Socks

As I may have mentioned before, I am not a big fan of shopping.  It might even be said that I dislike despise hate shopping (except for Home Depot – LOVE Home Depot  )

Out of all the kinds of shopping that one can do, I think that clothes shopping is my least favorite.  The whole process of finding something I like and then hoping I can find it in my size… and even if they have it in my size, there is still only a 50/50 chance that it really fits.  And when it doesn’t, then you have to look some more and try on some more.  Ugh.  I’m tired just writing about it.  And even when I do find something I like and it fits, I don’t get any huge thrill out of wearing new clothes - not like getting a pile of 2 x 4’s or a new drill… now that’s fun!

But as with most rules, there are exceptions and there is an exception to my dislike of clothes shopping:  Socks.

Nothing feels so nice as putting on a brand new pair of clean, fluffy socks.

I wish I could afford to wear new socks every day.

Tortured

As I've mentioned before, I loathe shopping. The only exception is Home Depot - I could happily spend hours there - I just wish my bank account would allow it. Otherwise shopping is a tedious task that I only do when absolutely necessary. Today I suffered not only through ordinary shopping - I was tortured with clothes shopping. Shopping for a dress to be exact. And on a Saturday. How much can a person be asked to endure?

For a bit of background, I don't wear dresses. I don't own a dress. And honestly, even though I am sure I have since, my last real recollection of wearing a dress was twenty years ago. Next week however, I going to become the Godmother to my niece and my sister said I have to wear a dress. I am thrilled to pieces to be a Godmother, so I was happy (happy being a relative term!) to go dress shopping. And it's my fault for going on a Saturday - I procrastinated way too long :(

I found something acceptable - I'm not totally in love with it, but it will work fine and was within my budget (actually under budget!). I have to get shoes yet, but shoe shopping isn't quite as horrible as clothes shopping. If there was a shopping scale with 1 being the worst thing in the world to shop for and 10 being the best thing in the world to shop for, clothes would be about a -5. Shoes rank at about a 2.



The new Big Brother season started this week. My first impressions:

- Ronnie won't be lasting long

- Chima is like nails on a chalkboard to me

- I like Casey - I hope he sticks around

- Natalie is going to get caught lying really quick

- What the heck was Julie wearing???? Ugh.



If you fly a lot or just periodically, you will like this post from Dave. I totally empathize - I've seen exactly what they are talking about. Make sure you watch the video - it is soooooo well done!

Groove

Did you ever fall into that groove where things start to fall into place? Even when some things aren't doing good at all, other parts just go your way. I've been shopping around for some things that I needed to buy for the house and I really didn't think that I would be happy with anything that I could afford. You know how it is - everything you like is *just* out of your price range... yeah. However, I've really managed to really score on some important things. A good price for things I really love - yay! Also, projects are starting to move along - big and small. Soon, I'll *really* be able to make some headway on some pretty cool things I have planned around the house. I'm chomping at the bit to get working - but it's looking like I'll have to wait at least another week or two before I can really get going. I'm feeling giddy just thinking about it :)

And I heard that the Steelers won the Superbowl. A few people I know are pretty happy about that. Me - it doesn't matter to me one way or the other. I used to video tape the Superbowl every year. Not to watch the game - but to watch the commercials :) Thanks to the wonderful invention of YouTube, I don't have to bother anymore. Plus it's a lot easier to watch the commercials without have to fast forward through a lot of stuff I couldn't care less about.

I've been pretty disappointed in the Superbowl commercials the last bunch of years. You would think that for what the sponsors pay to air their commercials, that at least 90% of the commercials would blow everyone out the water. It seems like we're lucky if two or three of the commercials are memorable. Today at work, I was asking people what their favorite Superbowl commercial was. Everyone I asked could describe their favorite. Not one person could tell me what product/company was being advertised - except for the people who liked the Doritos commercial. That's a pretty sad commentary for the people who are writing these commercials. Isn't the idea to make people remember your product so they will buy it? Go figure.

And no one mentioned any Budweiser commercials as their favorite. I've always liked them the best. They always make me cry. Except the last year or two, they seem to be making a couple that are on the crude side. I don't like those.

I haven't had the chance to watch all the commercials yet, but so far a Doritos one is my favorite (this may change as I see more):

Sticker Shock

I couldn't believe it when I discovered yesterday that it would cost me over ***$400*** if I wanted to buy 34 gallons of antifreeze. Obviously I haven't purchased anti-freeze in a while. When did it become so crazy expensive? ¡Ay, caramba!

Count

Wow - what a difference a job makes when it comes to finding change. Last year I did an experiment by saving all the pennies and other change I found and tallying them all up at the end of the year. I did the same thing this year. Most of 2007, my job entailed a lot of travel between a lot of retail locations. All of 2008, I worked in one building every day.

