Concert Trip

On By thefunkyfrugalistaIn Road tripLeave a comment

A few months ago Jackson had asked for tickets to see Tyler the Creator for his birthday gift. I can remember seeing Billy Idol for about 9 bucks back in the day so purchasing tickets that cost more than my car payment came with a sticker shock. Tyler is his favorite artist and he’ll only turn 18 once (even if it isn’t until the end of April) so I bit the bullet and got tickets for him and Hannah.

Monday morning we headed to Dallas. When I tell you the wind was blowing us all over the road, along with the 18 wheelers, it was just so bad. If you ever need a good, basic motel to stay in, the La Quinta on 75 is the one. It was super clean and looked like it had been remodeled recently. It had 2 beds in the main area and then a separate bedroom. Not to mention it was only 4 miles from the American Airlines Center.

Donny rolled the desk chair outside to watch the cars go by.

They let us check in early. We didn’t want to sit around the room for hours so we decided to take the kids to the Galleria. I think if we could have just dropped them off at the concert venue Jackson would have preferred that. He was so ready. I am not a mall person. I don’t like shopping or crowds, but I had forgotten how pretty this particular mall is.

If we would have had time I would have loved to have gone ice skating.

Hannah did find a cute dress and some jewelry so it wasn’t a complete bust. Her birthday is actually the end of this month. We went back to the motel and let the kids rest for about 45 minutes and then headed out. The reason you could not pay me a million dollars to live in Dallas again is because it took us almost 45 minutes to get to where the concert was. The traffic was SO bad. Living in Longview you tend to forget just how bad traffic can be. We finally made it and were able to drop the kids off a little after 6. Jackson texted me a picture from their seats.

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He said the seats were awesome. There was only one snafu, Hannah needed to go to the restroom and couldn’t remember what area the seats were in. She asked one of the concert workers to help her and they wanted her to call Jackson but she didn’t have her phone. The tickets were on his phone. She remembers a “J” being in part of the ticket. They finally found the right area and she saw Jackson and he showed them the tickets because apparently that area was roped off and you had to show your ticket to get back in. But all ended well.

While the kids were at the concert we had discovered this cool little pub called the Old Monk. Since it was St. Patrick’s day it was slammed. We were meeting Nikki and Brandon there and we were afraid we wouldn’t be able to find a table, but we managed to find one outside of the patio which worked out perfectly because it wasn’t as loud as being on the patio or inside.

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What made it even better is than it was only 1 block from where we were staying so we just walked so we didn’t have to mess with parking. It was so good to see Nikki and meet Brandon. We had so much fun.

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Jackson texted me about 11:15 to let us know that the concert was almost over so we headed over to get them. They had so much fun, were able to get the concert tshirts that they had both wanted, so it was money well spent. They will always remember going to this concert with each other when they are older.

We slept in a little and were back on the road by 10:45 the next morning. If I thought the wind was bad coming up, it was nothing compared to going back home. We had cars swerving everywhere. When we stopped at Buc-ees to get gas the birds were having a hard time flying. I was never so happy to get back to Longview than I was when we pulled into our driveway. Now if they could just turn off the wind tunnel it would make it even better because holy cow it has not stopped blowing since we got home.

Chop Chop

On By thefunkyfrugalistaIn HaircutLeave a comment

For a while my hair has been bugging me. It was about 4 inches from my waist in the back. It was catching on everything and when I would put it up in a clip or ponytail I would get a really bad headache. I knew with the Summer heat, that is right around the corner, I would be just putting it up everyday. So I decided to make a major change. Here is the before hair.

My hair is curly, but not in the “oh wow your hair looks so good curly” way. This means I have to blow dry it and that, to me, was a pain. My wonderful, hair magician, Desiree did such a fabulous job.

I got almost 10 inches cut off and she razor cut layers. It’s kind of a modern shag. My head feels about 10 pounds lighter and now I don’t just look like a ball of hair. It even looked okay when I woke up this morning which a normally have a tangled mess.

