3-22-12

10:15am

Have a small home?
Turn any space into valuable storage space!
I turned this...



Into this...



Yeah, I got the second can pantry done this morning.




I got to looking at the last couple of rows that need done
for cleaning supplies when an idea hit me.
What if I could find dowels or some sort of tension
rods and put up in some areas instead of shelves
to hang spray cleaning bottles from.

Here's an inspirational photo of that idea
but several rods would be used in between the wall studs.




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4:30pm


Spent this afternoon still cleaning on our bedroom.
I weeded out clothes I no longer need and ended up
with a whole boxful to donate.

This evening me and Tony will work on the video cameras
adding another one outside and rearranging one that
I would like moved into another spot. Then if we
have time we are going to start cutting down Pompass grass.
Not fun for me as I need to wear long sleeves to do that
or else I will break out if the stuff touches my skin.


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10:15pm


Heading to bed soon. Spent this evening adding another
camera outside and relocating another camera.
Oh yeah and we also finally took down our Christmas lights, lol.
We also siliconed some cracks and wires leading into
our basement. When we get heavy rain downpours we get
a bunch of water leaking in all over the breaker box.
Not good I know. Last year we had to replace the one
main breaker which went bad because of this.
We lost power to half of our home.

I am prepared for tomorrow's church sale. You learn
your lesson over the years of attending these sales
to start bringing a rolling tote. I end up snatching
up a lot of good deals that I can't carry. I've tried
the route of leaving items at the main table where
the cashiers sit and they say they'll watch the items for you.
Yeah they watch them, watch them leave with someone else!
Knowing I'll get a bunch of those .25 cents a bag for clothes
I know my rolling tote won't be big enough for all those
bags so came up with this idea, hee hee-
I added a cut up cardboard box to extend my hauling
space on my tote. This is my favorite church sale
because they have items for very cheap and I can
come out of there with the back end of my truck full.
Do I plan to be one of the first people in line when they
open their doors, NO! That is just crazy. I'll go about
a half hour or so after it opens. Way too many people
all at once in that place trying to push you around.
I might take mom out to breakfast after I get the
last child on the bus before heading over there.




There was a pretty partial rainbow this evening.
It spat a few raindrops here but we still worked through
it all trying to get things done.

3-21-12

7:25am

They said gas would hit the $4 come Spring. They didn't waste
no time with that did they considering yesterday was the first
day of Spring and gas is $3.99 this morning.

Another warm one today at about 83 degrees. I think the
normal temp for this time of year is 49 degrees.
We're only 33 degrees above normal.
We hit a record high yesterday. I think the last record
set was at around 78 degrees. Not sure what the high got
to yesterday but I know in the truck the temperature said
it was 84 degrees out.

They were asking on channel 28 how many people turned on their
air conditioners. Sure it was a little humid in here yesterday
but I couldn't see turning the AC on in March! AC and furnace
on in one week? I don't think so. Trying to keep the utilities
down for the moment. Gotta love it when the gas bill comes
and it's about $49. I don't think we saw anything higher
than $60 for a gas bill this Winter. A normal Winter would
run us $100 to $150 a month. Now Tony did run the AC in
his car yesterday. I saw a lot of people running AC's in their cars
with the windows up. Not me. When we went out on an emergency
maintenance call last night I had the windows down and no AC on.
Even though hubby went off call as of Monday he still took it
for a couple hours last night for another maintenance guy who
had a bowling league. The call wasn't nothing to worry about
but hey it was overtime. The lady said she had a leaking toilet
when it ended up being that the toilet had condensation.


Well I've got Bible study this morning then will come home
and chill. No working on the basement today unless Tony
wants to cut me a few boards tonight and that would be about
the extent of it.


I can't wait til Friday. All I have been thinking about
is the church sale, lol. My first sale of the year.
Knowing that they have .25 cents a bag for clothes,
I started going through some clothes last night weeding
some out to make room for some "new".

I noticed mom's church started having a free food and clothing
event one time a month. I'm hoping that I can donate
all our weeded out clothing to this.

