Patrick's Saturday Six

Here are this week's "Saturday Six" questions. Either answer the questions in a comment at Patrick's Weekender, or put the answers in an entry on your journal...but either way, leave a link to your journal so that everyone else can visit! To be counted as "first to play," you must be the first player to either answer the questions in a comment or to provide a complete link to the specific entry in your journal in which you answer the questions. A link to your journal in general cannot count. Enjoy!

1. How often do you clip coupons from the newspaper or mail inserts? I'd say, on average, I use about four coupons a month these days.

2. You buy something that contains a mail-in rebate: how likely are you to take the time to fill out and mail the application (with appropriate receipts) to actually get the rebate mailed to you? You bet your sweet bippie I'll send those in! They usually amount to a substantial amount of money.

3. How many credit cards do you have right now that have a zero balance? I don't want to talk about it. Ask me in a month.

4. Take the quiz: Are you good with money?

You Are Bad With Money

You're probably constantly broke - or you will be soon. You spend like there's no tomorrow, and for you, tomorrow is looking pretty grim. Put off some purchases, get out of debt, and stop living above your means. You could be rich someday - but you need money to make money.

Are You Good With Money?

5. What is the most expensive thing you purchased in the last week? A Jersey heifer

6. On a scale of one to ten, with ten meaning that it was something you needed badly and urgently, how much did you really need this particular item? Emotionally, I needed this item. On a practical basis, I didn't need it at all.

Odds and ends

Last night I was watching one of my favorite TV shows, "The Dog Whisperer". Love that show, and I believe I have a small crush on Cesar Milan.
Anyway. He ended up at the home of someone whose name really rung a bell for me: Michael Damian. When it was mentioned that he'd spent eighteen years with "The Young and the Restless", I realized who he was, and began a trip down memory lane.

I've never been much of a soap opera fan; but at certain periods of my life, I'd get lured into some story line or other, and watch one for a couple of years.

Some twenty years ago, my son and his family were in Germany, and they weren't prospering well there. So my then-daughter-in-law, my two-year-old grandson, and my infant granddaughter, were flown back to the USA and settled in with us.

From 11 AM until 3 PM every day, Kat had the TV turned on, watching soaps. I hated that constant noise, but since I wasn't watching anything during the day myself, I figured it best to leave her alone; after all, she wouldn't be living with me forever.

I took to lying down on the couch at 11 AM, every day, with my grandson, Arick, curled up beside me; and gradually I got to know the characters on Young and Restless, between my little catnaps. And when Kat and kids left a few months later for their own home, I kept watching. I even went so far as to tape episodes when I was working at the orchard. It took at least four years for me to eventually tire of Victor's constant divorces and re-marriages, and all the trumped-up drama of any soap opera.

Danny Romalotti was one of my favorites, back then, sometimes playing guitar and singing what I'd call "soft rock". I hadn't thought about him in years. Thanks for the memory jog, Cesar!

In the weather picture: it's spitting snow, and bitterly cold and windy right now; and tomorrow doesn't look much better. After that, they say it's going to warm up to 50's and 60's, and actually stay there awhile. Spring really is on its way!

If some miracle should happen with the weather, there's even a chance of a motorcycle trip to Branson on one of the last two weekends of this month. The granddaughters have arrangements made for their care, on days before or after those two weekends, that would allow us a three-day window of opportunity, both times. The miracle we need is decent weather, and a good, clear forecast for said times. Here's hoping!