Boo-ty Shop

Last year I'd picked up a couple of dolls at yard sales to use in my Creepy Altered Doll Halloween decoration project(s).

However, I think I missed out on the creep factor, and I'm not sure what to do, how to get it.

My kid says it's creepy, but he thinks all Clowns are creepy.

I don't, so it just looks like a Sad type Clown to me. Not especially creepy or scary.

This was my inspiration...wayyy creepier. Ugh.

Good, Bad, & Ugly

*Warning: Rant, and potentially offensive to some*

{Random musings} (Sort of)
(Knowing me, it'll probably be more like rambling musings.)

I can't remember it exactly, but it seems there is a...prediction, or prophecy, where 'good will be seen as bad, bad will be seen as good', something like that.

It may have been a Bible thing (yeah sorry, I know, my religious teachings are sadly lacking), or maybe it was some other story I read, but either way, I feel like this is a thing, happening now, and like I'm the only one that realizes there's anything wrong.

There's so many things....
Once upon a time, people that worked and took care of their family and did well for themselves were respected members of Society.

Now, people that do well for themselves are considered the dregs of Society. Greedy, hateful, "Corporatists".

Or people that do for themselves at all.
People who don't take charity are sneered down at if they aren't "giving back", even if by not taking hand-outs means they live hand-to-mouth most of the time.

"Giving back" doesn't even mean that. People who earn their money are expected to "give back", but the people who are being given to are not.

If you did good in school (or at least graduated), got a college education (or even if not), and work a good- or decent-paying job, you're a bad, bad person.

If you dropped out of high school, have three or four kids by as many different baby-daddy/mamas, "likes to par-tay", and works (if at all) at Walmart, you're a mf'ing Saint and you "deserve" better.

If you go to Church or call yourself a Christian at all, now you are the EVIL.
And that's not from islamists or muslims or whatever, but your own fellow people.

And, if you live your life free of Victimhood of some variety, and/or are not Highly Offended on behalf of all the other Victims, you're an uncaring, un-empathetic, judgmental Racist that condones slavery, women as chattel, and internment camps.

This being Highly Offended phenomenon is a classic "bad is good, good is bad" scenario.

(I wish, though, that I could get someone better with words to explain.)

Thing is, these "Highly Offended" people, aka the PC Police, are that way because of guilt.

They don't realize it, they delude their selves into believing they are the "good" person, looking out for the "victim(s)", but it's pretty obvious when they practically scream denial when they claim in that supercilious, holier-than-thou tone that they are Offended.
It's common psychology.

Think about it.

In the several years I've been a member of different message boards and online groups, there's been a number of ladies that will ask advice like this:
"I couldn't reach my husband for 2 hours this afternoon and when I said something about it, he flew off the handle at me."
"My husband hides his phone/deletes texts/goes outside to talk, and when I asked what he was hiding, he became angry and defensive."
"I caught my husband reading my texts/emails/facebook account behind my back. I was angry that he didn't trust me, and he accused me of hiding things from him."
And so on...and so on.

Everyone is pretty clear what's going on there - guilt.

Taking great offense at an innocent question or comment,
Defensiveness,
Attempting to shift blame.

All classic signs of guilt.

Ask someone if they did (something wrong). Majority of the time you can tell if they're telling the truth.
Guilty people generally work harder to convince you that they aren't guilty.
Cops, teachers, Moms, wives stupid enough to stay with a cheating husband....are very familiar with these tactics.

So someone says, in reference to saying printed on a t-shirt, it's "f'ing retarded".
Someone else, in a clearly defensive tone, declares, "I'm offended by your use of "retarded"."

Several others pipe up to back the Highly Offended one, casting the person using the word as a hateful speaking vermin.

When that's not the case at all.

The person using the word clearly had no guilt in using the word in the manner that she used it.
She doesn't automatically associate the word with mentally or other handicapped kids/people.
A "good" person does not, deep down in their secret heart-of-hearts, think of challenged/handicapped people as "retards". 

Whereas, the Highly Offended one took great offense at the word, even in the clearly un-offending manner it was used, and used it as a weapon to strike out at the other lady.

Who takes offense, becomes defensive, and shifts blame?
Guilty people.

These people do - whether they know, or admit it or not - think of these kids/people as "retards".
They seek to aleve their guilt by trying to ban use of the word altogether.
Hearing the word - even in a situation worlds away from insulting a challenged/handicapped person - makes them crazy. They become defensive, upset, and make wild strawman arguments, such as, "Well, why don't you explain to our African American friends why they shouldn't be offended by the use of the N-word?"

