JTOK Chatter > House & Home > Page 64

Category Archives: House & Home

Exploding Grill

Posted on by — 1 Comment ↓

Subtitled: Tom almost blew himself up today.

I knew he was getting around to starting the grill and I was upstairs just getting ready to come downstairs when I heard a combination WHOOMPF and something that sounded like a heavy object falling. Or hell, it could have been someone shooting a big gun in the distance (yes, it does happen). Or it could have been a thunderstorm starting. I did have a VERY fleeting thought that something happened with the grill, because the WHOOMPF kinda sounded like the one time our neighbor lit our bonfire with a half gallon of kerosene… but then thought Nah, hubby knows what he’s doing with the grill.

So I walked into the kitchen and saw Tom out on the deck in a half daze and the grill was sitting VERY off kilter. He came in and said the grill had just exploded!

88| 88| 88|

Apparently the flame went out after he had lit it so he went back to light it again (just turn the “ignition” knob which creates the spark), and left the lid down because he assumed it had JUST gone out, but apparently it had been out for some time and there was too much gas build up, so the top exploded and he said the entire grill lifted the deck and then came crashing down (so I did hear two distinct sounds). And it’s a BIG grill. That must have been SOME force.

The hair on one of his arms is almost all singed off—oh, the smell! XX(—but luckily that was all. It could have been much, much, MUCH worse.

Apparently we have the miracle grill, because it has already survived a fall off the moving trailer at 35mph (with only about $50 in new parts required) and now it is still in working condition even being blown up and lifted into the air (although it looks a little worse for the wear).

The moral of the story? ALWAYS air out the area first, no matter WHAT you think.

The other moral? Buy a Holland Grill!

The Staples Chair Mat Saga

Posted on by — No Comments ↓

Wednesday, May 21—I needed a new chair mat, and had a $25 off $75 coupon, so I picked a decent chair mat (that was on sale), plus two small things to push me over the $75. I ordered before 4pm so I should have had the items the next day.

Thursday, May 22—I got an email saying that “some or all of my items” were being delayed and delivery was rescheduled for 5/23.

Friday, May 23—I received the two small items but not the chair mat (which is what I really wanted). I figured maybe that was still delayed, so wanted to give them until Tuesday to see if it arrived (Monday was a holiday so no shipping).

Tuesday, May 27—No chair mat at work or at home. So I called Staples and explained that I still hadn’t received the mat. They apologized and said they would ship another one and it should be here Thursday or Friday.

Thursday, May 29—Well, something did arrive Thursday—but not the chair mat! I got a duplicate order of the piddly things! I called again, explaining, and they apologized and said “Yep, that was our error, I see the note here. We will send out the chair mat now and you should have it Monday.” And they were also sending someone to pick up the duplicate order. I wondered why it was going to take four days (not including weekends) but at that point, I just wanted my chair mat.

Friday, May 30—I swear they said that person who was picking up the duplicate order would also be delivering my chair mat, but they didn’t. >:XX They said UPS might be delivering it…so UPS came and went and still no chair mat. And no chair mat at home, either (I had changed delivery address, but thought they might have messed that up as well).

Monday, June 2—No chair mat today, and UPS delivered next door (at work) so I was not holding out hope. I figured if it didn’t show up at home, I would call and request a discount or something because this has been ridiculous.

Tuesday, June 3—Staples redeemed themselves somewhat. I still hadn’t received the chair mat, so I called to ask where it was and the rep said hmmm, it looks like you were credited for it on such and such date. Wait. What? Credited? Yes, apparently they didn’t resend it like they said they were going to, but rather just cancelled the order and credited my card. >:XX So after some discussion, the rep agreed to give me the $25 coupon on just the chair mat—so technically I got a percentage off on the few piddly things I had to order to meet the original coupon deal, and am now getting $25 off on the chairmat itself.

Thursday, June 4—It finally came! And OMG, it was in like a 6′ x 1′ box! I had to put my seat down to fit it in the car! And since it sat in my car all day in the hot temps (100+), when I got it home and brought it inside, it pretty much just unrolled and laid flat. YAY! Oh, and the box was overkill—it looks like they had to make the box from other boxes so it was just waaaay too big. Anyway, we will put it under my desk tomorrow! I am sooo excited!

10# of burgers!

