Twenty Years Ago

How many of you remember May 12, 1991?  I doubt many, but I do.

I was home from college just two days and decided to visit a church I'd never been to.  Little did I know that someone I met there that day would become of my best friends and like a brother to me.

Donnie and I were both teenagers then.  (In fact, it was his birthday that day, too!  I joke that I was the best birthday gift he ever received.  I'm sure he thinks differently, though!)

This was NOT my first encounter of him, however.  When I was in junior high, my youth group was going to a concert.  We stopped at a McDonalds and I am convinced the guy all us girls were talken with by how cute he was -- was none other than Donnie.  I asked him about this once, and he said he did have a shirt like the one I described this cutie ordering, and yes, indeed he went to the same concert!  :) 

It sounds cliche, but it doesn't seem possible we've been friends for 20 years.  During that time he's graduated college and then graduate school, been ordained, gotten married to a wonderful person named Blythe I am also very close with, become a father to three wonderful children (who call me "Aunt"), started a church in New Jersey, and moved to Russia. 

When plans were being made to move to Russia, I was told by Donnie and Blythe that I needed to come visit, so I started saving for the trip.  While there, we were stuck in a traffic jam and I laughed about how if I had known that someday I would be stuck in a Russian Round-about with the cute boy at McDonalds, how thrilled I would have been as a junior high kid.  Instead, Donnie had taken me down to get my paperwork approved for my visit, and Blythe was at home with the kids.  Donnie and I were racking our brains as to where we put a video I had brought as a gift for their daughter.   Blythe had called and the kids were wanting to watch it, but she couldn't find it.  (The DVD was found a few hours later in the game closet.)

The majority of my suitcases when visiting were filled with gifts for Donnie and Blythe.  Other American friends of theirs asked me to buy some stuff and bring to them.  I took only about three sets of clothes so there would be room for all the gifts.  Even a clerk at the post office wanted to send over some Pop-Tarts and Oreos!  I could fit 50 pounds into each suitcase I took, and packed carefully, even having things on top that I could easily ditch at the airport if needed (Bag of Reese's cups, Twizzlers, etc.)  Thankfully each suitcase had exactly 2 pounds to spare.  (Of coure, my backpack weighed about 20 pounds and I had to carry that halfway around the world!)

It wasn't a problem taking snacks they enjoyed, but I wanted to find some way to take root beer.  This is something Donnie loves and isn't sold in Russia.  I thought I had figured out the solution to this by buying two 20 oz bottles (for $2 each!) in Detroit after I was through security.  However, they were confiscated in Amsterdam.  I even said, "They are my brother's favorite drink and he can't get it in Russia."  They were sealed.  I had the slip where I bought them in the Detroit airport but they were still taken from me.  I understand why, but I so hoped he could have one of those! 

Donnie and Blythe came home early last year when it was found out she was expecting!  Next month they are moving back to Russia for three years.  I'm going to miss them terribly, but at least it's only 8¢ a minute to call, and there is Skype.  Facebook is great for keeping up, and Donnie and I always play Scrabble over e-mail using a UK service, usually making 1 play a day.  There's a place we can put a note in with our play and often a few words will be put there about what is going on in our day.  "Having friends over for dinner" or "It's the 4th of July, don't you miss the USA today?"  It's not detailed, but a great way to keep in touch.

Now that they are heading home, it's time for me to start saving for my trip to Russia again.

Maybe May 12, 2013 will find me in Russia.  You never know.

Here I am with Blythe in front of the Church of the Saviour of the Spilled Blood.  The other picture is me with Donnie, also in Russia.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY DONNIE! 

Mom's Mother's Day Card to her Uncle

My mother has always been a bit unconventional.  My first day of school she forgot to take a photo of ME, but remembered to take a photo of the cookies she baked.  (And I think we sold that tray at a yardsale and I'd honestly like another one because that's what the Big Batch Cookie Mix cookies always were placed on.  Am I the only one who misses the Big Batch Cookie Mix?)

Anyway, with this being Mother's Day and all, I was thinking how I like how a few churches celebrate Mothering Sunday.  There are women who are infertile who going to church this day reminds them how much they want children and can't have them.  There are single women in churches who want to remain pure for marriage and don't have children but feel the clock is ticking.

And then there are the men who preform things a mother does!

My mother recognized this years ago, and she made a Mother's Day card for her uncle.  Judging from the handwriting of the children who signed it, and year my Great Uncle died, I would say she came up with this idea about 1970.

