August 10, 2010

Another if I owned my own home post.

Even though I know that it will probably never happen, I like to think about all of the things that I would do in my own home if I were to ever own my own home.
I already have my wall paint colors picked out, my style of furniture, how I would want my kitchen to look, that kind of stuff.
Like, I want all stainless steel appliances in my big (read: HUGE kitchen!) kitchen with a lot of counter space, and a lot of cupboards for all of my stuff, all of my kitchen gadgets and appliances, and a nice big food pantry to store all kinds of extras and cooking essentials that every kitchen should have on hand.
I currently don't have enough counter space for all of my cooking gadgets, nor do I have enough cupboard space to always have the basic pantry cooking essentials on hand, which drives me nuts and is one of the reasons why I am always dreaming and thinking about how my kitchen would look if I ever own my own home.
I have to have a large kitchen with a ton of counter and cupboard space, and a food pantry for all of the basics so whatever meal I am cooking, I will always have the right ingredients on hand to make it.

Anyway, I took a walk to the corner store and back earlier this evening, and on my way back it was now dark enough for the street lights to come on and the ones at people's homes too.
One of my neighbors is a guy who works for one of the local tv stations, he lives just up the street from me, about a block or so, and he's always doing work to his yard, putting in new Florida friendly plants and designing it, and tonight I noticed that he's now added some nice new landscape lighting around the trees and plants that he planted in his front yard.
It looks so wicked nice!
He has some lights aimed up near the base of the palm tree he has planted in the middle, there's some smaller lights mixed in with all of the different Florida friendly plants and flowers that he has, so when you look at his yard, you can clearly see all of the beautiful plants and rocks that he has done some nice design with right in his front yard.
I would love to do that kind of stuff to my own yard some day if I ever own my own home.

July 26, 2010

Flexible tripod at Buy.com

This Q:Electronics Flexible Tripod may not be on sale at Buy.com this week, but the price they have it at screams a buy me price!

It's normally $19.99, but they have it for just $8.99 with free shipping, and it's totally flexible which I love!
I imagine all of the pictures that I have taken over the years that have come out all blurry and obviously shaky because my hands were shaking while I was taking them.
Good pictures, or they would have been good pictures, of the kids at special moments in their lives that I can never get back.
All I have is the memories of those times and some really blurry pictures.

You can set this flexible tripod on a flat surface like a table, or you can wrap the flexible legs around the arm of a chair or a tree or tree branch like is pictured above, and still get a steady picture.
My hands shake something fierce sometimes, so getting a picture that isn't full of motion blurs can be kind of difficult for me to do sometimes.
Having a flexible tripod that folds up small and flat to carry in a handbag or camera bag with my camera, and can then be placed onto any kind of surface to get a totally motion blur free picture, would be awesome for me.
I could even hang it upside down from a shelf, table, or branch, set the timer, and get a perfect picture every single time!
There are times that I have to make videos, and because my hands shake, I get totally blurry videos, it's awful.
I watch my videos after I film them thinking that I did OK, and when I watch it back, it's all shaky and some parts are blurry.
I will remake a video two to three times hoping to not get any motion blur, and no matter how many times that I do it, my hands still shake, and I still get some motion blur.
I hate it, I could really use a tripod, and a flexible one like this would be perfect for me so that the shakes and blurs would never be in another picture or video.

It has a standard universal 1/4-20 screw for attaching any kind of camera, three reinforced nylon ball-and-socket segmented legs, rubber feet for a good grip on any kind of surface, and a quick-release for taking your camera off of it quickly.
If it stays at this price, when I get some extra "me" spending money, I am definitely going to pick one of these up so that I can take perfect motion blur free pictures and videos from now on.

EDIT**
Christine commented that she has one of these flexible tripods, she actually bought it at Buy.com, and she said that it is one of those things that once you have it, you wonder how you lived without it before you got it.

The more that I think about it, the more that I want one.
I know that the quality of my pictures would be so so much better if my hands were not all shaky all of the time, but they do shake something fierce, so a tripod is definitely the way to go for me.
If Buy.com keeps this tripod at this low price for a few more weeks, I may have to get one, I definitely want one, so I just hope that they do keep it at this awesomely low low price for a little while longer.
My pictures and videos will be all that much better if I can get this tripod.

July 15, 2010

What's New and Delicious from Kraft. Product reviews.

I was lucky enough to be contacted by Kraft and sent a gift basket with some really great new products in it for the teens and I to try.
I am going to tell you what each item is and what we thought of it.

New KRAFT HOMESTYLE DELUXE Macaroni & Cheese Dinner: a delicious homemade taste complete with a crunchy breadcrumb topping.
This was really fantastic! The teens absolutely loved it, and they said it was almost like Ninny's homemade mac 'n cheese, so it got a thumbs up from them, and because it was so easy to make, it got a huge thumbs up from me.
It was rich, thick, creamy, and a crumb topping, you can bake it in the oven to get that real homemade taste, and it really does taste like you spent hours making it, or your grandmother did.

New KOOL-AID FUN FIZZ Drink Drops: a fun and delicious way to get kids to drink water with only 5 calories per serving.
These Kool-Aid fizzies were so easy and fun to make, and hey, it's Kool-Aid, you can't go wrong with it!

RITZ CRACKERFULS Filled Crackers: made with real cheese and 6 grams of whole grain per serving to help keep you satisfied.
These cheese and crackers were so awesome! The crackers were crisp, crunchy, and the cheese was smooth and tasted like real, fresh cheese, not like that crumbly processed cheese that you get in other cheese and crackers.
We all loved them, they were really great.
They come six in a box, so it was two packs per person, and if I hadn't been keeping an eye on it, Sebastian would have eaten them all!

New DIGIORNO Pizza & Breadsticks: fresh-baked taste with big juicy toppings plus cheesy breadsticks along with marinara sauce - all in one box.
We like Digiorno pizza anyway, but we all love breadsticks, and these were very tasty and easy to make, and the marinara sauce was quite good too!
We got the pepperoni pizza, and between the pizza and breadsticks, it was enough to fill us all up.

OSCAR MAYER Deli Fresh Shaved Meats: sliced, packed and sealed at the peak of freshness.
We got the honey ham, and oh, it was very, very good. This was another product that I had to keep my eye on because the teens just kept going back for more every time that I turned around, sandwiches, roll-ups, more sandwiches, more roll-ups..hahaha

New KRAFT 100 CALORIE PACKS CHEESE BITES: big cheese flavor in every bite-sized piece in these satisfying 100 calorie packs.
This is one product that I couldn't keep my hands off of.
I LOVE cheese, and these little packs were just the right size for a snack, or two, or three...LoL
I got the cheddar flavor and loved it, these were very, very good, cubes of fresh cheddar cheese, yummy!

Everything that we got was really very good, we enjoyed all of it, especially the pizza and breadstiscks, the Crackerfuls, and the Kool-Aid fun fizzies, ah heck, it was all really good, we really liked everything that we got.

I want to give a huge shout out of thanks to Kraft foods for sending me the gift basket, everything was thoroughly enjoyed and appreciated very much!
Thanks Kraft!

July 7, 2010

Oh! There it is!

For the last couple of weeks I have been in a total funk.
I have had absolutely no motivation to do anything at all, I have been mildly depressed and I hate to admit it, but I have to, talking about it helps, says my doctor.
I have been feeling this way ever since Sebastian told me that he had a decision to make about whether to live up in Maine for a year, or come back here and finish his education.
Every time that we talked on the phone, I have been totally supportive, telling him that no matter what he decided, I would stand behind his decision 100% even though it was ripping my heart out to even think about him not coming back home to stay.
I've done hardly anything at all, my house clearly showed what was going on with me mentally, it was a mess.
I haven't been sleeping, and I have barely eaten anything at all in weeks.
With me, the very best natural diet supplements is the thought of not having either or both of my sons with me for whatever reasons, be it an accident, going away to college, or moving away to live with the other side of the family for a year.
It was killing me inside, I ate probably once every two to three days, and you couldn't really call it eating, it was more like nibbling on a single slice of deli ham at one am or whatever.
I have been laying around on the couch most days just mindlessly watching the tv, or sitting here in my chair and mindlessly surfing the internet.
I had lost all motivation to do anything at all.
My home and work have both been suffering because of it, and I just couldn't shake it.

Then around 1:15-1:30pm this afternoon, my Mom called and then I called her right back because I have free long distance, and I talked to Sebastian for about 45 minutes.
Sebastian is spending the night with my parents to help them out around the house and go grocery shopping with my Mom in the morning because she has a hurt knee and a broken vertebrae, so she needs some help and he's great at grocery shopping, he always goes with me and he's really great at helping.
Sebastian said that he'd be home on the 18th, and I asked if he had made a decision yet because if he chose there, then we needed to hurry and try to get a child custody court date, transfer his school records etc.
He told me, "No Mom, I'm coming home on the 18th for good. I'm going to finish my school and then go to SCF for the required classes, and then try to go to Full Sail for my computer and digital art classes that I want to do for my career."

I was Soooooo happy to hear him say that!
To hear him make his education a priority, that makes me so so SO proud of him!
I feel sad that Great-Gram and Aunt Heather will be sad and miss him terribly, but his education is the #1 priority right now, when he finishes, he can go back if he chooses too.
Gah!!!! I miss him but I'm so happy that he's going to be coming home!
Yay!
Yeuuuusss!!

After I got off the phone with him, it's like my mojo came back!
Mark and I went and did the grocery shopping, and then tonight, I finally cleaned the floors like I have been saying I was going to for oh, about two weeks now.
I vacuumed the rug, and I mopped the totally sucky terrazzo flooring in the kitchen, hallway, and bathroom.
I hate the terrazzo flooring, it is so hard to get clean.
You can mop it repeatedly and it still looks filthy, it's just the way the floor is, it's this yucky stone type stuff, and nobody knows how to get it to look clean.
I've talked to people who clean for a living, and nobody knows how to get it to look good.
You can mop it over and over, your mop will wring totally clear, no more dirt is coming off of the floor or wringing out of the mop, the floor is clean, but you look at the just mopped floor, and it still looks totally gross.
Ugh.
Then I did almost all of the dishes, I have just the silverware and cups left to do, I folded all of the laundry in the drier, and I even cleaned the kitchen counters.

Hearing that my baby boy is coming home and he's going to stay home, totally brought me out of my funk.
I got my motivation back.
Sebastian is coming home on the 18th.
To stay.

July 6, 2010

Things I need for my printers.

I need to get a few ink cartridges for my two printers so that I can print stuff out, like pictures, instead of having to use a service to do them, or ask my sister to do them.
Family members have been asking me for ages to send pictures of the teens, and I keep saying that I will, but then I forget, and then when I remember, I remember that I don't have any ink.

My HP Photosmart printer for printing pictures, takes a single cartridge, an HP 110 Triincolor Ink Cartridge, it goes for about $28.00, and I'd like to find it on sale, but the price varies at every single store and e-tailer, so every time I think I have enough money for it somewhere, I get there, and the price has been marked back up again.

My other regular printer for printing out letters and stuff, is a Lexmark, and it takes two cartridges.
A Lexmark #60 for the colors, and a Lexmark #50 for the black.
The #60 color runs about $45.00, and the #50 black runs about $37.00 regular price, so I definitely have to find those when they are on sale.

Why is ink so damn expensive?
And I've tried those refill kits, yeah, never doing that again.
And I'm never doing refurbished ink again either, that was a total waste of money because after printing out about 20 regular pages, just black text, it ran out of ink, so yeah, I was so not happy about that.
I hate having to use a photo printing service, but I do have some credits at one of them, so I am going to use those credits up until I can get some ink for my printers.
Hopefully that will be sometime soon.

June 28, 2010

Keeping myself busy.

I want to thank you all for your words of support and encouragement, it really means a lot to me, and I am sorry if I am unable to personally respond to each and every one of your comments, there are just far too many of them.
Do not get me wrong, I LOVE all of your comments, they really do mean so much, it is awesome to know that I have so much support from so many people during all of this.

I got tired of crying and decided to do something to keep myself busy, so I went and looked up how to make my own ringtones for my cell phone because A) I could not find any on the Virgin Mobile site that I liked, and B) they are just too expensive when you start adding them up.
I found a great site to make ringtones that really works awesome, so if you want to make your own for your cell phone, just go to this site.
It is fast, easy, and there are no harmful things on the site or when you download your newly made ringtone.

Then I needed a way to get them to my phone.
I don't have the USB cable or a micro SD card to use to store and transfer them from my pc to my phone.

They are on sale this week for really good prices, so maybe when I get paid this week after I pay some stuff, I'll pick those up so that I can transfer whole songs to the phone so that I can listen to music on it using the media player it comes with.

But I did find a way to do it.
I needed to download and install Opera Mini 5, and I tried upgrading Opera Mini 4.2, but it wouldn't do it, so I deleted 4.2 and then tried to install 5 for like 2 hours but I kept getting the message "Access Denied" when I went to the site www.m.opera.com, m.opera.com, I even tried the link for Virgin Mobile phones specifically, opera.mini.com/virgin, no matter how I tried it, I was denied.
So I did a search on Google and found that I needed to type in to my phones default web browser, mini.opera.com, and it will download.
The file size on mini.opera.com is like 1kb bigger than the others, so maybe that's why it works, who knows.

Then once you get Opera Mini 5, you need to make your ringtone, then if you have gmail, attach the ringtone file to an email and email it to a yahoo mail account, so if you don't have one of those, get one, they are free.
Then open up Opera on your phone, go to your yahoo email account, click on the email with the ringtone, (hopefully you labled it by putting something in the subject line) then click on the attachment, then click on the box shaped icon that appears, and then in the lower left of your Opera browser, you will see that it says "save".
Click that and it will download the ringtone to your phone, to the ringtones folder.
It will not be labeled the title you gave your ringtone, but instead, it will just say "securedownload" as the ringtone filename, but it's there and it will work.
I have now made two ringtones and emailed them to my phone.
I am way happy that I figured it out, I supposes that sometimes it helps to have OCD, it makes me complete every single thing that I start no matter how frustrating it was to keep seeing that "Access Denied" message.

June 24, 2010

Get an Amazon Kindle for just $189.00!

Amazon has put the Kindle on sale for just $189.00!
The Kindle was priced at $259.00, and it is now just $189.00, that's a savings of $70!
PLUS!!!
Amazon is offering FREE Two-Day Shipping

I normally do not put up posts like this, an 'OMG you should totally buy this' kind of post, but this is a really great price for a really great product.
Everyone that I know who owns a Kindle, absolutely loves it and raves about it.
I know a couple of people who bought a Kindle and they are major book readers, they can read two to three books per week, and almost every single time I talk to the both of them and ask what they are doing, they tell me, reading a great new book!
Both of them have said that they really don't know how they used to carry around all of the books that they would take with them everywhere now that they have a Kindle.
The difference in weight has made an impact in how they walk, and their posture has improved, they are standing up straighter, because they aren't lugging around a giant bag with two or three books in it everywhere they go anymore.
One friend said that the very first day that she had her Kindle in her bag and she wasn't carrying the usual two books that she used to carry with her every single day everywhere that she went, she kept marveling at how light her bag was now, and that's when she realized just how much extra weight she had been carrying around every single day for as long as she could remember due to her love of books.
She had a huge bag too, it was big enough to carry all of her normal purse stuff and had room for at least three hardcover books, which she preferred over paperbacks because paperbacks tend to get ripped up she said.
Once she got used to carrying just the Kindle with her, she downsized her bag and is now using a normal sized purse for the first time in years because the Kindle is so small and lightweight, and she's very happy with it, loves it, and she said the Kindle is the coolest thing that she's bought for herself in years.

I would love to get a Kindle for myself, but I have some bills to pay off by mid-August, (responsibilities first!) but if the price stays this low, (or maybe it will get even lower!) I just might have to buy myself one for Christmas.
I checked the coverage map to see how the 3G signal is in my area, and it's good, so I know I wouldn't have any problems downloading the books in the 60 seconds they say it takes.
I can't believe that the Kindle is so small, yet it can hold 1,500 books at a time, and there are now over 600,000 book titles available to download and read.
And for those of us who don't have a Kindle yet and can't get one for awhile, but we'd still like to try out the technology, we can download the free Kindle app for our pc, and they even have an iPhone Kindle app for free download too.

I think I'm going to download the free Kindle app for my computer to give it a try, and I'll be able to download books to it and read them, so why not right?
While it's downloading, I'm going to go look for a few books that I have been wanting to read for awhile....

June 19, 2010

Friday was one of those days.

Yesterday, Friday, I had a couple of things to do to get ready for Sebastian to go on his trip to Maine for a month, and a friend was supposed to take me so that I didn't have to walk everywhere that I needed to go.
I needed to go get the grocery shopping done, and I needed to go down to the credit union and get a letter notarized giving Shell and her husband Ray, temporary medical guardianship of Sebastian.
He's going to be in Maine from Sunday June 20th, until Sunday July 18th, and if he gets hurt, (oh please no) I want Shell and Ray to be the ones who make any medical decisions for him, they can legally sign for medical treatment of him, and no one else.
But because said friend never showed up yet kept saying they were on their way in 30 minutes all day long, absolutely nothing at all got done.
All day long they had excuses, but they kept telling me they were on the way, for me to stay here, wait, they were definitely coming, so I waited, wasted my whole day.
I didn't get the grocery shopping done, and I never made it to the credit union to get the temporary medical guardianship notarized.

