Rite-Aid, Produce Run, Buffet & Clean Garage

I had to take Hubs to the eye doc last Friday so I hit a few stores where the doc's office is located.  Oh goody another Rite-Aid to plunder! lol

They had Dr. Pepper flavored lip gloss at this store so I did the Lip Smackers/Jesse's Girl/Julie G deal on Daughter's card.  I hadto get a vanilla since they only had 3 DPs.
.75¢ OOP, in Plenti Points, no cash and 4 more lip gloss to add to my stash.
There won't be any more Rite-Aid pillaging for me until the Black Friday sale.

Then it was next door to the Big Lots just to look around..........

Anybody need a flamingo in a Santa hat?
How about a squirrel similarly attired?

I did get a few items off their food clearance rack-2 big bags of Chips Ahoy! and a jumbo box of peanut butter cracker sandwiches.  The box was about 6 times the size of the one pictured below.

I hit Maines restaurant supply too while I was out as they had some good produce deals I wanted to partake of........

I have a homemade "root cellar" I keep in my garage.  It's basically a 10 gal. plastic storage tub with newspaper for added insulation.  I keep all my root veggies and onions in it.

Maines had a variety of 10 lb. bags of veggies on sale for $2.88 last week-carrots, onions, red and white potatoes and beets.  I picked up 2 x onions(20 lbs.), a red taters and beet bag.  Thinking back I should have gotten the carrots too.  I also bought sweet potatoes and rutabagas as both were .58¢ and .68¢ a lb. respectively.
With the taters and onions and 1 lone sweet potato I already had in my root cellar there was not room enough for another 40 lbs. of veg in there!

Luckily I commandeered one of my 18 gallon Rubbermaid tubs to put all that overflow of product into.  I had an empty tub because of this.........

I bought a dining room buffet cabinet last week.

A few years back I donated my oak country-style dining room table, chairs, buffet and hutch to Salvation Army.  When I did that I had to pack up all my "good" dishware and store it in tubs in the garage(what I didn't also get rid of when the furniture went).
Now that the new floors are in, the walls fixed and painted and the trim done it was time to fill that room again.

I didn't want a massive dining room set as it's a smaller space really.  Hubs and I looked at local furniture stores and looked some more and could find nothing that was acceptable in all three criteria-size, price and style.  I didn't want a buffet with a hutch sitting on top as those would just dwarf this room. I found this one on Overstock dotcom and loved it.  So I went online found a coupon to get it cheaper and bought it.  Even with the tax added it still came out $32 cheaper than their regular price. Plus I went through a cash back rebate site and got 1% back in cash.  ;-)

After it arrived early last week, amidst much cursing and gnashing of teeth Hubs but this mother of tinker toy kit together(with help from me as I am good at reading drawings and diagrams).  By Friday evening I was dragging out tubs of dishware from the garage.

Hubs was in charge of washing everything.

More odds and ends I need to find a home for.  Disregard the eBay stuff.....lol

I found stuff in some of the tubs that I had forgotten I had!

While I was dragging out and cleaning stuff we did a little clutter purging too......

And I am still filling the thing with dishware, flatware and linens.  And now the room will look a bit more "together" come Thanksgiving.  We are still using my collapsible table and dragging chairs from the kitchen to eat in there though for Turkey Day.

Some items the Daughter wants or are hers(inherited from her grandmothers)so I filled one of the newly emptied tubs with her stuff, marked it and it's going back in the garage soon.


And speaking of garages...........

I spent a good part of Sunday in the cold out in the garage organizing and tidying the stockpile.  Kim you will notice almost ALL the cans are now off the floor....woohoo!
And I have another almost full load of "stuff" for Salvation Army and a load of toiletries and laundry detergent for the Food Bank. 

And this blurry shot has all the shelving neat and orderly finally and the floor swept out.
The other side of the garage is still a bit of a hot mess after dragging out tubs....things need to be put back, rearranged and tidied there still.

So that's what I was up to over the weekend.
Now I am in eBay hell as my auctions ended yesterday.
Plus I have lots of errands to run today...bank, Rite-Aid, PO, grocery stores.

What have you been up to?

Sluggy

What's Been Happening at Chez Sluggy

Frankly, most of what's been happening is quite boring so I don't mind if you just skip over this post. 8-)

This......

