back porch chat

Hello old friend.
Pull up a chair.
I'm so glad you came to visit.
Let's relax here on the porch and catch up some.
Can i get you some sweet tea?
Would you like crushed mint or mayhaps some rum in that?

Did you hear that there is a new thrift store in Catonsville?

It's called Just In 4 U and is right behind the Papa John's on the Old Edmondson spur.

The store is pretty small, but i like that they have not only regular clothes, but petites, plus and maternity as well. The ladies that run the store seem nice (as a bonus they are from Catonsville and want to invest in the community) and one of them has a thing for shoes, so there are plenty of good shoes to be had for cheap.

But you know me; shoes are not my addiction. 

Hello lovelies  

I thrifted 2 great pins the day i visited.

The cat in the washing machine made me laugh out loud when i saw it. The pearls as bubbles are a fab touch and there is no solid backing so you'll be able to see through to whatever it is attached.

I once considered collecting pearl-heads; they are so weirdly ugly that i like them. I had a great cowboy in jeweled chaps who unfortunately lost his head when he went through the washing by mistake. sigh So i couldn't pass up this $4 ballerina.
When i went to Just In 4 U they didn't take credit (cash or checks), but it was in the business plan to add the machine as soon as they could. Stop by for some good local thrifting.

Do you realize that Dashiell turned one in March?
 Is it my imagination or is time speeding up every year? I swear that i just posted the first pictures of him and now it is already a month since the fun filled birthday party.

Of all of the pictures i took that day, this is the one that makes me smile the most because it captures all three generations of boys in one frame, plus you can see the picture that Jason's dad is taking at the same time that i am taking this one.




Have you ever been to the 8X10 in Federal Hill?
I went there for the first time
to see TM Adam
play keyboards
with the John Mancini Band.
I guess you'd call them a jam band with a jazzy flair.

Normally a quartet, for this local show John Mancini's dad joined them on stage playing the trumpet for a few numbers.

mother, sister and wife all snapping away

It was a family affair all around as not only did the entire team come out to support Adam, his family came up from Virginia. Even his elusive wife Rachel -whom none of us had met yet cause she is interning at Sinai- managed to have the night off from the hospital.

Though not particularly a fan of jam bands in general, i thoroughly enjoyed their set and highly recommend the new John Mancini Band's new CD, Sun King.



It is a well known fact that i am also not particularly fond of reggae. I mean, reggae is fine one song at a time, but after 3 songs i feel like i'm just listening to the same thing over and over again.
After Adam's band there was another band on the bill called Yellow Dubmarine.
Yes, it is a Beatle's-cover reggae band.
What?
Obviously i had to stay, just to satisfy my curiosity about what in the world this band could be about; especially after i saw the stage crew set up about a jillion mikes on that itty, bitty stage.
 There were eight band members always on stage, but that number went up to 10 or 11 during different songs as there were 2 guest vocalists and a PR/manager/friend guy who'd show up to do percussion and raise sing-a-long signs.
This is a tight, well-rehearsed band. They had some arrangements that i really enjoyed and others that made me cringe (who the heck slows down Help?), but either way they sounded great. It was certainly a different experience so i'd recommend going to see Yellow Dubmarine if they are playing a gig near you.

After the personnel shake-up at work I decided to rearrange the Happy TSP Corner. We needed to utilize the space better, I wanted a meeting/work table and frankly i couldn't stand to look at the empty desks where the rest of my team used to be so over 3 days everything got moved and cleaned. We also took out all of the cubicle walls.
At one point a desk was moved and we found this:

ummmmmmm... ew! There was detritus down there from every person that has ever had this desk, including me and i moved over to The Big Desk 10 years ago. And let's not even talk about little buggy corpses  or that snarl of cordage.

Yikes.
I highly recommend that if you haven't rearranged and cleaned your office recently you might want to get on that cause goodness only knows what might be lurking.

On my trivia team it is understood that i can not do anagrams. My brain just doesn't work like that. I'm great at puzzles and patterns, but not mixed-up words. That's why i suck at Scrabble. In an effort to exercise that part of my brain and to do something new, i decided to do the Jumbles in the newspaper (yes, i still get a newspaper; how else am i gonna have coupons?)

My Grandma Craig did the Jumble every day after finishing the crossword and i was always amazed cause it looks incomprehensible to me.