My mother always taught me to be creative.  I had a reputation some years back -- not a bad reputation, but everyone wanted to get a handmade card from me because it would always be funny.  This is because of Mom's influence. 

Her creativity isn't just left to cards.  Watch for her in Chicken Soup for the Soul: Answered Prayers: 101 Stories of Hope, Miracles, Faith, Divine Intervention, and the Power of Prayer  and Chicken Soup for the Soul: O Canada: 101 Heartwarming and Inspiring Stories by and for Canadians.

She also taught me to think of others who might be forgotten.  When I had a birthday party, I couldn't invite just the girl my age from the family who lived two houses away but I needed to invite all seven of the childrenn or invite none. 

So this Mother's Day in honor of my mom, wish someone a Happy Mother's Day who might be forgotten.  Call up the infertile woman at church and cry with her.  Give your teenage baby sitter a small gift card for ice cream with a card made by your kids wishing HER a Happy Mother's Day.  Even give your favorite uncle a Mother's Day card.  Mom did.

Happy Mother's Day, Mom.  And, Uncle Bert, I hope you have a great Mother's Day in Heaven.

My math skills (or lack thereof)

My guinea pig has been sick.  He's nearly well now, but while taking antibiotics, certain things happen to animals, too, when they are on antibiotics.

Well, my little guy had taken a full course of the meds to counteract the situation, and I needed to call the vet today to see if he would call in a prescription to Walmart because my little guy still needed some meds, and the vet's office is about 3 hours away on a good day.  I've had a vet phone in a prescription to a human pharmacy before, and in a situation where the vet is so far away, it's a huge convenience.  (I'm sure people are wondering why the vet is so far away, but very few vets are really qualified to deal with guinea pigs.  My vet is an exotics who is wonderful!)

Let me back up a moment.  In college I was diagnosed with a learning disability in math and foreign languages.  This surprises many people because I attempted to learn Hebrew on my own and that I am as good with stretching a dollar as I am.  It used to take me the longest time to figure out what 35¢ coupon tripled would be.  I usally work left to right in a math problem instead of right to left.  (For instance, I would multiple 30 by 3, then 5 by three, then add them together.)  I'm sure you can see where difficulty can come in when I am faced with a more complicated math problem.

Usually I am good in metric.  Living overseas one summer helped with that greatly.  My vet does everything in metric.  Today he asked me how many grams my little guy weighed.  Now kilos I can do.  He's about .85 kilos.  But ask me to think fast on my feet to do the conversion from pounds to kilos and then move the kilos to grams.  Oy vey!

Well, then I didn't realize I did this until after I got off the phone with him.  Dealing with CCs is new to me.  Add in most of the meds are being dosed in fractions of CCs.  I told the vet I gave my guinea pig 48 CCs of an over the counter med.  OH MY!  I should have said 2.8 CCs.  (Well, I was only about 45 CCs off!)

I'm really, really embarassed.  I bet my vet thinks it's a wonder I haven't killed my precious pet with dosing like that.

Next thing on my to do list:  get better at math when it involves CCs.

Signed Bible

I love to haunt yardsales, thrift shops, and auctions.

I used to see lots of Bibles and often collected them to send to an organziation that ships them to other countries.  http://www.bf.org/biblenet.htm  Of course, since that time the post office has elimiated the economy shiping for M-Bags making shipment to other countries very expensive for books.

Anyway, a few years ago I found a Bible I decided to keep.  (Of course it's also missing part of the New Testament, so not complete.)

The way I remember it, I got it with a few Bibles and my mother opened it, and said, "Wow, look at all these signatures."  I looked over, and recognized all the names.  It pretty much is a "Who's Who" of the WV north district of the Church of the Nazarene from the early 80s to early 90s.  The district superintendant, visiting evangelists, missionaries, pastors of various churches.  I went to a Nazarene church for years as well as spent two years at a Nazarene college, so I recognized many of these names!

I had never heard of Bible signing before I ran across this Bible, although since I've heard it's common in a few denominations.  I have heard everything from "These people are heroes of the faith and people we should look up to" to "No person should sign a Bible because that's God's Word and humans aren't God." 

But still I think the Bible is really neat! 

There are more signatures than this, just took one photo!

My $15 headache

Coupon for $15 off any item no exceptions means no exception.

