A moth flew by…

Last week, I went out to the storage shed for my gardening gloves. As I jerked open the door, a moth fluttered by.

Not one of those big white ones that like to hang out in the garden. Not a big, smooth-cruising one.

A tiny brown one that fluttered unsteadily, as though it had been sniffin’ hard on the wool fumes.

I have never had a moth infestation before. This is rather remarkable, considering the large and varied stash I’ve kept through the years. I’ve had everything from the finest cashmere to the lowliest of raw wool go through my stash, and never once have I had a problem with moths.

Until now.

When I started my Etsy shop, I moved a fair bit of my stash out to the storage shed. I wanted to keep my “store” in my best storage spot – the bedroom where the cat isn’t allowed to hang out, in the sturdy lidded bins that repel invaders like cat hair, dust and spiders. (Having never seen a clothes moth up close, they simply never entered my mind.)

Most of the moved stash went into lidded boxes and Space Bags (praise $DEITY)…but there was a fair amount of overflow that didn’t fit into what I had. Oh well. No big. I’ll just put it out here in baskets for now, and I’ll get around to buying more bags soon…

Every single woolly thing that was not in a box or bag was gnawed upon. Judging by the decimation, they have a distinct preference for alpaca, but are not adverse to a nibble or three of Merino either. They ignored the superwash and anything with other fibers blended in – if there was cotton, nylon or acrylic in it, they (apparently) gave it a miss.

Naturally, I had just filled up the freezer from the meat market a few days earlier. Of course! Couldn’t happen when my freezer was stark and empty oooooooh no, where would be the challenge in that?!

So, cussing steadily, I rearranged like a madwoman so that I could get everything from the shed (regardless of visible damage or lack thereof) into the freezers.

My husband thinks it’s funny, seeing all those trash bags full of yarn crammed into the freezer. HAHAHAHAHAHA, yeah, it’s hysterical. If I could figure out a way to attract rust to his Shopsmith, I so would do it. Because hilarity loves company, people, and I am not in a charitable mood right now!

I think the thing that just really burns my cork is the loss of my super-fine alpaca. I had two giant skeins of beautiful dark gray alpaca that shouldn’t have been out there, but I couldn’t keep the kids (particularly Boo Bug and Captain Adventure) from messing with it. It was sooooo soft and lovely, and both of them loved to play with it. Boo Bug kept unwinding the skeins and spreading them out on the bed (repeated verbal warnings didn't work, and I'm told breaking their fingers is a no-no), and Captain Adventure was determined to make off with it. It wouldn’t fit in any of the bins, so I put it out in the shed “for now” while I figured out a better place to keep it.

Those damned bugs have left me with what will probably end up being nothing more than about 3,000 one-yard strips.

Why couldn’t they love acrylic? Huh? Why? Why did hafta be my lovely alpaca?!

Sigh.

I think they came in snuggled in a bag of raw fleece. It’s really the only place they could have come from…to add insult to injury, it’s crap wool someone gave me because they didn’t know what else to do with it. And I kept it because I do that with wool, even the crap stuff.

I hate learning lessons, sometimes. Especially the ones where you have to put on the Dunce cap because you so should have known better.

If you need me, I’ll be in the corner feeling sorry for myself and putting ice on my backside, which I’ve been kicking ever since that tiny brown critter fluttered drunkenly past my nose…

Black-Bottom Pie recipe

I first learned to make this pie when I was around twelve. It met with great reviews from my folks (especially my mom), so I kept on making it ever since (because I am all about the positive reinforcement from my parents). I’ve fiddled with the recipe a bit through the years – this is the most current version.

Up front I have to tell you this: This pie is a solid four hour commitment from start to finish. Most of that time isn’t hands-on (praise be), but figure that into your plans if you’re making if for a special occasion with a ‘must be on the table by’ time.