I think I’m really going to love this style.

The Little Table That Could

On By thefunkyfrugalistaIn Outside Stuff, Outside StuffLeave a comment

After the flood in 2016, where we lost almost all of our furniture, I found this little table at a thrift store in Baton Rouge for $3. It has served as an entrance table, Hannah’s desk and an accent table. It started off white with paint wearing away, then turquoise and finally a bluish gray. It now sits on our patio right by the side door that we mainly use. It had gotten quite ugly. It was chipped and stained so yesterday I decided to give the poor thing a makeover.

I used a sander on the top and drawer instead of paint stripper and it seemed like it took forever. I stained the top and drawer in dark walnut because I just love dark wood. I painted the rest of it green. I didn’t do white because I am not a big fan of the farmhouse look and honestly prefer colors over the gray and white that was so popular.

The patio needs to be repainted and Hannah needs to redo her chalkboard art for Spring, but I really like the way the table turned out. I added lights that I already had. I like the way they look at night.

I did more work on the patio, but nothing is quite finished yet. I moved the rooster out from the yard and the plants that we moved inside during the winter have now found their new home outsides.

We still need to work on the outside gardens and will hopefully get that done soon. The weather has been cooperating lately, thank goodness.

Use It Up

On By thefunkyfrugalistaIn Home lifeLeave a comment

I have not wanted to go to the grocery. Aldi has completely rearranged their store and it’s so confusing because items are not grouped together like they should be. I decided that we really need to use up what we have before I actually forced to go shopping. Because the weather has been absolutely beautiful these past few days we have been eating outside and I’ve been sprucing up the patio. The hens have been laying again so that means more meals using our eggs.

Dinner was a hit with everyone. I whipped up a ham and cheese quiche. I pulled some spiral sliced ham out of the freezer and I had cheese in the fridge.

We also had some strawberries and blueberries that needed to be used for something so I added sugar and some water and cooked those down to make a compote for waffles.

It does take a while for the berries to cook down, but it’s so worth it.

I just make the waffles while the quiche is cooking.

I found the best recipe for waffles.

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While I was cleaning out the pantry I found a can of sweetened condensed milk and made some cookies. I had never made these before, but they were so good.

I feel like I’m really late getting my seeds started, but I was able to get a plant table done. We got the mini saw horses at an estate sale last year. I had the boards so I just stained them all dark walnut. I plan on painting the saw horses, but I didn’t have enough paint.

I love sprucing up getting ready for summer. I try to use what we already have. I am planning some fun, funky additions to our little patio. It basically serves as another room since we tend to eat and spend a lot of time out there. I can’t wait to get started.

Hugh x 2 + Al Fresco

On By thefunkyfrugalistaIn Home lifeLeave a comment

Night before last I stayed up until 2 am watching a limited series. It was so good I didn’t wanted to finish it. It’s 6 parts and I got to the 4th episode before I had to call it quits because I just couldn’t keep my eyes open anymore. The next morning I finished the last two. It’s called The Undoing. It stars Hugh Grant, Nicole Kidman and Lily Rabe. It’s a murder mystery with twists and turns. Hugh Grant is amazing and so is Nicole Kidman. This was filmed when Nicole Kidman’s face actually moved and showed emotion. I had watched the series The Perfect Couple that she was in recently and could hardly stand it because her face is so frozen and weird looking now. Anyway, The Undoing is on Max/HBO and I highly recommend it, especially if you like murder mysteries.

Last night I watched The Heretic also starring Hugh Grant. I have been waiting for this to come out on a streaming service and when I saw that it was releasing Friday on Max I planned my evening around watching it. I love horror movies and this particular one was highly rated on Rotten Tomatoes. It was good, but I wish I would have watched this movie before I watched The Undoing because I think I would have liked it so much more. The Undoing was just that good. Hugh Grant was very good in this role. I think the older he gets he can get away from the romcoms that made him famous when he was younger and I like these grittier roles for him.

