One Goal Met this Fall

Well if nothing else I did achieve one goal this Fall.
I kept the heat off until after the electric bill cut on October 19th.
Go me. 8-)

Since we were still using a/c at the beginning of September or October electric bill came in $42.90 lower.
Once the heat goes on however the electric bill will start that upward trend until next Spring.  Last year our electric usage rose $39.97 from October's bill to November's bill.  If it rises at that same rate this won't be a bad thing, though overall the amount will be higher than what we paid/used in 2015 because it's double the amount of people living here now and sucking up energy from the power grid.

We have had an unusually warm Fall so far with the exception of two nights that dipped down into the 30'sF two weeks back.  Forecasts are calling for possible snow this Saturday night but it won't stick around at this point in the year once the sun shines, if we even get that snow.

I have a stretch goal of keeping the heat turned off until November 1st.  11 more days to go to get to that one but with temperatures in the 30's/40's at night(Tuesday's predicted low is 29!!!)I don't know if Hubs won't want to flip the switch.
I can hold out by putting on my layers but he won't want to.
The kids don't want the heat on yet.  Heck, they have their bedroom window open and both a standing fan and the ceiling fan running in there(which I have to constantly turn off when they leave for the day)!  With all that body heat(plus a large dog),the door always closed so no cross ventilation and all the elctronics hooked up in there dragging the power grid it's no wonder that room is so warm.

It annoys me that I keep having to go behind them and turn things off-fans in their room and random lights when they are the last ones downstairs at night.  Daughter is bad about leaving the deck light on all night when she brings in the dog from her last potty break for the night. ugh.

I am still interested to see how the BF does once we get into Winter temperatures here.  He has never lived anywhere but the Deep South his whole life!  The boy doesn't even own a heavy Winter coat, let alone a hat, gloves, etc.
I wonder how long until he wants to go back to Louisiana.  Any guesses?  ;-)
This should be an adventure......lol

Sluggy

A Little Weis Shopping

Before we start here, these are the cinnamon brooms I spoke of yesterday...........

People buy them and hang them either as is or decorate them with fall items/flowers and then hang them in their homes(a kitchen usually I am guessing?).  Not a pleasant aroma in the Summer heat or when you get 100 or more together giving off fumes in an enclosed space at the store.

Moving on--

Last day of the sale so I hit Weis Wednesday afternoon for a few Deals.........

The Scottie facial tissues were $1 a box this week.  I have a $1/3 IPQ and a .25¢/1 Weis CatalinaQ that stacked with the IPQ so .58¢ per box for 3 boxes.

The San Giorgio pasta was .67¢ a box and with the $1/2 ManuQ in Sunday's paper insert each box cost .17¢.

Weis has a free turkey/ham/etc. Thanksgiving Deal--Spend in $50 increments and receive 10 points per $50 purchase.  50 Points gets you a free meat item, so you need to spend $250 to get the freebie.
OR
Select items(mostly Weis branded items)earn you 10 Points when you buy 5 in one transaction.  This is a less expensive way to earn those Points toward a freebie, especially since most of my shopping trips don't hit $50 in a single transaction.
The bags of noodles, the whipped cream topping and the bag of croutons were among the select items. All but the croutons were also on sale this week.  I needed noodles and croutons and the whipped cream goes in the fridge for Thanksgiving pie action.  Between reaching $50 in spending on this trip and those 5 items(which was $7.89 of my spending total)I received 20 Points today and now have 50 Points to get my freebie.
Yay!

I also bought 10 Powerades for Daughter.  Limit of 10 and they were .57¢ each.  She works in a hot restaurant kitchen on weekends so needs the electrolytes they provide(and has promised to save the caps for me to get points on my Coke Rewards account).  10 bottles were $5.70 minus the $1/4 Weis coupon book Q making these $4.70 OOP or .47¢ each.

The 3 pounds of butter got added to the other 6 pounds I bought earlier this week at a rock bottom price around here of $2.37 lb. (The 6 packages bought earlier in the week got me another 10 Points toward my free meat item.)

I also did the Mix & Match Deal-buy 6 select items, get $3 off instantly.  3 Apple Juices and 3 bags of Croutons(both for the BF)after the discount cost .99¢ each....half price for the croutons and better than half price for the juice.

My last find was 4 packages of Ground Beef(3 80%/1 73%)with $2 off Instant Meat Discount stickers on them.  After discount stickers the packs came to between $2.50 +$2.58 per lb.  The best price around here this week for ground beef. Each package is a little over 1 lb. each so I just popped these into the freezer as is to pull out to use in the future.

After Qs and discounts and sales my total for all this plus more things was $46.57 OOP and I "only" saved 44% over regular retail.
A good trip but I've done much better.  ;-)

Since I got to 50 Points already I'll only be buying the best deals at Weis from now until Thanksgiving.  I'll concentrate my shopping at the Shursave grocery store to try to get to their reward.

Sluggy

Random Stuff

* Do the grocery stores where you shop put out those ultra-smelly "decorative brooms" that are treated with cinnamon oil and smell like an overload of "Fall"?
You know.....the ones that have that overpowering cinnamon smell.
Weis(PMITA)Markets in my town puts them out in the "foyer" area of the entrance, which gets a lot of sunshine, and that extra warmth in an enclosed area that acts like a solar oven just adds to the release of the cinnamon aroma.

