Craig's List Is KILLING ME!

Oh holy crap snacks.

I've spent the last couple days on Craig's List just cruising around, looking around, seeing what the deals are and where. As I live in the Houston market, they are scattered everywhere.

My favorite section is the FREE section.

I'm laughing right now... hold please.

This is the section you visit for listings on free dirt... there is always free dirt...^[1]

Free boxes... the odd thing here is that there are ads for people looking for boxes... that they can't find each other is kinda hilarious in and of itself.

Of course there's all kinds of free crap, free dogs of unknown origin, a finger monkey...

A finger monkey. A FINGER MONKEY.

Yes... This Post Has Tomatoes

First things first.^[1] The light in the oven went out about 20 minutes after we installed the oven. This was like 8 years ago or so. I've never really thought having a light in the oven was a big deal, so never replaced it.

Last night the light bulb in Sara's Hello Kitty lamp went *pop* and Stephanie went to the light bulb stash^[2] to find a replacement. She chose the package that had a bulb that looked like the one she was replacing.

Stephanie: "Huh. Package says it's an appliance bulb."

Me: "Ovens too?"

Stephanie: "Refrigerators and ovens."

Me: "Sweet. Guess I'll change the bulb then."

She proceeded to choose another bulb and I proceeded to turn changing an oven light bulb into a challenge. As about 2.6% of you might already know, these bulbs are protected by a thick chunk of glass held in place by the most high tech means possible.

It's a wire clip that not only pops off pretty easy, but also comes completely off falling into the racks below. The glass chunk then can fall completely unsupported on to the light bulb itself tearing the bulb from it's screw piece and shattering it into a dozen pieces. I can only assume it's designed to to do this as that is what happened to me.

Well, the filament and mount were still solidly connected to the bottom of the bulb so I thought to just use that to unscrew it.^[3] FYI folks, ovens are designed for the light to turn on when the door opens. Now I needed tools...

Anyhow, the bulb got changed, there were no injuries, and I didn't feel like it so I still need to vacuum the oven.

On to the REAL post!

Nope.

My wife told me I was ready to graduate to the next level of couponing. I had promised her about 6 years ago I'd start helping and she called me on it Tuesday.

My journey was to take me to Dollar General, Target and Walgreens.^[4]

At Dollar General I was on a recon mission. I can do recon.

Stephanie: "Find the Head & Shoulders. If they have the 8-ish oz., take pictures, buy two. Use the coupon."

And It's Only June

We still got July & August to go.

Yay! Summer VAY-CAY!

Mmph.

See this pic to the left? Yeah, says it's 92ºF outside. That's the air temp folks. The RealFeel? That's the heat index. Yup, over 100º. You think it's only 100º though?

Try walking barefoot on the sidewalk.

Yeah, the temp coming off the street can melt your souls.

Soles, I mean. Shoe bottoms. Whatever.

It's hot and only going to get hotter. Last year we had like 565 days in a row of over 100 degree heat index. It sucked.

Today I picked up the girls from their gymnastics summer camp. This place is pretty awesome, which is why we keep going back. This year they installed A/C in the gym. Things just keep getting better!

Heads up folks, Sara wants her birthday at Iron Cross Gymnastics^[1] again this year. Some of you will be invited. You know who you are. Some of you won't. Sara says you can just drop off your gifts for her at the door.

No Trust

Today was the first day of gymnastics camp for the girls. After dropping them off I stopped by Ye Olde TSO to pick up my new glasses and Stephanie's contacts.

The day passed way too quickly.

And then it was time to pick the girls back up. When I got them seated and all buckled up Zoey notices a little white bag in the passenger seat.

Zoey: "What's that?"

Me: "Mom's contacts. See, I'm wearing new glasses too!"

Zoey: "Hm."^[1]

As soon as we get home she jumps out of her seat and opens the bag to find.... Mom's contacts. Two boxes.

Today I Almost Died

The real victim here.

Today I followed up on my garden garlic experiment. As I was three days behind I felt it should probably happen soon as I had garlic bulbils that had been soaking in a cup of water for over a week.

Man did those things stink.^[1]

Anyhow, I grabbed the stack of peat pots, put the 14 bulbils in the top one and headed out the door.

And then I was attacked.

It was so damn fast! Something small flew right by my face and started beating against my chest. It skittered up and down and around. I thought it was a wasp attacking me. Normally, I wouldn't panic in this kind of situation but it started heading for my face.^[2]

Yeah... Right.

This right here is an example of how retailers believe people are perfectly utterly stupid.

Stu. Pid.^[1]

Observe:

??

Serves more what, exactly?^[2]

I mean, I suppose I could cut them all in half and serve EVEN MORE!!

I could cut them up into teeny tiny itsy bits and serve THOUSANDS!!!!

Of pieces. I'm sure that's what the sticker means: THIN CUT Serves More pieces. Not people. Unless you have a bunch of people that aren't really hungry.

Wait... this is America!^[3]

Hold on... Jesus... is this how He did it? Fishes and loaves. He cut them thin! Oh my God. The only miracle here is that He had a deli slicer 2000 years ago.^[4]

The only real truth here is that anyone actually feeding a family with this is going to need to buy more food.

Blog Update

I updated my blog to have tabs. I heard somewhere that people reading blogs like to see tabs. So I tabbed my blog with TABS!

So far all I got are Home, About Me, and Elephant Garlic...

I'm planning a Space Fort tab, but I'm not sure yet how to put that together.

She spends 75% of her time right here.

UPDATE: Just realized this was my 100^th post. Damn... Thinking I shoulda' went with my space fort idea.