Sunday afternoon I was folding Fred’s laundry and putting it away, trying to get the chore done and over with so I could go upstairs and hang out with the McMaos, when the goddamn alarm went off. Our doors and windows are alarmed, and the alarm system is somehow tied into the smoke detectors so that when a smoke detector goes off, so does the whole house alarm.
So the alarm system went off and I was all “WTF?”, and went into the dining room to turn the alarm system off. It turned off, but the smoke alarm kept blaring, and I was all “Where the fucking FUCK is Fred?!”
Truly, I don’t know how on earth he does it, but every fucking time there’s something going on in the house where I can use his help, he is NOWHERE TO BE FOUND.
Then I thought “Well, crap. I hope that smoke alarm isn’t going off because, y’know, there’s a FIRE.” It was the one upstairs, so I ran up to make sure nothing was burning and to get the goddamn smoke alarm to shut the fuck up. As it turned out, I’d lit a candle in the bathroom, and it was smoking a tiny bit, but certainly nothing that should have set off the fucking smoke alarm. I blew out the candle and grabbed a towel and tried waving the towel at the smoke alarm, in hopes that it would cause any smoke around the alarm to dissipate and perhaps the alarm would shut itself off, but nay.
Do you suppose there’s anything at all in the upstairs of our house that I could drag under the smoke alarm so I could yank it out of its mooring and pull the batteries out? AGAIN I SAY NAY.
I ran downstairs and stepped onto the side stoop and bellowed “HEY!”, and because my bellow is a loud bellow, Fred popped up from the other side of the compost heap and was all “Wha?” I bellowed “Could you COME IN HERE PLEASE!”, and then I shut the door and went into the dining room and grabbed a chair and hauled it upstairs. Then I grabbed the goddamn smoke alarm and pullled both batteries out of it, and finally the ear-piercing scream of the smoke detector was silenced.
Then I carried the smoke detector, the batteries, and the dining room chair back downstairs, and as I reached the dining room, Fred finally moseyed through the door.
While I was bitching at him about the fact that when there’s some emergency requiring his presence inside the house, it would be much appreciated if he’d pick his pace up from a mosey to perhaps a saunter IF IT WOULDN’T BE TOO MUCH DIFFICULTY, I somehow failed to mention that it was the candle I’d been burning that set off the fucking thing in the first place.
What he doesn’t know won’t hurt him, right?
(And when I went in to check on the McMaos, sure that they’d be freaked out by all the noise, they were all sleepily rolling around with not a care in the world.)
So? Has everyone been watching Extreme Couponing? I set the DVR to record it, and one day last weekend when we were looking for something to watch, Fred expressed some interest in watching that show, which surprised me. We watched a couple of episodes, and it was oddly fascinating.
I occasionally use coupons (though I tend not to go out of my way to get them), and have even once or twice scored some pretty awesome deals. I’d LOVE to spend $50 for $600 worth of groceries, but I just don’t have the patience to devote the amount of time to figuring out the deals the way some of the people on that show do. If I spend $30 at Publix and save (according to the receipt) $15 or more, I’m usually pretty happy with that.
I do follow blogs that figure out the deals for you – if you go to my links list, there’s a “frugal” section over there on the right – but I’m always so far behind in my blog reading that the majority of the time I glance at the post titles to see if there’s anything that grabs my attention, and then hit the “mark all as read” button without reading them.
I would usually vow to do better at figuring ways to save money, but given that we have freezers full of our own veggies and meat and don’t eat much canned stuff, I’m going to declare that I think we’re doing just fine.
(But given that we’re down to our last two rolls of toilet paper in the entire house, I’ll be dragging my ass to Sam’s soon. Y’all let me know if you run across any awesome deals on Scott Tissue toilet paper, would you?)
Comfy Rufus.
Rufus, fangin’ it.
Can you believe these babies are two weeks old?
First, the videos. In the first, Fergus Simon and one of his brothers (I’m not sure who) flail around and bite each other.
In the second, you can see how they get around. Not bad for two weeks old!
The amazed face over there on the right is cracking me UP.
Fergus Simon and his serious little face.
The pouty princess (Ciara) and Fergus Simon.
Cillian seems worried.
Macushla, giving me a bit of the ol’ attitude.
Finnegan, wandering.
Sweet Declan, wondering what’s going on.
The Anderson kitties (and Rufus) are nuts for ham.
Previously
2010: No entry.
2009: No entry.
2008: Kara’s birth story.
2007: I don’t know that I’ll know how to act when I’ve got internet whenever I want it, it’s been so damn long since I’ve had it!
2006: No entry.
2005: Taking the week off.
2004: No entry.
2003: Fred: That was a cowardly yellow-dog liberal DEMOCRAT thing to say.
2002: Things are getting back to normal.
