anniemiz

Nada

Sorry, peeps, no Thursday Thrift today.  It's just been one of those days.

Irises

Kevin planted a bunch of irises last fall and they're starting to show themselves.  A nice, clean white:

 

A variegated purplish blue:

Not irises at all, of course, but cheerful interlopers nonetheless:

A soft bi-color:

  

Another bi-color:

 

That's Kevin in the background, doing a final sanding on a door from a dining room closet.  He used a heat gun, then chemicals and then good old-fashioned elbow grease.  Thanks, Kev!

Sockington

Heh.  Fans of cats and/or silliness (sp?) will enjoy the newest twitter celeb, Sockington the cat.  There's also a Sockington facebook page.  A 'publicity photo' from his facebook page:

 

Apparently, Sockington's twitter feed was highlighted by twitter as a feed to follow and before he knew it he was shooting for at least 500,000 twitter followers (as of now, he has 550,298).  That's pretty much his claim to fame.

HIs twitter style has been described (somewhere, I can't remember where) as 'free jazz prose' and that sounds about right.  He twits in alternating caps and lower case which adds something, though I can't quite put my finger on it, to his twits.  E.g.:

OH SURELY WE CAN DO BETTER THAN THIS I have pondered the issue and have decided I am capable of 5-10 times more meals READY FOR EXPERIMENT

FIVE YEARS AGO MOM SAID GO WAIT BY SUBWAY STOP AND GET FREE FOOD mom was right thanks mom

lick lick lick OH DELICIOUS PAWS you are like four little journals of voyages past and floors well met

My personal current fave:

sniff sniff sniff sniff THESE ARE THE MOST UNINFORMATIVE PANTS I'VE DEALT WITH IN A WHILE you washed them didn't you REVISIONIST

*snicker*

Uh oh!  Running out of time and battery!

Memorial Day

Hope everyone is having a good Memorial Day weekend.  The day is fine here and, since the good weather will probably hold, I'll be outside today for a spell, planting petunias in hanging baskets and yellow begonias and some small purplish-blue flowers in ground baskets. 

Watching CNN at the moment.  President Obama just placed a wreath on the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.  Missed that.  He'll speak soon.  The news announcer just mentioned that the Commission on Remembrance has asked Americans to pause at 3:00 p.m. for a moment of silence and retrospection:

"It will help to reclaim Memorial Day as the sacred and noble holiday it was meant to be. In this shared remembrance, we connect as Americans."

Observances are to include an interruption of Major League Baseball games; the pausing of the National Memorial Day Parade in Washington; and the National Grocers Association and Food Marketing Institute asking shoppers to pause in stores nationwide to remember the fallen.

"We want our citizens to contemplate the ties that bind us and take a moment to put 'Memorial' back into Memorial Day," said Carmella LaSpada, executive director of the Commission on Remembrance.

Children touring Washington inspired the idea when LaSpada asked them what Memorial Day meant and they said that's when the swimming pool opens, according to the commission's Web site.

Sounds good to me.  Not just the moment of silence.  In fact, more so the attempt to take back Memorial Day.  I'm sure I've blogged about this before, but...oh, what the heck...I'll say it again.  I sure wouldn't mind if holidays like Memorial Day, 4th of July, etc. were actual holidays and not big sale days or just a mile marker of fun in the sun to come.  It seems that going about our usual business on days like Memorial Day is kinda like when we multitask and every activity suffers.  You know how when you're trying to talk on the phone, pull the kid out of the litter box, let the dog out before it pees in the house, take care of laundry/prepare dinner, etc. all at the same time and not doing anything very well?  Maybe you can talk to that person another time.  Laundry will still be there later (actually, it's always there).  Yes, I suppose the kid shouldn't be in the litter box and no, I wouldn't want to have to clean up after the dog (I clean up enough after cats).  Dinner can be simpler or get the kid to wash their hands and set the table, even if they have to bring out the silverware piece by piece.

Well, off my soap box to wish you all, wherever you are and whatever you're doing, a good Memorial Day weekend.
 

P.S. Yes, there is a cat in the picture.  There's always a cat in the picture.

Possibly the Best Worst You Tube Ad Evar?

Just came across this you tube ad for a furniture store in NC.  It's all real...the ad, the store, the furniture...and it's so hysterically bad it's good.  Go to you tube and check it out:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vnOyMSEWNTs

Thursday Thrift: Dining Out

Och, I'm awake earlier than usual (and necessary!) today bco some kitty making a racket this morning.  'Some kitty' indeed.  I would normally blame Miles bc he's always getting into something so he gets a sort of blanket blame, but I knew fer sure it was him when I saw that someone had knocked a bunch of stuff off of a bathroom shelf.  He has this fixation with Q-tips and, once he spies them, will go to any length to get them.  I have to admit that he is adorable running around with a Q-tip in his mouth or when I find him asleep with a Q-tip.  In short, I can't get mad at him.  Or any of my cats; I certainly can't stay mad at them.

