Giving back to end 2017

During the year, we do our best to donate and give money to charities we believe in and donate blood, but we have never done a community give back.

Today we went to one of my client’s location to help put together backs for the homeless. The bags were going to the VFW and then the Women’s Shelter.

Holly, the owner of MpowerD, who put this together, has been doing this for 25 years and the last 4 years have been in memory of her brother.

It was a great time.

When your day doesn't go as planned, Karma comes back for forgiveness

I tell you what - when your day doesn't start well, it continues to not go well, but you never know, Karma might come back for forgiveness.

I did not sleep well on Wednesday night.  My alarm was to go off at 5:30 AM for networking, but I was woken by Theo having to go out at 4:30 AM.  At least he is such a good dog to let me know when he needs to go out.

Meetings for the morning didn't go as planned.  No biggy, just go with the flow and ended up getting more done in the office than I thought.

My "hockey game" schedule was screwed up because usually the games start at 7 pm and we need to head out by like 5.  Last night's game didn't start until 7:30 so we needed to head out around 5:30.  I was ready to head out at 5 and then remembered, we still had time.

5:30 and we were on our way to the hockey game in DC when the tire light came on in Dan's car.  We were probably about 10 miles from home. He pulled over on the toll road (dangerous at night), and Dan thought he saw something in the tire (ended up being a rock), so we went to the nearest gas station to check the air/add air if needed.

The pressure on all 4 tires (which we just purchased in October from Hogan & Son) were all good, but weren't sure about making it to DC, so looked up the nearest "Goodyear" on the map since we purchased them on our Goodyear credit card. Thinking if something is wrong with the tire, it's covered under Goodyear.

Started driving and lo and behold, it was the Herndon location of Hogan and Sons! When we were getting closer, I was starting to wonder if it was going to be their location or not, but really wasn't sure at all.

We arrived there at 6:40 PM.  Dan was hoping they could plug the tire (still thinking there was something in the tire), and we would be on our way. Mel, the employee working, was hesitant at first because they still had work to do AND it was close to closing, plus he had never seen us before.  He said that we could leave the car and definitely work on it tomorrow. The whole time I'm thinking, well, there goes the game.  Too late to sell them too.

He did take the time to do a visual inspection and as soon as he asked when was the last time we had service and Dan said it was at Hogan and Son in Leesburg, he pulled the car in.  He thought that it might have been the core of the valve stem on one of the tires and changed that. It still didn't fix the light, so said that all of the the tires were ok and good to drive on.  He believed that all 4 tire sensors went and gave us an estimate.  

I asked what we owed, and he did not charge us anything.  He did ask for an online review.  I guess they had have a bad manager previously and they are trying to change their perception. As soon as he started helping us out, I thought about sending them something from SendOutCards.

We got out of there by 7:30 PM and only missed the 1st period of the game. 

When we got to the arena, we got our food and we were standing outside of our section since there was only about 5 minutes left in the period.  We weren't even standing there for that long, when some guy came up to us and said, "Would you like our tickets?  We are leaving.  They are right at the glass."  I'm like, "Are you serious?  You just made our day.  We were late getting here because of car troubles." We walked over to the section and decided to wait until the period ended.  After the flood of people coming up, we went down to the seats.  Yup - right at the glass. 

We settled in, and the next thing you know, this guy said, "You're in my seat."  Both of us were thinking, "Oh shit. We've been duped. Nope. He just meant we needed to be over one because the seats weren't numbered right.  I tried to chit chat with him throughout the game, but he was more interested in talking to the photographer who was in the aisle.  He was cool though when he did talk to me.

We made it on (national) TV.

I forgot how much I liked the seats at the glass.  We used to have seats there a couple of years ago.  Dan, on the other hand, would rather be up a ways to see the whole ice.

The car is at the Leesburg location today for a thorough inspection, and we are hoping that it's not all 4 sensors!  However, more than likely, it's better to changed all 4 sensors because then next thing you know, the next one will go. Since I know the manager (from my networking group), I texted him this morning and even though he's on vacation, he gave them a heads up that we were coming up.

Cashing in on my online income!

It's that time of the year when I cash out on all of my online accounts.  There were a couple that I didn't have enough to cash out on (Swagbucks, Ibotta, and CheckOut51), and one I decided to wait for another 500 points to then cash out.

Anyway, here's what I got!

Mypoints
$10 Walmart gift certificate
$10 Walmart gift certificate
$10 Kohl's gift certificate
$10 Kohl's gift certificate

Recyclebank
$10 off $50 coupon at Harris Teeter

SavingStar
$32.27 cash to Paypal account

Upside
$65.36
I also need to go shopping at a gas station convenient store by the end of the year - I have $29.87 in credit to use....Now, what to get at a convenient store!