2008 total: $1.86

The breakdown:
.25 - 2
.10 - 9
.05 - 1
.01 - 41

I found a penny yesterday at Tops, so I'm going to save any found change again this year :)

I'm sure that my total would have been higher if I liked shopping and visited retail locations more often. As it is, I hate shopping and I avoid malls and the like as much as possible.

That being said, I had a very successful shopping trip today. I needed to pick up a birthday gift, and I needed a couple of turtlenecks and I had $50 gift card for JCPenney so I thought I would combine the trip to the mall. It turned out the JCPenney was having a fantastic sale. Thanks to the gift card and a $10 off coupon, I got for myself $182.27 worth of new clothes for only $1.04 out my pocket - how cool is that???? Maybe if all shopping was like that, I wouldn't hate it so much.

Frozen

Yay! We didn't get all the snow that we had the potential of getting. I like snow, but I'm not ready for real snow yet. Tuesday morning there was snow on the grass and on my truck, but it was only 1/4" - if that. It sure was cold tho'. The forecast looks really nice for the next few days, relatively speaking. Yay again!

It was really cold overnight, and the water in the chickens' waterer was frozen this morning. It was funny watching the babies trying to get a drink. They now know what ice is :) And yes - I gave them fresh water.

Channel 4 is back - I'm actually watching Survivor on the TV instead of my computer monitor. I think I would rather watch it on my computer and keep the free HBO.

Why is it when I go grocery shopping, and there are only five people in the whole store, no matter what it is I am looking to purchase, one of those five people is standing *exactly* where I want to be???? Why can't I have that kind of luck when it comes to the lottery?

I hope I don't forget to turn my clock back Saturday night.

Rushing the Season

Last week I went into Home Depot to pick up a new drill bit (why does it always seem that I only misplace the bits that I have only *one* of???). It shouldn't have surprised me, but I guess I wasn't thinking about it at all. It just hit me in the face: Christmas. The whole front part of the store was totally decked out in Home Depot's finest Christmas attire. Fully decorated and lit trees, lights, extension cords, timers... you name it - even the handy-dandy Extendo-arm light hanging kits. I like Christmas just as much as the next person, but the fact that stores extend the season earlier and earlier every year makes me sick of the holiday before it even gets here. I mentioned this to one of my co-workers, and she said that a bunch of the stores she shops at have had their Christmas stuff out for a while already. Ugh. I really long for the days when Christmas stuff didn't come out until after Thanksgiving. I'm just really glad I haven't heard any Christmas music playing in the stores yet.

I also want to share a really poignant post from BUFFALOg... it gives you something to think about before going to the polls next month.

Congratulations!

Congratulations to Lockport Memorial Hospital for winning an $800,000 MRI machine! What a great asset it will be to the area - that's one expensive piece of equipment! I really didn't think that they were going to win. I was voting pretty regularly and while they were always in second place, they seemed pretty far from first. I was really happy when I heard they won :)

Yesterday I was treated to a bit of a shopping spree - if a new outfit constitutes a shopping spree, that is. (It does to me) Evidently I dress frumpy. I say that I dress comfortable. Anyway, anyone who knows me, knows that I really, really don't like to shop. And while others may delight in the thought of shopping, I cringe. To me, the 'shopping spree' was not fun by any stretch of the imagination. I still don't know how I got talked into it. How can anyone think that spending gobs of time trying on clothes - most of which were very uncomfortable and didn't fit - is a good time? I just don't understand. At any rate, tomorrow I get to don my new finery at a Killer Bunnies game. I can't wait to see how I am going to survive in apparel I can't breath in. Maybe it's a strategy: If I can't concentrate, I will lose the game... I don't know. All I have to say is, I had better not hear the word 'frumpy' from anyone.

And switching gears, I can't help but laugh every time I hear someone talking about this rebate check that everyone is supposed to be getting from the government... There is no bill in Congress for it, so the rebate doesn't even exist yet. However, everyone is asking "Where's my check?". I wish the media would stop talking about it until it is a reality. For any updates, www.irs.gov will be the place to check.

InstaPundit posted this commercial... I haven't seen it on TV yet, but I really like it a lot.

Blink

It seems like I've blinked my eyes and over a week has gone by. Where does the time go??? It's tough remembering everything that's been going on - but here are some of the highlights, in no particular order:

Brought about by events that happened the day after Thanksgiving, last Monday was a pretty crappy day at work. Fortunately, the situation was pretty much rectified the next day.

We found out that our work schedule will be changing for the two weeks before Christmas. It's going to be a couple of nerve-wracking weeks - I don't feel ready for what we are going to be doing. Ugh.

