I bought myself the CD “The Two Cent Show” by Steam Powered Giraffe and I’ve been playing it pretty much non-stop. You know when a song keeps playing in your head without your permission? That’s pretty much where I am right now. This one is particularly catchy:
Oh, c’mon! You gotta love this stuff! It’s so much fun! And how about that VOICE? Amazing! I’m in love with this band.
A while back we happened to catch a few episodes of that TV show “Extreme Couponing” (at least I think that’s the name of the show…I don’t remember exactly). Of course the people and situations on this show are extreme, and it’s highly unlikely the average person is going to have the same success couponing. Besides which, we really have no desire for a garage full of 1,000 tubes of toothpaste, five dozen rolls of toilet paper stored underneath the bed, or 37 bottles of mustard in the pantry, but nevertheless, the show did inspire us to start couponing.
As I said, that was a while back, and after couponing for several months, we’ve now made the decision to stop. A couple of reasons:
1. Couponing takes a lot of time! Clipping, organizing, checking the sale papers for the best deals, then checking the deals against your coupons, then traveling all over town to different stores to get the best deals at each store. It’s a big commitment of time, and for the few dollars saved each week, it just wasn’t paying off.
But maybe more importantly:
2. When you coupon, you’re allowing the manufacturers to determine which products you use, rather than YOU deciding. Of course, I’m not going to buy Polident just because I have a coupon, but there is a great temptation to buy other products you might not normally buy just because you have a coupon: cake mixes, toaster pastries, frozen pizza, etc. Shopping with coupons, I think, it’s much more likely your cart is going to fill up with foods that are not exactly healthy for you—or, at the very least, products that you don’t actually NEED.
Having recently lost twenty pounds, I’m very interested in continuing to eat healthy. The best way to do that is to shop the perimeter of the store, avoiding the aisles as much as possible. Most coupons, though, are for products in the aisles. When you’re trying to fill your cart with fresh fruits and veggies, there’s not a whole lot couponing can do for you.
Yes, I admit, we’ll probably miss a few good coupons now and then for products we’re going to buy anyway (Tide detergent, Silk soy milk, Mt. Olvie pickles), but on the other side of this equation, we can now get in and out of the store in a snap! The time that was previously spent couponing and coupon-shopping can now be used for other endevours (even if that endevour is just sitting down with a good book!) And now, when we go to the store, we can buy what WE want to buy, not what General Mills or Pillsbury wants us to buy. We will be in control of our eating and buying habits, not corporate America.
Oh yeah! And there’s one more thing:
3. Russ says the best part about not couponing is that we can now buy what we need to buy when we need to buy it, and I don’t go into a foul mood because I either don’t have my coupons on me when I see a good deal, or I see a good deal only to find out that my coupon for it expired last week. Things like that really annoy me. I don’t like being annoyed, and Russ also very much prefers it when I’m in a good mood.
Time. Control. Health. Happiness. Some things are worth a lot more than “Save 50 cents when you buy 3!”
Here is Maru, the cutest cat in the world, having some fun with a box.
Maru always makes me smile.
It occurred to me the other day that it’s been a while since I’ve discovered any new musical artists, and I was about to send out a call to my kids saying “Hey! Send me some suggestions!” but then I stumbled upon Steam Powered Giraffe.
If you watch this video, it’s probably like nothing you’ve ever seen before. I don’t really know how to explain them, so I’ll go straight to Wikepedia:
Steam Powered Giraffe (SPG) is a musical project formed in San Diego in 2008 that is popular in the steampunk subculture. The act combines the visual of robot pantomime with sketches, pop culture references, improvised comedic dialogue, and original music.
If you like what you see here, check out their other videos on You Tube. Honeybee is particularly enchanting. Their harmonies are beautiful!
Looking for something new and different: I found it! 🙂
This past week Boogie has been sick and we had to take him to the vet. Because of this, I took off work three afternoons, and each afternoon, I went to lunch at our local McDonald’s, because they are offering the Big Mac for 99-cents. It’s cheap, and it’s easy, and I didn’t have to think about food, I just needed to eat it so I could get on my way to the vet.
Boogie is feeling better now, but after having three Big Mac’s this week, I felt certain I was going to see the number on the scale go up…way up! But lo and behold, this morning, I was at my lowest weight yet! How did that happen? Are Big Macs a secret diet food?
No, actually, I think it’s more likely that worrying about my little man took its toll on me. I probably didn’t eat right all week long, and the Big Macs were counteracted by other foods I ate or didn’t eat, and waking up at 2:30 in the morning, worrying. I think worrying can burn a lot of calories. I wouldn’t recommend it as a diet strategy, but I think perhaps it does work.
