In My Bag

I never realized how expensive it is to stay in a hotel until I started looking into reservations for a hotel in Pittsburgh! The prices I saw made me think I had accidentally looked for Las Vegas hotel reservations. But no, it was Pittsburgh. But then again, the hotels were all prime hotels with all sorts of amenities, and they were located in downtown Pittsburgh… all of that definitely jacks up the price!

What’s a bit of a bummer is that I know there are motels in Pittsburgh, but I haven’t been able to find any online sites for any, and my memory isn’t sharp enough to remember where exactly these motels were at… and I’d rather *not* drive 250 miles on a hope and a prayer!

With three printers that I do printing on every week, you better believe I’m cost conscious when it comes to buying ink cartridges! One way I save money is by purchasing re-manufactured ink for my multi-function printer, whose primary usage in our home is for basic letters and forms. I don’t need perfect ink and pigments and dyes that are near perfection, so I am perfectly content to pay $12-$15 for re-manufactured ink that isn’t quite as good as the $58 brand name stuff, because it gets the job done.

Just a recommendation for those who are looking to cut back on their spending. It’s the little things that can really add up!

My husband works a lot of second shift. Because of this, I often find myself trying to find decent meals to make that don’t create too many leftovers, as I only need enough for one adult and two toddlers. Today while in the grocery store I spotted several Perdue Meal Time Starters. They are ready-made meals that only require the addition of sauce or a side. I decided to try the chicken marinara, which only required the addition of pasta, and sauce if extra was desired. I skipped on extra sauce, as we’re not big sauce fans, and instead picked up a small bag of shredded mozzarella cheese.

The meal itself was fantastically easy to prepare. The Meal Time Starters are designed with microwave preparation in mind, so all I had to do was boil water for the pasta, drain it, cook some vegetables, assemble the dishes and sprinkle cheese on the chicken. Ta-dah! Dinner is served! And it was quite delicious. The box itself claims to have four servings, but quite honestly I found those servings to be on the small side, as I took out two toddler portions and one small adult portion, and there was only enough left for another small adult portion. However, the Meal Time Starters make for a quick fix meal, and are reasonably priced at $6 or so.

As I mentioned in my review of T-Mobile FlexPay, one feature that isn’t available is the ability to send messages to and receive messages from shorthand numbers - those five digit numbers that a lot of companies and even sites like Google, PayPal, MSN and eBay use. I was disappointed to find this out, because one of my favorite online sites that I am active on every day is Twitter. Twitter offers its users the ability to send and review updates via SMS… but the messages are sent to and received from a shorthand number.

Luckily, I have found a workaround that doesn’t involve sending a text message to an international number (which is not free or covered by the unlimited text messages feature) or signing onto Mobile AIM and IMing Twitter’s user bot. The workaround is with the use of a spiffy mobile application called Tiny Twitter.

Tiny Twitter is a small program that installs on your Java enabled, smartphone or PocketPC cell phone. It is extremely easy to use, and I definitely recommend checking it out and using it!

Every year, when winter is coming to its end and again when summer is coming to its end, I pull out all of the previous season’s clothes and go through them. So now, since it’s almost March, it’s time to drag out all of last year’s summer and fall clothing, and see what fits the kid and what doesn’t. My three year old daughter will be able to keep most of her things, as she hasn’t grown much in the last year. But my horse of a twenty month old… well, suffice to say, everything has got to go! Most of his baby clothes went last spring, and the few 18mo and 24mo items that are left will be hitting FreeCycle this evening.

it’s sad to give away the small baby clothes, but it’s exciting to make room for new ones. Shopping time!

So many terms, so little time to sit and think about them all. You’ve got your term insurance, your life insurance, your car insurance, your health insurance, your home insurance, your pet insurance, your renter’s insurance, even property term insurance.

Speaking of renter’s insurance… we lived in three different rented places, and not once did we have renter’s insurance. Oops!

I recently purchased a $500 professional photo printer on eBay for less than $250 with shipping. The printer was a store demo, so with the exception of a few scuffs along the edge of a paper tray, it is in mint condition! I’m going to play around with it for the next week, really get a feel for it, etc., and then post a review about it.