Today is Thursday which means it's Thursday Thrift here, not Friday Cat Blogging which is on, well, Friday.  Somehow those cats creep into everything around here.  They're like a fog that settles over everything.

On second thought, maybe I can stay mad at Miles.  I'm still yawning.  Gotta get another shot of diet coke.  Easy for Miles...he'll just be settling down into his daytime nap (approx. 10:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m.) when I'm leaving for work today.

In January, I posted about the first in a series of articles published in December, 2008 about thrift in the Star-Ledger.  The second article is 'Be Thrift on the Homefront' and discusses ways to save on food and energy costs.  Let's see what they have to say about dining out.

1. BYOB.  Yes!  Definitely.  Alcohol is much more expensive when purchased from the restaurant.  Bonus: Presumably, you know you like whatever you're bringing to drink.  Con: If you're fussy about food-wine matching, you're bringing wine that may or may not well match whatever you decide to eat.   I wonder if people who BYOB drink more...hmm.
2. Look for deals.  Check newspapers, mailers, etc. for coupons, BOGOs, etc.  I would think that 'look for deals' pretty much applies to everything.
3. Dine early.  Some restaurants have senior discounts; others have kid discounts/kids' menus or kids eat free deals.  You don't have to be an oldster to take advantage of early bird menus.
4. Bring half your meal home...and have them for lunch or dinner another day.  Bonus: A popular weight loss tip is, when you order your meal, ask to have half of it packed to go before they bring it to you.  No temptation to eat the whole thing when you're no longer hungry, but the food is as yummy as ever.
5. Order cheaper items.  E.g., order appetizers instead of entrees; share entrees of several appetizers when dining with others; order off the bar menu; etc.
6. Sign up for restaurant email.  You'll get emails with coupons, special offers, etc.  You'll also get emails about other stuff, so it's a tradeoff if you're concerned about the amount of email you receive but end up deleting.
7. Get take out.  Provide your own drinks; no tip (or at least a minimal tip at the take out counter; certainly less than what you'd tip a waitperson); maybe you already have at home the fixings for part of the meal, e.g., salad or dessert.
8. Eat out at lunchtime.  Lunch menus are generally cheaper bc the meals are smaller.  There may also be lunch specials.  E.g., my usual lunch haunt has lunch specials, but not dinner specials (except on Friday& Saturday nights).  Yes, the lunch portions are smaller, but I still often end up taking half of that with me and I might leave it at work to have for lunch the next day.  Sometimes, when it's going to be a long day at work and I'll be there for lunch and dinner, I'll get a lunch special at said haunt, have the cup of soup that is an option with a lunch entree (or salad) for lunch and then have the entree part for dinner later.  So lunch and dinner at work for $7-$8.
9. Don't skimp on the tip.  Although I heartily approve this message (having been a member of the second oldest profession in the world), I'm not sure how this saves you money.  If you go to the same places regularly, it probably helps ensure you get good service.

To the above suggestions, I'd also add:

• Try restaurant.com.  The deal there is: You buy restaurant gift certificates for at least 50% of their value.  Sometimes they have sales where the certs will be, e.g., 50% off the 50% price.  So a cert originally valued at $10 regularly sells for $5 at restaurant.com, but if you get on their email list or somehow or other learn the current magic sale code you get it for $2.50.  Restaurant.com must have some kind of deal with Kevin's employer bc employees occasionally get emails with some special code to get even more $ off.  Anybody can use the codes, not just employees.  You get an email that tells you how to access your certs and then you print them off.  Notes: Sometimes there are restrictions, e.g., a particular restaurant's cert might be good Monday - Thursday (which is still handy bc sometimes you just don't feel up to cooking and if a meal out costs you maybe 75% less than usual, why not?).  Others might specify a minimum expenditure or minimum number of guests.  So read carefully before you buy the certs.  If you like to give gift cards, I think restaurant.com offers some kind of gift card.  You can also buy them as if buying them for yourself and then print them off, but I think the gift card would look nicer.

I was going to also blog about the article's tips for grocery shopping, but I gotta get a move on and this moving of which I speak is not going particularly fast this morning.  I'm sooooo tired that I just want to close my eyes and put my head back right here and now in the comfy chair, but I know I'd fall asleep again in seconds.  So I'll leave the article's grocery shopping tips for another day.

