The Good & The Bad Around Chez Sluggy Lately

Here are some updates on things going on around Chez Sluggy that aren't a full post worth.

* The Senior Recital was good.
The stage was decorated for the Holidays.

College Boy before his first piece.  He was so nervous....can you tell? lolz

This is his friend Emily, who he had his recital with.  Performance majors get a solo recital but tech and ed students share a recital.

Here is College Boy and Emily performing one of their duets.

Preparing to take their bows with the accompanist Linda.

Relieved it's all over with finally!!!

College Boy with his flute profession/teacher, Mrs. Christine Moulton.

Another photo of the performers.

College Boy and Emily.

Another pose with a borrowed flute(I bet he would have sounded even better with his own flute)but it needed repairs.

 The proud mama......

 And the proud papa......

* Hubs got a phone call from his brother in SC yesterday.  It's only been two weeks since his sister moved there and there is already trouble in paradise.  They are butting heads.  The brother isn't helping matters by telling her "I told you so" about decisions she had in the past.  And he is being not very compassionate with her otherwise.  It's two old people(68 and just shy of 61)who are set in their ways and use to having their own way and living alone having to make concessions.  Hubs told them they need to work it out.  If the brother throws her out she'll have to go to social services and/or a homeless shelter.  She has problems beyond getting along with her brother(a touch of ungratefulness for what folks have done for her)and she can't come here.  Our plate is full but I can't help but have a worry in the back of my mind that things will get ugly before they get better(IF they get better).

* Christmas is quickly closing in on us.  Hubs picked up College Boy on Thursday(another long ride in a cargo van for him).  Daughter finished up exams Friday evening and now her back is giving her problems again.  She is trying to fit an injection in before the end of December(which would be better on our insurance than having it done in January).  This means more medical bills for us. 8-(
I still don't know when the eldest son will be arriving to spend Christmas with us yet.  Next weekend or ???  This will be the first time since 2012 I think since all three kids have all been here for the Holidays.  Daughter moved in 2013 and I don't think eldest has been home for Christmas since then either.

* I haven't made any cookies yet for Christmas!  Last year I went on a cookie making binge and made 7 different types........

Lemon Gooey Butter Cookies
Coconut Macaroon Cookies
Peanut Butter w/PB M&Ms Cookies
Mint Chocolate Chip Cookies
Italian Ricotta Cookies
Butterscotch Cashew Cookies
Chocolate Chip w/M&Ms Cookies

So many cookies and I ended up throwing out so many!  I guess we aren't big cookie eaters here......well, Eldest wasn't home so that was one less muncher to take care of them.

Last year's Cookie Tray.

* I hit Weis(PMITA)Markets on Friday and Lord!, there goes the December budget. lololz  I don't think I can face tallying up my food spending for the month now.  It's probably not as bad as I think it is(or not?lol).  At least I have my rolled coins, rebates and post coupon envelopes to add and offset this extra spending.  I did pick up a few deals.....Eight O'Clock coffee after stacked Qs and BOGO were $1.24 a bag, more Hershey's Crunch Layer candy for $1 a bag, 2 lb. Hatfield slow cooker roasts were on sale $5(Reg. $8 each)and two that had Tuscan Herb marinate in them had $3 off instant stickers so those cost me $2 per roast($1 per lb.).  I also got a "special deal" on a bag of Huggies diapers....on sale for $6.99 this week and I had stacked $3 in Weis bookletQ and ManuQs so suppose to be $3.99.  I guess I had clipped a digital Q on Weis' website because that came off too(and explains why the register wouldn't take my ManuQ and she had to manually put it through), so another $2 discount making them $1.99 OOP.  I can sell these for $5.50 locally so a few extra bucks to throw at the food budget when I do.  Woohoo! ;-)
I also got baby back ribs for $3 lb.(half price for us locally)which I am cooking up tonight for dinner.

