Eyes bigger than my lap

I bought my first personal laptop when i was a senior in high school. Technically i was in running start and going to my first year of college, which is how i got mom to put it on her credit card while i paid her cash. She was very hesitant, but understood it would help me dramatically. Indeed, for the first time in a long time, i 

In the days of "Dude you're getting a Dell" i succumbed to the marketing and ordered a Dell Inspiron 5150. Lappy served me very well until i ran it practically into the ground. I gave the old laptop to my sister and two days later, Lappy died, never to be resurrected again. 

But i had already ordered Sarah. A(nother) Dell Studio 17 inch laptop. My reasons originally were: I want it to run WoW flawlessly, be great for photoshop and to not have to cramp my elbows in when i want to type.

However i didn't think about certain things. Like for instance what would happen when i met soon-to-be Boyfriend Jon, how little of an urge to play WoW I would have in favor of his company. In a matter of a month, i kicked my WoW habit and suddenly started noticing certain things about Sarah(laptop). 

While her insides were still magnificent, and a great gaming machine, her outsides were, not suiting my needs anymore. She was a honking 9 pounds and LITERALLY double the size of Boyfriend Jon's netbook. I love her dearly, but i started to think if this was really what i wanted. 

The conclusion i've come to is that i no longer need a blazing fast gaming computer. I need something portable that's great for photoshop, but otherwise is used for standard fun. 

Thus begins my adventure into the realm of laptop selling, something I've never done before. 

Saving Money via Ingenuity

On Friday when i dropped the wallet thief off at my sister's place (LOL stories below) my sister was watching a TV show called "Extreme Couponing" which i caught towards the end. The woman was checking out and had a $1200 bill which ended up being an extraordinary $103 after she went through a stack of coupons. Amazing right? and then i started looking at the amount of stuff she had. 4 shopping carts, one of them containing over 70 bottles of mustard. Who in this world can eat the contents of 70 bottles of mustard even if it takes their entire lifetime? It goes beyond absurd. I asked my sister what she does with the stuff, and she rewound to show me the part that showed exactly that. Showers stacked full of paper towels, pantries overflowing with cans, even the room for the water heater was filled to the brim. It was another form of hoarding and just as disturbing in my eyes.

I love saving money, and I've been doing a lot better with using coupons lately, but i would certainly balk at buying things i had no need of within the next three months. Even if they never spoil.

My most recent money saving technique had to do with the Kindle. I wanted to throw it in my purse without it getting scratched up by my keys. But i also didn't want it to weigh the kindle down and not be able to fit into my purse because the cover was so bulky. So i decided neoprene would be a good idea. But have you looked at the cost of those things???? Kindle covers themselves cost no less that $35 and Neoprene covers go up beyond $50. I tried to find a cheap one while i was walking around Staples for another purpose, but inevitably, it was more than i wanted to spend.

And then something interesting caught my eye.

It's was a leather notebook cover haphazardly placed on an endcap standee. It was red, which since its my favorite color, was probably the reason i stopped short. Upon further inspection, it was just barely too small for the kindle. I almost walked away from it not once, but twice. But something kept making me think about it. I analized the seams and looked at what was making it too small. I concluded if i cut out the flap where the notebook was supposed to slide in, and then trimmed off the business card flap (as seen in the left of the picture) to just a strip in the middle, it could work. I looked at the price. $12. Certainly worth a shot at that price.

So i took it with me to Boyfriend Jon's place and while he played Lego Indiana Jones, i got out a pair of scissors and my knife and got to work. I carefully trimmed out the flaps, which eventually will need some kind of edging. Boyfriend Jon then got out some strips of velcro that he had laying around and i cut them to size and placed them. One for the new closing strip. and two for the back of my kindle to keep it in place in the cover when i wanted to read. With the extra flaps out of the way, the Kindle fit like a glove.

Here's the results, of which i'm rather proud of. Still in the process of cleaning it up though.

As for LOL stories for Miss Molly, aka the Wallet Thief...She was pretty content to just lay in my lap while i read The Girl Who Played with Fire. But she did catch sight of a crow and just about plowed through my screen door trying to say hello.