Huh?

Well, gee, let me think.
Maybe because, unlike the "R-word", the "N-word" has never been anything but a derogatory term intended to harm a specific group of people, so this comparison is pretty far out there.
Second, unless it's said in reference to their self in a derogatory or insulting way, in my opinion, they shouldn't. Taking offense gives others too much power over you....
......but that's another discussion for another day.

Back to my point, these Highly Offended people are actually the "bad" ones, but are portrayed as the "good" because of their supposed rabid defense of those who can't defend themselves. 

I was told that I haven't walked in these (Highly Offended) people's shoes, and that I have no right to judge how they should be offended by a word or not.
(Gotta love those arrogant assumptions people feel entitled to make.)

My oldest son is now 28 years old (give or take a year either way).
He was placed into Special Ed in school in the 1st grade, diagnosed with Emotional/Behavioral/Social/Anxiety and who knows what all other Disorders. This diagnosis/placement came after a few years of dealing with problems/hoping he'd "outgrow" the issues during pre-school and Kindergarten.

In addition to his "issues", he was red-haired, over-weight, and barked at the other kids.
Yes, like a dog; not a military officer.

"Retarded" was just one of many names he was called.

My youngest son has mild CP (Cerebral Palsy) and also Social/Anxiety Disorders.

When he was in elementary school, he would become so physically nervous when it was lightening outside that his teacher would have to move his desk into the supply closet so he would feel "safe". But he still cried because he worried everyone else was going to get lightening struck.

He was so rigid about following The Rules, he would become distraught and cry when other kids would start answering questions on a paper before the teacher told them to begin.

Noise, taste, texture sensitivities.

To this day, at 20 years old, he struggles to print his own name and walks up on his toes because he can't physically put his heels on the floor.

He, too, has been subjected to being made fun of, called names, asked if he was "retarded or what".

Let me tell you about people who would never say the "R-word" - these are the same people you later discover has been saying things like, "There's something seriously wrong with that kid", "They need to do something with that kid", "Why don't they get that kid some help?".

It doesn't matter what word(s) people say or don't say, when the intent is exactly the same!

I've dealt with this shit for around 25 years....I still deal with it from some of my family members...so yeah, I've walked the walk.
I damn well take the right to judge when I know a situation is wrong.

Because it pisses me right the hell off that a good-hearted person that doesn't mean anyone any harm is vilified, while the guilty ones are held up and revered.

People - rational and sane people - need to stop cowering in fear of being accused of insensitivity or of not caring enough, and stand up and tell these people, "Go suck your guilt-filled-lemon in the corner while giving some hard thought to your true motives - and shame on you."

Shame on the two-faced, lying, back-stabbing hypocrites that sneer in disgust at my kids and me, while acting all sanctimonious and holier-than-thou like their shit doesn't stink.

Call me what you want, accuse me of what you will, correct my grammar, make fun of my mf'ing hair if that turns your crank, it won't change anything. I see the real you. I smell your shit.

Back on Track

I'm not sure how to explain it, but it seems that my...troubles last/this past week had something to do with not working on the house.

A few days before, I had asked J to do some project or other in the kitchen, and it ended up getting shunted aside for him to help R do something.

A few days later, I asked him to do something again. I remember saying that I was getting frustrated, with absolutely nothing getting done.
And then I turned right around and said he should go with or help R with what ever he was doing... He's been trying to work on his car, the one that the water pump went out. While he was in there he went ahead and replaced belts, seals, gaskets, etc.
Big job, and he needs his car...well, he has a truck he's driving in the meantime. I guess it's more like, still, my child's needs before mine.

But even though I told J that my project(s) could wait and he should help R, it didn't help me feel better, and I started getting pretty depressed. No energy, no desire to do anything. I made a list and printed some coupons, but then it was too much effort to go to the store.

Then a couple days ago, J was home on a day after R had worked all night, so R wasn't going to be getting up to work on his car that day. 
I jumped all over that, lol.

There are a ton of projects to choose from, but for no particular reason (that I can recall) we decided to work on sheetrock/trimming the small foyer at the foot of the stairs.

Most of the house door and windows are trimmed with 1x4 boards. Some of the new work we've done, we've bought fluted trim and block corners, but now I've decided to go back old school with it.

We didn't have any 1x4 boards, but we did have some 1x10 or 12 shelf boards that we'd gotten through Freecycle, so we cut those down to 1x4's on the table saw.

