11/11/10

To all the veterans past, present, and future: THANK YOU!!!!!!

$900.01 Pot

So Albertson's is having this promotion thing where you get a stamp ("reward sticker") for every $10 of purchases. You save the stamps and put them on a card, and for every filled out card you can buy a Thomas brand pot or pan for just 1 penny. Remember Blue Chip Stamps? It's the same principle.

Each pot is worth a different amount of stamps. You need a card with 50 stamps for the smallest pot and the largest, a roasting pan, takes 110 stamps. And then once you get your card filled out you get your pot or pan for the penny.

I'm not sure what possessed me to start saving but I did. I decided I would go for what I originally thought was a saucier pan, but it turns out they are calling it a wok. It required a 90 stamp card.

It took me a little longer than I thought to save up the stamps, but the program did what it's designed to do and that is bring the suckers shoppers to the store to spend their money there. I don't normally do my major shopping at Albertson's anymore since I can get a lot more groceries for less at Winco. But because of the program I started doing all my shopping at Albertson's again. And of course if alcoholic beverages had been allowed to be included in the tally point for the stickers I would have had a complete set by now!

Upon reflection I have to say the only one this type of program is good for is the store! Just think... Basically I had to spend $900 in the store to have the privilege of buying a pot whose brand I had never heard of before for one penny. As one of my friends pointed out to me I could have gone to TJ Maxx and bought a similar type pot by a well known brand like Le Creuset or All-Clad for less than $200.

Don't tell anyone but I've started saving up my second card.

Getting Closer!

Monday our realtor called and said the underwriter approved the appraisal and the buyers. She said we were good to have the septic pumped, inspected and certified. She added then that we can go ahead and start the actual moving! So of course as soon as I hung up I called the pumper people and made an appointment.

They came this morning to take care of everything.

The realtor is going to make the appointment for the roof repair.

I thought we would leave Saturday to go up to Oregon and look for a rental but I was reminded that Saturday will be our granddaughter's birthday party (her birthday is actually the 15th), so we'll probably go up on Sunday.

Meanwhile we have more and more boxes getting packed up.

We may even be out of here before the end of the month, if we're lucky!

Sky On Fire

I had to get up earlier than usual this morning and this is what I saw.

The sun rose and lit the sky so it looked like it was on fire. "Red sky in the morning--sailor take warning" is how I remember that part of the adage. Well today's forecast calls for 30º chance of showers.

The reason I was up so early was because the crazy cow Nora is back. When I had made the original breeding arrangements I told them if it didn't take they could bring her back for free (except for her feed). I also told them I didn't think it worked for several factors. One being that Nora was a fairly aggressive cow. I never saw her stand still long enough to be properly bred. And my dairyman friend said he noticed she had a very high tail-set, which long story short, in his business they get rid of those cows because they are too hard to get bred.

I told them if it didn't work and they wanted to bring her back I would recommend using Lutalyse, a drug that synchronizes estrous so you know the exact time to breed. I said they could give the first shot, then bring her back here just before the second shot is to be administered, which I could do, then count exactly 80 hours from the time of the second shot and that's when I would bring her to Dakota, tie her in a corner and let him have his way with her. (In fact my diary friend had suggested that to me the first time she was here.)

When I didn't hear from them after two months I contacted them and found out the breeding attempt(s) did not take. They said they were exploring other options.

Well, that's fine. The cow was a little nutty anyway.

Just a few weeks ago they contacted me saying they didn't realize how easy the Lutalyse would be to use. So, once again, long story short, Nora the Nut is back and I had to get up early this morning to give her the second shot. I gave the shot at 7am so I can put her in with Dakota at 3pm on Tuesday. Hopefully I counted right.

She will get picked up on Friday and I think my husband and I will be heading north on the following Saturday to bring some stuff up and look for a rental.

YIPPEEE!

Black Ornaments

Here's a funny little story.

The people moving into our house were enthusiastic about it from the moment they first started walking around looking at it. But according to them, what really sealed the deal was when he was walking out the front door, he looked to the right and saw the avacado tree.

And wouldn't you just know it, this year (I think it's the tree's third year) we have more avacadoes hanging on it than ever. I think we counted 16, more than double what we got last year!

They look like beautiful shiny black ornaments to me! And sadly no, I don't remember what variety they are...maybe Ignacio, or Northrup, or Walter Hole. I found this website that lists a BUNCH of different varieties of avacodoes. (Click on "varieties", then click on "variety list".) I can tell you the skins are very smooth, thin, obviously black ripe and unripe.

They are still hard to the touch but I think by the time we are moving out they will either be still not quite ripe (which is A-okay) or they will be ripe. Either way, we'll be taking them with us!

Well, maybe we'll leave the new people one or two... ☺