any more in stock, didn’t know (and didn’t care, from the look of the sales associate who I asked) when they would get any more.
So, I looked online and found a similar one at Walmart.com (also available in stores). So, to avoid the shipping, I went to WalMart and bought another one. I brought it home and Ryan informed me that this one must have been a return, because it was already broken. Ugh.
So, I returned that one to Walmart (a different one–not the scroungy one at 106th South where I bought it), and bought a different brand. This one–so far–looks good. Although the cables between the two units are short and we don’t know if we can put one in the middle seat and one in the back seat, it looks like it will work. Hooray!

2- THE PURPLE BRA
While birthday shopping, I went into the bra store to stock up on a few essentials. I found this really great Bali bra in the clearance section that was marked at $5.99. Wow. But when I tried it on, I realized that it wasn’t white like the picture on the package, but purple. Oh well, I’ll try it on, and then I can find it in white. Fits great. So, I look for it in white. There are no whites in the clearance (blue, yes. white? no), but the sales girl found it for me in the regular section. It’s $19.99. Ok. I’ll get it, but I’ll also get the purple one, too, since really, what does it matter what color your bra is (unless you are wearing some sheer white outfit or something very low cut that shows your bra). So, she rings up the purple bra, and it’s 1/2 OFF the $5.99. Wow, so I went and grabbed the blue one as well. I mean, who gets a bra that fits for 3 dollars? Well….me, that’s who. So, now I have these blue and purple bras. I’ve personally never strayed from the basic white, so it feels kind of funny to wear them. I feel kind of exotic and sexy (under my same old regular clothes, of course). What’s your most unusual bra like?

3- THE STOLEN PIN
Last night as I was digging in the pile of coats in the mudroom for a shoe or something, I found a pin. Not just a pin, but a fancy broach type thing. It was still on the little card, with a price tag on the back for $1.99. It looked like it must have come from Big Lots, where I took the kids Christmas shopping. But I don’t remember anyone buying it. So, I asked Jenna where it came from. She kind of avoided answering, and said she thought her friend’s mom would like it for Christmas. I asked her if she had paid for it, and she again avoided my question. So, it appears Jenna stole this pin. I did not fly off the handle about it, but told her I would have to think about what we would do about it. I did quickly inform her that taking something without paying for it is stealing, and that Heavenly Father frowns on that kind of activity (as does Mommy). So, what should I do. It’s really such a small pin that it’s not a huge deal. The last time one of my kids stole something, I traipsed back to the store where it came from (Barnes and Noble), told the clerk that my daughter had taken the Barbie book without paying and we would like to return it, asked them to reprimand her, and they said “Oh, thanks.” So, it was more a punishment for Me to have to drag my kids all the way back there, and she got nothing out of it. Any suggestions?

We had a wonderful Christmas and hope you did, too! Today I performed the traditional boxing day custom of returning things. We had some gadgets that didn’t work, a movie that we recieved in duplicate, etc. I must say that Costco has the right idea. As they shuffle you through the line for exchanges, they have people standing there handing out snacks! Thank you, Costco! (Not such great treatment at ToysRus, by the way, and they didn’t have the item in stock for exchange, so we had to take a credit).

I just flew to Toys R Us to get the special gift that was on sale, and I think I’m pretty much done with my shopping now! Kudos to me. I’m sure there will be last minute things, but for the most part, I’ve got what I need.

I’m also gearing up for the 12 days of Christmas, and we’re trying to decide as a family who to “12 days” this year. I’m voting for the easy within walking distance family, myself.

And this week will be a killer as far as my choir calling goes. I need to be at the conference center by 5 or earlier every day this week except for today. It’s a very exciting, although exhausting week for me. To see the Conference Center all decked out for Christmas, and to realize that I get to be a part of that wornderful experience, it’s humbling, and I’m thankful for the opportunity. I pray that all goes well with the choir, and with my family at home without a mom

My heart also goes out to my friends who lost their moms last week. Two funerals this week, but I’m afraid I can’t go to either one. But my thought are with you, friends.

You know those swiffer dusters? They are totally cool! You use the little wand thingy and you can dust the ceiling fans, the tops of the pictures, the door frames..all kinds of stuff. The downside is that my house is pretty dusty and I can fill a whole swiffer duster with dust with just one ceiling fan or one window’s worth of blinds. And those little things are not cheap. Well, I found out that you can toss those babies in the washing machine and use them again! (Dont’ put it in the dryer.) How great is that? Try it! I’ve washed one twice so far and it works great. In fact, if you take it right out of the washer and it’s still damp, it works even better. So, now I can swiffer to my heart’s content! (I’ll probably get bored of it soon, but for today, I’m swiffering!)

At this moment I am wearing a pair of low rise, boot cut jeans from Old Navy. They go swoosh at the ankles when I walk. And I have to wear a super long shirt and even then I’m worried that the whole world will see my underwear. I don’t know if I can wear them all day–they are really bugging me. I mean, do I really want to wear what the teenagers wear, even though I’m 20 years older (eek!) and at least 50 pounds heavier? Maybe I should just go straight to the polyester elastic waist pants (with a printed fleece elastic waist hoodie from that store Mich found) and show how old and fat I really am. Um, no.

What do you wear that bugs you?