Friday, November 21, 2008

late at night

Horchata - it tastes like a holiday in a cup

I’m still on the laptop, grrrr, so I don’t have any graphic programs on here, except Paint.  Oh gawd, Paint is so awful.  Anyway, I dislike reading directions, so my cropped picture of the lovely Horchata drink is more artistic than it would be ordinarily.  Why the heck can’t Paint have a normal cropping feature?  I can do it in both Photo Impact & Photoshop, so shouldn’t Paint be even easier?  Well, it’s not.  So here, here’s my interesting crop of the Kern’s Horchata carton. 

Mmmmm, yummy.  I wish it didn’t have so many calories though.  I just lost like 15 pounds by, well, feeling nauseous and not eating much over the past few weeks, so I don’t want to spoil it by drinking up all of my calories.  I wish the lost 15 pounds were off of my normal average, but alas, they’re off my highest weight ever.  Gross, man.  It’s like the Michelin Man invaded my body, only my tires aren’t so nice, even, and rock hard.  Blech.  You know why poor people are fat?  Because almost all the food that’s good for you costs more - fresh fruits & veggies.  Leaner meats, seafood, bottled water, all more pricey than Hungryman dinners, soda or Kool-Aid packets, etc.  Have you ever priced out the good for you cereals?  Generally $4.50+, and the crappy full of sugar/no fiber cereals - $2.  My favorite Fiber One cereal (when you take pain meds, you want fiber, believe me) used to be fairly cheap at Wal-Mart, which is where we bought it for months.  Then, all of a sudden, the price practically doubled overnight.  I don’t know if you’ve all noticed the higher prices at the grocery store, but it’s kind of scary how much stuff costs now...even at Wal-Mart.  Actually, you have to be careful if you’re shopping at Wal-Mart thinking that all of their prices are lower than your regular grocery store.  Some stuff, mostly the non-edible stuff like cleaning products & such, costs more at Wal-Mart.  Also, Albertsons, which used to be our regular grocery store (and originally, our only grocery store nearby, when our neighborhood was still the boonies and full of empty lots and quiet streets - I miss those days) is more expensive than Smith’s, which doesn’t make any sense because Smith’s usually has a better variety of products.  Of course, no store has everything you want/need, it always has to be spread out amongst three or four different stores.  Wal-Mart has a new tasty and convenient product - Jell-O Instant Pudding Singles.  It’s like the drink singles, you just pour it into the milk, stir, wait five minutes, and you’ve got perfectly lovely chocolate pudding.  At Wal-Mart, they have chocolate (regular & sugar-free) & vanilla (regular & sugar-free), but I’m sure Jell-O will eventually add new flavors once everyone starts buying up this fabulous new product. (Hint! - go.buy.now!) Anyway, we do our usual shopping at Smith’s, and they don’t carry ANY of the pudding singles.  We had to go to Albertsons (there’s no apostrophe in the name, for some weird reason) last week to get lamb for the stew Leigh-Ann was making, and Smith’s didn’t have the lamb either.  However, Albertsons had the lamb and vanilla pudding singles, but not chocolate.  It’s not like they were out of the chocolate, there wasn’t even a space for chocolate on the shelf.  Why?  Wouldn’t chocolate be more popular?  Or, at least 50/50?  So they had both sugar-free and regular vanilla, instead of carrying regular chocolate & regular vanilla - there really aren’t that many calories/fat grams in a cup of pudding.  I’m not sure if Von’s carries any of the singles.  Also, Wal-Mart has several varieties of frozen edamame that you steam in the bag in the microwave.  Smith’s has none in their regular frozen vegetables section and one kind in their gourmet healthy food frozen section that’s on the other side of the store - also, it’s really expensive and the product isn’t as good as the much cheaper versions at Wal-Mart.  I don’t get it.  Do Wal-Mart shoppers really seem like they’d be more into edamame than supposedly higher end Smith’s shoppers?  Pudding, sure, I’d venture a guess that Wal-Mart customers would buy more pudding, but edamame?  No way.  So, this tells me that Smith’s should start stocking the Edamame Steamers.  Now!

Mmmmmmmmmm!

Monday, November 17, 2008

terribly early in the morning

Newspaper Mystery Shampoo/Conditioner

Did any of you get shampoo & conditioner packaged with your Saturday (or was it Friday?) newspaper?  They’re little bottles with big question marks on them.  You’re supposed to try them for two weeks and then you’ll swear that they’re way better than that fancy schmancy shampoo/conditioner that you pay through the nose for at the salon.  In two weeks, they’ll reveal the name of said mystery brand, so you can go to the store with your new coupon (I’m sure), which will appear in that day’s paper, and buy big ol’ bottles of the stuff.  I smelled both bottles (they smell good, by the way) and my guess is that they’re Pantene.  Considering that I don’t buy expensive shampoo, I’d be perfectly happy to buy the mystery brand if they give me the big ol’ coupon.  If not, I’ll continue to use my non-mystery Pantene that’s in the shower right now.  I’m not picky, it just has to smell good.  In general, my hair doesn’t require a whole lot of effort - the normal routine is wash hair, lightly towel dry hair, get out of shower, squirt some gel into my hand, rub it into my hair, make some spiking-like efforts for a few seconds, let air dry, done.

