Category: Shopping

January 2023 Recap

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Egg prices were outrageous. $7.50 for two dozen at Costco which is considered a deal.

Discovered the Unsolved Mysteries podcast and started binge-listening like a mofo.

Put my Robert Smith Funko Pop on my Cure shelf above my computer desk.

Bitched on Facebook about the fact that you cannot add McDonald’s Arch Card to their mobile app for payment. So stupid!

Made cream cheese strudel for breakfast one day and dare I say it, was tastier than any stupid coffee cake you can buy at the store.

Found the cutest and comfiest slippers on clearance at Walmart ($6 each).

Started tracking my sleep with my Apple Watch in an effort to prioritize it. Gamifying life is the way to go!

Made zucchini bread with walnuts that made me question why I do not make it more often as it’s delicious!

Finished, and started, a few TV series:

Finished Better Call Saul. Final season was a bit of a slog.

Started three new series:

That 90’s Show (Netflix) – 7/10 – Love the nostalgia factor & the one girl reminds me of Alana from Broad City

The Last of Us (HBO Max) – 6/10 – Olivia from Fringe is in it. Based off a PlayStation video game

Night Court (Peacock) – 7/10 – Bernadette from Big Bang Theory is the judge & John Larroquette reminds me of an old Billy Eichner. Loved watching the original when I was at my grandparents house.

Culver’s ruined my day, and all future trips, by switching rom Pepsi to Coke in all their restaurants. Coke is too sweet and rips up my stomach so it’s a sad day that yet another restaurant only serves Coke products. I normally do not get soft drinks when dining out anyway, but the kids meal at Culver’s comes with one and I looked forward to a little Pepsi with my burger. I refuse to buy soda for at home when a case of 12 is $8 and you used to be able to get a case of 24 for $5!

The main tv in our living room (a Samsung 55″, which we got in June 2015) developed the purple spots of death meaning we’ll need to replace it relatively soon depending on how quickly the rest of the backlit LEDs burn out (or how much it starts to annoy me seeing a purple cast on everything). So far it’s just in two spots along the top and left side so they aren’t always noticeable.

Discovered our new favorite ice cream brand – Favorite Day by Target. All the flavors we’ve tried thus far are delicious (Cookie Dough, Peanut Butter Fudge, and Mint Cookies & Cream). Didn’t think to check the ingredients until the third container, only to realize there’s high fructose corn syrup in them. No wonder! Will probably still get it, but won’t go as hard on them moving forward.

Finally added Wish to my vinyl collection. It’s a re-issue that I preordered from my new favorite record store, Mile Long Records. The prices are a bit higher than you’d pay on Amazon or Walmart, but I like supporting a local business and it’s owner, Mike, is really nice.

Decided to stop spending hours every night scrolling TikTok and get back into reading instead. Set a goal of 24 books this year and was ahead of schedule after reading 4 books in January alone. Since my eyes suck and I’ve yet to get bifocals or progressives, I dusted off my old 2010 Kindle and started using that again. Other than needing to be charged more frequently than when it was new, it’s been great!

Birthday Weekend 2022

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Saturday (01/07) I wanted to do something for my birthday, so we visited the new location of the Lizzadro Museum of Lapidary Art.

Our first (and only visit) in 2014 was when it was housed in a very small building in Elmhurst. They moved to a new building in Oak Brook in 2019 so we were interested in visiting again. It’s really nice inside and since it had been so long since our last visit, most exhibits felt new even though they haven’t really added much to their collection outside of the special exhibit hall.

Even with taking our time and reading a lot of the placards, we were only there about an hour before we had seen everything. On the drive back we stopped at Disc Replay in Downers Grove. I’m glad I had opened my birthday gifts that morning before leaving because I found a copy of Season 8 of Scrubs at DR and would have gotten it if I hadn’t been given a brand new copy from Brother J. We left empty-handed and then picked up lunch from Egg Harbor in Wheaton (where I got the Door County Melt – my favorite dish on their menu).

