Tag: shopping

Happy Spring!

It’s the first day of spring – yay! We had a chilly but sunny day to celebrate it.

So, Today I:

  • Got caught up on my grading (except for the physics test which they took today – it’s multiple guess so I should be able to get that done this weekend).

  • Talked with Covington Savings & Loan (my bank) about refinancing my mortgage (I gave my current mortgage company first dibs, but I haven’t received word back from them in a week – guess they don’t want me to stay with them). 4.5% should be do-able and he suggested I check back each week while things in Washington are brewing – it might go down even more.

  • Went to Applebee’s with a few coworkers and had a nice hour & a half chatting with them.

  • Looked at netbooks at Staples – I still might get myself an Aspire One if I could just find a 6-cell Linux model, pref w/ SSD.

  • Picked up some stuff at Walmart – including the inexpensive silica cat litter I was beginning to suspect I’d dreamed rather than purchased before. (Under $5 for 4lb – only thing cheaper I’ve seen is sold by Trader Joe’s – and they’re MILES away.)

  • Had an ice cream cone from Cold Stone Creamery. Yum!

The new season is looking to be a good ‘un!

Even with the weather…

So, like, if you’re sick you say “I’m feeling under the weather.” But if you’re getting better, are you “even with the weather”? And when you’re well, are you “over the weather”? Curious trinas want to know.

At any rate, I feel like I’m getting even with the weather. Sunday night (after a fun time shopping at Crafts 2000 with my Aunt Becky and then supper at the Chinese Buffet) I suddenly got every cold symptom within a 15 minute period. Wound up going to bed on NyquilClone at 7:30pm. My day off on Monday was fairly wasted just battling the cold and avoiding real work. (I got a lot of videos watched which had been languishing*.)

Tuesday, I had a meeting at the Miami County ESC, so I had a sub already. After the meeting, I went to Meijer for more NyquilClone and then in bed by 7:30pm. One of the girls was impressed that I knew in advance that I was going to be sick (since I’d told ’em they’d have a sub Tuesday) – I hated to disappoint her by telling her I’d been to a meeting, but disappoint her I did. 🙂 Last night was another “bust” night of nothing useful accomplished. But I figured I could spent tonight grading tests and stuff – which I did.

Thankfully, tomorrow is Friday. If I have truly kicked this cold, I should have a more productive weekend than I wound up having last weekend.

*On Saturday, the parentals & I celebrated Valentine’s Day by eating out for lunch (Applebee’s) and then shopping at Best Buy and Kroger (the good one in Englewood). I bought a Philips DVP5990/37 DVD player which upconverts to 1080p (though my TV maxes at 1080i) and plays USB flash drives. I also bought an HDMI cable, which cost half the cost of the DVD player (and turned out to be too short – the DVD player is currently WAY back). No matter, I bought two 6-ft HDMI cables from Amazon.com for $.99 each – they’ll probably arrive soon. Anyhoo, thanks to the USB port, I can now watch my downloaded videos from a USB drive rather than saving to CD or DVD. Sweet. And it works. AND it’s easy to make region-free. The DVD player was $65 – and I’ve heard of it going for even cheaper in some places. 1080i is sweet. I love my TV even more than before (if you can believe that even possible).

A weekend celebration

Ah yes, it does feel good to be done with my classes for a month. Yesterday, we had two things to celebrate – the semester ending and mom’s birthday. So I headed next door midmorning so that we could head up to Piqua for shopping & a nice lunch.

Elder-Beerman was having doorbuster sales until 1pm, so that was our first destination. Although I didn’t get anything, the folks had some successful purchases. By the time we were done, we were all suitably hungry. Mom chose Red Slobster for lunch. Tasty tasty! We got their coconut fried shrimp appetizer and drinks (amaretto sour for me). Then when we ordered our main courses, we all picked shrimp again. Heh. I got their shrimp linguine. We’d decided while there to stop at Kroger on the way home for cake & ice cream (and other essentials).

We returned to the mall where Beerman is and did some more shopping. (I again managed to not spend anything. Go me!) Then we headed to Jo-Ann Fabric & Crafts for craft supplies. Alas, they had no glass bottles like I need for my Xmas gips this year, but they had some cookie decorating stuff that I wanted (and was on sale). So I picked that up and some itty bitty plastic bags (also for the Xmas gips). At Kroger, I bought the cake & ice cream for mom. Then we headed to KMart for the last few items on dad’s list. By this time we were all ready to be done. Thankfully, we were. Heh.

