A morning motorcycle ride

We've missed riding our motorcycle lately, but the extreme heat makes it miserable, as you can imagine.  Last night I told Cliff, "What we need to do is head out early in the morning, before it gets so hot."  
These days Cliff is up by six A.M. most days, and he agreed we'd try it.  
"Let's eat breakfast at McDonald's in Blue Springs, and then hit Blue Springs Walmart to get the stuff our usual little Walmart doesn't stock."

  We left before 7 o'clock.

Cliff likes to snack on chocolate animal crackers, and the closest Walmart doesn't stock them.  He also wanted to buy some suspenders, another thing we couldn't find there.  
At 6:45, the temperature was perfect for a ride, and it was great to be on the motorcycle again.    
I've never been a big McDonald's fan, but now that we're on a limited income, I'm learning to appreciate their prices.  You can get two senior coffees, a breakfast burrito, and a sausage McMuffin for $3.  This morning I made the mistake of ordering an orange juice instead of coffee, not knowing it was going to cost almost $2.  That won't happen again.  As we were eating, I looked around and noticed that 80% of the folks in there were our age or older.  And why not?  Two people can have breakfast for the price of a single glass of soda or tea anyplace else, and there's nobody to tip.  I know, the food isn't good for us.  But we don't eat there that often.  
I have badmouthed the Blue Springs Walmart many times; it seems to draw rude people like a magnet, and it's always overcrowded.  But we had never been there at eight o'clock in the morning.  What a treat it was, having the aisles mostly to ourselves!  
My Dave Ramsey envelope system gets a little tricky when I'm shopping at "the Walmarts".  We bought Cliff's suspenders, which took $10 out of the clothing envelope; cat food for a cat that visits our barn often, $3 out of the "critters" envelope; animal crackers and four peaches, $3 from the grocery envelope; the generic equivalent of Tylenol Extra Strength, $8 from the "Drs. and Meds" envelope;  and the cheapest telephone we could find, $6 from the "misc" envelope.  I pay for everything at once at the checkout, so I try to take the money from whatever envelope it's in and add it to the grocery envelope as I put the things in my cart.  Trouble is, sometimes the exact change isn't where it's needed; that's where it gets tricky, and I end up owing an envelope some change when I'm done.  For the most part, it ends well, but Cliff shakes his head a lot when I'm doing all this.  It worked a lot better today, with the store not too crowded to move.  
There's a reason I got a cheap telephone:  When you tell Century Link you don't want a home phone any more, they give you a different number that leaves you with a phone that other people can call.  The only number that works to dial out is 911.  Most people I know who have gone this route remove their home phone entirely, because they have unlimited calling on their cell phones.  Cliff only has 500 minutes.  It helps that he can call anyone on T-mobile without using his minutes, because several of his relatives are on T-mobile.  
Now that I have a prepaid phone, I don't answer my cell when it rings.  I have it in case of emergency, for instance to call Cliff if I had to, or so he can call me in a pinch.  So I've given our home number to people who aren't on T-Mobile who might want to call me.  
However, the fancy-schmancy cordless home phones we bought three years ago have done nothing but confuse us, and lately the one in the living room wouldn't charge enough to talk for more than five minutes.  Today we bought a corded phone that has no answering machine, needs no charging, and has nothing to confuse us. I love it, and buying it didn't break the bank.  I don't mind not being able to carry it from room to room; we don't get that many calls on it.    
We got home from our ride around 9:30; it was already starting to get uncomfortably hot.  Next time we might leave a little earlier. 

Odds and ends

Cliff mentioned something he needed from town today, and I said, excitedly, "We're going to town?  We really have to go someplace?"  
He took the hint; we went to Home Depot.  As soon as we walked inside, I saw mini-greenhouses similar to the ones I always use to start my tomato plants inside.  That's all I needed to really got excited!  

I got two different kinds, to find out whether I liked one better than the other.  I'm sure I could have gotten a cheaper kind at Walmart, but these were right in front of me; a bird in the hand, you know.  I figure I shouldn't start my tomato and pepper plants until March first or so, but I'm glad I have them here, ready.  
Guess what else I got?  

 An indoor herb garden!  I planted chives, parsley, and basil.  The pots, seeds, and potting soil were all in the package.  The seeds should germinate in seven to ten days.  Last summer I learned to love fresh basil from the garden; it has lots more flavor than the dried stuff.  Now maybe I'll soon have something I can watch growing, snow or no snow.   
We went in Target to see our granddaughter briefly (she works there), and I spent a while in Petco trying to find a ball that Iris can't tear up.  Good luck with that, I tell myself.  We'll see if she can destroy the three new ones I got.  
I went for a walk in the snow yesterday; Cliff declined:  he said walking in snow eight inches deep made his knees hurt.  For some reason, when I'm walking in deep snow I wander all over the place, rather than going in a straight line.  

I think it's partly because I'm looking down at my feet, rather than where I'm headed.  In some places the snow is deeper than my Muck boots.  A lot of thawing took place today.  The snow is just right for a snowman, but I think I'll pass on building one.  

