Wednesday, April 29, 2009

It's time for ice cream!


Get your fanny to Baskin Robbins tonight!
Bring your friends and your camera to 31 Cent Scoop Night™ tomorrow night at Baskin-Robbins®.Join us as we honor America's firefighters with a $100,000 donation to the National VolunteerFire Council National Junior Firefighter Program.

Monday, April 27, 2009

FREE FOOD

Sorry, I'm late getting this post up....
Free piece of grilled chicken at KFC today (Monday)
and 2 free pieces of chicken at El Pollo Loco tomorrow (Tuesday).

Thursday, April 23, 2009

Costco

I've been taking sandwich bags of pistachios to work to munch on between meals; I was enjoying a small bowl of pistachios on Tuesday while working. I get home that evening and there's a letter from Costco on the table from the mail Doug brought in. It was something to the effect:

Our records indicate you purchased pistachios between (whatever dates). Please be advised that we are doing a voluntary recall due to E. coli.

The letter goes on and mentions a SKU # to check on our bag. I'm thinking, "What are the chances our SKU matches the SKU in this letter?! Really. How many bags have they sold and how many SKU's have gone through Costco?" Well. I can tell you the chances were VERY GOOD! The SKU #'s matched. Luckily we haven't gotten sick, but I have to tell you that I'm very impressed with Costco for sending these letters out to their customers.

I have a bag of pistachios if anyone wants it!!! Actually Costco will give us a full refund if we bring the bag back.

Fashion Show

Last Saturday I spent the day with my mom. She had tickets to the VFW Fashion Show, so we started our day there. My step-dad was out of town, so I took his place - however, if you see the pictures below, I'm sure it didn't break his heart to not sit in a pink and butterfly filled room of women. It was fun to sit and visit with the people I hear about at the VFW. After the fashion show we walked through the shops downtown and then went to Big Lots to see if we could find any deals. Since it was really warm out on Saturday, we headed to Fosters Freeze for ice cream. Oh, I can't forget our only mission for the day was to get a turkey that we had a gift certificate for from the holidays. It was a great day! Sorry Doug - I ate ice cream without you.

Thursday, April 16, 2009

Dealershi.....p

You'll understand at the end of my story why I might want to replace the P at the end of dealership to a T. (I didn't proof read since my lunch is over - I'll check it later)


Now that we own a Hyundai, it seems pretty reasonable to go to a Hyundai dealership right? Not so much. They have an online appointment service where you type in the date and time you would like to go in and your contact information; seems easy enough. After 3 attempts and no contact back, I called the dealership on Monday morning to schedule for that evening for an oil change. The gal on the phone took my last name and asked if the vehicle was a Hyundai; I told her yes and she said, "We'll see you at 6pm." I shared my concern with the online appointments not working and was told, "Well, sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't." So I said, "Maybe the service appointments shouldn't be offered that way if it doesn't work properly." I really doubt she cared. I arrive at the dealership just before my appointment time and drive through an overhang that says "SERVICE", there isn't a single sign that says to "stop here" "pull forward" or anything. Not wanting to be rude and leave my car in the middle of the area, I park in the lot just on the other side of the overhang. I'm getting out of my car when a man calls out to ask if I'm there for service. I tell him yes and he instructs me to pull my car back around and park under the overhang. Well, that would have been a lot less annoying had there been a SIGN. I pull around and he meets me with paperwork; where he makes a comment, "You've never been here before I take it?" He takes down the vehicle information and we step inside. I'm tucking a few things into my purse and the man asks, "Did you take the keys out of the vehicle?" I tell him I was putting my phone and camera cord away. He stretches to look over my shoulder at my car. I feel like I need to turn around to see what he's looking at.... HE LOCKED THE KEYS IN MY CAR!!! He tells me he's going to give the VIN # to the service guys and they will cut a key, but he mentions it will extend my visit - UMMMM it takes Walmart about 2 seconds to cut a key. I go out and call Doug and share my story so far. He can't believe they locked the keys inside either. I hang up and go back inside. The man finishes my paperwork and asks my last name. I spell it for him and he asks, "Wendy?" I say, "No. April." He then tells me they have my appointment booked under Wendy's account. The gal that took my appointment must not have thought 2 people could have the same last name and the same make of car. It's a one in a million shot I tell ya! So he fixes that. And while fixing that tells me when he took the VIN# back to make the key the service guy said, "I can just break into her car using a slim-jim; is your customer standing there?" He tells him I'm standing there and gets a reply, "Oh, well we'll just cut the key then." Finishing the paperwork. He apologizes again for locking the keys in the car and tells me, "We'll get you going as soon as we get that key cut, unless you want to walk away and we can break into it." I sat outside and called Doug to tell him what was happening and I'll be home even later - at this point I'd been waiting 20 minutes for them to cut the key and was told the oil change would take an hour. I stayed near my car until I saw them use a key to open the door. Waiting for the oil to be changed, I paced outside and told my mom the story too; telling her the car just might explode if they work on it. I think I made the guy nervous pacing around. I was pretty bored so I took pictures since I had my camera. I found a bird's nest in the Hyundai sign. My car was finally pulled back around, in one piece and even cleaned. The man brought me to the cashier and apologized for the situation again and said he would pay for the oil change. See, there is a light at the end of the tunnel, but sheesh. So that, my friends, is why we could change the P to a T.