Posted on by — No Comments ↓

So, this morning we made 10# of various burgers:

  • Ranch burgers
  • Onion soup and mozzarella cheese burgers
  • Jalapeño and cheddar cheese burgers
  • Feta and pecan burgers
  • Southwestern cheeseburgers (southwestern seasoning, smoke seasoning, and mexican cheese blend)

We froze most of them, but dinner tonight was the jalapeño/cheddar, and I have to admit I was not thrilled. It was an okay burger—I gave it a 6/10—but it definitely did NOT taste like the store-bought version…

So, what did I do? Simply chopped up two jalapeños and dumped in some shredded cheddar cheese. The end. So, there was no WOW factor—you could see the tiny chunks of green jalapeños, but there was barely even any jalapeño taste and I really couldn’t discern any cheese flavor, either. I am thinking I may need to include some of the seeds (for the hot?) and maybe include some jalapeño juice as well, to give a more in-depth flavor. :-/ And I probably need to use larger shredded cheese (I used the really small stuff). (Or try Monterey Jack, like the original burgers.)

Or, duh, I could have just googled “jalapeño burgers” and see that a lot of recipes call for chili powder and/or habañero dust. |-| So, we still need to work on those. Any other advice? ❓

Tomorrow we will be trying the feta/pecan because I didn’t think the feta would freeze that well.

Oh, and we completely forgot to do the bacon/chorizo/onion burgers because I didn’t even think about frying the stuff ahead of time. That will be the next batch.

James Taylor Concert

Posted on by — No Comments ↓

What a night…in more ways than one.

The weather has been lovely lately—in the 70s and 80s, with some humidity (but not too bad)—perfect for an outdoor nighttime concert, actually. So we were thinking we would probably be a little too hot at the concert…until we heard the weather forecast: “chance of showers and low 70s.” Well, let me tell you, we would have LOVED low 70s! Yes, it rained all day and was cool bordering on cold. We had to alter our outfits at the last minute (to long sleeves and jeans) but didn’t really worry about coats because it was just “cool.” Well, it was pouring buckets as we drove to the concert—and the temperature was dropping. But we still weren’t that worried. We also knew we had reserved seats in the covered section so the rain wasn’t a big deal.

We stopped to eat since we had budgeted time for that—and ended up at Kazé, a newish Japanese Steakhouse and Sushi bar. While waiting to be seated, we mentioned going to the concert, and the hostess said she loved that pavilion, except it was usually a little windy and cool even in the covered section. It was at that point that we started worrying that we might be cold. We thoroughly enjoyed our meal—Tom had a bulgogi steak hibachi dinner and of course I had sushi! It was REALLY good!

After dinner we decided to stop at Kohls to see if we could find a sweatshirt for me (Tom had his jean jacket left in the car from our DC weekend). We hit on a Clearance rack and found each of us a fleece hoodie for $3.50!! (We also found us each another jacket at 70% off!)

So we get to the pavilion and decide to upgrade to VIP parking since 1) we wanted to be close in case it was raining and 2) we wanted to hopefully be able to get out quickly so we didn’t get stuck in post-concert traffic. So we paid the $20 (yuck) and were directed…to a dirt lot! Yes, the VIP parking was in a dirt/gravel lot—which wouldn’t have been all that bad had it not been wet and muddy and gross. We just couldn’t get over the fact that the VIP parking was so horrible! (Granted, we were just “upgraded VIP” so the actual VIP lot might have been nicer. But still. For $20 I want a paved lot.)

We were there about 20 minutes before the gates opened, and it was definitely getting cooler (so we were glad we had jackets) and were happy it wasn’t raining. Once in the pavilion, we headed to the bathrooms and then our seats. We were on the far left about 10 rows back and had a nice view of the stage. A really nice couple sat down next to us and we enjoyed chatting with them (and I liked her because she brought a lap blanket that she shared!). They were funny and warned us ahead of time that they were spending the night so they could drink beer, so they would be up and down a few times throughout the concert. If they weren’t so nice to begin with, that would have bothered me to no end (see criticisms, below).

Unfortunately, the concert started about 25 minutes late, but at least there was no opening act. And in short, James Taylor is very cool. He sounds great, even if he is getting up there in years. We enjoyed it overall, but I have a few criticisms—of concerts in general and the actual concert:

“Concert standers” irritate me.

I could understand if it was a rock concert or dance music, but it’s James Taylor. A nice easy-going, fairly mellow concert. No need to stand up and dance at your seat. Wave your arms or clap if you must, but please do not stand up. Luckily it didn’t happen TOO often, but we had to stand up on a few occasions just to be able to see, and I didn’t appreciate it.

If you are a renowned artist, play your hits.

Now, understandably, JT has a TON of hits so he couldn’t possibly play them all…but I came to hear James Taylor sing James Taylor songs, not cover songs or songs he just likes. Yes, you still get to hear the lovely JT voice, but I would much rather have heard more of my favorites. I would say about half of the songs were non-JT songs.

Concert-goers who can’t sit still.