You’ll need:

1 9” baked pie crust
1/4 cup water
1 envelope unflavored gelatin
1/2 cup sugar
1 tablespoon cornstarch
3 eggs, separated
2 cups milk
1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips or pieces (IOW, you can use semi-sweet baking chocolate and beat the dickens out of it with your rolling pin – good for taking out your irritations against the world with the “no, no, just making a pie, honey!” excuse for all the violence)
2-3 tablespoons rum (the darker the chocolate you use, the more rum you’ll probably want…the ‘light’ topping can be overbalanced rather easily by robust chocolate)
1/4 cup sugar
Chocolate Garnishes, if you’re up for it

Make room in the fridge for your biggest heat-resistant bowl. (You’ll thank me later.)

When you’re separating your eggs, remember that while it’s OK to have a little white with your yolks, you want not a single drop of yolk in your whites. You’ll be making meringue with them later, and even one drop of yolk can leave you wondering why it won’t make those nice, stiff peaks the instructions swear you should be getting about now.

Pour the water into a small bowl, sprinkle the gelatin lightly over it and set that aside, too – it needs 2-3 minutes to soften up.

Put your chocolate bits into a small, heat-proof bowl.

Combine the 1/2 cup of sugar and cornstarch in a good heavy medium-sized saucepan. You’re going to make a custard here, so what you’re looking for is a pan that will conduct heat evenly and smoothly. I like to use a whisk for this, because I’m going to be using it again in the next step anyway.

In a bowl, gently but thoroughly whisk your milk and egg yolks until smooth. Try not to get too enthusiastic, those bubbles can be problematic sometimes.

Gradually stir (whisk) into the sugar mixture in the saucepan, then set it on medium heat – no cheating and cranking it up to Super Blast to try to make it set faster!! Continue stirring until your arm falls off, or the mixture thickens at last and comes to a full boil. Brave the napalm splatters for one full minute, stirring bravely and constantly in spite of the searing danger.

Now, here comes the tricky part: Dip out one cup of that boiling liquid death and ladle it over your chocolate pieces. Hey, cooking isn’t for the faint of heart! (I use one of those long-handled measuring cups, usually either a half or a third cup.)

Whew. That’s done. OK! So now, add your softened gelatin to the custard still in the pot. Stir constantly over medium heat (hmm…why does that sound so familiar…?) for about a minute, until the gelatin is fully dissolved. Pour this into the biggest heat resistant bowl you’ve got, and stir in your rum. NOW, if you’ve got a moral aversion to rum why on EARTH are you reading MY blog of all sacrilegious things?!, or a sensitivity to it, or will be serving this to someone who does (and note that this is going in when the cooking part is all done, so there will be no “oh, it all cooks off during the boil, ha ha!” excuses on this deal), by all means substitute 1/2 teaspoon rum extract…or leave it out entirely, and substitute about 1/2 teaspoon or so of Just Vanilla Thanks All The Same.

Set this into your fridge (See? Aren’t you glad I warned you?) until the gelatin mixture begins to mound when you drop it from a spoon – this takes anywhere from fifteen years to life 45 minutes to an hour. You can attempt to speed things along by putting it in the freezer, but if you do watch it and do nothing else because it will go from liquid to solid super-suddenly on you. You’re going to be folding meringue into this, so you don’t want to need power tools to stir it.

If you get distracted and come back to find it has fully set, don’t despair. Just warm it over low heat on the stove, stirring constantly until it’s smooth again. It will set much faster the second time, so be on your toes!

While it’s cooling its heels, stir together the chocolate and custard. TA DA! It’s like magic, isn’t it?! Spread this into the bottom of the pie crust – if you’re planning to make the chocolate a surprise, make sure it stays right in the middle and doesn’t sneak up the sides much…that way when you cut into it, your guests will be all like, “OH MY GOODNESS, THERE’S CHOCOLATE IN THERE?!” and you can be all, “Oh, yes, because I am ever-so clever that way!” and act like you do this sort of thing every day.

When the gelatin part begins to set, start whipping those egg whites. Beat them with your mixer until they form soft peaks, then gradually beat in that other 1/4 cup of sugar and continue beating until you’ve got stiff peaks. (Pause to allow mind to climb out of gutter.)

Fold the meringue into the gelatin mixture. You want it fully incorporated, but you also want it to retain that fluffy-light texture. Screw your patience to the sticking point and keep at it, tenderly and gently folding the two together until you’ve got that luscious topping together.