I know that going to those two places doesn't sound like a lot to do, but it actually is because of how much time each thing takes me to get done, especially when I'm distracted and stressed out.
I usually do not go grocery shopping with any friends because friends like to talk while I'm trying to shop.
I have a list in my head, I know each aisle, I know exactly what I need, where it is, and how much it's all going to cost, (Hello? OCD much?) but when I'm with a chatty friend, I lose my place on my mental grocery list and end up forgetting to buy at least a dozen or more items which aggravates me to no end when I get home and realize that I don't have a much needed item to make dinner with because it means that I have to go back to the store.
*breathe*
So for today's outing, knowing that I was going to be with a friend who likes to talk and talk and talk, I wrote out a real list, had my coupons ready, I was ready to go and get it all done as fast as possible without being distracted and stressed out.

Why didn't my friend show up?
I'll tell you why.
She was supposed to be here at 11am, but she said that it was just one thing after another, the dogs needed to go out, the pool needed to be cleaned, the counters were dirty, the dryer stopped and she didn't want things to get wrinkled, she was considering going to North Carolina where her mother lives, where she grew up, because she needs to go see her Charlotte dentist that's been treating her since she was five, and then her and her "old man" got into an argument and she was pissed off and thinking about packing up and just moving back in with her mother in North Carolina, and "OMG Kat! He's driving me nuts! But Kat! I'm on the way! just give me 30 more minutes! I am on the way! I will be there!!"
So I waited.
And waited.
And waited.
I really should have just gone, said screw it, and just walked everywhere that I needed to go, got it all done with because now I'm even more stressed out than I already was.
This trip he's taking has me wicked stressed out and worried.
I'm nervous about him flying alone, nervous about him being alone for the layover in New Jersey, nervous he's gonna wait at the wrong gate and miss his flight and be stuck in New Jersey, all kinds of things that a mother worries about when sending her child off alone for the first time.

Just being told over and over that she was on the way in 30 minutes, to stay here and wait, put me in stress overdrive all day long as I watched the hours ticked away.
It just amplified the stress that I was already overloaded with.
See, when I tell someone that I will be somewhere in 30 minutes, I WILL be there in 30 minutes, probably even there in under 30 minutes, because I hate to wait for people, so I don't ever make people wait for me.
Ever.
When someone tells me that they are on the way to get me, I am ready to go.
I have my shoes on, purse by my side, and the blinds open so I can see them pull in the driveway, and as soon as they do, I'm up and closing the blinds and out the door before they even put the car in park.

I did did call another friend to take me to the store to just get the teens something to eat for dinner.
I ran into Publix and grabbed two subs as fast as they could make them, and then came back home thanking my other friend profusely while I was on the verge of tears the whole time, and so now, I have to go do the full grocery shopping today.
It's gonna suck.
Saturday grocery shopping sucks because it's always super busy with people who can't do their shopping during the week due to their work schedules, and tons of old gray hairs whacking me in the butt with their carts.
Then on Monday, I have to go to the credit union and get the temporary medical guardianship notarized, and then stick it and his insurance card in the mail for Shell.
He was going to have the letter and insurance card on him, in his backpack or suitcase, and just give it to Shell when he sees her, or she could go and pick it up at his father's house so it doesn't get lost or anything, but now I have to mail it and just hope he doesn't get injured between the time I mail it and it gets there because Shell and her husband are the only people that I want making medical decisions for him.
I know that Shell knows CPR and other first aid stuff, I know she knows what to do in the event of a broken bone, excessive bleeding, etc etc, plus I know that if he does get hurt and has to be treated, that Shell will call me and keep me informed every step of the way, and ask me what kind of treatment I want him to have.
I didn't want to burden my parents with that duty, they have their own health issues to deal with, and his father doesn't know any of his allergies or other medical history, Shell does, I know that she can answer almost any medical question about him because we practically raised our kids together when I lived there, and even after moving here, I still told my best friend everything about the teens as they grew up.
I know, I sound totally overbearing and that was a massive run-on sentence, but he's my baby, I'm nervous and worried about him, he's never been away from me for this long, ever, he sticks to me like glue, he's my boy, where I go, he goes, so yeah, I'm really super stressed out about this whole trip.
I don't want to be, I want to not feel this way, but I can't help it, I cannot stop feeling like this, I want him to go and have a great time, but I am going to be a nervous wreck the entire month that he's gone.
And I hate it.

June 10, 2010

Jamba All Natural Smoothies product review.

I was recently given the opportunity to try the new make-at-home Jamba Juice All Natural Fruit Smoothies, I was sent a freezer pack containing the 3 all new make-at-home flavors.
There's Mango-a-go-go, Razzmatazz, and Strawberries Wild.

We've tried all 3 flavors, well the teens have, because I'm allergic to some different fruits, namely, strawberries.
The teens really liked them, and they were so so easy to make!
All you do is tear open the pouch, and dump it in your blender with just one cup of apple juice, and blend!

The first one that I made is the Razzmatazz, which is strawberries, raspberries, and blueberries, and non-fat yogurt, and it's real fruit, chunks of real fruit, whole blueberries, strawberries, raspberries, you can actually see the real fruit, it's not a blended-up pouch of mush like some other make-at-home smoothies that I've tried, but actual fruit pieces!
I was very pleasantly surprised!
Once blended, each pouch makes 2 eight ounce servings, only 120 calories or less in each glass, so it was just enough for the teens to each have one big glass of a yummy and healthy smoothie.
The teens loved it!

I know that I am allergic to strawberries, I know they make me break out in hives, but something possessed me to get a straw and take just a few small sips out of Mark's smoothie.
A few hours later, I was completely covered in hives.
Head to toe.
Everywhere.
But the smoothie was really super tasty, I wish that I had been able to drink more of it, it was awesome tasting, but even just a few small sips, and BAM! super itchy hives. Hahaha!

But the important thing is that the teens loved them, they are really good for them, lots of healthy ingredients, and not bad on the price.
They retail anywhere from $2.99 to $3.29, and can be found in the frozen juice section at the grocery store.
I've already seen them on the shelves at Publix, and they are priced at $2.99, so I know that I can buy more of them for the teens.
If you like smoothies, or just want your kids to get more real fruit and antioxidants, and a full 100% daily dose of vitamin C, you can pick these up and make them for your kids.
I promise that they will love them and so will you, they are really super great tasting.

June 10, 2010

He can buy his own.

Now that Mark has a job, (he likes it!) he already has plans for his paychecks, (haha!) and he's going to save up his money so that he can buy himself an Alienware gaming computer.
He likes the one they have now, but he wants a super awesome gaming pc.
Hey, it's his money, he an do what he wants.
But this also means that when they break things, or the things just die every 2 years from constant use, he can now buy his own xbox 360 gaming headsets.

If I had known that Buy.com was going to have that headset on sale for just $10, I would have waited and bought that one instead of the one that I just bought for $20.
The one that I just bought is the same kind that we've been buying, and they break every two years or so.
It's cheaply made, damn, I wish I would have waited because the one that is now on sale for just $10, is a totally kick ass headset.
I am kicking myself for not waiting just one more week, if I had waited, the teens would have had an amazing headset instead of the one that is guaranteed to break in two years, and it's now too late to return it because we've already opened it, destroyed the packaging, and been using it for a week.
Ugh.

June 7, 2010

He's got a job! He's got a job!

Mark got a job!
He will now be working up at the corner store, starts tomorrow at 1pm.
I am so happy for him to have a job!
He'll have spending money of his own, he'll be able to help contribute to the family food bill, and he'll be doing something useful with his time instead of sitting around here doing nothing but video game playing all summer until he starts classes in the fall.
This is totally awesome.
I helped him get the job, the store owner and I are friends, and he had to fire his last employee because he was stealing, so the owner asked me how old Mark was, if he was honest and hard working, and I said yes, he's a great kid, and he said ok, bring him here at 1pm tomorrow.
Yay!!

Also, can cats get hemorrhoids?
And if so, do they make hemorrhoid treatments for cats?
For any animals?
I'm asking because Nova the fat cat, keeps licking at her butt-hole and meowing loud like she's in pain.
I really don't feel like taking a closer look, but I think I'm going to have to.
I don't wanna.
Looking at a cat's butt is really, truly, absolutely, horrifyingly disgusting.

June 3, 2010

Ambition and adventure!

Now that I finally took the super awesome Radeon HD 5770 graphics card and the 4GB of memory out of the teens old computer and put them into mine, I can finally play my Sims 3 again.
It looks totally amazing too, no lag at all, crisp clear lines, excellent detail, and I can finally turn on reflections so when they are looking in a mirror or even just near a mirror, you can see the reflections.
I am so very happy that I finally made the swap, I have not been able to play in ages, and playing is not only fun, but a huge stress reliever for me because if I am stressed out or angry, I can kill off a Sim in very bad ways and it makes me feel tons better.
But now that I have made the swap and my computer can totally handle the Sims 3 and even some stuff to download made by other people, (the old graphics card prevented items and hair from being visible in the game) I can now get some of the expansion packs that are out.

I will only buy them if they are on sale, and if I have the extra money, which I don't have at all right now, but that's ok, I can wait.
But eventually I would like to get both Ambitions and World Adventures.

In Ambitions, you decide whether your Sim will be the brave town hero or cause loads of mischief among their neighbors. Make your Sim save the day as a brave firefighter, change the town as a leading architect, or live on the edge as a tattoo artist. Will your Sim find success as a billionaire high-tech inventor or eke out a living as a bumbling mad scientist?

In World Adventures, there are travel opportunities available to your sims, which allow for everything from pleasant family vacations, all the way to an adventure-filled, possibly even dangerous Indiana Jones like adventures. Along the way your sims can accumulate unique skills and abilities, learn about new cultures, enjoy a unique soundtrack of real songs recorded in Simlish.

Simlish is really kind of cool, they take real songs, even some of the newer songs that are popular right now, and they translate them to Simlish, and sometimes, the real artist sings their song but now in Simlish.
This is Matt and Kim singling their song "Daylight" in Simlish.

June 1, 2010

My baby turned 17.

Sebastian, my baby, turned 17 today.
He had to go to school today, it's the last week, the last day is Friday, so when I woke him up at 6am, I gently called out his name, I gently rubbed his back, he opened his eyes a little bit, and I sang happy birthday to him very quietly.
He let me sing the whole way through, all the while he was smiling, and when I finished, he sat up in his bed, thanked me, and then told me that he loved me.

His day at school went OK, some of his teachers remembered that it was his birthday and they gave him some special treats, a HUGE candy bar from one teacher, a free pass from another teacher to not have to do any of the last days of school grunt work some teachers like to do, (1 teacher had the students write out multiplication tables, another had them copy down 100 words from different letters of the dictionary, etc) and another teacher just let him play on the computer through the whole class.

When he came home, my sister called and had decided to take them all out to dinner and then do some video game shopping.
I did not go because A) there is not enough room in my sister's new car for her, me, both boys, and both of my nieces, and B) because I am on bed rest for blood clots in my ankles and feet again.
It started on Sunday night, and I thought if I rested, kept them elevated, that it would go away, but it did not, so I called my doc this morning, and he puts me on bed rest and to keep my feet elevated.
They are elevated right now too.
When I sit in my chair, I have this little table that is like thigh-high, it is like a small side table, and I use it as a foot stool when I am sitting here.
I sit like this all the time, my feet are always elevated when I am at my desk, my keyboard on my lap, it is a totally comfy position.
I am really hoping that the swelling goes down soon, and it should, the new blood pressure medicine, Triamterene, 37.5mg, has me peeing so much, that I will probably drop another 10lbs using it instead of any diet supplements.

Anyway, they went out to eat and then to Best Buy for a new video game.
He got Dynasty Warriors: Strikeforce for their Xbox 360, from my sister, and then when I get paid later this week, I will be buying him Dynasty Warriors 6: Empires.
Both of the boys love those Dynasty Warriors games, they have played every single one except for these last two which Sebastian will now have this week.
They came home from eating out and shopping, and both Sebastian and Mark sat down and cracked open the new game and played right until Sebastian had to go to bed.

Tomorrow is the last full day of school, and then Thursday and Friday are half days, and I am really hoping that by then, all the swelling will be gone so that I can take Sebastian out for his birthday.
He told me he wants to go to Taco Smell to eat, and I will buy him the other Dynasty Warriors game, we will have a chocolate layer cake, and he will be a totally happy kid, excuse me, a totally happy young man.
Hard to believe, Sebastian is now 17 and Mark turns 19 on August 15th.
The time just flew by didn't it?
I started this blog when we moved here, Sebastian had just turned five years old when we moved here on June 3rd 1997.
He was just a small, wiggly five year old kid, and here he is now, a really tall deep-voiced 17 year old young man.
Time just flew right by me.

May 28, 2010

My teens are the awesome.

Ever since like last Thursday, not yesterday, but like Thursday the 20th, I've been sick and battling health issues again.
I'm not going into it all over again, you can read about it at KatScan if you want to, but I'm sorta starting to finally mend from that, but now tonight it's raining and so my back is killing me and my ankles are swelling up from blood clots again.
When they said, 'when it rains, it pours', they really must have meant that saying for me, because it's just been 1 thing after another since last week.
I'm like beyond fed up with my body at this point.

So anyway, I've been home all week now, mostly laying on the couch watching tv and movies, resting as much as I could stand to do like all of my doctors have all told me to do, and then my tv started acting all funky.
First, while watching a movie on Tuesday evening, Empire Records, the colors started fading in and out, black and white, then all funky and stripey during the brownie Gwar scene, so I checked a few other channels and they seemed to be ok, so I just chalked it up to being either the movie being old, or an error with the movie channel.
Then later that same day on another channel, it happened again.
And it kept happening until my tv set was showing absolutely nothing at all but black and white on every single channel.
*sigh*
I do have another tv set, it's the one that I was using before my sister had brought over this one that is now faded, and so I knew that I was going to need to go get it from my bedroom, haul it out here, and make the switch, but I physically just couldn't do it, so I just decided to deal with the black and white until I could do it later on when I felt like I could do it.

Here it is now Friday evening, and I still hadn't done it, I had just gotten to the point of I don't really care anymore because it has just been 1 of those weeks in my life where when I dared the made-up gods to just go ahead and send me just 1 more damn thing that they felt like throwing at me, and *poof*, my big 26inch tv went *poof*. ha ha

I decided to go and take a long, hot shower, hoping that it would at least calm me down, soothe me if it did absolutely nothing else at all, and so I went in there to stand in the hottest water that I could possibly stand, even allowing the tub to fill up over my ankles because they've started to swell up now too this evening, and I just stayed in there for oh, maybe 20 minutes or so.
I stayed in there until no matter how hot I turned the water, it was no longer getting hotter, but colder.
When I came out, I went to other other room, threw on some comfy clothes, and came back to sit in my chair.
That's when I looked up and noticed that my now all black and white 26inch tv was gone, and now in it's place, was Mark's Vizio 26inch widescreen LCD HDTV that he got for graduating last year.
I asked the teens, who were sitting here smiling, why they did that, it was their tv for playing their video games on, I have another tv in the other room.
They said they knew, and they went and got that one and hooked it up in their room to play video games on.
I asked them again why they did that, why didn't they just put my old tv out here and keep theirs, and Mark said that it was his tv to do with what he wanted, and he felt wicked bad for me because of the really super crappy week that I had, because all of my docs yelled at me and told me that I need to stay laying down as much as possible, and because I never sleep, because all I can do when I have insomnia and I'm being forced to lay down and behave myself, is to lay on the couch and watch tv and movies, so he decided that he wanted me to be able to watch tv and movies on a wicked nice tv for a change, that I deserved to have at least 1 nice thing this week, so he and Sebastian swapped out the tvs while I was in the shower.
I do have to admit, it is a really super nice tv to watch movies on.
My old tv worked really good for like the last 10 years, great picture and color quality, I never complained once about a movie looking bad on it, but yeah, this is a really super nice tv.

Mark told me that he'd rather I just keep it out here from now on too, as this is the room where we all watch movies together, and the other tv set is actually much better for playing video games on, he says.
I don't buy that at all.
Not for a single second.
I've seen him play Gears of War 2 and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, on the Vizio, and there's a big, massive, HUGE difference when playing video games on an old standard television set, and on one of the new LCD HDTV flat panel sets.
BIG DIFFERENCE.
I tried talking to him about it, tried talking him into swapping it back, it's his tv that he got as a present for graduating high school last May, it was given to him specifically so that when he played his video games, that they would look so super cool on it, and he said that he knows and agrees, games do look really super cool on it, but he said that he wanted me to have a really wicked nice tv to watch movies on for the next week or however long the doctors tell me to stay laying down and resting because I had such a really bad, totally sucky week.
He said I deserved to see all of the super gory details of a fave horror movie if one comes on that I liked, in the most awesome picture quality, that I should at least be able to enjoy myself a little bit while my docs force me to rest 24-7 even though they still haven't got a single clue as to why I should be being forced to rest.
He said that even though his back totally sucks too, he's going to see if the owner of the corner store up the street needs to hire anyone, and he'll get a job to try and help out financially around here, and if the owner says yes, he'll work his butt off for the guy.
He said that he's old enough to work any of the shifts alone too, because you only have to be 18 to legally ring up cig and alcohol sales.
He really wants to start pitching in financially around here, to help make it easier on me because he knows how difficult it is for me sometimes to do the work that I have to do, and because he sees just how hard I work to not just make sure that the bills are paid, but so that I can pay for all of the things that make them happy.
He said that he really wants to get a job, start helping to pay the bills, and then return all of the love and generosity that I give to them when I pay for their video games, game subscriptions, and all of the little tiny stuff like bottles of soda and bags of hot fries whenever I go to the corner store, and so he wants to be able to buy me my own LCD HD flat panel tv on sale some one of the days he earns enough pay.