For the last several days, I’ve been enjoying the Olympics, especially seeing USA win so many medals. I recently heard someone on the radio say that they were sick and tired of 
constantly seeing all the Olympians’ moms and dads on TV. Well, I’m not. I love seeing the families in the audience, getting excited about their son or daughter or brother or sister achieving their dreams. These young people work very, very hard, and only come to national attention for a few days once every four years. They deserve all the attention they can get—and that includes attention for their families, who have been so very supportive for so very long, sometimes making huge sacrifices. I like seeing that these stories are not just about individuals, but also about families.
Back in 2002, Mitt Romney shared my sentiments about the Olympians and their families when he said:“You Olympians, however, know you didn’t get here solely on your own power. For most of you, loving parents, sisters or brothers, encouraged your hopes, coaches guided, communities built venues in order to organize competitions. All Olympians stand on the shoulders of those who lifted them. We’ve already cheered the Olympians, let’s also cheer the parents, coaches, and communities.
I don’t know if Romney still feels the same way about the Olympians, but I’ve got to say I certainly don’t see how it is that he now objects to President Obama’s recent comments about business owners. Well, no, wait. Actually, I do know how it is he objects. He objects because he’s pulled that one line, “You didn’t build that,” out of context, conveniently ignoring what follows, when Obama added:
“If you were successful, somebody along the line gave you some help. There was a great teacher somewhere in your life. Somebody helped to create this unbelievable American system that we have that allowed you to thrive.”
Now somebody explain to me: are these two statements really so different? I don’t see that they are. I don’t see why it’s okay to tell the Olympians “you didn’t get here solely on your own power,” but it’s NOT okay to tell business owners that “somebody along the line gave you some help.” What’s true for Olympians is true for small business owners. Everyone who is involved in building something great deserves recognition for their contributions.
So bring on the happy parents! I know if one of my kids was in the Olympics, I would not want to be hiding in a corner. I’d be out there telling everyone I know “That’s my kid! That’s my kid!!”
But I’ll also say this: if I were Romney, I wouldn’t criticize my opponent for saying the same thing I’ve already said. And I also wouldn’t base an ad campaign on a single line taken out of context.
And I ESPECIALLY wouldn’t feature a business owner in that ad, criticizing the President for saying that the government helped him build his business, when in fact his company received millions of dollars in government contracts for work on numerous public schools. And I wouldn’t run another ad based on the President’s “You didn’t build that” remark starring another business owner who received $800,000 in tax-exempt revenue bonds as well as sub-contracts from the US Navy.
First Question: What the heck is Romney thinking? Guess what, Mr. Romney: We’re not stupid, and we are paying attention.
Second Question: Who among us has not had some help along the way? We all have. So let’s get over it, man up, and give credit where credit is due!
Recently, Russ said, “Thank you for making my sandwich every morning.” I said, “I’m happy to do it.” And I am happy to do it, and here’s why:
I’m happy I have a husband who goes to work every day and is willing to eat food from home rather than spending $5-$10 of our money on a restaurant lunch. We have similar ideas about the best ways to economize, so it’s a blessing that we are both on the same page regarding how our money should be budgeted.
I’m happy I have a husband who goes to work. After the tornado, Russ did a little freelancing for Marvel while he looked for a new job, and now he’s back to work full-time! I really have no time for people who bellyache about their jobs. If you have a job, be thankful! And if it’s not the kind of job you can be thankful for, then look for a new one! Having a job is a blessing.
I’m happy to have a husband. I don’t think I’ve yet gotten over how marvelous it is that I finally found someone who so perfectly complements me, someone with whom I share so many interests, and with whom I have no fear whatsoever of being absolutely genuine.
In the best case scenario, Russ and I die together in our sleep when we’re 100 years old. Realistically I know that’s probably not going to happen, and though I’m confident we’re going to have many, many years together, I never take for granted what a blessing it is to have him in my life. Someday he may not be here for me to make a sandwich for…so for right now, every day that we get to be together, I’ll make him as many sandwiches as he wants, for as long as I can!
Woo hoo! I am so excited! This morning I have officially reached a loss of 20 pounds in the last four months! Around April 1st I began drastically cutting the amount of sugar and flour that I eat, and that has paid off bigtime. I drink a lot of water, eat a lot of salads, and moderate portions at dinnertime. Lately, Russ and I have also started going back to the gym. I’ve gotten to the point where I can add a piece of bread now and then, and I still lose weight! So I don’t have to give up bread forever. I just try not to overdo it.
One thing that I think has really helped me in this weight loss is that Russ has been keeping track of my numbers on a chart, and it really helps to be see that visual representation. Every day when I look at this chart I think, “And tomorrow, I’ll make that line go down even further!” I would highly recommend charting to anyone who is trying to lose weight.