Then spread it on top of the dark chocolate part on the bottom there.

Now refrigerate it for at least two hours.

Yes, you have to. Otherwise that top filling just won’t be right. Go on. Put it in the fridge. Oh, don’t be such a big baby! You can survive two crummy hours, geesh…!

NOW. You can leave it as-is (which is what I usually do – I kind of like the “surprise!” factor when the chocolate is discovered), or you can put a dusting of cocoa powder over the top, or you can grate some semisweet chocolate over it, or you can get fancy with a peeler and peel yourself some chocolate curls (let the chocolate bar warm up just a bit, then smoothly draw your peeler across the top).

If you want to do the leaves…well, they’re fun. I used rose leaves from my backyard, washed and thoroughly dried. Next, I melted some 58% semisweet chocolate in a small bowl. I used a small spoon to ladle the melted chocolate onto the leaf, then used a wee little rubber spatula (awwww, it’s so cuuuuute!) to spread it evenly across the back of the leaf, to a depth of not less than 1/16” – there’s a temptation to make it uber-thin because you totally want to drink the leftover chocolate, and how much will there be if you actually do what you’re told on the whole ‘how much chocolate to spread’ thing? the leaves themselves are thin and you don’t want “chunky” leaves and all like that, but if they’re too thin they’ll just shatter when you try to get them off the leaf.

I found it was important to make sure the chocolate covered the back, but did not go over the sides of the leaf – whenever it did, the thing became highly unstable when it was time to peel the leaf off. And then it broke in half, and then I had to just eat it. So don’t let the chocolate go over the edges of the ones you intend to actually use on the pie, is what I’m getting at here…otherwise, heck, overlap away! “Oh darn the luck, yet another of these has broken while I was peeling it! Oh well, can’t let it go to waste…”

Once you’ve got the chocolate spread to your satisfaction, set them on a plate and set it in the fridge for at least fifteen minutes. For best results, peel one leaf at a time and leave the others in the fridge while you work – they warm up fast, and when they’re warm they don’t peel off, they melt off.

In your hand. And then you’ll be licking your hand because hello, chocolate, and somebody will walk in while you’re doing this and give you A Look that clearly states they think an Intervention may be called for here, and while you’re trying to explain that it was just the leaves they’re going to get more and more concerned and wonder if there’s a deeper problem than just the cocoa bean habit and it takes quite a while to convince people that it was all just a big misunderstanding when things start heading down that road, believe-you-me.

And the loser is…

Well, I didn’t win the annual Fourth of July pie competition. This being the first time I’ve entered a pie competition, I’m hardly surprised. In fact, I have to admit to not even being too terribly bummed out, either.

I know that totally flies in the face of baking for competitions, but there it is. It really was about having some fun and engaging with our community a little bit for me, along with hefty humor value because I’m really not the “I enter my food in competitions!” type.

If I were, I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t do things like patch tears in my pie crust with big old splotches of extra dough without bothering to make it all smooth and perfect – I figure if my patch job holds the filling in, we’re good. It don’t need to be perfect, darlin’, it’s’a just gonna get et t’minute it won’t scald their tongues…

An apple pie won. A mighty appetizing looking and obviously toothsome example of the species, too…although there is a part of me that kind of chuckled and said, “Ya, that would be the pie for our town!”

Very American and folks, we are a very American kind of town out here, if you disturb the thin veneer of bedroom-community that is what most people think of when they think “Tracy, California.”

Poor, poor Brent Ives (our beloved mayor), along with some volunteers from the Chamber of Commerce and the community, had to labor their way through eight pies and four hamburgers, picking out the Best of the Best.

I know. His job is a tough one.

Although actually, I didn’t envy him one bit. First of all, we bakers can get a wee tad touchy about being judged, and furthermore, the winning burger turned out to be from Famous Dave’s? (WARNING: Music plays!!)

SCANDAL!!!!!! The people around us not only uttered blasphemous words upon this announcement, but hats were flung to the ground in disgust and furthermore there were cries of Foul! and a few other choice words said. (And if Captain Adventure suddenly begins singing out that other four letter word for poop, I can honestly say it isn’t entirely my fault.)

