I Love A Bargain!

Don't you just love a bargain .... or at least thinking you've gotten a bargain?  I think I got a couple of bargains today!  I taught my class this morning.  I had a full class of 8 ladies and it went a lot smoother than my Thursday night class - they're the guinea pigs!!  After class, Judy and I went to lunch which proved not to be an easy task.  We were trying to come up with something a little different so we decided on Chinese food.  Well, after going to 2 different Chinese restaurants in Mooresville and neither being open, we opted for the Sport Page and had burgers!  After lunch, my Michael's coupons were burning a hole in my pocket, so we headed over there.  Right in the front door, I found the bargains!!  I bought this for $3!  It had been $24.99!  The handle on one of the drawers was not attached, but when I got home, Sonny fixed it for me with pop-rivets.

Then .... I found this for $4.  It had also been about $25.  The middle handle is on upside down (who cares?) and it is a little warped, but for storage purposes, you can't beat $4!!

I'm not sure yet what I'll keep in the top one.  Right now, I have a catalog in the top part and some cards I'm making for a couple of swaps in the lower containers.

But, the 3 drawer container, I have all my Sizzix and Cuttlebug "stuff"  in.  Here's a closer look.

Milk Cartons

This week has been all about making milk cartons and a holder for them!!  Last night I did a class at Stamper's Alley in Mooresville making the milk cartons from Becky Roberts.  (check hers out HERE).  And tomorrow, I'll be doing another class.  Here's the one we are making in class.  It was supposed to be for Valentines, but some of the gals didn't want it to be too "hearts and kisses" so this paper is versatile enough I thought for any occasion.

 

My sister wanted to make one too but since her son has a soccer game tomorrow, I told her to come on over today and we'd make one.  So this morning, she and my friend, Judy, came over.  We had a great time making their boxes, chatting and then enjoying my pasta salad at lunch!  Marianne's company has just scaled them back with a pay cut and 4-day work week, so this was her first Friday off.  We had to celebrate it someway!!  Here are their boxes - although they are not quite finished (they still need ribbon on the handle) but you can admire their handi-work!

This one is Marianne's.  Her favorite color is purple and everything she makes has purple in it!!  She stamped the flower from the retired SU set, Time Well Spent.

This one is Judy's.  She used a circle punch to punch out some of the little circles from the decorative paper - wasn't that clever??  She is also taking my class tomorrow and is making these for her grandchildren.

Pass Out

This picture brought back some funny memories!!

When we were dating - back in the '70's - I had this game.  We were playing it one night with some friends in our apartment complex (we lived in a Singles Only complex in Greensboro).  Per the instructions, you had to take several drinks during the game for various reasons.  When you had to go to the bathroom, there was a little plastic whistle that you had to blow the whole time you were in the bathroom.  Whenever you stopped blowing the whistle, you had to take a drink when you came out of the bathroom.  Well, I had a very shy bladder and trying to "pee" and blow a whistle at the same time was not an easy thing for me to do.  In fact, I could not do it at all!!  When I came out of the bathroom, I had probably stopped blowing about 5-6 times at least and to top it off, I had never been able to go pee!!  In hindsight, all you had to do was just not blow the whistle at all & that would only have counted for only one stopped time!!!  We weren't thinking that straight - we were young, what can I say??!! 

Final January Monday Mailers

As promised .... some cards to share.  These are the last Monday Mailer cards I received from Brenda last week.

This one is my favorite.  I love how she did the foggy moon.

This is an acetate card.  The snowflakes are stamped on the acetate.  I love the blue and red color combo.

This month, it is a "Love Month" theme.  We are making cards with hearts on them OR a red or pink card.  I forgot to take a picture of the card I sent (was in a hurry to go to Pittsburgh).  But, when I receive my card from my Monday Mailer partner, I'll be posting it for your enjoyment!

We Made the News!

Yesterday after we left the hotel, we had to make a few important stops before heading back to NC.  We went to the "strip district" in Pittsburgh where vendors sell everything "Steelers" on the sidewalks.  We wanted to get some Super Bowl gear and a copy of the Pittsburgh Post Gazette before we hit the road.  After buying our stuff, we were headed back to the car when a reporter stopped us and interviewed us about the game and what we had just bought.  Since she was a reporter for the AP, she wasn't sure what paper her article would be in - whoever picked it up.  Well, today we did a Google search and found out her article was picked up by a bunch of papers - New York, Penn., Chicago, US News & World Report, Boston, etc.  She made a few errors in her report - like Sonny's age and the fact that Harrison is not our grandson, but our nephew, but, hey .... we're in the news!!

Here is an excerpt of the article.  If you want to read the whole article, click HERE.