I had placed a mobile order and since we arrived prior to pick-up time, we stopped in nearby Mile Long Records, which was surprisingly busy. The store isn’t very big, but they have a decent vinyl collection. They definitely have more new releases than old stuff, though, and the prices can be a bit higher than online, although at least you’re supporting a local business by shopping there. They had re-releases of several Cure albums, including Entreat, which I hemmed and hawed about buying for $35. I finally decided against it, but I know the owner can snag me a copy if I do end up changing my mind.

The rest of the day we just relaxed at home. As previously mentioned, I had opened my gifts earlier that day. Brother J had given me presents on Christmas Eve since he knew he wouldn’t see me for awhile. He got me a McDonald’s gift card, Seasons 5 & 8 of Scrubs to completely my collection, and Fever Pitch on DVD (although it’s the full screen version so I’m trying to find out whether the 3rd party seller on Amazon can exchange it for the widescreen edition).

Here’s what Joe got me.

(Body scrubber, Simple Modern drink tumbler, Cloud-shaped key station, coconut incense, and stretchy cable ties)

These were all on my wish list because he was burnt out trying to come up with ideas so soon after Christmas. That is definitely another drawback to having a birthday two weeks after Christmas. The key holder isn’t going to work how I envisioned, so I’ll be returning that.

Sunday (01/08) we went to Aldi for groceries and then stopped at Kohl’s to look at blankets. My cousin had sent me one last month that I really loved but ultimately returned once I learned it was dry clean only. They gave me merchandise credit which I was going to combine with the $5 Kohl’s cash Joe got for an Amazon return, but I really wasn’t liking the selection or prices. I found a black beanie on clearance for $4.80 so I used the Kohl’s cash on that since it was due to expire. Apparently the item is supposed to be over $5 so I got a talking to by the cashier (lol) but she gave it to me anyway.

We ordered pizza in the afternoon and spent the rest of the day relaxing. Honestly, leaving the house these days is tough. I’m not a fan of the general public and I hate the cold, so winter is the worst. I’m already dreaming about spring and being able to visit all the nature areas. It cannot get here soon enough!

Apple Watch

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It probably comes as no surprise that I ended up getting an Apple Watch.

Friday (12/16) Joe came home work and told me he had gotten some American Express gift cards, and between that and finally selling the coffee table he had restored over a year ago, it would cover the watch and I should get it. He wanted to surprise me, but he knew I wasn’t sure which one I wanted (SE or Series 8), nor what color/size case.

He mentioned Target had them on sale through Saturday the 17th which put me into a bit of a panic since I needed to make a decision quickly. Needless to say, I spent the entire evening looking at options and using the Apple Store app on my phone to compare the watch case to the Amazfit Bip 3 to get an idea of how it would look on my wrist.

I finally settled on this one:

Apple Watch Series 8 GPS 41mm Silver Aluminum Case with White Sport Band – S/M

Initially, I thought I wanted a black one, but I didn’t care for the fact that the midnight case isn’t truly black, but instead a very deep blue. I briefly considered the Starlight color, but I tend to wear cool tones, so silver seemed to match better and would be more versatile with different color bands.

As for size, I felt the 45mm one was a bit too large for me and would be heavier than the watch I was currently wearing. The 41mm one is 1 gram lighter. I excitedly ordered the watch and then had to painstakingly wait until Wednesday (12/21) for UPS to deliver it.

It arrived with a nearly dead battery so the first thing I did after letting it come to room temperature was charge it. Luckily, I was aware of the absence of a power brick, so I had ordered one from Amazon which, in a stroke of perfect timing, arrived a half hour after the watch did.

Small rant: I think it’s shitty of Apple to not include everything you need to actually charge the watch. Imagine buying the watch as a gift for someone and not knowing this. Here’s something you can’t use until you buy something else. It’s pretty presumptuous of them to think someone getting a watch already has the appropriate plug when they recently changed from lighting to USB-C. I owned exactly zero USB-C compatible plugs until now.

First Impressions

The silver case is even nicer looking than I pictured, as is the white sport band. White is not a color I ever really wear so I was kinda bummed I couldn’t get a black band, but I’m actually really digging the white after all.

It’s heavier than the Amazfit and hurt my arm at first. This is because the band has more heft to it. It also takes getting used to with the way it fastens and then loops back into the side of the band against your arm. Initially I really didn’t like that, but now that I’m used to how it feels it’s not bad, and the bonus is the band cannot not get caught on anything since there’s no exposed excess.