Once we were settled back home, it was time for mom to open presents. She got a GPS unit from herself and dad. (Wasn’t she thoughtful?) It’s a Garmin Nuvi 350. It’s really cute! She got some ’round the neck headphones by Jensen, a power plug for iPods, and a regifted iPod Nano 2nd generation (Product Red) from me. I thought it would match her Product Red iPod Shuffle that she got for Mother’s Day. 🙂 (Well, when the new iPod Nano came out with PURPLE, I had to upgrade…) I then worked a bit on her PC getting some playlists onto her iTunes (grrrr, I do hate iTunes) while dad got the cake & ice cream ready. It was very tasty.

When I got home, I resubscribed to World of Warcraft and revisited my little toons. Although I prefer City of Heroes, it is also fun to play WoW. (I’ll resub to CoH Tuesday or so which will let that subscription go until classes begin.)

Today’s Grand Adventure spawned in part because of yesterday’s failed trip to Jo-Ann’s. When I asked a store person about glass bottles, she admitted they didn’t have any, but (in a quieter voice, looking around to make sure no one was watching) she suggested that I try Crafts2000 in Springfield. When talking with my Aunt Becky last night, she recommended Crafts2000 too. So I put Crafts2000 into my plans for the day.

I played WoW until 11am, then called Crafts2000 (since they were open finally) to see if they did have glass bottles – colorless with stoppers or screw caps. The lady there was pretty sure & directed me to someone on the floor who concurred. 4 aisles of glassware, they said. So after I got my hair cut, I headed off to Springfield.

Wow – they weren’t kidding. They had just what I was looking for and then some. Square bottles, oval bottles, round bottles – and all $1 each! 12″ tall, nice & thin. Even a funny looking one (which I’m not sure will work with my plans, but we’ll see.) I will eventually show off what I’m doing with these bottles, but as there are recipients of them who read this list, I shall refrain for now.

There really isn’t a lot of nice eating places in that end of Springfield, so I headed to the Upper Valley Mall (which I’d not been to in years) and wound up eating at the Chinese place there. Mmmm, Mall Chinese Food – in a class by itself. General Tso’s (should have gotten the bourbon chicken) and orange chicken and lo mein. Plus some crab rangoon (the nicely sweet type – yummy). I was able to finish reading Jane Eyre (which I have on my phone) while there.

After finishing my perusal of the mall (they STILL have 2 bookstores there – yay! B.Dalton & Walden), I returned to the parking lot, set my phone to direct me to the Piqua Mall (AKA Miami Valley Center Mall), and headed off to see a movie.

The Cinemark Theater at the Piqua Mall has moved out of the mall proper and, on Friday, opened in their new location just outside of the mall. I decided to watch Delgo cuz I figured it’s not something likely to be crowded (it wasn’t) and that ought to be seen on the big screen (and can likely be missed as a DVD purchase). I enjoyed it – lots of fun eye candy – despite the pedestrian plot. If you do go see it, stay til after the credits. Heck, simply reading the credits was a hoot.

I returned home after the movie, invited myself next door for more cake & ice cream, and am now back home & typing this up. Tomorrow starts the last week of school for 2008. Should be a nice week. Maybe I’ll get the house decorated this week. 🙂

Enablers suck…

So, like, I have a DVD buying problem. I buy too many DVDs. (Though I do love watching them and I don’t watch much regular TV, so that’s something at least.) But periodically DeepDiscount enables my DVD buying addiction. About twice a year or so they have a 20% off sale. And I buy far too much stuff.

Well, they’ve topped themselves this time. Their Winter Sale is 25% off! So I bought the boxed set I’ve been eying for awhile (The Michael Palin Collection – the only travelogue he’s done that I own on DVD is Sahara, but I’d love to get ’em all. Now I will!) And I waited a little bit since Season 4 of Doctor Who came out today (pre-orders don’t get sale prices) so I ordered it as well. Yay me! Boo DeepDiscount for enabling me!