Went to a website, found an item that was $15, free shipping.  Pearl earrings.  I know that's not much for pearl earrings, but I expected them to be very tiny cultured pearls.  After all it said PEARL EARRINGS, not pearlized or "pearl look" etc.  Or at very minimum simulated pearls that looked like pearls.  (And before anyone thinks I'm living in a dream world, I bought some very tiny authentic pearl earrings once for $15 online.)

Placed an order, received my confirmation that my credit card would be billed 0.00

an about a week later these came in the mail:

Ugly.  Gaudy.  Big.  Definatley not anything that resembled pearls.  And clip ons.  (I ordered pierced)

But I thought for free, my 4 year old niece might enjoy playing dress up with them.

Then this week I open my credit card bill.  $15 charge for these.  I googled and saw this happened to a number of people.

I have my invoice where they were free.

I called the company.  I got hung up on.  I was being very nice because usually the nicer you are the more willing people are to help you.

I call my credit card company.  I was told I couldn't file a dispute beacause the item had to have cost something and they couldn't put 0.00 in their system. (Didn't think at this point to mention they were not real pearls or pierced earrings.)

So I call the company back.  The man got snippy with me.  You know sometimes how it's not what you say but how you say it?  Precisely what happened.

At different points in the phone conversation he told me I had been charged $15, $6.95, and $8.95. 

He told me I used two coupons.  (Not true.)

He told me that because I gave my credit card number when ordering (required even though it should never have been charged -- I've done this with other companies with no problem) -- he said since they had my credit card number, that was giving them the authorization to charge it in any amount they desired.  (I think not!)

He told me I could return the earrings at my expense and the $15 be credited back to my credit card within two billing cycles.

I called my credit card back, told them what happened.  They said that since they were not real pearls that was enough for "item not as described".  Also I was told there was a limit of 60 days from when the charge was made to dispute it.  I was told to return them ASAP and if the credit wasn't made quickly, call the credit card company back.

I wonder how many people they charged the coupon amount to and they never noticed it.  I know I am not the only one, and this time, while $15 is a nice chunk of change, it's the principle behind it.  Unlike what the customer service rep said, just because I placed an order and they had my credit card number did NOT mean they could charge it for an amount I didn't authorize.

Where I've been

I'm going to try to get back into blogging.

My guinea pig was sick for a while, had to hand feed him for weeks, but he has done really well and recovering nicely.  But he's taken much of time time for the last two months.  I'm hoping to get back into the habit of blogging daily again!

My guinea pig before feeding time with the eyedropper a few weeks back.

21¢ with $2.73 back

I'm not sure how this happened.  After all, I only had two coupons, used no Extra Care Bucks, and bought stuff that was not free for me.  My total before tax was 1¢, at least that's what my receipt said! 

I bought:
Russel Stover's Vanilla Cream Egg
a bag (2.52 oz) of mini Reese's Cups
a bottle of bubbles
Citrus Coconut anti-bacterial hand sanitizer

My total came to 21 cents.

I received back $2.73 in Extra Care Bucks.

March shopping totals

March wasn't a great month in the grocery store for me, but was a great month in pharmacies!

In grocery stores, I found items on sale that we use a lot and I stocked up!  That's why there was such a lage amount of groceries bought in March.  I spent $225.01 and saved $85.15  Not only that, I bought a lot of fresh vegetables this month, and there are no savings on them.  In addition, I had a number of mail-in refunds where I got the purchase price back, so that savings will be counted in future months when I receive the refund checks back.  (I believe it was almost $50 in mail in refunds for the month.)

In refunds, I received $18.95.

At Walgreens, I spent $67.48 and saved $208.65.  I bought a lot of frozen food on clearance as well as about 20 packages of feminime items on clearance.  Great prices on both!

At CVS I spent $14.17 and saved $54.74.

At Dollar General I spent $3.30 and saved $13.00

So what I spent for the month was $309.96.  I saved  $364.54

I also cashed in for $25 in gift certificates to Amazon from  Swagbucks   (Very easy to earn, search engine and you can earn points to cash in for gift certificates.)

So far this year my totals are:

CVS:
spent:  $84.48   saved  $245.63

Walgreens:
spent:  $93.39  saved:  $261.75


I'm hoping to not have much spent at the grocery store in April because I did do a lot of shopping in March!

MONEY MAKER shopping trip! Made $1.80

Well, it's the end of the month and I have to hurry and use all those coupons that I want to use that expire this week.

I did really well.