Our boyishly handsome mayor had to publicly declare within moments of the announcement that he didn’t know who the four (4) burger contestants even were until the results were in. Repeatedly. And still, there are whispers that it was all a set up, and the words “kick backs” were bandied around and ohmygah, you would think somebody got billions in Federal dollars to build a bridge to Ripon, y’all!

I didn’t envy him his position one little bit.

And then there was even more scandal because!, see, the burger competition, well fine, they didn’t have any kind of “no restaurants may apply” clauses. But the pie competition clearly stated that the pie had to be homemade, NO COMMERCIAL PIES ALLOWED.

And then the winner immediately announced that this pie was available daily at the Banta Inn. Huh-wha-now? LET THE ANGRY WHISPERS BEGIN!!!!!

If you can buy it, doesn’t that make it commercial? hst-whsss-psssst-hummmmm!

What’s really funny about this is that the pie results were announced before the burgers. So we all just sort of applauded at first, but then five minutes later…SCANDAL!!!!!!!!!

So you know, the whole thing is rigged and the mayor is in cahoots with the Devil and furthermore they’re pretty sure drugs are involved somewhere along the line…

Ah, the small town feel! There’s nothing like it in the world…come to think of it, I seldom envy the mayor his gig. Which is why you won’t be seeing “Tama for Mayor” signs sprinkled around town any time soon. No, no, Brent, I’ll just leave that to you, shall I…?

ANYWAY. Those of us who didn’t take this whole thing too terribly serious (and we outnumbered those who did about three hundred to one) had a wonderful time at both the competitions and the festival itself, which was small, cute and rather well-attended thank you very much.

This is my losing pie.



It’s a black-bottom pie. It has a thick dark chocolate mousse in the bottom, and the top is a rum custard / meringue blend. It’s my mom’s favorite pie, and frankly I’m pretty fond of it too…which made all the trial-run pies bearable. (I also discovered a carrot-ginger pie that is pretty darned good too…think pumpkin pie, only substitute pureed carrots and add in some diced candied ginger.)

I tried something new with this (because isn’t that what you always do for these things, try something you’ve never tried before and hope it works out for you?), which were these little deals:



I will grant you they were fiddly, but not as hard as they look. First, I went out into my backyard and picked out a bunch of rose leaves. After I washed and dried them, I melted some semisweet chocolate, dribbled it onto the leaves, smoothed it out with a small spatula and stuck them into the fridge to harden back up.

Come back later, peel off the leaves (eating the disastrous ones to eliminate the evidence of your foolishness) and voila! Chocolate leaves, suitable for suggesting where to cut your slices.

OK, yes, there were supposed to be eight smaller leaves, since a pie is supposed to be eight servings. But, well, there were fatalities when I peeled off the leaves. I’d never done it before, and it took a fair number of them before I got the trick and stopped breaking them in half, or holding them too long so they partially melted in my hand, and, well, let’s just say there are a lot of ways to ruin them.

Besides, this saves time and calories for the consumer. Because, see, we all know that if you cut a pie into eight equal slices, well, you don’t eat just one slice, you eat two. BUT, presented with a 1/6-of-a-9”-pie portion, well, you can eat that and feel like you got somethin’, you know? Which saves the time of having to wait until nobody’s looking to go in for that second slice, not to mention the time wolfing down the second slice, and furthermore you’re saving, what, 30% of the caloric intake? (Something like that. I’m not going to do math right now. It might upset the delicate balance of this logic.)

Because I’ve never done this sort of thing before, I didn’t think to ask what my score was – there were 45 possible points, 15 for presentation, 15 for taste and 15 for personal preference.

I learned from the disappointed bearer of a very pretty peach pie that she had only scored 26 points, and I was all, “Whoa, you can get your score?” and she was all, “Whoa, you didn’t get your score?!” and I thought about running back to see if I could get it but then the Denizens threatened Mutiny!!! so instead I just went back to my house like a good little loser and ate the rest of my pie, the end.

