Weekly iPhone Roundup {12.10 - 12.16}

 What a week! It's been non-stop craziness this week, for real. Between having to come home the long way through Cape to the madness that was Wednesday night - it's just been a lot, lol. I do have a lot of pictures to share from my phone, so I'll probably keep this short.

Watch out for the butter pic too, that was from today.

Drive to Perryville Saturday.

Subway for dinner Saturday night. The only time we buy from Subway is when they have the buy one get one free deal. Otherwise it's too expensive.

The purple orchid that I saved from certain death has sprouted a new leaf!

How precious is this homemade Santa picture my mom made?

This is the west side of the mall in Cape where Macy's used to be. This where we had to walk when we exited the back of the mall instead of the front.

Here's the rest of the side that we had to walk. No joke, I bet it was half a mile. The back is completely abandoned and looked like something out of a post-apocalyptic movie.

The sunset from the Aldi parking lot.

It has a beautiful skyline.

The only Playstation 5 bundle in all of Cape Walmart... oh how I wanted you.

Cell phones are known for their crappy moon pictures, so I didn't have high hopes for how creepy and awesome the moon looked Monday night. Didn't even begin to do it justice, but it wasn't bad.

There was a beautiful little Christmas display in Marble Hill.

I nearly ran off the road looking at the lights.

This was the grand total steps for Monday evening. I literally put it on before we got in the car.

Christmas present wrapping madness Tuesday night.

Love the reflection of the light on the fridge.

Wrapped all of my little brothers presents in this adorable dinosaur wrapping paper.

Almost all of my moms stuff in little red truck wrapping paper.

Super creepy lighting Wednesday before we went to Farmington.

There's such an amazing contrast between the super bright part of the sky and the lingering dark clouds.

I was clearly obsessed.

It looked much better and creepier in person.

The tarp and bungee cords I had to run in last minute to grab.

And lastly, all the butter our neighbors gave us. Like months worth of butter, lol. Butter sticks are pricy AF now, so I'll gladly welcome it with open arms.

Winter Musings

 I feel like my blogging is taking the back burner again. I mean, the main reason is because of the holidays and the stress that accompanies it. This year has been chaos for shopping. It seems like everyone is so difficult to buy for and then when you do find something you think they'll like, you constantly second guess yourself. My sister and I buy for 5 different people and all but one are coupled up, so we have to try and get an even amount of gifts. 

It seems like the boys are getting more expensive gifts this year and IDK why!

We came home through Cape Monday and didn't get home until like 11 Monday night, which sucked cause we were exhausted. Then we went to Farmington yesterday because we needed to pick up my aunt and uncles main gift. Let me just say that was freaking horrible. I don't want to say way it is on the off chance my aunt sees this post, but it wouldn't fit in the truck. It was also raining, so I had to go back in Walmart to buy a tarp and bungee cords. Surprisingly those two things were super cheap, which I loved.

So yeah, it's been utter chaos trying to get gifts this year. Normally we have a plan or at least a shred of an idea as to what to get people, but not this year. I mean, there's underlying things that are contributing to the extra stress, but not horribly.

Next week we're coming straight home and the plan is to do our Christmas dinner shopping next Wednesday and finish up our Christmas gifts as well. That's the plan, we'll see.

I guess that's all for now. Here are some pics I took a little while ago while walking Max.

 These pics uploaded backwards, IDK why...

Leaf in a tree stump.

It was super windy, so this is the best leaf pic I got.

Love these little fuzzballs.

They didn't turn out how I wanted, but they're okay.

This was the first pic. *eye roll*

Midterms 2022 {Not What This Post Is About}

 Hey all. I thought I would post really quick while there was nothing going on. I'm actually just waiting on the glider food to get done, so not really much else to do. Anyways, just got back from voting at the local community building. It's so funny to me because the "community building" in my area is an old school. Like old, old - I'm talking been around for probably 80 year or more. It's super tiny and they have the voting station set up in the basement. One of the many perks of living in a tiny little area.