Pittsburgh restaurants and bars were packed on Sunday for hours before and after the game. Bars and clubs in popular sections of the city tacked on a cover charge. One trendy bar began at $5 about an hour after the victory and within minutes had upped the cover to $10. Despite some face-making, wallets opened and people partied.

Sonny Maranich, 60, a native Pittsburgher who drove seven hours from his new home in Mooresville, N.C., for the Super Bowl, spent the last few hours of his weekend in the Strip District, buying everything from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette to that one last Hines Ward jersey.

His grandson, 14-year-old Harrison Webb, had already bought his Super Bowl hat the night before and had it perched backward on his head early Monday.

The family stayed in a suburban hotel for the weekend, their second visit to the area in a month; they also journeyed north for the AFC Championship Game in mid-January, when the Steelers secured their spot in the Super Bowl by beating the Baltimore Ravens 23-14.

Maranich paid $50 just to reserve a table in a restaurant to watch the game, and the family had to be there by 3 p.m., giving them three hours to spend money before the game even started.

Maranich's wife, Sharon, 60, was thrilled that she would be driving home with a happy husband and a plastic bag full of new Steelers stuff after an exhausting weekend of football and shopping.

"It was a nail-biter," she said. "My heart can't take it anymore; I'm getting too old for this."

Wish we could have been there today for the PARADE!! (click to  see video)

I promise ..... I'll post some creative work tomorrow!!

Sale-a-bration is here!!

Starting Sunday Feb 1st- March 31st... Sale-a-bration begins.

* Free product/s from the Sale-A-Bration catty for every $50 you spend.

* Host a workshop of at least $300 (before tax and shipping), you'll receive a free Sale-A-Bration reward, in addition to all of the regular hostess benefits! *

*Join the SU family to be a demonstrator, and receive a FREE stamp set of your choice (up to $47.95 value) - not to mention ALL the other perks of being a demo.

AND the Starter Kit is 15% off the regular $199 --that's $335 worth of products for only $169.15 and shipping is included! Substitutions are available to customize the kit a bit.

Contact me to get your freebies!!

We've Got the Six-Pack!

 

Pittsburgh has been called "a drinking town with a football problem," so it's no coincidence it boasts a Super Bowl tradition second to none. The Steelers have brought the Lombardi Trophy back home for the sixth time - surpassing the Dallas Cowboys and San Francisco 49ers. And as quarterback Ben Roethlisberger said earlier this week, fans who have taken to yelling "Six-Pack" at him aren't simply ordering the local brew.  Pittsburgh now has it's Six-Pack!

Contrast that with the Cardinals, whose laid-back fans haven't seen a championship in 61 years and didn't expect to anytime soon. They aren't just happy to be here, but downright surprised.  That wasn't an option for the Steelers.  As if expectations weren't sky-high already, President Barack Obama jumped on the bandwagon and Mike Fincke, who grew up in a suburb of Pittsburgh and is commander of the NASA expedition en route to the international space station, recently took advantage of the gravity-free atmosphere to unfurl his Terrible Towel!

Wow!  Did we have fun.  But my heart can't take too many of these nail-biters.  We were doing so good - leading 20-7 in the fourth quarter, we were all too confident.  Then Kurt Warner and his Cardinals staged a rally to go ahead 23-20 with 2:37 left in the game!  We were all near tears and Marianne was figuring she'd have to find a bus ticket to get back home on Monday.  She did not want to ride back with Sonny if his Steelers lost!  But, Big Ben and Santonio Holmes struck the last blow Sunday night with Holmes' "immaculate reception", and when Warner fumbled in the final seconds, the Cardinals’ dream of winning their first NFL crown since 1947 were gone.

We reserved a table at the Steelhouse the week before ($50!) and had to be there by 3:00 PM to claim our table.  Remember, the game didn't start until 6:30!!  By game time, I would estimate there were close to 1200 people in the place & it was crazy.  I am sure there were some who don't even know when the kick-off was (drank a little too much, maybe!!)  We definitely paced ourselves, plus our waitress's visits were few and far between.  She was also a true blonde & would usually not remember what we had ordered even though she was writing the orders down!  My nephew, Harrison, who is 14 definitely got an education .... since he was missing school on Monday, we did our best!!!  But he had a ball.  He had two jersey's - one for offense and one for defense so he changed them each time the offense and defense were on the field.  Here are some pictures of the night.

Unless you are familiar with Steeler fans, it is hard to describe them to you.  But a few things that really amazed Marianne while she was there ....

• we saw a cop directing traffic with his whistle in his mouth, his billy club in his hand & his Terrible Towel hanging out of his pocket
• we ran into the grocery store on our way to the game and there was not a person in there who wasn't dressed in black and gold PLUS their recycle grocery bags have Steelers stuff on them!
• school was to be delayed 2 hours on Monday morning because of Super Bowl.
• every store we passed had either Steelers merchandise being sold in it or GO STEELERS signs in the windows.
• a lot of stores and restaurants - Subway, Chinese restaurant, drug-stores - were closing at 5 PM so their employees could watch the Super Bowl.