BTW, the sale ends November 23rd, so get your orders in soon! They have several coupon codes you can use (but you only get the 25% off once, even if you try using a different code later) including the following: SALE, DEEP, PRICESEARCH. DeepDiscount often has the cheapest prices for DVDs (though I often start at DVDPriceSearch first). Oh, and they always have free shipping. Hope you find a DVD or seven that you want there!

Yellow Springs – a Day Out

Autumn has finally kicked summer to the curb. Not only are the trees starting to turn, but the weather has been very autumny lately. Today was a beautiful sunny day in the high 60s, low 70s F. I got to wear a sweatshirt!

Mom called this morning (well, shortly before noon) asking if I wanted to go to Yellow Springs with her and dad. I can’t say “no” to a trip to Yellow Springs, hippie capital of Ohio. Supposedly they were having an art fair or something with artists showing off their wares. Only when we got there, we never did find any artists hocking their stuff. No matter, we enjoy Yellow Springs for just wandering around & shopping.

Lunch was our first priority, so we ate at the tavern there. And we partook of the outside seating. I had a fish sammich and shared onion rings with the folks. The lettuce was wilted, the bun a little stale, and the fish tasty – all in all, an excellent sandwich. (What, don’t you like wilted lettuce & stale buns? Silly people!)

After lunch, we wandered around the town looking in all of the little shops. I saw lots of neat stuff, but didn’t buy anything until we got to the used bookstore. They had a very new looking copy of the latest Thursday Next book by Jasper Fforde, so I picked it up for $10 less than a new hardback would be.

While we were wandering the town, we saw someone we knew – Amy’s ex-girlfriend Danielle! She spotted us first and we all hugged her. She introduced us to her boyfriend (whose name I don’t recall now – Rob? John? Something like that) and said she was doing well. They live in Columbus, but they came to Yellow Springs for lunch and to hike. She didn’t look any different and claimed we didn’t either. It was lovely seeing her again and I hope she & her bf had a nice time in Yellow Springs.

We left at 4pm and took the long way home. It was a very nice drive. A nice contrast between still green trees, half & half, and fully orange trees. I love autumn!

Westing at da Wake

(For those of you who don’t speak faux baby-speak successfully, the title is Resting at the Lake.)

So yesterday I went to work for one hour to get the new account passwords printed off and update some announcements on the school website. And then I headed off to Columbus to pick judiang up from the airport. My timing was pretty good, I only had to go through the arrival loop 5 times before she popped up outside. (It’s a very small loop at Columbus.)

I drove towards home with a slight detour to the Ex-Evil Puppy Mall. It’s no longer the Evil Puppy Mall because the last time we were there, we discovered the pet store was no longer there. No more cute & evil Pomeranian puppies to tempt Judi. We shopped around the mall & had a snack at the Starbucks there to tide us over before supper. A stop at Best Buy and then the Bookery yielded some purchases, but then it was time to head back home.

As I turned onto my street, I saw mom sitting on her porch reading. She looked like someone ready for a pizza supper. Judi and I dropped some things off in the house, then met the parental units outside my door. We walked to the other side of town (surprising Judi that there was something of a walk) to Indians Pizza (named after our school mascot). Every ordered 10″ pizzas, so we all left with leftovers. And Judi and I got waffle cones with Buckeye Ice Cream (not made of poisonous buckeye seeds, but instead modeled after the candy buckeye – peanut butter ice cream, fudge swirls, and little candy buckeyes).

The walk home was a long one, because I wanted to convince Judi that Pleasant Hill *does* have a hill. And it’s a pleasant incline. Thus Pleasant Hill. But I decided to take her on the steepest part of the hill, just so she can tell there’s a hill. Trouble is, we’d had a powerful frog-strangler while eating in the restaurant and the humidity, we estimated, was 176%. So here we were, walking in 90+°F with loads of humidity, down a nice slope to the river, then up a not as nice slope into town. She’s only half-grudgingly admitted to there being a hill, but at least *I* know I’m not a liar even if she & elsaf suspect otherwise.

Once home, we cooled off in the central air while I finished packing (had underwear drying while I was going to the airport). Judi read Uncle Shelby’s ABZ Book (highly recommended) while I got ready. Then we loaded up the car & finally headed off to the Lake.

We stayed up geeking & talking for hours after arriving (staying in the air conditioned part because the 3-season room was miserably hot & humid). Then finally went to bed.

