I have got to get moving!

For some reason, our silly apartment is not packing itself! I just don't get it.

And Hubby had told me he would do ALL the packing for or move and guess what? He has not packed a single box. Oh, some boxes are packed, but I did them.

We HAVE done a lot of sorting and tossing and continue to sort and toss, so I guess once stuff is sorted and pared down, the packing part won't take as long. And we DO have 3 weeks to pack as we decided to move the last Thursday of the month. Our apt manager told us we could have the apartment sooner at no charge, but Hubby thinks we can go ahead a wait until the last week. Maybe he figures he will get motivated and get us packed up by then.

No, I am not really expecting him to do it all himself.

Today, we are waiting to hear from a couple of my girlfriend's boys as Hubby decided we would get rid of his weight bench and they were ecstatic when I asked if they would want it. Once they come get it, we will have more room to stack boxes and maybe it will be easier to get motivated to pack boxes.

We shall see.

I also have to get motivated to list our aquarium for sale or giveaway. We have a 20 gallon that we have had for years, but our new apartment has a fireplace on the wall that currently has our aquarium on it. LOL! The floor plan is like ours, only flipped and with a fireplace. So, I figured I would give the aquarium away, but know no one that wants one. So I think I will list it on a Garage Sale page for my area that is on Facebook. I may list it for $25 or $50 and just give it to anyone that is interested. I was afraid that if I listed it for free I might have too many responses to deal with.

I used to list free stuff on Freecycle, but my town's freecycle site is really inactive. I may check out the ones for other local communities, as I would just as soon give it away. Of course, I will have to drain it and rehome the 6 remaining fish we have. But it has been an nice hobby to have, so I won't complain about rehoming it.

Well, I guess I will get up and do something.

Hope everyone is having great weekend!

Performing my civic duty.

Guess where I am?

I am performing my civic duty ny sitting in the jury room waiting to see if I will be picked to serve on a jury.

This is only the second jury summons I have ever received. Obviously, my county has a big jury pool. I didn't get on a jury last time. Maybe I will today. That would drive my boss crazy! LOL!

Happy Thursday!

Where did all this stuff come from?

We are moving to a downstairs apartment at the end of June. Hubby finally agreed that moving downstairs was the suitable option now. My knees don't like the stairs anymore and Hubby's leg doesn't care for them so much either.

We have plenty of time to get ready for this move, so have started sorting and getting ready to pack up stuff. For previous moves, Hubby always scoured stores and got free boxes, but this time I thought he did not need to be doing so much running around, so after researching options and pricing, I ordered boxes from U Haul. Yes, U Haul. They were delivered right to our door in 4 days and the price was very reasonable. Hubby decided that he was okay with not having to run around.

So, we started sorting and I don't know where all this crap came from. Here is what is headed for the dumpster...

I don't know what is in all the bags as Hubby bagged up some. I don't want to even see what he threw away. He promised not to throw away anything of mine. I did throw away my two long winter coats. They are both SO OLD and I am always having to stitch something up on them. So, I told Hubby I was trashing them and would get a NEW coat next winter. Yes, a new one!

These bags are headed to the thrift store...

These bags contain a bunch of clothes that I finally weeded out of my closet and the final batch of jerseys Hubby had in his ebay closet. He is done with ebay forever.

He also surprised me by adding his golf clubs tot he pile...two sets...

And we had already sent several bags of stuff as donations to my mother in law's church for their garage sale. Their sale was last weekend, so we just had to throw together what we could for her. I sent a bunch of tampons and sanitary napkins that aren't needed in my house. LOL! And that was after I weeded out a dozen boxes of tampons for Samantha. I am also giving Sam 10 bottles of body wash. Hubby and I don't use it and she is happy to take it off our hands.

My HBA stockpile is much smaller, but it is plenty for us. We are being ruthless and we have just started. LOL!

Moving....it's a good thing.

"Well, it was good enough for Jesus."

What is going on, you guys?!

I have been way to busy since getting back from vacation. Since I am such a dedicated employee, I took a loaner laptop with me and actually WORKED ON MY VACATION. What is WRONG with me?????

Well, at least it was OT, so a little extra cash. Hey...it probably covered the whole cost of our vacation! I feel much better now.

When I got back to work, I went into the deep end. Things are all up in the air as a major restructuring is in the works, so there are all these "secret meetings" going on. LOL! I have been with the company for 15 years, so have seen this many times over the years and it does not worry me. But it worries some people.

PLUS, one of my team members is just buried, so I graciously volunteered to learn about Bankruptcy in order to help her out. She is really nice and I felt so bad for her and since some of my work load has gotten a little lighter, I figured I would be a nice co-worker. But I have been working 9 1/2 - 10 hour days and I am TIRED. It does not help that my commute each day is one hour each way, so 12 hour days for me. But it won't last forever....hopefully.

On the home front, Hubby has been having issues with nerve pain in his feet. Not unusual for diabetics. His dr had prescribed Lyrica but it made Hubby's lower leg swell a lot. Not a good thing as that is the leg that he had the bypass in. So he quit taking the Lyrica and talked to the dr. His dr recommended "some natural stuff" according to Hubby. I looked at the brochure for Benfotiamine, which the dr is now selling in his office and then went looking on Amazon for a reasonably priced version of it. And I found some.

