the best shopping day ever

Hello, jealous people. Yesterday was the day of glee and spending - Mom and I went to JC Penney for the much anticipated storewide 75% off sale. We went, we shopped, we bought things for much less than their ticketed price. The purse you see at the left is no doubt wowing you with its amazing shiny red leather and chique sliver clasp. You are longing to have one for yourself, you are picturing it on your own shoulder and matching it to the outfits in your closet. You love this purse for its roomy interior and comfortable portability. But it's mine, all mine BWAHAHA!! I adore it and every time I see it sitting there so pretty and new I giggle and clap my hands. :)



-----

What's this? Another fabulous bargain of greatness? Mom and I found this shirt and I fell in love with its groovy awesomeness. I had a very sad face at first, because we found it in a small and a large - both of which fit just wrong, but later we found it in a medium in a different section and it fits perfectly. It goes with jeans, it goes with dress pants, it complements every skirt I own beautifully. *sigh* I love this shirt.



-----

The color of this fabulous dress came out much brighter in the photo - the blue is more a deep royal blue than a POW! royal blue and you can't really appreciate that in the light it shimmers. Now like all clothes, it looks much better on an actual body than hanging from a curtain rod, but since I'm incapable of taking a full-body pic of myself on my own this is the view you get (don't worry, Mama, I intend to have J take pics of me in these clothes for your viewing delight once I'm rested from the day of shopping...I shall email them to you so it's JUST like you were there with us).









-----

Another dress of awesomeness...I realized while shopping that I own exactly one dress aside from a prom dress and my wedding gown and was struck with the irresistable desire to rectify the situation.

Also purchased was a dress shirt for J, which I photographed, but which came out badly and I'm too lazy to retake a photo of it and then rehook the camera up to the computer and then wait again for everything to load and then wait some more for it to upload to this post...so you can just imagine it as it is: a nice blue dress shirt with tan and white stripes/plaid. :)


In all we shopped for I think 5.5 hours and my purchases totaled an initial retail value of $223.29 (not including tax), but because of the 75% off sale, plus two coupons Mom gave me for 15% of each I actually spent $47.04, including tax. But wait...$35 of that was a giftcard from Christmas, so in reality all these things you see before you cost me $12.

I think you get the idea. It was a glorious day. :-D

random thoughts

MSG. It wasn't that long ago that there was a big uproar over Monosodium Glutamate and how tons of people are allergic to it and it was largely eradicated from food products. I know it wasn't more than 10 years ago...but time has passed and food manufacturers have been quietly adding it to their products again. ALL their products.

I'm one of those people that are allergic. At first, bizarrely enough, only in Pizza Hut pizza and Chinese food...but now in anything, and it's still one of those preservatives that you can ask your waiter in a restaurant "Is this made with MSG?" and they have no idea what you are talking about. I now religiously read the ingredients on everything I buy, but I forget sometimes.

Like last night. Veggie dip. Who thinks VEGGIE DIP is going to have MSG in it? J and I were devouring pretzels and dip and loving it and then I think to look at the ingredients and voila...hidden in the middle somewhere Monosodium Glutamate. Mocking me, laughing at me, smiling triumphantly in my face. Sure enough 20 minutes later I'm shaking and nauseous and sweating and my head is pounding.

I can't eat chips...Doritos, we got Doritos as a treat a while back only to discover when we got home that they also have MSG. One might say this is a great incentive to eat only whole, natural foods...and it is if you can afford to only buy such things. I'm trying little tiny bit by little tiny bit to improve our eating habits, but still I have to go by what we can afford and right now what we can afford has MSG in it half the time. Chips, dip, salad dressing, some spices (I've been experimenting with chicken dishes and am shocked at all the stuff I cannot season it with because of MSG), snack mixes...a million other relevant things I cannot think of at the moment. ARGH!

Rant over.

-----

Today I'm resting. It helps that my body seems to be doing that chronic fatigue thing that goes with Fibromyalgia - I slept until 11 a.m. and am, at 1:26 p.m., ready for a nap. But I'm resting because tomorrow is the JC Penney sale of greatness.

Tomorrow is a day Mom and I are waiting for with glee and joy. Tomorrow is devoted to fun, to being girls with gift cards. Girls who love to hunt through the biggest clearance sale of the season for purses and clothes and anything that catches our fancy. A day for playing and laughing and having fun. That's why today I'm resting. I must reserve all my energy for the day of glee...as I think of tomorrow I'm tempted to jump up and down and giggle...but I will contain myself. For the sake of our glorious day of fun. :-D

-----

My favorite time of the day is here: the mail just arrived. This post will continue momentarily.

