Is this too much?

I saw something this morning on the way to work and I cannot decide if it is a little weird or a lot weird.
I was driving to the park and ride this morning and saw this driving along the street. This is not the one I saw, but the one I did see was very similar. I find this a little creepy. It is like driving around with a gravestone on the back of your car.

I mean, I am all about honoring the passing of loved ones and keeping their memories alive, but this just seems like too much to me.

Am I insensitive?

We ran out of leftovers!

Really, for us they are planned overs. When we cook, we make enough to get at least one lunch for me out of it. After we eat, one of us, usually Hubby, puts the leftovers in a container and pops it in the freezer.

Usually, there is a good supply and I never eat leftovers of the night before's meal. SO it is always new food to me. And everyone at work is SO jealous of my deliciuos lunches.

Hubby looked in the freezer last night and said, "Oh, no, you're out of lunches!" He said he would start cooking immediately. LOL! I told him that I CAN take sandwiches on occasion. I convinced him that I would not mind making a sandwich out of the delicious, thick sliced turkey breast that he got from the meat market. Yummy!
LOL! I just had to have some art on my post. That is not MY sandwich, but it is A sandwich.

It really seemed to bother Hubby that I was not taking a "hot lunch", but I really like sandwiches. And it is nice for a change. But I have a feeling that we will be restocking the freezer this week. Hubby started last night, but I didn't want to bring the same thing as we ate last night.

Man! This turkey is good!

Where are the toys??

Our 3 1/2 year old grandson, Theo, and our almost 1 year old grandson, Wyatt, have not been to our home in a long time. We always get together at MIL's house, or we meet somewhere to eat, or we have gone to Meredith's to visit. They have been to our apartment, but I think it was at Christmas. I don't remember...old age, I guess.

Yesterday, Meredith called, saying she has not seen us in forever and was missing us and asked if it was okay if she came over after picking the boys up from their daddy. We said yes, of course! They came over around 7...a little late for visiting babies I think, but I am not the mom. Before they got there, Bob suggested that we go to McDonalds for dinner, so Theo could play in the play area while we visited.

They got there and Theo was so happy to see us! I have decided that "Grandma" is one of the loveliest words in the English language! Wyatt is not talking yet, so he just grinned. LOL!

Theo is crazy active and was looking at everything. Then he went and opened a closet, turned around and said, "Where are the toys?" Gulp....we don't have any. We had some baby toys when he used to come over, but when they moved to California, we just took them to MIL and added them to her toy room. (Seriously, it is a room full of toys dating back to when Bob and his sisters were little.)

So, we had no toys! We are failures as grandparents! Fortunately, the evening was saved by the ice pops Theo found in our freezer. Thank goodness for ice pops!

We went to McDonald's and had a great visit. Theo had a ball and he was nice and worn out for Mommy. Yeah!

I told Bob that we have GOT to go get some toys!! I am off on Friday, and after my mammogram, we plan to go pick strawberries. It sounds like after that, we will go thrifting to get some TOYS!

Oh, and some books. I refuse to be the grandma that plunks them down in front of a dvd everytime they visit.

Come on and file, already!!

This is going to be a rant. I don't know if it will be a mini-rant or a maxi-rant. But here goes.

Our middle child, Samantha, is in college....her 5th year, but that is another story. She will be going at least the first semester next year. I have always claimed her as a dependent on our taxes and filled out her FAFSA for financial aid. Lest anyone think that I was screwing Sam's "real mom" out of a deduction, every year, I told Sam to ask if her mom wanted to claim her and take care of the FAFSA. Every year the answer was a resounding "NO."

I always filed our tax return as early as possible, so I could file the FAFSA as early as possible, since financial aid is "first come, first served" and we wanted Samantha to get all that was available. And she has. Her first 4 years, she got enough money to pay for all her school expenses, plus some extra. Part of her aid was work-study, so she did work for some of it.

Last April, 2 MONTHS AFTER I HAD FILED OUR RETURN AND THE FAFSA, Sam's mom sent me an email that she would be claiming Samantha as a dependent for 2008. I responded that I was sorry, but we already filed and had received our refund. And told her that I had asked Sam, prior to filing, if her mom wanted to claim her and file the FAFSA, to which Sam reponded no.