I hate this time of year when you have two seasons of clothing
out. I just started getting out shorts and t-shirts for
everyone which are stored in the basement. I don't have
much closet space and have to rotate the seasonal clothing
in the closets. I haven't put Winter coats and gloves away.
Sure as I do it would probably snow. We do live in Ohio
and the saying is, if you don't like the weather, stick
around 5 minutes, it will change. I have seen snow
and 70 degree temps around here before in one week.
And we have seen snow in April. So don't count your
chickens before they hatch.


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12:00pm

Went to Bible study. It was just me and mom today.
After we stopped by Kroger. This other Kroger is also
remodeling. And with remodeling comes more marked down items.

Deals I got today at Kroger-


-can of pumpkin
was $2.49
paid .50 cents

-4 boxes of cross-tie trash bags
was $2.29 each
paid .49 cents each

-14 boxes fruit pectin
was $1.79 each
paid .25 cents each

-2 cans chicken
was $3.99 each
paid $1.25 each

-3 Chi Chi's thick & chunky salsa
was $3.19 each
paid .90 cents each

-Zicam cold remedy
was $12.00
paid $4.00

-2 pounds chuck shoulder steak
(making beef jerky with it)
was $7.53
paid $5.03

-Berry Burst Oreos
(found a kroger coupon on ground for a free pack!)
was $2.98
paid FREE

-StarKist tuna pouch
(got a catalina coupon for a free pouch)
was $1.49
paid FREE

-5 count Allegra allergy tablets (not pictured)
(catalina coupon for free allegra up to $6.49)
was $7.39
paid .90 cents




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Here are some other freebies Tony got from work.

18 packs of oriental flavored ramen noodles. (found)


Husky 13 piece precision screwdriver set battery operated.
(supervisor gave it to him for free) Tony gave this to me.


I'm slowly getting a collection of my own tools.
For Christmas Tony got me a screwdriver with assorted bits.
Someone at his work gave me a level and flashlight for free.
My step-dad gave me a DeWalt drill with 2 batteries & charger.
And now I got this screwdriver set.
Momma's need their own tools especially when dad is
taking all his to work and kids have lost the basic
ones around here.


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For lunch mom was telling me about Popeye's Chicken
having an 8 piece chicken for $5.99 today only.
Stopped in there and bought her and my step-dad
one of those for lunch. I also got an 8 piece for our supper tonight.
Mom also gave me 2 pieces of chicken out of theirs.
So we will have 10 pieces of chicken for supper.
I'll probably save those two extra pieces to put in Tony's
lunch for Thursday. Think I'll serve up some mashed potatoes
and corn as sides.


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1:30pm

Well I went ahead and got the two main vertical boards
glued in place on the second cantry. I sure hope all this works out
in the end because I had a warped stud along with two
slightly warped 1" x 4" boards. They were two boards I found
so trying to make do with those freebies.
In this cantry I am making two rows of canned goods
and the last row will be for ramen noodle packages.


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I thought this was interesting as I just found out about
it through someone on Facebook and decided to research it
a little further to see what it was about.

The 188 day earthquake cycle “Quakings Warning”

The last four major earthquakes have each been 188 days apart. Will this continue?

Tomorrow will be 188 days since the last one.
But did that earthquake arrive early on March 20th
in Mexico? Will wait and see if there is another
major earthquake tomorrow. I hope not!

The odds of four mega earthquakes happening exactly 188 days apart has been calculated to be One in over 48 million. If it happens a fifth time on March 22, it will be…………… a 17 Billion to one!


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5:50pm

Supper of Popeye's chicken, corn, mashed potatoes
and country gravy. I LOVE that Pioneer sausage flavored gravy.
I would have to say that is one of my favorite foods.
I put that sh*t on everything, lol.
Like the Frank's Red Hot commercial, lol.