Hamish MacBeth

Yesterday I mentioned how patrons sometimes turn me on to stuff to read.  Well, to watch also.  I've read most of M.C. Beaton's Hamish MacBeth series.  They're cozy murder mysteries, i.e., at least one person dies, but not too too heinously, and the mystery is solved over numerous cups of tea or drams of whiskey in the tiny hamlet of Lochdubh, located in the rough terrain of the Scottish highlands.  I didn't realize there'd been a tv series done of it in the UK.  Three seasons.  I've watched the first two seasons and will get the third season DVD soon.  PSA: I'm getting all these DVDs to watch FREE via interlibrary loan.

In the book, Hamish is tall, gangly, red-haired and fair-skinned, parsimonious and a terrible mooch.  In the tv series, Hamish is played by Robert Carlyle so he's short (though still slender), dark-haired and neither cheap nor moochy.  Actually, I should just say that if you've read the books, the tv show takes great liberties with the books.  'Priscilla' from the books is 'Alexandra' in the show.  I don't like either character's role; a little back and forth is fine, but it's dragged on for too many books; hook up with her or move on already.  (It's like Polly to Jim Qwilleran in The Cat Who books...I was so glad when Polly went off to France for a while.  She's such a blah character...always so prim and proper...and tasteful...and demure...sounds like a stereotypical librarian.  Oh wait!  She is a librarian!  Talk about living down to expectations.)  I don't recall the book Hamish smoking, but lots of the show characters smoke.  The show Hamish drinks much less tea and much more alcohol than the book Hamish.

Anyway, if you like the books the way they are you may be disappointed by the show.  I was a little thrown at first by all the differences, but I do like the show.  It's very much an ensemble show complete with quirky villagers.  I do wish there were subtitles bc the accent is very thick and I often miss a bit of what's said.

This post very happily segues into one of my favorite topics: men in skirts.  (And if you all haven't figured out by now that all this talk about a tv show is really just a clumsy and circuitous way to allow me to talk about men in skirts, then perhaps you ought to eat more fish.)   The kilt.  Look at that link to the Wikipedia page or Google images of kilts (ignore, if you can, the gratuitous pictures of bare bottomed men lifting up their kilts).  Most men - of all shapes and sizes, the pictures will bear me out on this - look quite nice in kilts.  And I'm sure they're comfortable and perhaps quite so for certain activities.  According to Wikipedia (not exactly authoritative, I know), a US mail carrier proposed that the kilt be added to available uniform options (it was rejected).  Apparently, there's something called the contemporary kilt that's become popular in recent years.  It's also referred to as a 'male unbifurcated garment' (MUG), perhaps to avoid the term 'kilt' or 'skirt'.  Here's a contemporary kilt:

 

And it's a cargo kilt!  So you can put manly gear (like your cell phone) in the cargo pockets!

Now, if the MacBeth series is any indication, there is no hesitation to wearing kilts among the gentle menfolk of Lochdubh.  In fact, the Doc Brown character wears them all the time.  And in one episode where it's believed that MacBeth has gone into the mountains to follow the men who ran over and killed his beloved wee Jock...

 

...and the menfolk decide they must follow MacBeth and stop him from killing the ne'er do wells, what do you think they wear for an arduous trek in the mountains?  Cargo pants?  Pants with the legs stuffed into socks so that the narsty wee buggies don't bite their delicate legs?  The Northface gear?  L.L. Bean uber-technical pants?  Nooooo, they wear kilts!  With wool socks and hiking boots!  Tough clothes for tough jobs, those kilts.

Well, I have to go to work and I honestly don't know how to subtly end with an impartial argument for men to wear kilts/skirts/MUGs, so I guess I'll just end with that blatant admission.

My Newest Favorite Old Author

Seeing as I work at a library, I often come across authors I've never read before or maybe even never heard of before.  The latter's not all that surprising since, as much as I love to read, I'm not very daring; I kinda stick to what I know and like.

Obvs, I like mysteries and, once I exhaust one writer's oeuvre, I need to find another series.  So now I'm reading Ed McBain, perhaps best known for his 87th precinct crime fiction series, although I'm reading his Matthew Hope series.  I like to read series in order which is a big commitment for the 87th precinct series since he started writing them in 1956 and there's a ton of them.  There's only about a dozen Matthew Hope books.  For some reason, he ended the series in 1998.  Seems he kept writing the 87th precinct until his death in 2005.

