I was bummed to learn that one of my favorite shows, Garfunkel & Oates, was not renewed for a second season. I feel like the clever shows get canned in favor of shitty reality tv shows (and yes, Real World Skeletons is included in that because even though I watched it I know it’s not a good show). But maybe this is a blessing in disguise because in some ways I’m getting tired of being hooked on TV. Life might be more fun if I was able to cut the cord so to speak.
And this couldn’t come at a more poignant time since Joe’s super duper ridiculously cheap cable benefits end soon. Initially we were planning on just cancelling all the extras like the movie channels and additional boxes/DVRs, but now I think it’s best that after this season’s shows go on hiatus, we get rid of cable altogether.
We’ve been mighty spoiled over the years, paying less than $50 per month for cable, internet, phone, and home security. I can’t even imagine what that costs to a regular subscriber and I don’t intend to find out. It’s been nice having so much for so little but there’s no way I want to be paying $150+ a month for all that. We recently purchased our own modem so we can return the one we had been getting free as there’s a rental fee for regular subscribers. We also got Magic Jack so the home phone service has already been cancelled.
My guess is by May we’ll only have internet and home security which is going to cost at least twice what we paid for everything with Joe’s discount. But it is what it is. Onward and upward!
Friday we headed to the mall to return a shirt I had gotten at Kohl’s recently since it had a hole in it.
We also stopped in FYE which we rarely do, but it’s fun to browse all the little pop culture figurines they sell there. It paid off too because I found some fun things on clearance that I bought for Brother # 1’s birthday next month.
This is from the movie, Ted, and be warned, the things he says in NSFW!
After that we went to Payless where I bought a pair of purple gym shoes (or sneakers, if you’re not a Midwesterner). They were only $18.75 after my coupon. They are very light and breathable which will be great once it warms up and we start going for our daily evening walks again.
We stopped at Hobby Lobby where I ended up getting a cute bouquet of multicolored silk flowers for $4 since they were all on sale for 50% off. I’ve been getting more into silk flowers lately because they are great inexpensive way to change up the decor.
Lastly, we stopped at Costco to pick up some staples. Fridays are the best day to visit Costco because it’s not busy but they still have the free samples. Score! We also came really close to walking out with a Samsung 4k TV.
We’ve been patiently looking at TVs for awhile now but can’t seem to pull the trigger. I love our plasma but now that Joe has been unable to fix the broken TV that was originally in our bedroom, we thought it would make sense to replace the one downstairs, move that into the bedroom, and then move the TV that’s currently in the bedroom back into the loft for gaming. I was ready to drop $1000 on the TV but after reading the Amazon reviews I’m not so sure that’s a great idea. I’m less concerned about it “only” being 60hz since nothing is broadcast in anything higher anyway, but people were complaining about how the light bleeds on the edges of the screen and even posted pictures. The thing I will say about our old outdated plasma is that the blacks are very black and I really have no complaints with the picture quality even though it’s not even 720p. But man, those 4k TVs look awesome, and owning a Samsung smart TV would be great. We could move the Chromecast upstairs, plus connect the Wii, PS3, Ouya, and Xbox 360 downstairs without having to switch HDMI ports all the time. Oh well… I’m sure we’ll find something eventually.
After dropping off our loot at home we headed south toward our old neighborhood to grab lunch at a Thai place I wanted to try. Then we killed some time by visiting the local animal shelter and looking at dogs. OMG the place smelled so bad! I’ve been to other shelters before, and this one smell-wise is the absolute worst. I do not recommend visiting it right after eating; it strongly smelled like shit and vomit and I almost puked.
The majority of the dogs there were either pitbulls or pitbull mixes. It was so depressing walking past rows and rows of kennels and seeing all the dogs get excited. They all had those pathetic puppy-dog eyes that tear at your heart strings. Eventually we came upon one kennel that housed a very large fluffy dog with the cutest face. He was very calm and friendly, licking my hand. I guessed he had to be a puppy from the way his fur looked, and sure enough he was only 10 months old. He was a beautiful Akita and St. Bernard mix. If we had a house with a yard we might have actually adopted him. I couldn’t stop going back to his kennel to pet him. Poor guy. The good news is I’m sure he’ll be adopted. I can’t imagine no one will want him. Unfortunately I can’t say the same for all the dogs there. :(
We killed more time by visiting the pet store and the local library before it was finally time to pick up E for the weekend. Joe and E wanted Dunkin Donuts iced coffee, so we hit the drive-thru before picking up a pizza we had ordered a half hour earlier. I never get anything when they go to DD, but I did try Joe’s drink and now I’m in love with the vanilla swirl iced coffee. Holy crap is it good! They recently added a bunch of ice cream flavors to their iced coffee offerings. I’m wondering how it would taste if I got it decaffeinated with almond milk to protect my sensitive stomach. I plan to try it one of these days.
Once we got home and ate dinner we let E stream YouTube videos to the Chromecast and then watched a movie.