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7:20pm


Spring cleaning sucks! I've been working on my bedroom the last
two days pretty much tearing it apart and cleaning it top to bottom,
from walls, carpet, under bed, getting rid of all dust and debris.
Tomorrow I might go through our closet and start weeding out more
clothes. Whew, it sure is getting warm in here. Thermostat says
82 degrees. Going to go finish up the bedroom for today then
might head out and get some McD's sundaes for a buck to wind down
the day. Didn't get any more wood cut for shelves due to working in the bedroom.
I got a To Do list a mile long! Housework should be considered
exercising with the sweat I am working up. Wouldn't it be nice
to loose about 10 pounds just from housework?!


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10:35pm


Went out and got a few sundaes at McD's. When we got home I noticed
the string was not tied around our gate. We have a shoe string around
both gates to keep the wind from blowing them open. Plus when we get home
and see the string undone we know something's up. I don't even think we
were gone an hour and arrived home to see the string missing.
While thieves will close and lock the gate, they always forget
to put the string back.

We let me tell ya these teenagers weren't coming over for a friendly visit!
They know our vehicles and knew we weren't home when the
Suburban is not parked under the carport. That is when they strike.
They were looking to steal a bicycle(s). They are part of a few
that are known to do it. The problem is trying to catch them at it.
Lucky for us, tonight the security light scared them off.
After we got home and pulled in the driveway, two teenage girls
came over to say their bicycles had just been stolen about
five minutes before.

While no one else noticed, I saw that there was actually three
people in the video. The one I know, that I have nicknamed troublemaker,
doesn't do the dirty work. He is the informer and the lookout
so you won't see him up close. He is standing on the side of the house
while his friends scope out our place.

We are thinking about doing a set up to try and catch them in the act
of stealing a bike. Thinking about Tony staying home with lights out,
setting a bait bike (ok I watch bait car to call it that, lol)
in the driveway like we left it there accidentally, and
I'll drive off with the kids and make it look like we all
left.

Most of the neighborhood is tired of all the crap.
We all look out for one another but I'm bound determined
to catch the SOB's this year to put an end to it!!!
The cops told me I needed video as proof of who's doing
it so bring it on now that I have them. I still need to
set up our fourth camera and I know just where I want to put it.
It's only a matter of time they get caught.

The SOB's stole our basketball net tonight but I
couldn't get a good view on the camera of it.

I still haven't set the DVR ahead an hour so it's
actually 8:27 that this happened not 7:27.






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3-20-12

8:50am


The elementary bus usually comes around 8:20.
Of course the bus was 30 minutes late this morning.
One parent showed up to the bus stop to take her
girls to school since the bus was late and she took my child with them.
The bus just now showed up at 8:50am.
This parent was saying she was suspecting problems
from our morning bus driver. She heard from her children
(and my child also told me this) that the bus driver
recently stopped somewhere to get a cigarette off
someone while on a route. And this parent also said her girls were
saying they have noticed the bus driver (in the morning
as they have different drivers for morning and afternoon)
smelling of marijuana. (and don't ask how these kids would
know what it even smelled like because I couldn't tell ya
that either) She called the school/ bus garage to tell them
and has not heard back about her complaint. So who the heck
knows what is going on. Everything I am hearing is through
someone else and not something I have actually experienced.
I have noticed that the morning
bus driver we used to have hasn't been driving for the past
month or so and they replaced him with this other person who is
getting complaints. You just never know anymore with bus drivers.
You watch the news and see so many incidents and wrecks
that it makes you worry where they are finding these people
to drive buses and if they are thoroughly doing background
and drug checks on them.
Will keep ya posted if I find anything out.


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9:25am


Got the potato and onion bin made. I cut up some
chicken wire then screwed it in between the studs.


So close to being done with the pantry.
So glad because I'm ready to move onto something else.
Still have another cantry to make and
about 2 more rows to do, one row (for toiletries) and two half rows
(for cleaning supplies).
One area I'm going to leave as is for a place to
store our furnace filters.








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11:30am


Well I heard and saw the first lawn mower out cutting grass
today. Who'd of thought people would be cutting grass in March!

