Wednesday, October 26, 2016

Fallgasm 2016

Since I didn't do Hodgepodge today, and I saw one of my Youtube subscriptions do this, I thought I would too. They are fall questions.

1. Favorite thing about Fall: That it's getting closer to Christmas. I love buying stuff for people, especially for Christmas.
2. Favorite month of Fall: September, cause I love looking at school supplies. I don't need any, and I sure don't have a use for them, but I love looking and buying some of the cheap ones.
3. Favorite Drink or Starbucks Drink: I don't drink Starbucks. I do like a chai latte.
4. Favorite Bath & Body Works Candle for Fall: I'm not allowed to have candles. I accidentally left one burning while I took a shower and overnight at my old place. Obviously I didn't burn the place down, but I'm not allowed to have candles.
5. Favorite Yankee Candle for Fall: Same as above, plus I'm not a big fan of smelly stuff in my apartment
6. Favorite Fall Accessories: longer sleeve shirts. I don't wear a lot of them, but I do have a few cute ones.
7. Favorite Fall Activity: My grandmother's birthday. It's on October 15th, and most of my mom's side of the family turns up for it. This year we celebrated her 100th.
8. Favorite Halloween or Fall Tune: I like Thriller, but I listen to it all year long. I don't listen to stuff just around the holidays
9. Favorite Costume or what you are going to be: I don't do dressing up much. I'll be the same thing I was last year because I don't want to go buy another costume. I guess I liked the one I was a few years ago, I believe it was a dark angel, and I got wings.
10. Favorite costume for kids: Anything cute, and below five kids are just cute.
11. Favorite Fall Movies: Maximum Overdrive. I remember seeing a snippet of this at a party when I was in high school. Ever since I found it on DVD I watch it every year on Halloween. I may or may not watch it this year, I feel the more I watch it the less interesting it becomes.
12. Favorite Halloween Candy: I like the shaped things. I don't really like specific Halloween candy, but it's fun to have chocolate shaped like pumpkins or bats or whatever.
13. Hay ride or Haunted House: Hay ride, I'm not a big fan of things jumping out at me.
14. Corn maze or Pumpkin Patch: pumpkin patch, I'm pretty sure I've never been to either, but mazes are just not that fun to me
15. Halloween or Thanksgiving: Thanksgiving, I love the food. 
16. Apple or Pumpkin Pie: Pumpkin Pie, or actually the really good pumpkin roll my mother makes. I'm just not a huge fan of pumpkin.
17. Favorite Thanksgiving Food: cheesy potatoes, or green bean casserole, or corn pudding.
18. Cider or Cocoa: cocoa. I don't like cider, plus there are so many kinds of cocoa nowadays
19. Favorite Fall memory: Going back to celebrating my grandma's birthday. One year we had a hayride, I like that one, except for the hay poking me, and then being itchy from the hay poking me.

What are other people's answers?

Friday, October 21, 2016

Collective Haul

 Because it's just more fun to do a collective.
Last week was the church bazaar weekend, sadly I had to go to a family function, so I could only visit one of them. But, I still found some good stuff:
 First up, a bunch of vintage ornaments:
 
 Everything in this picture was a quarter. I thought I could use the foam stickers for Christmas crafts, the rest I thought I'd be putting in swaps. I love how there's a Humpty Dumpty, a Raggedy Ann, what looks like a Tweedle Dee or Tweedle Dum and and African American one. I believe there was a card man, but he was kinda damaged. I'd have loved to see the whole complete set.
Next up:
 This set on the left, was too cute to pass up. The top is a holder for notepads, they had sticky notes in it. The bottom has it's own personal note pad, and the third piece is a stapler. I don't think they are regular sized staples, but still. Make sure you click on the picture to make it bigger so you can see the wicked cute animals on this. The reindeer is for my brother, it's getting harder these days to find reindeer that he'll like, they all seem to be covered in glitter.
This box was $2
I bought it because I could see the blue flower in the picture below:
 And then I found the owl necklace, both the owls are on one necklace, the chains are linked at the top. I love it and wore it to work the next day, but I kinda wish they were on their own chains, I might separate them.
And of course, baked goods:
 