On the upside, it was literally just me and my sister. The poll workers were there, of course, and probably one or two extras that were either friends or family. So that part is a huge bonus! 

Anyways, enough talk about Midterms, lets talk about yesterday! Since LaVaughn and I were coming off of a full work weekend (daylight savings too), we decided that it would be better to go to Cape Girardeau on our way home, as opposed to just driving to Cape in the middle of the week. We wanted to hit up both Dollar Trees and Aldi, then maybe Five Below and Target, ending the trip with Walmart for a few things and groceries.

We ended up leaving a little later than anticipated because I had to meet a lady at 3 with some Christmas Village houses and items that I wanted to get for my aunt. The original plan was to leave around 1, but that obviously didn't happen. We still made it to Cape around 4 and went to the Dollar Tree in the sketchier part of cape. Found quite a few cute Christmas decorations, then some rando snacks (way too much peppermint included). Headed to Aldi next to try and find a couple gifts that we saw on YouTube. Luckily we found one of them, then a bonus gift. The most exciting part was FINALLY finding the coconut wine that only Aldi has!! It. Was. Delicious!

After we left there, we hit the other Dollar Tree. Exhaustion was starting to set in at this point and we nixed the idea of both Five Below and Target. I would like to inject really quick that I woke up at like 10:45, so I was SUPER tired with only 5ish hours of sleep. After that we headed to Walmart where we found like 4 gifts. We did find the CUTEST Harry Potter cauldron mugs that we had coffee out of today. Oh my gosh, they're the best ever!! Unfortunately it wasn't a very good day for Christmas shopping, but we did get a lot of food. Like we were starving at this point, so we got like a stupid amount of pita chips and juice.

Cape stores have a lot more vegan/vegetarian meat than our local stores, so we went kinda crazy. Not only there, but I ran in the Walmart Marketplace and found like 4 other things. I've missed veggie meat so much. My sister and I were trying this meal planning app that we did for close to a month, maybe even a little longer. The only downside is like 3 days a week the meal called for ground beef. We got the 93/7, but it still wasn't the best. When you go from eating real meat like maybe 2-3 times a week to like 6-t times a week it makes a HUGE difference. 

I honestly don't think I ever want beef and Napa cabbage for as long as I live. We had that roughly twice a week... every week. Bruh, I'm so over it.

Anyways, back to yesterday. After we finished shopping, the plan was to get Panda Express. Specifically their Beyond Orange Chicken. Like we both want to try that SO bad, but guess what... they were sold out. Oh how exciting that was, it really tied up the day for us. After that we decided on the veggie burgers from White Castle. By the time I had everything in the cart and went to check out, it was $32!! Like wtf!?!? We nixed that and decided to go to Culvers since we literally never eat there.

Still spend too much money, IMO.

We didn't get home until like 11:20 or something like that. By the time we got everything sanitized and put away it was after midnight. Still didn't go to bed until like 4am, but I could barely keep my eyes open at that point. 

My takeaway from this: 

1) Never travel and shop immediately after a 32 hour work weekend on 5 hours sleep.

2) Never grocery shop while you're hungry... obviously.

3) Never bank on one place for a meal and then get mad and cranky when they're out of said food.

4) Buy every bottle of coconut wine from Aldi when they have it in stock. Lesson learned.

Here's the masterpiece that is coconut wine from Aldi. SO good!!

The Harry Potter cauldron mug!

The cauldron mug with coffee in it. I'm dead, I love it.

My I Voted sticker for proof!

Here are some of the Christmas Village houses I got for my aunt:

The snowy log cabin - my favorite! 

Idk why this is sideways, but these are the extras that came with them.

Here are three of the little Christmas village houses.

Three more. I think there were 8 houses total, but come to think of it I think there's one missing.