Shopping trip

Cliff and I went to a fundraiser dinner at the school yesterday; we'd purchased the tickets from granddaughter Natalie.  Since we were already planning on getting out of the house, I informed Cliff we were going to do some shopping.  You can imagine the reaction I got from that suggestion.
Cliff, however, needed underwear.  He's been giving me excuses for a long time about why he was still wearing various sizes (his size changes from one year to another) of raggedy underwear.  While he was still laying in bed sipping his coffee yesterday morning, I started removing the contents of his underwear drawer and tossing it on the bed.  
"Look at this mess," I said.  "When's the last time you wore any of these boxer shorts?"  
(He went through a brief phase of trying to wear boxers... it had something to do with riding the motorcycle, I think.)   
He agreed that he didn't like them, and said he'd take them to the shop to use as rags.  
We don't get Cliff's underwear at Walmart.  His mother brought him up in J.C. Penny underwear, by george.  Stafford brand.  They are not cheap.  
But I have an envelope with money for clothing.  Every week twenty bucks goes into the envelope.  
We don't shop for clothes often, so I figured that envelope would never be empty.  We've spent more on clothing that I thought we would, but we haven't drained the fund dry yet; of course, nobody has needed shoes so far.   
Cliff decided since I was forcing him to go shopping, he needed some new T-shirts; he has a whole drawer full of perfectly good ones, but all of them have some kind of stain or other, mostly grease stains from his playing working in the shop.  I'm a terrible laundress; I never check for stains.  I don't check pockets, either.  I'm basically lazy.  So shoot me.   
Of course his mom taught him to only wear Stafford T-shirts.  We picked up two packages.  On the way to the cash registers, I nabbed myself a couple of packages of underwear.  Ten pairs of men's whitie-tightie underwear, six T-shirts, and three packages of ladies' underwear:  $98.  
Boy, am I glad we have envelopes.  In the old days I would have used my Penny's charge card and figured out how to pay for the stuff next month when the bill came in the mail.  I no longer have a Penny's charge card.
See?  It's possible to teach an old dog new tricks.  
I'll tell about the rest of our shopping adventures in another entry.  
So now you know more than you ever wanted about the underwear in this house.  I wonder if Cliff will approve this entry when he wakes up?  If it disappears, you'll know he didn't like it.

It's a good day for shopping

Cliff had some coupons for Harbor Freight Tools that he's been anxious to use. I suggested today might be a good day for it, since it's raining and cold. We didn't leave till almost noon, and Cliff leaves for work at 3:30, so we had to watch the time.

Now as much as Cliff loves Harbor Freight, to me it's the most boring store ever known to woman. However, there are all sorts of more interesting places to shop near there, so I had Cliff drop me off in a strip mall across the street.

I've never been to Pottery Barn until today, and was surprised to find items of interest there. They had quite a few things like patio furniture and chairs at what seemed to me a reasonable price. However, I didn't spend a lot of time there; I strolled on down to Hobby Lobby, another store I wouldn't normally choose.

Remember this about me: I don't really enjoy shopping.

Now Hobby Lobby was a more interesting place. I put several cute little outdoors-y things in my cart, but put most of them back before checking out. I came this close to buying a garden gnome for my flowerbed, just to give my daughter the creeps when she comes visiting. But with the soft, religious music playing in the background, I couldn't bring myself to do that to her; maybe sometime in Walmart.

Somewhere in the store a couple of women got into a shouting match about who was blocking the aisle; I half thanked the Lord I wasn't in their vicinity, and half wished I was, so I could have watched. They kept up their yelling for about five minutes. Maybe Hobby Lobby needs to play their music a little louder.

Cliff said Harbor Freight was out of half the things they had on sale, but they gave him rain checks. He said it was so crowded there, he could hardly get through the aisles.

So, we had our little shopping spree. Now Cliff gets to head to work for the last time this week.

My day

Cliff had no projects going today, and his back has been made of glass lately so he's almost afraid to do anything. So, we shopped. Bear in mind that neither of us really likes to shop, but we did. I had $15 in Kohl's coupons and cash to spend, and an item to return. Walking in, I saw a sign that said something about "90%" off and "final clearance", and I had to look. It was mostly summer tops, and I came home with several.

Now next summer when you see pictures of me in this blog wearing the same old stained, worn T-shirts as ever, you'll wonder what happened to all these tops. That's just how I do things. But these will look nice hanging in the closet.

I'm a bargain biddy, remember? I may never wear any of those tops, but by george, I can brag about getting them for $2.80...



and $1.60.

Sam's Club is in the same vicinity as Kohl's, so we stocked up on a few items there.

Then we had zuppa, salad and bread sticks at Olive Garden. Yum.

Cliff needed some things from Home Depot, and while he gathered what he needed, I found more bargains on Christmas decorations!

Cliff got a $25 gift card for Hy-Vee at work, so we used that for a few grocery items.

Yes friends, it was a real red-letter day for this bargain-biddy.

We came home and then rode the motorcycle for an hour or so.

Oh, the guy who boards his horses here came to pay up, and I found out his horses have put on weight too; he didn't realize how much until he put a saddle on Tude the other day and the girth strap was too short, just like happened with Blue. That'll make it much easier on us, because we'll simply limit feed for the whole group, and Blue won't have to be confined.