-----

HaHA! I love mail. I unlocked our box and the mail literally fell out all over the floor. To some this might be annoying, but to me it's a laugh-inducing, joy-giving experience. Look at all the mail! I scooped it up off the floor and poured over today's yield:

- 2 credit card offers (I love these because I open them, seal the empty no-postage-necessary envelope and mail it back to them. HA! Take THAT credit card companies!)
- our Discover bill. (I love getting bills in the mail because it means I get to write a check, which gives me the same thrill it did when I wrote my first check years ago. It also means I get to stamp and seal an envelope and mail something myself...*sigh* I love mail.)
- a letter from Progressive. They still want me to switch to them even though my policy with Geico is waaaay cheaper than anything they can offer me. Trash.
- a clothing catalog from Chadwick's. I've never heard of Chadwick's before, but it means my address and name have been sold, which means I'll be getting more useless catalogs in the future. Bummer, you say? Not at all, say I! I have a catalog full of models and clothing to mock to my heart's content. :)

-----

When we were watching the Packers/Giants game on Sunday I swear that Favre shouted something specific every time before the customary "Hut hut!". I swear that that thing he shouted was:

BRING ME THE CHEESE!

J does not quite agree with me, but I found the game more fun because of it. :-D

movie time!

Time to pull out the Christmas movies. Ours, of course, have been sitting on top of the VCR/DVD player since mid-November, but since it's December it's now acceptable to actually watch them.

Thusly on Saturday morning we got up and made cinnamon rolls (and by 'made' I mean I popped a tube of them, separated them, and put them on a pan to bake), snuggled up on the couch and watched that most classic of all holiday films....A Garfield Christmas. It doesn't get much better than that, but we also own and intend to watch

Alvin and the Chipmunks
How the Grinch Stole Christmas
White Christmas
Charlie Brown Christmas
A Muppet Christmas Carol
National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation

and of course will one day (I dream of the day!) own It's a Wonderful Life, one of the very few movies that makes me well up and weep every time, without fail. Even if I just see randomly that little blip of them all signing Auld Lang Sign my face starts dripping and I begin to blubber incoherently.

-----

J had Friday off so we hit up this bi-annual sale at a church nearby. One of those cosmically huge rummage sales crammed with people and unbelievable bargains. We came, we swooped, we spent $4.75 and got (you'll be shocked to hear) a bunch of books, an Ernest movie, and an awesome picture carousel that holds 12 pictures (you spin it around like a carousel...okay forget it, I should just post a picture of its gloriousness).

ta-da! now i just have to print some pictures...

-----

GooberBear's family got their Christmas tree from a lot yesterday and he was upset because he "wants a Christmas tree that comes out of the attic like Grammy and Pa's"...Mom and Pa keep their fake tree in the attic, which GooberBear apparently has stored in his little mind all year hoping for one of his own!

sunday

Sundays follow a predictable pattern for us...

9 a.m. - J gets up and takes a shower
9:30 a.m. - J wakes me up. Apparently I make a very angry face when being woken up and the first few times he did it he stood as far away as possible in case I started punching. I don't punch, I just hate getting out of bed. I didn't realize until a recent conversation that the grumpy from my brain showed up on my groggy face. 0:-)
9:45 a.m. - We're both dressed. If there is Mountain Dew in the house I pour us a couple of glasses and we head out the door to church. If there is a lack of Dew we wish we had some and leave anyway.
10 a.m. - Church starts. Pastor Dan preaches. I make notes that within weeks I am unable to comprehend. Today's gleanings: "Bitterness smells like roadkill".
11:15 a.m. - (I'm guessing on the time here, I never actually pay attention to when church ends) Church is over and we ooze forward with the mob to exit the church, usually stopping to chat with Pastor Dan for a minute before leaving.
11:16 a.m. - We decide whether to go home or to go Do Something. Today we headed out to our new favorite haunt - a park with a volunteer wildlife refuge center full of injured hawks, eagles (bald and golden), buzzards, one bobcat, and owls. We walked and talked to all the animals (i.e. I talk to all the animals and J whistled, trying to sound like a scared rodent to get their attention) and then realized we were freezing and headed back to the van. It's see-your-breath weather. :(

Once in the van we realized we hadn't had enough animal contact and went to pet the bunnies, kitties, and puppies at the pet store in the mall.

Muuuuuch better.