Organizing feels good and I’ve been doing a lot of it lately. Last week I rearranged our media downstairs so that our most frequently played board games are now on the tv shelf and the video games are stored inside our audio tower since we play the board games more often.
Yesterday I spent a decent portion of the day organizing all our photographs into these boxes I bought at Target for $10 per box.
I managed to get them all into two boxes which means I can return the third box. Score!
When I went into the master bedroom closet to put them away, I decided to reorganize in there a bit. I was able to consolidate stuff which freed up two storage boxes that I put to use this morning by organizing the PS2 & Xbox controllers with one, and all my candles in the other. That in turn prompted me to reorganize the hall closet where all the candle-related stuff is stored.
I also have a collection of colored marbles I use to switch up our decor (for instance, now that Valentines Day is over I switched from red to purple). I found some marbles given to me as gifts that I never use and can’t see ever using so I packed them up and added them to my pile of jeans that I plan on donating to Savers tomorrow.
I’m also giving my cousin some unwanted picture frames and a photo album. I love to purge! Ok, that didn’t sound right, but you know what I mean.
After checking the weekend forecast, and seeing a blizzard was heading our way, we crammed all our errands into Saturday. We started the morning with a stop at McDonald’s for breakfast and then went to the Chocolate Expo at the Morton Arboretum. I only found out about it a week prior when one of the vendors who I happen to follow on Facebook mentioned they would be there. We got there at 9 am when it started so it wasn’t too crowded. I did kick myself, however, for getting McDonald’s when I saw that their restaurant was serving breakfast and had my favorite, eggs benedict. Oh well.
The place quickly got crowded and by the time we left an hour and a half later you could barely get close enough to a booth to garner a free sample. Interestingly enough, the only thing I ended up buying was toffee. I don’t even like toffee, but this stuff was really good (we tried a sample when we first arrived).
Next we headed to Petco so I could get a new hammock for Milo and Gizmo since they weren’t using their new one (and of course before I could switch them, they suddenly decided to start using it, grrr) and then Costco for a few things. After that we stopped at the library to pick up a couple of holds that were waiting for me. I got this book which was super cute and made me laugh. I also got a few back issues of my favorite magazine, ShopSmart. I just learned this week that you can put magazines on hold so I plan to catch up on all the issues I missed during the holidays since they are never available. You can only read the most current issue since that one isn’t allowed to be checked out.
After the library we also stopped at Walmart and nixed Target. I was just done with running around at that point.
That evening we ended up watching Gone Girl and I was reminded again how much I hated the ending; it was the same as the book since the author wrote the screenplay. I loved the book so much when I read it years ago but felt the ending was a big cop-out. That’s all I will say lest I spoil it for someone.
Sunday we slept in and just hung out watching tv and reading while it snowed. When all was said and done there was 19″ of snow on the ground although it doesn’t look like that much from this photo I took.
I read that this weekend’s storm was the 5th worst in Chicago history. I guess it’s hard to feel affected when you’re holed up inside the entire time, though.
Due to the weather Joe worked from home today and I just went about my normal Monday cleaning routine. I’m so glad I didn’t have to worry about trying to get to work. I’ve been lucky this winter that all the bad weather seems to be falling on my days off.
My four day weekend is going quite well so far. After work yesterday I stopped at El Famous Burrito to snag some $1 steak tacos for dinner since Joe was having dinner with E. I watched some more episodes of The Carrie Diaries on Netflix (so sad I’m almost done with this series!) and then cleaned all the rat cages.
This morning I got my butt out of bed at 7 am, worked out on the elliptical for 25 minutes, and after a shower and quick breakfast, headed over to Great Clips for a haircut. I lucked out because I was the first one there and I got the one girl who cuts my hair the way I like it (she normally doesn’t work on Fridays, I learned) and had her chop 4 inches off. My head definitely feels lighter now! She also flattered me by saying I look like Jennifer Aniston. She’s actually told me this before. I don’t see it, but I guess that’s good since Joe doesn’t find her particularly attractive. I was feeling good about my new look so I posted a selfie on Facebook (which I never do because I don’t think I photograph well) and was once again flattered by all the nice comments and likes I received. When I texted Joe my selfie, he wrote “Awww you’re so damn pretty” which really made my day. He’s always complimenting me. :)
I made a pit-stop at Aldi on the way home to look around and came home with fixings to make myself a yummy strawberry chicken salad for lunch today. I also grabbed some thin sliced pork chops so I can make them during the week.
After taking my second shower of the day (to get rid of all the loose hair from my cut), I started some laundry and took care of some financial stuff online. Now I’m searching for a rheumatologist so I can figure out what autoimmune disease I have. My guess is Undifferentiated Connective Tissue Disease. In any case, I’m not too worried since it’s not life-threatening.
I’m feeling happy and productive today. It’s the little things in life that make me smile, which is a good thing since most days nothing really major happens anyway.
