Happy (Belated) Mother's Day!

I can't believe I forgot to post Happy Mother's Day wishes to everyone yesterday!  I didn't think about it until I was nearly asleep last night so it will have to be belated Mother's Day greetings to you all.  I hope you all had a lovely day.  All five of the kids called to wish me Happy Mother's Day (even though I am their stepmother, they always remember me which is nice--they have always been great kids in large part due to the way that their own mom raised them!).  In other news...

...we did not get any pictures of the aurora borealis because in our area near the city there is too much light pollution, however many people went out to the desert and took many amazing pictures!  The photo above is from a sunset a few days ago so it looks kind of sort of like the purple skies people were seeing near here but not nearly as dramatic.

...in cat news, we did see the kittens again for a couple days last week and then they were gone again.  Sadly, we were driving down the street near our house this morning and we saw a tiny kitten that was dead in the middle of the road, it looked like it had been hit by a car :(  While we didn't stop to investigate, hubby and I both think it was the black kitten I had posed in this blog a couple weeks ago.  Very sad.

...the Kate Middleton mystery now has its own subreddit.

...and if you are familiar with reddit and their investing subreddits, the GME folks are at it again.  I will skip the speculative investing (although some people made bank a few years ago when they drove up the stock to astronomical levels) but for people who like to gamble on stocks, this is an, um, interesting opportunity.

...finally, I was at Ross yesterday and I found a $495 Tumi backpack on sale for $225.  Since I save 75% of my income every month and rarely spend the remaining 25% because there really isn't anything we need, I decided to splurge.  I think I will give it to hubby for our upcoming trip and if he doesn't want it, then I will send it to his oldest daughter who loves all things Tumi.  I'm always surprised when I find such high-end items at Ross!

Quick Update

It's been a pretty quiet week around here...

...something was on fire. No idea what it was.

...and our local 99 Cent store is pretty much empty.

...here was a cute photo op.

...I love maps so found this link fascinating.

...work is still going great--I love everything about my job!

...and then there is the cat drama.  We only saw the kittens for a few days then we never saw them again.  Apparently 'kitten season' is a thing so it's possible someone found the kittens and turned them in to the animal shelter.  Or mom cat is keeping them somewhere else.  Too bad, we loved watching them play.  Then we found out that mom cat was in heat again (with all of the cat yowling and every mangy Tom cat in town coming to our place trying to pounce on her and the two male cats that usually hang around here looking like they were on the losing end of cat fights every day we could hardly miss it!).  We really need to trap her and get her fixed but that is easier said than done because she still doesn't get close enough to us for us to just put her in a cage and she likes to hiss at us regularly so I think this may be a difficult thing to do.  I have a call into a local organization that traps and fixes cats but I haven't got a call back from them yet.  Hopefully soon because we really don't need anymore cats around here!

Sunrise

It's supposed to get close to 90 degrees today.  This is what our sunrise looked like this morning!

Quick Update

In kitten news, there are actually two kittens instead of one.  I opened the blinds this morning and saw this little guy waiting with his parents for breakfast.

And here is mom cat with both kittens.  They are soooo cute!

In other news...

• At this point, I think Princess Kate is dead or in a coma.  Here is a good video on the topic.  This whole situation gives me Shelly Miscavige vibes.  eeekkk
• I'm not sure if it is common in restaurants now or not but hubby and I went to a restaurant with his cousin last week and not one, but three people were at their tables eating with their cell phones on full volume watching YouTube or something.  Don't they know that earbuds have been invented?  It seems incredibly rude but no one else seemed to be bothered by this but me (everything bothers me these days when it comes to people's behavior in public!).
• I have to agree with pretty much everything in this reddit thread on the question of 'what has become too expensive'.  tldr; pretty much everything.
• The weather here is perfect but it is starting to heat up so we had to turn on the AC.  I was hoping we could go a whole month or more without needing heat or AC so we could save on our utility bills but I guess that isn't to be.  Bummer.
• On a happy note, here are some funny cat pictures and videos.

It's a Kitten!

Today we got our first glimpse of the kitten we figured was being hidden somewhere around here.  The mom cat was pregnant, then she wasn't, now, a few weeks later, we saw her come by for breakfast with one kitten in tow.  Not sure if she only had one kitten or more but the one she had with her today was so cute!

In other cat news, it was 92 degrees here yesterday so the cats were spread out over the concrete deck to keep cool!

 

The State of Shopping Part 2

The state of shopping continues to be...uh...challenging.

I was surprised when I went to Dollar Tree yesterday and saw that everything in the store is no longer $1.25.  Apparently, it was a quiet rollout of higher prices, but seeing things that were $5 was shocking to my frugal brain. I guess they are just trying to survive in an inflationary market but Dollar Tree no longer being a dollar and the 99 Cent Stores closing completely is just sad.  I'm sure this is how my grandmother felt as she watched five and dime stores close up in her day. 

In other shopping news, I received the expensive backpack and while I was impressed with the quality and organizational features of the bag, I stuffed a bunch of clothes in it and wore it around the house and felt there was no way I could carry this bag for any length of time.  It was big and unwieldy, so it is back to my hiking backpack I go for my future travels (it has a great hip belt and narrower profile so I can wear it for hours).  I packed the bag up and sent it back to the store for a refund.  

Hubby was shaking his head over the cost of the pack (it's just a bag you put stuff in! you can do that with a pillowcase!) but he doesn't understand the value of a good backpack (I tried to explain this but he loves his el cheapo Walmart backpack that he has been using for years so he thinks any backpack over $25 is unreasonable!).  Then the next day I came thisclose to buying a Tumi backpack I saw at Ross (it was $315 which is a steep drop from its usual $500+ price...I could hardly believe that Ross had such a high-end bag for sale as the backpacks they sell are usually lower end) but I didn't get it because it really is just a bag you put stuff in and I could not really justify paying so much for it.  Bummer.

On the house shopping front--not that we are actually shopping for a house, but we have been talking about selling our current house because it is two stories and some of our guests (and ourselves) are getting old so we want a single story house without stairs--prices are equally dismal.  There is a house in our neighborhood that just came up for sale and it is a 4 bed/2 bath single story house.  It is listed for $500k which, again, to my frugal brain is a ridiculous price to pay for a basic house but I guess the housing market is still all kinds of crazy so it is actually considered a good deal in a nice neighborhood.  Add on top of that the increase we would pay in property tax (our tax base is super low since we bought our house at such a low price many years ago and the tax cap keeps taxes from increasing very much year over year), then add on top of that about $75k to repaint and put in all new flooring plus make any other fixes needed and...I am not so sure that buying a new house would be a good financial move.  I told hubby we should just install a chairlift and be done with it!

tldr; prices on everything, everywhere are just insanely expensive  :(  

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!