I believe it’s now been a month since I’ve last seen you.  I miss you dearly.  I still reminisce about the days of grade school, middle school, and high school.  You’re loved greatly by your family and friends.  Joe, I still think about you at least once each day.  Many things remind me of you.  I still remember back in elementary when you’d first moved here from Arizona and how you loved playing Lacrosse.  haha I also remember how you spoke of your sister.  And you know what?  You were right.  She’s a wonderful sister. 

The foundation that your sister set up under your name is wonderful.  I’m so glad to be a part of it.  We’ll make you proud, Joe!

Keep looking after us, buddy.  One day, we will meet at heaven’s gate.  I’m expecting you to show me around!  We’ll catch up when that time comes.  It won’t be too long, I promise.  Until then, I bid you adieu.

My other problem about girls’ pant pockets is that if they happen to have pockets, they are not functional. Either they are too small to fit anything or so tight that you 1) cannot fit anything or 2) if you happen to miraculously fit something in there, you look all bulky. Even the slimmest of phones can make your butt or thigh chunky and unappealing.

Yeah. We have purses and bags. But what about those days when you just don’t want to worry about carrying absolutely everything with you? Or like me, just want to have the convenience of storing something to be easily accessed in my front pocket?

What happened to the functioning pants of the 90′s?

I’ve ruined it just now. Well, about a half hour ago when I got out of biology lab. I was fumbling with my lab equipment and it slipped out of my pocket and fell to the ground… glass side down.

Now it looks as though I’ve got a spider web on the upper left corner of my screen. Why couldn’t it have fallen the other way?

Oh well… I’ll live. at least the digitizer still works wonderfully.

I am definitely looking for a replacement screen though. I use this thing on a daily basis and would rather fix it now before something harms the digitizer.

Oh sigh…

When I carried water, I’d just rinse it out every night when I came home from school and filled it again the next morning.  About twice a week, it gets a good wash.  But I never really had to worry too much about the straw and bite valve.  I’ll still disassemble the whole thing and wash it, but I just didn’t pay too much attention to it.  This time, however, because I had accidentally left the Emergen-C over the weekend (I don’t take the Camelbak out on weekends), it had developed some nasty stuffs around.

To clean it, I used a pipe cleaner for the straw and connector.  Worked like a charm.  All of the gookies came out.  It was a nasty sight.  For the bite valve, I used an interdental brush from Dentek.  Works perfectly for all of the nooks and crannies of the bite valve and the little rubbery thing in the lid.  For good measure, I threw in a denture tablet, shook it up, and let it sit a few minutes before rinsing it out.

Good as new!  3 years strong, and I’m looking at a few more years service from this lil guy.  It’ll be a while before it needs to be replaced.  I wonder what people do to theirs that they sell replacement parts and whatnot.  I wouldn’t mind owning the plastic insulated one though. 

Wow… my sentences are unusually short tonight.  xD

Being the “frugal” person that I am, I added another box of pasta that I had in the pantry.  Just regular ol’ pasta from Target.

I followed the directions of the Tuna Helper exactly as written and just added extra uncooked pasta to the mix.  I’m glad I did too, as there was A LOT of sauce left over.  There was still A LOT left over after adding that box of pasta as well.  The sauce is very rich too.  So you’re not losing out on any flavor.

More food for my monies! 

In total, I spent about $1.00 for the Tuna Helper, $0.80 for the box of Target pasta, and a few cents here and there for the milk, tuna, and butter that goes into making it.  Sweet deal. 

Now I just wish I had a store around here that doubles or triples coupons.  That would have made it even better!

The Internet is filled with ideas and comments about these. For me, the ones I find to work best are the plastic-y ones similar to Clean n’ Clear’s. The one I happen to use is from Callas Paris (which is actually made in Japan) that I got from a local beauty supply shop at the rate of $3.00 per pack of 5- sheets. That’s still cheaper than Clean n’ Clear’s and works just as well.

Callas brand. My favorite of all the Clean n’ Clear alternatives

It’s even blue and has got the sticky thing on the lid that pulls a sheet out for you. You’ve got to admit that the black box looks spiffier than Clean ‘n Clear’s blue box.

My comments on the alternatives?

“Tissue-y” ones (aburatorigami, if I’ve read my Japanese correctly): This one was from Marukai for the price of $2-3.00 for a pack of 300 sheets. They work decently. I would assume they work fairly well if you’re not too oily, particularly in the T-zone. It seems that I use 2 sheets per “session.”

These are similar to gift wrap tissue paper. Works fine.

Toilet Seat Covers: Free if you just grab one from the stall (might want to grab the ones toward the middle/back to be sure it’s more sanitary). I’m not sure what the prices are, but I’m fairly certain they’re really cheap. I have ripped some and used it, but it didn’t work all that well for me. Probably because it wasn’t the “waxy” type. And the idea that it’s a toilet seat cover kinda puts me off.

Brown, recycled napkins (like from Starbucks): Works if you’re in a jiffy. Free.

