Tv recycle place

We took our tree down on Christmas day. It was starting to dry out and get all brown. That is the pain of having a live tree. It also smelled awful. Next year I will get an artificial tree. That way I don’t have to water it and smell it and worry about it catching on fire. They catch on fire really quick. Have you ever burned one? One house I had, had a huge double-sided fire-place. I put an old christmas tree inside it and lit it. It lit up in a huge bonfire, quickly. Flames were shooting all over the place, but it stayed inside the fireplace. I was lucky I didn’t burn the house down. I didn’t know it would catch fire all at once.

There is a place you can take your old trees to here. We drove it (the tree) over and threw it (the tree) in the pile. You pay them $3 for dropping off your tree. They recycle it. Probably take the wood and make mulch out of it. The place smelled really strong of pine.

We packed up all the lights and ornaments and put it away for next year. I had found this LCD light tree topper, star-shaped, at Smiths (a Kroger) grocery store for $6 a couple of weeks ago. It was marked down from $15. The cash register only wanted to ring it up for $12 but it was marked down to $5.99. I made the cashier give it to me for the sale price. I was going to tear off the sale ticket on the shelf to prove it to her, but she didn’t make me do it. I put it on the tree and it looked great. It constantly changes colors. I will miss looking at the lights on the tree, they look really pretty all lit at night.

We got a new TV a couple of weeks ago because our big, expensive TV we bought 4 years ago broke. A red light would go on, on the front of the TV, the picture would go all black, but you could still hear the show. We went to a TV repair shop and noticed that they had lots of old TV’s sitting all around, they were all Phillips TV’s. Ours is a Phillips TV. The guy said just to look at it would probably be $400 and up to fix it. It was probably going to be the and up price. Judging from all the TV’s sitting around people probably just left their TV there and never came back for it. I set it out for the trash pickup. They didn’t touch it. I called the waste management place and you have to bring your TV to the dump and pay 35 cents a pound. That TV is big and heavy, probably easily 100 pounds. I called this other place that recycles TV’s and they charge $25. Yesterday we drove over to the TV recycle place with the TV. I got out of the truck and went to the door of the place. It was locked. I had called before I came to see if I could bring it in, but they didn’t tell me how to get inside. A guy sitting at a table outside yelled “You have to press the button.” Oh, OK, so I pressed this button, that looked like a doorbell. Nothing happened for a while. Then I heard a beep and I opened the door. You go into a room with nothing. There is blue carpet and just walls that look like it had on 1970’s wood paneling. My son went in with me. “Now what do we do?” he said. I whispered “I don’t know, there is no one here.”  Then we hear a voice come from a speaker in the ceiling. Kind of gave me the feeling I was in the Wizard of Oz.

“What do you want?” the speaker said.

“I’m here to turn in a TV.” I said.

“Go back outside and go to door number 1”

So we go back outside and I look around the corner and there are these big garage type doors with gated doors and really up high. I told my husband to back up the truck to door number one. He backed it up and I opened the tail gate. Nothing happened. We waited and waited and then someone finally lifted up the roll up door from the inside and then opened the wire mesh looking doors too. Those had a pad lock on it.

Two guys stepping into my truck and picked up the TV and put it into their building. They looked at it a while and said “We are going to have to charge you to turn it in.”

I said “I know, I called, I will pay you.” He told me to go back to the door and he would let me in. So I go back to the front door and he opens the door and I go in. He said “Follow me.” We go down this long hallway and then up some stairs to this other room. He goes over to this one guy and whispers to him that I want to pay with a credit card. I told him I called and the girl said that I could pay the $25 with a credit card. They whispered together again. They didn’t know how to do the credit card and the girl had just left for lunch, it would be an hour. Then the one guy said,

“Merry Christmas, go your done.” I said “Really, I don’t have to pay?” He again said “Merry Christmas, you can go now.”  So the one guy showed me how to get to the front door and I left. We didn’t have to pay. I tried but they didn’t make me come back.

So the tree is gone, the TV is gone, Christmas is over. Is the world going to end in 2012?

Quail

Yesterday I saw some Quail sitting on some rocks right outside my window. It was cold outside and they had their feathers all fluffed out, looking like a ball. They looked so cute, so I got my camera to take a picture of them. It is amazing how they match their surrounds. They are the color of the rocks and the color of the yellow grasses growing all over. Sitting, soaking up the warmth from the sun.

There were a lot more quail, sitting all in a long line. It was very sunny and bright and I had a hard time finding them in the camera lense. While I was snapping pictures, I captured a rabbit, that just hopped into the picture. I am surprised that the birds didn’t run, or fly away when the rabbit hopped up.

The birds then ran off and left the rabbit all alone.