Because that's part of the reason I go to these. I first picked up the cookies, they had dried cherries, white chocolate chips, chocolate chips and walnuts in them. The zucchini bread is for Thanksgiving. And I really wanted the chewy things at the top, they were $4, so I was kinda on the fence about them. They were really good, but I'm not sure they were worth $4.
My friend and I both had today off and I gave her some of the shiny ribbon that came in that box so she said she'd take me to lunch, which I thought was a bit much, because the ribbon cost maybe a penny, but if someone wants to buy me lunch, who am I to argue.
Since she has a car, we took a load of computer stuff to Best Buy, BAM is right next door and they are both wicked south and I could walk to them, but if I don't go there, I don't spend money. But, I went there, so I spent money:
The whole owl stationery set was $7.99, I had two princess blind boxes for the same price each, so I put them back and got the stationery. There are two folders, a big notebook, a pencil pouch (totally don't need another of those), an eraser, a pencil sharpener, three pencils, a smaller notebook and a ruler. I'm not exactly sure what I'll do with everything. The folder that you can't see, has a design like the larger notebook, just a bunch of cute doodly animals, I'll probably cut it up and use it for art. The eraser is a hedgehog, I have a co-worker that likes hedgehogs, so she'll probably get it.
The owl pen was $1.99, so I got it to add to my pen cup at work. The emoji page markers were $3.99 I believe, I want emoji stuff, but I always find it too expensive, I'll probably use those for friend mail/art as well. 
The figure on the right was in a DC comics blind bag, it's Green Arrow. I'm not a huge fan of him. I spent about $22 here, and only spent my $20 for the rest of the stops today.
Next we went to drop off a box at the goodwill, if I had more notice than just at work last night, I would have gathered more than a bag, but I closed last night. And had to get up and go to the post office before we got together this morning. I'm sure I'll find more later anyway.
So, we went to the front of the store:
I found these really cute cards that someone made at sometime. They're kind quilted, they're made with cut fabric pieces. I loved them and will most likely send them out in swaps. I'm really bad at getting cards to people, cause I feel I have to make them cards, even though I do know they're just excited to get a card. I try to buy cards so I can get them out to people. That little square thing on the yellow card is a tiny book stamp. It's got a face, arms and legs, but it was only $0.59 and if you know me, I love books.
We also traveled over to the Salvation Army, I hadn't been in this store before, it's not wicked new, I feel they moved in shortly after the library vacated the space about 2 years ago, I've just never made it there. I found a great deal, though:
That Project Life core kit on the bottom was mostly unopened, but it was all there (I didn't actually count the cards, so a few could be missing) for $3.99. As I was checking out, I told the cashier if you went next door (they are right next to Hobby Lobby), they're selling them for $30, she just looked at me.
I liked the stickers were $0.99, and the little stuffed animal is from Neopets, I don't know if it still exists, but you got to pick your pet and keep it alive, there were games too. I believe I played it in high school, so about 15 years ago? The set of the "Little Mr. and Mrs." pins were also $0.99, I bought them just cause they were them.
Lastly, we went to Dollar Tree because I needed body wash, and since you can't get just one thing there:
 They had more of their Christmas stuff out and boxes to put out. I was commenting to my friend on the way over there that I would gladly help them open and put out their stuff cause I feel like there's always boxes sitting around. I picked up a couple Christmas sticker books (actually the only stickers I picked up, mostly cause the sticker selection sucked and I really need alphas right now). One of them I bought only because it has a sticker of Santa driving a pick-up full of presents. I finally found the Halloween flair buttons, now that I'm pretty much done with Halloween swaps, typical. I of course picked up some gummies (the only ones though). That figurine is Ursula, and who doesn't love her? I love that Halloween snowglobe, I was originally gonna take it to work tomorrow, but I really like where I put it here, and I think it's gonna stay. I picked up the duct tape, it's the one with the typewriters, basically just in case I saw somewhere that someone wanted it. I don't need more duct tape right now. And my body wash, it smells so good.
No garage sales this weekend, I have to open tomorrow.

