So Over This

Last Friday morning we got 8 inches of snow and daughter and spent hours clearing the driveway so I could get the car out to go get College Boy later that day......

We still had 5 inches of that on the ground when the Nor'Easter hit Monday night/all day Tuesday.

Wednesday morning after another 24 inches fell looking out over the back deck.....

Screenshot of the weatherman from Tuesday morning.
Obviously we are, TOTALS, "localized 18"-20"+".
Bleh.

Then it snowed off and on all day Wednesday.

Daughter sitting in the snow while playing with her dog.
After about 2 minutes the dog was so done with snow.
She is such a weenie....especially for being part Husky. lolz

We got another 3-4 inches of snow on Wednesday....you do the math, I don't even want to know!

College Boy had to dig a tunnel to the side of the house it was so deep, to dig out the heat compressor so we didn't lose power.
Then he dug a tunnel down the front lawn so he and daughter could get to the lower part of the driveway to at least dig out daughter's car in case she had school on Thursday.

You will notice that the shot below is late Wednesday(about 5 pm and the snow has stopped). Can you see the road?
No?
Me neither.
Almost a full day since the main part of the storm on Tuesday and our township has only made one pass through on our road, as well as the main road through our development at this point.

I took the shot above while the guy we hired to plow us out was working on the driveway.  There was someone stuck on the main road through our development at the entrance to it and nobody could get in or out of here.  Luckily, the guy we hired knew that the development up the secondary road hooks into the development behind ours so he came in that way and found us eventually.

The guy we hired to plow us had to plow our street as well, just to get to our driveway.

Where the freak were our township plows for the last day?  Because they certainly weren't here!
We certainly don't have that many roads in our township!
 Remind me again why I pay taxes to the township?!?
What if someone had a medical emergency and an ambulance couldn't get to them for over a day and a half?

This shot above was taken of the infamous back deck on Thursday morning as the sun rose.
The deck railings are almost totally buried!
Yes....sunshine....finally!!

And at some point between midnight on Wednesday night/Thursday morning and sunrise on Thursday the township plow FINALLY made a second pass so you could actually DRIVE on our road
.
Daughter was able to get out to the hardware store and buy some ice melt(as we had used all of ours on Wednesday but couldn't get out of the development to get more then).

This is what Hubs' and my car looked like Thursday morning.

By noon Thursday you can actually see some pavement thanks to the sunshine.
Today is sunny as well so we'll see more melting.  No flooding though since the temps are still below freezing but at least anything the sun shines on will melt.  Just don't plan on driving anywhere at night when it will all freeze up again and make a skating rink of the roads.
I'll be going out to run some errands today later.
Hopefully we have mail delivery today as we haven't had it since Monday.

All the schools have been closed all week(and most businesses on Tuesday and Wednesday), even the universities(which is rare)so Daughter is happy that her one week break turned into two weeks.
College Boy is not so happy to be on break with this crap going on.  It's seriously cut down on him hanging out with his friends.  He had to come home at 10:30 pm Monday when it started snowing and hasn't seen any of them since.

Hubs is suppose to take College Boy back to school on Saturday(tomorrow).  But we are suppose to get another small storm, up to 5 inches.
Oh goody.....

So College Boy may be stuck here an extra day and go back Sunday.

I am so over this.
At least I can say I was here for and survived the Blizzard of '17 in NEPA.
Can I move away from here now?

Sluggy

Happenings Lately at Chez Sluggy

First off, here are a couple of deals I got last Wednesday at Weis(PMITA)Markets.....

Nature Valley granola bars and select GM cereals were on sale $1.77 when you bought 4(at least 4).
I had a $1/2 Nature Valley, a $1/2 GM cereals and a .75¢/1 Lucky Charms cereal(which doubles to $1 at Weis).
So all 5 were $8.85-$3 in Qs=$5.85.
Then I received $1.50 in SavingStar cash rebates(.50 for buying 2 NV, $1 for buying 2 GM cereals)so $5.85-$1.50=$4.35 for all 5 items or .87¢ each.

They finally had the variety of coffee I wanted back in stock so I used my rain check.

4 x 8 O'Clock coffee BOGOFree=$10.98
I used 2 Qs-1 Catalina for $3 off wyb 3 bags and 1 ManuQ $1/1.
$10.98-$4=$6.98 for 4 bags or $1.75 per bag.

So on Friday, here is what we got in Thursday night's snow storm......

8 inches of the stuff.  Between Daughter and myself(and a little help from the sunshine we got after noon that day)we got the driveway cleared enough so I could leave to go get College Boy at 3 pm.