 

Weekly Photo Challenge: Between

The weekly photo challenge is Between

Between now and Christmas, I see the strangest dressed people. I was at the mall and saw this lady wearing a Christmas hat, but this hat had 4 red, fat, puffy hang down parts with a fluffy white ball at the end of each one. She also had on flashing, hanging down red lighted earrings. I just had to get a picture of her. She walked really fast and I didn’t want anyone to notice I was taking a picture of her. I had to use my zoom on my camera, but I did get a picture of her from the back and it only shows 3 hanging parts of her red hat, but trust me, there are 4. Just between you and me, I think it is a little strange looking. Shhhhh, don’t tell anyone I told you that, OK?, it will just be our little secret….between friends.

I went to Papa Johns to order a pizza. While I was sitting there, I was thinking what could I take a picture meaning “between” for this challenge. Then I noticed my between picture. As I was watching the pizza oven, I noticed I could just see my pizza, almost coming out the end. It rolls through, from one side to the end all cooked. It comes between this slot in the oven.

 So I waited till I could see a little more of the pizza. I zoomed in because it was a little far away, and I don’t think the pizza guys would let me walk in there to take a closer picture. There it is, almost coming out that space between the roller belt and the heat.

Duck tape wallet

About 3 weeks ago my son had to make something to sell at school. They sold stuff for school dollars, not real money. We had to go out and get construction paper and he made a lot of big paper poppers. They pop loud when you flick them open. He sold them all. The 8th graders in the entire school sold stuff they made. Some made pet rocks and my son bought a marshmallow shooter, something made out of little pvc pipe. The one thing I really liked was a duck tape wallet. I have never seen these. I think it is neat. I told him to ask the kid that made it to make me one and I would pay him real money for it. He was selling them for $2 school bucks, so I gave him $2, cash. It took weeks for him to get around to making it, but he finally did. My son put it in his backpack to bring home to me. A kid on the bus unzipped his backpack and stole the wallet. When my son got home he could not find the wallet anywhere. Then he remembered that a kid on the bus unzipped his backpack, so he zipped it back up. I guess the kid took the wallet, thinking there must have been something in it. So I didn’t get my wallet. My son said it was really neat looking. The kid make it with peace signs and green tape. This is the one my son originally bought. It is blue and silver.

I think it is pretty good for just duck tape. I watched some videos on YouTube to find out how to make them. I went to the store and bought two rolls of duck tape. That stuff comes in so many colors and patterns. There are people on YouTube that make really nice wallets with pictures and designs and they are amazing. They even sell them. I bought a roll of “splash of colors” tape and a roll of gold. I got a craft knife and my husband made a board to cut the tape on. He made it out of a sheet of heavy vinyl that he had made to put over a wire shelf. I checked out the cutting boards that people were using on YouTube, but when I went to buy one from Michael’s crafts place, they are expensive, like $30 up to $100. I didn’t want to spend that much just to make a tape wallet. I bought a ruler and taped it down on my vinyl sheet, it is pretty sturdy. I watched an instruction video some guy had made and I wrote down what I had to do. It is one thing watching someone make it.  It is a whole different thing actually cutting it out and taping it together. That duck tape is sticky and very hard to tape another piece to it. It sticks to your fingers, it sticks to the 2nd piece of tape in places where you don’t want it to stick. So anyway after many tries, I finally made my first duck tape wallet. I think I might be able to do better on the next one. My son wants a black and yellow one.

So here are pictures of the wallet I made. This is the outside of it. The inside is gold and there are 3 pockets for credit cards and I made a clear pocket on one side to put ID into.  I like that it is not heavy and does not take up much space in my purse.

The other day I got a Kindle, the $79 one. I just wanted it to read books on. Did you know that Amazon has lots of fee books to put on your Kindle. I also can download them from the library. The only problem with that is, I am like number 60 on the waiting list for a book I tried to get. That will take a long, long time before it gets to me. I now need to make a pouch to put my Kindle in when I put it in my purse.

PS: You can click on the pictures to see them bigger.

Weekly photo challenge: Self Portrait

The weekly photo challenge is Self Portrait.

I live in Reno, Nevada. We drove downtown last night. When I saw all the casino lights, I took a self portrait, trying to capture the lighted casino background. In the background is The Nugget casino.

Weekly photo challenge : Celebration

The Weekly Photo Challenge is : Celebration 

Every year I put up a Christmas tree in Celebration for Christmas. But this year I put up one and then took it down and decided to get a real tree, not an artificial one. I showed you my tree last week. It was the artificial tree. This one.