You know, sometimes, teenagers can be real jerks, they can say things that really hurt your heart, they can shoot you the most painful looks, and they can say 90 million times that they will clean the cat's litter boxes and not do it, and then watch you do it like you should have been doing it yourself all along.
They can do and say a lot of things that make you wish they would age from toddler to adult in less than a year because the teen years are the hardest years that you'll ever face when you decide to have a kid, but then sometimes, they do something as simple as swapping out your old crappy box tv set for their nice one that they rightfully don't have to share with you at all, and it can be the nicest thing that's been done for you all month long.
And then they can just say that they want to get a job and pitch in on paying the bills, and that they want to help pay for all of the hundreds of dollars worth of food that they inhale every week, and that they want to buy you your own really nice tv set, and even if it doesn't ever happen, even if they do get a job but never buy that tv set, it's the fact that they said they wanted to do it, and because they said that you deserve it, that makes you feel like you got the best damn kids in the world.

Yeah, I know, this is all stupid and mushy sounding, and it's like wicked way long, but really, just swapping out the tv sets to surprise me while I was taking a shower, really made me happy after the week that I've had.
It's just like, wicked nice to know that they've been paying attention, they saw how hurt and upset I am, and they were at least trying to understand how this week has made me feel and they wanted to do something nice for me to try and make me feel better, and it did, it has.
It's been a very lonely and scary week, and they did one of the nicest and coolest things for me.

May 18, 2010

My gift to myself in 2010 will be...

This EdgeStar Portable Countertop dishwasher.

I've once again been awake all night long, insomnia, it's just 1 of the things that I have to deal with, but I sometimes feel like I'm going crazy because of it.
I actually caught myself talking to myself in great detail late last night over the dishes.
So, I was up all night, and every time I walked into the kitchen to get a drink or something to snack on to help me get through the super long night time hours of total quiet in the house, I saw the sink.
Both sides of my kitchen sink are once again full of dishes.
Cups, silverware, bowls.
We use paper plates because I hate doing the dishes, so we use paper plates for all meals that need to be plated, but that still leaves all of the cups, silverware, and bowls, that need to be washed by hand.
I'm sick of doing the dishes.
I do the damn dishes every single day, and there are always more.
It seems like I just get them all done, and there's already more piled up in the sink again.
So in between all of my trips to get drinks, use the bathroom, and yell at myself about the dishes, I decided that this year I'm getting myself a dishwasher at some point during the remainder of 2010.

I need one of these portable countertop dishwashers because our kitchen is really small and there's really no room for 1 of the bigger models on wheels to be moved in and out of the kitchen, so I started hunting online around 2 or 3am and doing comparison shopping, and I found this 1 on Buy.com, and even though it's not on sale, it's regular price is totally doable.
At some point this year.
$268.00 which includes the shipping price, is really totally doable.
I could just put all of the cups, silverware, and bowls, into it and run it instead of me standing at the sink for 20-30 minutes and ending up with my back hurting from leaning over the sink washing them all by hand.

The teens do their part, they do the dishes when I ask, but after all of these years of washing the dishes by hand, I just can't take it anymore!!
I do not want to have to keep washing dishes by hand, ever again!
I will have this dishwasher before the end of the year, I will.
It will be mine and I will never wash a dish by hand again!

May 16, 2010

BJ's Wholesale Club, a review.

On Friday evening, my sister and I went to BJ's Wholesale Club as part of a promotion to help increase people's awareness of BJ's and help to increase memberships.
I was given two $25 gift cards to use, 1 for myself and 1 for my sister, to use to purchase anything that we wanted.

When we arrived, I went straight to the service desk to explain why we were there and to be able to use our free 60-day memberships so that we could use our gift cards.
The customer service agent called over a manager because part of what I was asked to do while there, was to take some pictures of the store, the items, and prices of the items.
The manager took my letter that explained what I was doing there, and went and spoke to another manager.
She came back and said that they had no problem with what I was doing which is a review of BJ's, but because they had not been notified that this sort of thing was going to be happening, they could not allow me to take any pictures.
She said that if they had been notified, she would have gladly allowed me to take pictures.
I said that it wasn't a problem, I didn't want to be in any trouble, and I didn't want to cause any trouble.
The manager asked me to further explain to her what I was doing, going to be doing, the whole purpose of my trip to BJ's that day.
I explained to them that this was a promotion that BJ's was doing on some blogs to help gain interest in membership, and it worked right away, because my sister bought her membership (she had a membership years ago but it expired) while I was at the desk talking to the manager about why I was there, what I was doing, and that I would be posting my experience to my blog to help promote BJ's and get new memberships, and the kinds of things that I would be posting, such as all the forms of payment that BJ's accepts including EBT (food stamps), and all of the promotions when memberships are bought.
If you purchase a membership, they offer an immediate $10 coupon to use on that days purchase or a future purchase, and instead of a 12-month year long membership for $45, it's a 14-month long membership that is fully refundable if at any time during those 14 months the customer wants to cancel their membership.

My sister had no idea all the good changes that had been made to BJ's since her membership expired quite a few years ago, so she decided to buy another membership right on the spot for $45 with the $10 coupon available to use right that day.
Getting her membership was super easy too, it took less time for her to get it than it did for me to talk to the manager about what I was doing there, like less than 7 minutes!

We spent about an hour browsing up and down the aisles, both of us finding several things that we could really use.
I bought the teens a case of Gatorade Powerade, $10.99
I bought a package of 660 paper plates, (I hate doing dishes, no dishwasher) for just $6.99.
Paper plates at the local grocery store are 300 of them for $6.99, so I got 360 more for the same price as the grocery store, same exact brand of plates too.
I bought a HUGE, like half gallon bottle size, of the most awesome hair conditioner for just $4.99
My sister bought a 3 piece Oneida frying pan set for just $19.99
My sister also bought a package of 460 Glad sandwich bags (she packs all of the girls lunches every single day) for $7.99, and a package of 20 Oral B replacement heads for their families electric toothbrushes for just $14.99
I think that was all we got, and it came to $65.94, then subtract the additional $10.00 instant coupon they gave her for buying a membership, so our total out of pocket was around $5.94+tax.

We got some really great deals on what we bought, and had we had more time, I'm sure that we would have found a million more things that we wanted to get, but she had to be back home to pick up her daughters from the sitters house by no later than 7:30pm.
But we browsed up and down every aisle, we saw a million things that we want and will be back to get, especially the food items!
BJ's accepts every major credit card, they also take debit cards, EBT cards, (food stamps) and EBT cash benefits can be used to purchase a membership.

They also take ALL manufacturer coupons which help you save even more money on grocery items, PLUS they have their own coupons, PLUS you can use both at the same time!
That's right!
If you find an item that you want and you have a BJ's coupon for it and a manufacturer coupon for the same item, you can use BOTH coupons to help save you double the money!

* Savings of MORE than 30%** off supermarket prices
* MORE products in family-friendly supermarket sizes
* Even MORE savings with manufacturers' coupons -- BJ's is the only
major wholesale club that accepts them all
* MORE ways to pay: cash, checks, major credit and debit cards -- plus EBT

In these tough economic times, you have to find all sorts of ways to be creative and save money but still keep your family fed and dressed, (Yes! they even sell clothes and shoes, tires, home improvement items, all kinds of stuff!) so why not go check out BJ's Wholesale Club using the free 60-day membership, (the free membership offer expires on 7/5/2010, so hurry!) and bring your coupons with you, I guarantee that you will find all of the same stuff that you buy at your fave grocery store for way less money and be able to save even more money on them using BJ's coupons and your manufacturer coupons, and then consider buying a membership.
Memberships cost just $45, they give you a $10 coupon right on the spot to use that day or a future purchase, and I know that I will be back myself to get a membership so that I don't always have to go shopping with my sister, I can get a friend to bring me and my friend will be able to shop with me that day as well.
I really can't wait to be able to go back and do some serious grocery shopping.
I always use coupons, so being able to double up on my savings on groceries will be totally awesome.

We had a really good time at BJ's, and Sebastian went with us and saw a million things that he wants to get too.
He spent some time browsing their electronics department, they sell tvs, ipods, computers, laptops, DVDs and Blu Ray, and video games, so yeah, he had a good time looking at everything they sell too.
We will definitely be back to BJ's Wholesale Club, and I would highly recommend that you print out that free 60-day membership and go check them out for yourself.
We all have to find ways to save money, and because of all the payment forms they accept and the fact that they double coupons, it's definitely a great way to get everything that you need and save money doing it.

May 9, 2010

Messy feet and a blind kitty?

Ever since my feet and ankles have been swelling up as bad as they do from the blood clots, my feet are a total mess.
When the swelling starts, the skin gets all stretched out, red, tight, and the more they swell, the worse it gets, and then the skin starts cracking.
Once the swelling goes down, my feet are in even worse shape if you can imagine.
The skin is totally dried out, cracked, and peeling, it's so gross.
I've tried to prevent this by using different lotions which are supposed to retain the moisture in the skin, I do this at the very first sign of the swelling, and even though it hurts like crazy to even touch my feet, I continue to put lotion on during the whole terrible time.
None of the lotions that I've tried have worked, and I've used quite a few.
Cocoa butter, shea butter, lotions with aloe vera, vitamin E, all kinds of stuff, and nothing at all has worked.
My feet are totally disgusting.

So next time I get a few extra bucks to spare, I'm going to see if Buy.com puts the as-seen-on-tv stuff, Heel Tastic, on sale.

Heel Tastic is supposed to really heal the dry cracked skin on heels and feet.
It's supposed to totally fix this dry, cracked-skin problem on people with chronic dry, cracked-skin, and have had the problem for a long time, and nothing else has ever worked.
People like me.

So after I get some extra money and I buy it, I'll use it and review it.
I really hope that it works.
I cannot stand my feet anymore, I cannot stand looking at them, feeling them, it's so so gross!
_______________________________

**Note. NOT a recent picture of Kali.

Does anyone know if old kitty cats can go blind?
I'm really starting to think that Kali is going blind.
Her eyes look kind of cloudy, sorta foggy looking, and she's been over-the-top starving for affection and attention.
She is following all of us around 24-7, trying to sit and lay on us, on our keyboards, she is never more than 2 feet away from these days.
And for a cat that never made a single sound during her first 10 years of life, (she's 13 now) and then when she did, it was this tiny little barely audible mew, she is now meowing all of the time, loudly.
I love her and am very concerned for her health and well being, and I'm afraid that she's going blind, maybe even a combination of blind and deaf, because of how loudly she's meowing these days.
I have felt her all over, there's no lumps indicating any type of noticeable tumors or anything, so I really think this whole starving for attention and affection thing is because she's losing her sight and maybe even her hearing.
Right now, she is on the arm of the couch after I refused to let her lay on my lap while i sit here and try to type, and she keeps rubbing her head on my arm, and meowing at me.

Does anyone have any experience with a blind, possibly blind and deaf, cat or other pet?

April 25, 2010

Big boys and aerobeds.

I still haven't posted much about our trip to Maine to visit all of the relatives, and I was just checking out what Buy.com has on sale this week, when it totally reminded me of what happened at Great-Gram's house.

Great-Gram lives in a seniors only apartment complex, they are all 1 bedroom - 1 bathroom -1 floor, side by side apartments, with 4 apartments to a row, about 16 total apartments up in Standish Maine.
Whenever we go to stay with her, Great-Gram insists on taking the couch, I always tell her that I'll take the couch, I actually sleep better on her couch than her bed, but she insists on me taking her bed, and the teens each take an air mattress with 1 of them in the bedroom with me, and the other in the living room with her.
Great-Gram doesn't get a lot of people staying with her as much anymore, the kids and grandkids are all mostly grown up, so it had been a long time since anyone has needed to sleep on the air mattresses.
When Great-Gram and the teens got the air mattresses out of her closet and had begun to blow them up that first night, neither of them would inflate.
Great-Gram and the teens tried for about an hour to get either of them to inflate and when they wouldn't, she called her daughter Sherri, and then Aunt Sherri sent Uncle Jimmy down to Standish with their air mattress.
Their air mattress wouldn't inflate either, and so Sebastian slept in the queen-sized bed with me, and Great-Gram and Mark got every single blanket that they could find in her closet and piled them up 1 on top of each other on the floor in an attempt to make it as comfortable as possible for Mark to sleep on. (he didn't want to sleep in the bed with me because he's a kicker and he didn't want to kick and hurt me)
The next morning after we had all woken up and had breakfast (except Mark) and made ourselves look presentable, Great-Gram had us all pile in the car and head on down to North Windham to go to Wal*Mart and buy a new air mattress.
We only needed to buy 1 new air mattress because Heather and Kristina (Heather's fiance) have an air mattress that they were going to let us borrow for the week.
Kristina was going to bring it down in the afternoon after Sullivan got off the school bus sometime around 3pm or later, so off we went to Wal*Mart.
Great-Gram found a nice big air mattress kind of like this Aerobed, but a twin sized one.

We also picked up some extra D-cell batteries because the pump that the air mattress comes with uses batteries and Great-Gram wasn't sure that she had enough of them, or if the ones that she did have were any good anymore.
Then Great-Gram insisted that we go to McDonald's for lunch, it was about 11am and time for lunch, and Mark never eats breakfast so he was definitely hungry, so we all went to McDonald's and then to Hannaford's so that Great-Gram could buy more food that I kept telling her not to buy because while the teens do have big appetites, there was already quite a bit of leftovers in the fridge that needed to be eaten.
Both Great-Gram and my Mom bought a ton of food and cooked enough food for an army, and the teens and I tried to eat as much of the leftovers as we possibly could so that nothing went to waste, (I hate wasting food because wasting food is wasting money) and by doing that, we all put on some weight.

We went back home to Great-Gram's house, put all of the groceries away, and then tested out the new air mattress to make sure that we didn't need to turn around and take it back for another one.
It inflated in about 2 minutes, yay!
In the afternoon, Kristina came over with Sullivan and their air mattress, we tested to make sure that 1 still worked, it did, and then they stayed and hung out with us until Heather got done at work, and then they all stayed and we got to have a nice visit until about dinner time.

Neither of the teens is playing with Sullivan and the action figures in this picture, and that's because as soon as they saw my camera, they both jumped up and sat on the couch so there wouldn't be any evidence of them playing with the action figures.
Ya know, they are 16 and 18, they don't want to be seen playing with the "little kid toys", but trust me, they were both down on the floor playing with Sullivan.
Sullivan loves to play with his cousins and the action figures, it's all he could talk about since Heather told him that we were coming up for a long visit, when would he be allowed to go play with his cousins, he even asked if he could he have a day off of school to play with his cousins because of how rarely we go up for a visit.
He (Sullivan) loves Mark and Sebastian, he tries so much to be like them, like the big boy cousins, he's only 8 years old, but he wants to be just like the big boys.
On the Friday night before we were heading back to my parents house for the next week until it was time to fly home on Easter Sunday, we all went out to eat at this awesome restaurant in Cornish called Stone Ridge.
Sullivan wants to be like the big boys so much that when they ordered the never-ending ribs plate, Sullivan ordered it too.
The ribs the teens got were huge, and they got a lot of them on the first plate.
Mark was the only 1 who finished his first plate and got the 2nd plate, but the waitress was really nice and gave each of the boys, including Sullivan, another order of the ribs in take-out boxes to take home.
Sullivan thought he was so cool getting take-home ribs just like the boys, he talked about it all the way home.

I do have a few more things to post about our trip to Maine, I'll get to them as the days go by.

April 23, 2010

Dropping the weight we put on while in Maine.

When we went home to Maine to visit everyone, both Great-Gram and my Mom, fed us huge meals every single day, there were leftovers on top of leftovers stacked up in both of their refrigerators.
Now don't get me wrong, we totally loved every single thing that they cooked for us, but oh man, we were so stuffed after every single meal.
All 3 of us put on quite a few pounds while we were there, I put on about 12 pounds.
Yikes!!
But since being back at home, we've all started getting back to our normal eating habits and losing the weight we put on.
I've managed to lose the whole 12 pounds that I put on and another 7 pounds without having to use my usual diet supplement that I used to take to help me lose weight.
It really works too, I absolutely love it and when my friend Shell emailed me about it the other night, I gave her the name of it and told her how she should take it, and that it works if you remember to take it every day.
I used to buy it at my old pain doctor's office, he highly recommended it to his overweight patients because being overweight can cause your back to hurt more because you're carrying around all of that weight which just puts stress on your back.
I did notice that once I started dropping some weight, that my back didn't hurt quite as much as it normally does, but the pain never truly went away.
I was just happy that some of the pain was gone and that I was losing my belly fat.
_______________________________________

The movie Avatar came out on DVD today and I want it.
I absolutely loved seeing it in the theater in digital 3-D, and I know that the DVD won't be in 3-D, but that's ok, it's still stunning to look at.