Tuesday, October 18, 2016

Hodgepodge

It's hodgepodge time, head on over to Joyce's blog to see what other people have answered.


1. What would you say is your strongest sense? I'm gonna go with smell. I have an extra sensitive nose and certain smells bother me. Sometimes they are extremely strong, sometimes not.
2. Do you believe in the idea of a 'sixth sense'? Why or why not? I believe in feeling when something is off. I get something when I feel people are acting weird, but that could just be my criminal justice degree kicking in.
3. When do you most feel like a slave to time? Explain. Probably when I sign up for too many swaps. Like now, a few weeks ago, I had 9 different swaps I was working on. I got a little too excited and over extended myself. I have whittled that down to 3 swaps now.
4. Have you ever worked in a restaurant? How would you rate the experience? If you could own a restaurant what kind would it be? I have not. I'm not sure I'd want to own a restaurant, I feel I'd overeat all the time. Kinda like I check out way too many items working at a library.
5. Ever traced your family tree? Share something interesting you learned there. I have not, but up until a few years ago I was told my heritage on both sides of my family was German, come to find out my mother's side is actually English.
6. What did your childhood bedroom look like? I remember white and bows. Not much else, probably way too much stuff on the floor, like my apartment is now.
7. Anyone who knows me knows I love books? As I mentioned above, I check out way too many items because I work at the library (maybe not because, but it helps). I'm surrounded by books and I check out way too many. I just suspended (made my holds inactive until a later date) all the items I have on hold the other day because I feel I have too many books to read and too many movies to watch.  I have 43 books checked out and 34 of them probably have over 200 pages in them. I do get to renew them up to 5 times (one of my perks of working at the library), but if I just keep checking more out, I'm not going to get any of them read. 
I mentioned to my boss the other day, it was horrible to work at the library. We had just gotten a bunch of new nonfiction books in, and my favorite genre is nonfiction. I love my job.
8. Insert your own random thought here. Going back to my job, it does have weird things to deal with. Like two weeks ago, we got fleas, and we had to shut down the library for a day. Late last week, we hadn't seen a flea in awhile, so we finally got to take down the signs that basically said we have fleas, enter at your own risk. There's also the things people do in here. We have a few books in the back we have to get rid of because someone threw up on them. There's never a dull day at the library.

Tuesday, October 11, 2016

Hodgepodge Time

It's Hodgepodge time again. Check out Joyce's blog to see other people's answers.

1. What would you say is the best and worst thing about moving house? I like getting rid of stuff I don't need, but I don't like having to sort my stuff. I feel you find out how much stuff you really have when you start packing it up. I also have a hard time wrapping breakable stuff.

2. What's moved you recently? I have been a bit depressed lately, but my artwork always moves me out of it. 
I was also watching Everest last night, and that movie totally moved me to tears when Rob Hall is dying on the mountain.

3. Do you feel your life is moving forward, backward, or is on hold? How so? Sometimes I feel I'm moving backwards. I get a little further in life (like the salaried job I got last year), but there's always something else to deal with (like still not being able to afford health insurance. And then there's this whole moving thing. I've still not unpacked all my boxes. I was getting a pretty good start until we had 7 inches of rain in one night and the sump pump stopped working, and I woke up to a tiny pond in my bedroom. I'm back to piles of boxes (but nothing on the floor, cause it still feels a bit damp). I have much less space in this new place which I kinda like, but again, I find I have too much stuff and for some reason I can't stop shopping.

4. On the move, move mountainsget a move onit's your move, or bust a move...which phrase best applies to some aspect of your life right now? Explain. Probably get a move on, I am in the middle of quite a few swaps, and the moment I sit down in front of the computer and get online, it's all downhill. I feel I've been way less productive since I found YouTube. I'm trying to just get up and create, I can do most of my online morning stuff on my phone, but not watch YouTube or read my blogs, and that makes a huge difference.

