This Week on the Dining Table

It's the "Finishing the Yardwork" Edition--

This was the last week of unseasonably warm weather here in NE PA so a chunk of it was spent outside raking and disposing of the leaves.  I helped Hubs this year and was immediately reminded why I don't rake leaves......the nose and eyes started running and/or tearing because I am allergic to dead leaves!
bleh.
But we got it done anyway.

Onward to the meal planning!

Here's what was planned last week.......

1. Sunday--Leftover Ravioli w/Meat Sauce, sauted Cabbage(leftover from the Cole Slaw head)
2. Monday--Pan Grilled Chicken w/sauce, Spinach Salad, leftover Corn Casserole
3. Tuesday--Leftover Spaghetti w/meatballs, Caesar Salad
4. Wednesday--Kielbasa on Rolls, leftover Beets
5. Thursday--Tacos or Taco Salad
6. Friday--Tuna Noodle Casserole or Broiled Rock Fish(depending on my mood), Tossed Salad, ?
7. Saturday--Leftovers of some kind

And this is what actually happened--

1. Sunday--Leftover Ravioli w/Meat Sauce, sauted Cabbage(leftover from the Cole Slaw head)
2. Monday--Pan Grilled Chicken w/sauce, Spinach Salad, leftover Corn Casserole
3. Tuesday--Leftover Spaghetti w/meatballs, Garlic Bread
4. Wednesday--Kielbasa on Rolls w/Onions, Harvard Beets planned-over
5. Thursday--Fend for Yourself Night(Hubs at Spaghetti, I had Broccoli Soup)
6. Friday--Tacos or Taco Salad
7. Saturday--Hubs had leftover Spaghetti, I had leftover Broccoli Soup

Mostly adhered too, except that Tuna Casserole thing and I made a pot of Broccoli Cheddar Soup.

As for my grocery spending last week......Weis, Bread Outlet and loss leaders at a local market in town South of us saw my food spending last week come to $48.53.  Then I went to Weis again for Purex to donate to the food bank and found all those meat discount stickers....what to do, what to do? lolz  That $77.39 trip brought the November grocery spending to a total of $125.92.  I still have $174.08 left in the $300 food budget for the month.

Leftovers going into this week....taco filling, broccoli soup and corn casserole.  That's it.

Here is this week's "food plan"--

1. Sunday--Roast Chicken with Carrots, Onions, Potatoes, Cauliflower, Broccoli
2. Monday--Garlic Honey Shrimp w/stir-fry Veggies, Rice
3. Tuesday--Dinner Out(on gift certificate)
4. Wednesday--Meatballs Subs, Caesar Salad
5. Thursday--Leftovers
6. Friday--Tuna Casserole, Brussels Sprouts
7. Saturday--Leftovers

What I need to buy for this menu?.........nothing really since I bought the stir-fry veg last week. I have the whole chicken, shrimp, meatballs all in the freezer and assorted other fixings in the pantry already.  I have hoagie rolls to use up and meatballs in the freezer that Wednesday's meal is a given. ;-)

Even though I don't "need" anything this week, I will still go to the grocery stores this week to get more loss leaders for me(facial tissue, butter, salmon)and for the food bank(mayo, tuna, pasta sauce, pasta)plus anything that pops up as a LL with the new Weis ad on Thursday.

What is getting fixed and served at your house this week?

Was last week's plan successful, did you go off plan or did you not even plan what was going to be eaten last week?

Any great deals on food at your stores this week?

Sluggy

Gifting Gone Bad

I dearly love my friend and cousin Sonya Ann, however.......
Let this be a warning to you all.

Never let a non-beer drinker buy your beer!

Sonya Ann was a sweetie on our recent trip to visit her and went out and bought us some "special" beer.....a seasonal variety pack of Shock Top brewing brand.

But unfortunately Sonya Ann does NOT drink beer.
This means her estimation of what is "good" beer does not necessarily jive with what a beer drinker considers "good" beer.

After we returned from our Friday fish fry dinner Sonya shoved a bottle of the beer she had bought for us to enjoy on this trip into my hands.
Yes, I was to be the guinea pig......

You can see that video of me drinking it HERE.

Personally I feel sorry for Den since he'll have to drink all this beer whether he likes it or not. lolz

And I'll add that I made a bonehead move myself in the giving someone booze category.
See this bottle of fairly expensive cream liqueur that you can only buy in Virginia?