Before I settle in to watch The Heretic I made Instant pot ribs, baked potatoes and brussel sprouts. It was such a beautiful night that Gavin, Hannah and I decided to dine al fresco.

I picked up this tablecloth months ago at a thrift store and it turned out to be the perfect size. Hopefully we’ll be using a whole lot more since the weather is warming up. We ended up staying outside for quite a while because no one wanted to go inside. I just love nights like this.

Gut Punch

On By thefunkyfrugalistaIn familyLeave a comment

Today I woke up telling myself that this is going to be a great day. Nothing is better than an overcast cold Monday. I can get everything that needs doing done inside the house and not feeling the urge to go outside to work on stuff. I made breakfast for everyone. Donny took Jackson to school. I ran Hannah to work at 8:30. It was going to work out perfectly today because she gets off at 1 and Jackson gets out at 1:20.

I made myself a different breakfast than normal, peanut butter and bananas on sourdough. I added the banana skin to my jar because the banana water makes great fertilizer for my plants.

The day was going perfectly. I lit some incense in my room while I dusted from ceiling fan to floor then hung up our freshly washed curtains.

I had this little one vying for my attention loudly.

The chickens have started laying again, to which we are very appreciative.

The day was going so well. I made the kids to-go lunches and headed out the door to pick up Hannah. When I see her walking to the car I can tell there is something wrong. When she gets in her eyes are filling with tears. I try to find out what happened but all she says is please drive. When we get on the loop headed toward the school the tears come and she starts spilling what happened.

I’m going to backup for a moment. Hannah works at Beall’s. She really likes her job. She has only called in sick once and she was really sick. She will pick up shifts when her coworkers ask her to. She will stay late if they need her to. They have a loyalty program that each employee, when checking someone out, has to get the customer enrolled in, or at least ask them to enroll. The employees have 3 levels: green means you have enrolled the number that is required, yellow means you need to step it up and red, well, we all know what that means.Hannah has never been on anything but green. Her numbers are over 500. EVERY other person in the store is on red with only about 30-40 enrolled. My point is, if you ask Hannah to do something she will do it and to the best of her ability.

Fast forward to today. There are 4 registers, but they normally only have one cashier. Hannah was the only one on the register and she had a customer whose credit card, when she ran it, was giving her a weird message that she had never seen before. They all carry walkies so they can get a hold of someone because you can’t just leave the register. She tried to get the manager on the walkie 3 times. By this time a line had formed and she was apologizing to the customers. She said everyone understood. One of the men in line said that he knew what the manager looked like and he could go find her. When Deidre, the manager, finally made it to the front she told Hannah that her walkie wasn’t working and that Hannah should have known to use the phone number to call her in the stockroom. No one had ever told Hannah that there was a number to call because they have been trained to use the walkies. None of the customers were upset, but the one who went to get the manager told Hannah, you’re too pretty to work here. You can find a better job and the manager heard him. Everything was taken care of so Hannah thought everything was okay.

When her shift was almost over the manager told her she wanted to speak to her in the stockroom. She told Hannah that she had left hangars everywhere. She had had a 200 and 300 dollar sales. The hangar holder is at the furthest register from her. She asked the manager if she could move the holder closer to her whenever she was on the register. The manager’s answer was, everyone else can handle it so you should be able too also. Then she told her that she was too slow and that the district manager mentioned that to her (the manager). This is the first Hannah was ever hearing about this. She had been told to try to keep the hangars put up and she had always tried her best to do that. Never had she been written up for anything. The manager had even given her a box with a bookshelf in it that she told Hannah to put together. It didn’t have any tools so Hannah was having a hard time. The manager came by and said, you’re not done with that yet? She did finally get it put together.

