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Archive for September, 2012

Any way to block that Chinese spammer??

September 9th, 2012 at 08:47 pm

Messes up us being able to read blog entries, very frustrating!

Food Challenge September 2012

September 9th, 2012 at 08:05 pm

Another quick post to add:

We ate out on DH's birthday at the local Mexican restaurant. It was terrible, mine was anyway, that was Thursday September 6th.

On Friday our friends were coming over to begin our Friday Night dinners again and to celebrate the birthday/anniversary. DH barbecued steaks, scallops and shrimp, made garlic mashed potatoes and grilled asparagus and yellow squash from the garden. Friends brought a German chocolate cake and ice cream.

The four of us agreed this was our last blowout as we all need to lose a few pounds!

I also notified DH that we are participating in a food challenge. No eating out all all the rest of the month. So last night were leftovers (our actual anniversary). I am not sure what DH has planned for tonight.

He has been cleaning since I am suffering from a migraine and backache after eating the choco cake and working in the yard all day yesterday.

DH cleaned out the freezers this morning and something tells me the lobster mac and cheese from Costco is going to be on the menu soon. DH shopped yesterday at Costco getting our usual veges, bread and milk. Our pantry and freezer are very full so we are ready!

Home again, home again, jiggity jig....

September 9th, 2012 at 07:53 pm

Okay so I am a bit impulsive. I have owned 6 cars in my life:

1. New- 1977 Datsun B210, bought at age 19, full price off the lot. I still remember I paid with tax and license $4211 and change. That little car was great, held 2 car seats and was sold to my dad when I bought car #2. He drove it until he couldn't drive anymore and the floor was rusted with a hole where you could see the road!!

2. New-1986 Toyota Tercel 4-wheel drive wagon, can't remember what I paid for it...1 year later found out I was pregnant unexpectedly. Sold to my in-laws when the 3 girls were too squished which led to my first used car purchase...

3. Used-Bonneville bought in 1992. Drove especially well highway 299 when my father was transferred to Redding for open heart surgery. Made several trips back and forth, 3 days home, 4 days in Redding as my father had a very difficult recovery and was in the hospital for over a month. We actually purchased the car in Redding and anyone who knows highway 299 in California, it is an extremely windy road over the mountains to the coast. MD threw up in the car all over the drivers seat on the drive home (true story). Haha. Purchased because I did not want to be a "soccer mom" driving around in a van. Less than 18 months later, the girls were fighting constantly in the back seat. Also the back window leaked, filling the trunk with water. Living in Humboldt and having a garage I could not park in was a very bad combination. This led to a purchase that I at first regretted and resisted, but turned out to be a great car.

4. New 1994 Plymouth Voyager, traded in Bonneville. Cannot remember the price, but payments were $300 a month for 5 years. DH really pushed me into buying the car and I was very resentful. As it turned out this car lasted us for over 180,000 miles on the original transmission. We gave the van to my husband's brother about a year ago. We kept it even though I had bought 5th car as a "dog ride". We would take the dogs and whoever to the beach and not worry about keeping it clean. This car turned out to the the one I drove all over being guess what...."a soccer mom". Daughter #3 played competitive soccer and every other sport all through school, high school and on traveling teams. Actually DH did most of the driving, missing only one tournament. DH also drove girls to other sports events since YD ended up going to private school and parents were required to bus kids.

5. Used-1999 Toyota Camry, 77,000 miles, paid $8000 to a customer of DH's at our car wash. Purchased in 2004 and kept in the garage for a while while still driving van. It was just so well taken care of and I was afraid Van would die, but it didn't, so I had two cars.

6. On Labor Day while looking for son-in-law a beater, came across a 2006 Toyota Camry with less than 27,000 miles on it at the Toyota dealership in Temecula. It was reduced for the Labor Day sale from $15,995 to $14,995. I offered $13,000. Manager comes out with invoice and pointed out the price was only $700 over invoice at that point. Okay I said, then how about $500 over invoice. He went back to his office, came out and said okay. So I wrote a check and paid for it.

I was not really looking for a car, but I felt like it was one of those deals we would be kicking ourselves about. I paid about $2000 under KBB.

So i handed 1999 Camry keys over to the kids and told them they had custody for 6 months. After that, my middle daughter gets it.

I hate to even go into the story of why I did this, because I'm sure I will get lots of negative feedback. But we all have different values and what the heck, I can take it.

You see my son-in-law originally had orders to move to Hawaii. The kids traded in both their cars and bought a new Juke because of the price of gas in Hawaii and they would only need one car living on base. So in paying for my granddaughter's preschool, they were going to have to buy a second car. Their cash budget was pretty low and so when we went out looking it was hard to find a decent car in their price range.

My plan is to keep the car for at least 10 years. It drives very comfortably, much more so than the 1999 model. I knew I was going to be zipping down to see the kids every few months and was concerned about how long the 1999 would last, so this was just too good a deal to pass up.

Hey at least I paid cash!

Food Challenge September 2012

September 2nd, 2012 at 10:45 pm

In this heat of Southern California (inland), a crockpot is essential. Thank goodness the kids packed it and brought it with them. Found it above the frig. The other day I put in a family pack of boneless, skinless chicken breasts, a package of taco seasoning mix and the rest of the Kirland brand organic salsa I found in the frig. I cooked them all day, then shredded them and made chicken quesadillas. SIL and granddaughter both liked them. We had fresh baby carrots and strawberries. I froze the rest in little packages.

Then yesterday I soaked boneless, skinless thighs in plain old teryaki sauce and dumped that into the crockpot on high for the afternoon. DSIL again liked it, but alas, granddaughter thought "too spicy". Haha. Served with fresh steamed broccoli and more strawberries.

It is weird to be in charge of food in a kitchen with a pantry and freezer that are not your own! Like tonight, I have hotdogs and buns left, but stupidly only bought one can of chili for chili dogs on Friday, so I will do plain hot dogs with sweet potato fries for tonight, then leftover teryaki chicken with brown rice and asparagus.......then I will head home!

There I will have my very full freezer and pantry for my meal planning. We have not eaten out one time since my daughter left for South Carolina on August 22nd!

I stopped at the Goodwill on Friday and found 2 summery tops and several books. I finished a Mary Higgins Clark one first and now am reading The Middle Place by Kelly Corrigan. Need to reserve this month's book club book.....Garrison Keillor Lake Wobegon Days. The last Garrison Keillor book I read was Pontoon and I absolutely howled with laughter over that one.

Speaking of howling with laughter...the kids have Netflix and I was watching Lost. I decided I need something fun, so I watched a few episodes of The Office that I had not seen before. Omgosh, I had to be quiet because Ally was napping, but it was the one where Dwight faked a fire.....when the blond throws her cat up at Oscar and it falls through the ceiling....Baaahaaaa......