The region was set to get snow squalls and showers all day long.
I hit three separate snow squalls along the way, one was particularly bad.
8 miles from my exit I hit a white-out area.
WTF!  Blizzard conditions so bad I thought I was a dead woman in my little purple car.  You couldn't see the road, the edges of said road or the car in front nor behind you.
And pulling over would just guarantee you got hit by somebody who coudln't see you.
Talk about white knuckle driving!
So a line of cars with flashers on crept down the limited access highway going 20 mph for 8 miles until I got to the exit and tried to get off the road.
The exit ramp was even worse but luckily it was all downhill and got onto the road through town.

I stopped at the Walmart to pick up some supplies College Boy needed that I didn't bring from home to drop to his room(so we didn't have to haul this stuff back in a week when we had to haul him and all his crap back too). I got in a bit early and I also needed to get out of the car and walk around and try to get rid of the knots in my back and head from the tension from this drive.  I was just a frayed nerve at this point.

I stayed the night in his dorm room.  He has a double room but he never got a roommate so there was a second bed for me.  College Boy was reticent about me sleeping in his room until I put it this way....either I pay to stay at the local motel or I can use the cash that would go toward that bill to take him out since he is now legal drinking age.
Putting it that way made the idea of mom sleeping in his room more palatable.

And I requested that he PLEASE CLEAN HIS BATHROOM before I arrived so using the facilities wouldn't skeevy me out.
And he did!  I have photographic proof.....

Just don't look too closely at the bathroom floor. lolz

What he didn't do was clean the sink and counter.  Since the sink is outside the actual bathroom I guess I should have specified to clean the sink too.

Here is the sink/counter after I attacked it three times with cleaner and bleach.
I neglected to take a "before" shot.  Just imagine this photo and the counter and sink it SOLID BROWN in color(I guess because the water has heavy mineral content there).
Seriously, solid brown, except for the backsplash.
And his toothbrush was sitting on that.
Bleck!
And yes I made him throw his toothbrush out before we left.

Oh, and his sink was backed up and not hardly draining so I asked him why??
See that French Press coffeemaker?
He's been pouring coffee grounds into the sink to clean it.
Hmmm, do you suppose THAT would have something to do with the lack of draining?!?

So I told him(why does someone have to tell a 21 year old this?  Oh right, he's male!)to put his grounds in a garbage bag and dump or pour his grounds into the toilet and flush.
An Call freaking maintenance to come fix his sink!  

Young males.....what are ya gonna do, right?

So I took him out for dinner and a couple of drinks.
On the way into town we slid into an intersection past a stop sign.
This is because even though there were still students on campus until Saturday the school closed up at 4 pm for break so nobody thought it was a GOOD IDEA to plow the roads on campus.
I tried to stop the car just kept going.  Luckily for us there were only two vehicles approaching and not near the intersection and they were going slow and saw us slide so a collision was avoided.

We got back to the dorm safely and settled down for the evening.  I watched a little tv(he has cable)and he played WOW.
What a terrible night's sleep I had!  A should have known the dorm mattress was going to be shit but his thermostat is also malfunctioning.  It randomly resets itself to different room temps.  You set it for 68 F and 30 minutes later it's up to 74 F.
WTF?
Again, Call freaking maintenance to come fix the shit!!

I have decided to call College Boy "The child who does not make waves.".
He is an introvert by nature anyway but it seems he will put up with mounds of crap before actually drawing attention to something that needs fixing in his life.
Being me, I just don't understand putting up with stuff you don't have to.
Anybody else have a kid like this?

Moving on.....
We left before 10 am on Saturday and the drive home was not an issue however it was difficult getting OUT of the town his school is in.
Like Joe Btfsplk out of Lil' Abner comics, this town has a dark snow cloud overing over it all Winter long.

Once we got on the highway South of town, the sun was out, the roads were dry it was a walk in the park and a downright pleasant drive.
WTF?!?
We made a quick stop at Denny's along the interstate for a pit stop and drinks/light food and got home before 1 pm.

Sunday was a lazy day at home.  Hubs and I ran out to Kohl's that evening and got him & CB some clearanced duds and now I have $30 in Kohl's Cash to spend. rah.
We also went up to Maine Source(the restaurant supply place)for some groceries.  I had a $5 off $50 Coupon to use.

They had good cuts of Corned Beef for $2.99 lb.  Only thing is you had to buy the full piece.  This one was 13.34 lbs.
I cut this into two pieces and wrapped and froze one and put one into the crockpot on Monday and we had our Irish meal then instead of this Friday.
We'll have tons of Rueben sandwiches this week and next week of the leftovers of that one piece I cooked.

I also got this 4.4 lb. bag of frozen veggies for $5.99.  That comes out to $1.36 lb.  We love a good stir-fry around here.

Rounding out my deals there I got this 9.64 lb. bag of boneless/skinless chicken breast.  I re-bagged this into meal size portions.
I spent some time Sunday reorganizing the chest freezer and seeing what I had to use for my meal plan this week.