I've added it to my wish list so that I remember to buy it when I have some extra money to get us a new movie.
I like to buy us a new movie that we all really loved when I can so that we can watch it over and over again.
The teens have certain movies that they've watched like a gazillion times like The Lord of the Rings trilogy, and Evolution which they watched every single night that I was in the hospital, both times that I was in the hospital.
I asked them why they watched it every night both of the times that I was in the hospital, and they told me that it just comforted them, it took their minds off of me being gone, and it took away their worries about me while they watched it.
I found it interesting that that particular movie is what comforted them.
I honestly don't know why, I've watched that movie and I cannot figure it out.

April 18, 2010

Can't wait to eat it!!

I've had a pot roast, potatoes, carrots, and onions, slow cooking in the crock pot since about 9am this morning, it will be ready to eat in about an hour.
The house smells sooo good!!
The pot roast looks sooo good too!

It's been cooking in a Rival stainless steel 5-Quart Countdown Slow Cooking Crock Pot, which I absolutely love!
This is the exact one that I have!

Crock pots are great because you just throw the food in, set it, turn it on and walk away.
Cooking is easy because it's all in one pot, and cleanup is easy for the same reason, it's just one pot to wash!

I love cooking with it for so many reasons, 1 of them being that it doesn't heat up the whole house like the oven would do if I was cooking this roast in it.
The whole house would be hot by now, and that would totally suck because I hate cooking in a really hot kitchen, it just makes you feel miserable.

I've cooked so many different and amazing tasting meals in my crock pot, and I just love making chicken dishes in it.
The chicken stays so juicy and tender, and because you just set it and walk away, the flavors stay in, and whatever meat you're cooking, it soaks up whatever spices and flavors you throw in.
For my roast, I have the potatoes, carrots, and onions, which have and add some great flavors to the meat themselves, but I also added in just a pinch of garlic, some celery, salt, pepper, a bay leaf, and a pinch of thyme too.
It really smells so amazing in my house.
I took the lid off to check the whole red baby potatoes, and waved some of smell out and into the house, and the teens opened up the door to the game room and were like "OMG, is it ready? Can we eat it now?"
Almost guys, almost.

I think that cooking with a crock pot is like the easiest way to cook, ever, it's really hard to screw up something cooked in a crock pot, so if you don't have one, get one.
I swear, they are a cooking appliance that should be in everyone's kitchen.
Buy.com has the exact same one that I have on sale for $44.95 with free shipping.
It's normally $60, so that's a savings of $15, and because the shipping is free, it's a really great bargain.
It can be used to cook so many different things, even deserts.
Yes, I've even made a cake in my crock pot, and it came out awesome.
My next cake in a crock pot adventure will be a cheesecake.
I love cheesecake but I have a really hard time making one in a traditional spring form pan, so I'm going to do one in the crock pot and see how it comes out.

April 15, 2010

Maybe some throw rugs?

We ended up not ripping the carpet out today like we had planned, Mindy had a wicked migraine.
I had the house all ready, I didn't move the furniture of course, but I did clean everything up including the table of death, so that when we did need to move the furniture around to pull up the carpet, we didn't have to deal with all my crap first.
When Mindy and Chris didn't get here by 3:30pm, I knew something was up but figured I'd give them a little more time before I called.
When I called at 4pm, I could tell right away that she wasn't ok, it was just the way she answered the phone, and when she told me that she laid down to take a nap to try and kill off a migraine and woke up when she heard the phone ring, she looked at the clock and knew right away what she had totally forgotten to do today.
I told her it was no big deal at all, it can be done another day, so she said that on Saturday after they get done with the yard sale, they'll come over and do it.
She said that her son Jeff doesn't have to work that day, so we'll have an extra able-bodied person to help with it.

Sitting here tonight with my freshly vacuumed carpet, nothing crunching under foot, (chip or cookie crumbs from the teens) and completely clutter-free, I now don't want to be completely without some sort of carpeting.
Terrazzo flooring gets really cold in the winter, and while it does stay cool in the summer, if it gets really humid outside, it tends to sweat a little.
It always has a slightly wet look and feel to it in the summer months, so I always have to throw a towel down on the floor in front of the kitchen sink while I do dishes so I don't slip and fall.

I'd absolutely love to buy another Bissel carpet cleaner, but I really don't know if it would work on getting all of the stains and pee smell out after so much time has passed.
I suppose that I could wait a few more weeks before ripping the carpet out and rent a carpet cleaner from Publix to see if it would, but if it doesn't work, I will have wasted money renting it to clean a carpet that I'm just going to rip out.
A dilemma to ponder, but I only have a few days to ponder it before the 2nd planned rip-out party.
Or I could just go ahead and rip it out as planned and then start saving some money up to buy some throw rugs for in front of my chair and the 2 couches, or maybe a big 8x10 for the living room that would fit in front of both couches, and then get a smaller matching throw rug for in front of my chair.

This hand tufted wool rug is really pretty, and it would match the colors in my living room really nicely.
Click for bigger on both images.

This hand tufted wool rug from India would also perfectly match my home nicely too.

I can't afford either of them at their prices, and they would have to be on a very serious sale for me to afford either, but I do like them, the 2nd one more then the 1st.
I just like the pebble-stone look of the 2nd one, it's just a really unique and pretty rug pattern.
I'm going to keep looking through all of the different rugs, throw rugs, and runners that Buy.com has, they have a pretty big selection, and maybe I can find that same pattern in a smaller rug and if they do, I can start saving up to buy a few of them, I think that 4 would do it.
One for in front of each couch, a throw in front of the kitchen sink, and maybe another small throw in front of my chair.

April 14, 2010

Is it the vdeo card or memory?

I hadn't played my Sims 3 in ages, and so this afternoon when I was in a total funk I decided to load it up and create a new Sim that I could torture.
Throw her in the pool and take away the ladder, put her in a room with a bbq grill and some flammable chairs and tell her to make some burgers, or just lock her in a room with no doors or windows, no bathroom, no fridge for food, and just watch her slowly die.
Yes, I was in that kind of mood.
I had totally forgotten though, that when I did a fresh install of WinXP, that I didn't reinstall my Sims.
So I reinstalled it and loaded it up.
It was playing fine for awhile, I was in the create-a-sim feature, I had almost completed her, when my game crashed to the desktop.
Ugh.
All that work and I hadn't saved it.
Bummer.

This is really a bummer because I had wanted to buy the Sims 3 World Expansion pack at some point when I got all caught up on bills and a little bit ahead, but it looks like I won't be doing that until I figure out if I need a new video card, or new/more memory for my pc.
I'm thinking that I need a new video card, the Sims 3 is graphic heavy because of the way it plays.
It's open world meaning that you can go from one house to another, or from home to a store, without all the long loading screens in the previous versions of the game.
In order to do that, the game takes a lot of power, and without the right video card, it just isn't going to happen and your game ends up crashing to your desktop like I did this afternoon.

So now instead of buying the expansion pack for $40, I get to save up money for a new video card, (or memory once I figure out which it is) install it, test it for crashes, and then I can start saving my pennies for the expansion pack again.
It would be nice, if it is the video card, that I can find the one I need on sale at Buy.com.
I still have a few bucks, like under $10 I think, in gift certificates there, and their prices are just cheaper than other online retailers that I've shopped at anyway.

April 11, 2010

Johnson's Buddies Easy-Grip sudzing bar.

I have so many things to blog about our trip to Maine to visit all of our family and a few of my friends, and I'll slowly be posting all of the stories now that my internet is back on and working correctly, but I just have to tell you this one thing!
It's probably a totally silly thing to most people, but it's something that I love so I want to tell you about it. haha ha!

At my Mom and Dad's house, they have this soap in the bathroom, it's called Johnson's Buddies Easy-Grip Sudzing Bar, and it's about $1 per bar.
It's made for small kids and toddlers to help teach them good hygiene practices by helping them wash their hands with a bar soap that won't slip out of their hands.
The soap comes in a non-slip pouch, you get it wet, and then lather up, and it will not slip out of your hands.
The soap also comes in a fun and bright color to attract kids, and it also comes in a great scent, yummy watermelon.
And when I say a great scent, I mean it, the smell of this soap is fantastic, intoxicating, and addicting.
I have taken a couple showers with it since coming home with a few bars that mom bought for me after I kept coming out of her bathroom smelling my hands and raving about it.
"Mmmm, Mom, I loooove that soap, what is it called, I want it, it smells sooo good!"
This is what the soap looks like.

The soap is allergy tested so I won't get any hives from using it, and the non-slip pouch is really perfect for me because sometimes my finger joints get really stiff, and so trying to pick up and hold onto a bar of soap can be rather difficult.
This is also why my Mom and Dad use it, they both have gripping issues due to arthritis, so the Johnson's Buddies soap is really perfect for people who may have that disease, or a neurological problem that causes them to have trouble holding onto things.
The non-slip pouch is also great for taking showers, if it can't slip out of your hands, you won't be dropping it in the shower and having to bend down to try and pick it up, and then keep losing your grip on it, which is another reason I really like it.
I can't bend down in the shower to pick up a bar of soap because I don't bend so well, so this bar is really awesome in the shower for people with arthritis, neurological gripping issues, or people who can't move so well any more.
I can totally see this bar being used by more than just kids and toddlers, I can see seniors, people who use a shower chair, people who have mobility issues, all kinds of people for all kinds of reasons, the non-slip grip is really perfect for a lot of people, not just kids.

As I said above, the Johnson's Buddies Easy-grip sudzing bar is only about $1 per bar at most stores, and can be found in the baby goods aisle, and it can also be bought online.
I went and looked, and found out that Buy.com sells it, (they really are becoming more than just an electronics e-tailer!) and they are temporarily out of stock on the single bars right now, but I'm hoping that they will get more in stock, and also start carrying and put on sale the 24-packs of it too.
A 24-pack is only about $25-$27, and because of that price, the shipping is usually free.
Most regular bar soaps average around $3 per bar, and that's just a normal bar of soap, not a no-slip one, so to get a full size bar of soap that won't slip out of your hands at the sink or in the shower, is allergy tested, and smells absolutely incredible, for about $1 per bar, you can't beat it.
I know this post probably sounded kinda silly to most of you, but I just had to share because I love it so much!

March 10, 2010

Lift, tighten, and dance.

I stay up so late that I think that I have seen infomercials for just about any kind of product that you can possibly think of.
The latest one that I watched was last night, it was for the kymaro body shaper.
I thought I had seen it before, and I was kind of right.
Back in January, both the LA Times and The Huffington Post, had reported that one of Lady Gaga's costumes was in fact just a Kymaro Body Shaper.
The story was not true of course, but you do have to admit that her costume does look like it.

A rep for Lady Gaga says that it's definitely not true, and that the skeleton part of the costume was designed by Gary Card.
I have no idea if the body shaper actually works or not, I just found it interesting and kind of funny that people thought she used one of them as a costume.

March 7, 2010

Debating if I need it or not.

There are a couple of things that didn't come with my new cell phone, a Kyocera X-tc, that I'm debating on whether or not I really need or want, and would need to pick up at some point.
One of them is a micro SDHC card for storage, as the phone only as 70mb of storage space available, and so if I wanted to store more pictures or music, I would need to get one.
The other is a must have if I want to be able to play music on my phone, listen to it through my earbuds, is a micro USB data cable like this one in the picture below.

I was hoping that Buy.com would have one on sale, but all they have is the one that I linked up there, but I don't want that one because it comes with a house charger that I already have as it came with the phone, and a car charger which I don't need because I don't have a car.

I'm really debating on getting those items.
Like, do I really need my phone to be able to double as an mp3 player?
I have an mp3 player, so I don't really need my phone to be one.
While having a ton of pics on my phone is nice because then I can show them to everyone, it's not like I really need the micro card for storage because I can upload all of my pics to the Virgin Mobile 'My Pix' account page, and they also automatically get uploaded to my Facebook page too.
I guess it just depends on how much stuff I want to carry with me when going on long distance trips like our trip to Maine.
Do I want to carry my phone and charger, and my mp3 player and it's USB charger, or do I just want to carry my phone and charger?
It's too late for this trip to get the micros USB data cable, but I'll have to think about it for my next long distance trip.

February 27, 2010

Window shopping and dinner out.

I was really hoping to be able to find a desktop gaming pc on sale at Buy.com a little sooner, but it hasn't turned out that way.
Did I mention in the post that we are wanting a gaming pc?
I didn't?
Well yeah, seeing as the teens really only use the computer for playing WoW and other video games, Sebastian does all of his digital design stuff on the mini-netbook, they use the desktop to play WoW and do a few other things, but mostly gaming.

Buy.com does have a couple of refurbished desktops on sale this week, an HP, and a Dell, but they really aren't built for what we are needing, so we're going to do a look in-store later this afternoon and see what we can find, check out prices, and then I'll probably come back to Buy.com and see if they have a good gaming pc in stock to get.

They do have some other great stuff on sale though, like a Kingston 4GB microSDHC Card, for just $12 bucks with free shipping, which I could use either in my camera or in my cell phone.
I did buy myself a new cell phone today, I bought a Kyocera X-tc, I bought it for my birthday present to myself on Monday.
It was totally on sale too, just $59 down from $129, so yeah, I got a really great deal on a birthday present for myself.
They also have the hard rubberized cases for the X-tc, I want the purple one, but it's currently not in stock in that color, so I'll add it to my wish list to get later on.
Those are only $6.55 including the shipping, so yeah, I'll add that for a later date purchase.

What?
How old will I be turning?
40.
Yuh.
The big 4-0.
I feel like I'm 80 today, the cold and rain are kicking my butt, but after we get done doing some window shopping for the pc and go out to eat with sis and Susan, I'm going to come home, take a long hot shower, and bundle up under some warm blankets for the rest of the day and night, maybe curl up on the couch with my blankets and use the netbook from there for awhile.

Ok, this soon-to-be 40 year old needs to go get myself ready to go, hair brushed, teeth, clean clothes, ha ha.
Later days!

February 22, 2010

Before I plan our trip to Maine.

I'll be getting a decent sized refund from the IRS this year, and once I have it, I'll start planning our trip to Maine to visit the family, all of them.
I have a totally enormous family to try and visit, so we may have to take a full 2 weeks in order to visit with everyone.
It's going to be hard trying to fit everyone in, but I'll figure it out when the time comes.
But one of the things that I want to do is to get the teens a better pc.
The one they have is ok, but ever since it had to be repaired over a year ago, it just hasn't run quite the same, it doesn't run well at all is what I mean.
It's constantly lagging on the simplest of things, it takes forever for stuff to load and start up, so yeah, I want to get them a better pc.
They really have earned it, the teens do so much to help me, they do a ton of things to help out around here, they never go out with friends or anything, every once in awhile they do, but they really have earned it by being here and doing so much.
So I'll be looking to see what Buy.com has on sale for the next few weeks while I wait on my refund to be direct deposited.

They don't have any desktop computers on sale this week, and that is what I want to get them, not a laptop, so I'll keep looking every week to see if one gets added.
They do, however, have a ton of stuff on sale this week like a SanDisk Sansa Clip 1GB MP3 Player for $14.99, it's the one that I have and absolutely love it!
They also have a VIZIO 19" Widescreen LCD HDTV, refurbished, for just $149.99, a savings of $80.00!

My tv out here is good, it works just fine, nothing at all wrong with it, but Mark has a Vizio LCD HDTV in his room, the game room, that he got from sis for his graduation present, and it's truly an awesome looking tv.
I am totally jealous of how incredible the tv in there looks on video games and movies.
If I could physically stand being in the room for longer than 20 minutes, I would totally watch all of my shows and movies in there.

Anyway, before I plan our trip to Maine and buy the tickets, I need to pay a few bills like the rent for March, pay back 2 loans, and buy a lot of cat food and litter so that whoever comes to feed them while we're gone, won't have to worry about the cats running out of food.
I don't plan on being gone for very long, a max of 2 weeks, so yeah, someone will need to come by either every day, or every other day, and feed the cats and clean the litter boxes out.
I have 2 pet feeders, one for food, one for water, they look exactly like this but in pink, but the way the cats eat if there's a lot of food in the feeder, (especially Carmine) they will eat it until it's gone.
They don't stop eating, so if I fill the food feeder dish, all of the cats will chow down until they are totally bloated and ready to burst.
I don't understand how they can just eat and eat, do you think that animals do that, eat whatever is in front of them until it's gone, because they fear being without food?
I think that may be part of it, afraid that the food will run out and they will starve or something.

Anyway, I have a lot of things to do before I can go to bed again.
I posted about what happened on Thursday and the whole weekend on KatScan.

February 18, 2010

First Communion coming up.

My friend Nic is Catholic, she knows that I am an atheist, and we both respect each others views on the topic of religion, so much so, that Nic has asked me to help her pick out Communion cards for her daughter Leonna's First communion.

When we went grocery shopping the other night, this is one of the things that we talked about as we shopped.
She asked for my help because I am always on the internet and my computer works.
Her computer is totally messed up, one of these days when she has an afternoon off, I'm going to go over and do a fresh install of WinXp, and clean up her entire pc, it really is a mess, but anyway...

Leonna's communion is coming up within the next few months, I think she said it was going to be in May, (or was it June?) so she has plenty of time to find just the right Communion invitations and Communion thank you cards, and then get them ordered and shipped to her in plenty of time to get them all sent out to her family and friends.