2001: One of these days I’ll get my ass in gear; I just never know when that day will be.
2000: Squooshiness begets squooshiness, you know.
Last pic: Robyn in her natural habitat.
Yeah, those baby kitties think they run the place. You can tell by their faces.
Poor Rufus needs to get comfy.
If my husband and I lived on Crooked Acres, the smoke alarm story would go EXACTLY the same way. Well, maybe my husband would have been camped out in the bathroom instead of outside, but still.
YES. I can totally see Fred yelling “Is the house on FIRE?!” from the bathroom.
I have a friend who is going to be on the Extreme Couponing show in May, Chrystie Corns. Just so you know, Robyn, she’s a Mainer! (Here is her site, if you are interested: http://www.ilovetogossip.com/)
Yay, frugal Mainers! 🙂
I recently started the extreme couponing. It is very addicting and actually fun to shop now. I have 4 kids, 3 of which are teenagers. I didn’t have the time or patience to use coupons but after seeing what can be done… I could kick myself for not doing it sooner. The stuff that is easier to get for free are the hygiene items. A friend of mine said she hasn’t paid for toothpaste in over 2 years! You can get a ton of stuff at drug stores for free because you can use the store coupon they offer And use a manufacturer coupon. That is called stacking and that is amazing. The local lady who teaches the couponing classes showed us a picture. It is a room with tons of packages of diapers and baby stuff. She said there were over 70 packages of brand name diapers, 67 packs of wipes, countless baby bath, lotions, etc that she and a friend had collectively spent no more than $10 for all of it!!! Amazing.
I have been buying coupons online in bulk and was meaning to ask if you would like any cat related coupons. Remember, you can pick up things for yourself but you can also pick up things you may not need and donate it to a local shelter or food pantry. There was a guy on the show last night that had a wall with 1000 tubes of toothpaste!?!?!?! For just he and his mother. Yes, part 2 of those shows should be help for hoarding. Then it said he was making up 1000 care packages for soldiers and all was forgiven. I hope any of this made sense. I get so excited about the silly coupons. My kids are getting all of those Power Bars and sports drinks where ordinarily I would never buy them. My grandmother was the original couponer and receiver of rebates. I am not sure what took me so long. I will try to sort this post out in a bit.
Actually, Robyn, there are some coupons out now for Scott tissue and paper towels. They are for $1.00 off. Stack them at Target or drug stores for even bigger savings. I am so lucky because my local Kroger doubles up to $1.00 all the time. Downside is you can only use 4 like coupons.
There was one lady with a ton of paper towels and she said every last roll was free, and I thought “Now THAT is what I want to do!”
I noticed that a lot of the couponers on the show are shopping at Kroger!
Oh, and I could definitely use any cat-related coupons! What we can’t use here, I’d definitely donate. I love that the guy with the 1,000 toothbrushes was using them for such a good cause!
Wow, those babee cats are growing FAST! I believe all of them will be extra-large cats, like their mom cat. Or at least, Maggie looks like a fairly large cat – long & tallish. The two indoor cats I have now, Bitty Kitty & Slinky, are quite small – like Alice.
The kittehs flat ears give them such a comical look! Enjoying seeing the photos/movies of them.
Yes, miss Maggie is not a tiny cat. I was looking at the kittens’ paws last night and I think you’re right, I think they’re going to be big cats.
I started really couponing when my husband got laid off in 2008. It gets to pretty addicting when you figure out you can get name brand items for either little or no money at all.
On another note, have you seen the LG Optimus V phone is now selling for $199.99 on the Virgin Mobile website?! My husband even saw it at that price at Wally World where we got mine almost a month ago. I can’t believe the price jumped up $50!
We should have grabbed a couple extra and sold them on eBay. I can’t believe the price has gone up so much, I guess I was lucky to get mine when I did!
i had another crazy robyn/fred cat dream. i was visiting you guys for some reason and you showed me a binder full of cross-stitch charts you had collected that had been requested by the cats. some of them were for these weird wraps that looked like saddles and had tapestries of flowers and garden hats and quilts, like those paula duvall patterns popular back in the 80’s. some were for booties that had nike logos on them. you would stitch them and fred would do some type of woodworking to them. i wasn’t interested in helping make cat girdles, so you guys made me leave and gave me some home canned pigeon-flavored dog food stew for my parson russell dug. you told me it would double his life expentancy, which is something we worry about, a she was a rescue we got 5 years ago and he was about 6 years old them. i’m sure you’ve never made a cross-stitched girdle for any of your cats.
