Bag of Money and Sack of Gold

Bag of money and Sack of Gold

Bag of Money

A few months ago, an armored money truck wrecked on the interstate in Atlanta, and several friends and I started an ongoing reference to what we would do with bags of money from the money truck. Namely, we would all adopt again and again until we ran out of money.  And so I was inspired to make my own bag of money and turn it into cash.

Do you have the habit of emptying pockets and saving your change? Have you thought about gathering the coins from all over your house and taking them to a Coinstar? With hardly any effort, I raided our junque drawer and three spots in the house where coins seem to collect, and LL and I headed over to the local grocery store where I’ve seen and heard (for it’s quite loud) people dumping coins into the big green kiosk..

Of course it was pouring rain, and parking spots were at a premium. Multiple circles of the lot, because I was in no hurry, and we were in space number two. One might be surprised how heavy a canvas bag filled with two $1 coins, 406 quarters, 821 dimes, 460 nickels, and 1,455 pennies are, but I managed it and my purse in one hand and LL on my hip and ran into the store without getting completely soaked through much to the delight of the wee little one who loves to yell, “Run, Mommy!” at the top of her lungs.

Honestly, the child might think the name for rain is “runmommy” or perhaps “HoldonLL. Mommyrunning”.

Into the cart went LL, and over to the machine we rolled. As I starting pouring in the coins and wondering why earplugs weren’t available for users, LL was sad that she wasn’t getting the “muh-ney”. However, messages began appearing on the screen to tell us that some coins may have been returned, and, alas, coins from jolly old England and our vacation some eight years ago were selectively sent to the coin return. Delightedly, LL was able to fill her little pockets with the muh-ney that coinstar deemed to have no value.

And the final total? Did you do the math already? $223.15! Since I selected the cash option, there was a fee, and our voucher was for $203.99. Twenty dollars for coinstar, two-hundred for us? DEAL!!!

I did ask the nice customer service lady how much most people’s vouchers are for, and she said that often there are $20 and $40 of coins. Ours was the largest sum she had ever seen! I wish we could have gotten the $20 bonus for being *star* customers of coinstar.

Go gather your coins. It’s fun, and they really give you cash for coins! It was better than the two-for-one sales on groceries. It was a whole cart of food for “free” plus leftover dollars in my purse!

Sack of Gold

Is it popular in your area for people to host gold parties? I remember first seeing the television ads that asked viewers to “send us your unwanted gold!” and laughing that I didn’t have and couldn’t imagine anyone else having any “unwanted gold”.

But a friend had one of these gatherings that I didn’t attend and stories of a hundred dollars here and two hundred there grabbed my interest after my coinstar joy, and I began wondering about those old and broken and out of style chains, some have been in the bottom of my jewelry box since high school.

A few charms (remember floating hearts?), some dented add-a-beads, several broken necklaces (how many empty chains does one need for one’s pendants?), two rings that the stones had long since been removed and put into new pieces, and a hollow gold bangle bracelet that had been banged up beyond being presentable all went into my little Brown and Company pouch and off to the gold girl.

Almost $300 of unwanted gold was in my jewelry box!

Plus digging for it all made for a great opportunity to clear out the costume jewelry, yes, a few pieces had been there since high school. Another score!

Works in Progress: *MORE*Notes to Self 12-25-09 moved 01-03-10

"Cows" from October 21 was published today with photos from daddy's camera included

AND on 1/4/20 i added- big camera pics (family, as. with grhp, and going for walk)

Halloween "practice" published for 10/30/09 with photos

"Thanksgiving at Grandmothers" from November 26 was published today with photos. complete i think ;)

"Thanksgiving at Grandpapa and Grandmama's" to be published including photos from big camera

"Green Christmas" picture and outfit story published thanks to J for scan no to mention for the outfit. Too cute!!!

Progress

So...

Template is finally installed.

Images are uploaded.

Now off to see if there's a way to copy my links from my saved template to here.

If not, then a new blog is in order for links and background info as I have no intention of reentering all of this information every time I change my design.

*sigh*

Did I just type that I might change this design that has taken me two weeks to get installed?

pardon my learning curve... it's no great arc!

I am attempting to learn photoshop and update my blog layout, and as a result, it's been a long week.
The rest of my world looks blurry after spending hours in front of this screen.
I will do this or forever damage my vision trying.

Thanksgiving on The Farm

After a long drive, it is always great to be at Grandmamama’s and Grandpapapa’s.

Arriving for Thanksgiving Dinner is a wonderful bonus!