Anyway, Matthew Hope is a FL attorney who begins his amateur detecting hobby when he takes on his first murder case (with help, for a time, from an experienced murder defense attorney).  Hope has this one scruple where he only defends people he thinks are innocent (at least wrt murder; I don't know if that applies to all charges).  The Hope books aren't as gritty as I understand the 87th precinct books to be.  The Hope books have a balance of nasty murders and an only slightly jaded main character.  There's a lot of back and forth in Hope's mind about a lot of things: the current murder case; his lovers; his daughter; his ex-wife and their failed marriage;  life in general; scruples, morals and ethics; etc.  There are also some classic fictional detective descriptions, some of which are accurate and effective, yet surprising in a who-woulda-thunk-to-compare-those-things kind of way.

I'm almost done with the Hope series; just a few to go.  The next one to read is There Was A Little Girl.  Oh!  I forgot to mention that all his titles are from fairy tales/children's stories/Aretha Franklin songs, e.g., Cinderella, Puss in Boots, The House That Jack Built, etc.

BTW, Ed McBain is also Evan Hunter who is also Richard Marsten as well as D.A. Addams and Ted Taine plus Curt Cannon and Hunt Collins and sometimes even Ezra Hannon and John Abbott, all of whom started life as Salvatore Albert Lombino.  Seems he tried out a few pen names before legally changing his name to Evan Hunter, writing under that name while also writing under Ed McBain.

I've occasionally thought what name I might take if I were to change my name legally, but I can't say I feel a real need to change my name.  'Anne' is a fairly plain name; the only challenge is whether or not there's an 'e' on the end of it.  I do appreciate when people ask bc I do feel half-dressed without the 'e'.  My last name is only 6 letters and you wouldn't think it would be difficult to manage, but people do seem to mangle it rather impressively.  Now, as for a pen name, that's an entirely different matter.  I lean toward Isabel Humphreys or some variation thereof, e.g., Isabelle or Humphries.  I dunno, maybe Isabel Humphries?  No, I think I like the ways the 'y' looks and it would probably make a better autograph.

I'm also starting my way through Ruth Rendell's Inspector Wexford series.  More on that another time; I have to get out of here.

Friday Cat Blogging: Maggie, In Memoriam

Maggie is my SIL Karen's late cat.  (She's the orange tabby; Murphy is the black & white cat lolling around on the back of the sofa.)  Maggie died last November.  I've had her pictures in a draft blog post until I figured out what to say.  Finally, I had the brain busting idea to simply share what Karen said about her.

We have some sad news--our sweet little orange cat Maggie passed away Saturday morning at the ripe old age of 18.5 years. We found her curled up on a blanket in her favorite spot--the glider in the baby's room, so it seems to have been a peaceful passing, which is the best we could have
hoped for....

 

We have had a wonderful 12 years with her, and I know that she has touched some of your
lives as well as ours.

 

...make sure to give your furry friends an extra hug and kiss tonight in memory of Maggie.

 

Will do!

Thursday Thrift: ebay

ebay.  What would life be like w/o ebay?  I don't even ebay that much (my # is <100), but I find it valuable.

First, it gives an idea of how much people will pay for something.  I have this system where, as I find stuff I don't want anymore and that's still in decent condition, I mark a price on it and put it in a box for some future tag sale.  My prices are very reasonable; for the most part, I just want to move the stuff on to someone who can use it.  E.g., I got some no name bath stuff as a token thank you gift; it probably cost $7.99 at WalMart (and it may well have been a re-gift and there's nothing wrong with that); it's now marked 50 cents for the whole basket.

Sometimes I wonder if something is worth more.  I'll look on ebay to see what people are willing to pay for it or something like it.  That item I'll mark with a higher price; still a price less than what people are paying on ebay just to make sure it goes.

Second, it gives an idea of what people are asking and paying for something, even if I expect to buy it at a brick & mortar store.

Third, it gives an idea of what's available ito brands, quality, availability, older but funner models, etc.

Fourth, and finally, it's obvs a different way to buy stuff and often cheaper.  A couple of recent examples.

Sheet Sets - Sheet sets are ridiculously expensive.  It is not uncommon for a queen deep pocket sheet set to be on sale at $75.  As they say over at Cute Overload, that's just redonkulous.  I don't want fancy sheets; I just want simple, 100% cotton sheets.  For starters, with 6 cats there are certain items for which we've learned to not pay a lot.  E.g., carpeting and rugs.  We had some wall to wall installed, but soon learned that bare floors with inexpensive rugs are a better option bc the cats just end up yakking  (among other things) on it.  In fact, Kevin got some old Persian rugs on ebay really inexpensively; I think the shipping was more than the price of the rugs.  I don't feel so bad trying some harsh cleaner on or hosing down a room-size rug that cost <$100.  Also: go for darker, multi-colored patterns!