So one night after reading the funnies and working the Sudoku i tackled the Jumble. I worked that mother like a dog after a bone, determined to not give up. Even though they were short words it took me almost 30 minutes to solve all 5 of them, but by jiminy i did it
 and having finally accomplished this mind expanding exercise, proving to myself that i am capable of conquering it, i feel compelled to never, ever do it again.
It made my brain hurt.

Blech.

The team will simply have to count on Karen and Kate for those stupid anagram questions.

Speaking of Team Marge, here we are at our fourth Trivia Bowl

Cricket, Karen, Chris, Kate, Nancy, Jason and the goofball in the front

As i'm sure you can tell, the theme of this Trivia Bowl was sports. Not that the questions were all about sports (that would make me stick pins in my eyeballs), but the prizes and decorations and music was all sports themed. Jason outfitted us in jerseys, Karen gave us all hilarious hockey nicknames and we put together a lovely hockey-themed centerpiece. The Chalmers even outfitted our mascot Aloha Hello Marge.

How did we do? you ask.
Fifth place.
Again.
You might recall that there are money prizes for first through fourth places at the Trivia Bowl. You might also recall that we finished fifth last time. And the time before that. Yes, we have been out of the money by 1 to 4 points THREE TIMES IN A ROW.
Sorry to shout; it is a sore point.
There was some discussion about changing our team name to G*ddamn Fifth Place, but cooler heads prevailed. Team Marge continues on. However, they will be answering questions about vice-presidents and kicking butt without me for a little while. I am benching myself for half a season to save money and devote some time to other projects.

Which brings us to the Second Annual Catonsville Art Exhibition.
You know this is happening, right?
You know i am exhibiting again, right?
You know that i am in charge of promotions this year, right?
It's May 15th; your calendar is marked, right?

Gosh, its been nice to catch up.
I've missed you.
We should do this again.
You bring the nachos, i'll bring the watermelon sorbet.
Before you go i wanna mention that the quest to try and do new things has become a way of life. Just last night a had lobster ravioli (good, but i wouldn't order it for myself) and anchovies (dear lord was that repulsive) for the first time. Even the things i don't like are cool for being new.
Thanks for stopping by.
Be careful leaving the porch, that third step is a little wobbly.
Take care.

working the system

I wasn't much of a coupon clipper until last Spring. I started getting the Sunday paper and figured out that since the coupons were there i might as well use them. I really enjoy saving money (you might not know this, but there isn't a lot of money to be made in non-profit education :->) and am intrigued by the quest to find the best price possible. Though i use the little club cards at the stores i frequent the most often I never really paid attention to added bonuses that they offered. For instance, at CVS (as well as many others, but that's the one i use) after so much money spent, they give you money vouchers at the bottom of your receipt. I didn't notice them until too late, so usually they would expire before i even realized i had them. Then i realized that every week there would be certain items that when you bought them, you'd receive money vouchers; since you can only spend that "money" at the CVS it seemed like just a gimmick to get you to spend more money. Until i figured out how to work the system. Now when i am busily clipping coupons, i see if there is anything on sale at CVS that i need that week and i pre-plan how i will spend any money vouchers. For instance, here is the best i've done so far: *12-packs of Diet Coke are normally $3.49 (i would never pay that price), but there was a special where 4 12-packs were $13 ($3.25 per - i would never pay that price either), but you got $3 money voucher, bringing the price down to $2.50 per pack, as long as you used the $3 for something you would already be buying *the same week, 2L Diet Coke -normally $1.69 (WHO would pay that?!?)- was on special 3 for $4 ($1.34 is better, but still not good enough) with $1 money voucher ($1 is closer to what i pay). I had a $1 off coupon, bringing the price to 3 for $3 and i used the $3 money voucher from the 12-packs, thereby costing myself no more money *i had the $1 money voucher in my purse one night when i was doing a late-hour aisle exploration (everything looks cooler in the drug store when you are the only one in there) when i came across some awesome striped socks in the clearance box. The box said 50%, but there was no tag on this Hanes 3-pack so i scanned it at the price checker and found that normally they are $4.99, but for some inexplicable reason they were 49 cents. Yes, people, 90% off! I dug around and found another 3-pack of stripey socks in different colors (that happen to exactly match my uniform at work, i'll have you know) and used the $1 money voucher for both. To recap: -48 cans of soda, 3 2L bottles of soda and 6 pairs of stripey Hanes socks -regular price with tax, $29.63 -money spent, $13.o6 -savings, $16.57 All of that just from paying attention and doing a little bit of planning. It's like a super-fun game where the reward is free stuff!