Tissue paper (the type you stuff gift bags with): This is probably the closest to oil blot sheets for me from the list of alternatives. It’s pretty much the same as the thin aburatorigami ones that I have. However, seems that I have to use about 3 sheets to get the job done (or probably the same 2 sheets needed as the aburatorigami had I cut them into the same size). But it does a decent job, nonetheless. And at $1.00 (or less) per pack of tissue paper, it’s a good deal. You can get hundreds of sheets from the one pack of tissue paper.

A stack if tissue paper I had cut and left an my desk. Not the prettiest things in the world, but they work and I just use them at the desk when I’m at home.

All in all, the alternatives generally work well. But for me, as I get oily fairly easily, I prefer the plastic-y kinds if I can get my hands on them for a decent price. Otherwise, the aburatorigami and tissue paper would be tied for my next choice.

Example.  On Monday of this week, I bought a brand new loaf of bread and a brand new jar of Goober (that’s striped jelly and peanut butter for y’all who aren’t aware), as seen in my previous post here.  Four days later, my loaf of bread is all gone.  And my brand new jar of Goober?  Less than a third left.  Who the hell even puts that much filling into their sandwiches that it would be that low after only a loaf of bread?  That’s a diabetes sandwich right there.

Anyway.  I wake up this morning to make myself lunch, thinking that I would indeed like a PB/J sandwich, only to find that the loaf is gone.  No more bread.  At all.  And it’s starting to get on my nerves simply because I’m always the only one who buys bread in this household (or fixins such as tuna, bologna, cheese, PB/J, and other sandwich goodies) but hardly ever gets to enjoy the sandwiches because for the most part, they’re gone before I can have at it.  MAYBE one sandwich out of the loaf will be mine (that means two slices, y’all).  PLENTY of times, I don’t even get a single slice before it’s all gone.

Now, I’m all for sharing and such.  But not when I’m always the one buying the sandwich stuffs.  If other family members start to pitch in, fine.  No complaints there.  But apparently, sandwiches aren’t too high on their grocery shopping list and only seem to want it when I buy the stuff.  And it’s not even the entire family; my immediate family is pretty good at letting everyone have their share.  It’s the ONE UNCLE that mooches off of all of our shit and it’s getting annoying as hell.

Yeah.  I will start the day off like this.  I really wanted a sandwich for lunch.  Ah well.  The day will go on.  But it wasn’t the best beginning.  I guess I’ll have to have rice for lunch again today.  <_<

I was at Target the other day buying some groceries and got some frozen concentrates of apple and of berry mix.  I’ve never found them to taste bad or the like; if anything, they taste just as good if not better than the bottled, branded stuff.  But nobody every buys them… not often, at least.

For $1.00 and some change (I think it was about $1.52 for the Orchard something or other brand), I can make a minimum of 48 ounces (1 can of concentrate + 3 cans of water); though I think that’s still fairly sweet so I actually add more water.  For Tree Top brand, I’m looking at about $3.00 for a bottle that is 32 ounces.  AND IT’S MADE FROM CONCENTRATE ANYWAY!  O_O  So why not skip the heavy lugging of those bottles, save some money, and mix up your own?  You end up getting more for a third of the price.

And apple was actually the more expensive concentrate of the ones I’d seen.  The berry mix (which I love!) was $0.87 and also makes about 48 ounces.

I dump and mix everything into a Rubbermaid 2 quart drink container, but you can definitely reuse any other containers that’ll accommodate your drink.  I’d only bought it ($2.00) ’cause it was well made and can easily take drink mixes that are “meant” to make 2 quarts (like Kool-Aid).

I can make my own “uncrustables” now. I know we can make ‘em with a glass cup n all, but the seal isn’t all that great. And the Pampered Chef costs at least 9 bucks, which just isn’t worth it.

The instructions are simple.

My set up! 2 slices of Sara Lee whole grain white, strawberry Goober, the gizmo, and a knife to spread the Goober goodness.

I’d spread some pbj in both slices. Though after biting into it, I’d regretted it ’cause it was way too much for my tastes.

The instructions say to slice the bread using the outer (white) piece first, then seal it with the inner (red) piece. It works perfectly without fail.

The crust peels away without any effort. And because it’s square (as opposed to the typical round shaped cutters), there is very little waste. This one pretty much got it right up to the crusty edges, giving you more area for your sandwich innards. I’d thrown the crust back into the sandwich bag for someone else to eat. xD

All in all, I’m happy with my random purchase. Sure, I could have done without this, but it was just fun. I couldn’t have done much worse with $1 and change.

Besides. Buying a box of frozen uncrustables costs a lot more.

In all I’d spent:
– loaf of bread: $2.00
– Goober: $1.50
– Decruster: $1-$2.00

All good.

Update: (15 March 2011)
Apparently, bread doesn’t last very long in my household. I think there’s only about a half loaf left. But I’ve been making use of my sealer. And it definitely beats the price of a single Uncrustable from Smuckers. The last time I checked, they were running for anywhere between $1.00 and $2.00 EACH. And they’re filled with way too much pbj as well. Disney even took them off the kids’ menu for having over 400 calories in a single tiny sandwich.