Enough about how to best camouflage cat yak against one's decor.  So I wanted some new sheets, but did not want to pay $75 on sale for them.  Nosey's just going to sneeze on them, I'm just going to get cracker crumbs and diet Coke or a nice cuppa tea on them, Kevin's just going to sweat up a storm on them (hence no flannel sheets are allowed chez nous), I'm just going to launder the stuffing out of them due to aforementioned affronts against textiles, etc.  So I noodle around ebay, checking out the bedclothes (I love that word; it sounds so medieval).  I eventually bid $24.99 (incl. shipping) on a plain white, queen size, deep-pocket, 400TC, 100% cotton sheet set with two extra pillowcases (so 4 in total).  Okay, white is a bit boring, even for me, but what the heck.  Now yes, I'm taking a chance bc the sheets might feel like sandpaper.  And actually, I took a double chance bc I bid on a second set w/o first winning, receiving and trying out one set.

Things worked out well.  I've laundered and am currently using the first set I won (the white set) and I like them.  I especially like the extra pillowcases bc Nosey sleeps between the pillows and gets his black fur (and I guess his white fur) all over them.  So I can change the pillowcases before I'd change the sheets.  I'll use the second, green set next and since they're the exact same thing except for the color, I expect I'll like them as well.  Here's the picture from ebay; I got the white set at the top of the left stack and the green set third down on the right stack.

Pinking Shears - I had a pair of pinking shears that were probably ~25 yo, but practically brand new bc I hardly ever used them and kept them well.  I recently needed them, but could not find them.  I imagine I put them in some safe place which means they'll be found by whoever ends up handling my estate.  Fortunately, my MIL loaned me a pair to use until I finish my current project and/or find my own pair, whichever comes first and who knows if either will happen.

I looked and looked and still didn't find my shears.  Kevin suggested I go out and buy a new pair since that will most likely cause my old pair to turn up.  Though true enough dat, I didn't really want to buy a brand new pair of pinking shears.  Good quality sewing shears are expensive; I don't need two pairs (albeit one missing pair) of expensive pinking shears.  So ebay it is.

Now, one thing about ebay that is similar to shopping in person is that it's possible to end up buying stuff you don't truly need and weren't even looking for in the first place until you saw them on ebay and decided, Hey!  I want that!  And, I admit, so it was with me.  I was looking for a the usual size pinking shears, 7"-9" or so, but OMG there was the cutest little pinking shears evar up for auction!  5-1/4" total length with 3" blades.  So I bid on and won those.   Fortunately, the whole sordid affair only cost $4.99 ($2.99 + $2 shipping).  I have received those:

 

They're a little stiff and a good cleaning and sharpening wouldn't hurt them, although they do work as is, but it's nothing a quick visit to the hardware store won't fix and did I ask you aren't they the cutest thing?

I did also bid on and win a larger 9" pair, but haven't received those yet.  The total cost of those was ~$10. 

Again, you're almost always taking a chance of some size when bidding on ebay stuff.  I try to mitigatge the chance by only bidding on sellers with excellent feedback ratings.  You might think that a rating of anywhere in the 90%s is good, bc that would be an A in school ! but not in ebay.  I never bid on anything sold by a seller with a less than 99% feedback rating.  The sheet seller had 99.7%, which is great considering that he's had 57,000 ebay transactions.  The scissor sellers (2 different sellers) had between 1,800 - 4,000 ebay transactions and both had 100% feedback ratings.  Sure, there are reasons why a seller might have <99% feedback rating, but someone else can figure that out and give them the benefit of the doubt.  There are enough sellers and things for auction that it's easy to stick with sellers with >=99% ratings.

Another thing that might derail the thrift of ebay shopping is getting caught up in the bidding.  I was the only bidder for the sheet sets and the small shears, so I got those things for the minimum bid.  There were 5 bids in total for the larger shears: me, some other bidder, me again, some other other bidder, then me again for the win.  I did what's known as sniping.  That's when you wait until seconds left in the auction then place a bid that you hope will outbid the current high bidder.  I usually don't snipe bc I don't pay that much attention to what's going on with my auctions, the items are generally not must-have items for me, etc., but this time I happened to be around when the auction was closing so I sniped and did so successfully.

IIUC, the powers that be at ebay discourage sniping, but oh well for them.  Kevin uses ebay a lot.  He's kinda off his stamp collecting at the moment, but he got a ton o' stamps from ebay.  He's currently on his coin collecting and wins several auctions/week.  He's pretty much done with U.S. coins bc he's got most of the ones he can afford.  He's moved on to foreign coins, mostly German and German-state coins.   He does a lot of sniping and, I must admit, usually successfully.  His motto is, 'You live by the snipe, you die by the snipe.'   Tough talk, nu?