5. What song makes you want to get up and move? Shake a Tail Feather



6. Your favorite snack to grab when you're 'on the move'? granola bars, I don't really eat a lot when I'm on the go. I like stopping at fast food places.

7. What one accessory makes your house feel like home? I'm trying to remember what I had to unpack first thing. When I first moved in here, things weren't done and my landlords were out of town for a week. As long as I had my computer, chair and Blu-Ray player I was good, but I had to go out and buy something pretty to look at. I just need something that makes me smile, usually it's some geeky thing.

8. Insert your own random thought here. Saturday is my grandma's 100th birthday. I was thinking the other day how strange it would be to live that long, how much would have changed throughout your life time. It's really hard to wrap my mind around.

Collective haul

Mostly cause I've been in a rut lately. Last Tuesday, I went north to a smaller Walmart and our sad mall.
I mainly went to the Walmart to see if they had anything different than the super Walmart. They are actually building a super Walmart up there as well, the grocery store next door went out of business. Man, that place is big, it's like there's a huge wall. I don't go up there very much, like I said the mall is sad, and I just don't have any interest in the other stores up there, especially since my favorite pizza buffet place up there went out of business.
Anywho, I visited the clearance and Halloween sections. There was a lot of clearance.
 duct tape, pen pouch, deodorant, candy, erasers, glue sticks, Halloween pieces, glitter tape.
I actually needed some deodorant. The duct tape was a seventy-five cents and since I use up my duct tape so fast mailing packages, plus I get a bit more than rolls I get from the Dollar Tree. This monster pencil pouch was $1, and I have been wanting one for awhile, but I wasn't going to spend $6 for it. The glue sticks were $1.50, and since I'm always running out of glue as well. The Ghostbusters erasers were $1.50, and I love erasers, plus Ghostbusters. The Halloween pieces, which I know you can't see the others, but there are glittered bats, spiders and the skulls were ninety-seven cents. I bought them for the skull to put on a flipbook, but it didn't look right. The glitter tape is a vine, I'm not sure how I feel about that, I used part of it for a flipbook and it ripped very easily.
The thing I've learned every time I go shopping, you should always watch the display when the checker is ringing you out. I feel most of the time, something rings up as a wrong price, and if you're not paying attention, you'd pay more than you wanted. The monster pencil pouch actually rang up as the original $6, and another set of pens I picked up was actually $3 something, not the $1 something I thought.
Next up, I wandered through JC Penney and saw the new Sephora thing in it, that was ugly. My mall is sad, it has JC Penney, Younkers, Claire's, Jimmy John's, TJ Maxx and Kohl's as the big things in it. I don't go there much, I don't really find anything to buy up there.
I also wandered through the Hallmark store and loved this little display of Rainbow Brite dolls they had:
 I really wanted to buy one, but not for $6.
I also visited the Claire's because I see cool things on people's hauls from there. They were having a buy 3 get 2 free special, but I couldn't find 3 things I really wanted to buy for full price.
I also went to get some tape from TJ Maxx, last time I was there I had found a set of 4 tape rolls for $5, so I was hoping they'd have them again. Of course not, I did find these leaves for $2, though.
 I find it funny when I'm watching people's haul videos they always say the exact price, so these were actually $1.99, but adding that extra penny on there makes it more true to price, especially with tax. I generally round up when I'm figuring out what I spent anyway.
Last was Kohl's. For my birthday, my mom bought me a set of Twin sheets from them, cause I was gonna downsize to a twin bed. But, when we went bed shopping my parents talked me into a full, and I had sheets to take back.
I got store credit and was going to buy a blind bag from Finding Dory, but I found something else way better:
 The owl was about $8, originally like $25, I don't know why it was marked down but I loved it. I'm not using it as a soap dispenser, once I find a white pop cap, I'm gonna put it on there. I love it. The other thing is an acrylic puffer fish Christmas ornament. I wanted to spend money on Christmas ornaments, but thankfully, they're not really out. I really love this puffer fish though. And then I got about $2 back, cause it was too small for a gift card.