Sam's mom graciously decided that she would not claim Sam for 2008, as she didn't want to "screw up Sam's financial aid." (Ummmmm....TOO LATE...we already claimed her!) BUT she informed me that she WOULD be claiming Sam for 2009. I responded that that was fine with me. And I told her that she could have claimed Samantha any year that she was willing to file the FAFSA. I got not response to that.

Fast forward to December, 2009. I sent an email to Sam and her mom, giving them the URL and all the information regarding filing the FAFSA. When I didn't hear back from Sam's mom, I sent her another message asking her to confirm that she received it. She confirmed. End of my responsibility. Yeah, no more FAFSA!!

So, I have talked to Samantha mulitple times since then, and usually financial aid would come up. Sam would say that her mom had not filed her tax return or the FAFSA, but Sam was really excited since her mom promised to give Sam half of any extra refund she gets by claiming Samantha. So, Samantha is expecting this big windfall from her mom.

Last Friday, we saw Sam and her boyfriend and I asked if Samantha had gotten HER tax return filed, since she and her bf had talked about filing it on TaxAct. Samantha said, "No, I gave it to Mom. She is going to have her tax guy do it." WHAT?????? Sam's return is the simplest thing to do and she could have had her money back MONTHS ago!!

Not only that, her mom HAS NOT FILED HER RETURN YET. Nor has she filed the FAFSA!! OMG!! I hope Samantha gets SOME money for next year, but I am not going to be surprised if it doesn't happen. I have been hearing about college costs going up and aid going down.

Not only that. I did my best to make our income seem really low, so as to get the most aid for Sam. Like I put 20% of my income in my 401K, 5% in a pre tax FSA. And hubby has not worked in about 3 years. So we had 3 dependents and one income.

I would guess that Sam's mom makes around the same amount of money that I do, but does NOT save money and will only have 2 dependents. So there is no telling what that will do to Sam.

Oh, well, at least the cow got an extra deduction on her tax return.

Rant over.

I'm cheap and proud of it!

A quiz told me so! LOL!

I took the Savings Personality Test on the RedPlum site, just for fun.

And here were my results:

Frugal Felicity: You have tons of tricks for saving money, from cutting dryer sheets in half to getting free shipping on anything. If someone tells you a deal, you’ll top it. Every little bit adds up, so you’ll stop at nothing to find the lowest price. You’re cheap and you’re proud of it!

That's me! (Except I do not cut dryer sheets, as Hubby does the laundry. LOL! )

(Oh, and you can enter a contest after taking the quiz and refer people for more entries. My link is not a referral link. It is just for fun!)

Happy Wednesday, everyone!

My Sorta Bread Disaster....

I cannot believe it finally happened. I made a loaf of bread in my bread maker and it DID NOT turn out.

I was trying to make Raisin Bread. It usually looks like this:

And when I say usually, I mean every time I have made it before in more than one bread machine.

So this time, I thought I would add some pecans. Mmmmm...I love pecans and thought they would add a little something to my raisin bread. I used my regular raisin bread recipe and added all ingredients, except the raisins and pecans to the breadmaker.

When the "add ingredients" signal beeped, I added the nuts and raisins. I watched it for a few minutes and it didn't seem like the nuts and raisins were blending in, but I figured it would all blend together eventually. It always has before....though I have never added pecans.

When the loaf was done, the smell was heavenly! Mmmmm.....cinnamon, raisins and pecans. I could not wait to take it out and try it. I sliced into the loaf and.....weird....the top half of the slices are plain cinnamon bread and the bottom half are raisin and nut bread. It is the oddest thing! (I forgot to take a pic, so you will just have to believe me.)

It still tastes delicious, but it sure looks weird.

My hubby is so mean!

This morning, I was getting ready for work and Hubby was telling me about his trip to the podiatrist yesterday. He didn't tell me last night as he went to hear some band play and I was asleep when he got home.

So, he was telling me that the doc was pretty pleased with how his left foot is healing and told him to keep doing what we have been doing. That is good news!

Then Hubby said that as the doc was turning to walk out, he said, "Hey, Doc, I need to talk to you about something else." Then proceeded to tell the doc that that morning, Hubby had stepped on a nail on the balcony and torn a gash in his right foot.

My heart sank.

He said "I took off my shoe and sock and showed the doc this."

Then he stuck his foot out from under the covers and written in black magic marker on his foot was....


April Fool's


He is SO MEAN!!