I am happy to share the fact that postponing my Christmas shopping has paid off... Had I finished all my shopping by now, one of the gifts I would have purchased would have been thwarted. Procrastination does have it's advantages :) That being said, no one should be allowed to buy anything for themselves during the holidays.

I got to tag along on a trip to Brasher Falls (pronounced 'Brazier Falls' - don't ask... I have no idea) this past weekend. I can say that I now actually know someone on the Internet Movie Database in person. Honestly - just how cool is that? Not only was Scott in a movie, but he does stand up comedy. That's why we were in Brasher Falls - to see his show. He's a nice guy and really funny. Randy and I were hoping to do some caching while in the area too, but the weather just didn't cooperate :(

I found out today that the insurance plan I have from my new job has a really sucky prescription plan. I'm still in shock at how much prescriptions cost. The good news is, I found out that I'm really 3/4" taller than I thought I was.

I'm behind watching Survivor and The Amazing Race, but I did catch Heroes tonight. Loved the season finale... I know that it's going to be waaaaay too long before next season starts. Did anyone catch the show that was on after A Charlie Brown Christmas last week? It was definitely a new Charlie Brown show. And it was definitely awful. They should just stick to the classics.

I also learned this past week that there are uncut clips of Star Blazers on You Tube. Randy and I have been watching the series on DVD. I absolutely loved the series when I was a kid, and we are having a lot of fun rewatching the series. Randy is the first person I have ever come across that had ever heard of Star Blazers before, much less watched it. (How cool is that?) Anyway, as a kid, I never would have guessed that they had cut out parts of the show - and I was surprised to see what they had cut. The show had a lot more violence than they would allow on American TV back then, I guess. Another nice thing I learned was that there are episodes of Prince Planet on You Tube, too - another show I loved as a kid. It's amazing how much anime has changed over the years. The only problem is that I don't have time to keep up with regular TV, much less time to catch up on all this other fun stuff. You Tube is one of mankind's greatest inventions.

Crazy

What another gorgeous autumn day we had today. I think I heard that it was in the 50's. That mixed with no wind made for a perfect day for me. I wish I had had off work today to enjoy it.

Well, with the help of my sister, I think I half of my Christmas chores are figured out. We got the lists pretty much done. The arduous task of the shopping is next. Ugh. But then after that comes the fun part - wrapping. I love to wrap gifts. I know it's kind of weird - most people love to shop and hate to wrap, but I'm the opposite. I don't know why. I guess I just like to make packages look nice. It's probably going to be a while before I wrap tho', because I'm sure that I will be putting off shopping as long as possible :)

Speaking of shopping, I saw a commercial on TV today for a store that will be opening at 4am the day after Thanksgiving. That's crazy. I can't think of a single thing that would on sale at such a great price that would make me want to wake up early enough to wait in line at a store ready to battle a mob of people that early in the morning to purchase. Now don't get me wrong: There are a few things that I don't mind getting up extra early in the morning to do, and I am always looking for a good bargain. However, I don't think that anyone could pay me to go shopping on the day after Thanksgiving. Much less at 4:00 in the morning.

Shopping

I hate shopping. I hate people being in my way. I hate rude people. I hate little kids running wild, unsupervised, through the store. I hate not finding what I want right away. I hate the way people drive in the parking lot. I hate the time that I waste when I have to shop. And it's all compounded during the holidays. Ugh. I try to avoid shopping as much as possible, but it's just one of those things that we can't escape. Today I had to go to three stores to finally find a(n overpriced) vacuum cleaner filter. And naturally that last store had all the vacuum cleaner stuff was in a really stupid part of the store, so it took forever to find. Honestly - why would the vacuum cleaners be in the electronics section of the store??? And I don't mean near the electronics section - I mean in the electronics section. Right between the stereos and the computer stuff. I'd love to know what they were thinking when they made out that plan-o-gram. Anyway, I really don't want to even think about Christmas shopping. If I was smart, I'd start now and order everything online. Unfortunately, I have a tendency to procrastinate and usually don't leave myself enough time for the shipping...

A couple of days ago, I changed tables that I have my computer on. The old one was white. This one is brown. Evidently cordless mouses don't like brown table tops. I hate using a mouse pad, but I think I'm going to have to get one. This stupid mouse is driving me crazy by not moving 75% of the time. And yes, I did put fresh batteries in it. As I said, I hate using a mouse pad, but I'm not switching tables again. Moving everything was a pain. I refuse to do it twice in a week's time :)

On a lighter note, I can't believe that next week is Thanksgiving already. This year is going to be the first year I can remember that I will actually have Thanksgiving Day off from work. It's still going to be a busy - and maybe nerve wracking - day, but I won't be working, and that's all that matters :)