While I was looking I found another recommended item for neuropathy pain called Frankinsense and Myrrh Neuropathy. It got great reviews, so I told him and asked him if he wanted to try some.

He said, "Well, it was good enough for Jesus."

So I ordered some. I will let you know if either of them work for him in case you know someone else that suffers from neuropathy pains.

Well, back to work for a while. Happy Wednesday!

Where have I been?

I have been at the casino!

Jealous, SonyaAnn??

Hubby and I celebrated our 17th wedding anniversary on April 26 and on April 27 we headed to the Coushatta Casino in Louisiana for some celebrating.

When I told Hubby we could go, he had scheduled to have our bathtub refinished, so it was a  productive as well as fun week.

We got to the casino on Sunday afternoon and checked in to our FREE chalet. I have written about the chalets...they are little mini modular homes that are set up really nice with a living area, kitchen and separate bedroom. I like it better than the hotel rooms since if one person wants to sit up all night, they don't disturb the other.

We stayed 3 nights and had a great time. We didn't gamble as much as usual, though we took enough money. We are both a little crippled, so just didn't go over to the casino as many times. But we gambled enough. I left up $30 for the trip and Hubby was the loser this time, but he didn't lose a lot, so the trip was pretty cheap as we had a free room for 3 nights, a couple of free meals and ate food that we took with us.

So a lovely and pretty frugal anniversary trip.

And a brand new bathtub when we got home.

It has been a good week!

Don’t you deserve it?

I was driving to the park and ride this morning…the first leg of my morning commute….listening to the radio when a commercial came on. It was for some luxury real estate company that would sell your luxury home and get you more money because “after all, don’t you deserve it?”

I did not count the number of times the phrases “You deserve it” and “Don’t you deserve it?” were used in the commercial, but it was a lot. For the last few hours, that phrase has been floating in my head. Don’t you deserve it?”

And I started thinking about that mentality. “Don’t you deserve it?”

Isn’t that what advertising tries to make us feel? That we DESERVE anything…. or everything… that we want.  Advertisers want us to feel “Yes….I DO deserve it!”  Then we will buy their product or service, whether we really need it or not.  And if we can’t afford it we are depriving ourselves, our spouse, our kids, our pets. We are deprived because we can’t have everything! This causes many people to go into debt. (I know this is not the only reason for debt, but this is the one I am talking about.)

I see it in my kids sometimes though not always. Oh, I don’t think they are in debt, but I don’t know…it’s not my business. But I do know that at times they have purchased things they wanted then had to be bailed out. And yes, we have done it, but not often. And I guess they have all matured…or got better paying jobs…as we don’t hear of them having financial difficulties, though I still think they spend a lot of their money frivolously. I see the same thing in a lot of people I work with. They can’t afford a co-pay to go to the doctor, but they buy the new iPhone every time one comes out. (Not that there is a thing wrong with buying an iPhone...IF you can afford it.)

So, why don’t I feel deprived? I have not bought everything I ever wanted. I got a lot of what I wanted, but for me material items just don’t seem that important. I don’t think they ever have.  I think I deserve to be happy, but I don’t think any THING is going to do that for me.

I guess I need to thank my parents for that. 

Tone it down with the teeth whitening, Hollywood.

 I know that having super white teeth is in vogue now. There are so many products advertised everywhere and everywhere you go lots of people have really white teeth. Some to the extreme, I think. I have seen some people that have teeth that are so white they are almost blue. Adults’ teeth are just not naturally that white.

BUT, I know that white teeth are important to a lot of people. My mother-in-law whitens all the time and she has quit drinking coffee and tea because they would stain her teeth. Not a bad thing at all, I suppose.

How white your teeth are is your choice. And if you want your teeth unnaturally white, that is your choice as well. BUT when you are an actor, acting in a period piece where I KNOW people’s teeth would not be glowing white, it is just a distraction. I won’t name any movies, but Hubby and I were watching something the other night and several characters were dirty, in raggedy clothes with straggly dirty hair and their teeth were glowing white. LOL! I asked Hubby, “Is it just me, or are his teeth a distraction?” He told me it was not just me.

Then, this weekend, I binge watched a mini-series on Netflix. It was good and I really enjoyed it, but once again, it was a period piece. There were characters that were dirty, with dirty hair, raggedy clothes and those glowing white teeth. I know they are actors. I know it is a movie. But the producers did a lot to make the costuming and the staging seem real so the teeth were distracting.

I don’t think people need to go back to stained, yellowed teeth, although I must say my family didn’t whiten our teeth when growing up and we didn’t have stained, yellowed teeth. But we do have good dental hygiene. My mama saw to that.

But filmmakers need to pay attention to what they are doing. One example where this was not the case was a movie called “Mud” starring Matthew McConaughey. He had snaggly teeth in the movie that fit in with his character. I looked it up after watching the movie as I know he has pretty white teeth. For this film, he wore prosthetic teeth. Yes, he wore ugly teeth for the part. And, in this instance, his teeth might not have even been a distraction. But they were going for realistic.

I know Hollywood filmmakers and actors would not care what I think. But I think they should pay more attention to actors’ teeth if they are trying to be realistic.

Oh, and I do use whitening toothpaste sometimes….if it was really cheap with a coupon. But my teeth will never be glowing white.

Rant over.

Happy Monday all!