I brought a bottle of this on the trip as a gift for Sonya Ann......totally forgetting that Sonya is lactose intolerant.
Yep, stupid me, right?
I guess Den ends up drinking this one too. lolz

The Moral of the Story here is that friends shouldn't buy friends booze.

Sluggy

Highway Robbery in Illinois' Toll Hell

Visiting Sonya Ann recently meant traveling into and through the great state of Illinois, specifically around the Chi-town area.

I have decided after this trip that the Illinois Tollway System is the biggest PITA I have ever experienced!
It is confusing and designed to make you, the user, have an aneurysm or a stroke if you don't live in Illinois and have an I-Pass account.

I-Pass is the Illinois toll paying account for using Illinois toll roadways.  If you are from the East it's the same thing as an EZ-Pass.  You have a transponder in your car and you load your account to pay for tolls electronically instead of having to stop at a toll booth and pay the old fashioned way, with cash monies.

Since we don't use many toll roads in our daily life(nor in our traveling life for personal use)neither Hubs or I have an EZ-Pass.
It works for us fine everywhere we go, except for THIS trip to Illinois!

Not only is the price of gasoline in this area sky high, they also extort you every few miles on the roadways by requiring you to pay tolls on the major roadways.

We stopped at each toll booth on our trip home through the tollway maze that is suburban Chicago, and paid with cash and got a receipt(I ALWAYS get receipts at toll booths when traveling, without fail!).
From entering Illinois until almost leaving the ChiTown area we paid $30.00 in tolls!
This included $2.80 toll when we mistakenly kept going down a road that turned into a toll road before we saw the sign on the way back from Milwaukee on an excursion.

Compared to the $15.75 it cost to cross the breadth of Ohio via the Turnpike or the $8.20 it cost to cross the breadth of Indiana on it's Tollway, just tooling around the Chicago 'burbs cost us $30+ in tolls!
Now which of these was the worst deal, huh?

We paid $30 in tolls while in Northern Illinois except we needed to pay $31.50.

When we were driving home and left I-294 to get onto I-57 to Southern IL there was NO toll booth!
You could only pay with I-Pass as you left at Toll Plaza 42 to get onto I-57.

Even in Indiana which is notorious for unmanned toll booths(on some less traveled exits)there may not be a person to take your cash but they have machines to insert cash and get change.
But this no toll booth deal was new to us.....

As you drove down this stretch of I-294 toward the exit in question, they had many signs on this stretch of roadway about having 7 days from the date of not paying this toll to go online to pay this toll or else some nefarious fate would befall you......

Way to go Illinois!  Make your visitors feel all warm and fuzzy inside why dontcha!

So I sat down a couple of days ago at my computer and attempted to go online and pay this toll the state of Illinois forced us to not pay by not having a means to pay for out of state visitors who didn't foresee the need to have an I-Pass account.

Let me just say that if the traffic and congestion on the roads outside of Chicago isn't enough to cause you to foam at the mouth then trying to pay a "missed" toll in this clusterf**k of a system is!!!

First off, you have to remember the actual toll exit number/gate/plaza you didn't pay at. 
Who the hell traveling from somewhere else has the presence of mind to commit to memory a toll plaze/exit number? lol
Of course, I DO recall many signs at the time with the AMOUNT we were suppose to pay but can't recall a single sign with a toll number for that spot.
Great!

All the signage on the roadway at the time said the toll due in question was .75¢.
And once I figured out the Toll Number 35 minutes after starting this process on their website, I discovered that the .75¢ is only if you pay through an I-Pass account.  The cash rate is $1.50.  None of the signs on the roadway at that time said anything about a higher cash rate until you go onto the IL website.
Thanks for giving only half the information!

So I have finally gotten this thing paid and can sleep at night without worrying the authorities from Illinois DOT will come kidnap me from my bed.

But really, I have to ask......WHY set up a system that attempts to trick out of state drivers into breaking your highway laws by not providing a system for said drivers to pay their highway usage fees at the time of use?
Next time I need to drive South from Chicago 'burbs I'll go west and THEN South on non-toll roads and avoid this Toll Hell!

So the moral of this story is the Highway Robbery & Chicanery is alive and doing quite well in Northern Illinois.
But then again I shouldn't be surprised as Chicago has a long held and hard-earned reputation as a World Capital of Thievery and Political Shenanigans......

Sluggy

More Shopping?....Can it Be??