* The cards for Sonya are starting to roll in.  Not too late to contact me and send her a note still.  I want to get these boxed up and sent our the day after Christmas I think, so she gets them in time for her Birthday. 
Consider sending her a cheery note your Christmas Good Deed.  You just don't know how much doing this will help until you've been in a dark place yourself. 
Email me for the address where to send a card.

Ok, I need to go check on dinner and put Chester out.  That dog is turning out to be a snow demon....he LOVES racing through the snow!!

When he isn't sound asleep upside down in his doggy bed......... ;-)


Sluggy

The Past 10 Days or So at Chez Sluggy

Well the "Great American Eclipse" came and went a week ago Monday.
Here in my part of PA we only got 72% totality.......

This photo was taken at our peak(2:41 pm).  Instead of looking like 2:41 in the afternoon it sort of looked like 4:41 in the afternoon. lolz

Daughter's dog in her usual spot chilling under my desk on Tuesday.

On Wednesday it was time to load College Boy up and take him back to school.  He had an audition on Thursday so he needed to be back and unpacked on Wednesday.

This semester he is sharing an apartment that two friends of his(sisters)rent.
He will only be there for 1 semester so this was the best situation for both him and me(me financially).  It is soooo much cheaper than being in a dorm! 8-)))
Since it is a 2 bedroom apartment he is getting the living room for his bedroom.
Before his crap......

After his crap......

He had it all organized and set up before going to bed that night.

Hubs took a couple more pics of the apartment........

Actually it's a nice little apartment with a cute kitchen.
Just wait until College Boy starts banging around in there....it won't be so clean and neat. lolz

You can tell a couple of "20 something" gals live here and not guys.  They even had a little garden out back. ;-)

On Friday last week Hubs and I ran errands.  I wanted to see if I was in time to get and can tomatoes this year from the local farm.

I drug out my canning jars and I had 32 quart size ones to use.

Smile calf!
Seems tomatoes are ripening slower than usual here this Summer so we were a couple of weeks early.

 We'll go back after Labor Day, calling first, to pick maters.  We got some corn and zukes while we were there so as not to waste the trip out.

Then we circled back to the town South of here to hit the Weis Fantastic Friday deals there.

The best deal was 4 bags of coffee for .72¢ a bag that I already blogged about.

On the way to the other side of town there I saw this massive furniture store that has been having a "going out of business" sale since before we moved to this area 17 years ago......

And they actually WENT OUT OF BUSINESS finally!!! lolz

It only took what?.....20 years!?!

Then we hit Aldi for a few things.  I gladly left these deep fried Twinkies in the store though.
ick.

Saturday I kept tabs on Hurricane Harvey down in the Gulf as it made landfall in Texas.  Historic levels of rainfall there and flooding!  Surprisingly the death toll has been low considering the size and scope of the flooding and people seem to be pulling together in this crisis.  Next month, when we have some free income I'll consider how best/where to send a check to help.

The rain is slated to crawl up the coast and inland into Louisiana including where our house there is located.
I'll have to reach out to our realtor there to keep tabs on things for us.

Last Sunday I picked the first ripe tomato out of our garden.
Yah!

Hubs also sat down with me lasts Sunday to go over our money situation.  Since the dust had settled on all the retirement things that were up in the air it was time to see where our $ was sitting and see what needing to be moved and where.
We threw a big chunk of the regular savings we have which were in some higher yield(ha! higher!!)online accounts into a CD.  This will earn us double what they'd been earning...almost double of NOTHING but still, it's a little more.  8-(
We still need to keep quite a bit liquid however because A-we have to pay for work on the house in LA still and B-we need to pay for our healthcare premiums(OUCH!)OOP and be reimbursed from our Retiree Medical Savings Account(RMSA).  Hubs still hasn't started the paperwork for that so no clue yet on how long they take to reimburse this expense.  bleh.

On Monday the mail brought this great offer........for a retirement home/senior assisted living.
Not even a free lunch which was offered to tour the facility would get me to go look at it. lololz

I guess if you retire, even if you retire YOUNG, that triggers a slew of old age services to be offered to you via mail and phone.
Oh yes, we are getting phone solicitations too for stuff like this.
I don't think Hubs nor I are decrepit enough yet to need assisted living. 8-(

Also on Monday Hubs and I celebrated our 35th Wedding Anniversary........