But all of this isn’t what broke her. It’s when the manager told her, “no one likes to work with you. ALL the employees and ALL of the supervisors have come to me to tell me how much they don’t like working with you”. Then throws in, “oh, a customer called and said how helpful and nice you were”. This is a grown woman who is close to my age. Hannah did not cry in front of her and did not say anything rude back to her. That was it for her though. She was devastated. She kept asking me why wouldn’t they tell me if they didn’t like working with me? She takes criticism very well, but what that woman said to her was cruel. Hannah said that she felt like the other employees liked her. They were always very nice and friendly. She respected them since she was the youngest in the store.

If you know what we went through with Hannah then you know what a punch to the gut this was for me. She has come so far and was finally gaining some confidence. I felt sick. Gavin came over to console her. I called Donny and he was ready to go scorched earth on that woman. She was supposed to work tomorrow but told me she just could not go back there. This wasn’t the first incident with the manager, but it was the first time she got personal and mean.

Hannah decided that she was done. Her confidence was shattered and she was deeply hurt. She wrote a resignation letter and Gavin and I walked it into the store. I know I should have had her do it, but she had been through enough today and I didn’t want them to just not have her show up. Deidre finally came out of the back, which I found out she stays most of the time, and took it. She just said, “well she needs to come in and fill out paperwork”. I ignored that and told her I needed the contact information for HR. She went to get it and was gone forever. She finally came out when an associate when to find her. She handed me the card and ran back to her office.

I don’t know why this woman didn’t like Hannah or why she would lie about employees not liking her. We are encouraging her to call the HR rep that actually lives here. The turnover at this store is staggering. Two supervisors just quit, once saying that Deidre has the least empathy of anyone she’s ever met. Hannah needs to let him know her side of the story, even if it’s just help someone else who might get treated the same way.

She’s going to be okay. We’ve been through so much worse. God’s lesson is somewhere in this. When He closes one door He opens a window.

I Found A Way

On By thefunkyfrugalistaIn Home StuffLeave a comment

Everyone knows that you are supposed to drink water every day. I would always fill my tumbler up, take a few sips, and then somehow just lose the tumbler, forget about it, you get the idea. Lately I had beginning to feel dry. Kind of like my skin like a sponge left out in the sun. I googled how much water I should be drinking every day and it was a lot, 80 ounces to be exact. I knew for a fact that I wasn’t getting anywhere near that so I came up with a plan.

Every hour I would fill up my mason jar to the 1 cup mark and then I would just chug it. Think guy at a frat party chugging. I would mark it on the dry erase board on the fridge because I knew throughout the day I would lose track of how many cups I drank.

This is the third day I’ve done it and it’s been so easy. I will admit that I have probably gone through a roll of toilet paper per day but I hear that it gets better once your body adjusts. I can honestly say that I feel so much better. It’s amazing how fast it works. Hannah is even trying it out too. She has the blue tally marks. Even if you don’t like water, you can chug 8 ounces in under a minute and the benefits are so worth it.

I also found this amazing pumice stone. We have a VERY old gas stove. Even though I clean it there was always this flat burned on stain. I have tried scraping with a razor blade, baking soda, bar keepers friend, cleaning paste, really just about everything. I was in Drug Emporium and ran across this.

I thought it couldn’t hurt to try. So I got to rubbing.

You can see the spot where I started. It took a lot of elbow grease, but it came off like a charm.

I couldn’t believe how much better it looked and there were no harmful chemicals used so even better.

A Little Update

On By thefunkyfrugalistaIn Home lifeLeave a comment

This weekend the weather was just awful. It was cold, windy and rainy. We ended up staying inside almost the whole time. The most exercise I got was changing into my chicken boots about 10 times a day to go out into our water logged yard. One morning last week, it was about 5:30 in the morning, I heard the chickens getting very restless. That’s unusual for them when it’s still dark outside. I was walking into the backyard when I saw this giant owl perched on the roof of the coop. When it heard me it flew away. We make sure that the coop is completely secured when it gets dark because there is always something trying to get to them.

We have 8 hens and they have finally started laying again, which is great with the price of eggs now.