So.  As you can see, I've used ebay a bit and had some luck with it.  I am by no means an expert on finding bargains on ebay so I'd love to hear readers' stories and tips around using ebay.  And now, my frugal friends, that's all for today's edition of Thursday Thrift.  See you next time!

Tiptoe

Kevin planted 100 (!) red tulips last fall and they were out in full force a week or so ago.

 

We had four different colored tulips in the same area for a few years, but they flowered at different times and they were of different heights and they basically didn't seem as appealing as a whole mess of one color.

He originally ordered 50, but then when he didn't get an email confirmation of his order after a few days of placing the order, he ordered again and ended up with 100.  He could have cancelled one of the orders, but can one really have too many tulips?  Ask yourself that.  And be honest about it.

 

There are a couple of mutants; here's a pink one.

 

And a yellow one.

 

The ones planted under the tree didn't do nearly as well as the ones planted along the walk.  I guess there's enough difference in the amount of light that they get that they don't grow as well. 

 

He prolly won't lift and separate (sounds like a good bra) and replant them this fall.  Maybe next next fall if they're too crowded next spring.

I wish they lasted longer.  We had a hot spell and that shortened their flowering time; they just can't handle that kinda heat.  They look so happy and it's so nice to come home to that.

Happy Mother's Day...

...to all you mothers out there.  And I mean that in the nicest way.

Thursday Thrift: Laura, Girl Reporter

Like Lois Lane before her, my co-worker Laura is bound and determined to get the scoop...but in Laura's case, she wants the scoop on bargains  And she wants those bargains bad.  One of her favorite things to do is prowl thrift stores for quality clothes at great prices.  On several recent occasions, she very kindly obliged me by wearing some of her bargains to work  to share with readers.

Here she works the always flattering 3/4 shot in an ensemble that consists, I believe, entirely of thrift shop finds, with the possible exception of her underthings (I'm assuming she's wearing underthings, but really, wouldn't it be even cheaper to do away with underthings altogether?).

Shoes, too!

 

Another day, another ensemble:

 

IIRC, Laura paid approximately the following for the above items:

• purple cashmere sweater: $5
• white tee: $3
• white pants: $6
• black flats: $5
• red 100% cashmere full-length coat: $10
• jeans: $5
• blue shirt: $4
• black layering shirt: $3

At some point I'll get a picture of some righteous, truly nearly new black leather boots she picked up for $10.

Laura will pay a certain amount of $ for certain items.  Under her guidelines, the $10 boots would be a splurge.  She also has certain strategies.  E.g., she knows the schedules for the various shops she likes: when new stuff is put out; when reductions are made; when the seasonal shift in merchandise happens; etc..

She only looks at items priced in a certain way, e.g., one store's tags are color coded.  Just-in items have a certain color price tag.  After a while, they're reduced x% and sport a different color price tag.  I believe that at that store Laura only looks at items with the tags colored for 50% and more off the original price.

She's got a number of stores she likes, but will check out other stores.  She and a friend recently made a tour of thrift shops in some of the tonier hamlets in our fair state and were not greatly impressed.  I doubt she will return to them anytime soon.

Laura looks for items in good condition, of good quality (cut, materials), with good fit...I had no idea that much -- perhaps most? -- of her clothes are thrift store finds.

Some of her favorite stores:

• Nearly New Shop in beautiful downtown Morristown, NJ; this shop is sponsored by the Junior League of Morristown
• The Bargain Box, also in Motown; proceeds support the Women's Assoc. at Morristown Memorial Hospital
• (I know there's more...will update shortly)

My own experience with area thrift shops is meager.  I visited the Nearly New Shop, but since I was squeezing the visit in that day, I did not have enough time to do more than get the lay of the land.  I also visited the Goodwill Store on Route 46W in Fairfield, NJ.  It's a large-ish store.  Clean.  I spent a good amount of time checking out almost every department.  I came away with one shirt, a royal blue 3/4 sleeve fitted number, for a grand total of $3.74.  I thought it was about $7 (an amount which Laura would never pay), but some kind of discount appeared at the register.  Everyone who has complimented me on it is informed, whether they wish it or not, of the enormity of the bargain that was had.  I expect to mosey my way through more thrift shops and will let you know what I find and learn.  I'm afraid I'm not much of a clothes person, so I imagine I'll be looking in the shops for other items as well.

I admit I seriously perused the baby clothes for something I could easily alter for Miles, but the most suitable item had the wrong team logo on it.  I don't think Kevin could abide Miles, as adorable as he is, wearing a Philadelphia Eagles tee shirt.