(And thus was I spared learning that I got, you know, five points or something, which might actually have upset me even though I’m not the kind of person who gets all hysterical about what others think of my baking because if they don’t like it, that means more for me…)

Money Monday: July 6, 2009

The Alameda County Fair is one of those annual traditions for us. We have only missed one season in fifteen years at this point. Like everything else, the cost of a day’s amusement at the county fair has crept steadily upward. Last year, we went the way we usually did: With a credit card and a little cash, and paying only moderate attention to the total cost as we went.

Because, you know, the good old county fair is the low cost family entertainment value deal, right?

It was a shocking surprise when all the bills came in and got totaled up. Holy smokes, the parking and entry tickets were the least of our problems! The food, and the junque, and the rides – which I’d tried to keep “cheap” by buying just a sheet of tickets instead of getting unlimited wristbands and then bought more tickets because they ran out way before the kids’ energy did…they all added up to an impressively large out of pocket.

But we had a great time so, you know, it was like a little one-day vacation, right?

This year, I was two seconds from saying Too Expensive and refusing to go at all. Because it was too expensive. We’d be in for a good four hundred bucks, minimum, by the time we did all the stuff we’d want to do…the stuff we had to do, because we always did it…

Tradition is a funny thing sometimes.

You go to the county fair one year with your new boyfriend. Gee, it’s sure fun. He loves the art, you love the animals. You do a couple rides. You try a bunch of food. It’s all good, but there are a few things that are just awesome. We should do this again next year…

The next year you go and head straight for those favorite things from last year. A corn dog and wandering through the art exhibit. A funnel cake while you look at the animals. Two beers while watching the horse racing. A plate of BBQ that could feed an army. A couple rides. Awesome. We’re totally doing this again next year…

Each year, another layer is added, another thing that was awesome and we want to do it again next time.

As time goes on, these things become not merely “one of the many fun things to do at this event,” but tradition. We always go to the right as we enter, get a funnel cake from this vendor and then we stand on this brick to eat it and then we turn around three times, stop on the left foot (don’t forget it!) and yell, “Hooka-booka-hooka-booka-Jimmy-Dean-OH! Car-nee-val, car-nee-val, go-go-GO!” before we go on this ride first…”

Yeah, I made that last one up. But you know what I mean: There is a list of “Must Do” activities, and they get longer and more complicated as time goes on. In really bad cases, dealing with the list of what-all must be done becomes the point of the journey in and of itself…and if anything on that list has to be crossed off for any reason, it puts a shadow over the whole event.

Sometimes to the point where, well, you just don’t wanna do it at all anymore.

These rough economic times are forcing a lot of us to rethink traditions like these. I know a lot of people simply aren’t going to the fair at all because they can’t afford it. We considered not going because we couldn’t afford it – not if we did things the way we did last year.

And I had this feeling that it just wouldn’t be as much fun, if we had to do without a bunch of our traditional treats. But then I told myself to quit spackling my hangups all over my kids. I’m sitting here saying “we” wouldn’t have as much fun if “we” couldn’t do all the stuff “we” usually did, but push come to shove, it was me having a problem.

I was the one having a problem with the idea of being too budget-challenged to buy all the stuff I usually bought. I was the one thinking not having a funnel cake would somehow crush my soul. I was the one sniveling about not being able to see what groovy new whizbanger I could bring home to make my housework a breeze this year.

I wanted to be able to shower the kids with junk food and t-shirts and let them try to pop balloons for exciting prizes and go on every ride the carnival had to offer.

And I wanted to do my usual thing, where I buy enough junk food to choke a horse, take two nibbles from each thing and then hand it off to someone else to finish for me. (Big eyes, little stomach – fortunately, just a nibble is satisfying for me and I have lots of kids to spread the fats and calories around…)

I went online and found a package that got us a parking pass, four general admissions and two 2-for-1 soda coupons for $25 – it would have been $48 at the gate for parking and admissions, and the sodas were $4.00 each. They also offered unlimited ride wristbands for $20 each on the pre-fair purchase, versus $28 at the fair.

I made a deal with the kids: I’d get them the wristbands and they could go on any ride the wristbands entitled them to do…and that’s it. No ponies, no stuffed animals, no fairway games, no rock wall climbing or bungee machine or dragon statues or, well, anything else. We would each get one (1) snack, one (1) wristband, and other than that if it wasn’t free, we wouldn’t get it.