I started looking at different card websites tonight to try and help her find just the right ones, and the best site that I found with the nicest selection of invitations was Storkie.com.
Their prices per card with the personalized customizations already included in the price per card, was by far better than any of the other sites that I looked at, and I looked at close to a dozen of them before going back to Storkie again because of the selection and pricing.
Their site was also the easiest to navigate.
Nic said that she didn't mind if she could only get gender neutral cards, but Storkie does them all kinds of ways, by gender, gender neutral, photo cards, magnetic cards, they even do customized napkins and cookies which I thought was pretty cool.
I've only been to a few communions for friends before, so I never really knew just how much went into the planning and finding of just the right kinds of invitations and party favors before tonight.
There are so many things that can be done for the event, and it is a pretty big deal in the kid's life, so getting things done up right is really pretty important.

Anyway, I really liked the cards that can be personalized with pictures and your own text as well.
I think a style like this is way better than a generic card with pre-printed generic writing on it.

They also have the matching thank you cards to go with each particular design too, so the one that I just posted above, has a matching thank you card to send out to family and friends after the communion party is over.

I've bookmarked Storkie so that I can show it to her when she has some time to come by this weekend to start picking out what she wants.
I've also picked out some of my favorite ones so that I can show her what I like, what I think would be perfect for Leonna.
I like the black and white, simple, crisp, and clean, but I also know what colors Leonna likes, so I'm going to go through and find a few styles in colors close to what she likes to show to Nic as well as the black and white from above, and hopefully she will be able to find just the right ones so she can get busy ordering them in time for the communion.

February 16, 2010

Food, allergies, and hopefully, a vacation.

Things have just been so mega crappy for me lately, and I know, I complain way too much on my blogs, but eh, they're my blogs and I'll whine if I want to.
The cold weather is freaking killing me, every single joint aches so bad from the cold and my arthritis, it's just been miserably painful, so I haven't been online much at all, haven't done any work, or done much of anything really.
I did go to the store yesterday to buy some food for the teens to eat, I haven't felt like eating much lately, but while there, I must have touched something that had some peach stuff on it.
I'm seriously allergic to peaches, so within an hour of getting home, my hands and lips, and parts of my face had started to swell up and be painful.
And of course, I didn't know that I had come in contact with any peaches, so I didn't buy any Benadryl or anything to combat the allergy attack.
Then the hives started to form all over my whole body.
Arms, legs, torso, hands, and face.
By 11pm, it looked as though I had just gone through a round of acne scar removal therapy, my face had huge red puffy hives all over it, eyelids swollen, cheeks puffed up and red, it looked bad.
I'm glad that I really don't go anywhere or have to look good for anyone, because I looked really, really bad.

I will be getting my income tax refund back sometime next week, direct deposited to my Amscot account, and I am hoping that after I pay a few bills and things off, that the teens and I can go to Maine to visit everyone.
Visit my parents, the teens Great-Gram and Aunt Heather, and then all of my newly found bio-siblings and families.
The teens and I would love to go up, we haven't been back home to Maine in like 4-5 years, and now, with all of my newly found bio-siblings, I have so many people to try and visit in just 1 week of vacation time.
I seriously need a vacation, and even though it will be wicked busy visiting everyone, I still need to get up and go home, go away from here, go see my best friend Shell and sister Joanne, everyone.
I think a huge part of my lack of focus and drive, my lack of motivation, and even part of my depression, for the last few months, is because I am so far away from everyone that I love, I am away from them, alone, and it really bothers me sometimes to not be able to just go hang out with my best friend, or now that I found her, be able to go talk to my big sister Joanne.
I really hope that I can find some good ticket prices so that we can afford to go, I need it in a bad way.
Keep your fingers crossed for me to find good prices from either Sarasota or Tampa, to Portland Maine, ok?

I have so much to do still, so much work to catch up on, I have laundry piled up, I still need to go get the actual groceries too.
I just bought simple and easy stuff yesterday, just what Sebastian and I could carry home, so later this evening, my friend Nic and I are going to go do the real grocery shopping, so I need to make sure my list is complete, get my coupons together, and then just wait for Nic to be ready to go.
I'm going to attempt to get as much stuff done as I can in the meantime though.

February 12, 2010

Winner of the bouquet is....

There were 19 entries in the win a Vibrant Rose and Peruvian Lily Bouquet with vase, delivered right to their house by 1-800-flowers.com contest,
And the winner is, by asking Mark to pick a number between 1 and 19, is.....

Kate!

Congratulations Kate!
I'll be emailing you in a few minutes and need you to email me back with your home address so that the flowers can be delivered straight to your door!

Many thanks again to 1-800-flowers.com for allowing me to take part in this promotion and giveaway.
I received my Lotsa Love Bouquet yesterday, it is absolutely gorgeous! I love it!
Thanks so much!

Kate sent me a picture of the gorgeous bouquet of Vibrant Rose and Peruvian Lily Bouquet with vase, and so I thought that I would show it to you.
It really is gorgeous!
Thanks for sending me the picture Kate, and I am SOoooo glad to hear that you are enjoying them!

February 9, 2010

Totally yucky day.

Woke up this morning to really heavy winds, so bad that the trash cans had to be chased down and caught, and Carmine couldn't wait to come back in.
Then the rain started and hasn't stopped.
It's let up a little, but it's been windy and rainy all day, and will be cold for the rest of the week.
I hate it when the weather gets like this, cold, windy, rainy, it just makes my body ache so bad, feel terrible.
I end up tired and with absolutely no motivation at all to do anything other than lay on the couch.
I'm really tired of laying on the couch lately.

And wasn't Cyber Monday back during Thanksgiving?
I got an email earlier today saying that I could still get great prices on all the hottest items for the holidays.
Total weirdness.

February 8, 2010

Win a gorgeous bouquet of flowers from 1-800 Flowers!

1-800-flowers.com and I are running a giveaway for 1 lucky reader to receive a gorgeous bouquet of flowers for Valentine's Day, and also letting you know about their FREE weekday shipping, and specials on all kinds of beautiful flowers and bouquets!

1-800-Flowers is having super specials this week!
They are offering free shipping on their Valentine's Day collection, and they are also having specials on their stunning roses collection for Valentine's Day too!

1-800-Flowers also has a fan page on Facebook where they host flower giveaways for their fans every week, and special fan-only discounts all of the time, so become a fan on Facebook for discounts and their weekly giveaways!

Now, onto the giveaway here!
1 lucky reader will win a Vibrant Rose and Peruvian Lily Bouquet with vase, delivered right to their house by 1-800-flowers.com!

The bouquet includes 6 striking hot pink roses, and ten gorgeous hot pink Peruvian lilies, picked at the peak of perfection from select floral farms, and arranged in a classic glass vase.

Rules:
The giveaway is open to United States ONLY, (including Alaska and Hawaii) but availability of the bouquet is limited in those two states.
This giveaway is open to all, not just bloggers, but rules must be followed.
Only 1 entry per person/family/household.
Only 1 person per IP address can enter the giveaway and complete the required entry and extra entries.
No entering on behalf of others, using extra identities or others identities, no automated program entries, etc.
I can check and verify IP addresses and email addresses. *wink*
If you are caught cheating, you will be banned from this giveaway and any future giveaways on my blogs.
This giveaway is only open to those ages 18+ only.
All entries must be received by 11:59 pm Eastern Time on Thursday February 11th, 2010..
I will pick the winner randomly using random.org on Friday February 12th, 2010, email the winner, and they will have just 24 hours to claim their prize.
If I do not get a reply within 24 hours, I will pick a new winner using random.org again.

How to enter:
This is mandatory, if this one entry is not done, you will not qualify for the giveaway.
For your chance to win, please go to 1-800-flowers.com and find any arrangement or bouquet of flowers that you like, and leave me the link to it in the comments, telling me why you like it and would want to have it.

That's it!
Good luck! And don't forget to become fan on Facebook

In accordance with my disclosure and privacy policy;
I am receiving Lotsa Love Bouquet in exchange for hosting the giveaway and providing information on 1-800-flowers.com

February 8, 2010

For faster, easier control while gaming, and school, Mom.

Sebastian found a mouse that he wants, and now Mark wants it after seeing it, too, to be able to do everything much faster while playing their pc video games like WoW.
They want a Kensington SlimBlade Trackball.
This trackball has a lot of features that can be used to control much more than just navigational like clicking the cursor and scrolling, and it can be all be done with a few spins of the trackball, and a few clicks of some buttons that my trackball doesn't have.

The multi-function ball navigates through music, videos, pictures, and documents, using media and document mode.
It can also control cursor and scrolling, volume control, play/pause, stop, and next; zoom in/out, and pan, all with the ball, all of it right at your fingertips.
The teens both said that this would make playing WoW much easier, they could be faster at stuff in game, and then Sebastian said it would also come in very handy for his digital stuff that he does for school.
Got me.

What didn't get me was the price of it.
Some online e-tailers have it for as much as $199.99.
Ouch.

I found it slightly cheaper at one for $149.99, and then Buy.com, which has become one of my most favorite places to shop, has it for just $129.99 all of the time.
This week, they have it on sale for just $75.99 and free shipping.
*sigh*
I would love to get it for them this week, especially since it's priced so low, but I can't do it this week.
I just got done paying an outrageous electric bill for their once every 3 years security deposit updates, and my website/domain hosting is due next week, so this will have to wait for awhile, like maybe for an upcoming birthday, or maybe when I get my income taxes back, (after I file them of course) or maybe for an upcoming holiday or something like that.
At $129.99 all of the time, that's not too too bad for a price, and can be do-able if I plan for it far enough in advance.

January 24, 2010

Ugh so gross! Make it stop!

Ok, so I seriously need some adult acne treatments that really do work, work well, won't make the skin become dependent on having to use it every single day for life or anything, because the zits be getting out of hand around here.

The teens just came home from my friend Mindy's son Jeff's birthday party, and after he eats his dinner, he sits down on the couch and a few minutes later announces that he "just popped a big huge zit and it shot across the room Mom! Holy crap!"

Yes, that is so what I want to hear being said while I'm eating some ice cream and trying to relax after my long afternoon in the ER with intestinal issues, 3 bags of fluid pumped into me, 2 injections of some stomach meds, and 2 injections of dilaudid for the back pain and muscle spasms that I was battling for the last 3 days.
Yup, sure did want to hear that now somewhere on a wall close by the couch, is a giant wad of zit juice.
This kind of grossness really needs to stop, and it will stop when we make the zits disappear.

January 19, 2010

I think it's broken.

My thermometer that is.
I tried to take my temperature this weekend when I was sick, but it wasn't registering correctly.
I know that I had a fever, but the thermometer said that I was barely breathing.
It said my temp was only 94.3!
So yeah, I think I need a new one and Buy.com has a Q3 ThermoHAWK 220 Infrared Thermometer on sale for just $19.99 with free shipping too!

I'm not sure that you can use it on people, but it's touchless so you aren't spreading germs, so that makes me think that you can use it on people.
You just point it at the object or person's head, press the button, and it tells you the temperature instantly with a 1 second response time.
That's pretty damn fast!
Our current thermometer takes about 1 minute or so, so yeah, having an accurate temp in about 1 second is pretty awesome.
It has an accuracy reading of +/-2.5% and a measurement range of -33C-100C.
It's small enough to fit in a pocket or purse, or my stuffed first aid kit box.
I'm really pretty positive that our thermometer is broken and I really should have bought a new one quite a long time ago.
I think my thermometer is about 8 or 9 years old, so yeah, it's definitely time to get a new one.
It lasted a good long time though, so I really can't complain about it being broken now.

January 8, 2010

Almost got whacked in the parking lot!

My friend Nic and I went to the dollar store early this afternoon, I needed to grab some cat food and stuff, and when we got out of the car to walk to the store entrance, we almost got whacked by not 1, but 2, going way too fast in a parking lot, high risk drivers of the blue haired senior variety.
We almost got run over by 2 blue-haired seniors who obviously couldn't see where they were going because A) they were driving way too fast, and B) because they think they have the right to do whatever they want to whenever they want to, and C) because they probably didn't even see us!
They didn't use their blinkers either, and 1 of them parked in the handicapped space and did not have the thing on their license plate or the plaque hanging from their rear-view mirror either, there was absolutely no handicapped sign anywhere on their car, and neither of them appeared to be handicapped.
Being old is not a disability, it's just being old.
I know that not all disabilities are visible, I know this better than anyone as my disability is not visible, but if there is no handicap sign somewhere on their car, they should not be parking in those spaces no matter how old they are, as I said, old age is not a disability.
When they got out of their cars, Nic yelled at them to watch where they're going next time, and 1 of the old ladies turned around and told us to leave them alone or they were going to call the cops.
WTH?
Call the cops because we told them to watch where they were going?
Seriously, I absolutely hate season, hate it with a passion kind of hate because of all of the out-of-state seniors who are here and driving so dangerously, thinking they own the roads, thinking that they can do whatever they want, and just being incredibly rude.

Moving on!
The dollar store had a really good deal on the kind of cat food that I buy, The Goodlife Recipe.
At Publix, it's $4.99 for a 2.7lb bag, and the dollar store had it for just $3.29 for the 2.7lb bag.
I saved $1.70 per bag, so I might just have to go buy the kitties cat food from there from now on.
I also got a box of Arm & Hammer carpet powder to not only get rid of odors, but I found that it also helps pull all of the cat hairs out of the carpet.
With 4 cats, there's always a ton of cat hairs in the rug, and I end up dumping a ton of dirt and hairs out of the bagless vac normally, even more if I use the carpet powder.
I also picked up some night time cold medicine for Mark because he ends up coughing a lot from his cold when he's trying to sleep.
He's coughing a lot, but he coughs even more at night.
I think I may get some of that Mucinex and see if that helps him, I know that it worked good for me when I tried it, so hopefully it will work good for him so that he can get some sleep.
The poor kid had huge bags under his eyes when he got up today from not getting much sleep.
I'll try to remember to pick some up when I go to Publix tomorrow to do the grocery shopping.

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January 7, 2010

Yesterday. Oy vey!

I didn't post yesterday because I just didn't feel like it.
Hey, just being totally honest.

At 3:15pm yesterday afternoon, I had my monthly appointment with my pain doctor to do a check-in.
Check-ins usually all go the same way, him asking me a bunch of questions like, tell him on the 1-10 pain scale, where my pain was at right at that moment, what it was for the last couple of days, how the new medicine is working since my last appointment, have I had any new or unusual symptoms, any news on whether or not my surgeon has been able to come up with a way to fix my head, any more visits to the ER for itching, rashes, welts and hives, and do I have any questions for him.
The whole thing probably takes less than 10 minutes, in, out, see ya in 30 days, but because there was an emergency with a patient at the hospital, he was running about 45 minutes to an hour behind.

My 3:15pm appointment didn't actually happen until 4:27pm.

My pain on the scale yesterday was a 10 due to the freezing cold temperature.
My pain on the scale for the last few days has been bobbing back and forth between 9 and 10 because of the freezing cold temperatures too.
The new pain medicine works pretty good, not as long as the old one did, but that's because they were ERs, (extended release) these are immediate release, and they just do not last as long.
I'm supposed to take 1 every 4 to 6 hours as needed for pain, so between 4-6 pills per day depending on the amount of pain that I'm in.
It's been terribly cold as you you know, (I've been complaining about it enough) so the rods are frozen which causes a lot of pain, so I'm on the higher end of the dosing.
Nope, no new or unusual symptoms.
Nope, my surgeon has not found a way to fix my head yet.
Nope, I didn't have any more trips to the ER that he didn't know about, and nope, I didn't have any questions for him.

I left from his appointment around 4:35, then me and my friend Nic, who had driven me to my appointment, drove over to the pharmacy to pick up my scripts.
We waited about 10 minutes and they call me to the window to pick them up and pay, and their merchant services machine goes down.
Great.
I have to leave there and go find an ATM.
The shopping plaza the pharmacy is in, is like the only one in Sarasota that doesn't have a single ATM machine, so we have to drive over to the Hess station across Bee Ridge Road.
I use the ATM, grab the cash, and drive back across the street.
I go back to the pharmacy, the girl tells me the machine is still not working, so I pay in cash, get my scripts, and we leave.
From there, we start heading home but we both need to run to the store to grab something to feed our families for dinner.
We run into the Publix closest to our house, she runs 1 way, and I run to the frozen pizza.
Hey, I'm tired and cold, the teens can eat frozen pizza and love it, and they did, moving on!
I use my debit cards all of the time, I rarely ever use cash anymore, so when I went to pay, I instinctively swiped my debit card.
Declined.
What. the. hell?
Swipe again.
Declined.
Ergh, what the hell is wrong?!
Please tell me not another machine is down!
Swipe again.
Declined!
*smacks forehead*
D'oh!
I don't have enough money in my account for this purchase because I used my debit card to pay for my doctor appointment which ended up costing me less than the appointment girl told me when she called me Tuesday afternoon to remind me about my appointment, and I had to withdraw some cash earlier to pay for my prescriptions.
D'oh!
ATMs only let you withdraw in multiples of $20, so I had to draw out more than my scripts actually cost, but it also wiped out my balance down to like $4.89, the pizza that I was trying to pay for was $12.50.
I totally forgot that I had the remaining cash in my wallet.
So I looked like a totally broke fool at the register while a growing line of people stood behind me making it vocally clear *ahem* *cough* *ahem* that they wanted my dumb butt to just pay for my stuff or get the hell out of the way!

I swear, I can be just an absolute idiot sometimes, but honestly, when you get so used to using only 1 form of payment all of the time for everything, shopping, paying the bills, gas, take-out food, whatever, it can be very easy to forget that you have other forms of payment available to you like I did.