 

A Whole Mess of Films

So Kevin and I have been ever so slowly working our way down the AFI Top 100 American Films, the 1998 version.  We're only watching movies I haven't seen yet, although I have to admit that we skipped over #94, Goodfellas, bc I just wasn't up to mob movie gore at the time.  Here's what we've seen so far and some brief thoughts.

• Yankee Doodle Dandy - fun; energetic; idealized version of George M. Cohan's life

• Guess Who's Coming to Dinner - earnest; preachy, especially toward the end when What's His Head goes off into a monologue at his dinner guests;

• Unforgiven - great, just great; great characters; great lines ("Deserve's got nothin to do with it."); stayed with me for some time after watching it

• Bringing Up Baby - fun romp; good dialogue and rapport between Grant (so handsome) and Hepburn

• The Searchers - the overarching story of Ethan searching and searching and not giving up is great; Hollywood-ized Debbie (the kidnapped niece; obvsly wearing makeup; perfectly groomed brows; beautifully arranged hair; her Native American clothing is like an ensemble) is kinda distracting this many years on

• The Apartment - another fun romp with sad parts that work; deals with a kind of accepted, everyday infidelity; schmoozing one's way up the ladder; broken relationships & family at the end; refreshingly not neatly tied up at the end

• A Place in the Sun - great (true-ish) story; felt like it was missing some foundational stuff; also, Taylor is obvsly beautiful, but wasn't convinced of why the Clift character was so drawn to the Taylor character; what was it that made them so fatefully drawn to each other? I.e., it didn't seem like a great love affair worth killing over.

• My Fair Lady - the lovely music stuck in my head for ages after watching this; squirm-inducing misogyny and classism, but I suppose that was par for the course at the time period depicted in the movie; had a hard time with the Harrison character as the love interest...he looks old enough to be at least her father!  And Hepburn's a waifish thing to begin with so the age disparity is a bit of a stretch.  Bonus: a young Jeremy Brett as Freddy, Eliza's more age appropriate suitor; Brett later played a wonderful Sherlock Holmes in the British TV series;  he was just perfect in that and I miss the series 

• The Jazz Singer - I dunno; I guess it's included bc it's considered the first talkie although some say it's partial talkie and others say there were other talkies before it...; stilted, quick (88 minutes!) flyover of the Jolson character's life; cheezy ending where a Broadway premier was delayed to the next day so that Jolson's Jakie could be cantor at an important service; like that would ever happen...there's too much money involved

• Patton - heh; some great dialogue; a favorite exchange: Clergyman says, 'I was interested to see a Bible by your bed.  You actually find time to read it?'  Patton replies, 'I sure do.  Every goddamn day.'  From what I understand, Patton was very much as portrayed by Scott.  Patton's strong character is in itself fascinating; that Scott recreated the man's essence so well is incredible.

• Easy Rider - more great dialogue; my favorite: 'I'm hip about time.'  I know that wasn't supposed to be funny, but it's just so dated and stereotypical 60's that I laughed out loud.  Just wish I had more occasion to use it.  For a movie that seemed to simply track a couple of guys biking around, it and its bigger themes of division, prejudice, violence, conformity, etc. stayed with me for some time afterward.  Also, dunno if this was supposed to be the audience reaction, but, at the end, when the guys in the trucks shot Billy and one redneck said to the other, 'We have to go back', I thought they meant they have to go back bc they really hurt that guy and they can't leave him like that, but what they meant was that they really hurt that guy and they can't leave the other one alive.  Oofah.  Great soundtrack; I'm gonna get that CD via interlibrary loan and get it on my pod.

• Frankenstein - It's alive!  Alive!  As stilted as The Jazz Singer, but boy does Karloff do a lot without words.  It's like there's the rest of the actors and then there's Karloff. 

•  Next up: Mutiny on the Bounty.

Mmm Mmm Monday...

...will not be seen this week due to me not having anything to share.  Come back next week after we've tried this burrito recipe from All Recipes.

oink

Cute Overload has found the swine flu's Patient Zero!

Patient Zero

by Meg on April 30, 2009

A-HA!

Happy Birthday, Mr. Flapper Duck!

Today is Mr. Flapper Duck's 5th birthday.  Mr. Flapper Duck is...you guessed it...a duck.  Somehow I stumbled upon his blog and let me tell you I have learned soooo much about ducks!  First and foremost, they are a lot of work.  I had no idea that ducks reach full size in just 5 weeks and that they can live 10-20 years!

So head on over to his blog, read about Flapper and his fellow ducks, his peeps, his new aviary and, if that's not enough duck for you, there's Flapper-Cam!