The screen quality is stunning and even though I chose the smaller case, I can see everything quite well even with my bad eyes (I need progressive lenses ASAP).

Pros

I love how easy it is to customize watch faces and switch between them on the fly. You can store a bunch of them in memory.

Watch faces are interactive & offer at least one, but usually many, Complications (Apple’s term for small interface elements that users place on the clock face). For instance, if you add a weather complication that shows the temperature, tapping on it with your finger will bring you to more detailed weather data.

Notifications are intelligent – if your iPhone is locked, notifications will only make noise/vibrate on your watch. If you’re actively using your phone, they won’t bother you on the watch since you’d see them there immediately.

You can make/answer calls from the watch.

You can control media from the watch such as Spotify, podcasts, YouTube, etc. although you cannot actually listen to that media directly from the watch’s speaker.

I can keep better track of my hydration with the water app I have installed. Spoiler alert – I never drink enough.

The Activity app helps motivate me to move around more during the day and exercise at a higher intensity in order to complete my goals.

Cons

Audible notifications on the watch all sound the same regardless of which app they come from (with the except of phone calls). I wish you could mirror the same sounds as the phone since some notifications are more time sensitive than others.

There’s no Complication for steps as Apple doesn’t think they are as important as how much overall activity you have per day. I really don’t like Apple telling me what to do. I have just gotten into step counting and don’t like I need to install a 3rd party app to see that information at a glance. Apple tracks it, but I have to click on Activity and scroll down to see my steps. That is obnoxious and the 3rd party app wasn’t syncing the data correctly, so I ended up uninstalling it.

Conclusion

Despite some of the frustrations I have, I really love this watch! It’s very functional, and looks great too.

Retail Therapy

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This weekend we decided to get out and do a little fun shopping which we haven’t done much of in the last few years. What I mean by that is we go out specifically looking for stuff to buy without an exact item in mind. Perfect places for this are used media stores, so we headed to an area that has both a Half Price Books and a Disc Replay within steps of one another.

Unfortunately we didn’t find much at either, but that’s to be expected since their inventory is always changing. The HPB by us is much bigger but our Disc Replay closed several years ago which is a shame as it’s really fun to browse there. They had two huge bins of Atari games that we rifled through, but no copies of Seaquest were found. I am well aware I can buy it on Ebay, but I like the thrill of the hunt. I’m still looking for seasons 5 & 8 of Scrubs as well. I found every single season except those two recently. What are the chances? We ended up with a $1 copy of The House Bunny but the entertainment value was worth much more.

I was craving soup on the way home so we stopped at Bulldog Alehouse to get a bowl of cream of chicken & rice. Despite it having a cheesy flavor, I really liked it. Price wasn’t bad either.

Gorillas & Monkeys on TV

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We don’t go shopping just to look for stuff very often anymore, but we were bored recently so on Saturday (08/20) we went to Half Price Books and actually found a few things.

I had no idea Donkey Kong for the Atari 2600 even existed so it was a cool find. Unfortunately, we were unable to test it out when we got home because my Atari (from my childhood in the mid 80’s) decided to stop working. But no worries – Joe did some research, ordered an Atari repair kit, and was able to bring it back to life!

This game is so lame haha!

DK looks more like Oogie Boogie than a gorilla, but I still think it’s cool to have the game. I added it to my collection. I still want to get SeaQuest and a few other games that I think my brother still has in the depths of my parents’ house, but no one can seem to find (Jungle Hunt, Keystone Kapers, and Pitfall).

We also saw Code Monkeys on DVD but I was leery about getting it as they wanted $8 and it said made in Mexico on the back. I checked Amazon and they were selling a new copy for $11 so I ordered that instead.

I hope they end up releasing the second season on DVD too. It’s so funny! You can stream it on Peacock if you want to check it out.

Saturday (08/27) we stopped at Kiss The Sky record store. I love that place! We didn’t end up buying anything, though. Saw some interesting things, though, including a Cure record which was really songs of side projects which I ended up listening to on Spotify. So glad I didn’t get it! I’m not against collecting stuff, but I’ve grown more intentional about what we bring into the house. I don’t want to end up with a ton of stuff that never gets touched.