By the time I got back home a little after 5:30, my toes were completely frozen because of how cold it was outside and because I still can't wear regular shoes, only sandals, and because there's no heat in Nic's car, so the 2 of us drove all over the place and back home yesterday afternoon freezing our butts and toes off, I came in, changed and got into comfy clothes, and then aimed the portable heater at my chair and my feet for probably over an hour.
After they finally warmed up around 7pm, I got up and made dinner.
I made some home made General Tso and home made teriyaki chicken strips, I cleaned up from dinner, and then I was so tired and started to get cold again, so I laid on the couch, watched some tv, and then got my second wind which has now, kept me awake the entire night and the entire day. .
I'm so tired right now, I don't even remember if I got any sleep on Tuesday night.
I think I did, but I honestly don't remember if I did.

January 3, 2010

My toes are froze.

The teens went to Publix late Saturday afternoon to grab some subs for themselves for dinner, some 4-cheese pizza Hot Pockets for me, and to pick up some laundry detergent so I could do the laundry before Sebastian has to go back to school on Monday.
I know, Hot Pockets aren't exactly good for you, some people think they are totally gross, but I actually like the taste of them.
They are all that I was able to cook for myself for weeks on end for lunches after both of my surgeries, so I got used to them and grew to really like them.
Anyway, the teens picked up a big 64 use/wash-load bottle of Tide, the biggest bottle that they could find because I had that coupon for a free bottle thanks to the Bounce Dryer Bar fiasco, and the coupon did say any size, so I made sure that they knew to grab the biggest bottle on the shelves.
If they are going to give me free product because I went for 3 whole weeks with itchy red hives, a rash, and welts, from my neck all of the way down my entire body, anywhere my clothes, towels, or blankets touched, caused me to be covered in it, you can bet your butt that I'm going to get the biggest sized product available.
I had to re-wash every. single. load. of. clothes. that I had dried with that thing in my dryer, and considering I do about 6-8 loads of laundry per week, yeah, I ran out of my Purex 3-in-1 laundry sheets really quickly.
After they came home, I started getting the laundry done, I think I just have 2 more loads of towels to do, and then I'll be done for a day or 2.

I posted to KatScan late last night about how cold it is here, and so I've been up all night long with insomnia and freezing my toes off.
I am still totally unable to put on socks and shoes, I still can't bend over to tie shoes either, so I've been wearing flip flops, actually, they are Dr. Scholl's sandals, and they are what I have been wearing since August 2008 after the kitties chewed apart my last pair.
Yup, I've been wearing the exact same sandals every single day since '08.
I've never had an issue with wearing sandals every day, that is until now.
Like I said, it's freaking cold outside!
I'm in the house, but the floor is cold, it's just cold in here, and I can't put on socks and shoes, and wearing my sandals would be like wearing nothing on my feet, so I went Amazon hunting for some slippers that I could actually get on without any problems.
I found some Dearfoams Women's Boucle Mules, and they look like they would work perfectly for me!

They are indoor/outdoor, foam cushioned, lined with faux fur, and slip on!
Perfect!

They come in my size, and they come in black!
Yeuss!!
I could wear them in the house as slippers, and I could also wear them outside to keep my feet warm when I have to go to the store and stuff.
The best part?
They're less than $20 bucks!
I am so getting a pair as soon as I pay off a few bills this month because I don't think my toes can survive the super cold weather much longer.

It's not usually this cold here at this time of year, it doesn't get really cold until around the middle to the end of February, the beginning of March, not right now or in December when we had a few cold fronts come through, so this super cold air is making my toes freeze and my titanium like an iceberg.
I've been wearing my Thera pod practically all night long.
Every single time it cooled off, I nuked it for another minute and then strapped it back on my lower back.
It didn't warm up all of the titanium, but at least my lower back was warm, that's the area that I have the most pain in, so it worked good for that at least.
I really should have turned on the portable heater much sooner than I did.
I completely forgot that I even had it, it was sitting right here in the living room though, right on the other side of my tower table on the floor, but d'oh! I didn't plug it in and turn it on until like 7am after spending the entire night with frozen toes.
I can be such an idiot sometimes, but at least it's starting to warm up so that when the teens wake up, it'll be a bit warmer in here.
I can't believe that Carmine the kitty wanted to go out so early, he was crying and meowing to go out starting around 6am, but I didn't let him go until a little after 7.
I'm going to go check and see if he wants back in yet.
Last night, he kept wanting to go out, and then we'd hear him scratching at the door just 10 minutes later because of how cold it was.
I bet anything he's either sitting right at the door, or sitting on the chair that's out there right next to the door.
It's still only 38 degrees!
Brrrrr!!

January 1, 2010

Happy 2010!

In just 9 days, I will have been blogging in some capacity for 13 years.
I can't believe that I've been doing this for that long, but I'm not complaining at all, no way.
I love everything about blogging, mostly the ability to connect with people.
I've made friends from around the world because of it, that's really pretty awesome.
I've seen a lot of bloggers come and go, I've seen people give up their blogs entirely to use Facebook or Twitter, and I've seen the greatness of the community of people who blog to raise money for charities and fellow blogging friends.
It's really been an awesome experience that I don't plan on ending anytime soon.
________________________

We're not doing too much of anything today, the teens are still sleeping after staying up to watch the ball drop and then a movie after that.
I'll be going grocery shopping at some point, doing the laundry at some point after that, and then I need to sweep and mop the kitchen and bathroom floor tiles as they are quite a mess.
I have no idea what got spilled on the kitchen floor, but it's a sticky mess that is making me a bit more irritated every time I have to go in there.
*stick stick stick*
Yuck.
What movie did we watch?
We watched Inglorious Basterds and it was pretty damn good.
For a fun fantasy film, it was really pretty good.

Anyway, not too much going on here right now, just me awake and waiting for the day to move a little faster.

December 30, 2009

I hate the cold weather.

For the last 24 hours, it has been cold and just generally yucky around here.
It was in the low to mid 30s which usually doesn't happen for the last few years, but it was super cold last night, and it will be super cold for the rest of the week too.
I really hate it when it gets cold like this, nobody wants to go out and do anything, everyone is dressed like we live in Alaska.
Seriously, I saw someone in a big thick winter coat, a scarf, and gloves.
It was cold enough to wear a winter coat, but it isn't cold enough to dress all of that on.
The weather really hurts me when it gets cold, the titanium screws get frozen, then they make me feel like I'm frozen, freezing to death from the inside out.
When it gets cold like that, I wish that I could just pack up all of the stuff we need, and then go on to find someplace warm to stay in the cold has gone away.
Rent a motor home, get the insurance and a motorhome warranty, and start driving to the lower portions of this state like Miami maybe, or even further south.
A motor home would be cool because we could all fit in it, our kitties too, pack up whatever food we have in the house, all of our sodas and stuff, and just start driving south to get to warmer weather near the equator.
Someday I will do the things that I talk about, going to the mountains, motor home, just go wherever it takes up.

December 23, 2009

Go go Power Rangers!

I remember when the teens were little boys and all of the cartoons and shows they just loved to watch.
I swear we would watch the same movie a dozen or more times in a 24 hour period.
The Little Mermaid, The Fox and the Hound, and the Power Rangers.
Oh, sorry, my bad.
Sebastian told me to get it right, (he's reading over my shoulder) it's The Mighty Morphin Power Rangers.
Duh Mom. *eyeroll*
They knew every line and every single song in The Little Mermaid and The Fox and the Hound, they knew every single line of the Power Rangers too.
How could they not know every line, song, and dance?
They watched them a million times over the course of their childhoods.
We didn't have DVD players when the teens were little, all of our movies were on VHS, so once the movie stopped, the screams to rewind would begin.
They would do this little butt-squiggle-fidget-dance on the living room carpet until the movie got done rewinding and I pressed play again, then there would be a few claps of applause and then silence while staring at the opening scenes of the movie.
They absolutely loved all of their movies, they had so many of them, still have most of them too.
I have so many kids movies on VHS still, all kinds of Disney movies, tv show episodes, cartoons, all kinds of kid movies.

I remember when the local grocery store in Maine had The Land Before Time movie on sale really cheap, for like $3.99 if you bought some other stuff with it.
I think you had to buy 2 boxes of cereal and a gallon of milk, and then you could get the movie for just $3.99, and I remember the promotion was only for 1 month, and every single time we went grocery shopping with my mom, Mark would beg for the movie.
He knew exactly what end cap the movie was on too, and he would get so excited when we got closer to that end cap aisle.
He would start doing the butt-squiggle-fidget-dance in the cart seat as we went up and down every single aisle and he'd get a glimpse of it, then down an aisle, glimpse, up an aisle, until we were at it and then he'd get this huge grin on his face, he just had to see the box for the movie, hold it in his hands.
He had absolutely no idea what the movie was about, but he saw those dinosaurs and just knew he had to see it, had to or his little 4 year old life would be over.
My mom and I had talked about getting it for him, that she wanted to do it, so I made Mark put it back on the shelf and I told him I would buy it next week, that mommy didn't need any more cereal and milk right now, we had 3 boxes and a gallon of milk at home already, and his little face just got all sad on me in an instant.
His lower lip pouted out, his big brown eyes looked down at the box one last time, and he sadly placed it back on the shelf.
My mom was right behind us and she put it in her cart, hiding it behind the boxes of cereal and gallon of milk in her cart.
The entire ride home to my apartment, Mark talked about the dinosaur movie at the store, he didn't know what it was about, he didn't know the names of the characters, but he just knew he was going to love that movie so so much, and next week mommy was going to buy it he told my mom.
I carried all of my groceries into my apartment while my mom stayed in the car with him, she told me to slip it into one of my bags and so I did.
I grabbed the last bag and unhooked him from his cart seat, he hugged "Ninny" good-bye, and we went into our house.
I put all of the groceries away with his help, he would take one item at a time out of the bags and hand them to me.
I made sure that the movie was going to be in the last bag to empty, and when we got to it, I waited for his surprised response.
He pulled out 2 boxes of spaghetti pasta, a package of sliced cheese, a box of rice, a can of soup, and then he reached in the bag and grabbed the box.
At first he thought it was another box of Rice-a-Roni until he got a really good look at it.
He almost handed it to me and then pulled his arm back staring at the box with wide-eyed awe, and then he screamed, "Mommy! The dinosaurs! The dinosaurs movie! It was in the bag! You said next time! Mommmmmmy! The dinosaurs!!!!"
I told him that Ninny bought him the dinosaurs movie because he was such a good boy helping with the shopping, and she loved him very much.
I swear he had tears of joy in those big brown 4 year old eyes.
He asked if he could watch it, I told him we had to put the rest of the food away, go potty, make some lunch, and then we could watch it together.
He did everything as quickly as he could, he helped put the rest of the food away, he helped make his sandwich for lunch and carried his plate to his little table in the living room, and I put the movie in and pressed play.
He and I sat there watching The Land Before time together and eating our lunch, not a sound came out of his mouth the entire 1 hour and 9 minutes that the movie played.
He didn't take his eyes off of the tv screen that whole time either.
When it was all over, he said that he loved Littlefoot and all of his friends, this time tears were in his eyes, and he asked to watch it again.
I re-wound the movie and while it was rewinding we cleaned up our lunch plates, and then when I pressed play, he came to the couch and curled up with me to watch it.
This time he did talk through the movie, getting all excited when it started, crying when Littlefoot and his mom got separated, happy when Littlefoot made new friends, yelling at the T-Rex when it was chasing Littlefoot and friends, he really did love that movie as much as he knew he would from just seeing the box in the grocery store.

When little brother Sebastian grew up a little bit more and they could watch movies and tv shows together, they both loved the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers.
Mark wanted to be the green ranger, Sebastian the red, they had all of the action figures and played with them non-stop.
They had sweatshirts, t-shirts, books, playing cards, little kid-sized chairs, all with the Power Rangers theme, and they loved every single one of those things.
Sebastian would cry if he spilled some juice on one of his fave Power Ranger t-shirts, Mark wouldn't be able to go to bed until he made sure that each and every action figure was safe and sound safely laid out in order of loved the most across the top of his dresser.
They still have almost every single one of those action figures too.
About a month ago, an advertiser sent us one of the new Power Ranger RPM Racing Performance Cycles with an action figure, it's the racing performance wolf cycle, the black ranger, and man, Sebastian just loves that thing.

When the UPS man knocked on the door, Sebastian got excited, he didn't even know what was in the box, he just gets excited when any kind of box or package shows up.
I opened the box up and made him stand back a few feet not letting him even get a peek inside, I read the accompanying letter, and then smiled at him before handing him the package.
Even though he's 16 years old now, his face lit up and his eyes grew huge, just like when he was a little kid getting a new Power Ranger action figure for the first time.
He went and dug out all of their old Power Ranger action figures and began playing with them all just like when he was little.

It makes me smile when I hear them playing with the toys, they are grown up, growing up, pretty soon they will be totally grown up and leaving my home, so seeing and hearing them play with their action figures, makes me think I get to keep my little boys for just a little bit longer.
Sebastian was in the room playing with those action figures tonight, I could hear him from out here at my desk, and it just made me smile and remember all of the movies and shows, all of the cute little things they did when they were little kids.

December 21, 2009

Happy bellies all around.

Last night around 9pm, I started cooking a pot roast in the crock pot with whole baby carrots, thick sliced onions, and whole baby potatoes, and let it cook on low all night long.
I used 1 packet of McCormick Savory Pot roast seasoning with it to give it a little bit of a flavor boost, as well as make a really nice gravy right in with it.
Mark loves to have gravy with his meat and potatoes, so using the seasoning packet meant I didn't have to cook up any extra gravy to go with it, they could just spoon out some of the very tasty gravy and pour as much of it as they wanted over their pot roast and baby potatoes.

The whole house smelled absolutely delicious all night and all day long, it was just fabulous smelling in here.
Sebastian woke up first and wanted to know right away if he could eat some of it at 10am, I said "Sure, that's why I cooked it all night long!"
I decided to cook it all night long and then keep it on warm all day long, so that whenever the teens were hungry, they could just go grab a bowl, scoop out some of the sliced up and so moist it was falling apart pot roast, potatoes, baby carrots, and onions, and eat it as they felt like all day long.
The teens ate some for breakfast around 10-11am, then they ate some more of it around 2pm, and then they went out with my sister and nieces for dinner at Chick-fil-A around 4-4:30pm, and then they ate some more of the pot roast around 8pm.
They actually finished off the entire crock pot of pot roast in one day, but that's totally fine with me.
I made enough of it to last for 3 meals, they ate it in 3 meals, it just happened to be 3 meals in 1 day instead of having to store the leftovers in the fridge and reheat it as they got hungry.
They aren't big on having to reheat leftovers, so having a full and warm crock pot of food that they could just eat from all day as they wanted to, was perfect.
I did eat some of it myself, they didn't eat it all by themselves, I had 2 helpings, 1 for breakfast and 1 for a late lunch.

Having the crock pot of warm and very tasty food to eat all day long was really just perfect.
It was a bit chilly out all day long, it's about 50 degrees right now, and will be going down to around 43 degrees overnight, so the teens totally loved being able to eat a hot meal 3 times today, they really just loved it, so they asked me to do this more often.
I'm thinking this isn't a bad idea, I can cook a huge pot of food overnight, and the teens can just serve themselves and eat whenever they get hungry the entire next day.
This is really an ideal thing for me to do, it will save me a ton of time in the kitchen, and it will save me money because I won't be having to feed them 3 different meals each and every day, they are totally happy eating the same meal 3 times in 1 day as long as it's great tasting, and they just loved the pot roast.
Cooking whole meals in the crock pot is really inexpensive, too, considering just how many meals you can get out of just 1 pot, so I'm going to hunt down all kinds of great tasting and inexpensive crock pot recipes, and do this as many times as I can all winter long.
I really enjoyed doing this because I wasn't in the kitchen all day cooking, cleaning pots and pans, doing all of the regular dishes, and trying to plan out what the next meal was going to be.
Mark is home full time now that he's graduated and not in school any longer, and Sebastian is out on Christmas break until January 4th, so I have 2 still growing and hungry teenage boys to feed for the next 2 weeks, so yeah, inexpensive and easy meals are definitely the way for me to go.

The other happy bellies around here are the kitty cats.
I wanted to update how our kitties are doing on The Good Life Recipe cat food that I have been feeding them since March of this year, so about 10 months now. (I had been feeding it to them for 5 months when I first posted about it in July)
As I said back in July, The Good Life Recipe has really made an improvement in all of the cats health and coats.
But since posting about it, the cats have gotten even better if that's possible.
None of them are gacking (puking) anymore, their poo doesn't stink as bad anymore, and so changing and cleaning the litter boxes isn't a horrible chore like it used to be.
Nova's coat has become so much softer, it's like rubbing your hands on silk, and her attitude is much better too.
She used to be nicknamed 'cranky old lady' because she was always miserable and "talking" to us all cranky if we touched her.
If you pet her before this dietary change, she would meow all cranky, she'd snipe at your hands, now she purrs very loud, she rubs her head all over your hands, and she 'talks' nicer too.
If you don't have a cat that talks, you are probably thinking that I'm nuts, but seriously, she talks when you pet her or say her name, and she used to be super cranky talking to you, but now she's super nice, so I'm extremely pleased with how this food has helped her.