Here's a portrait of the duck as a young duck (all pix are from Flapper's website):

And here's the handsome fellow today:

 

Listen, I don't know much about ducks, but I know for An Indisputable Fact that Flapper is one good looking duck (and what beautiful pictures Tiffany [his person] takes).  Happy birthday, big guy!  Quack on!

Mmm Mmm Monday: Linkage

Okay, peoples, I haven't any of my own recipes/adventures with food for you today, but you may enjoy these links:

• Cooks with Love, the cooking blog of Darling Millie's mom, Lynne
• The Internet Food Association, a bunch of D.C. area people who like food
• ingredient substitutions: All Recipes,  about.com,  Joy of Baking,  Mayo Clinic (for healthier food) 
• The Gutsy Gourmet
• Serious Eats
• Simply Recipes -  Elise Bauer's personal food blog
• Lidia's Italy - oh my dog this lady can make anything look good
•  All Recipes

Now I just have to figure out what to have on my dinner break here at work.

Mmm Mmm Monday: Marble Cake

Today's recipe comes from the Hershey's 1934 Cookbook.  Just look at those chubby-faced little kids shoving cake into their pieholes (or perhaps I should say, cakeholes).  Ah, the good old days when having a little extra on your bones was a sign of excellent health.

 

Here's a picture of the cake from the book and can I just say that I love that pan and the green glass container?  And the sifter!  I've got to get me a good sifter.

 

Well, enough about what I think.  As you'll see, this is a pretty basic cake to make, but for some reason when I brought it in to work people thought it was a bakery cake and were so impressed that it was homemade.  I think the spastic chocolate glaze has that effect.  Anyway, make this cake and amaze your friends!

Cake Ingredients

• 2 squares (2 oz.) Hershey's (of course!) unsweetened baking chocolate *
• 1.25 c. (2.5 sticks) butter, softened
• 3 c. sugar
• 1.5 t. vanilla
• 3.3 c. cake flour (I don't have that so I just used regular flour)
• 3.75 t. baking powder
• 1.5 c. milk
• 5 egg whites
• vanilla butter icing (see below)
• chocolate glaze (see below)

Cake Instructions

1. Heat oven to 350F.
2. Grease & flour a 13 x 9 x 2-inch baking pan.   (Today I used two smaller pans bc one cake was staying home and the other was going away.)
3. Melt chocolate; set aside to cool slightly.  **
4. In large mixer bowl, beat butter, sugar and vanilla until light and fluffy.
5. Stir together flour and baking powder; add alternately with milk to butter mixture, beating until well blended.
6. In small mixer bowl, beat egg whites until stiff peaks form; gently fold into batter.
7. Remove 1.5 c. batter to separate bowl; stir chocolate into that batter.
8. Spoon vanilla and chocolate batters alternately into prepared pan; swirl with metal spatula (I used a butter knife) for marbled effect.
9. Bake 55 to 60 minutes or until woode pick inserted in center comes out clean.
10. Cool in pan on wire rack.
11. Frost with double recipe vanilla butter icing.
12. Drizzle chocolate glaze on top; allow to set.

Vanilla Butter Icing (double for this cake)

• 3 T. butter, softened
• 1.5 c. confectioners' sugar
• 1-2 T. milk
• 1.5 t. vanilla

In small mixer bowl, beat butter and sugar until light and fluffy.  Add milk and vanilla, beating until smooth and of spreading consistency.

Chocolate Glaze

• 1 square Hershey's unsweetened baking chocolate *

• .5 t. butter

Melt chocolate and butter. **  Stir until mixture is smooth.  Cool slightly.  Drizzle from tip of teaspoon over and around cake as desired.

Notes

* I didn't have enough unsweetened chocolate squares for this recipe so I filled in with this subsitution.  I like it and, in the interest of thrift, I expect I will use this going forward instead of buying unsweetened chocolate squares.

• 3 T. shortening (or butter; I used shortening) + 1 T. unsweetened cocoa powder = 1 square unsweetened chocolate

** The original recipe says to melt chocolate (chocolate and butter in the case of the chocate glaze) on top of a double boiler.  I either:

• carefully melt it in the microwave, cooking it for short periods of time (e.g., 45 seconds) at low power (e.g., 30) until almost melted, stirring the last unmelted bits in to the melted bits.
• OR I melt it on the stovetop in a small pan over lowest heat setting until almost melted, stirring last unmelted bits in to the melted bits.

 

Slightly different drizzle on each:

 

Interior view:

 

Enjoy!

The oft-overlooked, lesser known miracle of Easter