This morning I got up and made us egg, ham & cheese bagel sandwiches for breakfast. And now Judi is FINALLY out of the bed and tearing it down so she can’t go back to sleep in it. And it’s only quarter til 11! Wow! (Ha ha ha! she says.)

Dairy Day Monday

Yesterday was a day devoted to MILK! And as I love MILK, yesterday was a very good day indeed.

We started off the day heading off to the Grafton Village Cheese Factory in, of all places, Grafton village. There we got to watch the folks actually making cheese. We learned what cheddaring means (to break up the curd to dry it) and watched as they cheddared, salted, and shoveled the curd to make it into cheese. Then the place squooshes out more whey and then lets it age.

In the store part, we got to taste all of the types of cheddar that they make. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6 year cheddars, garlic, sage and hickory smoked cheddar. And after tasting them all, I bought one of each type of cheese that they make. Mmmmm, cheese!

Next we headed off to the Ben & Jerry’s factory to take a tour of it. judiang and I got the package deal of t-shirt, pint, and tour for $20. And we got our pints right off the bat so we could eat while waiting for the tour. (elsaf was smart enough to wait until the tour & all were done). We didn’t finish it, but we made good headway into our pints. I got the Brownie Batter flavor (which I’d never seen before) and Judi got the Peach Cobbler (ditto). Both were tasty.

When we got on the tour, we saw a couple of movies and then the factory bit which was cool to watch. The tour leader asked if any of us knew the significance of -40 (temperature). And of course I knew the answer (science geek that I am). Alas, I didn’t get a prize. Still, when we got to taste a sample of B&J ice cream at the end of the tour, there were leftovers and I had a second sample. Mint chocolate chunk – yum!

After the tour, I returned to the car to get our ice cream from before (and put our new pint of Creme Brulee in) and we managed to finish our pints. Elsa had some Americone Dream, and hergrace had a sundae with “Coffee Coffee Buzz Buzz Buzz” as the ice cream base. All in all, a wonderful selection of ice creams.

We returned to the farmhouse nicely full of dairy and then worked on getting Doctor Who onto a platform we could view it. And when we were finally hungry (ish) we ordered pizza. Mmmmm, a nice capper to Dairy Day Monday.

Here are some photos from Dairy Day Monday.


A sign that cheese is around!


Cheddaring the curd


Shoveling the curd


Covered bridge by cheese store


View from the bridge


The Flavor Graveyard at Ben & Jerry’s


Ben & Jerry’s

Manchester, Vermont Vermont

The trouble with the musical Hair is the catchy music that sticks in your head. And as we traveled to Manchester, Vermont yesterday, I had the Manchester, England England song running through my head. And hopefully some of you are now suffering.

So, after the late night on Saturday, we actually got up before nine am. Even judiang got up before nine (because she misread the clock in her room and thought it was after ten – heh heh). The morning was a nice slow one as we had cereal for breakfast and chatted with folks in the kitchen. Then it was photo time. We took pictures around the farmhouse and neighboring homes. I love the stone buildings in this area and got a really nice picture of a stone church.


Stone Church

One of the neighbors saw us out taking pictures and she invited us into her house, which was a former stone schoolhouse. She even let me ring the school bell, which was very cool. 🙂 Out back of her house was some very beautiful scenery and several stone benches. We all sat on one stone bench in the back in a little nook. And then, being the geeks that we are, we all took photos of the other three on the bench. Judi posted hers already. So here is mine.


Three on a Bench

Next we returned to the farmhouse and gathered up hergrace‘s boys and then headed off to the Vermont Country Store. The last time we visited Vermont, Steph took us there and I loved it. (Well, I’ve always loved their catalog, so being there in person was even better.) I sampled almost every sample they had in the place (well, I was hungry) and bought quite a few small items. And still hadn’t seen the entire store before we shuffled off to a late lunch in Manchester.

When we got to Manchester, Steph took us to Flat Road Grill for lunch. I had the Crocque Monsieur (grilled roll with ham, apples and Vermont cheddar), fries and a very nice cream soda. I enjoyed the sandwich – apples are a fun addition!

We parked at the bookstore in Manchester and shopped there. I bought a book (surprise, surprise) and enjoyed looking at the store, which had lots of neat other items.