I am so glad I went out to the grocery stores on Monday while the sun was shining.  I usually go on Wednesday(the last day of the sales ad)but with the forecast I figured I might have a problem getting to the store then so I went on Monday.
It was a madhouse would be an understatement!  I really didn't need to go but I wanted to get a couple of deals.........

3 x Progresso breadcrumbs on sale $1=$3 and I used a $1/3 IPQ=$2 for 3 containers
2 x Cabot cheese on sale $1.87=$3.74 and I used a $1/2 IPQ=$2.74 for 2 blocks
1 x Borden shredded cheese on sale=$1.99 and I used a .50/1 Manu(doubled to $1)=.99¢ for 1 bag

The Kraft Deal--buy 5 participating items and get $5 off instantly.
4 x dressing on sale 2/$3=$6.00
1 x ketchup on sale=$2.99
SubTotal....$8.99-$5 instant savings=$3.99 for all 5 items.

I also spied a birthday cake with a 50% sticker on it in the Bakery dept. since we hadn't celebrated CB's birthday yet.

1/2 Sheet cake for $13.99 instead of $27.99
Of course this cake cost goes under my Eating-Out budget not the Food budget.

So Monday evening we had a traditional St. Patty's Day meal of corned beef, cabbage, carrots and potatoes, followed by the singing, blowing out of candles and eating of cake.......

The blizzard started Monday night around 10:30 pm.  The snow was suppose to start at midnight or so.
This is what the back deck looked like at noon yesterday.

The Daughter took the dog out around 9 am and measured this crap at 24 inches deep.
Bleck!!!

And it's still coming down.....



It's hard to get a definite final total for the amount that fell yesterday as it's blowing and drifting but we had to have gotten another 3 inches before it finally stopped for good.

Here's a screenshot of the local tv stations Facebook report.  For once, this storm actually was bigger than they were predicting.

Where we use to live East of here in the Poconos got 30 inches but then again, that's typical for that area.
The weather talking heads on the local news said that this storm dumped the most snow in this area for any one day "event" since records started being kept in 1901.
yay......

So today is dig out mode.  College Boy shoveled out around the heating compressor yesterday and helped the Daughter dig her car out enough to get to school today(but they cancelled it for a second day in a row).

Here is Daughter's dog.  She is NOT  happy with the snow.  She is half Husky but she was born and raised in Louisiana until last June.  She just doesn't know what to do with this much snow.
A coating to 2 inches, no problem.  2 feet and she is hiding and refusing to go outside. lolz

I guess I'll actually go outside today, help supervise the kids shoveling and take some photos.

Sluggy

This Week on the Dining Table

The "Oh Goody, More Snow!" Edition--

We got 7 inches last Thursday night/Friday morning and I had the drive from hell later that day to go pick up College Boy.
His room at school has cable and thus the Weather Channel so I watched it a bit before heading to bed that night.
Oh Goody!  Another storm, a Nor'Easter is heading in this week.  They showed a tiny area on their map for snow accumulations for this weather event of 18-24" and you'll never guess who's smack dab in that little pink area?!
Come on! Guess.......
Yep.  You guessed it.

Locally the weather talking heads on the tv are calling for this one to be the biggest/baddest we've had in a deccade.
Yay......
So much for an easy Winter here.

Moving on......

Onward to the meal planning!

Here's what was planned last week--

1. Sunday--Chinese chicken w/sauce, fried rice w/veggies added

2. Monday--Leftover meatloaf and corn casserole, asparagus

3. Tuesday--Leftover lasagna

4. Wednesday--Leftover baked chicken w/potatoes, roasted brussels sprouts

5. Thursday--Tacos
6. Friday--Haddock, cole slaw, glazed carrots
7. Saturday--Leftover Tacos or Quesadillas using leftover Taco filling or Taco Salad

And this is what actually happened--

1. Sunday--Chinese chicken w/sauce, fried rice w/veggies added

2. Monday--Leftover meatloaf and corn casserole, asparagus

3. Tuesday--Leftover lasagna

4. Wednesday--Leftover baked chicken w/potatoes, roasted brussels sprouts

5. Thursday--Tacos
6. Friday--Hubs and Daughter got Pizza.
7. Saturday--We ordered Pizza....again! lolz

5 meals cooked at home, 0 of them a night of leftovers or Fend For Yourself, and 2 nights of eating-out/take-out.
The fish didn't happen as I wasn't home to cook and I was too tired to cook on Saturday and nobody wanted leftovers.

As for the grocery spending.....1 trips to Weis brought the food spending last week to $0.00  I spent $32.45 on a gift card paid for last year.  This brought my March food spending total to $72.79(Food spending would be $175.79 for the month so far, w/out that gift card).  There are 18 days left in the month.

My savings percentages last week was 100% due to the gift card. 8-)  Savings would have been 54.04% otherwise.

