The Gibsons

Last night’s Oscar party kicked ASS. It was so much fun! Thrown by PRIDE, it was at the Allentown BrewWorks. All the tables were movie-themed with swag bags and movie memorabilia, and there were signed movie posters (Amanda Seyfried is from Allentown, did you know? So was the guy who won for Short Documentary) and a raffle for $650 worth of gift cards (we bought 40 tickets) and a silent auction (we were outbid). The awards were shown on this big screen:

There’s just something about hearing Gabourey Sidibe discussing her “money shot” on a giant projection screen.

We also got to guess our movie picks.

I expected Avatar to win more than it did, though I am extremely happy that the Hurt Locker won most of them. I loved the Hurt Locker. What a beautiful movie.

Delicious food, complimentary Oscar cocktails of the pink variety, and lots of fun people who we really enjoyed getting to know (including many members of the Board). It was my first night tweeting and I had fun with that. And then of course there was the time we won the big raffle prize of the basket of gift cards.

It was after midnight at this point so I was tired and twirled us up in the aforementioned 40 raffle tickets we’d bought. We had numbers 503 through 542, and the winning number was squarely in the middle. It was awesome.

As I’m sure the donors intended, the gift  cards and such are intriguing and will force us out into the community. For example, we have a gift card to Shula’s Steakhouse, so now we will go there for Gibby’s birthday dinner on Wednesday. And there’s a gift card to Diamonz, which means that – oh hell yes – we’re going to do some karaoke! And stuff like Amazon and Borders and all that beautiful stuff.

All in all, it was fantastic and I enjoyed it. Today was nothing special at all, except for the joyous time I had mailing taxes. What a beautiful day it will be when we get our deposit from the new home-buyer tax credit!

It has been several days since I posted! Since then, much has happened. We:

• Went to DC to visit Gibby’s grandma and have an early-birthday celebration for Gibby
• Got a stand-freezer for the basement so we can finally stock up on stuff
• Discovered we can’t utilize the coupon savings as much as we’d hoped since we don’t buy a lot of processed foods
• Went to another PRIDE meeting (well, this was just me) and acquired the awesome job of running the official twitter
• Probably some other stuff but I can’t remember now.

In a minute I’m going to start getting ready to get dressed because we’re heading out to the PRIDE Oscar Party! It should be a LOT of fun. It’s at a restaurant in Allentown, so with our ticket we get food, drinks, entertainment, raffles, a silent auction, and of course we get to watch the awards on big screens. I am excited. It beats sitting on my couch in my PJs watching it by myself!

I have always always clipped coupons. When I was in middle school I’d clip them from the Sunday paper for my mom, and she probably didn’t even use them but I still enjoyed it. Over the past couple of years I’ve been sporadic because I haven’t always gotten the Sunday paper. Right now we’re attempting to subscribe, but it came for two weeks and then stopped, and we have no idea why. So. But anyway. I’ve always been good and shopped sales and used coupons but I never really planned for it. It was just kind of like, “OH good, the shampoo I like is on sale today! Hooray!”

Then my friend Danielle posted a picture on Facebook of how she got like a bajillion dollars worth of groceries for $50. And then I heard stories of people combining coupons and sales so that they’re actually getting the item for free. I’d heard about The Grocery Game but didn’t feel like paying. But then recently, I found some blogs that list all the sales and coupons and magical combinations to get things for free, or for less than a dollar, or just as incredible savings. And so now I have a plan.

First step is clipping coupons from the paper and printing them from coupons.com. Then I’ve made some index cards for the major stores (Giant, Target, Walgreens, CVS, ‘other’ [Wegmans doesn't really do sales as much]). I will go through the blogs on my Google Reader (just learned how to use that!) and list off the items I want to buy, along with the matching coupons and expiry dates. And I’m going to take my coupon book in my purse from now on so I won’t miss out on an opportunity. Will it work? I don’t know. I’m not used to buying when things are on sale. I’m more used to just buying when we’re running out of whatever it is. It seems like a good time since we just bought a big stand freezer to put in the basement that is getting delivered on  Friday, so this way we’ll be able to stock up on things. Hooray!

In case you’re curious, the websites I’ve been reading the most so far are:

A Thrifty Mom

Who Said Nothing in Life Is Free?

Wegmans – Organic Grocery Deals

Thrifty and Chic Mom

There seem to be more resources for southern chains, like Albertsons and Publix, but I’m trying! I notice they are mostly for moms. I am such a 40 year old woman sometimes. But you know what? I don’t care because hopefully I am going to save a lot of money and that is good for everyone.

