Boo Berry

Saturday: not too exciting, I still wanted to walk up to the mall, but I had to work that afternoon, and didn't want to squish it all in. Work was kinda slow until about the last 15 minutes. I found a couple things in my mailbox when I got home.

SMS edible:

 I liked the Smarties (which are basically M&M's, but better chocolate). I'm not excited about the coffee or the dipping sauce. I will most likely pass both of these on. I was rather annoyed about this one, the person sending to me sent it out a week after she was supposed to (or she said she did, when I got it, it was postmarked a week after she sent it and since she had to fill out a customs form, I believe the post mark. So, she mailed it 2 weeks after she was supposed to.) I was getting a bit worried about it ever arriving until I received it and saw the postmark. I'm more peeved that she didn't mail it when she said she did, just tell me life got in your way and you had to mail it kinda late, I feel that's better than not mailing it when you said you did. I find people do that a lot. Also, I was hoping it'd be really great because it took so long to get here.
Fall pocket letter:

 I liked this one, but certain parts that make it a pocket letter, she didn't do. There was no letter, also there were 2 things that she included as goodies. I understand that people don't have a lot of things, but you could always put in stickers, or memo sheets, which everyone seems to have in these groups. Also, after I posted a thank you on the group, someone commented that this person was no longer in the group, I knew that, but one of the things we're supposed to do is thank people when we receive things, whether or not they are in the group.
Sunday: was our local art festival. The weather didn't really cooperate, it was raining a lot of the day. I went out at 10:30, because I didn't want to go out later in the day, that might have been a bad idea. It was raining, not hard, but constant. There were a few empty spaces, I'm guessing of people that didn't have tents to set up to protect their stuff, which I get, but it's been predicted to rain all week. I saw this cool Star Wars quilt on one tent.

 And this huge cool elephant piece on another:

I kinda knew I wouldn't be buying anything, but I went out anyway. I followed the festival on Facebook and just about every person they posted about had large things to hang on walls, pottery or jewelry. I'm not really that interested in those things. I wish there were more paper crafting people. There was one booth that had some really neat bound books, I didn't buy anything because I couldn't justify spending a bunch of money on an item I wouldn't use. There was one that had quilled stuff, that was neat. There was one booth that I almost bought some magnets from. I had a Totoro one and an Iowa one, but they weren't marked, so I couldn't really tell how much they were. She wraps them up and says it's $19.95, I said no and mentioned that they weren't really marked for a second time. She said most of them are marked, I saw maybe 5 price tags.
I also wanted to get something fun for lunch, but there weren't any places to sit down and I didn't want to carry food home in the rain and eat it at home. So, I didn't buy anything (which is good), but I really wanted to.
My partner received my book box the other day and posted on facebook. I was a bit disappointed because she didn't post a picture of the front of the box which I was so proud of. I was a bit afraid the teal colored bits wouldn't stay. The mod podge was hard when I mailed the box out, so was dry and should have been find. I wrapped it in bubble wrap, I'm afraid that it still got stuck to the bubble wrap and pulled the color off. I hope not, but I guess we'll never know.
Monday: Started off interesting. I feel I earned my pay and used my brain a ton. I decided to go to the mall after work due to life. First stop was Walmart, I really wanted to buy both the Reese's and Kit Kats:

 I couldn't justify spending $16 for all of them, though.
I didn't find anything to buy in the clearance or the toy aisles, Christmas has started to show up and Halloween is totally there. I usually like to wait until November, maybe October before getting Christmas stuff (unless it's Hobby Lobby), but I found the cutest ornaments and picked them up.

 Reese's thins ($2), tape ($7), Reese's Ghosts($3), Glade ($1 each), ornaments ($2).
I was hungry, that's basically the whole reason I picked up the Reese's, I just had one of the white chocolate ones, those are very sweet. My tape has gone up a buck in price, very annoying. I needed more of these air things, I usually get them at the Dollar Tree, but these were only 97 cents each. So, the ornaments are tiny balloon dogs. How do you pass those up? I saw a bigger one in blue and was thinking I'd love to have one in a different color, and then I saw these, I'd still pick one of the big ones up in a different color. Total spent ($17).
I avoided the Asian food store even though I really wanted to go there. Next stop was the Halloween store that's moved into the mall.

I looked around a bit, I'm not really big into dressing up, I don't like spending $30 on something you wear once a year, I keep just wearing the same one I've had for years.
I found these:

 They were $6. I gave the cashier a twenty and a one dollar bill and she looks at me like I'm nuts. She says I only need the twenty, it's $6. I told her this way she'd give me $15 back, and she ended up giving me two fives and five ones. It kinda felt like she gave those to me instead of a ten and a five just for spite, but I bet it was what was in the drawer.
As I was paying, I saw some mini buttons.