The city is replacing the water and sewage lines in our neighborhood so our street is getting ready to get torn up. It’s going to be a pain for a while, but will be so worth it once it’s finished.

They are just about ready to be digging in front of our house. What started off as a very foggy wet day turned out to be just gorgeous.

I finally got all of the donations bagged up. There were piles sitting in our living room for weeks. Jackson and I took them to the thrift store. We decided to go inside and see if we could find any treasures. I found this planter that still had the original makers sticker on it. Even though it was completely and horribly tarnished, it was marked solid brass so I picked it up.

I started working on it when we got home.

After a lot of elbow grease mixed in with some vinegar, salt, ketchup, toothpaste and finally some brasso that I picked up at the grocery, it turned out pretty good.

Speaking of thrifting, about a week ago I picked up this little table to use as a plant stand. Who would have thought that it’s the perfect table for Donny to use while he is healing. He still has a hard time putting weight on his knee, but he finally has an appointment with a rheumatologist on Thursday. I feel so bad for him because he still goes to work and uses all of his energy there so he is wiped when he gets home. Because he becomes a stomach sleeper during the night, he’s been sleeping on the couch so that he can keep his knee from moving. I am just praying the this doctor can give him something that will help him out.

In Sickness & In Health

On By thefunkyfrugalistaIn Medical stuffLeave a comment

Today is my birthday. It has hovered around 22 degrees all day. Donny had his quarterly meeting in Dallas. Needless to say, we put off celebrating until later this next week. Those aren’t the only reasons though. Starting about 17 years ago Donny would have flare ups in his ankles and sometimes knees. It always seemed to happen around Halloween or Thanksgiving. Whichever joint it decided to hit it would cause redness, swelling and intense pain. It would last a few weeks and then just go away until the next time.

He started going to doctors. He had x-rays, blood work, you name it he probably had it. We were referred to an orthopedic doctor. He was told he had gout, but gout medication only made it worse. The weird pain would always just stay in his lower extremities and only occur once, maybe twice, a year. About a week ago his shoulder started to hurt. It then moved to his left hand. It was so swollen he couldn’t even bend it. When his hand started to get a little better it moved to his right knee. It swelled up the size of a cantaloupe and he could barely walk. The pain was intense. We were trying everything. I have googled his symptoms for years trying to find an answer. For a while I thought that it might be lupus. He had some symptoms, but not all of them and not the ones that were major markers for the disease.

I gave it one more try and did the exact Google search I have always done and this time the first 5 answers was something I’ve never even heard of. I clicked on one of them and started reading. I would bet everything I own that this is what he has. It’s called Palindromic Rheumatism. He checks off every single box. I also found a blog that a women writes about her battle with PR. Turns out it’s not very common and can be hard to diagnose. It’s different from RA because it hits hard with extreme pain and then basically goes into remission until it decides to strike again. There a few prescription drugs that help, but some have horrible side effects and getting the dose right can be tricky.

Last Saturday was particularly bad pain wise. I told him that I was going to make him a doctors appointment first thing Monday morning because we needed a referral to a rheumatologist. He was able to get an appointment on Monday. When we went in they pulled up his last blood work and told us that because his blood work didn’t warrant a referral they didn’t think they could give up one. One thing I have learned along the way is that if you don’t advocate for yourself nothing will happen and I was not going to let him leave the doctor without a referral. I KNOW doctors hate when a patient comes in and basically says, this is what I have and we need to treat it, but that’s exactly what I said. Luckily this doctor had heard of PR and agreed with me that this is presenting as exactly that. So now we are just waiting for the Rheumatologist to call us.

