Thursday, March 26, 2009

My Outstanding Shopping Trip to Macy's






I don't know if it's my age, my weight or my skinny pocket book but I don't shop much for clothes these days. Yesterday, however, after my happy trip to the dentist to get my temporary double cap replaced...ouch is all I can say about that....but anyway, after that early morning trip I went shopping during lunch for clothes. Oddly, 3 of my favorite and very old pairs of jeans have all recently ripped. How strange is that? Remarkably, I can still fit in those comfy old jeans (same ones I wore 10 years ago), but now my rear end is now swinging in the breeze. Time for new jeans. Being a short, petite woman, regular-sized clothes don't fit. Macy's has a petite section in their department store so that's where I headed.

After half an hour trying on jeans (that's a whole other blog...women and their jeans)...anyway, with my 15% off coupon in my hot little hand, I got ready to purchase my "JUST RIGHT LIKE BEING WITH YOUR BEST FRIEND" jeans. My best friend was not in the size I wanted, but again, that's another blog. I love a bargain. I soon learned, however, that the 15% Macy's coupon I was so eager to use is never valid on any item with a price tag that ends with an 8 or 9. Who knew? My jeans were $24.98. That's an "outstanding everyday value" I was told. Whoever made up that ridiculous sale rule I wondered aloud and why aren't the sale rules more clear? Must be in the fine print I commented to the clerk as I looked closely at the itty bitty words on my coupon. The clerk quickly told me that lucky for me, there was a 20% off special if I used my Macy's credit card (which I never use but did). "That's where we make our money," the sales clerk offers, "when customers charge their purchases". Last time I remember looking at the going rate on my Macy's credit card it was something like 21%. Yah, let me charge those jeans.

I also bought two sweaters for my husband. He hated them both. One had a fur collar (not his style) and was too short (notice his slim waist beneath the bottom of the fur-collared sweater, above). But I couldn't resist. They were both Oscar de la Renta (sounds like a good brand, huh?). One was originally $55 then on sale for $19. Today is was on special for $7.99 with 20% off if I used my card. I paid $6.39. The other sweater was originally $70. It was never on sale except for today, for $7.99 and with the 20% discount I paid $6.39 for that one as well. I was told by the outstanding sales clerk that they were priced to move. I also bought 3 sweaters for myself for $6.39 each. Who is making any money at these outstanding prices?

"Have an outstanding day!", a sales clerk exclaimed as I packed up my 3 pairs of jeans. Her perky comment belied her tired, bored face. "Have a nice day," I politely responded. Later in the men's department, as I was spending my $13.78 for my husband's two sweaters, the sales clerk was almost laughing when he said, "Outstanding" out of nowhere, no context, just looked at me and said, "Outstanding." I smiled walking away from the counter a little confused. It wasn't until a tall, well-dressed sales clerk smiled and blurted "Outstanding!" as I was walking to the bathroom that I realized "outstanding" was the word of the day...something Macy's management had told everybody to say.

I live in New England. Most people are not friendly right off the bat. I remember a fantastic book store years ago that I used to love to shop in. Every time you came through the front door an employee would look you in the eye and say, "Hello. How are you?" or some other such pleasantry. Amused and surprised by all this friendly New England banter, I asked once a cheery clerk, "Why are you all so nice in here?" The answer was that their management had told them to be!

Outstanding. I guess I did get some outstanding values at Macy's yesterday, but what a curious hour of shopping!

Saturday, March 21, 2009

Brownies are My Favorite

We're getting ready to make some brownies!


Ok, is it a cup or 1/2 a cup of oil?


Time to clean up! Look at the strange, huge apron Gramma put on me!


Yum! Brownies are my favorite, especially with chocolate frosting.

Everybody at my house is moving and packing and driving cars and trucks from Greenland to Kittery. I am at Gramma Joy's making brownies and having fun! Auntie Marj, can you make me an apron? Look at the strange one Gramma Joy put on me last night! I'd love pink or purple cowgirls. Gramma Joy said she'd buy it and keep it at her house for when we cook. That way we would have matching cowgirl aprons!

Sunday, March 15, 2009

Granddaughters

My adorable granddaughter and I spent the day together at Childlight Yoga this Sunday. We thoroughly enjoyed their open house. We listened to music, did some yoga moves, ate healthy snacks, played music and my darling granddaughter had a strawberry painted on her cheek. How better could a day get? Check out Childlight Yoga's website at www.childlightyoga.com.

Launch!

This is Olivia. Her friend at work is a loveable chocolate lab named Molly. The two of them run, jump, catch, leap, attack each other and generally rumble around in the yard of my husband's office almost every day, all day. On the weekends she is manic and mouthing everything in sight (retrievers will retrieve and/or mouth anything if bored or tense) unless she gets her requisite 1/2 hour of vigorous exercise. I am always looking for ways to get her fully exhausted on the weekends. When it's -15 outside I throw her ball up and down the stair well. She jumps 2, 3, 4 steps at a time to catch it...nice way to get that girl tired. I recently bought a tennis ball launcher and a frisbee for use outside as the weather warms up (it was a balmy 55 outside yesterday). Oh yah. This is what Miss Olivia looked like after an hour session outside catching a frisbee and running after launched balls. Fun time for all :)

Pizza!