Now, one thing I will say about this weight loss: I’m not carrying it the same way I did back in 2005 when I lost a bunch of weight in about five months. In 2005, when I was at the weight I am this morning, it was a lot more visible, and there are clothes that I wore back then that I still can’t fit into this morning (though I’m getting closer!). I think I’m probably going to have to lose another 10-15 pounds to fit into those clothes again. That’s discouraging, and I’m sure it has a lot to do with the fact that I’m older this time around, but be that as it may, I’m on the right track. And I’m encouraged to continue.
And another thing that’s encouraging is that Russ has decided to join me in this weight loss endevour, and in one month, he has taken off ten pounds! He’s not doing the “no sugar no flour” approach, but he’s making small changes like drinking more water and less soda, switching from 2% to 1% milk, snacking on grapes instead of crackers, half mayo and half mustard on his high fiber bread (rather than all mayo on a lower fiber bread) and his biggie—no fried food. He’s also eating more salads, but I doubt anybody eats as much salad as I do!
So as you can see, I’m excited about these changes, and excited to continue on this path.
Wow! It’s been a month since I’ve posted here. Jeez! Too long. But I’ll try to make up for it now. So what’s been going on during the last month? Well, a lot actually. Most importantly, Russ got a job! And not only a job, but a job at the University! Now we both have the same hours and vacations, and can drive into work together every day. It saves gas, but more importantly, it’s fun. We used to drive into work together all the time, and I missed that. But not anymore!
We are now both working towards retirement at the University, as well. Ten years from now, the extra check will be nothing to sneeze at! Oh! And our cost for two single coverage health insurance plans rather than one family plan saves us about $160 a month! 
Woo hoo! That’s a benefit we can feel right away. All around, it’s just a great deal.
In other news, our stove died a couple weeks ago, and we had to have the repairman come out to make sure it was truly dead, and while he was here, we had him install a new dining room chandelier, since we hated the old one. Also got some new lanterns on the outside of the garage.
So, making some home improvements, including the new stove from Sears. And the 
icing on the cake is that about five days after we purchased the stove, it went on sale, so today we went back to Sears where we had them apply a credit of $87 on the price of the stove! So yeah, it was expensive…but not as expensive as it could have been. All in all, I think we got a great deal. We’re starting to think about changing out the appliances in the kitchen from white to black, and this is the first step. The new stove even has this feature called a “warming burner” and double ring burners so you don’t have to run a huge burner for a little pot, if all the little burners are already busy.
By the way, we learned an important piece of information in all this, which I’ll pass on: apparently if you do a lot of long-term hot cooking on the back burners it can cause the control panel to overheat and potentially decrease its life expectancy. Do your big cooking jobs on the front burners, and only use the back burners for quick and/or low heat jobs, like heating a kettle. This could help extend the life of your control panel.
All this aside, also during the month of June I took a trip to Florida and got to see almost everybody I wanted to see. The best thing about this trip was seeing that Mom really seems to be bouncing back quite well from her recent surgery. I was also happy to see that Mary and Ken have moved into a very nice apartment.
Mary moved into her new apartment a few days before I got there.
Mary’s cats: Slayer & Karma
I tried the zimne nogi, but didn’t like it.
Mom & Terry
The worst thing about this trip was remembering how HOT and CROWDED all of South Florida is! Mary and I had to drive around quite a bit in her car with no air conditioning (Ugh!) and everywhere you go is traffic, traffic, traffic! We went to Ikea late on Friday night (which, by the way, Ikea is like the greatest store ever and I’m so jealous that we don’t have one in Tuscaloosa or even in Birmingham) and at 9:00 pm, the lines for trying to get OUT of Ikea looked like the lines for trying to get INTO Disneyworld! I’m not kidding.
One of the most fun things I did over vacation was to sit with Mom and watch several episodes of Queer Eye for the Straight Guy. I used to love that show! It was so much fun to see it again. I’m looking forward to having some time to fire up Netflix and continue watching some more episodes at home, but alas…time…not so much in abundance.
Being away for a week put us a little behind on the podcast, so been spending a good amount of spare time catching up with all that, and also working on the Marvel blog. I’d love to do the AugNoWriMo, but just not sure I’m really going to have enough time to be able to do all this. If I can get caught up with all these projects over the next few weeks, I’ll consider the AugNo.
Mr. Squee is Executive Producer of our podcast.
I was afraid being on vacation would destroy my healthy eating habits. I did fine until that Sunday when we had a giant Thanksgiving type feast. It was all delicious and a lot of fun, but it took me a little while to get back on track after that. I am back on track now, finally, and glad to report that I’ve actually not only got back to the 180 I was before vacation, but this morning on the scale I actually saw 177! Yes!! Back on track!
Oh yeah! And here’s some more exciting news: the post-tornado construction at McFarland & 15th Street is coming along so well. They’ve even got the “moon face” on the side of the Full Moon restaurant, which we are anticipating should be open by the time school starts up again in the Fall. In the picture below, the building on the right is the new Krispy Kreme, also under construction. When it’s done, it’s going to be enormous! Friday we saw the Taco Casa cactus being installed and the Big Lots has finally relocated. The town is coming back. It’s exciting to see!