Easter part 2

We drove to Kevin and Debbie's and had another great meal. The kids were running around playing and the adults were laughing and chatting. Here is Aaron's pitching pose. Then we all went outside, it was such a beautiful day! Debbie wanted to take photos of everyone; she got some really cute pictures! While we were outside I was taking photos of ants Kevin found.
Here are a GaGILLION ants. Here are a GaGILLION ants on fire. Any questions?

Besides my arms being fried and half of Doug's face being sunburned, it was such a fun and quite eventful day. We were pretty worn out at the end of the day. I think the sun took the energy out of us.

Wednesday, April 15, 2009

Easter part 1

Doug and I went to my parents for the first half of our Easter day. I always take pictures of the critters I see up there, so those are mixed in too. We sat outside and enjoyed the sunshine and ate chips and dips. We chuckled while we watched the neighbor try to mow his acre of foot tall grass with a push lawnmower. Glenn went down and saved the poor guy and finished the front portion of his yard with his riding mower. Glenn and Chuck had a spring hunt instead of an egg hunt - Glenn was trying to get the most throttle out of his Cushman - the orange thing Doug was riding some posts ago. Then we ate an awesome lunch and took home tons of leftovers - our refrigerator was already overflowing from our trip to the store. Then it was time to make some noise! We were shooting potatoes (and other random things I was putting in too - carrots, M&M's, radishes, etc) up the hill and the second photo is a "dud" that plopped out instead of firing out. Imagine the sound of squeezing frozen OJ out of a cardboard can and the slurping sound and plop at the end. That's as close as I can describe it. My mom laughed so hard and had to run to the bathroom so she didn't pee her pants; Doug laughed even harder at her. We all laughed for quite a while. I got a picture of Chuck for Doug, he gets a kick out of the guys' mustache. Then we headed back into town, dropped my grandma off at the nursing home, and headed to Doug's family for the second half of our Easter day. Hey, do you think I got too much sun on my arms???

A pet grasshopper?

This is Doug's buddy - I tell Doug it's his buddy. It's the biggest grasshopper I think I've ever seen. It was hanging onto our screen the other day when I opened the door. We know it's the same grasshopper we've seen before because it's missing a back leg. We think we hurt it when we were digging up some plants.

New Rug

Becky, Christy and I headed out to the Farmer's Market and bought a bunch of fruit and veggies. While we were there I saw a rug that matches the colors in our house. So, when Doug got out of work (I didn't want to buy it without Doug liking it too) we ran back over there and got the rug for our living room.
Oh! I also got a couple bird houses. One was for my parents - in the picture below. I'll have take a picture of ours and post it later. I don't know where to hang it yet. We have stupid palm trees in our backyard.

Tuesday, April 14, 2009

Easter Basket

We have A LOT of pictures from the weekend, but I thought I would share what I was waiting for on Saturday.
We got a HUGE fruit basket! There were even chocolate covered pineapple rabbits. After pulling out 115 fruit skewers we got down to 4 heads of lettuce! Yes. I counted them. *hangs head because I'm that silly*
mmmmm.....a chocolate covered pineapple bunny

Saturday, April 11, 2009

Great News

Doug passed his testing and is in the hiring pool to advance at work. Maybe he will be down to one job by the end of the year - in a good way we hope!

