sey061

I have recently discovered, much to my surprise, that I'm a city girl. I grew up in an average size town of about 100,000 people and was content to spend the rest of my days there. It never occurred to me that after I got married we might end up having to move somewhere else but that's exactly what happened. After spending 37 years in the same town we moved to Lafayette, Louisiana where we spent the next 8 years. Lafayette is about double the size of my hometown but still not a big city. We were comfortable and content there but as fate would have it Jayson was offered a better position in his company which required us to move to Houston. Being the 4th largest city in the U.S., Houston was completely out of my comfort zone. I had always thought I would hate living in a big city with millions of people, insane traffic, and hour long commutes. Much to my surprise, I find that I actually prefer it. Of course we live in the 'burbs but I  love having quick access to a large metr...

I have decided that the time you spend on the phone with service people, tech support, etc. should be measured in something similar to dog years. Yesterday I spent a combined total of about an hour on the phone with AT&T but it felt like 7 years. Jayson's previous employer let him keep his cell phone after they fired him cuz they are just generous like that. They released his number so we could add it to our personal account. I called AT&T to ask how to do that and the nice lady sent me a link for the website, told me what to do and said that if I do it online it's free but if they have to do it for us over the phone they will charge us $18. I'm all about free, especially now. I went to the website, followed her instructions and got one error message after another. Then I decided to actually read the email that the ex-employer sent when they released the phone and saw that they gave a different AT&T number to call for the transfer. I called that number, told the...

Do you like to save money? I sure do. I like to save on my necessities as much as possible so I can use that savings on fun stuff. Within the past year or so my family switched to the new clinical strength antiperspirant/deodorants in order to combat the massive amount of pit sweat that comes with living in a humid environment. Two of our favorites are from Gillette and Secret. They both contain a whopping 20% of aluminum zirconium trichlorohydrex gly, the active ingredient. At an average cost of about $9 each, depending on the size, that's a lot of pampering for our pits. During my last shopping trip where pit wipe was on my list, I decided to do a little comparison of these products to see if the extra expense was actually worth it. I picked at least one of every brand available at my store and looked at the ingredient label. I found that the percentage of active ingredients in regular antiperspirant/deodorants varied from around 16% to 19%, with one exception. Mitchum Advanced C...

Dear State of Texas, You have disappointed and irritated me today. Since I am a native daughter, disappointment and irritation at my beloved state are rare and unpleasant feelings for me which could result in a lot of local stink eye. These stink eye inducing feelings are compounded by the fact that I'm not exactly sure where to direct my irritation because you were unable to tell me. Which irritates me even more. Last week I applied for a sales tax permit so that I can peddle my wares at local craft shows. I haven't even received my official permit in the mail yet but I'm already receiving an unusually large amount of annoying automated telemarketing calls congratulating me on my new business and offering me everything from free credit card machines to discounted computers. By "unusually large amount" I mean 9 calls within the past 2 hours. I can ignore 3 calls in 2 hours but 9??? Confused as to how this could happen in such a short time, I decided to give you a ...

We've recently starting participating in Bountiful Baskets and as a result I've had to do some quick research on the best way to store fresh produce. First of all let me say that so far I'm very happy with Bountiful Baskets. The fruits and vegetables are extremely fresh and delicious and I've estimated that we're getting about $20-$25 worth of produce for $15. I've not yet ventured out and tried some of the other things they offer but I will. If it's available in your area I recommend you give them a try. Since we have a small family of 3, I end up with a lot more fresh produce than we can consume before it starts to go bad. I began to research the best way to store various items and discovered that everyone thinks their way is the best way. And it might be the best way...for them. So basically, you might have to try a couple of different methods to see which one you have the best luck with. I'll tell you what works for me. I panicked a little when I sa...

Does anyone remember all the drama I went through last year while trying to get Baby Lock to stand behind their warranty on my 22 year old sewing machine? Yeah, I thought we were over that too but apparently Baby Lock can't let it go. If you need a refresher you can read about what happened in these 3 posts: Just Say NO To Baby Lock The Baby Lock Saga Continues The Young and The Baby Lockless I didn't really wrap up the story because to be honest, I was sick and tired of it. In my last update I had dropped my machine off at my local Baby Lock dealer/repair center as instructed by Mr. President's assistant who assured me it would be taken care of at no charge to me. It wasn't but maybe 3 days later when I got a call that my machine was fixed and ready to be picked up. When I got it, there was a $45 charge on the ticket for the bobbin case that they replaced, which surprised me since I didn't know there was anything wrong with the one I had. But other than that, there...

Before and After We had some friends staying with us this weekend so they could run in Color Me Rad here in Houston. In fact there was a total of 11 human bodies and one canine in my house over the weekend. I guess that might sound stressful to some people but it really doesn't phase me much at all. The only thing I'm concerned with is that everyone has a place to sleep and clean towels for the shower. Other than that I don't make any promises as far as feeding or entertaining. We just make it up as we go and it usually turns out to be a pretty fun time for everyone. These color "races" (most are not a race but a charity fun run) were inspired by the Holi Festival in India which I have longed to see since I first learned about it years and years ago. I was held back by the fact that it takes place in India, which is not really convenient for me, and also I'm not Hindu. Then one day I ran across a color run website on the internet but never lived in an a...