Company Customer Service Class

 I know I'm posting kind of late tonight, but since I have no photos from yesterday or today (probably tomorrow as well), I thought I would go ahead and get a quick word in. I think I mentioned last week that I had a mandatory customer service class to do today, but I'm honestly not sure. It's something that every single person working for that company has to do. Since COVID is still an issue, they were limited to only 5 employees per class. LaVaughn and I ride together, so there was no way they could put us on separate days due to the office being almost 2 hours away from us in Cape. Luckily that wasn't an issue.

I'm still uncertain as to why we had to take a customer service class, considering we don't really deal with customers. I mean, what they were teaching in class today was basically common sense -- I guess a lot of people don't really have that anymore? Who am I kidding, of course they don't. It was only supposed to be an hour long class, but you can always assume something like this is going to run over, which it did by over 30 minutes. It normally wouldn't bother me, but we had a grocery pickup waiting on us.

Speaking of grocery pickup... I always do the grocery pickup at Fredericktown Walmart on our way home, but sometimes we go home through Farmington and I do it there. Not once have I had a bad experience. I mean, on the rare occasion I'll get a bad substitution, but never really anything to complain about. I also think the longest I've had to wait is 15 minutes. Not bad, right? Well Cape Walmart is an entirely different story. They have about 10 or so more pickup spots, which is super confusing because it only goes to 19 on the app and we were in 21, naturally. After I checked in we waited... and waited... and waited. I'm not joking when I say we sat there for over 45 minutes waiting.

In the stores defense, the lady did say they were unusually busy that day and had people call out. She wasn't even supposed to be working that section.

After that I ran in Petco and grabbed a couple Gouramis, then we stopped by White Castle to get some dinner. They have a really awesome deal right now - 10 sliders for 5.99. We didn't have to wait in line too horribly long, but that all changed when they had us park. Then we had to wait a whopping 18 minutes! I was legit on the phone with them when LaVaughn told me the lady was coming towards the car.

It was just a horrible long day and it seemed like we had to wait on everything! This is why I don't like Cape; they're too busy and have too many people.

After our nearly 2 hour drive, we finally made it home. I'm exhausted, like really exhausted for some reason. I think it's because I've been getting up early for the past few days in a row and it's finally starting to catch up on me. I guess that's all for now...

This is a pic I took today on Snapchat, which is where the filters come in. You I hate posting blogs without posting a photo, so this retro pic of White Castle will have to do.

Christmas shopping is coming to a close...

LaVaughn and I were planing on going to Cape yesterday to finish up our holiday shopping, but we decided to go to Farmington instead. Besides, who really wants to go to Cape if they don't have to? That's one of the most godawful drives in the world.

Plus, we were able to get our flu shots at the health department yesterday as well! I didn't know it was all the way in Park Hills. I just trusted the GPS and followed it. Worst drive ever! Not to mention the health department was creepy and horribly busy -- I don't like people, especially people that are in the flu clinic.

Anyways, ever since I went in Shoe Carnival the other week and saw this amazing Nine West handbag, I've wanted it. I should have got it then, but I wanted to wait until after Black Friday before I made a purchase for myself. Now nothing satisfies me. I went in 3 different stores yesterday looking for a handbag that would satisfy me, but none did. I'm glad that I wanted to go in JC Penney, because we found an amazing gift for my aunt white we were in there. It was definitely worth it.

Of course, we went to Walmart for bath sets, but that's really the best place to get them and we haven't got any this year. After we finished Xmas shopping in there, we paid and went back in to grocery shop. I hated it, but our cart was far too full to put potentially wet groceries on.

It was a very long, semi-successful day, but man was I exhausted! We left the house just after one and didn't get home until nearly 9. It may have been a little after, actually.

I don't have too many pictures to share, just a couple that I took on my phone and posted on Instagram. Hope you enjoy!

Here are the pics from yesterday:

Shopping!

'

Coffee and flu shot aftermath.

All of the glorious wrapping paper. We had to wrap a bunch last night!

Last minute trip to the mall...