Interesting Sculpture Outside Bookstore

We then walked around Manchester, which is an Outlet Town (like an Outlet Mall only all throughout a town). Steph and I were foot people, so we went into a shoe outlet store and looked at all the nice shoes. And oggled at the Mephisto shoes. Someday, baby, I’ll buy a pair of Mephisto. When I’m rich.

Our next stop was a sock outlet. Mmmmm, socks! Steph recommended The World’s Softest Sock, so I found some nice lavender colored ones. Only to discover they were mediums. I needed large. And the large socks weren’t nearly as fun colors as the mediums. Ah well. I bought red, green, and white – 3 pairs for $15.

One of the neat things about Vermont is that they have mountains! And while we were shopping in Manchester, we had many lovely views of mountains. (Ohio is rather bereft of mountains – at least where I live.)


Mountains!

We returned to the farmhouse and dropped Judi and the boys off. Then Steph, elsaf and I headed off to a local market for supper supplies. Alas, they were closed, so we went to a grocery store in Springfield. The grilling decision was made for us when we discovered they didn’t have enough wild salmon for everyone. So we got some chicken breasts and salad fixings. Plus two types of sour dough bread.

Steph and Elsa worked on the supper – Steph made the marinade while Elsa chopped up the veggies. Then Steph’s father-in-law grilled the chicken. Supper was WONDERFUL. We sat around the dining room table and had a very nice evening.

We then ate ice cream in the kitchen while folks cleaned the supper stuff up. Then the girls and I (and Steph’s youngest) sat down to watch the new Doctor Who. Only, due to many, many technical difficulties, we were only able to watch 15 minutes of it. Still, we did get to watch Curse of the Were-Rabbit while things were getting resolved.

Around 1am, we shuffled off to bed, and now it’s the next morning. We’re going to celebrate Dairy Day Monday. 🙂

BWISER 2007 Days 1 & 2

Yesterday was our first full day at B-WISER and first day of classes. I woke early and decided to get up around 6:30. My roomie, Carolyn, followed suit. The two of us headed for breakfast and had pancakes and sausage. (Carolyn was disappointed in the lack of eggs. I was OK with the lack of eggs myself.)

The morning session was physics, and Dee had the girls doing measurement and density, with me as the faithful assistant. However, I spent much of the second period opening the Cruzer Freedom 1GB flash drives we’d gotten the girls. I put labels on all of them (which had a girl’s name and a female scientist’s name) and separated by groups. And during the third period, I headed off to the computer lab to see how things are set up.

The student machines had a Novell logon that was written on the chalkboard, but the machine hooked to the room projector had a Windows logon that I had not been told. So I decided I’d get my laptop at lunch and use it to run the projector. I had managed to turn on the projector during this testing session, and I’d also successfully transferred the Portable Apps onto one of the USB flash drives. Things were looking good.

After a delicious lunch, I headed off to the computer lab and found that half of the girls were already there. I had the idea during lunch to transfer the Portable Apps onto the computer desktops and tried to do this with girls sitting at machines. Then when they all arrived, I had them do that for me. Meanwhile, when I tried to get the projector on, it wouldn’t come on. So I couldn’t show the girls what I was wanting them to do, but we still managed to get the files transferred onto the PCs and then onto their flash drives. And eventually I figured out the projector. (Definitely a case of the Mondays.)

While the files were transferring onto their flash drives, I did my presentation on The Internet: Search Safely, Search Securely, Search Skeptically. Thanks to of all the aggro at the start of the period, we didn’t have time for the girls to research their female scientists. Alas! But the second and third classes went very smoothly and they did get to research theirs.

After class, Carolyn, Dee and I went to Walmart to take Carolyn’s new shoes back and for Dee to get photos printed. I picked up an extension cord for the wireless router. Then we were back for supper and the evening activity. The girls had 3 activities they were alternating though – bowling, a scavenger hunt, and a craft. Joyce and I supervised the bowling. And even got a game in with Anne, the nurse. I was doing VERY badly at the start, but finally got my groove at frame 9 when I got 3 strikes in a row and wound up with 127. judiang would have been proud. 🙂

Today was another early awakening for me, and Carolyn finally got her eggs. But no meat today – just hash browns with the scrambled eggs. I also had a chocolate muffin, and requiring more carbs, toasted an English muffin and put grape jelly on. Yum!