Here are some of the remedies we have tried because basically when Donny is in so much pain we will try anything. I chopped up avocado seeds and mixed them with alcohol and let them sit. It does work, but not for him. He takes supplements that take the edge off a little bit. He takes NSAIDS, but those can wreck your gallbladder so we have to be careful. He has started on a high dose of Vitamin D. There is an arthritis cream that my friend’s mother uses for her RA that I picked up for him tonight. My landlord has a friend whose son had very similar symptoms and the hospital told him to take Claratin everyday so I went out and got that today. I normally don’t talk to my landlord about stuff like this but I got locked out of the house today and had to have her come bring me their key. There are many other things we have tried throughout the years. These are just the most recent. Thank goodness we kept the crutches from one of his really bad flares because he’s back on them.

From more that I’ve read they don’t know the exact cause of why this happens. One of the theories is that it could be something in his diet that triggers the attacks. I found this book that we’ve been looking through. The hardest part it the trial and error because it just seems like it takes so long.

I’m hoping that something works soon. It’s so hard to see someone you love going through this.

I did end of having a perfectly good birthday though. I didn’t do anything and took a nap which was heavenly and the perfect weather for it.

Juggling

On By thefunkyfrugalistaIn familyLeave a comment

It’s only Tuesday, but this week has already been a juggling act. Donny got had jury duty on Monday. The guy settled, so there was no trial. He came home for a bit since he had taken the morning and afternoon off just in case he was chosen. I got a wild hair and decided that we needed to clean out our bedroom closet. Donny has two large fabric cubes that he had just been throwing clothes in that either didn’t fit or he didn’t like. It became a problem when every time I had to pull down my jeans basket his stuff would fall on my head. I couldn’t go through it because I didn’t even know what all was in there. Well yesterday he went through both cubes and the hanging clothes. I went through my stuff and this is what we accomplished.

That’s a LOT of stuff. During the process I looked around and thought, there’s no way we will ever finish this today. This was the bedroom mid clean.

This morning Hannah had a doctor’s appointment at 10. I had made the appointment last week. They informed me that she already had her yearly appointment scheduled for today. They said they would add what her GP had suggested be looked at. Well, when we arrived, where we always go, we were told that her doctor had moved closer to the hospital. We rushed over there and they had no record of her appointment. When he switched offices he also became the assistant chief medical doctor and all of the appointments made in 2024 were just dropped off. They were supposed to call and let us know, but didn’t. They told us that they could try to get us in in a few weeks. Nope, what they are thinking this is cannot wait. Hannah is learning how to make her own appointments and she learned an important lesson today. Everyone needs to advocate for themselves. We told them nicely that we understood there was a mix up but this can’t wait and we need to be seen asap. They were able to squeeze us in tomorrow morning at 8:15.

Next Hannah drove around our neighborhood. She’s working toward getting her license. She did really well. Longview is a scary place to drive. The amount of red light runners, DUI’s and wrecks is insane in a town of this size. Also just people driving and being on their phones adds to the problem. She’ll get there though.

She wanted to come with me to pick Jackson up so we could go thrifting. She hadn’t been able to go in a while due to work and she wanted to hang out with her brother. She found some cute tops for work. Even though she works in a department store she’s very frugal and saves her money. We were in the one we call relish when Jackson came and got me because he found some framed artwork that he wanted for our home. If you have ever been in our home there’s really no space for anymore artwork. The pictures were really cool so we bought them and I found a place that I think is just perfect.

They are right above where the cat bowls are.

The past two days have worn me out. I feel like I’m living in the kitchen when I’m at home. Last night I’m thankful that Donny cooked the steaks and all I had to make was the broccoli and rice. Tonight the kids wanted waffles, sausauge, bacon and eggs and that was alright by me. I just took a shower and really do not feel like going and cleaning up the kitchen. I’ve found that if I just go and push through it doesn’t take much time and I’m not walking into a messy kitchen in the morning. I’m getting better at staying on task and making sure what needs to get done does. Although it does sometimes feel like I’m juggling balls and keep getting new ones thrown in.

P.S.

I saw a video that if you do 10 body weight squats every hour your mobility increases. Ever since I quit working the bounce houses I feel like I’m getting creakier. The squats really help with that. Just a though.