1 p.m. - Home again - eat a brief lunch and
1:15 p.m. - I'm collapsed in bed for my afternoon nap. Napping is an essential part of a Sunday for me, my body enforces the ritual around the same time every week. During this time J will usually run to the library and pick up some movies (westerns, since I'm not a big fan of cowboy flicks and he gets to watch them by himself) - today it was Tom Horn starring Steve McQueen.
3:20 p.m. - Is when I woke from my beauty sleep. The rest of the day is a great affair of doing nothing in particular - reading, watching football, harassing each other, annoying the hamsters. Today, however, we lugged our laundry over to Mom & Pa's (4 loads worth...so much, in fact, that I have to go back and finish it tomorrow. Needless to say we had literally no undies left, and had been wearing the same clothes for a couple days now...) and sat down with them to watch the Pats/Bills game on NBC. This particular fam are Bills fans, so it was a painful, ugly, disturbing affair. By halftime it was 28/7 Pats and J and I went home...because we were tired and what was the point? *sigh*
10:49 p.m. - That would be the moment we're at right now. Home again and getting ready for our ritualistic 11 p.m.-climbing-into-bed routine.

I love Sundays for all their laid-back glory. Most Sundays are like taking a deep breath and contentedly letting it out.

oh how i played

It's what I imagine a bug feels like after a firm stomping from an unforgiving shoe. Crushed, pain wracking its mangled body (can bugs feel pain? Or is it more like paralysis? "That's weird, I can't seem to feel my thorax!"), eyes squinted in agony, dimly wondering what the heck happened to make him feel this way. Except I know why I feel this way. Yesterday I played...

J dropped the van off in the morning yesterday...an unexpected pleasantry causing me to jump up and down and yell "Yippee!". I threw on my clothes and ran out the door. What would I do? Where would I go? As I planned my moves I climbed into the van and let out a cry... For quite a while now we've just been tossing our cans and bottles into the back of the van, figuring we'd take them to the redemption center "sometime". It was yesterday morning that I realized the time had come - 9 garbage bags bulging, one box clinking - blocking windows and threatening to jump into the front seat.

I happily drove to the grocery store and loaded two carts, handily wheeling them to the redemption counter. To the chagrin of every old lady in line behind me I then unloaded all 389 cans and bottles. It was no small feat; in the end I was sticky and somewhat disheveled...but it was with triumph that I cashed my pay ticket of $19.45!

Skipping back to the van I smiled to myself with smug contentment (clearly it doesn't take a whole lot to make me feel special) and drove to Mom's...where my nephew (GooberBear) and niece (Munchkin) were having a snack with their grammy.

Due to somebody being sick or my Fibromyalgia being stupid or somebodies car dying it had been a long while since we'd played together and our meeting was filled with screams and giggles. GooberBear is almost 4. He was so excited to see me that he jumped up and ran in circles and yelled for a few minutes before he could calm down enough to play. Munchkin is around a year and half and smiled and giggled while GooberBear did his thing.

Then we played, oh how we played! We spent a good half hour playing "How high did I jump?". This means I sit on the middle cushion of the couch and GooberBear stands on one end and jumps over me, most of the time needing a little help reaching the other side. Finally I said, "Okay, two more jumps and then let's play something else."

"Okay," said GooberBear, "three more jumps and then hide and seek." He always sneaks that extra jump (or whatever we're doing at the time) in there so naturally that I cannot refuse. What aunt could?

Hide and seek with GooberBear goes like this:

"Hey GooberBear, are you hiding or am I hiding?"
"You hide....in the bathroom." (for "in the bathroom" insert anything from 'under that chair' to 'by that plant')

Goober then proceeds to count from one to twenty. I was impressed as he accurately hammered out 1-12 and then finished up with, "thiiiirteen. fiiiiifteen. foooouurteen. seeeeventeen. TWENTY!"

Now half the fun for this little boy when he hides is having you look for him everywhere he's not while he giggles to himself at how you can't find him. ("Aunt B, look for me everywhere else first.") So as I was crouched down getting my socks wet in the tub I let out my own set of giggles as I heard him looking for me in the other room:

"Hmmm. Where could Aunt B be hiding? Under the table? Nooooo. On the couch? Nooo. Behind the lamp? Noooo..."

In the meantime, Munchkin has decided to join in and gleefully pulls back the shower curtain, exclaiming, "GAAAHBLLLAAA!!!!"