I just don’t understand paying good money to see someone in concert, and then spending the entire concert getting up and down (and irritating the people in your row, and everyone behind you that you are blocking) to get food and alcohol. Granted it wasn’t everyone, but still too many people in my opinion. I kinda wanted to say “Why didn’t you just stay at home to drink beer and eat nachos?”

We were watching the clock, of course, knowing we had the 2-hour drive home ahead of us. It was worse for Tom, since he knew he had to get up really early…so we had a little butting of the heads (as usual): He wanted to leave right when the concert was over. I wanted to stay for the encores because we paid a lot of money for those tickets. I could understand why he wanted to leave, and he could understand why I wanted to stay…so we compromised and stayed for one encore and left when the second one started. Someday, we have to go to a concert where we can stay for the whole thing—all the concerts we’ve gone to together we’ve had to leave early for the same reasons.

So we were headed home by 10:30 (got out of the parking lot quickly since we left way before most people) and made it home shortly after midnight.

DC Peeps Patio Party

Posted on by — 1 Comment ↓

https://www.hudson2001.com/scrapbook/2008/0524dc/

This weekend Tom and I drove to Washington DC for a Tivo Peeps Patio Party! We hadn’t been to any meets in DC and thought this long weekend was the perfect time! It was actually a combination patio party and viewing of the new Indiana Jones movie (and the party was actually called Raiders of the Lost Patio). B)

I left work early Friday so we could hopefully arrive before midnight, and luckily we didn’t hit any traffic (there was a slight worry as we approached the exit for 495 around DC and saw a sign warning us of blocked exits due to an accident—but by the time we got there, it was slow, but not stopped) so YAY! We pulled in about 10:45! Phew!

We visited with our hostess for a bit and then crashed in the basement. In the morning, we helped set up for the party (it was her patio!) and then it was off to Tysons Corner to see the movie! We were hungry, so grabbed a Five Brothers hamburger (was highly recommended to us, and now we highly recommend it to you) and waited for all the other people to arrive! The movie was okay—I would not have chosen to go on my own, but things are always more fun with peeps! Then it was back to the house to start the party!

Girls at the party!
L-R: Me, Alice, Leslie, Claudia, Lori

Tom and I had met about half of the people before, so were enjoying catching up with them—and were thrilled to also meet quite a few new people as they showed up throughout the night! It was a perfect night—the weather was awesome (perfect for jeans and a tee-shirt), the food was DEEEEElicious (I wanted to marry the queso dip), the drinks were cold and neverending (those that tried it LOVED my “grape sac vodka”—a drink I made with the Grape Bon Bon I bought awhile back that they dared me to mix with vodka!), and a great time was had by all! Everyone started to disperse between 11 and midnight, and we were in bed by 1am.

The next morning we were up by 9, and showered/breakfasted/visited and on the road by 11. We stopped at Ikea on the way home just to look and bought a few small things—but the main reason for stopping was to try their infamous Swedish Meatballs for lunch (they were okay, not worth going back again, but glad we tried them once). Then it was the long boring ride home. At least Tom loves driving his car!!

When was your first Amazon purchase?

Posted on by — No Comments ↓

This was one of the questions asked today on a board I frequent. I thought it a very interesting slice-of-life question. So I looked it up. And my first purchase was November 25, 1998, for three books (Dirk Pitt Revealed, Airframe, and Contagion). I remember making that purchase, and I think I still have those books.

Then I looked at 1999 purchases, of which there were only five. I picked up the pace considerably in 2000—with three pages of orders—and apparently never looked back! ;D

Some people!

Posted on by — No Comments ↓

You will never believe what we saw today on the way home from farmers marketing.

When we first saw it, at about a distance of 100 yards, it looked like a big white square something that was completely vertical. We both looked at each other like WHAT ON EARTH IS THAT?

As we got a little closer (I told Tom to step on it, I wanted to see what it was!) I said “That looks like box springs!” and Tom said “Noooooooooo, it can’t be! They’re going about 60 and they’re in the passing lane!”

As we crept closer, we tried to think what else it could be, but it really looked like box springs! And as we got closer, by gosh and golly, it was box springs…and a mattress!

By the time we got up next to it (and I finally got my camera working), it wasn’t quite vertical anymore, but the old woman was flying down the road at about 60-65mph, surely completely oblivious that she could lose the box springs at any moment. If you look closely, you can see two TINY ropes holding it on.

Some people!

How hard is it to buy a keychain?

Posted on by — No Comments ↓

Apparently, MUCH harder than I originally anticipated.

Ready for a long story? 🙄

I have wanted a new keychain for just about forever now. I am still using a dorky Marine Federal Credit Union lanyard I think I found while working at Staples—which means I’ve had it for about six years.