My uncle was supposed to be home in time today to take my aunt to her doctor in Cape. Well, he ended up having to go to Kentucky for work and couldn't make it home, so LaVaughn and I took her instead. It worked out, her appointment wasn't until 3 and wee needed to go to Bath & Body Works to pick up a couple small gifts for people.

Of course, we ventured all around the mall before we left. I kept getting air pressure warnings in the rear left tire, so after we left the mall we had to run to the shop. Since we have nitrogen air on our tires, we can only put nitrogen air in our tires that can only be done at Plaza Tire. It sucks... We got the air, though, and it didn't take long.

We were off to the pet store after that to grab some of Zoe and Una's favorite foods. We stopped by the shoe store next door for a few minutes where I found some ADORABLE handbags. They were only $50 -- most were 30% off and I believe they were buy on get one, not sure. I left empty handed, though. I will be back, that you can count on.

We hopped over to the market for some last minute grocery shopping before it was time to go pick my aunt up from the store. All in all, not a bad day. Long, but not bad.

The drive there:

The mall:

Post-Cape blog, plus birthday gifts and mall finds!

LaVaughn had to go to the pain clinic Wednesday for her quarterly injection, so we decided to go up on Tuesday, stay the night at the hotel and do some shopping. We stayed at our favorite hotel; Auburn Place Hotel & Suites and even got our favorite room this time! I'm going to leave out what room number it is due to the fact that I have a stalker now, but we'll leave that for another blog.

After we got checked into the room, we did our usually mall run where we were able to find some AMAZING deals -- who doesn't love out of season clearance items? Maurice's and Old Navy are our go-to store when it comes to hitting the clearance. Especially if you're looking for style and comfort. We snagged a few Christmas gifts as well -- I also got LaVaughn's other birthday gift that I've wanted desperately to get her from Hot Topic!

After we spent a couple hours exploring nearly every single store in the mall, we called it quits for the day and headed back to our room before 7 PM. We had planned on hitting up Target and Petco, but decided to go there after the injection.

We ordered take-out from Olive Garden again, only because we've been dying to try the Tour of Italy and the Northern Tour of Italy (this one was mine). Of course, it was amazing. I'm a huge fan of their Alfredo and Tortellini. The salads are mediocre, in my opinion. They're overrated $1 bags of Dole salad mix that you get from the market. Where are the baby greens?? The salads are free, so I'm not complaining.

Luckily LaVaughn's appointment went well and we were able to hit up Target (more Christmas items), Petco and Walmart for household items and more groceries than I care to admit.

Of course, we were homesick all night last night and badly missed our cats and other furry critters. It was nice to get away for a day, though, but I still prefer to be home. I'm a homebody -- nearly a shut-in!

I've stolen pictures from my Instagram to share, but they're really nothing special. Hope you enjoy!

Our room and a couple pics of the hotel:

The mall and their giant wreath:

Maurices:

And lastly, our amazing takeout from Olive Garden:

Cape adventures and doctors appointments...

My aunt had to have an injection in her back today in Cape which required a driver, so I had the honor of accompanying her on her journey. I wanted to hit up Hastings anyways -- it's only a matter of time before they close their doors for good.

The drive there was nice, super long, but nice. We arrived at the hospital far too early, like we always do. No one trusts my judgment when I say it'll only take 1 1/2 hours, maybe a little longer to get there. I dropped her off at the hospital (I did go in with her), then I headed to Hastings.

Hastings in Cape is like a wasteland. They don't have hardly anything left and the entire back part of the store is just empty shelves. It seriously looks like something from a post apocalyptic movie. So yeah, didn't make it out of there with anything other than a cute monster hat that I'll probably never wear in my life. I still have the tags on it, so I may sell it or gift it to someone this Christmas.

It was a fairly boring day. Long, but boring. I'm happy to be home now, driving such long distances takes so much out of me...

Drive there through Sam A Baker. 

Hospital bathroom.

Hastings: wasteland.

And lastly, my new hat. Meh..