Saturday I did a little cleaning around the house and spent a lot of time online trying to choose an iPhone case to no avail. Joe had to work a full day which is highly unusual and a huge bummer.
As a result, Sunday was quite busy! We started out our morning with a trip to Starbucks. I’m usually pretty good at filing away the deal emails I get from various companies but I wanted to check out Starbucks’ breakfast sandwiches since I’d get 50% off. Plus we had money on our Starbucks card thanks to a recent Groupon deal. I got bacon, egg, and cheese on a ciabatta roll and Joe got a vanilla latte and oatmeal. The total came to nearly $10 and Joe paid with our Discover because he’s silly. The sandwich was just ok and the oatmeal is what we can make at home so we won’t be doing that again.
Our next stop was our usual Sunday trip Target to grab some groceries. After coming home and putting the groceries away, I signed up for a Costco membership through Living Social and printed out the email so we could go redeem it. But before that, we headed over to the CSBarks Dog Festival to check out the Skydogz which we’ve seen at different festivals over the years.
I’m a bit disappointed in how my photos turned out because I had to take my filter off my lens as I’ve been a bit lazy lately and realized too late that it was filthy. It was super sunny out and while lots of light can help freeze the action, sometimes there’s too much of a good thing.
We also watching the dogs on the agility course, and this one in particular was cracking me up because he’s got the cutest expression.
He was a bit too focused on what his owner was doing, as you can see here.
He kept getting distracted because he wasn’t focused on the course. It was adorable.
By the time we left the festival we were feeling pretty hungry so we stopped at a place across the street called Bulldog Alehouse for cheap boneless wings. Their garlic Parmesan ones are the best, but we also ordered Caribbean jerk because we thought we liked those too (thought wrong, although Joe didn’t mind them as much as I did).
After lunch we finally made our way over to Costco to complete our membership. We had toured Costco once years ago but concluded it wasn’t worth it for us. This time around we figured we’d give it a shot since the $55 membership included a $20 Costco card and a free rotisserie chicken and pie which I believe is a total value of about $30. So as long as we save $25 or more we’re golden.
Of course no sooner than walking through the showroom were we seriously contemplating dropping $1800 on a TV. No ordinary TV, though, but a Samsung 55″ Ultra HD TV with a curved screen and the most beautifully realistic picture I’ve ever seen. The photos on their site can’t possibly do the TV justice. You have to see it in person.
We’ve been wanting a new TV for awhile now but keep putting it on the back-burner because it’s not like our current TV sucks or anything. In fact, even though it’s not full HD (it’s not even 780p but half that, believe it or not), it’s a plasma with a great picture and we’re pretty happy with it. Until we saw the Samsung that is. But being the responsible people we are we decided to do some research before making such a large purchase, and after about 10 minutes pull ourselves away from the TV to tour the rest of the store.
Incidentally, after checking the reviews for the TV at Amazon I’m not entirely sold on buying it. I get the feeling the picture only looks awesome on blue-ray movies and the like and regular TV might look crappy on it. Plus a reviewer remarked that if you turn on the up-scaling function for regular TV then the sound doesn’t work. If that’s true that’s a serious issue and I definitely don’t want to drop a ton of money on a TV until that is fixed.
Joe found some vodka and beer for a good price, as well as some granola bars. We also grabbed some oatmeal and bottled water. Most of the fresh foods weren’t a bargain for us because there’s no way we’d eat through the enormous portions before the food spoiled. I could see how great they’d be for a large family, though. Oh, and not everything was a bargain either, but I’m sure you’d find that at any store.
In total I estimate we saved between $10-$15 on our trip and our total was $80 before using the $20 card our new membership came with. And it’s a good thing we had that card because no one told us that Costco doesn’t take credit cards! We don’t have a debit card on our main checking account (too susceptible to theft) and Joe’s debit card on his small checking account wasn’t working for some reason. Luckily between the two of us we had just enough cash to pay for our purchase and avoid total embarrassment. We have money, I swear, LOL! Guess it’s a good thing we didn’t try and buy that TV after all. ;)
After that fiasco we tried to get Costco gas for my car but Joe’s debit card still wouldn’t work so we gave up and went to Speedway. If we want to continue shopping there we’re probably going to apply for their Costco credit card since neither of us carries much cash and we don’t want to attach a debit card to our main checking account.
By the time we made it home it was after 3 pm and I threw some chicken in the crockpot and started processing my photos from earlier in the day. Around 5-ish I realized we should start giving the rats their mite treatment in order to be done in time for the Bears game at 7:20. Joe had to help hold them while I applied the medicine. They are squirmy and do not like sitting still and you have to get the medicine on their skin which requires blowing on their fur to expose their skin. At the same time I had to bleach everything in their cages as well as the cages themselves, and remove all bedding and wash it to kill any possible mites and/or eggs which cannot be seen by the naked eye. Then we moved everything out of the room and I shampooed the carpeting too since mites could be hanging out there as well.
When all was said and done it was 8 pm, our loft was a mess (because that’s were all the cages and furniture were being temporarily stored) and we hadn’t even eaten dinner yet. I got to work on making some fried rice and by 8:30 pm we were finally eating.
Today I spent most of the day doing rat laundry (I had to wash even the clean fleece I had stored in the room in case it had mites on it) and cleaning the house in general. I also got the rat room back in order since the rug dried overnight. Now I’m pooped and it’s nearly 8 pm and Joe is still stuck at work. I’ll be really happy when things calm down at his work because I’m starting to feel like I’m single and I don’t like it. Even though yesterday was a busy day it was the best day I’ve had in over a week because I got to spend it with him.