I was sick and tired of being boring and utilitarian—that just doesn’t scream JEN, right? 😉 So I had taken to looking at keychains whenever we went somewhere, but nothing ever hit the spot. So, I decided to start a thread on my frequented-forums, asking for other people to show me their keychains so I could get some ideas. And one did actually hit the spot—I just thought it was cute and neat—and the owner gave it a glowing recommendation:

Troika Jumper

Hers was blue, but with some research, I found it was available in green! YAY! Of course, I also discovered they had cats and dogs which were totally adorable, but since I couldn’t decide between the cat or the dog, or which color, I went back to the green jumper. And then I thought about it. And thought about it some more. Because $16 + S/H is a lot of money for a silly keychain. But then I decided that I had been using a “freebie” for six years, so I could justify spending the money on a new one that I loved!

Well, the only place the green jumper was available was on the actual Troika website, so I created an account and ordered it. I thought it was a tad strange that the only way to pay was via PayPal (and not straight via credit card), but I have no problems with PayPal, and lots of businesses use PayPal, so it didn’t raise any flags. This was on April 15.

Right away I got a confirmation of my account creation, as well as the “initial notification” email from Troika, saying I had to finish via PayPal (which I actually already had by that point). Then I got the PayPal confirmation…which was a little strange: The order description was Troika USA and the Invoice ID was troika-usa_xx, but the Business Information contact was Suntime3, LLC. Again, a tad strange, since I thought Troika would have been the contact, but I figured maybe an outside company did the actual order processing…so honestly, nothing to really cause me any real misgivings.

Eight days later on April 24 I emailed Suntime3, LLC (via the email from the PayPal contact confirmation) asking for the status because 1) I hadn’t received any shipment confirmation and 2) I hadn’t received the item. They wrote back that:

That [contact information] should have been changed. The company handling that site now is called Pevazi and you can reach them at…

Nothing about refunding my money (which was obviously paid to them) or “Sorry there has been a mistake”—just simply “Here’s their number.” Now I started to worry. At that same time, I tried to login to my Troika account, and it didn’t recognize me OR my email. Uh oh.

So now it was about April 27, and I contacted Pevazi, and after a quick explanation, the girl took my order info and said she would call me back the next day. Nothing. I called about two days later, it was the same girl and she remembered me, and this time asked for me to email her ALL the information and emails I had received so she could look into it, as my name and/or order number matched NOTHING in their system. I compiled a huge email and sent it off. She replied she would “get to the bottom of this, ASAP” and that it might be the next day.

This morning, May 14, I got an email from her, asking if Suntime3 (the original company that apparently got my payment) had contacted me to resolve the issue. I told her that I hadn’t heard anything from anyone since I received her last email saying she would be working on this. Within 10 minutes, I received this response:

Ok, I don’t know what happened with this. The monies got paid to a different company and that company said they didn’t know anything about it and they would contact you. In the meantime, what product did you order? I am going to send you the product you purchased and will settle the rest with Suntime.

Now THAT is customer service. ❗

So I emailed her what I wanted and they are shipping it out ASAP. And they get to try to figure out how to get their money. So sometime in the near future, I will FINALLY get my keychain!

I certainly hope it’s worth all this trouble. |-|

Prius Update

Posted on by — No Comments ↓

We decided to go to Wilmington today to run a few errands and have lunch with our friends.

However, our first stop was the local Toyota place to pick up our real license plate. The guy who changed the plate out for us remembered us (not our actual sales guy) and made the comment that we should be glad we bought when we did—the cars are SO scarce now that they have a 4-week waiting list and NO ONE is making deals on them and people are paying full MSRP! Score one for us! On the way to the highway, we were behind a Prius at the light.

Our second stop was Harris Teeter (in Wilmington) to pick up some minor things, and when we left the store, we were parked next to another Prius.

Then it was downtown to a tattoo place we had heard about—yes, we are still both contemplating getting tattoos—and as luck would have it, there was a parking space directly in front of the shop! YAY! When we came out, there was a Prius parked two cars ahead of us.

Then we went to Costo and parked kitty corner to a Prius.

So, apparently these things are unavailable for purchase but are multiplying like rabbits. 🙂

But the real update? Tom absolutely LOVES the car. LOVES IT! LOVES IT! LOVES IT! I get a picture every time he fills up the tank showing me the current average MPG—his last fillup?

He ends up getting about 500 miles or so between fillups. The other bonus is that since we take his car everywhere? My tank of gas now lasts about three weeks!

Economc Stimulus

Posted on by — No Comments ↓

This economic stimulus thing irritates me.

We thought we were getting $1200 back (married filing jointly, we fit all the parameters) but we only got $600.