Kali has also gotten so much better.
Her coat is so full and so soft, she has like a lions mane going on and it's gorgeous, I'm going to have to get a picture of her, her coat and mane is simply incredible looking.
Her health has also gotten much better.
She hasn't gacked in ages, she's not as lethargic as she used to be, and she's become even more playful which is so nice to see because she's 12 years old now, getting up there in age, and she was tired and sleeping all of the time, and now she has much more energy, she's not having as much trouble jumping up on the couch anymore, she's just doing really fantastic.

Both Shahiro and Carmine are doing great too, their coats are super soft and fluffy, they aren't gacking anymore, they are super playful all of the time and not sleeping constantly.
I love seeing the cats have a lot of energy and playing with each other and us, not having always tired cats is a good thing, they are much happier, and when our pets are happier, so are we.
Pets bring so much joy into the lives of their owners, and I really believe that the change to The Good Life Recipe cat food 10 months ago is what made all the difference in our cat's health, coats, and happiness.

The price is still really good too, it's still just $4.99 per bag, but thanks to the economy, the bags have gotten smaller just like they have for almost every single other product out there if you've been doing the grocery shopping and noticed.
The packages of pretty much everything, have gotten smaller, and the prices have stayed the same.
I'm hoping that once the economy picks back up, (if it ever does) that companies start giving us more product for the price again.
They started taking the product away little by little, ounce by ounce, keeping the packages and the prices the same, so if you weren't paying attention to the quantity you were getting, you may have not even noticed.
But I did.
The cat food used to be $4.99 for a 7 pound bag, then it went down to a 3.5 pound bag for the same price, and it's now a 2.7 pound bag for the same $4.99 price.
Not exactly fair to the consumer, in my opinion, but as I said, I hope that when and if the economy improves, companies will start giving us more bang for our buck again.
Until then, I will continue to buy the cat food with as many coupons as I can get and use.
They currently don't have any coupons in stock to give away on their site, but I did sign up for updates when they get a new supply of them in, and I still have some coupons left in my coupon binder, and my mom just sent me a new envelope of coupons the other day that I need to sort through and hope that there are a few more for this cat food in it.
If the company is going to give me less cat food for the same price, I'm going to try and save as much money on it as I possibly can.

December 17, 2009

$50 Safeway gift card winner!

There were only 4 entries for the gift card giveaway.
Either people don't like saving money on food or they don't like getting free money to save on food, but there were 4 entries and instead of using random.org just to get 1 number, I asked Sebastian to pick a number between 1 and 4.
He chose number 2.
Entry number 2 belongs to Bluepaintred!

Shannon, I will be emailing you for your mailing address and you will have 48 hours to respond or I have to pick another winner.
Congrats!

December 15, 2009

Video games, kitty food, and front teeth.

I just ordered the video game the teens wanted for xmas, Cally of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, I got some money in sooner than expected, so I ordered it now before I got stuck having to order with 1 or 2 day expensive shipping.
I also bought the kitties a present, a food feeder, because it's been a total pain in the butt having to constantly add food to their bowl.
It matches the waterer that I have already, so I know that it's a good quality product to have.

The money order from Mom and dad came in today's mail, so I don't have to watch for the mail for that, but I still have other things coming to watch for, so tomorrow while I'm getting my tooth fixed, Mark will have to be the lookout.

I think I'm going to try and go to bed early, see if my body and brain will let me sleep or if it's going to be another night of insomnia.
Later days.

December 14, 2009

Safeway food store $50 gift card giveaway!

Are you a blogger who grocery shops at Safeway?
You do?!
Great!
Are you a blogger who lives near a Safeway but has never shopped there?
You are?!
Great!
Why?
Because I am giving away a $50 gift card to use at Safeway food stores!

There are no Safeway stores anywhere near me, so instead of passing up the offer of the $50 gift card, I asked if I could host a giveaway for it on my blog, they said yes, so you get to have to the $50 gift card to help you pay for your family's holiday meal!
And speaking of those holiday meals, Safeway has many priced-to-please recipes for appetizers and other great tasting meals, recipes for edible gifts, some kid-friendly recipes, and recipes for leftovers to help stretch your budget.
They even have some decorating tips and a Gingerbread Man game for the kids!

If you're already a shopper of Safeway or have never tried their store before, check out their weekly specials, and you can also sign up for email savings to get coupons, recipe ideas, and the weekly sales sent right to you!

This is going to be a really super fast contest so that the winner receives the gift card in time to use it for their holiday food shopping needs.
You have from now until 11:59pm on Wednesday December 16th to enter, and I'll draw the winner on Thursday the 17th about mid-morning time.

Rules:
The giveaway is open to United States AND Canada, excluding Alaska and Hawaii. (Sorry Alaska and Hawaii!) *sad*
This giveaway is open bloggers ONLY.
Only 1 entry per person/family/household.
Only 1 person per IP address can enter the giveaway and complete the required entry.
No entering on behalf of others, using extra identities or others identities, no automated program entries, etc.
I can check and verify IP addresses and email addresses. *wink*
If you are caught cheating, you will be banned from this giveaway and any future giveaways on my blogs.
This giveaway is only open to those ages 18+ only.
All entries must be received by 11:59 pm Eastern Time on Wednesday December 16th, 2009.
I will pick the winner randomly using random.org on Thursday December 17th, and email the winner, they will have 48 hours to claim their prize.
If I do not get a reply within 48 hours, I will pick a new winner using random.org again.

How to enter:
This is mandatory, if this one entry is not done, you will not qualify for the giveaway.
For a chance to win, leave me a comment telling me how you save money on groceries, and what is the most amount of money you have ever saved in just one shopping trip!

Once the winning blogger has received their $50 gift card to Safeway and used it, they need to post to their blog within 5 days of using the card, and say that they won the $50 gift card, (You must disclose that you won the gift card to keep the FCC happy!) then tell us what you bought with it, how much money you saved on your shopping trip, and what your experience shopping at Safeway was like.
This is required of the winning blogger, and why this contest is only open to bloggers.

The winners information will only be used for this giveaway so the advertiser can send you the $50 gift card.
Your information will not be sold or given to any person or company in accordance with my privacy policy.

Good luck and happy shopping!

December 14, 2009

Did you really take a shopping cart home from the store?

Yes, yes we did.

Yesterday when Sebastian and I went grocery shopping, we called for a taxi cab like we had planned on doing, we bought a wicked lot of groceries so we needed a ride home.
Well, the taxi cab's phone rang busy every single time that I called it.
For 20 minutes.
It usually goes to voice mail if they are busy, you leave your name and number, they call you right back and schedule you for a pick-up, so I have no idea why it kept ringing busy, but we had all of that food to get home, meats, milk, and other perishables, so we did what we had to do, the food had already been sitting in the cart in the heat for 20 minutes.
Sebastian and I did what we had to do, we walked home with the grocery cart full of groceries.
Now there's a Publix grocery cart sitting in my laundry room, I didn't want to leave it outside and have it get stolen or have the neighbors look at me funny because come on, having a grocery cart sitting in your driveway is as white trash as having an old rusted out car sitting up on cinder blocks.

All of the way home, people were looking at us like we were total white trash walking the mile long way home.
Yes, we live about 1 mile from the store and we walked home with a grocery cart, it's total white trash! Hahahaha!
At least we got all of the food home before it got ruined, I was seriously worried about the milk spoiling, it was about 80 degrees yesterday and so walking the food home, I was really worried that things would start to spoil, and then there ya go, wasted food and money.
I hate wasting food because it's wasted money.
I always store-up leftovers and when the teens tell me they are hungry, I hand them the Rubbermaid of leftovers and tell them how long to reheat it in the microwave.
I make them finish off the last quarter cup of milk in the gallon, the last slices of bread even if they are the crusted loaf ends, I don't waste any food if it can be helped, so walking the grocery cart home as fast as we could so nothing spoiled was super important to me.
Sure we looked totally silly and totally white trash, but I couldn't reach the cab company so yup, I did what I had to do.

Now I'm just sitting here waiting on the mail man again today.
I'm waiting on 3 things to be delivered this week, the money order from Mom and Dad, the netbook is supposed to be delivered by FedEx by Friday, and a review product is also supposed to be here sometime near the end of this week, so it's a full week of stalking the mailman and other delivery people.
It kind of sucks to have to just sit here with the blinds open and waiting, I have other things that I can be doing, but I don't want stuff to get stolen, and this is the time of year when things get stolen by desperate and ignorant people.

December 13, 2009

Shopping, decorating, and no sleep.

Once again I've been up all night with insomnia, and then when Sebastian woke up on time because we had planned to go do the big grocery shopping this morning, I had started to doze off right here in my chair.
I hate it when that happens.
I'm so tired from being awake all night long with insomnia, fighting to go to sleep, being unable to sleep so I give up and play on the internet all night.
I end up either goofing off online all night doing totally stupid stuff, or like last night, I was actually checking out all of the various e-tailers looking to see who had the best deals on the video games that the teens want for Christmas, hoping that there will be a good sale when I get paid this week, and also hoping for free and super fast shipping on those video games.
I do not want to have to go into a brick and mortar store to get those games, but because I am doing the Christmas shopping so late, I just may end up having to go to a physical store.

Buy.com does have the best price for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, and they do have it with free shipping, but according to their holiday ordering deadlines, if I don't get it ordered by Wednesday the 16th at noon, if I still want to order it and get it by Christmas eve, I will have to pay for 1st or 2nd day air which would cost a lot more money than I want or have to spend, so I may end up having to go to a physical store.
As of right now, the price for 2nd day air is only $4.50 more than the standard of $4.40, but that may change the closer we get to the holiday and shipping schedules get tighter or busier, or maybe that's just their really awesome super low price for 2nd day air all of the time?
Wow, I just looked, and 1 day next day air is only $6.00 more!
I know that other e-tailers charge way more than that for 1st and 2nd day air, a whole lot more.
I don't know and I'm really trying to not stress out over being able to order their games on time without having to pay crazy shipping fees, but that's just how I am, my OCD will drive me absolutely crazy every single day until I can actually place the order.
I just hope that I will be able to get it regardless of being able to order it or have to buy it in store.
I know that it's a popular game, so all I want is to definitely be able to get it.

Ok, off to do the grocery shopping now that it stopped raining and the sun actually came out, and then when we get back home, I need to decorate for Christmas.
I've been putting it off all week, and I promised Sebastian that we would definitely get it done this weekend.
Shopping and decorating on no sleep, should be totally awesome.
Not!

December 12, 2009

Up, up and away

Tonight the teens and I watched the movie "Up" by Disney and Pixar.
Well, Friday night, it's now officially Saturday morning.
Once again I've been up all night, spending the entire time crying off and on, just beyond tired and stressed out, and frustrated, and angry, and all kinds of emotions all just slamming into me all night long.
It's not just one reason for this, it's many different reasons and it would all take far too long to explain so I'll just talk about the movie ok?
Ok.

The movie was really good, it was happy and cute, funny and sad, and just a truly wonderful love and friendship story.
I absolutely loved the character of Russell, I thought that kid was just downright adorable!
I wanted so much to just reach out and hug that little guy, his heart was just so open even though it was hurt and broken because his dad wasn't around any longer.
Russell just wanted so much to get it right, to earn that last Wilderness Explorer badge, the Assisting The Elderly Badge, because then maybe his dad would pay attention to him again.
Go camping again, go eat ice cream cones and count the red and blue cars while sitting on the curb, Russell just wanted so much to get those boring things (he called them boring) back.

At the same time that this cute little adventure story is going on with Russell and Carl going up and away in the balloon, we have another story, a love story that happened and is the reason for the whole house going up in balloons.
Carl and Ellie, their love, their life together, ups, downs, happiness, and extreme sadness, but through it all they remained together and on their own adventures together.

Love, friendship, adventure, belonging.
I loved every smile, every laugh, every single tear that this movie made me feel.

It's on sale right now and if I have enough money left over after getting the teens their gifts for Christmas, I might just get this for myself, I enjoyed it that much that I can totally see myself watching it on rainy Saturday afternoons while I lay on the couch with a blanket, a cat, and a few tears sliding down my cheeks.

I know I did a terrible job telling you about this movie, but this post wasn't a movie review, it was just me talking about how my Friday night was, how I'm feeling now at 5am Saturday, just a weird random post filled with all my feelings, mostly sadness.
There are several reasons that I should be happy, but I keep finding myself just totally overcome with sadness every so often these last few days.
I just keep welling up with tears, they start to fall and then I feel the reason that I started crying, it's supposed to be the other way around, feel then cry.
I think this movie just made me feel put on hold, it reminded me that I'm on hold, and I can't get off of hold.
I know that I'm not making a whole lot of sense, I'm exhausted and frustrated with things, and I just want to, actually, I have absolutely no idea what I want other than an intense need for a cigarette right now and I don't have any. hahahaha!

December 8, 2009

Explosive migraines and shopping.

Around 1 am, Sebastian woke up screaming from an explosive migraine.
Mark was awake and playing a video game, I was out here playing around online, and we both heard him screaming, so the both of us ran in there to see what was wrong.
I turned on the light and ran to his bedside and asked what was wrong while brushing his hair out of his eyes.
He was crying and clutching his head, all he could say was "migraine, help me", so I had Mark grab a t-shirt for Sebastian and help him put it on while I ran out to the kitchen to turn on the water and let it get a little colder, and then I came to my desk where I keep my meds and I got out a Hydrocodone, and went back to the kitchen to fill his cup with cold water.
Hydrocodone is basically Vicodin, and Sebastian's doctor has put him on that before so I know it's ok to give it to him.
I had him swallow down the pill and then lay on the couch to try and relax.
I sat next him and rubbed his forehead and temples gently while having him slowly inhale deeply through his nose, and exhale deeply through his mouth.
These things, the breathing and massaging of the head while waiting for the pain pill to kick in, help migraine sufferers relax while waiting for the med to kick in.
If they don't calm down, the migraine can get much worse, especially with Sebastian.
He goes into panic mode and starts breathing really fast and hard, and then he starts crying, and then the migraine gets even bigger, so doing the breathing and massaging for about 10 minutes while waiting for the med to kick in, works extremely well in preventing the exploding migraine from getting any worse.

I suffer from migraines myself, I get about 1 or 2 per month, but I have gotten the exploding migraines in my sleep before, it's very painful, so painful that it feels like you've just been shot in the head at point blank range, like the gun was touching your head when it was fired.
It's not a migraine that comes on slowly, it just explodes in your head, all of a sudden, you have a migraine, BANG! there it is, an explosive migraine that drops you to your knees.
I feel so bad that he gets migraines so often, but at least it's not like last year where he was having 1 just about every other day, he's now only getting them about once per week.

I finally made up my mind and did it.
I bought the netbook tonight.
I won't be needing to buy any laptop memory for the netbook, it has a 160GB hard drive, and 1GB DDR2 system memory already, so that should be plenty for what Sebastian is needing it for for school.
YaY!

December 2, 2009

I just realized that it's December. *blink blink*

Holy crap, it's December 2nd already?
I'm not ready for Christmas yet! No!! Not yet!!!
I'm not actually panicked about it, the teens know that they are each getting one gift with a value of just $80 bucks or less, and then all kinds of stocking stuffers from me.

They know that I cannot afford to go crazy shopping for Christmas even if stuff is on sale.
The teens are really easy to shop for though, they either want Xbox 360 games like Assassin's Creed II or Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, or they want a couple of characters moved around in their WoW account.

Doing stuff in Wow is just as expensive as an in-hand video game purchase, and I will be leaving it up to them to decide exactly what they want, but they have to stay within the price range of $80 each.
That's just all that I can afford to do this year, things have been super tight with having to replace the AC twice just since February, and then having to pay a lot of out of pocket for Mark's doctor visits and meds, and transportation to and from both of our appointments, pay a lot of cash out of pocket for some of my meds not covered by my insurance, things are what they are.
But I know that I'm not the only family that is struggling this year to try and provide a half-way decent Christmas for our kids, everybody is feeling the pinch of the economy.
The teens are really great about it though, they know what's what and they are ok with it, plus they know that they will get cash from relatives so they can go buy what they want to buy themselves.
You ask them what they want from a relative for Christmas because that relative asked, both of the teens say cash. haha
They just like money, hey, who doesn't right?
They like to get cash because they then can spend it on what they want or save it for awhile.
Last year, they both managed to save the majority of the money they got all of the way into spring, I was impressed by their ability to not go crazy and spend it.
But when they do want to buy something like a video game, they hand over their money to me and I purchase it from Buy.com or wherever with my debit card.
That works out really well because I don't have to go over to teh video game store where they are just looking at everything and can't make up their minds.
Shopping online makes them have to make a decision with no dilly-dallying at all, it's definitely my preferred way to shop.

November 25, 2009

Getting things ready.