Right now, since we haven’t been able to afford to pay our hair stylist (let’s just say that she costs more than Supercuts, although she really is worth it), so I cannot do my hair properly.  I had to [gasp!], use a blowdryer to tame my unruly locks because it’s too long to let it dry by itself.  I have wavy hair that, when it’s not cut every 5-6 six weeks, will stick out in odd ways.  I hadn’t remembered how awful it was to do my hair when it’s too long, and the reality of the horribleness of it was making me contemplate cutting it short myself.  If I screwed up, which I’m sure I would have, it’s easy to hide with short hair all gunked up with product.  Our lovely stylist has taken pity on us, however, and is going to run a tab, so we can get our haircuts on Friday.  We hope to figure out how to make it up to her until we can afford to pay her all that we owe her.

Sunday, November 09, 2008

late evening

Oh Noes, Our Cold Stone Creamery Is Out Of Business!

Last week, I stopped by Cold Stone and one of our usual ice-cream dudes (not at ALL like “The First Dude”, as said ad nauseum by Greta Van Susteren, if you’ve seen that clip of her in Alaska) told me that the owner had owned two stores, but wasn’t able to sell this one, so it would be closing in a few weeks.  We stopped by there today because we had a couple of coupons and wanted to make sure we got to use at least one of them, since they’re not good at stores owned by other people.  There was a sign on the door that said, “50% off ice-cream & cakes, Saturday & Sunday”, and when we went in, they said that they thought today would be their last day open.  Although, if it was going to be their last day, you’d have thought the 50% off could’ve applied to the bigger take-home containers, but noooo.  So, we used our coupon anyway.  Granted, it’s probably best for us to not have such fabulous ice-cream close by, but I’d rather it was our decision, not hers.

I don’t think this bodes well for “Just Cupcake‘s, because if a fabulous ice-cream store can’t make it in that big shopping center, I don’t think a cupcake place has much of a chance.  The cupcake place opens on, of all days, Veteran’s Day.  When you think of veterans, you automatically think of cupcakes, right?  Yeah.

Friday, November 07, 2008

the wee hours

Uh-Oh, It’s Candy Cane Kiss Season

They’re now out for the holidays and I’m going to have to fight off the urge to buy them constantly.  I’m already at my highest weight ever, and eating bags of candy cane kisses is not going to help.  I bought one bag, because I love them so.  But, no more bags, until maybe the end of the season when they’re half-price and I can safely put them in the freezer and not eat them all day long.  They’re soooo good, and I don’t even like white chocolate.

Wednesday, November 05, 2008

the wee hours

My Mom is a(n) FOB

My mom isn’t fresh off the boat (unless by fresh, you mean almost 70 years), but it’s my favorite new blog.  I love this new entry:

You tell ‘em, Momma!
By mmiaf | November 4, 2008
A story from a MMIAF reader:

“I recently explained to my mom what “Yes on 8″ meant since there are a lot of signs in our neighborhood. We also just had two gay weddings in the family. On Thursday, at our neighborhood meeting, a woman running for a Senate seat in our district asked if we wanted a “Yes on 8″ sign for our lawn. I respectfully turned it down, but then my mom laughed and said loudly, “We cannot take! Our family has the gay!”

Sadly, the idiotic California Proposition 8 initiative to “protect marriage” might win - they’re still counting the votes.  Apparently, heterosexuals are afraid that if we’re allowed to get married, somehow it’ll affect their marriage.  Perhaps they just ought to quit thinking about “the gay” all the time.  I don’t spend my time and money trying to stop bigots from marrying.  Or, maybe we should to try to change the constitution to prevent marriages between bigots, because they get married and fill the country with baby bigots.  Or, maybe we should change the constitution to criminalize divorce - wouldn’t that be a better “protection” of marriage?

It’s nice that we can elect a black man to be the President of the United States, but several states passed laws banning gay marriage...and one state passed a law banning adoption by unmarried couples, straight or gay.  I guess there always has to be someone they can legally hate.  They were only trying stop “the gays” from adopting, but the courts said that was discrimination, so they’re going after the straight unmarried couples now, too, just to make sure gay couples can’t adopt.  I sure hope all of those people who voted for it are adopting every single kid in their state who doesn’t have a family, because otherwise, how could they live with themselves?  Denying homes to kids, just because the voters don’t want gay parents.