We worked until we hit a snag - another project that needs to be done before we can finish the trimming - but I was happy with as much as we had gotten done, and felt a lot better.

After that, I felt like making a craft: a Putz House.
(No clue as to how/why I decided that was what I wanted to do.)

I'm not going to do a whole tutorial here about how I did it, because, to be honest, I'm not too good at reading directions.
I read like the first line, then the rest is, "blah blah blah".

So, I made a lot of mistakes in making mine.
Mostly, there aren't any mistakes in crafting - you "customize" your version - but in this particular instance, I cut the windows/doors after I'd glued it together. I didn't put cellophane in the windows/door. My fence doesn't look great. There's no hole in the back for lighting.
Mistakes.

To make a Putz/Glitter House yourself, visit Little Glitter Houses.com for more detailed and correct directions.
This particular house is called the Little Charmer, but there's an easier version called The Cottage, to start with (of course I didn't start with the easy version!). 

The website provides pdf files of patterns for you to print. I found that printing directly from the webpage didn't work, and I had to Save and open the pdf file for them to print the right size.

I used a cereal box to cut out the main parts like the walls, roof, chimney, entrance.

I used thicker cardboard from a shipping box and cut triangles to go inside the pointed parts to reinforce the roo(ves), and the house base.

Eventually I used the thicker cardboard for the fence, too, but I ought not have.

I painted the entire thing white as a base coat, then after it dried, I painted the house blue, the chimney red with white "snow fall", and the fence a light pink. Touched up any white parts that needed it.

After the paint dried, I glued the house to the base.
I used my paintbrush to spread glue on sections at a time and sprinkled on the iridescent glitter.
The glitter looks different colors in the picture, but it's not.

Then I added my embellishments, stuff I already had in my craft stash, and a dude and a girl showed up in the front yard. 

Pictures really don't do this little house justice. Even with the ugly fence, IRL it's gorgeous (even if I do say so myself). I can't stop looking at it when ever I walk by it.
If I didn't know for sure I had made it myself, I wouldn't believe it.
I'm kinda un-humbly impressed with myself at the moment, lol.

Probably it was just a fluke, though, and the next one won't be as good.
Or, it'll be the same, because I don't have much imagination and I really like these colors.

Check out more Putz/Glitter Houses on Pinterest.

One of Those Weeks

Sometimes things just go well.
I'll set a goal for the day and meet the goal. Maybe even another one or two.
Lists get checked off, plans go as planned. 

Or maybe some things won't go exactly as expected, but turns out okay in the end.

I like those times.

But then there are the times when it seems like things are out of kilter. Like anything you try to do just doesn't work out for one reason or another.

The week started out pretty well.
Last Sunday I had a list of things to accomplish, and got the first few things tick, tick, ticked off. 
But then there was an annoyance, and another, and another.

That's really all the things are, annoyances, so I shouldn't complain, since things could be a whole lot worse.

Anyhoo. Haven't done a garden update in a while.
Not much to update, it hasn't been doing much --- unless you count dying.
The tomatoes are pretty much officially done for.
The pepper plants are still alive, but that's about it. Not growing any bigger.

Two of the Jalapeno pepper plants has some peppers. Four on one, two on the other.
That's it.
Guess I might pick them eventually and make some jalapeno poppers or something.

We got this cabinet moved into the kitchen and I cleaned it up good. Best as I could anyway. My Mom got it off the curb out of someone's trash, so it's not the prettiest thing.

But it's pretty sturdy, other than the cheap, cardboard backing, which could easily be replaced with stronger, 1/4" plywood.

It doesn't match the look I have in mind for my new/old kitchen - if I ever get that far - but after I designed the new/old kitchen, turned out I hadn't designed a place for a microwave oven.

I wanted to try not having a microwave anymore, but that didn't work out too well. We're too lazy, I guess.

I had been going to find a vintage metal cart to sit it on, but then Mom had this cabinet in her carport and wanted to get rid of it and it occurred to me not only would it hold my microwave, but also small appliances and canned goods.

(Sorry for the weird picture angle - the spare fridge is sitting in front of it, waiting for us to move the main fridge, after we get the floor done, after we get the house jacked and leveled....)

I don't love it, and I'm not sure even painting it will change that, but for now, it serves it's purpose, and it was free, so can't complain too much.

Last year this time - actually 2 weeks ago - I had already started decorating for Fall.
Funny, I was reading back over that old post and I had written, "that today was September 1st.