I expected a lot more angst. Tradition states that a lot of funnel cake and corn dog action will be going on, and that we’ll buy one sheet of tickets (which gets each kid three or four rides), and then be talked into a second sheet maybe, plus of the pony rides and rock walls might be determined to be an acceptable expense considering that the party of the first part did not in fact buy anything from the Shopper’s Pavilion, unlike party of the second part, who is now carrying a stuffed something-or-other the size of her whole room…

But apart from minor pony angst (“Why can’t they be part of the wristbands?!” Eldest fumed…loudly, and more than once) and a brief round of pleading from Danger Mouse about playing fairway games so she could get one of those REAAAAALLY! big stuffed animals (odds of actually winning: 1 in 1,000,000,000), everybody was thrilled with the new reality.

We had a great time, on about a third the cost. We ate a big breakfast before we left, brought our own water bottles and candy with us, and didn’t eat ourselves into a coma on the junk food.

Surprisingly, we survived the deprivation.

The price of everything has gone up. Back in the day, the fair cost $1 to park and $5 for an adult ticket. A ride was one dollar, not three to five bucks. And you certainly didn’t spend six dollars on a corn dog, either.

But turns out, the sheer volume of what we buy has gone up as well. What started out as a quick bite and a whirl on the Ferris wheel has somehow become a full-day extravaganza of eating, drinking and making merry…and unless you stop and really think about why, the sheer weight of because we ALWAYS do such and so! makes giving up even one single nibble of caramel apple a non-starter.

I may not be able turn back the hands of inflation on ticket prices and the cost of a corn dog ($6? Seriously?!), but I can tinker with my own willingness to pay the price demanded, and with my perception that unless I have everything I think I need, the whole experience will somehow be not-as-good as it has always been.

You don’t have to eat until you’re sick to be full. Merely having enough is as good as a feast, and less likely to lead to sour stomach and wallet-holes.

It was still expensive. If things were even a hair tighter around here, I’d’ve had to say no to the rides, too. We still would’ve had fun. It would have been a different kind of fun, just like this trip was a different kind of fun compared to last year, and the year before that.

I guess what I’m getting at is this: Most of us are having to make hard choices around what we can and can’t afford, what we will or will not pay for, what things are essential and what things are going to have to go.

And a lot of times, we are demanding all or none when we make those calls. If I can’t have everything I always had on this deal, I don’t want any of it.

I think we might want to reconsider that stance, remember that the “bad” seats are still hearing the music and that getting even just one little bite of something is better than going hungry.

Now THIS is old-school horse trading!

I got a sudden intense craving for a loom last year. This is one of the…interesting…things about Being Me: Where most people get cravings for things like pie or perhaps a pair of strappy shoes, I get hit with longings for 8 harness looms and concert-sized pedal harps.

You know, the cheap stuff that is easy to store (or walk off – how many miles do I need to waddle for each piece of pie, again…?).

Now because this is a pretty standard thing for me (and because, hello, Expensive Longings), I don’t generally rush right out and buy the object of my sudden affections.

First, I tell myself No, you don’t have time and/or space and/or money for that right now.

And then I wait to see if the Wanting goes away. Nine times out of ten it does, because I am also fickle, childish and easily distracted.

The loom thing didn’t go away. Six months later, I was still semi-obsessed with the idea.

So I put it on the list of Stuff To Watch For. I’d scan the PennySaver and newpaper ads (it’s not as remote a chance as it might seem – our area is full of old-timey craftspeople, so you’ll often see ads where folks are offloading their extra spinning equipment, butter churns and this loom somebody built in the 70s for them), and poke through antique stores and so forth and so on.

I saw lots of looms, big and small…none of them in my price (really low) and experience (really not) range.

I saw an antique floor loom for $100 – but “antique” plus “beginner” really don’t go together. Was it missing pieces? How would I replace them if it was? Could I warp the thing? Where does this bit belong? Is it even really part of this loom? Hmmm…maybe I’d better let this one go to someone who knows what the heck they’re doing…

I saw beautiful almost-new looms with full-color instruction books for $1,000. Ahem. Yes. That would be (cough-cough) just a hair out of my price range. (Which was, you know, under a hundred bucks.)