Sitting....Waiting....

My mom called earlier this week and asked if I planned on being home on Saturday; that means I need to be home. She has always gotten us Easter baskets and this year she decided to do something different. She told me I needed to be home to get the delivery and the delivery company would more than likely call before they arrived. So, I'm sitting and waiting. Not really sitting around though. I'm a domestic engineer as a side job, so I'm doing our household chores.I told my mom that if a pink, fuzzy bunny knocks on our door to sing to me, I'm going to shut the door. She laughed pretty hard, so I'm assuming it's not a singing bunny.

Home Alarm System

Doug and I have been tossing around the idea of getting an alarm system. We don't know which company is the best and are wondering what people think about their current systems and what they wish they would have done differently. If you have any ideas or recommendations, please let us know.

New Links

I added a couple new links to the Sites We Visit. I don't know if you've ever visited the website Feed the Pig, but there are great ways to save money and eye opening calculations about how much money you might be spending. For example, they have a commercial out right now that says if you brown bag your lunch you could save $6 a day, which over 10 years will save you over $21,000!!! I knew how much it was per month and per year, but I NEVER thought about over a 10 year period! SHEESH
I also added the Locks of Love website. That's where my hair will be going for the second time. I've got a couple more inches to go; get those scissors read Debbie!! My hair is long enough to donate right now, but I want it a little longer than the last time I cut it all off.

Saturday, April 4, 2009

Doug's weakness

Since my last post was about my confessions. I'm going to confess for Doug too. He is always looking at a website called gunbroker.com. Its kind of like the ebay of the gun world. There are restrictions and things to it, but customer bid and buy like ebay. I call it porn for Doug.

In the movie Mr & Mrs Smith their basement is a weapon room. Doug asked if he could have a room like that. I told him he could have that room if I could have that house - its massive! Here is one of the walls of the basement.
Here is the oven in the house.

Here are a couple more pictures I thought Doug would enjoy. I'm sure he wouldn't mind if we had rooms that looked like these. Although, the carpet in the first picture below is awful; Doug has better taste than that. Oh, by the way... If you don't hear for me for a while, it's because the FBI came and broke down the door and took me away because of the online searching I just did to find these pictures.

For all the ladies out there: you can even buy pink guns.

Confessions of a Saturday Morning

At the local cartoon anonymous meeting you will hear:
Hi, my name is April and I watch cartoons. **reply back "Hi April!"**

It all starts at 8am on ABC with The Emperor's New School.
The Replacements
That's So Raven Hannah Montana It all ends with The Suite Life of Zack and Cody
If I'm confessing about cartoons, the I'll just let it all out there! I haven't had cable for years and Doug married into my cable-less life; luckily he doesn't seem to mind. We have lots of DVD's.
Within the last year and half a new-to-me channel has arrived 29.2, it's the Qubo channel. ALL CARTOONS, ALL DAY!!!! And when the days are not long enough, Qubo.com has episodes online. I swear I don't watch them online. They are all reruns anyways. Doug will actually watch some of these with me, but most of the time he will let out a sigh when I stop on the Qubo channel (I'm a remote hog).
Jane and the Dragon. (My favorite!) Jacob Two-TwoDragon. While looking for pictures to post, I found out I can order a plush Dragon doll. Oh, Doug would just LOVE that! I think this is his least favorite of all the silly things I watch. My Friend RabbitSitting Ducks. I think my mom would get a kick out of this cartoon. She had a rubber duck bathroom; I don't know how she fit everything in the bathroom. You couldn't imagine how many duck things she found. She even found The Wizard of Oz figures as ducks.
Pecola. They live in Cubetown, that's why their heads are all square. Miss BG Babar and Rupert. I watch these when nothing else is on.
Like I mentioned, most (98%) of these are reruns anyways, even the Saturday morning shows. I usually do the laundry, dishes, cleaning, etc while these are on the TV in the background. We don't have an antenna for the radio downstairs, so the TV keeps me company.