Leftovers going into this week.......Stroganoff/Rice, 1 slice Meatloaf, Pizza.  I am sure these will all be eaten as lunches as College Boy IS home. ;-)

Here is this week's "food plan"....
* Denotes "complicated" meals

1. Sunday--Chili(using a small frozen container mixed with newly cooked)

2. Monday--Corned Beef, Cabbage, Potatoes

3. Tuesday--Irish Stew

4. Wednesday--Shrimp, Cole Slaw, Asparagus

5. Thursday--Leftovers
6. Friday--Country Fried Steak, Gravy, Taters, Brussells Sprouts(I'll have Taters and Sprouts)*
7. Saturday--Leftovers

This week will see 5 new meals cooked, 0 nights of Take-Out/Eating-Out and 2 nights of Leftovers.
With the storm coming we may not get around to taking College Boy out belatedly for his Birthday dinner.  Playing things by ear this week really.

What I need to buy for this menu? Corned Beef, Asparagus.  I've got everything else here already.

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

May 2016 Road Trip.....Part 1 PA to TN

I am finally getting around to posting about my road trip from last year.
You know, the one we have taken for the last three years to Louisiana to see our daughter.

Shortly before we left on this trip last year it was decided that the daughter was moving back in with us to Pennsyltucky to go back to school to finish her degree.
And bringing along her boy friend as an added bonus.
And a big dog too.

So this trip was not so much a pleasure vacation trip but a "WTF!? We need to buy her house and then DO something with it" trip.
It's a long complicated story but basically we went to Louisiana to buy daughter's house from her and then rent it out to the BF's parents.  This was the short term solution which is coming to an end and either they will buy the house from us in the near future or they will move out and we will put the house on the market and sell it, hopefully before this year is out.

This was far from a fun part of our lives and we will be glad when this house is done and off our hands but we tried to have some fun along the way on this road trip of 2016.

Let's get to the photos of what happened, shall we?

We left on a Monday after having retrieved College Boy from school on the previous day for his Summer break.
So we headed on out early that morning down the Devil's Parkway(aka I-81)

Somewhere near Winchester Virginia along I-81 we stopped for a potty break at the rest stop.
I saw a first for me, a child friendly toilet.......

That thing practically sat on the floor! lol
I didn't attempt to use that one as I'd have had problems getting up from it. I moved on to the next regular size toilet stall.

Outside they had this love sculpture so I just had to pose and have Hubs take a photo.

At lunch time we were actually nearby a place I had been wanting to eat at for years during our travels but we never timed it right to be passing at meal time.

This place is a legend as far as dive eateries go and has been around since 1959.  It's Berky's restaurant at the Lee-Hi Truck Stop outside of Lexington, VA.
They are suppose to have an awesome buffet there.

Let me say that I was disappointed in the buffet as much of it was over processed(breaded and fried meats)or canned veggies.  Kind of ordinary and I won't make a plan to stop there again on purpose and be really hungry.  8-(

At a little after 2 pm a little ways further South on the interstate the temp on the car's dashboard read 77F degrees!
Kind of warm for early May in the mountains of Western Virginia even.

We hit Tennessee about 5ish and drove a bit further until we got past Knoxville and onto I-75 heading South. We stopped for the night about 6 pm in Lenoir City, Tennessee at a Holiday Inn Express. It cost a bit much for a Holiday Inn I thought($141 a night!)but there weren't many choices at this exit. At least they had an indoor pool so we got a swim in(which was much needed after 10 hours in the car)and there was a "free" hot breakfast the next morning.

We hit a Bob's Big Boy restaurant next door for a light dinner.  Besides the menu items and the buffet they also had a "light" buffet price which including all the non-meat choices for a lower price than the regular price.

I started out with a bowl of really thick soup, a salad and unsweetened iced tea.

I also got a plate of various veggies and some cornbread afterwards.  That was plenty for me.

After dinner and a swim we settled down for the the evening with a little tv watching before bed.  I noticed that the curtains didn't fully close on the window(and we were on the ground floor)so I utilized a traveling hack Hubs came up with in a hotel room on our previous road trip to Lousiana.

Wooden pants hangers in your rooms closet make awesome curtain closers. ;-)

Day One of the Great Road Trip of 2016 was in the books.

Sluggy

Ain't Nobody Got Time For This!

While most of my days are low-key and move rather slowly(just like me)today is going to be a ball buster.

The plan for Friday was to do my usual stuff and then pack a bag, jump into the car and drive to College Boy's school, stay over, then pack his stuff into said car and drive him home for a school break.

But then this happened last night..........

As of just now, 6+ inches and it's still snowing lightly.
So now I have to get the driveway cleared in addition to everything else so I don't have time for a "real" post.

I'll check in online before I leave....IF I leave.....but I gotta go take care of this mess plus everything else in my day.
Ugh.

Life....it happens!

Sluggy