I picked up the supernatural one (the white one) and she said I could get two for $3 instead of one for $2, so I picked up the Ghostbusters one as well.
Last stop was TJ Maxx, I love this display:

 I love seafoam. I wanted to buy this pumpkin:

 But I don't have a place for it that I will enjoy it.
I wanted to find toys because I couldn't find any at Walmart, but I didn't find any.

 Lindt chocolate ($4), Macaroons ($3 each).
I originally just had the drizzled macaroons because they brought back a memory of high school when a group of friends and I went to the Minnesota Renaissance Fair and ate these. As I was waiting in line, I say the double chocolate sea salt Macaroons, and had to buy those, I also found the Lindt chocolate and had to pick them up. Did I mention I was hungry and hadn't had lunch yet?
I had plans to have dinner with a few friends from work, got a text from one of them that her dog was sick and she wouldn't be joining us, so I picked up a Mountain Dew on my way home, but they must've been just stocked, because even though they were in the coolers, they were warm. I stuck it in the freezer when I got home and then just decided to have some pop at dinner.
My other friend and I went to a local restaurant that was having a deal of a three course meal for $28. I had water because they didn't have Mountain Dew, when I asked what they had for soda, I was told: Coke, Diet Coke, Sprite and lemonade. Lemonade is not soda.
First course was a cream soup, potato and leek maybe? I don't remember, but it was really good. Second course was chicken parmesan, and third course was gelato with raspberries. I could have just had a bigger bowl of the soup and the gelato. I wasn't that impressed with the chicken.

 But, it was fun to have dinner with a friend since our schedules don't mesh that much. I mean we see each other at work, but we don't have a lot of time to talk.
I found my mail when I got home, I hate that it's late, it arrived somewhere between 4:45 and 6:15.
Send Me Something crafty:

 Normally I don't like kid's stuff, but I had way too much fun doing this.
Wish for Please Deliver To labels:

 Wish for fall happy mail:

 And another wish for fall happy mail:

I love these.
Normally on Monday, after getting home I change into my comfy clothes and spend the rest of the day on the computer. I got home shortly after 3 and we changed our dinner time to 5, so I still ended up on the computer, but I didn't change clothes.
After coming back from dinner I was still energized, so I got a few things ready to mail out.
Send Me Something Sesame Street:

I was thinking I had a Cookie Monster as well, but I couldn't find it.
Fandoms: Disney

I couldn't find anywhere what kind of Disney, so I sent her a couple packages of Tsum Tsums. That's Mufasa and Simba from the Lion King and Pinocchio and his cat friend from Pinocchio.
Send Me Something Edible.

I could have been rude and sent out the seasoning packet I had just received, but I went with candy instead.
I got to bed at a reasonable time.
Tuesday: I had lunch plans with my family, my brother was in town and had an hour for lunch. We got take out from a local Chinese place. My mom had texted me on Monday asking if I wanted to go to a pizza place or a Chinese place, I'm not a fan of either place she asked about. I went with the Chinese place and chose something new off their menu. They didn't have descriptions on what the items were, so I was just googling names. Nothing sounded that great and it turned out the shrimp dish I got was almost the same as another shrimp dish we ordered. I always dread getting together with my family because they always bring up stuff I don't want to talk about. It wasn't too bad this time. My parents are always asking what's going on in my life, I usually don't tell them and they get annoyed, this time I told them and they didn't seem interested at all.
I did get a few things ready to mail out.
Washi swap:

 Pink crafting items swap:

 Sticky notes.

 I got one of the postage due pink slips for my mail on Tuesday. Work was a bit busier as we were short a person, so I had to do more than I planned that night.
Wednesday: Nothing exciting there. I did find some interesting cereal when I was grocery shopping.
Mermaid cereal

And a few from my childhood: 

 I ended up buying the Boo Berry and the Franken Berry, I figured Count Chocula was about like every other chocolate cereal.
I didn't get any mail today.
I'm definitely going south and shopping tomorrow. I shouldn't, but I'm annoyed about not getting mail and I thought I'd put together a couple Halloween goodie bags for my friends. I thought it'd be fun if it wasn't all candy.

Junkin' Day

Today was my big Junkin' Day with my friend. Our first stop was out in the country, I had gone to this place with my aunts in June. There was a bunch of cute stuff.

