Thoughts in The Random Fashion

** First off, here are the fundraiser gift baskets from last week(or was it the week before that one?) after I finished arranging/decorating them....

The Band Competition was last Sunday so the baskets are gone!  I hope they raised some $$$s.

Our Band did well at that Competition.
Tonight is the 1st Play-off Game for the Football team......can you hear me saying "Oh Goody!"?lol
So the Band has to march and play tonight.  The Band is hoping the team loses so that this is the last Football game they have to attend.  Nights are just too bone chillingly cold here to be outside performing with a metal instrument up to your face.  I have visions of getting a call that my son's tongue is stuck to his flute.

 I'll keep my fingers crossed.....

** Saturday is the State Championships in Hershey.  They did so well this season that they got pushed into the Open Bracket section.  They went from 30th to 9th place in our state's region since the last tournament.
Go them!!
Not sure about how that affects the Band(probably makes their odds of winning anything worse)but #2 Son is bemoaning that now they don't get to stop at Friendly's for lunch on the way down, like they have done since forever.  He will just have to eat nasty "made at home" food on the bus instead.
#2 Son is not amused.....

I think Saturday marks the end of Marching Band Season.
#2 Son has already started with Pitt Orchestra rehearsals.  That's the band for the School's Musical Production which is staged right after Thanksgiving.
Then December they start rehearsals for the Jazz Band and the Concert Band, so 3-4 rehearsals each week continues until the end of December.
Oh, and add in his weekly private music lesson too.
And that doesn't begin to address the academics and studying for the SAT he's taking on December 1.
I can't wait for January!

** I haven't been on Ancestry or Find A Grave dotcom in over a week!  Weird, huh?
Cemetery walking Season is coming to a close as the temperatures drop and the snow starts to fall.
I just felt a need to lay off the dead people for awhile.  I'm sure the feeling was mutual on their end as well.   I'll be back at it sometime soon.


** If you look at my Blog Roll you may find new Blogs there in the coming days/weeks.  I have dropped a couple that have fallen off the face of the Internet and added a few, in my vain attempt to stay relevant and "hip".   You will find all kinds of folks on my Blog Roll because that's how my Blog Roll rolls.
If you have a blog you enjoy, feel free to drop me a note about it.  I am always excited to find a new morsel....

** I did go through my Christmas box this week......

The things I pick up over the year when I spy a great deal go into this box.  Sometime in November I pull it out(the box silly!)and dig through the goodies.  I make little piles of gifties for each person I buy for at the Holidays.  Here's some of it spread out over the bed.....

The Christmas/Gift box has changed over the years.  It use to be many boxes worth of stuff and eventually, when the kids were young and I had many more friends, family members, as well as teachers, professional contacts and others to gift, the Christmas Box was a whole darned closet!
That's when I came to my senses and put a stop to shopping on this level.  Now that I'm not buying toys, nor expensive electronics, the Christmas box is at a small manageable level.

Most of what I pick up for cheap/free gets used as Stocking Stuffers.  More and more of what I pick up is consumables or "needs" based because, really, how many useless tchotchkes does one human have to have?  The lot above consists of socks, combs, brushes, more socks, bath salts, incense, more socks, gum, candy, more socks, snacks, humorous pasta, and yes, more socks!

I take a grocery store bag for each person I gift and dump everything for that person in that bag and label it.
The few things I wrap for 'stand alone' gifts get bagged together and once I drag out the gifts bags, wrapping paper and Furoshiki cloths, I'll attend to them at that time.  For now, it all goes back into the Christmas box once it's all bagged.
I've pretty much got all the kids and Hubs stocking goodies completed.  A couple of gift cards to procure and I'm done with that.

The few presents I'll buy for under the tree won't require a trip to the mall, that's for sure!

** And I know it's the Christmas Season without looking at a calendar.
I just have to look into my mailbox.....

Why does it have to be that if you buy a few things online, you get on everyone's stupid catalog mailing list?
I had just about gotten the superfluous barrage of Holiday Catalogs down to a lone LL Bean one a couple of years ago.
And then I went and bought some unmentionables for me and for Hubs from Hanes and BAMM!.....we are back on the lists.
bleh.