Generally that wouldn't mean much, usually only that we'd be in about our third week back to school and it's still hot as heck around here and no one's even thinking about leaves changing or pumpkin patches or apple cider yet."

This year it's different.
Schools started starting back around the first part of August and it was like people said, "Ok, school's started back, Summer's over, it's Fall now! Bring on the cold, hoodies, and pumpkin spiced everything!"

But I wasn't ready to let Summer go yet.
Still ain't, really, but I did start cleaning the mantle off yesterday, to get ready, to get ready. Supposed to be some cool fronts moving in, so when it starts feeling like Fall, then maybe I'll feel more like getting into Fall.

I had the three creamers and saucers above left over from the yard sale.
(They may or may not have been priced a bit higher than the rest of the stuff in hopes they wouldn't sell.)
(I only had a $1.00/set on them. According to eBay Sold listings, that was extremely cheap.)

As I had been setting out things for the yard sale, I kept thinking "This would be good for that" in regards to different things, and these little pitchers struck me as being cute planters.

I put them out to try to sell (although I hoped they wouldn't) and they didn't, so I decided I'd made the effort, and it was fair that I got to keep them and use them as planters.

I planted Aloe in two, and Christmas cactus in the third.
While I was messing around out on the back porch I saw the Christmas mug and thought it would make a good planter, too.

Back in February, I had pruned my Christmas cactus plants, and decided to try propagating the pieces into new plants.

They somehow lived, and even grew roots.

In addition to the two in the planters, I moved the rest of them to three larger pots.

The two largest ones in the back are the original plants I got from my Mom last September, a year ago, the three smaller black pots in the front are the new plantings.

My Aloe babies, babies' babies, grand babies.

Seriously, if you're not any good with plants, get succulents. They have to be just about impossible to kill, considering mine are still alive and reproducing like crazy.

The newest addition to my little garden family - which, sadly, I don't expect to still be around by next Spring - is Chocolate Mint.

I knew about regular ol' Mint, my Grannie's old neighbor had it growing alongside her carport, but I had not heard of these different varieties - Chocolate mint, Orange, Apple, Pineapple mint, etc.

We first saw the different mint plants at the Colonial Williamsburg Gardens Nursery we visited last month.

I can't remember why I didn't buy a plant there at Colonial Williamsburg, but anyway, I ended up ordering 3 Starts from someone on eBay.

The seller sent me like 4 good plants with roots, and then some roots with no plants. Maybe it was supposed to only be 3, but I don't know really know what I'm doing, I might have pulled one apart or something. Anyway I ended up with 4 plants.

The root by itself I just buried in soil, not sure if that was the right thing to do or not.
The black bucket on the left below is what came of it. Multi-plants.

Some of the plants started growing out long, and I had read that the leaves should be picked off to help with growth. Still not too clear on that.

Also, I don't use leaves in recipes or teas, so I don't know what to do with them when I do pick them off.

I was going to attempt what I did with the Christmas cactus, break/cut off the extensions and try to root them into new plants.

I ended up pulling the plant up and dividing them at the roots. (I don't know why I ended up doing that.)
Never did pinch/prune them back, but now I have several plantings of Chocolate mint from the original 4 that I only planted a couple of weeks ago.
 

I'm going to try to grow them indoors over the winter and hope they survive better than my Rosemary plant did last year.

Maybe they will. From what I read, they're a hardy, aggressive, hard to kill plant. I guess if they didn't smell so good, they'd probably be considered Weeds. I believe "Grass" people already do consider them weeds.

Onion Rings: The Verdict

Not the best picture,and J left them in the fryer a bit longer than I did, however, the flash-frozen onion rings fried up nice, fresh, and crispy. Very good.

The fried-then-frozen onion rings we put in the oven and they didn't come out too good. Soggy, greasy, rubbery. Just not good.

So I battered then flash-froze the rest of the rings, and put them in gallon size freezer bags. I can just take out a handful or two when I'm wanting a to fry up a batch of onion rings for supper.

Onions

Uun-yens, as we say here in the South, or as I got into the habit of saying, Un-yawns, after years of watching/listening to Louisiana Chef Justin Wilson.

Back in the "goldie days", before we had cable or satellite or there was a Food Network channel, Justin Wilson was one of the few cooking shows that came on our 10 or 12 tv channels.
J loved the show and watched it over and over and over.
To this day I still pronounce some things like Justin Wilson did.