We seem to be doing a lot of entertaining lately and I love it. My new thing is to try and cook tasty and enjoyable yet healthy food. Last night I made home made pizza using whole wheat pizza dough. I have to admit it was really, really fun to once again get my hands on a ball of dough and knead away for 10 minutes. One of my friends/guests, a very creative ceramic artist, helped with getting the dough into the pan. We laughed when she created the likenesses of Vermont and New Hampshire although that certainly wasn't her original intent :) I asked her load a pizza. She's a vegetarian and a cook so I knew her combinations would be interesting and tasty. Check out her pizza on the left. My husband loaded the pizza on the right and we can call that one meat lovers madness. It all leads me to think about vegetarianism vs omnivorism. I have several friends who are strict vegetarians (I would be constantly hungry) , I know of several people who are off and on again vegetarians, and some people, like my husband, seem to avoid most vegetarian fare (salad, for example, would never be his first choice at a meal). Last night as we were getting ready to cook these two pizzas side-by-side I asked my vegetarian friends if that was acceptable. I had a friend in the past who would not eat a pizza cooked on the same pan with meat lovers madness, cross contamination she would tell me. My goal for cooking and eating of late is to keep it healthy, tasty, and filling. I am not so sure both these pizzas fit that criteria!

Saturday, March 14, 2009

The Tide Comes In.......

Friday night poker. To start things off last night, my clever husband set up a blind vodka tasting test after appetizers and before dinner. We compared six different vodkas. I hated them all (different versions of rubbing alcohol to my taste buds) but my poker playing friends rated Three Olives as number one, Shirmnoff's and Svedka as second and third, Grey Goose, Pinnacle and Skyy as last. Surprising, huh? Who ever heard of Three Olives?




Post vodka, we were definitely ready to play cards. I love to win and hate to lose and I'm pretty hard on myself when I do lose. With cards, we have a little mantra, "The tide comes in....the tide goes out." It's a good life lesson. Sometimes things go my way, sometimes they don't. Have faith, I tell myself as I'm watching all my change disappear, the tide will eventually turn. Last night, for my husband and me, the tide came in and in and in. I don't believe our friend, D, won one hand of poker, yet he was an excellent sport about it all. The last time we played at our house and my tide was on a mad rush out, I actually threatened to get up and leave the game! I'd like to think it was the crazies you get the night before you are sick for a week, but maybe not. Despite the inevitable rise and fall of my stacks of quarters, nickels, and dimes, I try to just enjoy the game and remember it is a lot of fun. Of course that's easy for me to write after last night. Next week I know...the tide may be rushing out again :)

Friday, March 13, 2009

Hopeful and Sad


This is a picture out my back door. Spectacular, isn't it? I have loved living in this condo the past 3 plus years. Unfortunately, we need to move. We have had our condo on the market about a year, probably too highly priced and certainly without many lookers given this frightening economy. We recently reduced our selling price dramatically. What a painful decision. But, I am now hopeful we will sell and move on. I will miss my water view but I won't miss the mortgage! So far, during the course of my life, I have lived in a converted basement, a converted garage and even a caboose (on it's own set of tracks on a beautiful island in WA state). I've lived in duplexes, studio apartments, million-dollar condos, tiny water-front houses, houses in the woods, apartments in large apartment complexes, apartments in small complexes. I have lived alone; I have lived with roommates; I have even lived with my brother. I have lived in the east coast and on the west. When this condo sells (not if) we are thinking of building a home. Now, that should be a new and exciting adventure. We know what we want and have a good idea of where we might build. I know we will have this home for a long, long time.

Sunday, March 8, 2009

Poker in Rye (or is it Rye Beach?)


Ok, as noted before in this blog, I love playing poker with my friends (C and D) on Friday night. The most fun is when we are actually at their house, eating wonderful food, drinking champagne, laughing and playing cards. The biggest adventure is getting to their house. Now, I like to think of myself as a smart woman and I know my husband is a smart man. We both have advanced degrees, both taught at the university level. My husband is even a map maker by trade (takes a smart person to do that, right?). Well, our intellectual abilities come into serious question every time we drive to our friend's house. We never make it there and back without making at least one giant navigational mistake. Take last Friday night. In a heated discussion about insurance and retirement we flew by the first and least difficult turn off of the main road, completely unaware. Somewhere down the road a bit when we had decided to not talk about insurance and retirement and had calmed down, we both looked at each other, "Oops, think we missed the first turn off." That should have been our first clue that the drive to our friend's house would once again be an adventure. As we backtracked, I felt we were going in the right direction even though my husband questioned me the entire way. "I think it's right across from the ski shop," I tell him only partly sure I know what I am talking about but it was all I had to go on. Luckily, I was right and my husband listened to me so we made our first turn towards poker fun.