I have a new Holiday Tradition I'll be instituting here at Don't Read This; It's Boring! this Christmas Season.
Look for my new Weekly Feature called "STUPID CRAP PEOPLE REALLY BUY" next week!
And feel free to send me your submissions.  While I feel there will be no end to the stupid crap I find to post about, my readers imput is always encouraged and looked forward to.  8-)

 

Sluggy

The Good, The Bad & The Not-So-Pretty

First the good.....
If you haven't seen this on my Facebook already, #2 son's Marching Band had a big regional tournament Sunday in Hershey PA.  The band performed very well and they won their Division!  In addition they were awared top honors in 4 individual areas.

I am so glad to see them do well finally.  Our Band Parent's Association hosts one of the big local Tourneys at the high school.  Our band finished last in the 'open' division at that.  Our band is very small.  Our band gets next to zero $s from the school district, so the parents are saddled with most of the costs to cloth, host competitions, travel to competitions, etc.  This lack of resources puts our band at a large disadvantage next to other schools who have much larger parent associations as well as more funding.  We usually compete in the open division but with the big glitzy bands the kids have to compete with, they never finish very high up the food chain.

There is one local band that we have a David and Goliath type competition with.....to put it into GLEE SPEAK(for those of you who are "gleeks", we are New Directions and we compete with Vocal Adrenalin.
And after working the tourney our band hosts and seeing the directors and parents and the kids in this Goliath band up close and personal, I can honestly say that most of them that I have had to deal with are NOT very nice people.  They are rude, the universe revolves around them and their needs, and they have no class.
So seeing as we really can't compete on an equal footing with the Mega-Bands, we now compete in a different division.  And it seems to be paying off.

Speaking of people who think the universe revolves around them.....
We are having large problems with our Daughter.  She has always been too smart for her own good.  Getting good grades, etc. has been a nice result.  But she has "too big for her britches" syndrome and has had it for the last 5 years or so.  She feels she is the center of the universe and she treats other people(her family)like dog poo....unless of course, she wants something from you, and then she treats you nice until she gets her way.  She no longer wishes to be associated with our family except for us to do for her and give her her own way in things.  She doesn't feel the need to respect her parents or her siblings, or to lift a finger to help the family.  It's all a big she takes and we give.

If fact, she is making life so stressful for her parents and her younger brother when she is home that we are at the point that once she turns 18 next month, she may be asked to find someplace else to live.
I love my Daughter and I thought we could make the current living situation work well enough to get her graduated and off to college(which would have her NOT living here then), but I'm not so sure we can make it until June.  My health is suffering and she is becoming verbally abusive toward me.
Unfortunately we don't have any family locally who we can pack her off to for awhile until things cool off or she grows up a tad so I don't know what you are going to do.

In other news.....Daughter got her acceptance to Ohio State today.  I have no clue WHY she applied there.  We aren't big OH football fans and we don't live in Ohio.lol
But she did and she got in.
We are still waiting for the "yeah" or "ney" from the one school we haven't heard back from....Penn State.
Hopefully soon.

I have reopened my eBay store for the Holidays. SSP(aka Shameless Self Promotion) link is HERE.

I'm hoping even with the economy and the sluggishness of eBay, I can unload some goodies to the Holiday buyers.  I am concentrating on listing toys and collectibles since it's the gift buying time of year.  Even with this heavy stuff at Christmas someone might overlook the shipping expense more and I can get some of these large weighty items outta here!lol
At any rate, my living room and dining room now looks like a postal warehouse has exploded in there with all the bubble wrap, boxes and merchandise everywhere.  Throw in a few boxes loaded with fabric since I store those in there and it's such a lovely sight.lol

The one thing that all my years doing eBay has done for me?  It has made me an expert at re-cutting and gerryrigging boxes for shipping.  Now, if there was some industry where I could put this skill to work for me as a career....besides eBay that is.lol


I cleaned the interior of my minivan on Sunday.  It was LOOOOOONG overdue!  For the past 2 years I have told the kids that if they wanted to make some extra money that cleaning my car was tops on that list and the money was available at any time should they undertake that chore.
2 years and it was still undone.
So I hauled out the vacuum cleaner, clorox wipes, windex and newspaper and just got it done before winter weather sets in.