I had told myself I could have Jimmy John's for lunch if I went to the mall. Unfortunately I got done just about in time to catch the bus back home and I have been craving Jimmy John's ever since.
This past weekend the library was having a craft/quilting book sale in our used book store. I purposely waited until Sunday to go because they were going to be half price, plus I figured it'd be pretty picked over and I wouldn't be too tempted.
 I did pick up a regularly priced book on the history of diseases for $5, two Somerset Studio magazines for fifty cents each and a Secrets of the Da Vinci Code magazine for free.
Today, I went to Target, Dollar Tree and Hobby Lobby. I'm in a few swaps that I wanted to get some stuff for. I was looking for fall stuff, a black inkpad and more tape. My first stop was Target.
 If these were tights, I would have bought them. I'd love to have this design in tights. I did pick up a pair of fleece-lined tights which was one reason I went to Target. It's cold in my apartment, and I was hoping they'd keep me warmer, plus I had a save 5% through my Cartwheel for them.
tights, placemat, tape, art, cards, felt jack-o-lanterns, clothespins and markers.
 I have to say, Cartwheel doesn't really help me save much at Target. I only use it on things I'm thinking of trying. I don't buy groceries at Target because it's just too far away from home and my grocery store is cheaper. I don't buy clothes at Target, mostly cause I can get some really nice stuff at Goodwill. I did have a thing for women's jeans, which I do need, but I didn't feel like trying them on.
I also went to get some thin black Sharpie markers, I found mine the other day and of course it was dry.
As you can see, most of my stuff is from the Dollar Spot or clearance. The placemat is to go on my desk to protect it, it was on clearance for fifty-eight cents, originally $1.99. I found some cool pink marble tape in the dollar spot, I hadn't seen that in other people's hauls, so I picked up two. I also got the foil spiderweb and the black jewel tape. I've gotten myself so into Halloween this year, that I feel the need to make another Halloween flip book, which is the whole reason I bought the felt pumpkins, and the black tape. There was a section in the clearance which had a whole bunch of these frame fillers. I thought they'd be great for swaps. The feathers were $1.48, the bird $1.18 and the fox $.88, I got two of him. I've been seeing these tag cards in people's hauls and when I found them, I grabbed two. The clothespins are for one of my swaps.
And once again, you have to watch the cashier, I have to always ask them to make sure they give me the five cent coupon for bringing my own bag. I had one cashier tell me it was only the Target red bag that I could use for that, not true. I know it's only five cents, but still.
Next up was Dollar Tree, I actually found some stuff I haven't seen in other people's hauls. That does not happen very often.
 magnet, Christmas cards, stickers, glass, owl ornament, ribbon, binder clips, gummies, pen, mugs, garland, stamp pad.
I've seen this magnet in the shape of a mixer, this one is a mason jar and it has conversions on it. I seem to run into recipes that like to give measurements in ounces. I don't have a scale, so knowing the cup equivalent is really helpful. I love that they have Christmas cards out, I like to buy cards and just make some for some very select people in my life. The sticker section was pretty picked over like always, but I did find this minion sticker book, and these pop up stickers. I hadn't seen these stickers in anyone else's hauls. They had bugs and all kinds of other animals. I only picked up the pets because there's a guinea pig and the birthday ones because if I ever get around to making birthday cards again, they'd be great to use. I saw someone else get one of these glasses and I really liked it, not that I need more glasses. Last time I went to the Dollar Tree (which was mostly for boring stuff, so I don't even have a picture of what I bought), I picked up one of these owls, but I took so much time making sure his hat was glued on and that stuffing wasn't coming out that I didn't notice one of his wings did not have the extra pattern on top, so I got a new one. I picked up the pumpkin ribbon for a swap. I picked up the binder clips because I've seen people altering them, and I wanted to try it out. I'm not explaining gummies, I really shouldn't walk down the sticker or the food aisles. I'm collecting pens with balls on them for my cup at work, this was a cute addition. For one of my swaps, I have to mail a mug, I picked up the nerds rule one for me (or a friend), I don't really use mugs, but I loved the sentiment, I picked up the other one for a swap. I thought this garland was cute and since I know I'll be participating in at least one Christmas swap, I thought I'd pick it up. Like I said, I need a new black ink pad. I have a stampin' up one that was stamping kinda purple the other day. Ink pads are expensive, so I thought I'd try this one out.
