$$: NPR, Gas, Groceries, Health Care, & .…. Paint

Oh, what a day!  I had a car at my dis­posal all day.  It was heaven.

Spoiler Alert:  Son, if you’re read­ing this stop now or spend the next two months already know­ing what you’re get­ting for Christmas.

NPR — $120.00
Sev­eral weeks ago The Son dis­cov­ered NPR.  Since then we’ve gone from debat­ing whose iPod to lis­ten to while in the car to never lis­ten­ing to music at all.  Now all we lis­ten to is NPR (National Pub­lic Radio).  He’s hooked; and I admit that I don’t mind at all.  I don’t mind that he’s hooked and I don’t mind lis­ten­ing only to NPR because I’ve become quite a fan myself.

Any­way, the other day NPR started their fund drive (yes, as annoy­ing as PBS’s fund dri­ves).  And you know how they always offer those “gifts” for var­i­ous lev­els of dona­tions made?  Well, they were push­ing a doohicky called a Radio Book­mark.  It’s a thumb­drive that you put on your key­chain or wher­ever and when you’re lis­ten­ing to NPR and have to get out of the car for what­ever rea­son (like you’re reached your des­ti­na­tion and if you don’t get out right now you’ll be late for class), you click on the Radio Book­mark and it cre­ates a time­stamp.  Then, when you get home to put the Book­mark in your USB port on your com­puter and using the time­stamp it find pro­gram you were lis­ten­ing to.

Now, The Son is not a gad­get hound.  In fact, The Son is noto­ri­ously dif­fi­cult to shop for because he never wants any­thing.  But I could lit­er­ally feel the desire ema­nat­ing from him while the DJ’s (is that what they’re called on NPR) were talk­ing about this Radio Book­mark thingy.  Really.  His inter­est was pal­pa­ble.  Then, later in the day and dur­ing a dif­fer­ent car trip, the Radio Book­mark was again being touted as the coolest thing since Mint Choco­late Chip ice cream, The Son actu­ally said he’d love to have one!  [Now it’s prob­a­bly dif­fi­cult for the gen­eral pub­lic to under­stand how entirely unusual it is for The Son to make such a com­ment so you’ll have to take my word for it that his direct com­ment was entirely uncharacteristic.]

My first reac­tion (and my sec­ond and third and fourth) was that it sure sounded cool and I’d love to get one for him but no was was I going to spend $120 just to get a cool free­bie for The Son.  I love the kid to death but there are lim­its, you know.

Today how­ever, whether in a moment of weak­ness or sim­ply a dif­fer­ent way of look­ing at things, decided that 1) spend­ing $120 on The Son for Christ­mas was entirely in line with my expected bud­get; 2) why not donate to NPR — we both love the pro­gram­ming and it’s like stream­ing home­school­ing any time we’re in the car; and 3) how often do I get a chance to get him some­thing he really wants?  So I did it.

In all hon­esty, I’m still ques­tion­ing my san­ity.  And I’m dread­ing the next 100 years of repeated pleas for addi­tional dona­tions from NPR.  But what’s done is done and I have high hopes that The Son will gets lots of use out of his Radio Book­mark (and equally as high hopes that I’ll get it in time to give it to him for Christmas).

Colonic — $70.00
My IBS-racked gut is still suf­fer­ing the side-effects of my thy­roid surgery.  Yes­ter­day I was mis­er­able and the knowl­edge that I had an appoint­ment today is what got me through.  As painful as it is to spend $70, it can’t even begin to com­pare to how painful this pro­ce­dure con­tin­ues to be for me or the on-going pain I expe­ri­ence because of my overly sen­si­tive diges­tive system.

Costco — $3.74
Lunch for The Son who accom­pa­nied me on my shop­ping errands this after­noon.  He took his lat­est book and enjoyed a Chicken Bake and soda while I shopped.

Costco — $
I can’t find the receipt right now but never before have I emerged from Costco spend­ing so lit­tle.  I bought a mas­sive bag of minia­ture candy bars for Hal­loween (I threat­ened every­one with severe pun­ish­ment if that bag is opened before the 31st) for $12.99 and a two-loaf pack­age of Rudi’s organic Whole Wheat bread.