What I bought:

 The buttons are actually magnets, they were 50 cents each. The frog is some kind of jar? The top has holes and the bottom a little divot, we decided maybe it was for incense. I don't need a frog, but this one was unique enough, I had to buy it. I spent a total of $2.
Our next stop was a place I'd been to the first time I did this with my mom, I had bought a few things that time. This time we found stuff to be a bit pricey and very humid. I didn't buy anything.
Our next stop was to a winery, way out of the way from all the other stops. This one was very disappointing, not only was it not close to anything else, they had 4 vendors of newer handmade things. My friend looked at their flyer and they were supposed to have 13 vendors of vintage and handmade plus 3 food vendors. It was set up for a bunch of vendors and we thought maybe they were coming in Saturday and Sunday. I find that really rude, if you commit to something, you should commit to all the days. For some people (like me and my friend), we were only able to do it on Friday due to our schedule, so we got gypped out of all the vendors and the food vendors. We didn't see anything that promoted food at this stop, it didn't even have any signs saying it was for this jaunt, other places in the country had signs saying #5 on the jaunt. I won't be going back to this place for any reason.
I did find these cute guys there:

 The other vendors were a honey vendor, they had lotion and honey. Upstairs they had a bath bombs/soap stuff vendor and some wooden handmade stuff. I didn't buy anything.
Next up we went to a town that had 6 different stops. We found a garage sale on the way there. I found something there.

 A rubber duck dressed up for Halloween, a tiny little owl and a minions Valentine's mailbox. I spent $1.25 here.
Our next stop was gross, I couldn't even make it in the door, it smelled like mold and grossness. It looked like a horrible hoarder situation.
Next up was handmade booth, it was pretty cute with a lot of fabric stuff. Next was a place that was pretty cool, lots of new uses for old things. It had some landscape paintings that someone had added to. We thought it was a pretty cool way to reuse old paintings. I also found some beautiful velvet paintings there:

 And these:

 I don't have room for velvet paintings, but I love them.
Next up was another unfortunate place. In another beautiful building (or it was), but reeked of urine and covering up of cigarettes.
Next we went to a place that was fun and random. I found a few things:

 All the doodads were in the vase, I put them back in there when I got home. Total spent $2.
The next place had a bunch of cool stuff, just nothing I was interested in buying. I found this neat sign:

 And the cutest tiniest overalls:

 I bought my friend and I some lemonade, it was about 1pm at that point and we were getting pretty hungry.
The next place I had been to a couple times, it was a soap and other things shop.

 I picked up this vintage postcard for $2, normally I wouldn't pay $2 for a postcard, but it reminded me of my grandmother. She liked pansies and her birthday is in October, I want to find a cute frame and frame it. That was the last stop in this town, we headed to another town with a bunch of stops.
First up, was an old building that I think used to be a general store, the way it was still set up. Very big, and lots of stuff in it, including this cute guy:

 I didn't end up buying anything there, but I'd love to go back. Next door were some neat vendors, one had a bunch of Pyrex dishes. Next to that was the place I picked up my teeth in June, I found this cool window:

 And picked up a button:

 For 28 cents.
At that point we were getting very hungry, we headed to a place we saw on the way in, only to find they had soup and snacks as they were out of business and just having a small liquidation sale. We found a cute little cafe a little ways down and went there for lunch, it was a quarter after two at this point. I had a turkey, bacon, avocado wrap and a Mountain Dew, which wasn't very exciting, but it was good. I really wanted to find something that was a small town thing and different, but we didn't. We stopped at a thrift store, that I had been with another friend and found a few more things:

 birthday card, pom pom poufs, and some stickers. Total spent $1.50. I love the stickers because they're not something I think I'd find anywhere else, the card was too cute as were the pom pom things.
By that time, my friend said she had to get home as she had a prior dinner arrangement. We did stop at this random place on the way out of town. It had a bunch of hardware stuff, cooking stuff, kids stuff and collectibles. It was such a weird assortment of things, I'd like to go there again sometime.

 frog bank, minion play set, and squishy frog. Total spent $9. There was a green frog bank, but I liked this one better. It's always a good day if I can find something minion, it's a pretty cute playset, too. Also, I like the porcupine ish frog toy.
I spent a total of about $30 today, but nothing was really so great. Nothing really stands out as a favorite purchase. I still want to go shopping at the mall tomorrow, and I might. I'm not sure, I also have to close tomorrow afternoon.
I think I'm over this jaunt, I've been on it so many times, it's just the same stuff it feels like. I'm not sure if I had more fun with my friend or with my aunts in June. I like that my aunts came and we did something together (even though my mom doesn't understand how we could have had quality time). We talked a lot in the car on the way to places, but also at lunch and also at the places we went to. They live a couple hours away, so I hate waiting for them to get here.
With my friend, she still had something in the morning, but we met up about 9:15, so that wasn't so bad, plus we get to talk and hang out, and shop. I think I need to find something new and different to do with her.
When I got home, I found a granted wish of sticker flakes in my mailbox:

I keep wondering where my Send Me Something edible that was mailed two weeks ago from the US is. I'm wondering if I should bother asking the admins about it, or not.

Donuts

Friday: I had planned to walk up to the mall, hitting a garage sale on the way there, but didn't get up until later and didn't want to squish it all in before I had to be at work. Found a couple pieces of mail on my way to work.