We should be thrilled to have just received $600 in “free money” but instead I am pissed because we only got half of what we expected. And now I have to waste time trying to find/use the “stimulus calculator” to see if we really should be getting the full $1200 back…but I have to wait until I have our 2007 taxes to reference some specific lines (it might have something to do with the net income tax liability—which I have NO idea what that actually is).

4:07pm

Okay, the net income tax liability bit us in the ass. 🙄 Apparently, due tom Tom’s deployment and non-taxable income…we only get $300 per person since we didn’t pay as much taxes. Or something like that.

But we still got free money, so I guess it’s all good.

WHOOP!

Posted on by — No Comments ↓

I just happened to check the bank statement and our IRS refund was deposited 10 days ago! (I really need to check online more often!) It is going to replenish our savings account, as it was a mere $84.49 less than it cost us to get Tom’s transmission fixed.

Red Lobster? Not again anytime soon.

Posted on by — No Comments ↓

Marsha picked Red Lobster for her birthday lunch. Of course, she was going on the thought that HER Red Lobster has great service and good food… We have had varied experiences there, but we thought we’d give it a shot and hope for the best.

Needless to say, we don’t need to go back to this Red Lobster anytime in the future.

We only had to wait about 10 minutes to be seated (not bad) but it got worse from there. The service sucked—a waitress didn’t even approach us until we had been sitting there almost 5-7 minutes (and in the meantime, we saw two girls arguing over who would take our table—then it took another 3 or so minutes after that for someone to actually come over).

And then the waitress was slow, talked too softly, and didn’t really seem to care. Tom and I ordered the Endless Soup & Salad, thinking “How could they screw that up?”

Well, some of the lettuce in our salads was half wilted, the soups were lukewarm at best, and we didn’t get the biscuits until about minute 35 (after everyone was done with their salads and before the meals came out). Marsha said the breaded shrimp was dry, the breaded fish was inedible, the tartar sauce was bad, and she didn’t really like the other thing she got (I forget what it was).

When the waitress came back to refill drinks, she made a comment about needing to bring us more ice, so didn’t fill the drinks to the top—but then never came back with ice.

To make matters worse, a table of eight that was seated after us (right next to us) had a different waitress and got drink and appetizer orders taken with two minutes of being seated—so we were even more ticked at the poor service.

The manager did come over to ask how things were, but at that point we were just on our salads, so the worst hadn’t even come yet—and to be honest, we didn’t want to upset anyone mid-meal, LOL, for fear of what could potentially happen.

As we all agreed, we’ve had far better and far worse meals. So we left a bad tip AND a full comment card with our phone number and copy of the receipt.

Wilmington for an afternoon!

Posted on by — No Comments ↓

We decided to drive to Wilmington to show Marsha around the downtown area a bit, hit World Market at her request, and also to have a yummy lunch (any excuse to eat in Wilmington!!). I would have chosen our favorite sushi place, but Marsha is not a sushi fan, LOL, so we went to Carrabba’s Italian Grill.

And as usual, it was wonderful. Great bread and dipping sauce (I could make a meal of that alone). Great pizza. Great service. (I sooooooo wish they would open one of these in Jacksonville.)

Then it was off to Costco, where we managed to get out for under $50. Then we took a quick driving tour of downtown Wilmington (it was hot and none of us wanted to walk around). And then it was a quick stop at World Market before heading home.

We are now officially a Toyota family!

Posted on by — No Comments ↓

We went tonight to get the paperwork out of the way, planning on going back tomorrow to just pick up the keys and go…but the salesman called to say the car would be ready tonight! So we did the paperwork, went out for a burger, then came back in an hour to get the car!

Here’s the proud new driver getting in his car for the first time:

We came home, then it was my turn to drive the car as we needed to return our loaner car to our friends (again). And let me tell you, it is VERY strange to drive the car.

  • For one, you don’t need a key. Yes, you need the fob, but it can be in your pocket or in the front seat—just in very close proximity.
  • Second, you press a button to start the car.
  • Third, you have to look at the dash to see if the car is “ready” because you can’t hear it start (damn that electric motor is quiet).
  • Fourth, the shifter is VERY strange—just a tiny little knob on the dash.
  • Fifth, it BEEPS the entire time you’re in reverse, even if you aren’t moving.
  • Sixth, it’s somewhat disconcerting to use a video backup monitor if you’re not used to it.
  • Seventh (wow, I didn’t think I’d have this many things to say!), it’s amazing to see CURRENT MPG 99.9!
  • Eighth, you have to press a button to put the car in park, too!
  • Ninth, you have to press the Power button to turn the car off. Yes, it sounds logical (and it is, I guess), except when you’re doing it for the first time. :))

But it’s fun. And gets great gas mileage. So YAY!

New car update!

Posted on by — No Comments ↓

11:23am

YAY!!!

