The State of Shopping

Hubby and I went out shopping yesterday and saw the following things...

Our local 99 Cent Store is pretty bare.  They are supposed to close in June but I think they will be completely out of inventory much sooner than that. 

And as we were checking out of said store, we noticed a lady that had apparently changed shoes and walked out of the store without paying for her new shoes (notice the tag still on the side of the shoe. Also notice hubby's big finger in the way when he took the picture!).  As the 99 Cent Store CEO noted, one of the reasons they are going out of business is because of unprecedented levels of theft!  smh

Then hubby wanted KFC so we stopped by to pick up a 2-piece meal for him and noticed the other two specials and noted one was probably for people who couldn't do math!

Then we headed to Best Buy and I picked up a couple of sale items as I want to revamp my computer/monitor/entire work-from-home set up.  I am buying all sale items since I hate to pay full price for anything and while I used to buy a lot of stuff from Amazon, these days buying things on Amazon is very much hit or miss.  Some prices are good, many prices are now higher than regular retail stores, and you ever know when you will get used/broken/counterfeit items.

Finally, hubby gave me $500 and said 'buy whatever you want' since my birthday is coming up this week.  I always spend my money carefully, buy what is needed (especially if it is on sale), pay bills, or just put it in savings.  This time, however, I splurged and bought a stupid expensive backpack for our trip later this year.  When we travel, I always pack everything in one backpack so I, #1 felt like splurging on myself for once, #2 figured that even if the bag was expensive I would still save a lot of money not paying for baggage fees for our trip, and #3, get to experience the "Holy Grail" of backpacks.  I'm still waiting for its arrival and I hope I like it (if not, back it goes!).

I hope you are having a wonderful weekend!

10 Things for This Week

In no particular order...

1. The solar eclipse, which a large swath of the country will be able to view, will happen on Monday.
2. April 15th is Tax Day (as well as the deadline for several other tax payments).
3. April 20th will be the first day of National Parks Week as well as a free entrance day to the National Parks.
4. In sad news, the 99 Cent Store chain that we love to shop at is closing all of their stores.  Although they have raised their prices and not everything was 99 cents anymore, they did have several items we bought regularly which were much cheaper than at regular stores.  Bummer :(
5. Here is info on the huge Walmart class-action settlement.
6. For you older, sporty folks, you have 473 days left to get into shape for the National Senior Games!
7. In running news, this is the first year that a female completed the Barkley Marathons, the 3100 mile (!) Sri Chinmoy race is coming up in late summer, and for those of you looking for something a bit less challenging, you can find all kinds of cool races here.
8. For the next couple weekends, I will be doing some annual trainings with our community CERT team.  This is always an interesting and informative (and free!) experience.  You can find info on your local CERT team here.
9. I will also be doing some walks with my local walking club.  You can find info on walking clubs near you here.
10. I love historical...everything!  Old houses, old photos, old books, old videos, etc.  Here are some cool historical photos.

Sunrise

Love the beautiful sunrises we get here!

Cats

This is how the cats show up asking for food pretty much every morning...

Happy Easter!

I hope you all are having a wonderful Easter!  In other news...

• It's snake season in Vegas...eeeekkk
• They are taking applications for...astronauts!
• Speaking of astronomical things, the solar eclipse will take place next week.  If you can't see it where you live, you can always watch it here online.
• Also coming up in a couple of weeks, Tax Day.  Here are some unusual tax deductions.

Happy Holy Week!

Although we don't do much for Holy Week (hubby hasn't been in a Catholic church for more than 40 years), it is a big deal to some of our friends.  Today is Palm Sunday and next Sunday will be Easter (again, we don't really do anything for this holiday as the kids and grandkids are all far away).  

Here is the mommy cat...

I probably jinxed myself when I raved about the warm weather because the cold and clouds rolled in today...

And I have no idea what to make about the Princess Kate situation.  Some people are saying her cancer video was made by AI.  I looked at other examples of AI-generated videos and I am shocked at how real they are!  Examples here and here.  If these are glimpses of the future, I don't like it :/

Tonight is the full moon (worm moon) and there will also be a lunar eclipse.  I'm definitely going to check it out this evening/early morning!

Finally, here are 30 frugal tips.

10 Things From This Week

It's been a busy week...

1. Hubby took the last lemon off the tree and boy was it a big one!  It's about four times bigger than the other lemons we got from the tree.
2. The cat had kittens.  We don't know where she hid them or how many there are but she was huge and antsy one day and the next morning she came by the eat and was much, much thinner than the day before.  Hopefully she will bring them by when they are bigger.
3. The Princess Kate mystery is solved.  What a PR nightmare this whole situation was (better to say nothing then tell a lie then try to cover that lie up with additional lies!).  At least now people will give her as much time as she needs to take care of herself without wild theories being bandied about.  Such a sad thing for her and her family to face :(
4. I got my first performance review at work and apparently all of the Board members had nice things to say.  Since I have always worked for myself, I had never had a performance review before so it was very nice reading about what people think about me (whether I am dealing with state officials, or the very youngest and newest people in our organization, my goal is to make their workloads easier and apparently it is paying off!).  I can't believe I have been working this job for nearly a year--time flies!
5. Here are some good tips for computer users (I do nearly all of these things and so far, so good!).
6. The weather in Las Vegas is perfect now.  While last week was cold and raining, this week it is mid 70s with a slight breeze...wonderful!
7. On the flip side my allergies are kicking up something awful.  Spring is definitely here and I go through a box of Kleenex every few days :(
8. For skywatchers, this looks like a not-to-be-missed event!
9. This may be the most depressing subreddit page I've seen (well, aside from r/teachers and r/nursing).  Eekkk
10. Coming up next week...Holy Week!