When Petey and I had been married a few years, we got our first credit card.
When Christmas rolled around I just about melted that miraculous little piece of plastic. I bought multiple gifts for family, friends, and pretty much anybody I ever met. I bought enough decorations for our little trailer to light up Time Square.
I spent enough money in the Lillian Vernon catalog to buy Ms. Vernon and family a fairly spacious villa on the French Riviera.
And then in January, something horrible happened.
The bills arrived.
Whoops! I have no defense except youth and inexperience, but I’d completely forgotten the “pay it all back plus interest” portion of the program.
But I eventually paid the bills, and began a long, slow journey to stay out of the poor house by economizing without it pinching too much. It’s a work in progress, but over the decades, I’ve learned a few things that have helped during the holidays.
Time is money, money can buy a form of time, and reducing stress is priceless. So maybe hire someone to get your place cleaned and ready for visitors. Or hire a babysitter so you can take an hour to get a fancy coffee and a manicure. 
Pool and share talents. Maybe you love zipping around town on errands, but hate wrapping presents, and your best bud would rather wrap then go to the bank and dry cleaners. Then you run, and she can deal with paper and ribbon.
What if you enjoy getting into the kitchen to create treats and baked goods, and your next door neighbor would rather be beaten? Have your friend buy all the ingredients, and you do the cooking for two. You both win.
Make it a homemade holiday. Every year a good portion of the gifts I give are made by me. But I’m not talking about macaroni necklaces or unidentifiable papier mache animals. The creation should be something that the recipient can’t make, can’t afford to buy, or really, really likes the version that you produce.
For the last few years, The Kid and I have worked together to create baskets tailored to the person that will get them.
Dog owners get our special pumpkin peanut butter puppy treats. The more culinarily adventurous get flavored salts. Gluten-free folks don’t get our cheese straws but get double the buckeyes. Everybody gets our special hot cocoa mix with homemade marshmallows that come in Christmas mugs which I buy at a thrift store for less than a dollar each.
The packing for these gifts is purchased at the dollar store, which, by the way, is terrific for stocking stuffers and small presents.
If you shop online, make sites like Retailmenot.com and Couponcabin.com your friend. They have links to promotional codes which can save you lots of green. Another site, Honey, will automatically find and apply discounts when you check out. So don’t hit enter ‘til you’ve turned over every discount rock you find.
There are a couple little-known benefits to shopping online at a merchant who has local brick and mortar locations. If you can’t score free shipping, lots of companies will ship it to their store for free. You just have to go pick it up. If you buy something online, and need to return it, most will let you bring it into their local shop.
Hey, it’s already hectic out there, and soon it’ll ratchet up to an “I’m invisible, and also president of Neptune” level crazy.
So cut yourself a little slack. And that will make it easier to cut everyone around you some too.
Thanks for your time.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, don’t talk to strangers. I heard it from my parents when I was a kid. Later on I heard it from Petey and The Kid (Don’t they sound like a buddy cop movie, though? Maybe played by Bob Newhart and Tim Curry). And I still get it when I’m out—pretty much every time.
One afternoon my mom, a toddler-aged Kid, and I were walking through the parking lot of a local mall to get the car and go home. Two teenaged guys were working on a car with the hood open. Having driven my share of less than reliable autos, I felt for them.
Turns out the pair were attempting some grand theft auto. My helpful gesture was unappreciated by them, but the rightful owner was pretty grateful for my meddling/helpfulness.
That’s how I met the Murphy’s. Through them, I met Petey. So, if I’d stayed home being a good girl, I would never have met the man who was destined (cursed?) to become my spouse, and then there would be no Kid.
I’m a sucker for a puppy (and all dogs are puppies—always, no matter their age or size).
It’s not just a good idea, it’s vital to do some research on dogs in general, and specifically, the breed in which you’re interested. My family had no idea that in addition to being more energetic than a bus full of sugared-up cheerleaders, they’re hounds, which means they’re loud. Really loud. Like, bloodhound loud.
Honest, she showed up, dripping in malodorous “mud”, hair completely ruined, and thermonuclear danger in her eye.
Fluffy was the one that taught me that a dog can be your very best friend, full of constant, unconditional love. The two of us used to sit on the curb in front of our house and share Charm’s lollipops. We’d take turns, lick for lick.
Anything can be evaluated this way.
I’ll tell you how good this cake is. Not only does it not have frosting or a glaze, it doesn’t even need it. I’ve never said that about any other cake in the history of cakes.
3¼ cups + 2 tablespoons cake flour
Preheat oven to 325F. Thoroughly grease and flour heavy 12 cup Bundt pan, or a mini Bundt pan, then spray with oil/flour cooking spray, covering the entire inside surface.
Off mixer, fold in nuts. Pour into pan.
(The answer is yes.)
“Where I come from, we call it bait”.
Unlike spouse and child, I’m just not a fish girl.
Recently, I decided that I would make a mature effort to give all new, unfamiliar, and potentially frightening foods a fair try.