Talking of grass. Last Fall I picked up a bag of grass seed
at Dollar General for half off. I threw it down in the yard
over the bare spot the pool left once we took it down.
I didn't rake it into dirt or put anything over it.
It had been growing thick and lush since! Thinking
about going back to DG and getting more bags and filling
in more bare spots and going over the whole yard
with their seed.
Look, you can't hardly see where the pool even was.
It sat in the area in front of the swing.


Well this was interesting. I caught movement on a security
camera. Little birdies flying up and sitting on security camera, lol.
Reminder to self, set the DVR time an hour ahead, lol.
Bird Cam-




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4:45pm

Supper tonight- Reuben Hash, something I created.
A cross between Reuben Sandwiches and Corned Beef Hash.


4 packs corned beef slices, cut up into small pieces
7 potatoes, peeled & cubed
1 small onion cut up
1 can sauerkraut, rinsed then squeezed of any excess water
3/4 cup Thousand Island dressing (I made a homemade version)
6 slices of bread (I used wheat)
parmesan cheese
Salt & pepper
Seasoning salt
garlic powder
Any shredded cheese would work. Swiss is used on Reubens. (I used shredded Colby)
5 slices bread, cut into cubes
cooking spray
parmesan


Croutons

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Cut up bread slices into cubes and spray with cooking spray.
Put into a plastic grocery bag. Sprinkle in some
garlic powder, seasoning salt and parmesan cheese.
Shake bag to coat bread cubes. Spread in one even layer
onto cookie sheet and place into oven. Turn oven off.
You're gonna let this sit in the heat to dry out
while making your hash.

Hash

Cut up all veggies and meat. Make homemade
thousand island dressing if you don't have any.

Fry potatoes, onion, sauerkraut, corned beef and
thousand island dressing in skillet.

Once potatoes are cooked through spoon onto plates.
Top with croutons and sprinkle with shredded cheese.

This makes 5-6 servings.

Hash in skillet before adding toppings.






Kids that don't like sauerkraut loved this!!


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3-19-12

10:25am


Still working on the basement pantry shelves.
Whew, this seems to be taking awhile.
I'm now about half way there to being finished.
This morning I got 7 shelves installed. Still
need one more to complete the one row of
toiletries. Didn't have any more boards cut to fit
that area.


I'm thinking about adding a second cantry below
the other one I just made. I have more cans that
I need to store and the first cantry isn't large enough.
This one probably will be a little more difficult to do
because if you look closely, the one stud on the right
is warped. I either need boards thinner than a
1" x 4" or need to try and sand the ones down that I have
to allow room for the cans to slide down each section
without getting stuck.


Well it's about 11:00am. Gonna grab me a bite to eat
then lay down and take a nap. I didn't sleep too well
last night and got about 4.5 hours sleep. The eyes
are drooping today. I did get 9 out of 11 things
accomplished yesterday on my to do list. That says a lot
considering everything we went through with work, storms
and a visitor stopping by.


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2:20pm


I don't know what possessed me to check Craigslist
for some church sales today but I found out on there
that my most favorite church sale is coming up this
Friday and Saturday! WOO HOO! I love this sale
because they have things at very reasonable prices.
I especially love that they have all their clothing
at .25 cents per plastic grocery bag. I think they tell
you something like 4-7 pieces of clothing per bag
for .25 cents. I'm sure the boys could use some new clothes
for Summer or ones to put back for next Fall/Winter.
(I am always thinking ahead)

GRACE Fellowship Church
3475 Paris Blvd., Westerville 43081

Fri., March 23 9:00 am - 2:30 pm
Sat., March 24 9:00 am - 11:30 am

Tony and the boys actually
went to a yard sale yesterday just up the the street from
here. I opted to stay home and put groceries away instead.
I guess there was an engine hoist he saw and went to check it
out. They had $20 obo on it but it was for smaller engines.
Not built to remove and put in something like a 350.
Bummer because I'd of offered $15 on it.

Well it's almost time to head out to the bus stop.
Then I might come home and install more shelves
in the basement. Trying my damndest to get this done.
Might have Tony cut me up some chicken wire for my
potato and onion bins tonight or at least tell me
where some wire cutters are. If I could get those
things done today then I would only have 2.5 more rows
of shelving to do. But those boards still need to be cut
and I don't know if I can get Tony to do it for me tonight
because he's wanting to go to the parts store and
get brakes, rotors and calipers for the front end
of his truck and start putting them on tonight.