An over-view of one side of the bar/restaurant & the crowd celebrating - standing on the tables and the bar -

All 5 of us decked out in our Steeler garb -

Sonny & Ashley happy with the WIN!!

Coffee Filters

COFFEE FILTERS

Not just for making coffee....
1. Cover bowls or dishes when cooking in themicrowave. Coffee filters make excellent covers.
2. Clean windows and mirrors. Coffee filters are lint-free so they'll leave windows sparkling.
3. Protect China. Separate your good dishes by putting a coffee filter between each dish.
4. Filter broken cork from wine? If you break the cork when opening a wine bottle, filter the wine through a coffee filter.
5. Protect a cast-iron skillet. Place a coffee filter in the skillet to absorb moisture and prevent rust.
6. Apply shoe polish. Ball up a lint-free coffee filter.
7. Recycle frying oil. After frying, strain oil through a sieve lined with a coffee filter.
8. Weigh chopped foods. Place chopped ingredients in a coffee filter on a kitchen scale.
9. Hold tacos. Coffee filters make convenient wrappers for messy foods.
10. Stop the soil from leaking out of a plant pot.. Line a plant pot with a coffee filter to prevent the soil from going through the drainage holes.
11. Prevent a Popsicle from dripping. Poke one or two holes as needed in a coffee filter.1
2. Do you think we used expensive strips to wax eyebrows? Use strips ofcoffee filters.
13. Put a few in a plate and put your fried bacon, French fries, chicken fingers, etc on them. Soaks out all the grease.

Now .... run don't walk to the Dollar Store and buy some coffee filters!!

What Does Lite Really Mean?

There is a standardized definition developed by the Food and Drug Administration and the U.S. Department of Agriculture for every low-this and reduced-that on the food labels.  Below are some of the more common label lingo and the nutritional information that it represents.

• Sugar-free: Contains less than 0.5gm of sugar per serving.
• Calorie-free: Contains fewer than five calories per serving.
• Low-calorie: contains 40 or fewer calories per serving.
• Reduced-calorie:  Contains 25 percent fewer calories than the regular product.
• Fat-free:  contains less than 0.5gm of fat per serving.
• Low-fat: Contains three grams or less of fat per serving.
• Reduced-fat:  Contains no more than 75 percent of the fat found in regular versions or comparable food.
• Light or lite:  contains one-third fewer calories or half the fat of the regular food.
• Cholesterol-free: Contains less than two milligrams of cholesterol and two grams or less of saturated fat per serving.
• Low-cholesterol:   Contains 20 milligrams or less of cholesterol, 2 grams or less of saturated fat, and 13 grams or less of total fat per serving.
• Reduced-cholesterol:  Contains 75 percent or less of the cholesterol found in the regular food and two grams or less of saturated fat per serving.
• Sodium-free: Contains less than five milligrams of sodium per serving.
• Very low sodium:  Contains less than 35 milligrams of sodium per serving.
• Low-sodium:  Contains 140 milligrams or less of sodium per serving.
• Reduced-sodium:  Contains no more than 75 percent of the sodium found in the regular food.
• Extra-lean:  Refers to meat, seafood, or poultry that has less than two grams of saturated fat, less than five grams of total fat, and less than 95 milligrams of cholesterol per 3 oz serving.
• Lean: Refers to meat, seafood, or poultry that has 4.5 grams or less of saturated fat, less than 10 grams of total fat and less than 95 milligrams of cholesterol per 3 oz serving.
• High in:  Supplies 20 percent or more of the Daily Value (DV) of a given nutrient per serving.
• Good source of:  Supplies 10 to 19 percent of the DV of a given nutrient per serving.
• Fresh:  Refers to a food that is raw, that has not been processed, frozen, or heated, and that contains no preservatives.
• Freshly: Refers to a food that has been made recently; may be used with "baked".

~~Women's Edge, Food Smart by Susan G. Berg and the
Editors of Prevention Health Books for Women

Did You Know?

Cinderella's slippers were originally made of fur. The story was inadvertently changed by a translator in the 1600s, who confused the very similar old French words for "glass" and "fur" - verre and vair, respectively.

Botanically speaking, the banana is an herb, the jalapeno is a fruit, and apples and peaches are members of the rose family.

Pineapples, oranges, lemons, watermelons, and tomatoes are all berries.

Lightning strikes about 6,000 times per minute on this planet.

The first American ice-cream parlor opened in New York City in 1776.

~So, Now You Know... by Harry Bright and Harlan Briscoe