 

 

....is now firmly secured back into place in my mouth.
A big shout out to my Awesome Dentist!
She responded to my emergency call within the hour and 2 hours later I was in her office getting my crown but back in.
And she didn't even charge me anything. 8-)

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It's been a week now and still no word from the contractor about a new compressor for the HVAC system.
Sigh.
I am guessing this lack of information means we are going to have to wait for something to be shipped from overseas.
Sigh.

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And while I am sighing.....lol.......let's discuss eBay sales.
I am just gob smacked at how anemic eBay sales have been.  It's so slow I just cant' even get up enough enthusiasm to finish listing the entirety of my 50 free listings!
I finally sold 1 item this week!
Then I had put an item on auction instead of BIN and it ended last Sunday for a very disappointing amount.  Even so, it DID sell, but as of this morning the buyer/winner has NOT paid me for it.
So frustrating....

And the other HIGHLIGHT of my eBay week was a potential buyer who wanted to buy a pretty rare NIB old Power Rangers toy I have listed.
It's so rare I have it listed for $175.
Gulp
And that price is very reasonable compared what others have sold for.
My target buyer is an adult collector, not someone's mom or dad buying this for Junior to play with.

Anyway, I get someone emailing me about the toy.
There are 3 possibilities on who this buyer is....either a collector, a dealer who wants it for pennies to resell it to a collector or a kid using his parent's eBay account.

Potential buyer says they really really really want it and to make HIM an offer.
What???   This person has it all backwards.....he's suppose to offer ME something.  lol

As for how much I want for it?
Duh....$175.

They go on to tell me they can't afford that.
So I retort that I have "Make an Offer" feature enabled on the item so they can offer me less.
(I also have MAO set up to automatically accept offers of at least XX$s so serious buyers aren't waiting around on me to respond when they make an offer.)

So they go and make me an offer.....guess how much this clown offers me?

$11

And when I rejected it I enclosed a note like this....
"$11?  Seriously dude??
Yah, I'm probably dealing with a kid here or someone pretending to be a kid so I take pity on them and sell it for nothing.

"$11 Man" has now been blocked from buying/bidding on my crap.

As of now I am up to 3 items sold(2 paid for)on eBay in the last 14 days.
Pitiful......

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In better news, over on Etsy I have now sold 21 items in the 19 days it's been open.
I have over 1000 views in my shop so traffic is building.
One thing I don't get over on Etsy is this "favorite" feature.  Someone can "favorite" an item in your store.  What significance does this have?  Is it making me money?  No.

If they like something so much, why don't they BUY it?? lolz
Someone buying one of my fabrics is the only true indicator of "favorite" I care about.  8-))

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And since eBay seems to be rolling over and playing dead and the local Fire Dept. lady who asks for donations for their raffle each year never called me this year, there is all this that went to the Salvation Army last weekend.....

 

And there is all this that is going there later today.....

 

And today I am collecting more items to ship off to Sallie's.  If we go out Sunday I might have another load full by then to drop off.

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I went to the Podiatrist earlier this week as well.

The verdict is that my feet are too small.
Earth shattering I know......lolz

Add in that my legs are not straight so when I step my feet roll to the outside and then to compensate, the feet roll to the inside, which puts stress on certain muscles and joints, which makes my feet hurt like a sonofabitch sometimes.
Ok, so he explained it differently but that's what I heard.

Otherwise my feet are normal structurally, nothing broken or severely out of place, and I have good range of motion.
So the only thing that will help me at this point is to continue to lose weight(duh)and to wear diabetic shoes with good insoles or some other custom made footwear, since my feet are oddly shaped(wide as they are long.....I have cubed feet).

The sound of "Ka-ching" is ringing in my ears since this doesn't sound inexpensive.
Heck, I am really going to have to get $175 for that Power Rangers toy now to pay for these sort of shoes! ;-)

The only other thing the podiatrist can do for my feet if icing, resting them and pricey shoes doesn't help is to give me cortisone injections where the pain is located every few months.  But we aren't looking at that yet.

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On the Turkey Day grocery tally to get to my gift certificate front......went to that store earlier this week and I am $6.48 from having spent enough to trigger the cert.   So Saturday we'll be picking up about that much in groceries and then I am DONE.