We were low key about it, and just went out to Chili's for lunch(using a free gift card we have had for AGES).
Then Hubs snuck out that evening and bought me some flowers and a card at Weis.
35 years.
Now I do feel old enough for the Assisted Living place. lolz

We did some weeding in the yard on Tuesday.

Here is what the flowers out front looked like mid June after the critters stopped nibbling on them.

And they have made a nice recovery by late August.

And I picked some more veggies from the garden-more tomatoes and our only Summer squash.

Now we've started a big project--dealing with the rotting wood under and around our French doors to our deck.
Oy vay!  What a mess!!

Actually Hubs isn't handy and isn't anywhere near qualified to redo this stuff so we are cleaning it out and cobbling something together to keep the elements out for this Fall/Winter and will have to hire someone to do the "real work" on it come Spring as it will be expensive.
Since it will mean replacing some sub flooring in the den too we'll probably go ahead and have the laminate flooring in that room replaced at that time since it needs to be done before we put this house on the market anyway.(There are holes in the flooring, etc.)
If I get ambitious this Winter I'll think about repainting the room as well, since it needs that also.

I always love to when you start to deal with house problems it's always like opening a can of worms and leads to more problems and money that needs to be spent.
Sigh.

I've got to get going here now.....it's Weis(PMITA)Markets Day and a trip to Rite-Aid for an Rx is also in order while I am out.

What's been going on in your world lately?

Sluggy

Stuff Lately

We've had good things and bad things going on here lately......

* Crazy weather!  Snow then temps up to 50F and now snow is on the way later night again.  AND it's suppose to hit 50F again this weekend....crazy and it's a wonder we aren't all sick!

* Last week the Brother in-law and Nephew's apartment had issues.  First their hot water heater sprung a leak and then their heat went out(both are gas appliances).  Nobody else had their heat out in the building but their unit.
So between nephew working and them running to the apartment to wait for workmen to show up they were living here for 2 days.  It's a good thing we had 2 spare beds right now, huh?
And that stack of pizzas I got for real cheap last week sure came in handy to feed extra mouths too.

* Hubs is finally back at work, working from home as he isn't cleared yet to return to the office by his doc.  He has his last physical therapy session the end of this week.  I suspect at his next appointment with the "saw bones" in a month he'll be cleared to return to the office.

If you hear a sonic boom at your house from the cartwheels I'll be turning, don't be alarmed. ;-)
This little episode has confirmed for me that once Hubs does retire he needs to find something to do away from the house!  Kim I just don't know how you stand it....*snort*

And moving to a one level house with a detached garage with an apartment space above it(meaning plumbing and electricity and heat)would be really, really peachy keen!!!
If I can't get him to be away from home with an activity at least with those accommodations I can persuade him to use that apartment space as his office/man cave/whatever and leave the house for hours at a time. 8-)

Even the Daughter has made comments that he is driving HER crazy and she isn't here for long stretches between part time work and school.  I am getting sympathy from her too about putting up with Hubs so I know it's "not me" here. lolz

* Besides just holding things together I've had a mission to reorganize our household files.
I've made great progress going through the files.
Here is pile of stuff I weeded out to pitch.

It filled two grocery bags.

Here is a stack of now empty folders/hanging files.

And here are the papers I still need to file.

This has taken me weeks!  The filing is Hubs' job and I don't think he's filed anything in over a year!!!
Ugh.

* I also have been sorting things in the garage.  Since Hubs' accident in early December I haven't been vigilant about putting groceries away much, meaning there were grocery bags strewn about the garage.  It got to a point where it was a big chore just to find anything out there when it came time to cook, so since the weather has been warmer lately I've gone out there to organize and actually empty grocery bags and put things away on the shelving.