Tom just called to say he talked to our LOCAL Toyota place and they will beat the deal that we got in Raleigh. This is interesting, since when he talked to them before, they didn’t even really want to talk to us and gave us the runaround. So, if they give us the same amount for a trade in, we are set! And we can get the car locally! And they have an additional warranty that they give you for free!

I am keeping my fingers crossed!

1:55pm

ARGH!!!

Good news? Tom just called and the local dealer gave us a better price.

Bad news? The one we can get tomorrow is silver. To get red, we have to wait until May. (I could wait until May, but we are worried about his car and that damn starter issue.)

Silver would be just okay—I just don’t like boring colors. I really really want red. And if we are spending all this money, I would really like the color I want. But is it worth chancing his car conking out before we trade it in?

2:05pm

Tom just called again and our choices are:

  • Silver with gray interior in 3 days.
  • Red with bisque interior by end of April.
  • Red with gray interior by end of May

I don’t want Silver and hubby doesn’t want bisque, and neither of us wants to wait until the end of May. I told him to decide since it’s his car. 🙂

2:35pm

We are going with the Silver. Tom decided he didn’t want to wait (or chance anything with his car) so he started the paperwork and we should have the car on Wednesday!

3:07pm

Tom called me from the parking lot of the dealership to tell me he was sitting in his car…in front of five salesman…and the car wouldn’t start. 88| I told him he should get out, tell the sales guy he had decided to just trade it in now, and then call me to come get him! :)) As luck would have it, however, the car started on his third or fourth try, so he just went home. But it reinforced our decision to trade the car in sooner rather than later!

5:20pm

As soon as I got home, Tom told me that he had called the guy we were dealing with in Raleigh, to tell him we had decided to get the car locally because they were able to beat his best deal…and the Raleigh guy says—are you ready?—give him another chance, he can do better, he is sure he can get the trade-in up another $500.

So…he obviously didn’t give us his best deal then, did he? 🙄 I know, the joy of car dealers. |-|

Tom had to tell him that we would have LOVED to have done business with him (he really was a great guy and treated us very well), but unfortunately we had already started the paperwork with the local dealership, since we thought we had already gotten his best offer.

This is entirely scary…yet also exciting!

Loaner Vehicle, Take 2

Posted on by — No Comments ↓

So, interesting sidenote.

Tonight, we returned our loaner vehicle back to Roger and Ursula and as we were going to leave, Tom’s car wouldn’t start. 88| >:XX

We thought it was a drained battery, so we tried jumping it, but that wasn’t it (the clock didn’t reset). So, between the two guys, they decided it was a starter issue (something like a bad part in the starter? so it’s not always bad?).

So they tried to start it about 20 times and it finally caught. And we drove the loaner vehicle home again, just in case. Once we were home, Tom was able to turn it off and on a few times with no problem.

So, I think it’s really time to get rid of this car. (See, I just KNEW we were supposed to trade it in YESTERDAY!)

Car shopping in Raleigh

Posted on by — No Comments ↓

Phew, what a day.

Long story short, hubby’s car wasn’t worth NEARLY what we’d hoped it would be, either from Carmax OR Toyota… although we haggled a bit with Toyota to up it $500 to get us closer to our bottom line for a new car.

/House Hunters mode on

So, did they stay under their budget and go for the sight-unseen used 2005 black Prius with tan interior from an Orlando Carmax with 49k miles? Or did they go for the brand spanking new “really red” 2008 Prius with the grey interior that isn’t even on the lot yet that they have to wait two weeks for but is slightly over their budget?

/House Hunters mode off

We should have a new car—with the exact specs we wanted—in about two weeks! 88|

The Title Saga

Posted on by — No Comments ↓

So after MUCH research, including reading pages upon pages at Consumer Reports online, pages upon pages of used car forums, and finally test-driving our neighbor’s new Toyota Prius Hybrid (which we REALLY liked)…Tom emailed a bunch of local Toyota dealers to see what deals they could cut us…and we decided to head to Raleigh.

Of course, we would be trading in Tom’s car, so we needed the title.

Well, docs like that are kept in the safe, except it wasn’t in there. And since it’s not where it SHOULD be, it could be anywhere! >:XX

I mean, the last place I actually remember seeing it was on the chair downstairs, like six or eight months ago (when we paid it off and the credit union sent us the docs)!! 88| I swear I remember putting it in the safe, but since I didn’t, it means it got put with a stack of papers “to go upstairs” and then got lost in the shuffle.

We have torn the office apart. I have emptied and sorted our “to be filed” bins (that had two years of stuff in them). I have torn apart two closets. I have looked behind things. I have looked under things. I have looked in things.

It was just nowhere.

