Sour Grapes

Yesterday at Publix I bought a pound of gorgeous green grapes. They looked so cool and crisp sitting there, especially considering it was 97 degrees outside when I went into the grocery store. Afternoons at my office have been excessively hot due to AC issues and the weather. I thought these would be the perfect afternoon snack. Cool, refreshing, sweet, delicious.

Uh.... not so much. Those have got to be the MOST sour grapes I have ever put in my mouth. I keep trying to eat them... but its kind of like putting a Warhead in my mouth. With no later reward of sweetness. Ugh. I even tried adding some sugar.... and then they were basically Sour Patch Kids. I don't know WHY I am so disappointed in these grapes. I mean they are just grapes. But darn, popping one of those in my mouth was a huge letdown. I get fixated on the weirdest things sometimes.

Oh! And I was going to post a picture of them --- but these grapes are just plain contrary and every photo was worse than the one before. I think I'll go eat some ice cream instead.

What I Got On Wednesday

Although this week's Publix ad didn't have me exactly jumping for joy, I knew I wanted to go in and get my almost free TP! Woo hoo! Yes, that makes me happy! And yes, I know I am a dork. But that's okay because this is what I got today:

2 V8 Splash
1 Publix TP (penny item!)
4 Knorr Pasta Sides
4 Ramen Noodles
2 Ken's Salad Drssings
1 pound of Grapes (how I got exactly one pound, I will NEVER know!)

Spent: $9.76
Saved: $16.44 or 63%

It's Wednesday Already?

Wednesday is the day that the new grocery ad and sales start around here. I've looked through the Publix ad and its just not really exciting to me this week. However, it IS penny item day, (with a coupon from the newspaper you get the "mystery" item for 1 cent with an additional $10 precoupon purchase) so I need to go to the store. Today's penny item is Publix TP --- this is the only way I ever seem to get almost free TP! Knowing my luck they will have subsituted something else by the time I get there (my Publix ALWAYS seems to do that when the corporate item is something GOOD!)

I've looked through the ad, and there are just enough items on sale that are useful to us, that I can cobble together a $10 trip. At least I think so. And just so you know.... I'm not going over there just to get cheap TP! I've got to go over there anyway to return that total failure of a drying rack to the store that's just across from my Publix.

In the meantime though, I need to go get ready for work --- which I'm not especially looking forward to today as we have a training class through the rest of the week. I'll probably need that shoppers high afterwards! Ha!

No Rain

I got a Rain Barrel to hopefully help offset the costs of watering my garden this summer. Problem is, we have to actually get SOME rain for it to be of any use. Since the April 27 tornadoes, we've had rain exactly twice. Once on the Monday following, and again about two weeks ago. Hot and dry is the byword around here (if you don't count the ridiculous humidity). Yesterday after work, I spent about an hour watering the front. This morning, due to the fact that I woke up at 4 a.m., I got out and watered the back just after sunrise. I would have felt much better about it if I had been using the water from my rain barrel!!!! But since there has to BE water in the rain barrel for that to work, I had to do it the normal way. Sigh.

I've got a ton of flowers in my yard. I'm very partial to perennials because while they are a larger investment up front, they come back season after season. My garden is a huge mixture of bought plants and passalongs. What I've really noticed this year is that the ones I've bought in years past are struggling much more than the passalong plants. I suppose that years of thriving in someone else's garden and then coming to mine, these plants have grown sturdier and stronger than those newborns at the garden shop.

I've refrained from buying any new plants this year. My concrete planters look kind of sad without their overflowing petuntias. Maybe next year I'll fill them again. But for this year, I decided it just wasn't in the budget. I guess its been a smart move on my part as plants in planters require far more water than those in the ground. Still, I miss them. But at this point, I can't see myself giving in and getting any! The weather is just too hot and dry. They would require watering every day due to the lack of rain.

So for now, I'll get out my hose and water as I go. And hope for rain. Although we aren't expecting any for at least a week. Sigh.

My Shoes!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I am certain that I am not the only woman on the planet with a "thing" for shoes. One of my favorites sayings  is "One shoe can change your life forever. " - Cinderella. In our house the spike heeled apple doesn't fall far from the tree. Princess Penelope has more of a shoe "thing" than her mom. That girls has some serious shoes.....spikes, wedges, booties, boots, loafers, flats, flops, sandals, peep toes, her shoes run the gamut.

I am actually a bit more restrained in my shoe inventory. I've finally reigned in my shoe spending and focus more on having several different great shoes per season for work, ditto for play. One of my favorite brands is BORN. I love these shoes! Cute. Comfortable. What's not to love? Oh yeah, the price. Most of my true BORNS have been accumulated through end of the season sales. And these shoes LAST (unless Thing 2 gets her puppy teeth on them (whole other story). And now they have BORN Original Concepts, a really fun line of shoes with a slighly lower price point, but seem to have same factors of cuteness, comfort and durability. I LOVE my Borns.

Recently, Princess Penelope has taken a shine to my black BORN flip flops. She tends to bypass her own and asks to borrow mine. Sometimes I relent and let her wear them. But I never really want to (yes, I'm terrible!) This evening she was preparing to go out with friends and comes out and asks "How does this look?" She has on my wedge-heeled, slight platform black BORN sandals. Unfortunately, they look GREAT with the outfit. Bye-bye my BORNS! I heart you!

Almost There!

Well, with credit card 1 at any rate --- my total amount owed is now down to $542.72. I'll make my normal debt snowball payment of $310 to that this month, and then the remainder in July! And that bad boy will be paid off! And it a few days before my goal of July 31. For credit card 2, I've really messed up though. I've put some things on it when I haven't had my debit card with me and then forgot to immediately go online and transfer that money onto the balance. So I'm really out of whack on that one. I think that once I get credit card 1 gone, it will be easier to focus on it --- I hope!

I wonder if I can make my jacked up cell phone last another two months, so I can pay credit card 1 off early and then make a really nice snowball dent in credit card 2 to get my mojo moving. Sigh. It isn't really fun when you have PROOF that you messed up --- and your budget numbers are actually worse than you thought.

Experiments in Air Drying - Part II

So the experiment in air drying went pretty well. It was definitely more labor intensive than just popping clothes in the dryer, but all in all, it went well. It probably would have gone a bit faster if I hadn't kept running out to the deck to see how fast everything was drying. (Newbie)

I decided I definitely needed a drying rack. So, when Princess Penelope and I headed out today to get her basketball shoes on the other side of Birmingham, I decided we'd stop by Target, get her a couple of pairs of shorts and I'd see if they had a drying rack. Which in the flurry of clothes shopping for a teenager, I forgot all about. Got back to my side of town and realized I'd forgotten about the drying rack completely. So I pulled into our local WalMart (which by the way, I really really really hate going there). I walked up and down their laundry aisles.... no drying racks. About 15 different chi-chi laundry sorters, but no basic drying rack. Ugh.

So then I went to Big Lots, and K-Mart, and finally found one at a discount place called Fred's. Easy assembly! Whoop! I got it together, put two pieces of clothing on it.... and it collapsed:

Cheap wood and plastic... I really should not have expected anything different. So, I still had laundry that needed drying and still wanted to keep the dryer time to a minimum.... so I hauled up a couple of folding chairs from the basement, wiped them down, and stretched Princess Penelope's sheet over it to dry. Not pretty. Not practical in the long run (really don't want to haul those chairs all over creation every time I do laundry. But necessity is the mother of invention. And at this point I don't care what the neighbors think! Ha.