I have not YET made a cross-stitched girdle for my cats. But only because I don’t have a pattern for one. 🙂
I don’t know if you have Costco around you or not, but they have 30 packs of Scott (my faaavorite, I hate fluffy toilet paper) 1000 sheet rolls for less than $20. It literally will last my husband and I a whole year. I bought a 20 pack of fluffy stuff a few weeks ago because I couldn’t get to Sam’s club (they don’t have Scott, I don’t think, we just switched from Costco because the closest one to us is an hour away) to check out their cheap TP. The fluffy stuff is almost gone. It’s insane how little is on each “mega” roll of fluffy stuff.
Oh, I’m going by Costco later this week, I think I’ll stop and grab some toilet paper! I agree, the fluffy stuff goes way too fast.
Was that your stomach growling in the second video, or one of the kittens??
I love how the kittens look like Claymation creatures or stop-motion footage when they walk at this stage. I would love to see a video of newly-walking kittens with some sort of mechanical soundtrack overdubbed.
If you ever get the notion, I would totally buy a cross-stitched cat girdle.
Elayne, I swear to god the only reason you noticed that is because I said to Fred last night “No one will notice that, right?” That is, unfortunately, my stomach growling. I was hungry!
LOL–I heard that, too! Mine’s really loud as well since my Roux-en-Y lolol
LOL sorry! I thought I probably shouldn’t say anything but I honestly thought it might be one of the kittens growling at another one, and I was going to tell you to make sure to get some of that action on tape!
Anyway, if it makes you feel better, you know that thing where you see someone yawn and then you suddenly have to yawn? Well, my stomach almost never growls, even if it’s been a day and a half since I’ve eaten anything (which happens more often than you’d think) but not two minutes after I played that video my stomach was growling up a storm. It’s like it suddenly remembered how it’s supposed to work or something.
Hello! As I was reading your alarm saga, I kept thinking you’d forgotten that you’d bought and installed a baaaaaaaaaaaaad ugly weather alert alarm and that a tornado was heading for your house. What a relief to find out that wasn’t so 🙂
Great kitten pics!
Nah, Fred’s father has a bad weather alarm and so if there’s something headed directly toward us, I know we’ll get a call from him! 🙂 The only bad weather we had here was lots of rain.
We watched the couponing show, and while it seemed awesome, to pay ten bucks for a thousand dollars worth of groceries, we didn’t actually see a lot of stuff we would use. We don’t use commercial cleaning products, or hygiene products, at all. We do use tp, of course, but maybe one or two rolls of paper towels a month. And even the food, so much of it was processed stuff we don’t eat. And dude, if I bought 55 bottles of mustard, it would last me the REST OF MY LIFE. Also, I live in a tiny apartment, I don’t have room for that shit. That said, we had wild fun watching the show 😉
We don’t live in a tiny apartment, but I can’t imagine where we’d store all that stuff where it wouldn’t be sprayed by one of the damn cats. There’s room in the garage, but it gets way too hot out there in the summer. That woman who bought all the mustard – I mean, we like mustard just fine, but we’d have to eat mustard on everything to make buying that much worth it! It would be fun to buy massive amounts of groceries for very little money and donate it to the local food bank, though. 🙂
The 2 episodes I saw made me feel like they needed an intervention. Especially the mustard! And why get something you know you don’t (or never will) use unless you’re going to donate? Don’t get me wrong, I have a huge stockpile of things (got into that habit when my hubby was laid off for 8 months in 2008), but some of that was ridiculous. But I am an “extreme couponer wannabe” on some level. Just don’t know how to get started (or have the patience needed) lol
I was into moderately extreme couponing for a bit in 2007-2009. It was a lot of work, and with the recession the deals have been harder to come by so I’ve stepped down to normal people levels (just a couple coupons per week). I didn’t catch the show myself but heard through the blogs about the “mustard lady.” Turns out her deals were too good to be true; she was committing fraud by using a number of coupons on items other than what the coupons specified: http://www.jillcataldo.com/node/16258
No wonder she was so nervous at the register, yeesh.
I don’t have the math talent to be an extreme couponer or the space. I also have very sensative skin and can’t use just any brand of most items so that would present a problem too. My sister worked at a bakery when her younger son was a baby and the extra coupon inserts from the leftover papers that were going in the dumpster really helped her pay for diapers. I felt like some of it was crazy greed but was happy to see people donating things to others who really need it.
I am amazed at those who caught Robyn’s growling stomach on that video. Now I know for sure that blasting my records, going to some loud concerts and working in a factory for a few years did not help my hearing. :).
My fire alarm drove me nuts one night. The battery started to go bad so it was beeping at me about every 30 seconds. Of course it starts this at 11:30 at night. I had to disconnect the whole deal from the wall because I didn’t have a spare battery in the right size. It’s now back in working condition.
I love how kittens grow – the tiny ears suddenly turn into satellite dishes, the little rat tails take forever to catch up, the claws always so sharp and the face define so quickly. I love their soft little cries and mom’s answering comfort nrrrrt. Soon they’ll all be running around like their fur’s on fire!