First stop:  Dollar General.  I bought:

one very large Clorox bleach (clothes)

one regular sized DG bleach (dishes)

one large vinegar (laundry)

1 jar Cummin (I had run out.  Who runs out of Cummin?)

2 cans hominy

1 buy one get one free Excedrin Migrane (so two total)

2 jars chili powder (again I had run out)

price before coupons and gift card I won:  $16.30. 

Total I paid:  $3.30

Total saved: $13.00

CVS:

2 bags of Halls

1 Skintimate Shave Cream

1 Physician's Formula Mascara

2 Cadbury Creme Eggs

2 Cadbury Mini Eggs

1 Old El Paso Enchalada Sauce

Total before coupons:  $23.52

Total after coupons: $5.45

Total saved:  $18.07

Total I'll get back in mail in refund:  $9.99

Total I got back in Extra Care Bucks for my next purchases: $11.50

Foodland:

2 bananas

4 onions

12 pepperoni rolls

3 jars baby food

2 stalks celery

1 Take and Bake deli pizza

(and bonus, found some Coke Coupon booklets!  Whoo hoo!)

Total:  $20.05

Total I will get back in mail in refund:  $10

Walgreens:

9 cans/jars of nuts

1 package dried blueberries

1 fridge pack Diet Coke

2 48 count Stayfree Maxi Pads

1 48 count Poise Pads

1 Colgate Toothbrush

1 Colgate Total Toothpaste

2 Gain dishwashing liquid

2 Skintamate Shave Gels

Total before coupons: $67.92

Total after coupons:  $16.40

Total I received back in Register Rewards: $8.50

Total I will receive from mail in refund:  $7.00

So, my grand total for today:

Total before coupons:  $127.79

Total after coupons: $45.20

Total in mail in rebates:  $27.00

Total in Register Rewards/ Extra Care Bucks good on next purchases: $20

Or I made $1.80 after buying all this stuff if you take into account the money good on my next purchases!

Paid $23.23 for $153.05 of groceries.

There once was a joke on a sitcom about "Who buys groceries at a pharmacy?"  Well, I do! 

I usually do a couple big shopping trips before winter hits, and it's about time to replenish.  So this was a great day for me!

My guinea pig has been needing lots of care and I had a break for a few hours this afternoon right after I fed him and decided to run into town just to get out of the house.  I wanted three things at Walgreens, but they were sold out of two of them!  However, I discovered a treasure in the frozen foods.  They had tons of stuff on clearance.  I bought things I knew that we would use. 

Then I went to CVS.  CVS had a promotion on their Facebook page that if you were their "fan" you could print a coupon for one totally free candy or single serve beverage to $2.00.  My clerk tried to argue that "any" didn't mean "any" but what waas pictured on the coupon.  She wouldn't even try it.  Never mind that the dictionary says "any" means "Without specification or identification".  She kept insisting I could only get Orbit gum with the coupon.  I pulled out my phone and started dialing the number to corporate.  (I rarely go this route, but have called corporate from the store before.  I've found they will at least try whatever I want before I actually call corporate and I have never asked them to do something that isn't allowed.)  At which point she said that was fine, no need to call, she would see if the register would accept the coupon.  (It did with no problem.)  Then she made me get something that was sixty cents.  I'm not sure the reasoning behind that, didn't argue that one, just grabbed a blow pop.

So what all did I buy in my shopping trip?

CVS:
4 fridge packs of 12 cans Diet Pepsi
Whopper Robin Eggs, 10 oz. package
1 can Chef-Boy-Ar-Dee Ravioli
1 Charms Blow pop

After coupons I paid 83 cents.  I received $3 back for my next shopping trip at CVS.  I saved $24.39

Walgreens:

1 carton Walgreens ice cream, Rocky Road
9 Stouffer's Stuffed peppers
4 Mama Mia microwave pizza 4-packs
4 Stouffer's chicken and vegetable skillet meals
4 Jimmy Dean Sausage bowls
2 Always Maxi pads
1 Lean Cuisine Sesamae Chicken
1 Cafe W Taquitos
5 Ore Ida Crispy Friea
5 French Bread five-cheese pizzas
3 Reese's cup candy bars
1 can Walgreens Mixed nuts
1 fleece throw (great for holding guinea pigs)

I paid a total of $22.40 and saved $105.43 and I got $8 back to spend on my next shopping trip.

So my total today while shopping?  I spent $23.23.  I saved $129.82.  I have $11 to spend on my next shopping trips.  (And I came home with $153.05 of groceries.)