As you may or may not know, I have been doing 101 Goals since last August. Now that we’re at the 6-month mark, I am re-evaluating some of the goals. I’m making good progress on some (I have accomplished 25 goals and another 19 are in progress!), but there are some that are just NOT going to happen. I am publicly stating this so it doesn’t appear I am cheating by switching my goals.

The goals I will be eliminating/replacing are:

2. Attend a cast party at a professional theater production. – Because my opportunities to do so have been thwarted due to the early closing of an acquaintance’s play in DC.

5. Get Lasik eye surgery. – Because I am not a candidate in the near future since my prescription has recently changed.

30. See Toxic Avenger: The Musical in NYC with Tim. – Because the show has relocated to Toronto and was way too expensive for a Troma adaptation anyway.

38. Receive candy bars from the Steeles. – Because by now, they are stale.

45. Earn a pewter beer stein from Porter’s Pub for drinking all 60 beers (1/60). – Because I don’t drink alcohol anymore.

A couple of them have been revised, as well. Most are small changes that I won’t bother noting here, but an example is number 75: Spontaneously go to the Forks Diner late at night. I am going to change it to say, “a diner” and not the Forks Diner, because it turns out that Forks closes at like 8:00.

So. I am going to replace these goals with new, equally valuable, measurable goals. I will do another review in 6 months. Some of the current goals seem like they will not be happening, but there’s no clear reason why so I am not going to replace them yet. Assuming there won’t be an opportunity is not a good enough reason to abandon the goal. I doubt we’ll ever make it out to Oregon (Goal 31) but you never know, so it stays. Same goes for Jersey, since well… it’s Jersey. But who knows? Still 2 years to go on this project.

New goals include reading memoirs, organizing said books, creating/updating wills & living wills, hosting an Avon party, and visiting local attractions. What do you think?

More snow.

I know I haven’t updated for the past few days. I have been tired and busy and stressed out. I have been taking my pictures for Project 365 though. They are irrelevant to this post, but they are safely filed on my computer, so no worries. I’m on Day 200-something. 206 I think? Whatever.

So. Today. More snow. What was billed as the “snow hurricane” ended up not being so bad… except for my part of town I guess? We got a good two feet. When I woke up this morning, we had not even remotely been plowed out and the road was this bizarre tundra of white. I called out of work, put on some crappy clothes, and went outside to play with Emma!

(She helped me make snow angels.)

Of course I played some Sims 3, and I finished my progress notes for the month of February, and I cleaned the oven. I even made some ice cream – another notch on the 101 Goals. But perhaps the most exciting was my foray into a new hobby: scrabble tile pendant-making.

I have an enormous supply of magazine clippings. I have always clipped out things from magazines – pictures, random patterns that  I like, articles, whatever – and stored them in accordion folders and binders for some bizarre use in the future. Hoarding? No. Organization. So I kept seeing people selling pendants made out of Scrabble tiles on Etsy. It seemed like the perfect thing to do with some of my smaller magazine clippings. I googled how to do it and used these instructions. And…. it worked out AWESOME.

I only made a few test ones so far because I wanted to test them out. You can bet your ass I’ll be making hundreds of these things. You can bet you’ll be getting some for your birthday or Christmas, too. Easy, inexpensive, fun, and PRETTY! I need to attach the backings to them and then they can easily be interchangeable on a chain. I’m going to make some into pins and some into magnets, too. I am very excited. If you decide to do these yourself, you really do have to buy the Diamondglaze. It makes them look crazy-professional and shiny. Love it.

I also won another giveaway. It’s my fourth one. You think I’m silly for entering all these giveaways online? Four in the past few weeks. That’s pretty spiffy. I got the artwork, a children’s cooking set, a homemade hairpin, and today I won a copy of The Namesake, which I have been wanting to read forever. Freaking sweet.

Oh and last night we watched Man on the Moon and then watched every Andy Kaufman video that was on Youtube to match it up to scenes in the movie. Holy crap. It was awesome.

And that was my day.

Well, it didn’t snow. Remember yesterday when I said I was hoping the snow wouldn’t prevent me from seeing my Tuesday clients? Well. I made it to my first client. And then I made it to my second client. And a meeting. And more. But by 4:00 the rain was turning slushy, and by 5 it had turned to hail and ice.My partner and I determined it was too unsafe to continue driving around, especially if we’d be leaving our last client at 7-ish, so we canceled and went home.

