Visit the kelpforest....

I probably shouldn't spend the money, but I finally signed up for the Menu Mailer at SavingDinner.com, which I've been meaning to do for quite a while. Every time I've mentioned it before, runsamuck poo-poos it because he doesn't use recipes, and apparently he can just memorize a shopping list for the week and get everything needed (except he doesn't). He pulls one of his textbooks out of the cookbook cupboard, and tells me it has all the shopping list I need for whatever reason, never mind that it's geared for cooking for 40-400 people - oh you can adjust that all in your head down to five, can't you?

You know, there's a reason I need a calculator to play 301 in darts, dearest.

Unlike him, I'm not a trained chef, and somehow it seems like I wind up doing a lot of the cooking. Which means we have spaghetti or Hamburger Helper a lot. I'm just not organized and anything that will take the thinking out of making meals for everyone sounds good. If I don't have to spend the time making up a menu and figuring out what I need to buy for it (which I frankly find overwhelming to just think about right now), and having everything on hand so I don't have to get home from work, open the fridge door and go, "Now what the hell have we got, and what the frack can I make with it...", that's all to the good, especially since he's going to be asleep until 9pm four days a week, when I have to wake him up to go to work. Since he started, half the time we've had either frozen pot pies or cereal for dinner.

I used to like cooking. I used to have friends over and make something fancy, like Indian food. But now I have picky eaters who won't eat half of what I make and my brain is fried by the time I get home from work. I know John sees it as a creative outlet, but it's not my medium. Not something I want to be experimental in. I'm not saying I won't try something new, but you gotta tell me how to do it - I'm not going to make it up on my own, unless it's something I've done a million times like stir-fry or soup.

It has menus for six days of the week, leftovers can be lunches, and you can select from various types (Body Clutter, Heart Healthy, Regular, with vegetarian and Kosher options listed for each). If you want to swap out recipes, you can do that and it changes the shopping list for you.

Dad did most of the grocery shopping; we let him because he liked to and it was really his only getting out of the house. But he really didn't buy the most healthy diet in the world, and he got a lot of junk. Since he passed away, we've been just grabbing what we need right before we make it, and I'm sure we wind up spending way at the store than we should be. So I'll try this for a month and see how it goes...

Oh, and I guess I need to get a crockpot. I've been meaning to do that anyway. And clear some space on the counter for it. Gah!

Wow, a 40% price increase between months for your 300min beyond talk?! Thanks a lot Virgin Mobile, at least Netflix sent me a warning first before they asked me to bend over. It's now only $5 less than the 1200 min one (used to be), which I only used 130 minutes of last month, so I thought I'd try save few bucks this month. No love. You're still cheaper than everyone else so I can't afford to go elsewhere, but that was a very rude shock when I went to top up this morning. Which now is going to have to wait until I get paid - because I think getting bread and milk instead so my kids can have breakfast this week is probably more important for this last week of the month.

It's quite interesting that it still says $25 for the lowest beyond talk plan on this page for submitting reviews. Updating the whole site would polite, don't you think?

Getting a little tired of the "We're still the best deal around even though we now suddenly cost about half again as much!" routine from some businesses lately. Not quitting Netflix either, but they'll be getting $2 less a month from me.

Edit: submitted as a review to their website (less the bending over part). They rejected it and suggested I review the guidelines which said: 1) not to mention retail partners phone prices; 2)or mention competitors. Since I didn't mention Target's/Walmart's phone prices, I didn't realize DVD rentals were a competitor of cell phones.

Wow, I just realized I only need about 448 points to get another $25 in gift cards (for a total of $75) at Gather.com. I've gotten over 1000 points in the last few months for only putting up a few things. I should really start posting more pictures and photo essays over there. People seem to look at those more than anything else. Does anyone else here post over there? I'll look at your stuff if you look at mine... ;)

I know I also have enough points at MyPoints.com for over $100 worth of something - I should really cash these in before the holidays. It'd help a lot. The last time I did I got Starbucks cards for my coworkers, which then got lost before I could give them to them. Derp.

Speaking of gift cards, I keep seeing these ads for selling gift cards you don't want, with someone (a graduating senior maybe) pulling one out of a card and saying, "A gift card? Again? Why is everyone giving me these?" Or another person throwing them into a drawer in annoyance. Really? People hate them that much? With the exception of getting one from a place you absolutely would not want anything from - say, my giving everyone on my friend's list a card for Bass Pro Shops - would you really throw away a card, just because it's a card instead of a gift? We were regularly giving gift cards for bookstores when my kids went to birthday parties. Reading is always good, but that way, we're not stepping on toes in case other parents - who we don't know well - don't care for our selections of books - some people are pickier than others. Then again, if there's someplace I can buy a gift card for myself or other's at a discount, more power to it.

I guess it must come down to me not being very practical. Even when I was eating the same pot of lentil soup for a week in college, or back east when I was a fisheries observer, I would have appreciated a card for books or music, if such things existed at the time. A good story'll take your mind off the fact you've been eating the same thing for that long.

Oh dear, I meant to keep up better on the scavenger hunt thingies. Here are a good 50 toes, and maybe a finger and front paw or two...