I've got my menu made up for Turkey Day too.  Now to make sure I have everything I need to cook it.

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Can you believe that November is half over already!?!?
Dang.

The first paycheck of the month flew into the account yesterday so now I can start paying bills.
Goody! lol

I sent off a check for Daughter's next 6 months of rent yesterday and then transferred that amount from the college account back into our checking account.

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I did a little genealogy work for someone this week.  Found them some goodies they didn't have.
I really need to email a couple of folks who contacted me from Ancestry and a post I did on Philip Packer a few months ago.  Might be that we all are related.

The tests came back from my son's Y-DNA sample last week too.  Very curious findings on that and not at all what my Hubs thought his DNA is/was.  More later on that.

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Speaking of living rooms......when I went to return the wheelchair we rented in October I stopped over at Big Lots since I was in that area.  They have a sofa advertised that I think might fit in the living room plan.
It's a small chaise sectional like the one we found at Just Cabinets this Summer......

It's a better maker than the other one at Just Cabinets and they want $100 less than JC for it.
Comfort is comparable to the other one too.
In person though, this one had this green cast to the color.  I am thinking it was because of the fluorescent lighting in the store but can't be sure.  Maybe I'll go back with Hubs and see if they'll let me take one of the pillows(the backs are the same fabric as the upholstery on the sofa)outside to see it in natural light.  I didn't think to do that yesterday.

Here is the other sofa contender.....

What I REALLY want is a leather or faux leather chaise sofa in this color and small size/style.
If anybody knows where they sell that, please let me know!  I hate to have to settle this time.

Here's the co-ordinating accent chair.....

Only thing is this chair is for looking at and not sitting on.
Very uncomfortable so I think I'll take a pass on this.

They also had this recliner that I think my Daughter would just ADORE for her Birthday.......

Now how to get it to Louisiana is the problem! lolz

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This weekend I need to get out into the garage and do some organizing and cleaning since the temps are going to get into the 50's(and maybe 60's)here.
It's a disaster out there....again!
Too much hauling stuff into the garage and NOT putting it away in the correct spot and not enough hauling stuff OUT of the garage.
Plus we still have boxes out there from cleaning out the dining/living room so those need to be dealt with.

And Hubs and I have been on a liquor bender of sorts.  The last few months have been a Spending Spree of adult beverages.  And as I don't NEARLY drink the stuff as quickly as Hubs seems to be going through it my stuff is all over the place.  Add in that some beer I bought this summer for #1 Son for part of his Christmas present he doesn't want.(He is uber picky about not letting beer sit for 2-3 months between when you buy it and you consume it)  I now have about 3 6-packs of microbrewery beers I can't give him and I don't drink beer! lol  I'm going to try to get Hubs to drink it instead....I don't think that will be a hard sell. ;-)

And the bbq smoker & wood chips needs to be unearthed out there, so we can use it soon.

Otherwise this weekend we don't have much planned.  Cleaning, Salvation Army, a quick trip to the grocery store, maybe cleaning out the roots from the garden beds but no other outside work as the leaves are all raked and hauled off already.  I could get Hubs to rake the leftover leaves into the back garden bed though to decompose there.  Yep, I think I'll do that.

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Ok, I have stuff to do.....more fabric to photograph and measure for Etsy, toys to list on eBay, a garage to organize and on and on and on.

So what's going on at your place this week/weekend?

Sluggy
 

Chatting About What's New in Sluggy's World

The big news is I continue to drop the lbs.
I'm down 28.8 lbs. since getting home from the hospital on April 5th.
Counting the 18 lbs. I took off the 4 days I was IN the hospital, that makes a weight(and water) loss of 46.8 lbs.

I don't care for blogs that go on and on about diets and dieting and loosing(or gaining) weight, they bore me to tears and I rather think MY weight journey is boring all of you as well, so I won't be making this sort of post a regular thing.
But I could use some "atta girls" and encouragement now and again, so you may see a desperate plea for High Fives now and again. ;-)

Perhaps I'll make a tab on the blog and I can post all the "Downsizing of Sluggy" reads there so those who are yawning even now at this mention of weight loss don't have to suffer through another one, but those who can't get enough of me(hehehe)can stay updated when there is less of me to love.