Last up was Hobby Lobby. I went there to find something fall-ish for my swap and ended up with stickers, and other things I don't need. I noticed the stamps were 40% off, but as I was going through them, I ran into a lot like this:
 They looked like someone had used them and didn't clean them off. I'm pretty sure my Hobby Lobby doesn't do classes, but I'm not sure. It really looked like they were using them in classes and then putting them back on the shelf. I have seen used ones in the clearance section before.
stickers, bag, project life cards, tape, leaves, stamp, stickers, duct tape, tassels, felt stickers, paper, stickers. And just because apparently one of all my pictures has to be blurry, it's this one.
Like I said I ended up with quite a few stickers. The paper studio stickers were 50% off. A couple were just ones I wanted. Some I picked up because I thought I could just put them on a background and I had an instant card. The bag is actually a furry blue monster. I love it, it was $4.79, when I got home, I found out why it was on clearance, one of the straps came unsewed, but I think that will be an easy fix, I actually want to find a different strap because it's a bit short, of course it is for a kid. I found me some replacement tape, I used my 40% coupon for that (actually remembered to use one this time). These project life cards are actually the photo realistic ones and I have been eyeing them each time I go, they were in the clearance, and like some of the stickers, I thought they'd make instant cards. Like I said above, I'll be doing another Halloween flip book, so I picked up the stickers, felt stickers and paper for that. I was looking at the paper and there are only 6 designs that have to be for Halloween, which is the main reason I picked this one over the other one.  I did pick up some leaf embellishments, I'm not sure if I'll use them in something or just send them in a swap. I loved this girl with her cupcake stamp, that was a bit of a splurge, since she was originally $8.99. The duct tape looks like patterned burlap and was in the clearance section, I picked up a roll for me and a roll for a swap. The tassels were only seventy two cents, I just had a hard time passing them by. Funny thing, these blue ones were seventy-two cents, but the pink ones were over a dollar.
And once again, watch the cashier. When I go to Hobby Lobby I try not to buy anything full price, cause then I can say if it was full-price I would have spent so much more and I'm saving so much money (when the truth is, if it was full-price, I probably would have never bought it). I have a tendency to go out in the entryway, sit down on one of the benches and match my items to the receipt. Since they have to enter all the discounts by hand, I'm surprised more isn't missed. My stamp was rung up full price, so I went in and pointed this out to the cashier, to which she said, they were on sale last week. I told her about the signs and she looked at her cheat sheet and they still were. There is no way I would have bought it for $9. I don't need more stamps, I don't use most of the ones I have. I used to have a lot of stamps because I started out in rubber stamping and my mom and I were part of a Stampin up group. I have scaled way down since I don't use them, but I still find myself picking them up every once in awhile.

After getting home, I once again told myself I wasn't allowed to go shopping. If I didn't go to the stores, I wouldn't spend so much money. I don't really like shopping online, so I don't have that problem, and I was doing so good about not going to Hobby Lobby, but I needed tape.
Tomorrow, I have to mail a few things. I was going to do it today at the start of my shopping trip, but I didn't realize it was Columbus Day, maybe that was why I spent so much, cause I knew I wasn't getting anything exciting in the mail. Or maybe it was because someone in one of my Facebook groups posted they got to go shopping for our swap. Or who knows what.