Thrift Shopping is like Disneyland?

My sister hates shopping.
HATES it!
Once in a while though, when she feels I need or deserve a special treat (like I'm her little pet dog) she will allow me the privilege of going thrift store shopping with her.
Did I mention she hates shopping? Well she especially hates thrift store shopping. She doesn't mind so much going into a store like JC Penneys or Walmart and going right to a certain department and getting the exact items she has on her list...but she doesn't have that "Thrill of the Hunt" that is inbred in me from the Tarango side of the family!

My Tia Leonor was the Queen of Thriftshopping the Queen of Yardsaling and the Queen of Antique Stores. You could not drive past a yard sale with Tia Nor and not know that you HAD to stop. And she could find treasures like no one else could. Her home was filled with her treasures and we all know about her "cuartito" that was filled with...um, well I don't know what it was filled with cause no one ever let us kids in there, but I'm sure it was filled with treasures.

Later as we all grew up Tia Nor filled the buses that Tio Tino and Tio Jesus had parked on her property with more treasures. And she knew what was in each of those buses and in the cuartito and if people needed something she knew just where to go and get it. She also had a pretty lucrative business selling clothing she picked up at yard sales for a song and selling it for a profit to migrant farm workers. She was my hero! heroine?...well you get the point.

I especially remember a plate that she had hanging in the kichen. The plate had John F. Kennedy on it. I loved that plate and always wished she would give it to me. I guess I should have asked, but I never did and I never knew what became of that plate. I hunt for it online, but although I've found others similar, it's not the plate I remember.

So thrifting is in my blood and I remember a few weeks ago for some reason on the way home Lisa suggested that we stop at one of my very favorite thrift stores, Goodwill on Rosedale Highway. I was thrilled and the closer we got the more excited I got. And when we were in the middle lane waiting for a pause in the traffic so I could turn left into the parking lot Lisa was laughing at me about how excited I was. And I told her that to me, going thrift store shopping is like a little kid going to Disneyland, you just get all excited and you can't wait and dad can't drive that car fast enough into the parking lot for you. Remember that feeling from being a kid whether it was going to Disneyland or to a County Fair or Circus? That's the feeling I get about thrift shopping, and I thought I was the only one until today when I read the blog Manic Thrift Store Shopper.

This guy Brian, is my spiritual Tarango twin and he speaks in a language that only true thrift store connoisseurs understand, just listen to him write about how he feels...

"When I drive past a thrift store, I often imagine that I feel a little pull to go inside. I think that something, some object, is calling out to me to be found and rescued from the shelves piled high with junk. I believe that if I look long enough and hard enough, that amazing object will be revealed and I will be rewarded for following my instinct, for turning from the street into the parking lot and getting out of my car."

Please go check out his site, he has so many "pretties" for you to see and he's one heck of a writer as well.

Iwanna Wednesday

Welcome to Iwanna Wednesday where you get to see what's inside of the brain of the woman that Iwanna's everything!

I spent the last week at home due to radioactive iodine treatment for Thyroid Cancer and most of the whole week I spent looking at the wall behind my computer, which is also the same wall behind my TV, so basically...I spent the whole week just staring at this wall that has no pictures on it, nothing. Just a plain white canvas.

But Iwanna knows what Iwanna wants this wall to look like...check this out

I love this! I want the whole wall to look like that and where you see that desk is where my computer desk would be and then I would want it to extend a little further to the right and have another area there where my TV would fit. Then I could display all my Iwanna treasures to my hearts content.

Yep...Iwanna this!

Depression Cooking

With the state of the economy right now and the high unemployment rate and all I figure we're all probably going to have to learn Depression Cooking, since it seems that we're in a Depression. I wonder how hard that's going to be given that most women are now in the workforce and don't always have time for making home cooked meals and I just don't see all that many men jumping on the band wagon to be the main cook and bottle washer in the family.

But all the same, if we do have to learn, this lady would be a great cook to learn from.

Hi Ho! Hi Ho! It's Off to Work I Go!

Yep, it's official. The geiger counter said I'm no longer radioactive, or at least not radioactive enough to kill anyone! So it's back to the salt mines tomorrow.

Is it sad that I'm actually looking forward to it?

Coffee - $24.96 a Gallon

You know who I love?
I love Starbucks coffee. Love it!
Back before I bought my house I would get a Starbucks coffee every single day.
Every day!
My poison of choice? A Venti Breve Latte with one Splenda!
Mmmmm, so creamy and warm and delicious, perfectly sweet, but not too sweet. I just wanted to kiss it and hug it and marry it!!