Costco — $40.93
The Tank needed gas so I pumped 13.927 gal­lons at $2.939 (!) per gal­lon.  The odome­ter read 132,899.

Sherwin-Williams — $10.50
Drum roll, please.  Yes, ladies and gents, we have a win­ner.  Sub­ur­ban Wife has finally cho­sen a color for the exte­rior of her house.

No one who knows me well will be in the least bit sur­prised to dis­cover that the win­ning color isn’t actu­ally an offi­cial color at all.  I bought two more quart color sam­ples today and, of course, nei­ther were right.  In des­per­a­tion, I found an empty paint bucket and mixed my own color.  I hit it on the nose with my very first attempt (and yes, I went on to try two more com­bi­na­tions but nei­ther was as good as the first one).  The painter is com­ing by tomor­row morn­ing to pick up the paint sam­ple so she can go buy it in the quan­tity she’ll need for the project.  I’m very con­cerned about how accu­rately Kwal will be able to match what I’ve mixed up but I have no option but to have faith in their abil­i­ties.  I’ve done my part and am more than happy to now pass the respon­si­bil­ity on to the (hope­fully) capa­ble shoul­ders of my painter and her crew.

and last but not least

Kroger — $101.88
The Son, The Hus­band, and I took the gro­cery store by storm this after­noon and did our best to fill the cart with an inter­est­ing hodge-podge of food items.  Actu­ally, we were work­ing off a list but with those guys in tow you never know what you’ll come across when emp­ty­ing the gro­cery bags (and, yes, they were my handy-dandy reusable nylon Chico bags).  You’ll notice that I bought things I don’t nor­mally buy like soda and chips and waf­fles.  I was stock­ing up on snacks and break­fast good­ies for the sur­prise birth­day party I’m throw­ing for The Daugh­ter this week­end.  You’ll see a rather large charge on my Sat­ur­day $$ report for the pizza party.  The snacks are for the girls who come over after the pizza party of a movie-night sleep­over.  And, no, it’s nowhere near The Daughter’s birth­day.  This is a Happy-16th-really-quick-before-she-turns-17 party.

• 2 pack­ages house-brand toi­let paper — $6.39/ea. (saved $1.50/ea.)
• 12-pack of Sprite — $4.00 (saved $0.39)
• 12-pack of Mug’s Root Beer — $3.67 (saved $0.72)
• Ket­tle potato chips — $2.50 (saved $0.49)
• Dori­tos nacho cheese chips — $2.50 (saved $0.25)
• Kashi cereal — $3.79
• 2 dozen Nest Fresh eggs — $2.50/ea. (saved $1.19/ea.)
• Kee­bler choco­late chip cook­ies — $3.89
• Hun­gry Man chicken din­ner — $2.50
• Marie Callendar’s pot pie — $2.29
• Marie Callendar’s frozen din­ner — $2.78
• frozen Shrimp Scampi din­ner — $7.99 (The Hus­band picked out for him­self; he makes the money, he can spend it how he likes)
• but­ter­nut squash — $3.43
• Kroger ice cream — $1.88 (saved $1.61)
• Breyer’s ice cream — $4.99 (saved $0.70)
• Best Foods may­on­naise — $3.29
• Pri­vate Selec­tion dijon mus­tard — $2.39
• Hill­shire Farm ham — $4.19
• 1/2 gal­lon Hori­zon choco­late milk — $3.39 (saved $0.30)
• gal­lon Hori­zon 2% milk — $4.99 (saved $0.20)
• 2 boxes whole grain frozen waf­fles — $2.47/ea. (saved $0.82 ea.)
• Cas­ca­dian Farm fruit spread — $3.00 (saved $0.30)
• gal­lon dis­tilled water — $0.69
• 1#Horizon salted but­ter — $5.49

Related posts:

1. Day 161: Gifts, Gas, Gro­ceries, Art Sup­plies & A Clean Car
2. $$: More Paint Samples
3. $$: Paint & Pizza
4. Day 141: Church, Books, Gro­ceries, & the Rodeo
5. $$: Paint & an Invest­ment Funds Transfer