Last month, my intrepid offspring and I were invited to a dinner at Sono Sushi (319 Fayetteville St #101, Raleigh). It’s right in the heart of downtown, only a few steps from the WTVD studios.
Our next course, Kobe Nigiri, was barely seared Kobe beef on a bite-size bed of rice. I’m pretty sure I could eat a corral full of Kobe beef. If I knew where Bossie the Kobe cow lived, I’d follow her around with a knife and fork.
There were four different choices. Each came with veggies, marinated hard-cooked eggs, and the non-vegetarian had ambrosial slices of pork loin.
Thanks for your time.
One might think, knowing me and my love of fashion, that boots and shoes are taking over my house.
It’s books.
In the fourth grade we moved to a Coast Guard base in Puerto Rico. When it was light outside, there was plenty to do—we rode bikes and horses, swam in pools and the ocean, climbed hills and trees, and just goofed around outside.
But even at half a buck, we couldn’t go to the movies every day—they ran for two weeks, and there aren’t many films I can think of that I’d wanna see for 14 days straight.
If you want to know if you or someone you love has grown up to be a bookworm, there are some tells.
3.)A reader has occasionally bought a book twice because although they already own it, it’s so far down in the “to be read” stack that the original purchase has been forgotten.
Thanks for your time.
Sitting on a bench was a little boy, about eight-years-old. It looked like he’d gotten separated from his family, and he was having a meltdown. But I’d never seen a meltdown like this; he had his arms wrapped around himself, and was rocking back and forth, and making a sound that sounded like something halfway between a moan and a wail.
Then I noticed Carolyn. She kneeled in front of the distraught child, and without touching him, she began speaking to him, slowly and calmly. She looked over her shoulder at me.
Carolyn informed me that autism is a disorder where information isn’t collected, processed, and responded to in the same way as most people. Change and the unexpected can cause them to shut down. My friend was able to stop the emotional escalation, and even begin calming him.
Last Saturday I learned something shocking about my own child. Although not a make-up wearer, The Kid can draw cat eyeliner on others perfectly, and in the blink of a gorgeous, dramatic eye. It’s a skill picked up in theater classes.
Petey hasn’t done it in years, and even then not often, and he’d probably deny it, but the man is a really good dancer. And as a bonus, he does a spot-on impression of Eddie Murphy’s version of Gumby, “I’m Gumby, damn it!”.
Thanks for your time.
You know it’s been a heck of a weekend if, on Sunday night, you’re craving a salad and a shower.
Saturday night was the inaugural Big Easy Bash. It was held in a town near Greenville which is undergoing a kind of renaissance, Traveler’s Rest (is that a cute name for a little town, or what?). It was a celebration of all things New Orleans.
We were lucky enough to have a VIP ticket. It conferred upon us exclusive events, early admissions, and entry to the VIP lounge.
Every October in Junior High, our school would have an assembly. We’d file in and find seats while the extremely creepy first part of Elton John’s “Funeral for a Friend” played on a loop. Then a professional magician would perform for us.
After the magic show, I bugged my schoolmate to distraction for the inside scoop. I pleaded with her to spill. I begged for the confidential poop.
So here is the secret; it’s all a big fat scam.
A giant, hairy, hoax.
But as far as I know, hypnosis can be legit. So, I assumed that The Kid and all the other participants on the tape had truly been in a trance.
If there were somebody out there doing I Dream of Jeanie, Bewitched, Harry Potter (Yes, I know it’s also make-believe. But, you know what I mean.) real magic, I’d get a second mortgage to buy a ticket to that.
Thanks for your time
I’ve had a genius idea that may change the world in which we live for all time. I am sharing it free of charge, with no other motive but to assist my fellow human.
Anxiety arrives in the dressing room with an overly critical eye. The accompanying soundtrack is the echo of every intrusive voice that has ever commented on a woman’s body. The chorus consists of moral judgments about the tightness of the pants, the height of the skirt, or the depth of the neckline.
I have very little stamina when it comes to spicy food. My palate has an extremely low tolerance for fiery. Sometimes a surfeit of black pepper can be too much. And it’s not that I’m a baby, or a picky eater. I’d love to able to chow down on the kind of food that brings a tear to one’s eye. But it literally causes me pain.
The substance that creates the heat in peppers is a compound called capsaicin. It’s quantified with something called the Scoville index. This number can vary from zero in bell peppers and pimentos, to 1000-2000 for poblanos, to 2.2 million for the newly engineered Carolina Reaper. To illustrate this amount of hellfire, eating a whole Reaper can carry with it the possible side effects of hallucinations and death. Heck, the lowest level of weapons-grade pepper spray comes in at 2,000,000.
But when shopping or dining out, one must make do with complete subjectivity. Bottles of salsa are labeled, ‘hot’, ‘medium’, or ‘mild’. Restaurants are even worse. Try asking a server about the level of heat in a dish, and you’ll get something like, “It’s not too hot”, or “It’s a little spicy”. There needs to be a better way.
Thanks for your time.
bull city mom 