Wish of sticker flakes:

Love these, they're so cute.
 Happy mail:

Not as big a fan of this. I like the owl and the kawaii stickers, not much else. The unicorn piece would have been nice, if it wasn't just a card front. I passed the face mask on to a friend.

Saturday: I wanted to go to garage sales, but it was the big Iowa/Iowa State football game. Iowa is our (ISU's) big rival, with all that and lots of people in town, I didn't actually go outside except to check the mail. I wanted to walk to the mall and shop, but knew there would be crowds of people in town and I didn't want to deal with them.

Happy Mail:

 Not much exciting in here. I like the llama paperclip
I did put together a couple things to mail out.
Favorite animal: lion:

 I had gotten this from another group for about the same tag. It's a large decal. I love it, but I knew I'd never use it, thought I'd pass it on to someone else.

SMS fuzzy:

 People keep sending me socks for random tags, so I'm sending them back out.
Flat item:

 I got this for a dollar store tag. I will never use them, so I passed them on.
Stuff your backpack:

 Basically a destash swap. I tried to stuff it all in a cardboard priority mailer, but it ripped. And last time I sent a cardboard one out, it must've gotten stuck somewhere because my partner received it very damaged, but as far as I could tell, nothing was missing.
I went to a movie with a friend that night. I haven't been to a movie in a theater in years. We went to see Once Upon a Time...In Hollywood. It's an alternate timeline to the Manson murders. My friend suggested I look at Sharon Tate's murder before I saw it. I spent way too much time online and wikipedia reading about it, even though I've read the book on the Manson murders (Helter Skelter), so I really didn't need to. I thought it was ok, very long, too much backstory (not on Sharon Tate, mostly on the other main character). I got a bit bored in the first half of it (the backstory), apparently I was so relaxed while watching it, my fit bit thought I fell asleep. Also, the movie theater we saw it in was originally a theater (like for plays) and the sound was a bit too loud for me.
Sunday: I finished a project for my geeky group:

 It's a "book" box with some of the things she likes. Check out my art blog if you're interested in seeing the whole thing.
I also made a fall pocket letter:

 And put together a happy mail wish:

 Monday: I stopped off at a local bakery on the way home:

 And totally bought way too much. The humidity was wicked when I left work, I was sweating when I got home (8 blocks).
I received a private swap of Harry Potter stuff:

 Sadly, it came a bit too late and wasn't what I expected. It was for the book box. The crest is a thick postcard, I was looking for something thinner and the Harry Potter bits seem like they were cut from a box, I was led to believe they were page flags.
Pink happy mail:

 My person made a flip book and filled it with stuff.

 Love the butterflies.

 The goodies:

 Junk journal clusters:

 These were fun, also a bit of challenge for me, my partner said they were a challenge for her, as well. I love that one on the right.
Under the sea flip book:

 My partner said it was her first one, I think she did pretty good.

 I like how she included stamps as decorations.

 I like that she had a bunch of stuff that I could take off and reuse, as I get really into decorating flip books, I'm not that good at sharing stuff in them.

 She included a couple extra things as well.

 Tuesday: I was going to walk to the mall again, but my laziness won this day. Sometimes it does help me save money. I put together stuff to mail out.
Wish for something sticky:

 I had received this for a snail tag, even though it's not a snail.
Wish for surprise:

 Green crafting swap:

 On Monday, the temperature was 84 and the humidity was wicked high, like I said it was pretty bad out. Tuesday, the temperature was 95 or so and the humidity was more normal (about 50%), I wasn't even hot when I made it to work. It's amazing what a little humidity does to the how hot you feel. I found some mail on my way to work.
Fall ATCs:

 Flat mail:

 Passed this on to a friend.
Just because:

 basically mail something the other person will like. I like it, it's beautiful, but I have a ton of notebooks.
I also found this in my work mailbox:

 And I made a Hot Air Balloon card that day as well:

 Wednesday: no mail, nothing exciting really happened. We did have a pretty big thunderstorm in the middle of the day. Thankfully it ended before I left, but there were quite a few very wet people in the library shortly after it.
Thursday: I had again planned to walk up to the mall, but it was rainy out (has been off and on all week), so I didn't. Plus, I knew I'd be doing the fall central Iowa junk jaunt on Friday and going to the Octagon Art Festival on Sunday and knew I wouldn't just walk to the mall. My plan was to go to Walmart and TJ Maxx, and there's no way I wouldn't spend money. Got a couple things in the mail.
Dollar store tag:

 This would have been great, if I hadn't already bought one for myself before.
Favorite animal, owl:

I'm so tired of getting address labels. I have well over a hundred of them already. I've noted in several sections that I don't want more. Why couldn't they have printed me please deliver to labels? I can always use those.