* I also took out shipping boxes that have been piling up since the Holidays and burned them in our fire ring on Monday.  That's been wonderful to get those things out of here too.

* We are suppose to get snow late tonight into Thursday morning.  Hubs can't shovel snow now so it falls to me and Daughter to deal with and we both have back issues so we have to take it slow and careful.  It shouldn't be too bad when she has to leave for school in the morning but then it falls to me to clear the driveway before she gets home around 5pm.  I see a fair amount of Tylenol and shoveling in my future for tomorrow.  8-(

We just have to keep our heads down and push through to Spring and keep on keeping on.

And now you are caught up on the doings at Chez Sluggy.

Sluggy

Goings On Around Chez Sluggy Lately

Oh, where to start.

My drug regime shake up has had some positive results on me.....well, after my angioedema/hives episode happened.
First off I had ENERGY last week!  That's something I've had none of most of this year.
I am actually getting things accomplished that I've wanted to do for months.
Go me.

Last week I........
* Cleaned out my painting supplies(plus washed the tubs I keep these in).
* Cleaned out the pantry
* Cleaned out the cabinet to the left of the stove
* Did some reorganizing in the garage/stockpile
* Cleaned the bookcase next to my desk
* Got together a Food Bank Donation
* Got a Salvation Army Donation ready to go
* Went through some files and purged a bunch of paper
* Cleaned and vacuumed my car(This is something I NEVER do!)

All this was in addition to my usual routine of cooking/laundry/shopping/blogging/etc.

And all this moving around has had me losing weight too, 8 lbs. so far.  I suspect one of the meds I was on that I am now off of was hindering me dropping weight.  Has to be a combo on exercise and off the drug as my food type/intake has not changed at all.

And then Daughter got sick and shared her grunge with me.
Ugh.
This week has been spent in a brain fog and 1 activity.....just trying to be able to breath out of my nose. ;-)
I suspect if this thing doesn't loosen it's grasp on me by Monday I'll be sitting in the Urgent Care early next week.

Another thing I got done last week was to prepare a whole slew of Giveaway boxes......

The open box is for December's Giveaway and the stack contains goodies for 6 Giveaways for 2017.
As long as the blogging ad revenue continues to come in(in drips and drabs)and I can cover the postage to mail these boxes with that tiny income stream(and I get stuff for Free to use as prizes)the Giveaways will continue!
Rah.

So barring catastrophes I am well ahead of the game for at least half of next year on this score.
I just need to figure out where to store these boxes in the house until needed. First world blogger problems, eh? lolz

Putting these boxes together came out of cleaning the dining room.  I had a large box of toiletries in there that needed to be moved out before Thanksgiving as we'll need that room then.  This box was overflow from the toiletries stash in tubs up in Hub's man cave room.  So instead of shoving them goodness knows where in the house and then trying to dig it all out to make up prize boxes for Giveaways I just "got 'er done" now and that potential job is off my plate.  I can just photograph the contents and write up each Giveaway post as needed next year.  I think I have room under the daybed that the dog spends her days napping on in the living room to tuck these away until needed.  This hiding place will be easy to access too.

Here is the Food Bank donation I gathered so far......

Assorted foodstuffs and 10 bottles of shampoo

I'll probably add to the food component before I take this all in next week, as I will be reorganizing the stockpile in the garage some more and will most probably find more "goodies".

And speaking of the garage, next week once I am feeling like myself again I need to concentrate on going through stuff in the garage to donate to charity.  Between the stockpile, Daughter and BF's stuff and all my old eBay selling days stuff out there it's just too, too much in there and I am ready to let go of more crap!

I want to do at least another 4 Salvation Army donations before the end of the year(not counting the one ready to go this weekend).  I've still got lots of new/unused toys and gift wear and this is the time of year that sort of stuff is highly sought after for gifting in the charity stores.
I'd rather donate and take the tax write-off(if we hit the threshold this year-last year we didn't)than spend lots of time and energy on eBay attempting to sell it.
There are a few items if I get the "umph" that I will try to sell....mostly items I know I can get a good price for(to make the hassle worthwhile).