A fun afternoon was had playing with cousins including climbing the back stairs and sliding down them again and again and again.

After a long drive, it is always great to be home, home, home.

July Visit to The Farm

After being home three months, we braved our first road trip to the farm. LL met a few of her great aunts and uncles, had time to play with her cousins, and got to see her Aunt E and Uncle P again.

Notable firsts:

Sat on grandmamama’s lap,

let Uncle P hold her though it was accomplished through his trickery,

sat with Aunt E,

loved funny cousin B and playing on the floor with her,

showed remarkable interest in earrings of the ladies of the family.

And not a first, but she kept repeating names and making sure everyone stayed seated. She looks after everyone and wants a bit of control over people’s comings and goings.

A Great Gift from Great Aunt G!

(addpics and date)

When we visited the farm, I complained that today’s toys are too much reliant on batteries and that among the original Fisher Price toys I hoped to find for LL was the SeeNSay Farm Animals that I had growing up.

Alas, a week later, a box arrived from Great Aunt G who is a wonderful shopper. I cried as LL opened a vintage SeeNSay. Yeah! Pigs and ducks and cows and rooster sounds galore!

And the packing peanuts were pretty fun, too

SNOW! okay, so it was really practically only a heavy frost

LL had her first romp in the snow this week, and I had a day off work. It was a nice way to ease into the new year and the first week after the holidays. We made little snowmen ladies and slid on the ice, sometimes on purpose, and we walked and made tracks and KK played in and "barkin' at it" the snow. It was a cold fun afternoon.

What Did You Do Over the Holidays?

(another guest post by LL since mommy is back at work)

What's this you ask?
It's Cheerios.
Lots of Cheerios.
On the floor.

I tried to fill my bowl using the gigantic box of Cheerios. You might be as suprised as mommy was that the gigantic box has a lot of Cheerios even when it's half empty.

KK told me to do it.
She's hiding behind me, but it was her idea.



Mommy got new lipstick, and I put lipstick on Monkey.




And me.


And the sofa.
Mommy was excited.
She was so excited she was screaming.
And I got to take a bubble bath.
Win. Win. Don't you think?


I climbed around in the pantry and played with cans.

"Way-uhv" at the camera, LL!


I looked at *all* of mommy's magazines and catalogs.
Pandy and KK told me to dump them out on the floor.
I like to tear out my favorite pages for my idea book.


Hope your Christmas vacation was as fun as mine.

These Are a Few of My Favorite Things

(another guest post by LL)

Here are some things I like to do:

put padondahs on pig and monkey and some of my dolls and take them off again. Mommy helps me over and over and over.

hang my barrel of monkeys on my kitchen towel bar in order, but I don't like to hang the monkeys in a chain

vacuum and turn on my mixer and put the bowl in the oven of my kitchen

turn my peg puzzle pieces over and spin them like a fan

watch "dresses" on tv (say yes to the dress)

watch "Ina" on tv (Barfoot Contessa) and name ingredients

tell Ina to "beee careful, Ina" when I see she has a knife and turn on my mixer and stir when she does

watch "Kai Lin" as often as mommy or daddy will turn it on

ask to watch "Kai Lin" on tv

take things to the real kitchen sink and drop them in the sink

tie daddy's shoes in creative knots

zip and unzip everything

wear a hooooddie

get KK to come back in if she is outside

chase Vivi when she is brave enough to come downstairs

wear my lalie-bug shoes

tell KK "no barkin it" when she barks at the door

get on all fours and pretend to bark beside KK when she barks at the door

dance and pretend to conduct music when mommy or daddy plays or watch music on tv

A Day in My Little Life

(guest post by LL)

It has been really fun to have mommy home for two weeks!

Every morning I wake up around eleven and sing to my animals and dollies. Sometimes my friends behave badly, and I sing them the "calm down" song. Pandy gets the calm down sung to him a lot. Mommy and daddy listen to me sing on the monitor. One morning I tricked them and grabed the monitor and pulled it in my "night-night" (crib) and turned off the power. The loud static they heard was really funny.

Mommy comes into my room and says "gooood mooooorning" and we have lillah, middah, and biggah hugs. Then she picks me up and brings me upstairs wrapped in my blanklet. I dig my head into her neck as we go upstairs and mumble "too bright" because like my mommy, I do not like bright light in the mornings.

Daddy usually is finishing his crossword and coffee on the sofa. Sometimes he is not there, and I say "daddyboat" because that's where I think daddy is if he is not at home.