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3-18-12

3:20pm


I started my day off with a stiff neck and back from sleeping wrong.
I took a few ibuprofen which helped some but still feeling it.
This is what happens when I sleep in.


This morning I made up a list of things I needed to get done today.
It's now almost 3:30pm and I've only accomplished 4 things
out of 11. Might of had something to do with my oldest son
stopping by out of the blue this morning wanting a hair cut
then we had two emergency pages out for maintenance at work to do.
While there I found some more scrap wood trim pieces.
I was thinking about making another can bin and making
one area of that bin to store ramen noodle packs. I never
know where to store those things. They don't stack the greatest
in the cupboard always wanting to fall over if you bump them.

Oh yeah, while at hubby's work I found a 40 pint GE dehumidifier
sitting next to a dumpster with the instruction manual!
Woo Hoo! I really need one of these for the basement.
Trying to afford one like this would cost probably
$100 to $200, something I don't have. So this was a blessing to find one for FREE!



We stopped in Kroger to get some things for this week.
I see they are remodeling the Kroger on Henderson Rd.
Just when you learn and know where everything is they go
and rearrange the store. It's a marketing strategy to make
you wander through the store more and hopefully buy more things.
I did notice that some areas had things marked down 50% off
because of the remodel. Hmmm, gonna have to watch this
over the next 6 weeks (how long their sign said the remodel would take)
to see what else might be marked down. Today their
foreign food isle had everything 50% off and some freezer
items like frozen pizzas were 50% off.

Before heading home we stopped in Menards to get wood
for the pantry shelves. Should've picked up more wood
the last time I was there. It was $1.99 a board but this
week it's $2.59 a board. That sucked.

I got most of my meals planned out for the week.
-tuna and noodles
-potato & ham soup
-chili
-spaghetti
-reuben casserole
-something with chicken patties, not sure yet

Well I'm off here to get a little supper in my belly
at almost 4:00pm. Then gonna try and see how much more
of my list I can get accomplished today.


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9:30pm


Well did everyone have a fun evening with the tornado warnings,
lots of lightning, rain and hail? I know we did. Sure didn't
expect all this, this evening. I think I got more videos than I did
pictures tonight so that is what I will share with y'all.
Tony got an emergency call around 7:15pm(?) for water backing up
in some parking lots. So we all went out to check it out.
Lots of ponding water on the roadways driving there, a few
I didn't see til driving full speed through it.
Got to work and found sewer drains clogged with tree debris
and mulch that was washing out from the flower beds.
Tony worked real hard out in pouring rain and hail
to clear these drains as it was causing water to
back up and get real close to some apartments front doors.
It was getting dark and I had adjusted the truck with high
beams over the man holes he was working at. And of course
about that time very large hail started raining down.
It sounded horrible in the truck!! The video doesn't even
compare to what we heard. It was so loud!! I thought
the windows were going to break! You can see in a couple
photos where most of the hail we were picking up was about
quarter size! I think we all ended up soaked, clothes, hair...
I turned the heat on full blast on the ride home and had
kids taking their shoes off to try and dry their feet.
Once home they got a warm shower and I gave everyone
a vitamin C hard candy to suck on for a little extra boost
against any colds that may come from all this.
So without further ado, I give you our story in photos
and videos of how our evening went..........


This video is where it just started to hail.



Now this video is something I don't think
anyone of us will forget. The hail was soooo LOUD!
Turn up your speakers to hear what we went through.
You can hear me about yelling over top the sound
of it pounding on the roof.

3-17-12

Went to the Train Expo from about 11:00am to 1:00pm.







After the train show we stopped by Burger King for lunch.
I saw on their sign that today was free fries day, woo hoo!
We all got some burgers and free fries.
Then we got paged out to Tony's work. Nothing major.
Stopped in Walmart after to see if we could find Tony
a pair of shoes. No luck there.