("Goldie days" came about a good many years ago, when my youngest son was little, still in elementary school. He liked to sleep with his clock radio playing at night. I forget what channel he listened to, but every Sunday morning it would play "Golden Oldies".  He called them "goldie" songs, and when I'd mention, or he'd ask about when me or J were kids/younger, he'd call it the "goldie days", so we all got to calling it that LOL.)

Anyhoo. Onions.

At the food give away last week, we were given a box with 20 onions and 20 tomatoes. 

I use onions rarely. Less than rarely even. I don't add them to anything in cooking. The last thing I used any onions in was the salsa/pico de gallo I made a couple weeks ago. J eats some fresh sometimes, mostly in the winter if I make pintos and cornbread.

So 20 onions will last me probably for forever. But I don't have too good a way of storing them so they last long term. I've hung them in my laundry room, which is cool like a basement in the winter months, but after a month or so they still went bad.

I decided to keep 4 of the onions fresh. I used a nylon knee-high stocking and tied knots between onion, then hung it up in the laundry room.

For the rest of them, I decided I wanted to chop some, and make some onion rings.

I have chopped onions I had bought at the store in the freezer, but I have been trying to get away from freezing as much because I always fear my freezer breaking down again and having no place to put all the stuff.

On one of my favorite cooking sites, Christy Jordan's Southern Plate, Christy tells/shows about dehydrating fruits, vegetables and meat to save freezer space.
But I like the idea of not having to depend on the freezer so much in case anything happens.

I picked up this Ronco dehydrator at Goodwill a couple of months ago for $6.96.
Wasn't sure it worked, but figured I could gamble $7 bucks. Then a lady walked by and saw I had it in my buggy and said she was glad I was getting it, so she wouldn't, lol. She told me it worked, it had still been warm when the worker brought it out and set it on the shelf.

It's not one of the better ones, as it only has one temperature setting, but I didn't want to dive in and spend a couple hundred bucks on a dehydrator when I've never even used a dehydrator before.
I consider this one a teaching tool.

I never did order/buy any of the screens they say you can get to prevent smaller foods from falling through, so I read that you could use cheese cloth or parchment paper. I figured the cheese cloth had the better ventilation.

Chopped the onions in my (Mom's old, 1970's, Made in America, Still Going Strong) food processor and spread them onto the cheese cloth covered trays.

I set it outside on the carport to work overnight. I read that dehydrating onions are pretty strong smelling, and we were already suffering the peeling/slicing/chopping part, so, yeah.

 

I found and downloaded the Ronco Dehydrator instruction manual online, and it said to rotate the trays every 4 hours.

I think 4 hours was probably too long, though. I'm not exactly sure if my onions are dehydrated or cooked.

Some cheese cloth fibers got in with the onions when I peeled them off. I fished out as many as I could see, but my eyesight isn't so great anymore. I figure maybe the strings will float when I re-hydrate the onions, and if not, oh well, it won't kill anyone to eat them.

Also, this happened to my dehydrator trays:

Every tray. At this rate, it probably isn't going last me another 5 dehydrates. 

Good thing I only paid $7 bucks. I'd have been very pissed if I'd paid $40 for it new and this happened.

Otherwise I decided to make onion rings and freeze them.

Recipe at: http://deep-fried.food.com/recipe/moms-french-fried-onion-rings-with-freezing-directions-274730

I've never made onion rings before, much less intending to freeze them, so I had to look for a recipe, and then try to learn how would be the best way to go about freezing them.

I went ahead and battered and fried up a batch.
I can't recall exactly what it was, but it seems like I remember not having good luck with re-heating something I'd pre-fried and froze in the past, so I was (am) concerned these aren't going to be good later.

I laid them on paper towels to drain the grease, but they were soggy when I put them in the freezer bag.

I also attempted battering and flash freezing some.

A lot of the batter settled down onto the pan, so the rings are no longer evenly coated and I'm not sure how that's going to turn out when they are fried later.

I stopped there, and when my taste tester is home tomorrow, I'll cook up some of each and see how they turn out, then I can finish the rest.

Yard Sale Complete

THANK GOODNESS THAT'S OVER.

 I remembered why I was so not wanting to have this yard sale: people, haggling/dealing, socializing, people.

We got up dark and early Friday morning and finished up last minute details, sweeping the driveway and hanging signs.  J got me a clothesline strung up on the front porch.

I had thought I would get a good bit of traffic in around 8'ish, when the Mom's were dropping their kids off at the elementary school (across the street behind us), but not a single one.
My first several customers were men, and I had very little men-type items.