Saturday was the last day to qualify for the Thanksgiving Deal at the local independent grocery store.  If you spent a minimum of $300 in 5 weeks' time you got a $15 gift certificate.  It wasn't even a free bird deal but the best thing going in these parts.
I made a run to the grocery store Saturday evening and we ended the qualifying period with $115 in purchases....so not EVEN halfway to the amount we needed to spend to get that $15 certificate.
Oh well.
Last year I ended up doing the Price Chopper Turkey Deal....spend $25 in one transaction and get a free bird.
This year Price Chopper has upped the ante tho....spend $50 in one transaction and get a free bird.
Egads!
Doubled the qualifying price!!
And I don't even like turkey so I am so not liking this deal and tempted to eat chicken this year instead.lol

That's about it for now from  my corner of the world.
What's new in yours?

Sluggy

Randomness on a Saturday

As I sit here contemplating one last run up to Rite-Aid before the September Single Check Rebate Period ends this evening, I've got some randomness on my mind to share.

Well, one thing I won't share since I'm expanding my thoughts on it into a full blown blog post all it's own.
I know, I know.....you can't wait for that, but you will have to. ;-)

* First I want to thank everyone who left comments on the passing of our BAGEL(Beagle/Basset Mix) Hound, Peanut.  Your heartfelt words were very much appreciated and touched me deeply even if I wasn't able to email and thank each one of you.
Peanut & I butted heads alot due to both of our rather large passive/aggressive streaks but he added joy to our family when he wasn't eating us out of house and home.  The photo above was one of the last ones taken of him before he left us.  It's fitting that he's sporting a rather large drool bubble on the left side of his muzzle(on the right facing the photo).  Though he was crippled and incontinent and half-deaf, in true Peanut style he NEVER lost his appetite when there was food around.   The week or so before he died he had resorted to opening up the cabinet where the trashcan was located.  #1 son always said Peanut was an idiot savant of the Dog World....dumb as a mud fence but when it came to food, he was a genuis.  ;-)

* Let me say that I sure didn't expect the negative reactions to THIS POST earlier this week.  I received quite a few hateful comments for my unvarnished honesty about my feelings on the subject.  Everyone has their own opinion and that's what makes the world go round, right?
I'm cool with diverse opinions but....when you call me evil and a witch, how can I not feel a tad unloved?
Fortunately for me, I moderate all comments(due to spamming issues) so those comments won't be published. 
However, if the commentators in question would like to step up and not hide behind posting as "Anonymous", I am more than willing to put through their comments.
Sluggy ain't afraid of being called an ass as long as I know who is doing the calling. ;-)

* Tomorrow after harvesting yet MORE tomatoes and a few other things, we'll be putting some of the garden to bed for the year.  Basically all that's left in the garden is the aforementioned tomatoes, collard greens, peppers(red bells, roastings, jalapenos)and the butternut squashes.  Most of the fences will be coming down and some of the compost moved into the beds that we clear.  I will leave the collards until the 1st frost because every Southern gal knows that collards left to harvest until after a frost are sweeter and tastier.....

I'm also hoping to get some cleaning done Sunday while the manly men are home to help me with the heavy lifting and moving part of it.  Plus get some things into Hubs trunk so he can make a Salvation Army run this week.

* I'm waaay ahead of schedule for this coming week with my Meal Plan.  Between the meals we changed up this week and didn't fix/eat and the meal ideas I listed already using what we have on hand, I've got 10 meals now for the family to choose from.
And I really hope there is a good deal soon on pork here since I am down to my last package and it would be a good way to use those OYNO of meat Cats I need to use this coming week at Weis.

* I guess my "Call for PA Bloggers" was a raging failure, as I haven't heard a peep from anyone.  I have 2 local/sort of local PA blogs I follow.  Go check them out......HERE and HERE. 
Strictly Deal Bloggers who cover most stores in PA and are located around Philly are HERE and HERE.

* I just found out yesterday that my mother's family's Yearly Family Reunion is/was being held today/Saturday.  Would have been nice to have had some advance notice.  Oh well....
It's not like we could have attended anyway.  We are in the midst of Marching Band Season here so most Fridays and Saturdays are full up.  Fridays for football games and Saturdays for band tournaments.  Today #2 son is down near Quakertown PA for a tourney.  Hubs is driving the prop/equipment truck and I get to stay home with the doggies since Daughter is working and the pups can't go all day without food, water and toileting.  Just me and doggies....Do I have to mention that it's been a nice quiet day here?lol

Have a nice Sunday and I'll be talking to ya'll on Monday!

Sluggy