Ok, I am off to breath and maybe get some more cleaning/organizing done today.
Oh, and a trip to Rite-Aid too if I can sustain some energy long enough to do that. 8-)))

What are y'all up to today?

Sluggy

Stuff Lately

As August winds down(hey! it's the 31st today)here are the things going on lately at Chez Sluggy.....

* We got College Boy back to school this past weekend........

I was more hands-off this year on this one, as CB wanted to handle things himself.
This meant that I only spent $ on a couple of kitchen sponges and printer ink cartridges on the back-to-school shopping. $100 or less for back to school shopping?  I'll take it! 8-)
 The rest of his needs were acquired from my various stockpiles(food/toiletries/office supplies/etc.).

The down side was that he forgot to take a goodly amount of articles that he'll be needing....like his concert shoes, mattress memory foam pad and his printer cables.
sigh.

And he lost his wallet but didn't notice until the morning he was to leave which meant an extra hour delay in leaving and he was trying to find it.(He did and he left it in his bandmates car the night before.)  I have threatened him with a wallet/belt chain for the wallet for Xmas.

The good news is he got to school in time for his Wind Ensemble audition and he aced that so got a chair in the Ensemble for this year.

* The garden--
All this was harvested in the last week..........

7.43 lbs. of tomatoes and another of the acorn squash(22.8 oz.)brings my Garden Harvest to 19.93 lbs. of goodies.

The bulk of those tomatoes are now in the freezer wanting for cooler weather so I can can them then.

I spent a morning here.........

Daughter had a treatment and I had to drive her there and back.

Lunch at a Chinese Buffet may or may not have been involved in this "treatment" afterwards.....

A medical appointment was how I spent my morning on Monday, well most of it was spent waiting.
It took 3 months to get this appointment and now my treatment is in the hands of a specialist and all my meds are being turned on their ears.
It's a whole new ballgame as I begin a new journey down the healthcare system.
yay.......8-(
Perhaps this anointed one will have some answers.

* Anxious to see the end of the month August financials tomorrow on the 1st of September.  It won't be pretty I know but it's better to face it than hide from it, right?  September won't be tons better in the saving category since property taxes(half of them)are due next month.  The grocery budget is still kicking my ass but with College Boy away at school the numbers should look a bit better.

Speaking of CB, I can't wait to go  dig out his bedroom. *insert eye roll here*

So I am off to the grocery store for cheap facial tissues and coffee and then to Rite-Aid for my monthly med pick-up plus all these new ones that were ordered.  I might even pick-up something for free while I am at R-A.
Hey, how could I not?  8-)

So what's going on in your world?

Sluggy

In the Garden & Other Stuff Around Chez Sluggy

* Hubs checked the garden on Saturday before he mowed the lawn and found this lurking beneath the massive Zucchini plant leaves.......

This weighed in at 2.5+ pounds and makes the 4th zuke we've harvested from the garden.  The poor zuke plants must be exhausted since we've forced them to produce these behemoths.
Bad garden keepers......

We also started to see this occurring in the garden late last week.........

First one and then a second tomato started turning red, finally!!!

We are up to 13 tomatoes turning as of yesterday morning.

As I haven't picked any tomatoes yet I haven't counted them in our Harvest Totals, but that monster zuke's weight brings us up to almost 10.5 lbs. of produce from the garden for the season.
Not bad for a haphazard effort on our part. 8-)

* Remember that medical refund check from Louisiana that no one bothered to sign so we couldn't cash it?

If you will recall they said to send it back(and it was endorsed already)so they could sign it.
It arrived back to us, signed this time, on Friday.

After taking Daughter to her medical procedure I "tried" to deposit it into our credit union account after she signed it over to me.
The clerk at the CU refused to take it!
She said they would only let me deposit it if Daughter's name was on our account....which it is not.
Really?  Are you kidding me???

I may be crazy but when the kids were little and their relatives, on the few occasions they did this, would sent them birthday or Xmas checks I'd have to cash/deposit those checks at my bank/cu because they didn't have bank accounts.
Who didn't do that, right?