Business wasn't too bad, but not as good as I would have thought, on Friday. I sold about $200.00 worth, which would have been a good bit of items, since I priced most everything so low it was practically giving the stuff away. And in some cases, I did end up just giving stuff away.

I had thought Saturday would be a lot busier, but it wasn't. I don't know if it had to do with it being a Holiday weekend, or just this place/my luck.
 Years ago, when I first moved here, I had a yard (garage) sale, and one of my neighbors who'd lived here a long time had told me she'd tried to have yard sales but never did any good. Turned out she was right, I barely had a dozen customers and sold next to nothing.
But it's nearly 15 years later, and there's more people out here, and the economy is a lot different now than it was back then.

But, maybe it was because it was a Holiday weekend.

In the end I reckon I sold about half of all the stuff. I made around $300.00 total, but the point was more to get rid of things than the money, but having some extra money is nice, too.

Still have a carport full of stuff, because it's not coming back into the house.
Dan (my oldest son) said if I was going to get rid of it he'd like to have it so he could try having a yard sale at his house, so I agreed to that.

Told him I'd load it up and bring it to him later this week, but on Sunday I swore I wasn't doing anything but staying in my pj's and laying in bed and resting. I was freaking exhausted.

Sunday didn't work out exactly like that. I saw the tarp was ripped open on our little camper after the storm we'd gotten Saturday evening, and since we hadn't yet fixed where ever it was leaking at, I didn't want to let it just sit down there and leak until it rotted away so J drug (dragged) it up here near the house and we started looking at repairing the leak/ceiling.

We needed to go to the Home Improvement Store, so D decided since we were going in that direction anyway, he would go home that evening. We loaded up a ton of the yard sale stuff and took him home and went to HD, and Aldi for some groceries.

HD didn't have what we needed in stock, so we bought a new tarp to cover the camper and I ordered the stuff we needed to make the repairs from Amazon. 

So Monday, Labor Day, I was definitely going to lay up in my pj's all day and not do anything.

But R had decided he was going to try to fix his car (the one I was driving the other day when the JERK tried to kill me. The water pump ended up going out, but we don't know why or if that had anything to do with the transmission not shifting).

Anyway, he needed some certain tools we don't have, and then he decided that he's tired of trying to chase down, dig through, search out his Dad's tools, so he wanted to buy his own tools.
And Harbor Freight was having a Labor Day sale, with 20% off coupons, so off we went to HF.

While we were out, we stopped into Walgreens for some weekly sale items.

I had 4,000 points ( = $4.00) on my card from buying the bacon last week.

The Epsom Salts this week is $4.00, then you get a $4.00 Register Reward back, making the Epsom salts Free after Reward.

The Points are only usable in certain increments, for example $1.00, $3.00, $5.00, etc. so I used 3,000, or $3.00, of my points to buy the Epsom salts, and only paid $1.00 + tax cash.

I got back a $4.00 reward, which I used to pay for part of my other items.

The Doritos were on sale for $1.99 each for Labor day. My kids love those so I buy them some as a treat when I find them on sale.
Some General Mills cereals are $1.99 this week. I saw there were printable coupons for Trix, Cinnamon Toast Crunch, Cheerios, but I didn't take any with me, so I bought a box of Lucky Charms that I wouldn't have had a coupon for anyway. The boys also love Lucky Charms, and I can go back later in the week for the other cereals and take some coupons with me.

The Brach's mallowcreme candies....candy corn, pumpkins, Harvest mix, etc - are on sale for 2/$3.00 this week, or $1.50 each.

I make a snack of mixed candy corn and peanuts for Halloween, so planning ahead and buying the candy when it's on sale saves me money later on, when I would be ready to make the snack and probably have to pay full price for everything.

The chips, cereal and candy added up to $8.97. I used $1.00 of Points, plus my $4.00 reward, so including tax I ended up spending less than $5.00 cash out of pocket.

Then we returned home and I saw on my desk a Kohl's $10 off $25 coupon, plus $10.00 Kohl's bucks, both expiring yesterday.
So I spent awhile (okay, hours and hours) scouring Kohl's online looking for something to buy.

After the trauma of the yard sale this weekend, I did not want to buy a nother THING to go in this house.
None of us need clothes. Certainly no Home Decor. No kitchen utensils, or toys, or....anything.

I eventually finally settled on an Alabama (college football, not the Country singing group) long-sleeved Tee for J, and a set of pajamas for me. I'll wrap them up for Christmas presents.

But when they come in, two things are going out. Each. Total of 4 things.
Maybe more.