Then, I bought my house and I heard a guy on the radio talking about what Whiners we Americans are and how we whine about the price of food and gas and a gallon of milk when the whole time we are spending $30 a gallon on coffee.

WHAT? WHERE? WHEN? ME?
Yep, me.
If you figure that my Venti Breve Latte with One Splenda was 20 ounces and cost me $3.90 per day, and it takes 128 ounces to fill a gallon then I would have to buy 6.4 Venti Breve Lattes with One Splenda to fill a gallon and 6.4 x $3.90 = $24.96.

I was buying coffee at $24.96 per gallon! And at $3.90 per day x 5 day work weeks x 50 weeks (estimating two weeks vacation) = $975.00 per year!

It put everything in perspective for me and now I brew my own coffee every morning at home.

Do I miss my barista? Yes I do. He knew me the minute I drove up to the drive thru and he would always say, "Good morning, Venti Breve Latte with One Splenda this morning?" And I felt like I belonged, like someone loved me and worshipped me and wanted to make sure that my every desire was met. I don't know, maybe $24.96 a gallon wasn't so much to pay for such a great feeling.

What's your big splurge and could you live without it?

Captivity ~ Day Six

Well today is my last day in Captivity. Tomorrow I have a doctor's appoint at around noon where they will do some type of a full body scan and check the radiation level in my system and then if all is good I can return to work Tuesday morning.

I gotta say, I had a great time being home. Even though I didn't feel 100%, 100% of the time, I still felt pretty good most of the time. I just wish I had been able to go out and do something fun. It was hard being home all week knowing that I couldn't just go over to my mom and dad's house and just hang out with them or go shopping with my mom.

But hopefully all this is behind me now and I won't even have to do this again. And I do have one more week's vacation so maybe I can head to Vegas or something exciting.

I want to thank everyone that made this so much easier for me. My mommy and daddy who called me every day and brought me milk and migas and chili beans and took in my poor homeless son Jim and fed him and cared for him. I want to thank my daughter April who texted me almost every night and sometimes during the day to see if I needed anything. My son Jim who also called me everyday and drove my car so the gas wouldn't get old in it :0) and who also brought me paintbrushes and delivered the chili beans. My sister Lisa who let me sleep late every morning and didn't call me to chat on her way to work the way we are used to, but who did call me around 9am just to make sure I did wake up that day. She also bought me vacuum cleaner bags, red potatoes and a red bell pepper which she knows is my fav! Thanks to my brother Fred for the daily phone calls and the Sweetarts, Pixy Stix and Macadamia nuts. Thanks to my nieces and nephews that texted me with sweet messages and offered to bring by anything I wanted and needed as long as they could just leave it on the front porch, :0)

Thanks to my sister in law Connie for texting me and making me laugh. Thanks to my coworker and friend Angelica for calling me and bitching about the office and for missing me terribly. If I forgot anyone know that what you did, the thoughts, the prayers have been greatly appreciated by me.

I have a plan already and if tomorrow they release me and tell me I'm no longer radioactive I'm heading for the Discovery Store and to my favorite Goodwill store! I can hardly wait!

Weird Shoes I Stumbled Upon

I think I've mentioned before this cool little program called StumbleUpon. You simply download the program and install the toolbar into your browser, super simple. Then you personalize to the things you are interested in from a whole list of different things. For instance I personalized with things I am interested in such as:
Cooking
Food
Crafts
Humor
Catholic
Women
Health
Fashion
Clothing
Shopping
Puzzles
Quizzes, etc...you get the picture right? So then whenever I want to I simply click on the STUMBLE button in my toolbar and the Great God the of Web will locate a website it thinks I would be interested in depending on my choices. So I may get a really cool website about blond jokes or word puzzles or Bible Verse of the Day, etc etc. So if I like that website then I click on the "I like it" button and I will get more websites similar to that one. If I don't like it then I click on the "thumbs down" button and I won't get anymore like that one.

The reason for me going into such detail is twofold

1. I think you should download StumbleUpon

2. I want to show you something I StumbledUpon just today at this website...

Can you believe these shoes? And there are other ones to view if you click the link above! But these two were definitely the weirdest. See StumbleUpon knows that one of the interests I have is in fashion and that's probably why they showed me this website or could it be my interest in humor? Or maybe it's a puzzle...how do you get the flies inside the shoe to feed the live tarantula without it biting you? Go see the rest of these and you decide! Ugh!