My sis came and took me to Publix to get some last minute food needs for the holiday, it was absolutely crazy in there today! OMG!
But I knew it would be, day before Thanksgiving, everybody was in there getting their last minute food items and pies.
After we went shopping, she took the teens to her house for the night so they can babysit the girls while her and her husband go out to dinner and a movie for their anniversary.
The teens love babysitting, they totally enjoy playing with the girls and then watching movies or playing WoW after the girls go to sleep.
She'll be bringing them back in the morning so we can have our traditional T-day breakfast, and then sis has to go to work for a few hours.
She said that on the way home today, she and the boys will be hitting a few stores to try and find those Zhu Zhu Pets, which are sold out at every single store she has gone to for the last few weeks.
The girls really want them, so she's trying to get them for the girls for Christmas.
Those are some pretty expensive little toys, holy crap!
I had no idea that they cost that much, and of course, they are THE hot ticket item this year, every kid wants to have one.
She's also looking at those FurReal Friends, the girls like those too, and they are much more affordable.
I just called her and told her that Amazon has the Zhu Zhu pets if she can't find them at any stores, and she said that her and the teens had just pulled into the parking lot at Wal*mart, and they were doing the circle the parking lot thing because it's just packed she said, people everywhere, but she is determined to find either the Zhu Zhu pets or the FurReal Friends that the girls want.
They want the kitty that I linked to, Susan and Skye both said 'he looks like Aunty Kat's kitty Carmine', and they're right, it does!
____________________________

My newly extended family, my bio-siblings, (squeee!) are all getting together for turkey day tomorrow, I wish I could be there, they wish I could be there, Joanne and I messaged each other back and forth on FB about it, exchanged holiday wishes and birth-dates of all of our family members, but I told her that going to Maine is just not gonna happen this year, maybe next year.
I'm hoping for a February visit if my income taxes are good enough.
When we do go, I'll have to get Mark a second form of ID for travel because he's now a legal adult, and anytime I have flown since homeland security set up all of the new flying rules with the TSA, I've had to have my ID, a credit or debit card, and my 'I have metal implants which may set off metal detectors' card.
When Sebastian and I flew to NYC to meet the siblings and do the Today show, Sebastian had his school ID, and that was it, and the check-in person told me that he should get a second form of ID when he turns 18 if he plans on flying anywhere, and Sebastian piped up that he wants to go see Australia, and the lady said that he might have to do an international background check if he plans on leaving the country, that homeland security has gotten much more strict and thorough when issuing passports.
I don't know how true that is, I've never heard that said before, so I'll go look it up at some point before we fly up to Maine to check and see if Mark is really going to need a second form of ID now that he's 18, and I'll look up that international background check rule too.
I've never left the country so I have absolutely no idea what all you would need to leave the country other than a passport.
____________________________

Ok, I haven't eaten anything at all yet today, so I'm going to go grab something to eat.
I bought some of Publix's most awesome chunky chicken salad, so I'm going to make a yummy sandwich and then get cracking on doing the dishes and getting all of my stuff organized to make the turkey and everything for tomorrow.

November 15, 2009

New pc and other things.

I haven't done much at all this weekend, actually, in several days.
When my computer died last Monday, I pretty much fell out of everything.
All of my stuff is on that computer, digital pics, documents, all kinds of stuff that I can't get back until I can get it retrieved and transferred to this new pc.
My new pc, thanks to a friend, came on Friday morning, delivered by FedEx at like 10:30am, and since then, I have been getting it set up just right and to my liking.
It wasn't on sale, but Buy.com always has computers at super great prices so my friend bought me an early Christmas gift because she knows that the computer is how I make a living, she knows how important it is to me to have a computer that works and works well.

It's an Acer Veriton, almost exactly like the one I had before, and it came with free shipping like they have on most of their products, and they do like rush shipping even on their free stuff.
She ordered it on Tuesday night, and it was here Friday morning.
That's really awesome customer service.

It came with Windows Vista, which I did not like, no, not at all, it asked me like a gazillion times if I really wanted to do the task that I clicked on.
Um, if I didn't really want to do it, I wouldn't have clicked on it!
I was very happy to see that it came with downgrade discs to go back to WinXp, so after like 4 hours of trying and hating Vista, I downgraded to Winxp.
I had saved all of my bookmarks and usernames/passwords for Firefox to my usb, not all of my work docs, but at least I have all of my sites that I needed.
I have it all set up, it's working great, and I was even able to install my Sims 3 on it and be able to play that for a few hours last night when I just had no motivation to do anything else.

I don't know what it is, I just didn't feel like doing anything at all all weekend.
I still don't, but I have stuff to do so I'm doing it.

November 5, 2009

Helping to find a cheap but good canister.

My friend Nic has her own house cleaning business, and she has 2 clients per day, she used to have more than that but the economy has caused people to cut back on services like housekeepers, and they are doing it themselves now.
Due to losing a few clients and because she only uses her own equipment to clean people's houses, so if a vacuum cleaner breaks for instance, it's her own, and not a $500 Dyson that the homeowner owns, she tends to go through vacuums rather quickly.
Running a vac in your own home once a day every day is a lot of wear and tear, so having to run a vac in 2 houses per day 5 days per week, is just asking for the vac to break with the first year/year and a half.
Nic prefers to use canister vacs, they are easier for her to maneuver around people's homes, the longer handled neck makes it easier to get under low tables and furniture, and she's now needing a new canister vac, she said it's on it's last leg, almost 2 years old, and it's starting to have some issues, so it's time to find a new but cheap canister vac.
She doesn't have much time to go shopping in regular stores, and her internet isn't hooked up at her new apartment yet, so she asked me if I could try to find her a new one, preferably one that is on sale, and stay as far under $100 as is possible.

So I am looking on Buy.com for her today, and I found 3 name brand canister vacs all under $100, and 2 of them with free shipping too.
I found a Bissell for just $59.80 with free shipping, a Panasonic for $84.63 including the shipping charges, and an Electrolux for $77.59 with free shipping.

I've used both Bissell and Electrolux vacs before and really liked them, never tried a Panasonic vacuum before so I have no clue how that one would work at all.
Because she goes through them so quickly, needs to spend as little money as possible, and the lower the price the better she said, I am going to have to pick the Bissell.
That's just my opinion though, I have bookmarked all 3 of them for her so when she stops by after work today I can show them all to her and she can then order the ones that she wants.

I am kinda jealous of her getting to run her own business, I used to have my own house cleaning biz when I still lived in Maine, and I loved it.
I really miss being able to work so physically hard like that, and feeling a great sense of accomplishment at the end of the day.
Right now I'd be totally happy if I could get all of my dishes done.
I had been cleaning my house all morning, but I sat down to take a break and now I don't want to get back up and finish. ha ha

November 1, 2009

Taking it one day at a time.

I apologize for the lack of updates again, we're all just trying to wrap our heads around the medical news for Mark, and trying to plan our next step, our course of action.
I have a lot of phone calls to make tomorrow, thank goodness for the free long distance included with the Fios, I have a feeling that I'll be making calls all over the state tomorrow and over the next few days and weeks.

I also have a feeling that I will definitely be buying Sebastian a netbook like I posted about a few weeks ago, because not only will he be needing it for school, but I think Mark will also be needing plenty of his own computer time to take some online classes like I've also posted about.
Buy.com has another one on sale this week, it's an ASUS Eee PC Seashell Netbook, for $389.95 with free shipping, but if you buy that one, Buy.com will send you a free $25 Prepaid Visa Card just for buying it.

It's a really nice looking netbook, it has tons of features, it's only 1-inch thick and only weighs 2.4 pounds, that's super small and lightweight!
It has 170gb of Hybrid storage, not really sure what "hybrid storage" means, but 170gb is a lot of storage room!
It has wireless connectivity with built-in 802.11n (draft 2.4GHz n) and Bluetooth V2.1, and 6 hours of unplugged use time, that's pretty decent too.
It also has a 10.1 inch back-lit LED display, for 1024x600 resolution which is perfect for viewing most things, and it also has 2 USB ports for hooking up to the things he would need in his digital design class, and a built in webcam in case he ever needed to use that in one of his classes.
I know he mentioned something about video chats with the rep from the tech school, like they chat with the rep once a week either in person or by cam on the teachers laptop.
It really has a lot of other features too, I'll have to show him this one and see what he thinks of it or if he likes the other one better.
Personally I like this one better, it has far more features to it including 10gb of free online storage for the first 18 months, a 1-year warranty, and a "flawless display" warranty for the first 30 days so if the buyer notices even just 1 itty bitty pixel damaged, ASUS will replace the entire panel at no cost to the buyer.
So yeah, I really think this will be the one that I would like to get him unless he insists on the other one.

We all need to have our own computers for all of the things that we all do and are going to need to do.
I work on mine, this is how I make money to pay rent, bills, doctors, and prescriptions for not just myself anymore, but for Mark now too.
His last appointment cost me $120 because Medicaid refused to cover it, they said that the ortho did not get pre-approval for the appointment to give us the results of his MRI.
Sebastian needs a netbook for his digital design classes, and having the netbook for him will allow Mark to use the desktop to take online classes because we may need to enroll him in some type of college courses if we want to continue him receiving Medicaid.
Because he's 18 now and no longer a student, his Medicaid is set to expire soon, it expires within 6 months of the 18th birthday or within 6 months of being out of school.
He's been out of school since May, and turned 18 on August 15th.
I have to call Medicaid tomorrow about all of this plus ask them about his referral to the neurosurgeon, to physical therapy, and also ask them if he can go see a spine specialist at All Children's hospital in St. Pete.
There's a spine specialist there who my sister knows about, the boy she takes care of sees him and will be having his scoliosis surgery very soon, I can't remember if she said in 6 weeks or in 6 months, we talked about so many medical things, but that specialist is taking new patients and sees young people up to the age of 21.
My sister is going to call that specialist tomorrow and ask him if he can see Mark for a consult appointment, get his opinion, and she said that she'll help me pay for the consult appointment if Medicaid won't.
There's so many things that they won't pay for, and I remember my own hell trying to get surgery after I had to quit working and my insurance from work and Cobra ran out and I had to go on Medicaid before I got approved for SSDI and Medicare.
It was a long battle with Medicaid, they didn't want to pay for anything at all, their answer to my spine problem was if the doctors were sure that not having spine fusion was going to cause me to become paralyzed and lose my left leg all of the way to the pelvis, Medicaid would pay for the leg removal and a wheelchair, but they did not want to pay for spine fusion surgery.
I fought with them for 4 years to get the surgery and had to take my case all of the way to the governor in order to force Medicaid to approve the surgery.
I am totally prepared to fight like that again if they start refusing care for Mark, if they don't want to pay for any of his treatments and/or surgeries too.
I will fight like crazy to get him the best help that I can.

October 24, 2009

He needs his own.

Today, I taught Mark how to shave his face for the first time in his life.
He finally had enough facial hair to shave off, and he wanted it gone so he asked me to teach him, not do it for him, but teach him how.
I didn't have any men's razors in the house, so he had to use one of my Venus razors, but he learned how and got the job done.
Now I'm needing to get him his own razor, so I'm wondering what kind is the best kind to get, standard blade razors, or an electronic one.

I was hoping to see if Buy.com had one on sale, they usually have a wide variety of items on their weekly sales, but no men's razors this week.
With a blade razor, you always have to replace it, buy new ones when the blades go dull, which over the course of a year, can add up to be well over $100.
So if you buy an electronic one, make the initial investment, it definitely pays for itself over the course of several years because you're not always having to replace it.
I found a Norelco Cool Skin Moisturizing Shaving System Rechargeable Cordless Razor, a Norelco Arcitec Rechargeable Cordless razor, and a different Norelco Moisturizing Shaving System Rechargeable Cordless razor for a lot less than the other 2 razors.
The first 2 razors were well over $100, but the last one was just $85.48 including the shipping charge, so price wise, that's the better deal, but I still don't know which is better to get, a bladed razor or an electric one.

So my dear male readers, which do you prefer, disposable blade razors, or the electric razors?
Which works best and is the best to have for a young man just beginning to shave?

October 22, 2009

Halloween horror movie fest.

Sebastian doesn't watch a lot of horror movies, actually, he doesn't like them, so when I am watching them, he's usually in the other room playing video games or watching cartoons or something.
Mark and I are the ones who watch them, like the other night when we watched Wrong Turn 3, he was not in here, he was in the other room with the door closed, he just isn't into inbred cannibals, but Mark and I laughed through most of it, we find them funny.

If I had my way and a lot of money, I'd buy every awesome horror movie that's on sale right now, and have myself a little horror fest for Halloween.
I just love all of the grossness and scares, I don't get scared, I'm usually laughing, but I like to see if there's a movie that can try to scare me.
I would love to own the entire Nightmare on Elm Street Collection, I thought Let the Right One In was an awesome new vampire story, I would also like to own the entire Friday the 13th Collection, and I still think that An American Werewolf in London is one the best horror films ever made, and I would love to own Trick R Treat, and so so many others.

I usually watch most of the movies that I watch long after Sebastian is gone to bed, so I don't think that his nightmare was brought on by any movie that I watched, because he hasn't been watching them with me.
I think he just had a bad dream, it scared the crap out of him because dreams can feel very real when you are having them.
I am not one of those that believe dreams are the answers, or can be describing your future, I don't buy into dream or dream colors interpretation at all.
I think it's just our subconscious showing us a movie of fears or wishes that we have for ourselves, but not actually telling us any kind of truths for our past or future.
One of Sebastian's greatest fears, it's something he's talked about ever since my surgeries, is to be alone, to have something happen to me or to both myself and Mark, which leaves him completely alone in his life, so his nightmare was just that, showing him his greatest fear.

October 20, 2009

Febreze Home Collections Flameless Luminary review.

When I went shopping late this afternoon, I picked up the few items that I had forgotten to get on Saturday when we went.
But while we were there, I bought* one of the new Febreze Home Collections Flameless Luminary starter kits in the Green Tea scent.
I had a coupon for $4 off a starter kit, and I like the Febreze line of products, the Pet Odor Eliminator fabric refresher works especially well for those times one of the cats has had an accident.

But the new Febreze Home Collections Flameless Luminary in Green Tea scent, is really fantastic!
It's really easy to use, and so beautiful too!

When you first get the starter kit, you have to open up the battery compartment, pull off the red tab, (tab is there to prevent battery drainage during shipment and sitting on the store shelf) make sure that the batteries are in correctly, turn the switch to on, then open one of the luminary scent shade packages, unfold it, and place it on the stand.
The flameless light will not flicker until the scent shade is correctly in place.
That's it, all there is to it!
The luminary automatically shuts itself off after 4 hours too, to conserve the batteries and the scent.
By simply removing and replacing the scented shade, you can turn it back on.

I don't like to drink green tea, but the scented shade smells really pretty, it's not too strong or overpowering, but it fills the room with a light but definitely noticeable scent of green tea with just a hint of citrus.
The shades come in a variety of scents too, like Pomegranate Mango, Willow Blossom and Cranberry Pear.
Febreze also makes several other products for their new Home Collection, like scented reed diffusers, soy blend candles, and room spray, in seasonal scents as well, like Pumpkin Harvest, and Autumn Spice & Crisp.

I really like the flameless luminary, it just looks so pretty, and I feel safe using it because it's not a real candle, no flame, so I don't have to worry about accidentally knocking it over and causing a fire.
I love the look of candles, but I always make sure to not leave them unattended, so these new flameless luminaries are perfect.
The look of a beautiful flickering scented candle without the worry.

If you haven't tried these yet and like scented candles, you should pick one of these up.
The $4 coupon for the starter kit that I used was found in a coupon mailer, so make sure to check your Sunday paper's coupon fliers, and Febreze is offering a trade in of your old and used shades.
If you mail them 6 used Flameless Luminary shades, they will send you a coupon for a free Flameless Luminary two-pack refill.
The starter kits come with 2 shades, and 2-count refill packs can be purchased in stores, but if you buy the refill packs at Amazon, you get a 3-count refill pack.
Each refill pack comes with 3 pouches with 1 shade in each pouch, so that's probably how I will be buying my refill packs, it's just a better deal to get the extra pack of shades, and once they are all used, I can mail them in to get a coupon for a free 2-count refill from the store.

It smells so good in here right now, I just love good smelling scented candles, so these flameless luminaries are just perfect!

October 20, 2009

Shopping, stress, and crap.

When I go shopping later this afternoon to pick up the stuff that we forgot to get on Saturday when we went, I need to pick up some more acne products, because when I went to use some this morning to try and kill the stress zit I found on my forehead, I found nothing but empty containers.
I rarely ever get pimples, never really had that problem even as a teen, but I do get like 1 or 2 pimples when I get stressed out.
Most of last week was very stressful for me, no sleep, issue after issue, some total bs to try and deal with, and I'm not even sure that's really over yet, so yeah, 1 nice big zit on my forehead and nothing to kill it with.
The teens have a habit of using the stuff, leaving the empty containers, and not tell me that they are empty.
I don't know why they do that, I mean, just tell me that they need more, and I'll get more when I go shopping, easy.

October 19, 2009

Franken Berry!!!

Franken Berry!!! sent by Kat

I LOVE Halloween time because General Mills makes the "monster" cereals again, and I Absolutely LOVE Franken Berry!!
I bought 1 of each monster, because we all love a different one.
I love Franken Berry, Mark loves Boo Berry, and Sebastian loves Count Chocula.
As soon as Sebastian and I saw them on the shelf, we both squeaked with glee, and I told him to get 1 of each.
He smiled the biggest inner child smile, and put them in the cart.
It's the little things like these cereals that can bring out the kid in you, and take you back to your own happy childhood memories, and all of the excitement of Halloween, getting dressed in a costume, going trick or treating,going to costume parties, watching a scary movie for the 1st time, all of the fun things.
I'm sitting here still smiling because a box of cereal brought up such good and fun memories.
I wish they made the monster cereals all year round.

Kat posted at 04:23 AM on October 19, 2009 || Comments (2) || Link || Holidays

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