With confidence my husband and I commented to each other as we headed down the road, "We are sure we know the way now!" Famous last words. Quite some distance down the road after we knew we were going the right way but something didn't seem right, I asked my husband, "Does this look familiar to you?" "Yes," he says to me. "It looks just like it did the last time I got lost down here. The houses are all getting bigger and I've never seen that church before. Looks like we are headed to the ocean again." OMG. Whatever is the matter with us. Two intelligent people, completely directionally challenged. Is it our age? Is this what happens past 50? We soon reach the ocean shaking our heads and, fortunately, laughing. "Let's just follow the ocean to that restaurant C works at," my husband tells me. Oh, yah, right I'm thinking. Having no idea where we went wrong I had no idea where to go. How can you backtrack if you think you went the right way? And, of course, it is pitch black outside in New England on a winter night so impossible to read any street signs.

I phone my friend and she doesn't answer. We always get lost so I'm thinking, "How can she NOT be available. We are once again L O S T! I leave a message but am laughing so hard I don't think she will understand a word I have said. I hang up thinking, we may not make it to poker tonight! I know my other friend lives near the restaurant we're headed towards and C lives just around the corner from her. "Take a left," I yell at my husband as we approach the restaurant. He obliges, being completely lost himself at this point. OK, I say, with limited confidence, "I think you go up that street and take a left somewhere." Off we go down that street a short distance. "Does this look familiar to you?" we ask one another once again. "Hey, ask that woman walking her dog," my husband barks. I'm thinking, "Whatever are we going to ask her? I do not remember the name of the street." I tell my husband that I don't remember the name of the street. He persists, so we stop the car and I roll down my window. Our own dog is now barking as though a murderer is standing by my side. She jumps from the back seat to the front in attack-dog-protect-owner mode. "Can you help us?" we appeal to this kind-looking woman,holding our dog back. Of course the obvious first question out of her mouth is, "What street are you looking for?" My husband impatiently looks right at me (I told him I didn't know the name of the street!). "Hmmmmm," I say. "I know I can recognize it, if I see it." Ok, we are in big trouble now. Not only are we lost but now we sound like complete idiots. How do you stop a woman and ask directions if you cannot remember the name of the street? The woman, again kind as can be, continues to try to be helpful, "Who are you friends?" We give her their names and she stares back at us blankly. We thank the patient woman for not laughing at us and/or calling us names, roll up the window and just start driving.

Now sometimes in these situations you let your intuition take over so my husband started driving in the direction he sensed was right. You should trust a map maker, right? We took a right and it all started to look familiar. "Hey, there's Mclaughlin Drive!!!!" I yell as we almost speed by. "Take a right!" I holler. As my husband accelerates around the corner (so happy we seemed near) I yell at him again, "It's that first house on the left!" "How strange," he says slowly "I thought we were at the other end of this street." As he slows down...we..... arrive. We learn later that we actually whizzed right by this street we just turned down. So, we were here and didn't even know it.

Saturday, March 7, 2009

Cherrio


OK, first I need to grab this here Cherrio off gramma's hand.



OK, I'll shove that one straight
into my mouth.
Oops looks like I have an escapee on my sleeve.


OK, let me try two more.
So tasty.
Oops again, looks like I'm losing another
Cherrio to my sleeve.

Aren't I a big girl????

It's a milestone, I think, when kids start to eat Cherrios. Today I spent the morning with my darling granddaughter while her mom, dad and sister all drove to upstate New York to pick up a new puppy. She was dropped off at our home this morning with a cute little container of Cherrios. Up until now she has only eaten completely pulverized baby food or a bottle. Cherrios, we thought, how cool. Using her chubby little fingers to carefully pick up each little Cherrio we placed in front of her, she quickly shoved as many as she could into her mouth. My granddaughter is growing up. Eye-hand coordination and Cherrios - giant developmental milestones in her short little life.

Tuesday, March 3, 2009

Sleep and Lack Thereof

Last night my dear husband snored and snored and snored. Oh my. Usually he can turn onto his stomach and miraculously stop snoring but he has been sick with a stomach virus and is uncomfortable on his stomach so he snored and snored and snored. I thought I'd lose my mind. My ear has been plugged so I didn't want to use ear plugs in case it made my ear worse but finally relented and jammed those squishy orange things into my ears, turned on the fan, made a pillow wall between the two of us and tried, tried to sleep. Only after he finally rolled over onto his stomach did I sleep. He could saw the bed into pieces tonight and I will easily sleep as I am feeling a seriously level of sleep-deprivation and it's 7:00 in the morning. It's the little things that drive you mental, isn't it?