So I went online and filled out all the paperwork to get a new title. Of course it has to be mailed to Michigan and should take like two weeks round trip (and cost $15)… so you know we will find the damn title within that two weeks.

FAST FORWARD TWO HOURS

YAY!

We found the title! I just kept thinking I KNOW I put it somewhere… Well, turns out, I did. 😳

It was in a manila envelope of “things to remember to show Tom when he comes home”—which ended up sandwiched between the wall and his nightstand. I know I told him about it and handed it to him when he came home, but he just thought “I will deal with it later.”

And the title was in there, right on top.

So now maybe it’s fate we find/buy a car tomorrow? If nothing else, we will have a great lunch!

New cell phones!

Posted on by — No Comments ↓

I had been having problems with my cell phone for quite some time.

For no reason, it would drop to ZERO bars while just sitting in the office. I could physically hold it in my hand and watch it jump from 5 bars to 0 to 3 to 0, etc. This was a major pain when Tom was in Iraq trying to call me, and he couldn’t get through!

The most frustrating part is that when I went to make a call or send a text message—making sure I had decent bars—as soon as I hit “send” it dropped back to 0 bars and my call or message wouldn’t go through.

I finally got fed up and went in to Alltel, and they tried to tell me “Maybe a new building went up that is blocking service from the tower.” Um, no. No building of such substantive measure to BLOCK cell phone service recently went up—I wanted to say You DO know you’re talking about Jacksonville, right? Have you seen any skyscrapers go up lately? 🙄 They had no other solution for me, so I just chalked it up to gremlins and went about my daily business.

It seemed to get worse (i.e. happen more often) as time wore on, so I thought maybe something was wrong with my phone, so I decided to use Tom’s phone (since he wasn’t using it 😀 and we have the same exact phone) so I took the phones in and had them switch service (just activate his phone with my number). It took less than five minutes.

Unfortunately, his had the same problem. >:XX I wanted to get my phone replaced, but Alltel couldn’t guarantee me the same phone (a NEW phone, that is—they could try to get me a refurbished one) and they couldn’t tell me which phone they would use to replace it with UNTIL I processed the warranty claim. What a joke.

So I just dealt with it, because we were still far enough away from our contract ending that if we bought a new phone, we’d have to pay full price.

Fast forward to Tom approaching his “getting home date” and having to restart service on his phone. So BOTH of our phones would be messed up. Cutting a long story short, a friend gave us an Alltel phone he wasn’t using that Tom wanted to use (it was a fancy palm-type phone) and once Tom started using it, we noticed that it didn’t drop bars like mine did. So it had to be the specific phone.

Fast forward another month or so, and I was just flat out tired of the spotty service, so we were looking at new plans (with new companies) and went to Alltel just to see if a new representative might have a new answer for us. He basically said it could be the phone itself, and if that’s the case, exchanging it wouldn’t do any good… and long story short, was there a phone we wanted to buy instead, since we were close to our contract being up and we could get any phone at the “new” (reduced) price instead of the full price.

So I got the LG Scoop in Citrus:

lgscoop

I love it. It has a slide out keyboard and everything. It takes the same data card as my old phone, so that’s good. It was only $50 after rebate, so that’s good. And I could get it in a color, so that’s good. It has a camera, so that’s good…but it doesn’t have a flash, so that’s not good.

They transferred all my contacts, I reorganized them all, and now we’re just waiting for the cable to come from Amazon so we can load contact photos and have our own personalized ring tones again. Oh yeah, about a week after I had mine and had decided I loved it, Tom wanted one, too. So he has gray!

YAY! Cell phones that work! And don’t drop bars!

Still working on the blogs…

Posted on by — No Comments ↓

Unfortunately, when one problem gets fixed, another pops up.

Now I am having problems uploading photos. Yes, they were there at one point (when I said the blogs were back up), but I have taken them down for the time being while I try to get the actual uploading problem figured out.

The new software is very cool, and I am sure it will all be worth it… it’s just getting it all tweaked.

And the blogs are back!

Posted on by — No Comments ↓

The short story?

We’re back up but it was a pain in the ass.

The long story?

What should have literally taken an hour (just waiting for the files to upload) actually ended up taking a few days…because once I uploaded everything and ran the install program (mere minutes), I got errors galore. I could access the blogs—they were there, and you could read them—but I couldn’t access the backoffice, which is where you actually write the posts.

Luckily they have GREAT support forums, and AMAZING people helping out there. It took about a day for some poor soul to take pity on me, LOL, but EdB attacked my problem…and solved it quickly (Go Ed! Go Ed!) and easily.