Physics had the girls racing balloon cars to work through Newton’s Laws and then outside to blast off film cannister cannons. Well, the first two periods had the girls outside. During period 3, they got outside, watched as the rain began down at the end of the street and headed towards them, then Dee herded them back inside before it hit here. So they did the film cannister cannons over the sinks instead. Heh.

After lunch (mmmm, pirogies!) it was time to teach computers again. I showed the girls OpenOffice.org’s Calc Portable and we entered in all the data and calculations for the Work & Power lab. Then we had the girls run/walk/climb/tiger dance (yes, one of them did this) up the stairs outside the classroom. I timed them doing this, then we had them enter the data into Calc. And instantly they had their work and power in climbing the stairs. Woot!

We teachers had the evening off, so I headed off to the chemistry building to meet up with the other teachers, who were helping the chemistry group clean up. Then we headed back for the dorms to get our money. It was time to go to the Toy Store! Yay!

We went to the toy store where I found dad some father’s day & birthday gifts and got me a couple of physics toys. Then on to the movie theater to watch Ocean’s 13. I haven’t seen the first two movies, but having enjoyed this one so much, I think I need to rent the other two. Mucho fun. Finally supper was at Jake’s steakhouse. Where I had beet battered fish & chips and a very nice brownie & ice cream dessert.

We ladies had a blast out this evening. I really love teaching with these ladies each summer and am glad that we were able to have the camp despite the lower numbers.

Deep fried strawberries for the win!

This is the weekend of the Troy Strawberry Festival. I invited mom to come along with me this year and she agreed. And then dad invited himself along, because he was looking forward to riding the school bus to the festival. (Yes, he’s a little odd…) So I drove us to Meijer this morning and we took one of the free shuttles (driven by the dedicated bus drivers of Troy City Schools) to Hobart Arena. The festival is held on the levy near Hobart arena, so it’s a very long festival, but very narrow. A few years ago they began to have some spillover down near the Troy HS football stadium, so we started there first. My first stop? Strawberry donuts! Only 15 minutes in line, then I looked for the parental units. It turns out they were in Tammy’s glass pendants booth. Tammy’s a coworker of mine who’s taken to making neat glass pendants and artwork. She’ll be doing quite a few festivals this summer, selling her wares. Mom got a neat necklace there. She also shared some strawberry-lemon shakeup – very yummy.

Mom & I each had a donut and dad had a bite from each. Then we found ourselves in the booth selling bamboo plants. The fellow selling them claimed they were very difficult to kill. I think mother took that as a challenge and decided to get one. And I got a very small one with a cute panda base (for $4). The booth owner let us keep the plants there while we shopped around some more.

We made our way onto the levy and wandered down one way, checking out the wares and the food stalls. We finally decided upon barbecue chicken dinners. We sat on the side of the levy and watched some firemen playing “Waterball.” They had two teams manning fire hoses (pumping water from the river) trying to send a ball to the other side. Think of a “push of war” versus a “tug of war.” After lunch, we continued shopping. I decided upon some strawberry ice cream, which was very refreshing. (It was a hot & sunny day.) But I hadn’t even half-finished my ice cream when I saw a booth selling “deep fried strawberries.” Hmmm, I’d never had those before. So I ordered some. Turns out they’re strawberries filled with a creamy & sweet goo which are then covered in donut batter and deep fried. And then they pour a sweet sauce on top. Da-amn, they were good! And not so sweet that they killed, (not like the strawberry dough ball I’d had the year before.)

Once we’d seen all of the booths on the levy, we headed back to pick up our plants. Then I headed off to get us another strawberry-lemon shakeup. Just as tasty as the first. We shared it until we were finally seated on the bus. There was a lady from Hilliard between me and the parental units, so I didn’t pass the shakeup to them until we were back at Meijer. A short hop to the pet store for food & litter for the kitties (we’d run out of food earlier yesterday, so this morning I’d grilled them a chicken boobie for breakfast. Heh.)

We returned home and the folks headed off to the Lake for the weekend (and much of next week). Then I played CoH for a bit before taking a nap. School’s officially out for us, so I have Monday off – woot! Tuesday will be training for our new grading program, but beyond that, I’ve no idea what my summer schedule will be like.