Oh yes! And one more thing. Since getting back from vacation…we have hummingbirds! They were a little late in arriving this season, but I’ve got one or two regularly visiting at feeders in both the front and the back yard.
Well, right now I’ve got to start thinking about cooking up some dinner…on my NEW STOVE! Tomorrow is back to work. I’ll try to post more frequently, at least a few pictures now and then.
Yesterday during my lunchbreak I went to the pet store for cat food. I bought a new brand of kibble a few weeks back, and at first the cats ate it, but now they just LOOK at it, then look at me, then look at the kibble, then look at me, then sigh in disgust and walk away. And truthfully, I didn’t find that this new food was doing nothing to help Boogin’s “digestion.” In fact, if anything, I would say perhaps it has made the problem worse.
So it’s back to the drawing board, which in this case means back to the pet store, where I have now picked up some cans of EVO 95% Turkey, and Wellness Turkey (Grain Free). Both brands get great reviews, and in all my reading, I’ve learned to stick with fowl for sensitive kitty stomachs, rather than beef or fish. So we’ll give these new foods a whirl, see if either of them might turn out to be “the magic pill” to help Boogins feel better.
Now all of that I say by way of introduction. Because, as you can see, the title of this post is not TRYING YET ANOTHER CAT FOOD, it’s about my quest for the perfect side salad. How do I get from here to there? Well, after my pet store visit, I stopped into the local Arby’s, where I ordered a large tea, and a side salad. And here’s my evaluation of that experience.
The Arby’s side salad is not really that complicated, just iceberg lettuce, shredded cheddar cheese, and a few chunks of diced tomato. Actually, it was more than just a FEW chunks of tomato. I have to give them that. They did not skimp on the tomato. So that was good.
And the dressing was good too! Their Marzetti Buttermilk Ranch dressing comes in a 1.5 ounce package, so there is plenty of it (unlike the Wendy’s salad, where they only give you a one ounce package, so you have to go back up to the counter and ask for another package, and you don’t know if they’re going to try to charge you or not, so all in all it’s kind of uncomfortable eating a salad at Wendy’s. But their chili is to die for.)
The Arby’s dressing packet would have been more than enough for the salad, which is a decent size for a $1.69 side salad. But I was amazed at how far the dressing actually went!
You see, over the years I have developed this practice of sometimes “enhancing” a simple fast-food salad with items from home. It’s easy enough to prepare a small container of whatever —-sliced mushrooms, onions, olives, cheese chunks, beans, or even tuna fish. Then, when you get your salad, just reach into your oversized purse, pull out the container, dump it on, and voilĂ ! That simple little $1.69 salad is now a meal.
Yesterday I brought a container of black beans and some diced celery. Beans are a fabulous and delicious source of low calorie protein, and celery is just all-around healthy, no matter how you look at it. I always try to add a little celery to whatever salad I’m eating. When I added my items from home, my salad went from this…to this:
Now personally, I think this looks scrumptious, and I have to tell you…it was scrumptious! The lettuce was simple iceberg, and thankfully it did not have that “too green” taste I’ve been running into a bit lately. The dressing was thick enough to cover the entire salad. The cheese and the beans made this a hearty meal.
I like the Arby’s salad bowl. It’s deep, rather than wide, which gives you a good opportunity to move the salad stuff around without it possibly falling out on to the table. The lid of the plastic bowl is sometimes a bit hard to pry loose, but once you get it off and get to your salad, it’s smooth sailing all the way.
Yes, Arby’s does charge you a bit more for their side salad than say McDonald’s , but I think they also give you more food. The real plus for me in going to Arby’s is that there is a tree INSIDE the restaurant, which I just think is cool, and their iced tea tastes great. Lately, I do not always have good luck with the tea at McDonald’s. Sometimes tea can have that too strong/too bitter flavor at McDonald’s. But not so at Arby’s. Nice and fresh.
And not once yet have I had the experience at Arby’s of finding the sweet tea in the container marked “unsweet tea.” That’s happened to me a couple of times at McDonald’s lately and it’s just a pain to have to ask the girl to get me some tea from behind the counter. And nobody apologizes or even seems concerned that they’ve got sweet tea in the unsweet container. They just go on as if that’s perfectly okay.
Well, I didn’t mean to start ragging on McDonald’s in this post about Arby’s, but that was on my mind from the other day. I don’t even like to stop at McDonald’s so much anymore. And Burger King? Don’t even get me started! Last time Russ and I were in Burger King we looked at each other and said “Never again.” Which is a shame, because I really do like the Jr. Whopper.
Well, I’m off topic. The Arby’s salad is a good deal, with a good deal of good dressing. I say: go for it!