The big job this weekend was going through the stockpile and cleaning up the garage.  No matter how much I organize out there and try to keep it picked up, the other humans living here like to leave their stuff everywhere and trash my system.  It's my lot in life......at least until they all leave home. lol

So it started out as just going through the stockpile to get rid of everything I can no longer eat.  We did keep a little for the other people who live here since they can still eat it and they like it.
Things I no longer eat from my stockpile, due to the sodium content, that we either eliminated totally or just kept a few of are.....

*Spaghetti Sauce
*Tomato Sauce
*Knorr's Rice and/or Noodle Sides
*boxed Mac & Cheese
*Barbecue Sauce
*Marinades
*canned Soup
*packaged Taco Seasoning
*Lipton dry Soup Mix
*Seasoned Bread Crumbs
*various canned Veggies
*Green Olives
*As well as boxes of Cereal past their use by date(the kids never ate them) 8-(

I was going to throw out the Stove Top Stuffing but if I don't use the flavor packet(and make up my own spices/seasonings from scratch), I can still use the bread cubes.
We kept all the A-1 Steak Sauce too since #2 Son prefers to drown his pork chops and steak in it. shudder

What is leaving is 10 boxes filled with products.  I'll let the brother in-law go through it all to see if there is anything he'll use before I freecycle it all and trash what no one wants.

I also gleaned another box full of toys and housewares to take to Salvation Army while we were in the garage. 

I am STILL trying to learn Windows 8 on my new laptop.  It is so user Unfriendly!  I am taking so long to get the hang of it that I fear some of that weight loss was grey matter. lol
The most insane thing is that the mail program in W8 no longer supports a POP email account...which is what I have with my ISP.
So Hubs set it up with my Yahoo email(web based email) and some other hocus-pocus so that now I can get my email from my POP account into the mail program BUT email won't go to my Inbox.  He had to set up a separate folder in the mail program and all my mail goes into that.
Crazy shit....

I also can't upload photos from my camera to this laptop.  My camera technology is now officially OBSOLETE.
Sigh.
Hubs has to upload my camera card to his desktop machine and then email the photos to me.....into my "special folder" in this stupid W8 mail program.
And I can't find any photo editing feature/software on this laptop......there might be one but I don't possess enough brain cells any longer to FIND it!
Argggggghhhhhh

Plus my Wand Scanner, which I use to digitize all the old family photos in the scrapbooks.....the laptop has no orifice in which to insert the micro card adapter.  At the least, I need to buy something else to get the laptop to download the photos.

And since I'm on the subject of photos......I thought I had saved all my photos onto a flash drive from the desktop computer before it died.  Since Judy never posted about her Swap Sister presents and she STILL is not responding to my emails, I was going to post some photos of her goodies.
By the way, I was her Swapper person if you didn't figure that out from my last sentence. lol
I had taken pictures of her goodies before I sent them off.
Well, evidently I deleted them or never transferred the photos onto the flash drive since I can't find them!
I guess no one will ever see the awesome goodies I sent her and realize what a wonderful Swap Sender I am.  ;-)

Daughter is in her last week of classes for the term at the college.
#2 Son had his school orchestra and jazz concerts this past week.  The Jazz Festival was today and he has a recital this week along with the students of his flute teacher.

One of the highlights of my week was chatting with Mark of Our Simple Lives on the phone.  The only thing missing was a box of wine...... ;-) 
Mark and Fred joined the "Parent of a Teen" Club this week, when their son turned 13.  Hoist a glass or three to them with me!
And then go check out Mark's Facebook page for his side hustle HERE.  He's filling up garages at a swift clip in south central PA with his vintage, Mid-Century Modern, Danish and otherwise fashionable furniture.
Yes, Mark is now a furniture pimp.
 He's got inventory to move so if you are looking for stunning furnishings, check him out.
Of course when he brought up his new furniture buying/selling obsession I got to tell him he was turning into a hoarder, just like me.

Last night was the Junior/Senior Prom.  I snapped a few photos of #2 Son and his Date before they left for another photo session at another girl's house, and then on to the Prom.

I told them to look off into the distance for this one.....I kind of like it because they both started loosening up and had fun with this one.

This week I have 2 medical appointments-a CT scan and a follow-up with my new family doctor group.  The following Wednesday I report to the Sleep Disorders Center.  I suspect that will be a fun filled outing as well.

What's new in your world?


Sluggy