Well, it was a stupid thing, really, but easy. For whatever reason, my FTP client (what I use to upload files to my website server) was not overwriting things with the correct date (well, something like that anyway—that was the gist of it) and was consequently corrupting my files, which was giving me the errors. All Ed actually had to do (after some other tweaking and fiddling around just to check things out) was to REupload a certain directory and it worked. YAY EDB!

So now I can post again.

But I still have lots of “backoffice” stuff to do—but that won’t affect readers for anything other than appearance. Meaning, this blue color on all four blogs? It’s GOT to go. It’s just NOT me. :))

Do you have CORD meals?

Posted on by — No Comments ↓

It’s our new thing that we like to call the Cleaning Out the Refrigerator(TM) Dinner. :p

Our most recent CORD was really exciting interesting—pan-fried hot dogs, mashed cauliflower with butter and parmesan, and store-bought macaroni salad! I mean, you just can’t plan for something like that!

We are going to be having many more of these, I’m sure, as we have decided it is our new goal to clean out the second freezer, whittle down the pantry inventory, and keep the refrigerator/freezer stock well turned.

The Impala Saga To Date

Posted on by — No Comments ↓

Transmission.
Out of nowhere.
Original estimate of $3500 from the dealer.
Second opinion was $2500.
Third and final opinion was $1800-$2000 so we took it there.

We would love to just trade it for something else and not worry about getting it fixed, but there’s no way we can sell it with a worthless transmission.

Although unexpected major expenses suck, the good news (if you can call it that) is that we do have the money in savings, so this won’t kill us.

But now we have to decide what we’re going to do…because apparently, this car is KNOWN for transmission issues. And even if we get it fixed, there is no guarantee of it lasting any great length of time.

And we just don’t want to drive this car…we just don’t trust it like we used to. Tom has also been burned before with vehicles developing issues which turn into other issues and finally ends up a full-fledged money pit resulting in a car with little/no trade in value.

So, stay tuned…

Oh, the other good news? Our friends, Roger and Ursula, have an extra car that we can use while Tom’s car is being fixed!! YAY!

Grape Bon Bon

Posted on by — 1 Comment ↓

Grape Bon Bon

So a friend on a message board was recently talking about a beverage they loved that they couldn’t find locally, and had to order from across the country (or possibly even out of the country)—and of course pay a premium to ship it.

It got me to thinking about a beverage I missed… Back in 2001-2002 when we lived in Stafford, Virginia, there was a little Asian grocery that had the most wonderful green grape beverage that came in 6oz cans (like half a soda can). It wasn’t carbonated, so I would guess it was juice, and it had actual bits of green grapes in it (that part I distinctly remember because they would get stuck in the drink hole).

I couldn’t remember the brand name, the drink name, or anything else—I just remembered that it was green grapes (although I think there was also a strawberry version).

I googled my heart out and the closest I found was something from a Taiwanese blog which was labeled “white grape juice with fruit jelly” which was close, but no cigar.

So I posted to the SOAK (Source Of All Knowledge) on a message board—the SOAK is known to be able to find anything you are ever trying to find. (The SOAK is actually just the collective knowledge and brain power of tens of thousands of members.)

And within 21 minutes, someone had found it!! 88|

GRAPE BON BON BY HAITAI

Of course, it costs more than twice as much as the product itself to ship it (12 cans are $6.99 and it cost $13-something to ship)—but it about equals the price I paid in the store, so it’s all good. I am ordering some post haste!

WOOHOO!

Crazy dog will eat just about anything!

Posted on by — No Comments ↓

Now, I know she likes a lot of things. I mean, she loves tomatoes, carrots, apples, and bananas—and we have recently given her pineapple and oranges, which she snarfed.

So I was making guacamole this weekend and of course, Maggie is right at my feet, hoping for something (anything!) to fall to the floor. I had cilantro in my hand at the moment, so held it down to her to sniff, thinking she would turn up her nose.

Imagine my surprise when she jumped up and grabbed it out of my hand! (So of course, I had to run and get the camera to try and get a picture.) I didn’t let her have it, but it was just so cute!

Handy Hubby!

Posted on by — No Comments ↓

Ugh, the washer is apparently broken as we have puddles of water in the laundry room. It has been slowly leaking, so we’ve been avoiding it.

Yes, a bad thing to do as a homeowner. |-|

So Tom googled and discovered that it’s most likely just a clogged pump, which he can get to by taking the front cover off (instead of having to detach the 200# dryer and empty the entire laundry room in order to tip over the washer to look at hoses).

After digging out our appliance manuals, finding the model number, going to the Frigidaire site and downloading the parts manual…we googled replacement parts for washers, found two sites, and ordered it!

Thank goodness it was only $40, phew! And thank goodness I have a handy hubby!

Oh, and it was an underwire that made it down into the trap and wore a hole in the rubber. Oops!