So I went literally across the street to a bank where I have a small account and asked to deposit the check and they took it.
Yeah this may be this particular cu's policy but WTF?!?

Guess who is closing out a credit union account soon and moving all that money to the bank across the street? ;-)))

* When Daughter and I went to Virginia for a visit I signed up online to the Rewards Club for a bbq place we like.  My brother said I was suppose to get a $15 off YNO Q for doing so.  Well, after signing up we went into the restaurant, as it said online we could pick up our rewards card and $ off Q then.
Nope.  The card and Q come in the mail later.

Fast forward a month to mid August and my Q arrives in the mail last week......

And it expires Sept. 15th.
crap
That was a waste of time, huh?
So I mailed it to my brother so at least he can take advantage of the offer.

* I've been grocery shopping hot and heavy lately and am about out of food money for August.
I've spent $101+ so far this week but I've gotten some good deals.  Maine Source had a $5 off a $50 order so we took advantage of that and picked up sale items like fresh local produce(eggplant, cauliflower, cuke, tomato and watermelon), bulk ground chuck, 5 lb. bag of mozzarella shreds, and a case of paper plates(now I don't have to buy those for about 1.5-2 years)plus milk which is never on sale in PA.  I hit the bread store for more bread too.

Plus we ran into Price Chopper for BF's Powerade and cold cuts and I found these marinated flank steaks marked down with $2 off Instant stickers.

The markdown stickers got these down to just under a $3 lb. price point and I'll pay that all day long for steak.  8-)

* Then the house property tax reassessment arrived from Louisiana.

Since Daughter no longer owns or lives in the property and she got a homestead exemption for living there, the parish(local taxing entity)has taken off the exemption since Hubs and I don't live in it as our primary residence.  We knew that was coming.

You can get an exemption on the first $75K worth of value on your property if it's your primary residence,  which meant Daughter was paying only $150 or so on property taxes each year.

Surprisingly the parish reassessed the value of the property about $20K lower than what it had been when Daughter owned it so our property taxes will only go up to about $400 a year on the house/land.

This was good news even though I knew LA has some of the lowest state property taxes in the country.
By comparison we pay over $4 THOUSAND a year on this house in PA.  And we still don't get much in the way of goods and services for that(including no municipal garbage or sewage).
We do have higher than average government corruption up in NEPA compared to SWLA so that's part of why we pay so much more. ;-)  I really don't mind paying the school tax component of our property taxes in PA since our school district is rated this year as the highest/best in our area of PA.....but the rest of it, well it's a crime and a ripoff.

* We have decided to ditch the third/College Boy's car.  It started acting up again last week and Hubs and I really can't justify dumping more cash into it, plus the car insurance bill payment is due by the end of August.
If we ditch the car, we ditch that bill and all those repairs.
And CB will be away at school mostly until next May and if/when he works here during school breaks in 2016/2017 and the rest of his Summer break now(he's got 1 day left of Summer work)he doesn't need a car and can borrow mine.

He is required to do an internship Spring of his senior year(he's an incoming junior this Fall)so he WILL need a vehicle in about 1.5 years for that but this current shit car is not something I feel comfortable sending him off to parts unknown in for this internship as we have no clue how far from home this will require him to be.
So this current car's expenses are unnecessary at this point and we can make do with him borrowing my car when needed for the next 1 to 1.5 years.
This extra $400+ in a 6 month car insurance payment will really help out my August spending totals too.  August spending has kicked my ass and HARD! 8-(
But this means we'll need to purchase another beater car in the future, so I'll start putting money aside earmarked for that purchase.  When CB finishes college this will give him a car to get to work in and not have to worry about buying a car for a few years and let him save up for a down payment.
But it's always something with kids, huh?

Ok I am off to rub a butt(Hey! minds out of the gutter!)and get it into the smoker and then go pay the last bills for August so I can begin closing out the books on the month.

Sluggy