I decided yesterday that I need to get a food bank donation together.  I guess I get that "bug" this time of year. 8-)

So I went to Weis(PMITA)Markets on Friday because in the new sales ad they have Purex laundry detergent for $1.99 a jug and I thought this would be an awesome thing to get to donate at the local food bank.

I perused the sales ad online before going up to the store and gathered some coupons for other items I might want to buy.
Well I came home with a car full of deals....woohoo!

I made one of my videos about the trip and you can view it on my Youtube page HERE.

Let me just say that I used the words, AWESOME and RIDICULOUSLY EXPENSIVE a lot! lolz

I forgot to mention on the video that besides the $4 Rebate the Purex qualified me to receive, I also finished up the $5 Rebate for the "Seasonal Care Package" items(Dial, Scotties, Soft Scrub, etc.).
$9 back in my pocket on this trip!

$77.39 OOP on $164.75 worth of goods.
And .20¢ gas points thrown in.

Anyhow, I've got laundry detergent, shampoo, organic boxed mac and cheese, barbecue sauce, peanut butter and cold cereal so far to donate.  In the coming weeks I'll use some of my grocery money to pick up other good deals at the store to add to this lot.

Sluggy

November Fall Giveaway is OPEN!

Can it be.....another Sluggy Giveaway?!?

Fall and cooler weather has finally arrived so it's time to dust off the Boring Blog Box Giveaway.

This is Giveaway #5 for the year.

And it's a "November Girlie" box of goodies!  8-)

Check it out..........

1 x bag of Ghirardelli dark chocolate/mint chocolates
1 x Nivea body wash
1 x Simple face scrub
1 x Revlon emery boards
1 x mesh scrubby puff
1 x Conair hairbrush
1 x Maybelline mascara (blackish brown)
1 x Cover Girl eye shadow palette(either for Hazel/green eyes or brown eyes-you only get 1)
1 x Cover Girl blush palette
1 x  sample Neosporin anti-itch cream
1 x Rite-Aid nail clippers
1 x Scunci bobby pins and hair elastic bands
1 x Glad candle
6 x nail polishes(Sally Hansen to NYC to Cover Girl brands)yellow, teal, brown, deep blue, deep purple, magenta purple

I'll leave this giveaway open until November 21st, Saturday, at 11:59pm, so that gives everyone a full 2 weeks to enter this one.  The next day I'll put all the valid entried into a container and draw out a name and that person wins.


You may get ONE ENTRY per Day by leaving a comment on this blog post until the Giveaway ends.

To get BONUS entries---

* Post about my Giveaway on your own Blog,  on Facebook on Twitter or some other Forum you frequent with a link to your post.  This will earn you 2 additional entries for each action and you can do this once during the course of this giveaway(8 entries total if you post on all four platforms).  Please leave 2 additional comments on this blog post for each additional Bonus entry you have earned.

* Become a Follower of this Blog to get 1 more entry.(Hit the "Join This Site" Button at the top right side of this blog).  Of course if you already Follow my Blog, leave a comment ascertaining that fact for 1 more entry.

Please leave a comment if you become a Follower or are a Follower already and give me your ID/name on there so I can verify it.

* Join the Bloggers United Federation if you have a blog to get 1 more entry.  Leave a comment saying you want to join up with your blog addy and I'll hook you up.

(All members who have already joined the BUF will of course get 1 Bonus entry as well but they need to leave a comment to get it.)

  Disclaimer--This giveaway is open to those with mailing addresses within the US or Canada only.
If you are in Canada, you will receive a smaller box of goodies, as the shipping rates internationally are ridiculous and I am not taking out a mortgage on my house to pay to ship this stuff.  ;-)

**
If you need this shipped to Canada, I'll have to change the box and it's contents a bit.  I can ship a plain box weighing up to 3lbs. via 1st class mail, which, while much more than the flat rate Priority to US addys, is still affordable.  These prize boxes usually weigh 7 or more lbs. when full, so if the winner is in Canada, I'll let them pick and choose which of the items they prefer sent in their box, until the box weighs 3lbs.  I hate to have to do this(not ship ALL prizes to them)but I would hate it even more to exclude them totally from entering the giveaway.

***NOTE***

Please make sure there is a way for me to contact you in your comment.  If you're not a registered Blogger User with your contact information on your User page, please put your email addy in your comment or email me your email addy privately when you leave a comment so I can get ahold of you if you win. If I can't contact you then you can't win.  I have already had one winner disqualified due to this issue and I sure don't want that to happen again.  Thanks!

So let's get this started!

Sluggy