Our games were interrupted occasionally by a "TRAIN!!!!" or "GOHBO!!!" (garbage truck)...in which case we dropped whatever we were doing, jumped on the couch and watched what was going by with fascination through the front window.

After two hours of playing, discussing how we slept with our teddy bears, eating peanut butter off a big spoon, and talking about how we missed each other it was time to go. Fortunately they'll be up on Wednesday and we can play again for another day!

Tired out and sore I contemplated returning home, but having the van for a day was more temptation than I could handle and I hit up The Christmas Tree Shop and A.C. Moore for gifties and stocking stuffers (Christmas is coming!!!) before returning home.

This is where I should have taken the nap and painkillers my body was pleading for, but instead I got distracted and cleaned the hamster cages (gross), which somehow morphed into dusting and vacuuming...and sweeping the kitchen...and taking down 'normal' decorations to make way for Christmassy ones. And getting Christmas boxes out of the closet. When J came home the apartment was in wild disarray and I was ready to collapse. I did collapse, but after a brief nap and supper we got crazy, put on the holiday tunes, and decked the walls and windows with all manner of cheer. (Christmas is coming!!!)

We were done by 9:30 p.m. and after a few minutes on the couch I was painfully aware of having crossed the line physically by doing Too Much. Head pounding and muscles spasming, I went to bed around 11 p.m. No pill could keep the pain down enough for me to sleep, though, and by 3 a.m. I was comparing myself to the unfortunate insects. And now it is morning and once again I am full of pills and pain, but looking back on my day yesterday I can't help but smile and think that it was Worth It.

checked-up

Mom picked me up this morning (for the car of delight is still dead, never to run again) and drove me through narrow, harrowing streets of City doom to my little doctor's office.

Success! I am pleased to report that my new doctor did not scare, hurt, or yell at me. She was so great and easy to talk to. She put my cringes immediately at ease :)

After much talking and catching up (I'd gone MIA from the doc's for about a year and apparently they frown on this) I got my two RXs renewed and have a new muscle-relaxer to try...I'd tell you what it is but I sort of already dropped it off at Sam's Club (this just in: you don't have to have a Sam's membership to fill your prescriptions there and, even though under the same corporation, they are actually cheaper than Wal*Mart!) and have forgotten the long, hard-to-pronounce name.

So I'm happy and at ease. Except that I'm due for my next pap smear at the end of January. Gross.

After this jubilantly easy to get through appointment we ate dollar-menu Wendy's and hit up the grocery stores:

Aldi's...is the stupidest store I've been to, but I keep going back because of great prices on spinach, mac and cheese, juice, and bread. First of all, making people pay a quarter to get a cart - even if you get the quarter back in the end - will keep people from leaving the carts everywhere, but it's darned inconvenient for people who never have quarters in their pockets. I also must say that narrow, crowded aisles, along with a guaranteed long, slow moving line is (to put it mildly) annoying.

Wal*Mart...is the best store I've been to, and I've started getting my groceries there almost exclusively (no offense, Wegman's) because of the low cost, ease of finding things, and quick check out lines. I love Wal*Mart, it is my friend.

We came home and I collapsed upon the floor (after thanking Mom profusely for all the rides she keeps giving me) for about 30 seconds. It would have been longer, but let's face it - yogurt, milk, and cheese don't do too well sitting on the counter for long periods of time.

I then cheerfully sat myself down at the computer to hammer out this faithful account, and in the middle of doing so I remembered that oh yah...the worker's comp auditor guy is coming today at 4:30 p.m. Maybe I should stop spilling my tired brain into my keyboard and get things ready for him.

it's check-up time

It annoys me, I admit, to have to make an appointment just to get a standard refill on my medication. Though I'm not nearly the RX junky I've been in the past, I still have 2 (sometimes 3) standard drugs to help me get through my Fibromyalgic days. While I've been meaning to talk to my doc anyway about some possible changes to my meds (including getting an opinion about Lyrica) I cringe at the thought of walking into the doc's office tomorrow.

Cringe factors:

* Not having medical insurance - those office visits are not cheap.
* My doc left (got married and wants to have kids - how dare she get her own life!) and this appointment is with a new face. It's hard to find a good doctor when you have FMS and I liked my old doc so much, she was open and easy to get along with. The new face is at the same office, but still...I liked the old face!
* My doc office is in the dreaded City...the 'bad' part of town. The part of town your husband doesn't let you travel to alone, and while he agrees that it's alright to have his mom along with you, everybody still worries until you are safely home.

Nonetheless...off Mom and I go tomorrow for the exciting appointment.

*cringe*