After getting clean and dry, I put on my "doh-she-its", or slippers as I say it in "shin-eeeese".

If the trim-as-tree is asleep we wake it up by tickling it, and the lights come on.

Breakfast is yummy. I have apple juice, eggah, yogurt, and toast or oatmehal. Lately, I don't eat my oatmeahal. I like to watch mommy make faces when I say "no, tank you" to the oatmehal. I like to watch the toast go night-night in the toaster. If I don't eat my breakfast, KK gets some of it, and that makes me mad and makes me want more, more, more.

After breakfast I like to color-cway-on and play fissbee where I pretend to be KK and mommy tosses the big button toy and I fetch it. Mommy likes to wake up hampstah and I chase it and let it crawl on my feet.

We have lunch that I call sandwich since that's usually what I have. And I have applesause or mommy peals an orange for me. After lunch I always say "no nap" because sometimes I have to go night-night after lunch.

Afternoons are filled with more playing or going shopping. I like to go "carridemommy", and I can point which turns to take and say "this-a-way" to show mommy how to get to the main road leaving our house. We listen to music in the car. I like to ride in the stroller and the cart whevever we go.

At night I watch football with daddy and say "running" and "oh, no, fall dowwwwn" while I play. Also at night, I help mommy or daddy cook, and I stir, and I stand away from the oven and range and say "too hot. hurt you hot." to remind myself.

After dinner we usually watch a move or something else on tv. I play a little and cuddle a little and readabook.

Later when it's getting close to time for nightnight, I play baby and have milk and say "look at mommy. look at daddy. no look at tv." Then it's huggahs and findamonkey and findapig and findajill or findajenny (favorite doll) and then we hugga daddy and head down-tairs.

On the sairs, I like to walk "no hold you mommy" so that I get to hold the rail and walk by myself. It's fun to walk down the stairs because we yell back up to daddy (and I can yell really really loudly!) "I Luv You, Daddy!" and "Good Nih-ight!" and "Sweet Dree-ums!" over and over again.

Once in my room, mommy and I play a little bit, puzzle or blocks, and then we singasong. We sing "Man in the Moon", and "Tinkle, Tinkle, Lilluh Star", and "Who Loves ChuWei". That is my favorite part since we name eveyone who loves me, and it makes me cry sometimes because I know it's our last song.

Then mommy turns on the radio and leaves, and sometimes I cry, and sometimes I pretendah cry, and sometimes I just play with my toys.

Hope you're not getting every one of these edits of posts

but i bet you are...

sorry!

i'm taking the afternoon to try to finish updating here

and trying to find a quicker way to post photos that i've edited than save them one by one and post them again...

shutterfly share isn't being read on my site... bummer...

i miss wordpress

Our Financial Plan for The New Year...

is to win this...



HGTV's 2010 Dream House

Now, you're not thinking of going over and registering, are you?

Besides the beautiful home, there is a cash prize that could pay for flights to and from the house as well as several adoptions.

our fingers are crossed

Christmas Morning

What a fun morning, or should I say, "midday" we had! LL slept until after eleven as is within her normal. Grandmother arrived, Zesty Eye Openers (a' la Amtrack) were made, and the opening and laughter begain. There was lots of whispering between mommy and daddy as we decided on the spot how to actually manage the events.

Daddy used his sailing knife ( and some sailor's talk!) more this morning than ever in a single day. He had some things to say about packaging of toys, over packaging to be exact.

LL loved her toy vacuum that makes errr errr sounds and lights up,, her doll from Aunt M, all things "Chah-lah Bwown", play Josie, her zhuzhu "hampp-stah"(Grandmother was the keeper of said hamster for a while. What an honor!)

sticker books and new crayons, and on and on. Glad we didn't over do it ;)

The big present was daddy's project, the newly refurbished play kictchen from a certain little girl's childhood and a mixer and equipment to go along with it. Now we discover she needs one more section of kitchen for storage for all the accessories. Ooops! Oh, Santa, baby, come back!

After all the presents we opened, we had a new tradition: luncheon. Honeybaked ham, potato salad, ambrosia, and little angel biscuits. The staff had announced that there would be no more eggs Benedict brunches on Christmas morning for at least the next decade. The staff did break down and prepare the eggs Benny for Boxing Day and the three of us. Shhh... don't tell.

We spent the rest of the playing kitchen, chasing KK with the vacuum and with hamster, dancing to new music, and pushing Josie in the stroller, lucky dog.