I do love me some cinnamon smells but it's quite disconcerting when it's September and the brooms are out since late August and we have a heat wave of temps in the 80's and as high as 90, and I walk into the foyer and am hit with a wall of hot cinnamon fragrance while I am dressed in Summer attire and sweating my brains out.
It just isn't a pleasant thang.......

* A reader left a comment about why I do giveaways.  Well, people like free stuff, right?  I make a teeny tiny bit of $ on my blog from advertisements(thanks to everyone who clicks on those)so I can afford to pay to ship a box now and again out of that income.  Plus I get stuff for cheap/free at Rite-Aid and occasionally at other places too.  And I like to give stuff away(and it gives me an excuse to buy things, the few things I do buy).
So, why not? 8-)))

* As of this past week I have passed the 1.7 million views threshold for my blog.  That's a whole lot of people stopping by to read since this here blog opened for business in January of 2009!


*  My computer updated Windows last week and when I opened up my mail program(OE)the update had done something strange to my inbox.  I was no longer able to delete emails in there.  Well, I could delete them but if I closed out and opened the mail program up again they were magically back.
WTF?!?!  By Wednesday, which was when everything righted itself(sort of), I had over 400 New emails in my inbox(most of those unwanted).  I tried to google a solution but everything I could find was at least from similar problems people had 2 years ago and didn't apply to my situation.
Everything is sort of back to normal now except that now I have two inboxes....one with all my old emails from before the Windows update that is now inactive and the other new inbox.  I guess once I get the new inbox cleaned out I'll migrate all the old inbox mail over to it.
This whole episode does point out that I really need to clean out my mail hoard however. lolz

* I already did a post about College Boy's concert that that's about it for things going on around here lately.

What's happening in your world?

Sluggy

Music in the Mountains

On Sunday Hubs and I headed to College Boy's school to listen to one of the bands he is in perform.
This was the Mansfield University Concert Wind Ensemble's first concert of the school year.
Mansfield's Wind Ensemble is one of the oldest college/university Wind Ensemble's in the country, at least that's what they claim on their website.
The Ensemble is made up of approx. 48 students who play woodwind, brass and percussion instruments and competition to get into it is fierce.  College Boy auditioned and made the cut this year.

I guess the kid cleans up good, huh?  Look at him all fancy and shit in his tux.
He had to buy that tux.  I told him if this music thing doesn't pan out he can always get a job as a waiter in a classy restaurant. lolz

The Wind Ensemble performs 5 or so times during the school year; they tour in the Fall regionally at special events/conferences and go to area high schools to perform and possibly recruit students for Mansfield's music department.
They also record CDs and will be cutting one next month.  Past year recordings have been nominated for Grammy awards.  8-)
Conducted by Dr. Adam F. Brennan, the Concert Wind Ensemble interprets the classics as well as commissions new works to perform by noted composers.

 College Boy preperformance adjusting his music stand

Here are a couple of sections from a number they performed(can't remember it's title).  Though College Boy didn't have any solo sections at this concert this part of this piece featured flutes.
I had a bit of a problem filming as a tall old man(with a bad comb-over and an unfortunate birthmark on his mostly bald head) and his wife sat down in front of me at the last minute.  I had to keep adjusting and leaning to the right to get a decent shot.  Luckily, College Boy was sitting downstage on the right so I could see him well.





And HERE is their closing number.  Extra bonus points if you can tell me the classical composer and/or title of this piece.
*For some reason YouTube won't let me embed this music clip so I had to link to it.*


College Boy in the mandatory photo with the parental unit once he shed the monkey suit and we took him out for dinner.......

Seems he is taking the phrase "long haired musician" to heart.  Here's a bit of trivia, especially if you aren't old like me.....long hair was popular with classical musicians and associated with classical music long before it became a "thing" with the rock and roll era. Don't believe me, go google pictures of classical composers of the 1700/1800's.  Many of them wore their hair longer than normal for the time.
Classical was referred to in the vernacular/slang as "long haired music" going way back to the 1930's among musicians and in the media.
In the late 1950's and 1960's it got co-opted to refer to popular and rock musicians of that era(or the Hippie Era).

On the way up, since it was dark 0'thirty when we left for home, I shot a few photos of the foliage. Foliage around here isn't at it's peak yet since we've had a warmer than normal Fall/late Summer but once we hit the Northern Tier of PA the colors were better.

The day was so overcast without any direct sun that the colors don't really "pop" in the photos.

Anyway, we had a nice time even though there were 2 long car rides in one day.  And it was good to see the boy.

Sluggy

And the Winner Is.....

Random dotorg was used to pick the winner of the current Sluggy's Boring Blog Box Giveaway.

And the winner picked is........

Annamarie Voss!

Annamarie VossOctober 12, 2016 at 9:48 AM

We have a big storm coming this weekend so I'm hoping we don't loose power. I also need to get out to my garden we still have lots of tomatoes and potatoes, I'm not sure that my spaghetti squash will be ready this year.

Congratulations Annamarie!

Please email me your full mailing address from the email you provided for the giveaway within the next 48 hours and I'll get this box of goodies out to you asap.

Thank you again dear readers for playing along and entering these giveaways and come back soon because another Giveaway will go live later this week.

Sluggy