Those are just stickers of presents I put on at Photobucket to make it look like it had presents. I have presents wrapped, but they are not under the tree yet. I will put them out closer to Christmas. I put all red ornaments on it. Then the tree started leaning a lot. I think it would not support the decorations. It was leaning to the left and leaning forward like it was going to fall down. So I took all the decorations off and took the tree apart and took it back to Target. The reason I got it at Target is because I had a gift card for $50. How did I get the gift card….well let me tell you. I got an e-mail from this builder that said if I make an appointment to see their houses, they would give me a gift card. I got right on the phone and made the appointment to see the house (the one I had been looking at anyway for a while). I looked at the model house and then got the gift card. They have sent me another e-mail to come look at a house again for a chance to draw another gift card. I did go again, but all I got was a $15 Itunes music gift card. I was hoping for another $50 card to go back to Target and buy me a Kendle book reader.

Anyway, my son wanted a real tree, so we bought a real one and he wanted colored lights and colored ornaments. I took back all the red ornaments and got multi colored ones. So now we have a Christmas tree that smells like a pine forest. My son said it reminds him of camping. We have not had a real tree, it does smell strong of pine.

I just watched a cooking TV show where the guy cooked a turkey and a goose. He even went to see the animals live. The turkey was running around and they were holding it and the goose was big and cute. It was kind of depressing seeing them alive and cute and then he cooked them. I have never ate a goose, but I don’t think I will ever will. I celebrate Thanksgiving by cooking a nice meal, but not Christmas. I think after doing all the cooking in November for Thanksgiving, it makes me not want to stand and do dishes for another holiday. Maybe we could go out to eat, go to a casino buffet and eat. Then I don’t have to cook or do dishes.

Weekly photo challenge: Waiting

The Weekly Photo Challenge is Waiting.

I bought a new artificial Christmas tree a couple of days ago. That thing was squeezed so tight, it took me a few hours to pry the branches apart and then fluff them all open. It is like it was stuck in a machine that squeezed it so tight so they could cram it in the box. So I had it all arranged to look like a tree and I bought some red ornaments to put on it. Then I spent the afternoon waiting for my son to come home from school to help me put on the lights. So here is the tree “waiting” to be decorated.

While I am waiting for help with the tree, I am also waiting for the drier to get done drying clothes. Sometimes I open the door and just wait to see if those clothes will magically pick them selves up and march into the closet and just jump on the hangers.

They never do. It would be nice to have magic like in Harry Potter movies….sigh.

After doing the dreaded folding of clothes, which by the way I wait a long time for them to dry. I am always waiting for the clothes to stop drying….so I can put another load of clothes into the drier.

I finally get the tree decorated. I did it all in red. Now I am waiting to put presents under it and will be waiting until after Christmas…..until I can take it down.

Weekly Photo Challenge: Family

The weekly photo challenge is Family.

I like this challenge.  I have a picture of my grandmother when she was younger, standing with my father when he was younger. He was in the navy. I don’t know who the little girl is in the picture.

My dad had 2 brothers, here is a picture of them when they were little, it was taken in 1921. I like this really old picture of 2 small boys feeding chickens. They were my uncles.

Then I have my current family, my husband and son, taken at the Valley of Fire in Nevada. I told him to try to push the big rock. It didn’t budge.

Tell me about your family pictures and I will come and see them on your blog.

 

Weekly photo challenge : Breakfast

The weekly photo challenge is Breakfast.

Todays breakfast is crispy bacon and a waffle.

Hubby cooks the bacon. He cooks the best bacon.

I get out the waffle iron, it is a flip one. 

Heat that up and make the waffle batter. It takes one cup of batter to make a big thick waffle.

Put some butter on it and pour real maple syrup, warmed up, all over the waffle.

Then put some bacon  on the plate, add some whipped cream and it is ready to eat.

Time to have a Christmas ornament made.

I make an ornament every year with my son’s picture on it. At first I just took a regular ball shaped ornament and printed out a picture and glued it on and then took puff paint and put the year on it. The picture always came out all wrinkled because it would wrinkle from the glue and going onto  a round surface. Last year I found that Wal-Mart makes pretty porcelain ornaments with a picture. I took a picture and had the ornament made. It came out nicer than the ones I made. I like the first ones I made, but who knows how long those paper pictures will last. I think it would be neat to grow up and at Christmas time, you get to look at what you looked like when your were little. Your children would probably like looking at them too. If he does not want them, I will enjoy hanging them on my tree and looking at him through the years. 

My son does not want me taking more than one picture of him. I told him to go outside so I could take pictures of him. We went outside and I had him stand by a tree. After one picture he said he was done. I kept making him move to different spots and he had awful looks on his face. I finally had him stand by this wood fence and pose for me. I really liked this picture, so I used it for the ornament. I ordered it today and I will hang it on the tree for years to come.