How do you shop and save $$ at the food store?

 Well I'll be goshdarned, but it DOES pay to scissor those coupons out of the Sunday paper and the circulars they send into your mailbox constantly.

So far I've found some coupons for aspirin, Aleve, ibuprofen, band-aids and razors (which I already have enough of, but with Mermaid growing leg hair, it's not going to be enough). There are super-coupons for various Vons snacks, including one of Little Guy's favorites. There's coupons for raw and cooked chicken. Coupons for the brand of TP I use, and paper towels (although I'm trying to move to cloth towels instead, but paper towels are still needed). And coupons for Michaels and Joannes, which I can use for Mermaid's newest passion for cake decorating. The supplies she needs for that class? Stupifyingly expensive if you're not careful.

Of course, the key is not to buy items you're never going to use, and not to let the expiration date on the coupons rush you. AND wait until the stores you frequent have sales on those items anyway. 

I'm no pro when it comes to food shopping -- I still spend WAY too much on food in our house, but that's what eChef is supposed to help with.

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I drove 42 miles one way to pick up a rental manual steno machine yesterday. It's not like the fancy computerized one in the icon to the left, though. But it's clean, well-maintained, and came with a tripod.  Rental is surprisingly cheap (not counting the $200 deposit, which I'll get back as long as my kids and their friends don't destroy the machines while I'm not looking!) but when I continue on past the first semester, I'm going to have to buy a computerized student machine. That alone is $1550, not counting the programs I'll need for it AND the paper and so forth. 

I'll have to baby my right arm. It's given me problems over the past year or so. A lot of that has to do with my bad posture at the computer, and spending way too much time on the computer.

Gonna have to approach learning steno the way I had to learn to writing: TRUST in my brain and myself, and let my brain do its work without second-guessing!

Argh!

I can no longer go into one of my favorite forums now because it's awash with people begging for clicks on their dragon eggs. 

It's totally operant conditioning, and makes begging a typical thing, crowds the threads and ARGH! Why?

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And here I thought all these years that Eric Clapton sang "Feel Like Making Love" when it was really Bad Company! I Love this song!    (and thank you all for another correction...I am *not* a music person)

 And damn, but the Doobie Brothers are the bomb! Especially "Listen to the Music", which I used to love and listen to on WRKO Boston when I was growing up.    :::bops to the music:::

Oh, and one more thing: WHY is Mike and the Mechanics not on iTunes?