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25. Bare feet ☺
6. Something that helps you start the day ☺
10. Contents of your friend's wallet ☺
20. Game ☺
27. Birthday Candles ☺

So, midsummertime. Angus's last day of summer school was yesterday, to his great relief. "Who invented summer school, to torture kids!" he said the day after regular school got out, and shook his first. The days of taking summer school for fun things is gone forever, I guess. His report card came back as everything "progressing towards goals." I think he's excited to go to Dwyer this fall; certainly he was disappointed that summer school didn't take place there.

I don't think we're going to be able to go camping this summer like we did last year; gas isn't so expensive, but with more than a month's salary gone...I don't think we'd better. John's been looking for something, but he just met yesterday morning with one of his old bosses, who told him Ralph's/Food 4 Less will be going through another round of layoffs, so not very likely there. He would love to go back to cooking, but we don't think his health could stand it, since his asthma seems to keep getting progressively worse. We are probably going to have to take out a loan to get tutoring for Avalon and cover a few bills we are short on.

Outside my office window, tiger swallowtails chase each other through the sycamores surrounding the building. They seem to be pretty aggressive for butterflies. I've been wondering why they seem to be attracted to these trees when I had thought that swallowtail caterpillars liked dill and fennel. Well, I should've searched earlier - it's Black Swallowtails that like those plants. These are Western Tigers (maybe explains the aggression, too, heh), and they do prefer trees.

Finally, all $12.50 of it - Alaska never did show up in any of our change, so runsamuck finally went to a coin store and bought a couple. This was started by runsamuck's brother as something for the fry. He passed away in 2002, so when we finally filled in all the holes, runsamuck got a nice frame and put a little plaque at the bottom of it in memory of Jay. "In Remembrance of" became "For..." because Things Remembered wanted $3 a word.

I had actually started the little books of these coins that had two spaces for each quarter, so you could save front and back, one from each mint. But the kids were much littler then; they got into them and ripped them all up, scattering the quarters everywhere.

"For Jay, Gone but Not Forgotten..."
Huntington Beach CA
Sharp VE-CG30
30 January 2009

Yesterday was our 13th anniversary. Given the year we've been having, that's probably appropriate. Anyhow, it was pretty low key, given that we are broke until payday. The last thing I bought was my bus pass and while I was at the grocery store getting it, my gaze fell upon these silly little figures with a tillandsia glued on the side in the plant section. The figure I spied was a pair of blue rainforest frogs, and they struck me as looking like a fat, middle-aged couple, leaning on each other and holding each other up. Perfect. A whole $4. I've never given John a plant before; although he's been know to give his mother a cactus for gifting occasions ("Because you're prickly, and you're a thorn in my side!"). I didn't give it to him until this morning, because he confessed to not having gotten me anything either, and didn't want me to. However, the little plant was getting squished in my purse, so I gave it to him anyway, and it made him laugh.

I wasn't really expecting anything, but actually, I was kind of wondering if he'd gotten me a camera or something. My great aunt's estate sent me $800 last month, apparently the last bit left after all the taxes and all had been paid, and I told John we needed to put it aside and not spend it, so we could put it toward the trip he wants to take later this summer. It seems to be gone already, and I have no clue where it went. I know I havn't really made any big purchases, and neither has he, that I know of. And I'm quite sure we didn't spring for pizza that often. I mentioned this to VT on our walk at lunch and she offered to send me a spreadsheet she uses for a family budget - not that they always stick to it but it helps. Something we should have started a long time ago, I know - I'll try to put it to use.

Anyway, when I got home, the house was empty, except for Dad, who said "Happy Anniversary!" and explained that he'd sprung for Chinese take-out. When John got back with our regular orders, he laughed and told me the woman at the counter is always happy to see us and remarks on how the kids have grown, but her husband in the kitchen gets cranky, because he knows he's gonna have to cook something; most of their customers just seem to order off the steam table - but I like to order something off the menu, usually mu shu. So she yells into the kitchen and he yells back. We don't know Chinese, but it sure sounds like he's swearing.

So, thirteen years. Where has the time gone?

The new vending machines downstairs take $5 bills. For change on a package of Reeses Peanut Butter Cups (one of the only peanut butter snacks I can stand - I'm rather a purist), I got one of every dollar coin issued in recent years, except for Sacajawea. :(

Office
Los Alamitos CA
Sharp VE-CG30
03 April 2008

I can only think this little protest was written before the last election, as the numbers seem a bit low and it's a year til the next one. I'm a little surprised it's still in circulation.

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Hmmm, according to my calculations, we should have the Trooper paid off by November. Yay.

At which point, it will probably completely fall apart.

Honestly, we spent so much on repairs for it this year, we probably should have just bitten the bullet and bought something new. The bill for fixing always sounded more reasonable than trying to scrape up a down payment, though. Now it sounds like a bearing is going out, with all the squealing it's started doing when it starts up lately. Sigh.

At least after next week, we won't be forking out for school lunches until September. I would make them take lunches, but Angus constantly brings his home completely untouched, and while Gareth will eat a bag lunch, it seems unfair to let one buy one and make the other take his...