Also, i may have accidentally have given her brain freeze, by giving her some ice cubes made out of tuna fish juice. She gobbled up three of them in the time it took Rusty to eat half of his. After that, she sat looking at me  squinting her eyes as her lower lip quivered.

But as far as Molly stories go, it was pretty calm and quiet for life around her.

Weekend Rewind

     This weekend was jam packed with all sorts of fun activities. And it doesn't look like i'm going to be slowing down any time soon.  

     

     The weekend chaos started on Friday when i finally managed to get my mother to teach me her meatballs recipe. If you thought i was kidding about the "only cooking for a lot of people" in my previous post, here's a prime example. The meatball recipe called for over 6 pounds of meat. i made at least five dozen meatballs out of that. Thankfully they freeze really well, and my sister who's kitchen is still being remodeled, is very thankful for the re-heatable meatballs to have on hand.  

     

     STILL! I turned, and cooked meatballs from just before 7pm till practically midnight. That was way way way too much. I will be actively working on cutting down the recipe to a much more manageable portion.


     Next time i make them though, I'm going to tweak some of the ingredients and how they're prepared. For instance, i don't like getting a huge chunk of onion when biting into the meatballs. So i'm going to mince them up instead of just dicing. Celery will all be food processed. My sister suggested i mix in sausage meat with the ground meat. And the meat definitely needs more garlic and more spices. They're good, but they're more bland than i would prefer.   

     

     This also reminded me that i really need a better way to store my spices. The few that i have are currently sitting on a turn table that they fall off of every time i turn it. So, in other words not ideal.  

     

     I'm already short on counter space, so a while ago, i put my microwave up on a riser so when i opened the door to the microwave, it wouldn't knock over any food i had waiting to go in. This worked great except it became a catch all for random things like my bike water bottle and my cake icing technique book.  

     

     But, armed with a 20% off coupon i snagged from my parent's place, i went and purchased a spice rack from Bed Bath and Beyond. I then placed new spice rack underneath the my microwave and it FIT....just barely. Check out how awesomely close this fit is!!!

     How's that for eyeballing? Note: This rack is designed to stand upright but the hook on the top just looked like a drawer pull to me which gave me the idea. It's also pulled forward to show how small of a gap there is so i'm not loosing any of my food prep area. It pushes back about six inches.  

     

     I'll just be replacing some of the more off-beat ones like Curry and Cumin, and Celery seed (not getting rid of them, just replacing the contents of the jars) for things like Lemon Pepper, Garlic Salt, Onion Powder, and Hungarian Paprika which i use on a much more regular basis.  
     
     Also this weekend was a slew of video game playing, cleaning, helping Lindsey move and playing cat and mouse with the property manager at my complex.  

     

     One thing: Am i crazy for expecting a manager to reply to an email within a day or two? Not a WEEK without a word in response to three emails and then i get a call saying "we haven't heard from you...are you staying or moving out?". I wonder if the girl in the office wrote his email down wrong, cause i checked it several times. And then, once i talk to him, and he says "I'll call you back within a couple hours" and not hear from him until I CALL HIM five hours later.  

     

     This company's office staff is painfully bad at keeping their promises. After a year, i'm not surprised. But it still grates on my nerves to no end.   

     

     Right now, I've turned in my notice to vacate with his promise that he'll see if he can do better than raising my rent 75$. Theoretically, i should be hearing from him before the end of today. *eye roll* 


We'll see what happens. 

When the girly bug bites

I grew up around all boys. I played GI Joe, not dress up. I made forts, not something in an EZbake. I played in the mud and dirt, not house. My barbies were Amazons, not Princesses.

No one would ever have described my childhood self as "Girly". When i grew up, I wanted to be strong, independent, and well....lets face it....not entirely grown up.

From Girls with Slingshots, webcomic

However, I learned that A) I feel exactly like the last panel in that comic now and B) it's tough to deny certain impulses.

90% of the time, I can walk through an entire store and not buy a single thing. My wardrobe is modest but still assorted. And most of the assorted-ness comes from what i call "Girly Bug Bites"

It's a brief shopaholic impulse that consumes me to the point where everything is pretty and i simply must have it! Usually only lasts a day or so, but i have been known to drop a couple hundred dollars in that time. That amount usually involves knee high black leather boots. My one true weakness....
Thankfully, my tight-pursed nature usually prevents me from buying things which are exorbitantly priced, or things that i would never actually wear. And even more thankfully...they only bite about 3 to 5 times a year.

