60+ year old thread.

Good morning fellow Porchatonians!! We picked up the Christmas tree for the Great Room yesterday and put it up to let the branches drop. The artificial tree is also up in the dining room. Now we just need to decorate them. Retired life is hard - don't want to stress myself too much in a day.

 

Enjoy the soundbar Greg. Looks like a nice solid unit with outstanding reviews.

Good morning. A little colder here today. Not much going on, just laundry and smoking a Boston butt and baked beans. Going to monitor the cook and track the pellets used. It was 22 degrees here at 06:30 this morning.

 

Somebody forgot to fill the cooler.
WE ARE WAITING…..

 

Good morning Folks .
A bit chilly out there this morning but it is sunny so it should warm up a bit.

Beautiful trees Mark. Please post pictures when they are decorated. We decided not to put up a tree this year because we are heading out again on January 7th and it will be too much taking all the decorations down. I feel like Ebenezer Scrooge....Bah Humbug.

Whose turn is it Mike? I lost track with this CRS . Great Porch group foto .

 

I don’t know.
It’s not in my job description.
I thought the last old fucker in did it until the next one came in.
Mark stepped up last time.

Oh Dam.

It’s December…

Everybody needs to fill the cooler..

Why is it always me that needs to figure this stuff out?

 

Because Tom @95SLE is busy cooking for everyone , and I'm never home . Egg Nog is always good this time of the year...

 

I hope he doesn’t do that Tofu thing again..

 

We've had a tradition for a couple of decades to have crab on New Years Eve. We were checking out the prices of King Crab and may have eaten our last. It's kind of weird realizing that you may never eat something you enjoy again. Not that I can't afford $55 a pound... but damn if I will pay those prices. It's just irresponsible to spend money like that. And if the animals are so few that it justifies that kind of price... then I don't believe they should be fished anyways. I haven't seen any Snow or Dungeness crab in the stores lately, either. Maybe we'll do Tacos...

 

Good Morning Porch Pals & Sue! Trying to remember yesterday...oh, ran errands and took a nap. No wonder. Drizzle and warming a little, so eventually I'll get out for some putz. Pizza and football for me tonight, as the wife is still spending "a couple hours a day" at the retired teachers book sale until 9 tonight. All week. Oh well. And she's too worried to let us go anywhere.

Long as we're on Christmas trees, it took me 3 days to finish the Beach Tree in the sunroom, mostly because I was slow.....

 

We love king crab too and also often have it New Year’s Eve along with sour dough bread and clam chowder. I haven’t checked the prices here in California but I know if we can find it it’ll be $$$. Due to low stock Alaska cancelled their 21-22 king crab season and the 22 snow crab season so i doubt we’ll be able to find some anyway. We’ll probably have Dungeness crab. Dungeness crab is a west coast crab and is excellent. King crab is the king of crab but dungeness is damn good.
Costco usually has king crab so you may want to check out Costco. Bon Appetit.
Just found out dungeness season was delayed, I don’t know if it’s open yet or not. May have to go to plan B for New Year’s Eve.

 

LOL... I don't pay stores just to have permission to walk through their doors. And then on top of that pay outrageous prices. And on top of that have to drive a hundred miles to shop there.
My wife visits her sister close to a Costco a couple of times a year and the sister is addicted to the store so they go there. The only thing Costco has going for it is generally higher quality, but not always. My wife will buy cashews, dried cherries, almonds, and pistachios because they are fresher than local... but otherwise she looks on in horror as her sister piles up shopping carts and spends more than she would otherwise.
It's an amazing marketing strategy, but there was a time people would have laughed them out of business. (sound bars... facepalm)
This post sounds a little grim... but I'll post it anyways. I just don't see how people spend money nowadays and then complain about paying taxes and inflation as though they aren't related.

 

sixtys/wannabes/tree trimmers. Wife got an injection into her shoulder this morning, damaged when she took a flyer off her bicycle a month or so back. The good news is it should heal without need for surgery. The surgeon she's seeing is good; I'm thinking about making an appointment for my separated shoulder, to see if anything has changed in terms of treatments since I busted it in 2016. At that time the consensus was that the surgical repair was about as bad as just living with it.

We have Costco and Sam's Club memberships. The Costco easily pays for itself, the Sam's Club not so much anymore. We don't usually buy anything we wouldn't be getting anyway, and as you mentioned Costco house brands have a reputation for high quality. I have gotten some USDA Prime beef there, which I ordinarily wouldn't buy because our local stores don't even have it. At Costco USDA Prime is the same price as Choice in other stores -- if not less -- and so it's a no brainer. Yes it is a giant package, that's what freezers are for.

Then there is our friend, a widowed lady who lives alone, who shops there and buys stuff just to try it. We're talking Costco-sized stuff here. When she decides she doesn't like it, which happens frequently, she gives the rest away. Loony bird. Once when her husband was still living she bought him a pack of 6 pairs of leather work gloves, which didn't fit him. She gave them away. Kooky. We call her out on it too. But she's an inveterate shopper; she'll never change.

 

Yeah... we have a couple of relatives like that, too. One has SIX freezers full of stuff they will never eat, twenty brand new gas cans they will never fill, and a house sized mound of firewood they will never burn, still working like a slave to pay for it all even though they are in bad shape physically. The other buys $9 greeting cards after losing several million, and now her rent is rising beyond what she can afford. Gotta love them... but there's nothing you can do.

 

Have to disagree re the prices. We save hundreds and thousands a year depending on what we buy. We belong primarily because we save $$$, way way more than the annual membership fee. If you are not a member you can’t really know the prices there since they don’t advertise to the general public only to members. Most things you have to visit the store to know the prices. The secrete to not overspending there is to have a list and stick to it. They have other services too. We use their travel agency service (it’s free with membership) for almost all of our travel. We save big bucks. Our recent Maui trip we saved over $2000 going through Costco travel plus they gave us $400 or $500 in store credit. Their meats are top quality and cheaper than our local supermarkets. In fact almost everything is cheaper there. Paper products Tp, Kleenex, paper towels super cheap. Another example is batteries. I use a lot of aa,
aaa, c and d batteries. They are half price of everywhere else including Walmart. I got my last Bose sound bar and also Bose noise canceling head phones there. Saved almost $200, that savings alone paid the membership. Over the counter things like Tylenol, vitamins etc. etc. way cheaper. wine, whiskey and beer also cheaper.
The prices are great you just have to use a little restraint when shopping there and stick to your list.

 

Not to argue... just based on my own experience. I have visited the stores several times over the years and it's just like any other store, you have to watch what you're buying. There may be regional differences too.

It's just not for me. The whole idea of paying to shop (and excluding those that don't) is not part of my wheelhouse.

 

I understand what you are saying. Costco is the only thing like that we pay to belong. It works for us but I realize it’s not for everyone.

 

You've got to use a decent whiskey AND freshly ground nutmeg.
Think I'll just cut to the chase this afternoon and partake of my bourbon neat.
Clock on the wall says 2:18, but it's well after 3:18 somewhere.

 

Too funny. Hold the eggnog and the nutmeg.

 

I like a little brandy in my eggnog. It would be sacrilege to use one of my fine whiskeys in eggnog. And remember , it’s five o’clock somewhere. And when you’re retired it’s five o’clock and it’s Saturday every day.

 

Since we’re talking Christmas trees I’ll share this year’s tree. The family has all grown up and are busy, off doing their own things so there’s never anyone here to see it. Terri doesn’t care, she lives for Christmas and does this every year, spends days decorating the tree and the house. We spend all the holidays with her family in Ocala so we’re not even here to see it.