I spent a little time
in the basement today getting my can bin made.
I had Tony cut up some boards for me and I glued
them all in place with Power Grab.
This was built between two of the walls studs
using two 1" x 4" boards running vertical to
divide the can rows. The I used 6 pieces of wood
trim along the outside of the boards and studs
to hold the cans in place. Another piece of trim
was added to the bottom to keep the cans from rolling out.
It holds about 33 cans.




I didn't get the potato and onion bin done today
so hopefully will work on that tomorrow
along with getting more boards cut up for shelves
to start getting the rest of the toiletries put on them.

The rest of the day we spent outside pretty much
enjoying the beautiful day.

3-16-12

10:55am

Worked on the pantry shelves some more and did 3 loads of
laundry. Today I got most of the boxed items on the shelves.
Boxed items include-
-cereal
-cookie mixes
-stuffing
-potatoes
-oatmeal mixes
-hot chocolate
-pop tarts
-bread mixes
-candy canes
-taco mixes
-cake mixes

I put the boxed items on the shelves behind the furnace
because those are the only shelves which are wider
that the others. Anything that was a little large for the shelf
I put up thumb tacks on each side of the shelf and ran
twine across the front to keep anything from falling off.
I did this for the cereal and gingerbread house kits.



Wore out already! I also rounded up all the toiletry
items and things of the sort and have them ready
to be put on shelves once I get them put up.
I have a ton of those items. When your hubby works
at a very large apartment complex, and you get to
go through vacant apartments and such, then you
start accumulating a good supply of this stuff.
Ya know what I am really starting to like about this
single wide storage area? Is the fact I can see everything
at once. No wondering what is behind things like
in regular kitchen cabinets where you have to move
things around to find things you are looking for.
If I told someone to go down to the pantry to get something
I bet they could find it really quick without having
to dig through stuff.

I have already came up with a plan "B" for how to
do the can bin. I originally planned it to have chicken
wire or screen over the front to hold the cans in.
Now I'm thinking about putting wood trim along the
sides of each row of cans instead.
Here's an inspirational photo from HERE. This one is metal
but you get the idea of how they have the lip on
the sides for the cans instead of covering the entire front.
Hmmm, I see ramen noodles in those storage areas also.
I'll have to remember that idea.



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Tomorrow morning we will be heading to the
Great Train Expo at the Fairgrounds
from about 11am to 2pm or however long our back,
legs and feet can handle all the walking.
Cost is $7.00 for 13 years old and up.
12 and under are free.
And I think parking is $5.00

I'm so thankful the weather has been nice.
I remember in year's past when we went to this
show and walked from the back parking lot
to the front door we froze our butts off!!


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4:20pm

When Tony gets off work we are heading over to Bethel Rd.
Kmart to find Tony a pair of tennis shoes and maybe
Jonathan another pair of shoes considering I just weeded
out ones that are too small and the ones he's wearing
have very thin bottoms and blow outs on the sides. Tony told
me that he heard through others that our Kmart will be closing
their doors soon. I wish it wasn't so because that's where
we buy all of our shoes at. This Kmart was not listed
on the list of all Kmarts to close online.
I was thinking about getting some Little Caesars tonight
for $5 a pizza but Tony says they have already closed
that area of Kmart up. BUMMER!

Might stop by Tony's work tonight also. He found one
of those pallets that the groundsmen had and had them
save it for him.

I got pieces of wood trim out of the truck and got it
all marked to be cut for the can bin. I think
my plan "B" will work out perfectly for the sides
of the bin. And for fear of splitting the wood trim
I don't plan to use any screws or nails. Instead
I will use something called Power Grab to install them.
Tony uses this stuff at work and all I need is a little to install
my two 1" x 4" boards and 6-8 pieces of trim.

Power Grab-
This extremely high tack adhesive eliminates the need for nails and screws in many DIY and repair jobs. Bonds wood, plywood, drywall, stainless steel, glass, cork, foam board, ceramics, plaster, stone, brick, concrete, chip board, carpet, PVC, vinyl cove base, polyurethane, and polystyrene foam covings.


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