Interested in earning from free money or stuff?  Check out my Online Income page and join as many programs as you want - they are all FREE!

Our Christmas Eve

Christmas Eve day is full of cooking, an early dinner, and opening presents.

We always start out day with making knots and zeppole (or at least what we call zeppole).  Our fryer was done last year. We got it as a wedding gift (I think), so it was like 20 years old.  It was getting so hot and the temperature gauge did not work.

Early this year, we purchased an air fryer.  It works ok with certain things - like French fries and a couple of recipes that are made for it, but today, we really wanted it to work for knots and zeppole.

We had two fails.

The first was using gluten free flour for the knots.  It did NOT work well two fold.  First the flour isn’t the same consistency as regular flour when it comes to making the dough for the knots.  It took awhile to be able to make knots.  Next fail was the air fryer.  It didn’t work at all.  I put little balls of dough in it to try it out and put the time to the same as doughnuts.  They were cooked, but it tasted bland.  It tasted a little better with the cinnamon-sugar on it, but still didn’t taste the same.

So to the back up plan.  Old school oil heated up in a pan.  Then they came out a little better.  They cooked better, browned, and then added the cinnamon-sugar.  Success.

The rest of dinner went well - the zeppole went well, the spaghetti and the oranges.

Presents went well.  Theo has a wonderful first Christmas.  He loved all of his presents - 3 toys and a bunch of treats.

Dan got candy and 2 TV seasons of a show he wanted - Ash vs Evil Dead, plus I got him some Star Wars sleepwear. He got me a Shar-Pei book that I wanted and a window cling that says I love my Shar-Pei, along with a bracelet, a scarf/wrap and some candy canes, fruit and peanuts.

Tomorrow will be cinnamon rolls for breakfast and Chinese for lunch!

When you trust someone to watch your dog....

About 6 years ago, we dropped off Esa and Zed for a two night overnight stay at Howl of a Good Time while Dan and I went to an outside concert.

The location was recommended by our neighbor because they took their dog there.  We didn’t just drop them off, we researched and visited before dropping them off.

It was uneventful (except for Esa not wanting to get in the car to leave). Zed did fine with the big dogs and we were told that he stayed most of the time with the person who was overseeing everything.

I do remember a couple of months later, our neighbor told us that another neighbor took their puppy there and it was killed by another dog who was there.  I don’t know if the dog was the owner’s dog or a boarder.

Anyway, we were shocked to see a press release this weekend that the owner was charged with animal cruelty because a small dog was injured and the location owner did not take it to the vet in time.  The dog later died.

This is so sad, because this is the guy’s (and I’m sure other people who work with him) livelihood.  He seemed like a very nice guy, but obviously one (major) mistake and he is paying.

20 years later, and still know how to skate!

For the first time in about 20 years, Dan and I went ice skating.  One of my friends, Kobby, has been asking about going since about July and we FINALLY went today.

I wasn’t sure how I would do.  I figured it would come back and sure enough it did - at least the basics - keeping my balance, basic stopping, strides.  But let me say this, my feet HURT! And I am a little sore.

Since Dan and I did so well, he mentioned about going again, so hopefully, we will.

We prefer Kinder Eggs

We were shopping and saw the US version of Kinder Eggs, called Kinder Joy.  Due to the toy inside the candy, they are not available in the US, but we figured they would taste the same.  NOPE.  Not even the same candy.

It was still fun to put the toy together.

Painted Rocks

I have heard about rock painting for a while and on our way to Canada in August, we found a couple and Dan kept saying “You should start painting rocks.” What? You want me to take on another hobby?  

When we were in Canada, my friend Suzanne was asking me all about the painted rocks.  So when I saw that there was going to be a Mandala rock painting in Frederick, Maryland, I told Dan that I wanted to go and he immediately said, “You should ask Suzanne to go.” So we went to the class!

We had a great time at a place called AR Workshop. I dind’t even know this placed exsisted and there is one right down the road from us.  They do different craft workshops.   The place is really cool and is a franchise.  Which would be really cool to own.

We had a great time learning how to do Mandala rocks. It is easy to do - we used pencils ✏️ (the eraser side), skewers, and the handle side of a paint brush. 

I stuck with the blues while Suzanne used all different colors. I really like it, so may eventually do it.

The funny thing is, the teacher was in her 20s, and didn’t know anything about The Kindness Rocks Project, and we had to tell her all about it.