Gibby said I couldn’t get a good picture of the hail, and he’s right but I tried. These are the back steps, from the kitchen out to the patio. All of the little white dots on the black mat? Hail. Bouncing. As I took the picture. It was EVERYWHERE and we’ve been hearing this little tinkling on the roof all night. It’s finally stopping. I am hoping it will be ok tomorrow because I have a doctor’s appointment at 10, but my first client isn’t until 3 so if we need some time for ice and such to melt then that’s acceptable. As long as it doesn’t cut into my work. Perhaps I am a workaholic.

Because Gibby did not go to class and thus was home, we were able to watch Lost when it aired (and not at 10:40 when Gibby typically gets home on Tuesdays). An exceptional episode indeed!

There are days when I question my career path. Days when I don’t see progress with my clients, I wonder if I should have been a teacher or an interior designer or a chef or a…. anything. And then I have a day like today and realize that I picked the right path. Only a therapist would be excited to have purchased these:

This is a Kimochi doll! It is the cutest thing in the world, soft as a pillow, and comes with all these little emotion-people. Kids can pick out which emotion they are feeling and tuck it in the doll’s tummy. It helps them to be able to identify what they are feeling and express it. EDIT: Emma HATES the doll and is barking at it.

And this is an art therapy workbook! I can’t believe I found it at Uncommon Goods. I’m going to make copies of the pages. It covers all kinds of stuff. Art therapy is great for kids.

I never really expected to be working with kids, honestly. I started out wanting to be a school guidance counselor, and then I switched to hospice work and gerontological social work. But then I switched back to counseling when I realized that the hospice world is quite corrupt (at least in the Boston area). I always intended to be working with teenagers. This is why I did my internship at a high school. I’m still working with teenagers in my current job, but also with a lot of kids. Our cases range from… let’s see. Ages 4 to 17? Plus parents and such. So I have to find new tools! Hence my acquisition of these fun new things! Hooray!

When I got home today,  I attempted to exercise. It is hard to do Jillian’s Shred with a sprained ankle. I did the crunches and weights and stuff, and half-assed the cardio so I wouldn’t  move my ankle around too much. It’s still bruisy and sore. The best part of it though is that I got these weights at Target last week (see, I’m proving that I can exercise!) and they look an awful lot like one of Emma’s favorite toys. Which, incidentally, I had been using as a weight before I got the real ones. So it should come as no surprise that, during my exercising, Emma picked up one of the weights (2 lbs!) and carried it across the room and sat down to chew on it. Silly puppy.

We also got a humidifier finally. I am doing everything my ear/nose/throat doctor said to do and it is helping a lot. I plan to pursue the deviated septum surgery at some point but right now I’m glad all of this is helping me.

And, as a final thought: It is snowing. Again. If I have to cancel my Tuesday clients because of snow – again – I am going to freak OUT!

The Sims has always been one of my favorite  computer “games.” I like to build houses and decorate and make people go to jobs and wash their hands and make pancakes. I’ve had every version of it, and I got the Sims 3 last summer when it was released. But my laptop couldn’t handle it, and it ran sooooo slooooowwww on Gibby’s laptop, so I just never bothered to play it.

Now that I have inherited Gibby’s old desktop, we’ve installed it on there. Oh! My! Glorious! I didn’t even realize the things the game could do because I always got so frustrated that I’d stop after I made a new Sim. I never really got to play. So today was a lot of fun. I had a nice, relaxing day playing Sims 3. Now I am downloading some custom content because I am crazy like that and LOVE to add custom content. We’re also going to be acquiring the expansion packs. HOORAY!

So this is my new stress reliever. I am excited to have rediscovered this wonderful creation.

I don’t know who the artist is, but paintings of celebrities (like Kramer, featured above) were hanging up all over Blue Sky Cafe, where we went to dinner tonight. I loved it and took a picture. I did not, however, try to buy it because it was $450 and I just can’t justify that. Besides, we spent like $100 at Target earlier on things like seagrass baskets and a new showerhead.

So we went to dinner because Nancy came to visit! My mother-in-law may be crazy, but I love her to pieces. I really do. And I’m so happy about that. I know so many people who have horrible in-laws and I am grateful that I have such an awesome lady as mine! Emma was super-excited and went crazy. We took her to Petco and searched for a new bed (failed) and then Gibby, Nancy, and I went to eat in Bethlehem.

I went to Blue Sky Cafe once with Vicky on a lunch break and it was excellent, so I decided it would be a good place to take Nancy. Especially since she loves Bethlehem. I had some portobello sliders with smoked gouda and it was a wonderfully happy experience. I like that restaurant.

Today I am at Day 200 of my Project 365. WOW!