At this time; my reaction to a Girly Bug bite is in full effect. Watch out stores.

In other news: I have a puppy for the next week. Prepare for massive puppy picture overload in my next post or two.

Getting by unscathed...by way of laughter

It seems like my life hits a lot of lows all at once. It likes giving me the finger like that.
No roommate for me yet. She backed out of the deal last minute (decided to try living on her own instead, so i can't blame her too much). And i'm back to the drawing board.
The worst part is: it's not even literal. I've been running around like crazy. Now I remember why i don't have time to draw like i used to. I'm too busy being an adult!
I believe in the philosophy that you get old because you stop laughing. Well, i guess it's true.
With all the stress i've been hit with the last few weeks, having a genuine chuckle at anything has been quite an ordeal.
This morning however, my own clumsiness finally caught up with me. By the time I was able to take a drink of my coffee, it had cooled to perfectly my body's temperature. I didn't feel it spill over the sides of my mouth and down into my shirt until the air had cooled at long about the time it hit my leg. Meanwhile i was concentrating on reading something and had zoned out so completely, that it took me a second to register back into the real world. At that point; half my coffee was down my shirt and in my lap.
My one stroke of luck though, was that i was wearing black. I couldn't help myself. I started cracking up. Co-workers called over the partitions and made sure i was ok. And soon i realized my shirt must have been protected with scotch guard or something cause it rolled right off and into my lap, the shirt barely gathering a dampness. Except now my cleavage smells like coffee. >.>
Ironically, it put me in the best mood i had been in all month. Having been bitten by a girly cootie yesterday, i went out and bought a purse (much needed considering my old one was 2 years and several re-stitchings old). And in said good mood, I went around to all the girly girls at my work and proptly shoved it at them (at a distance, not like it was touching their noses) proclaiming it to be pretty! My quirky happieness seemed to amuse them and they gave the pretty purse it's much needed appreciation. (You must appreciate the pretty red purse!!)

WANTED, clothes and movie

Last night, i went out with my three good friends...meeting at a local mall with Grace first while we waited for the guys to show up.
Back story:
Grace is my first boyfriend's new girlfriend. Suprisingly we're a LOT alike down to a few nuances. But we get along great, and i couldn't be happier for said first boyfriend, Josh. They're good for eachother and i now have someone that i can go shopping to Old Navy with that won't take it as a creepy brand name. They have my size clothes that aren't designed for women in their 50's. It's awsome. Well, Grace shops there too (and works, which is where her discount comes in VERY handy, not that i have an alterior motive or anything >.> <.< >.>)
So first, I spent about 78$ (after her discount). To be fair...90% of my wardrobe is black....still. For those that read my last blog and are going "wait...didn't you say you almost never wear all black?"....yes...all black. some black, specifically black with a pair of jeans...is my favorite combo.
But now, after that expensive charge (thank you Grace ^^) i have lots of color for summer! YAY.

Finally the guys showed up and we went to see WANTED.
Wanted was a very good movie overall. I felt like it was jerky. There was one very long running fight scene. It was just a little too perfect, him recieving a gun the second his previous one runs out. ....Right. I would have liked to see him use different kinds of weapons or maybe some interesting martial arts coreography.
And i'm sorry, the lead guy James McAvoy, FAILED. He does not pull off a convincing "angry", "hurt", or "vengeful". his crying was forced, and he definetly was a pussy until the very end of the movie. And i want to know why he was so hell bent on killing his father's murderer when he had never met his father?
Angelina and Morgan Freeman definetly pulled it back together. A similar personality to Mrs. Smith showed up again this time tortured and tormented. A very good mix for Angelina's abilities.
Morgan Freeman was a very good mentor personality. Calm, collected, unflinching, with a sense of humor. I really liked him. He always does a good job.
On a side note: I HAVE TO GET THIS SOUNDTRACK!!!!. I didn't hear one song i didn't like!