I saw cute little looms that were cheap, sure, but designed for children. Total weaving area: 6” by 8.5”? I want to be able to do small rugs and table runners and placemats and scarves and stuff like that – something more like, say, a knitter’s loom (which has ‘knitter’ in it, which seems to me to mean that I could totally figure this thing out, right?).

And with only a $100 in total budget, I don’t want to blow $25 of that on something that isn’t going to keep me occupied for more than a few weeks before I’m going, “You know, I really wish I had, like, triple this weaving width…”

Well.

Yesterday, I finally got my loom. It’s an Ashford rigid heddle 32”, and I’m so tickled I can hardly stand it. My research indicates that it is a good loom for beginners, but it also has a wider weaving area and the ability to do Wicked Cool Weaving – so hopefully, I won’t be grousing that I can’t do this or that or this other thing in a matter of mere days. It’s brand-spanking-new, straight from a retailer.

The kicker is my final out of pocket cost, which is so little it’s ridiculous.

But it took a bit of horse trading to get there.

I get gift cards all the time. $5 here, $20 there, the occasional $50 beauty. I never pay actual cash for them…they’re either actual gifts (rarely), or they come from taking surveys (SurveySpot, for example) or redeeming loyalty program points (MyPoints, Thank You rewards).

We have a fairly robust market for gift cards around here. Several of the moms at the local school are card sharks, and we’ll stand around comparing stashes and making trades in the mornings after we’ve dropped off our Poopsies for their day of educational enrichment.

I’m like the flea market dealer when it comes to these trades. Most of the other moms aren’t looking at the dollar value on the card as much as they are the establishment offering it – Starbucks cards are always worth their full value, but things like Macy’s cards? Eh, not so much, since we don’t have a Macy’s in town. You’ve got to drive to Pleasanton or Modesto to use the card, which reduces its perceived value, see?

SO. It isn’t that uncommon for me to trade a $25 or $30 Starbucks card for a $50 Macy’s card somebody’s grandmother gave them for their birthday. A little patience (and a geographically varied friend group), and I can even-swap it for a $50 Kohl’s card (we have one nearby, lots of my friends don’t).

That $50 Kohl’s card is pure gold around these here parts, because they have some of the best deals and selection on kid’s clothing, and they frequently give “Kohl’s cash” back on purchases – that $50 card will return a $10 Kohl’s cash when you use it, effectively giving you $60 in buying power.

I got three $25 eBay cards for one $50 Kohl’s card.

And then I laughed. Like this: Bwahahahahahahahaha!!!

Which may have alarmed my friend just a little bit, but then she’s used to me and my unique form of nutcase-ry.

Perceived value is an interesting thing, isn’t it? To me, $75 in eBay cards is worth a lot more than $50 ($60) at Kohl’s. But that’s because I’m an Internet-savvy, long-time eBay user who loathes physical shopping. Some of my best yarn scores have come from eBay. There’s always something I want on eBay, and I have only been burned once. And that was as a seller not a buyer, so, you know…pretty good track record, actually. And did I mention that I loathe shopping? So having to go into Kohl’s and face the dizzying array of consumer goods and I can’t find anything and do they have this in a size 6 gah, what happened to this display, did, like, a troop of drunken monkeys escape the zoo and rampage through here or something…and then I feel compelled to reorganize the piles and it takes a massive force of will to remind myself that somebody is being PAID to do that and really, I can just get on with my life, now…

Yeah. I hate shopping. Give me the ability to type “jeans size 6” into a search engine, and I am a happy, happy woman. Make me sift through a four-ton wad of mixed up denim, and I get grumpy fast.

But I digress. To someone who doesn’t do the eBay thing, someone for whom computers are a strange and frightening beast and the Internet a puzzle with no solution – those cards are useless, but a Kohl’s card is solid gold.

And why this woman’s father insists on giving her eBay cards for every occasion (Happy National Polyester Appreciation Day, sweetie! Here’s $25 on eBay, knock yourself out…!) is beyond me.

ANYWAY. One trade at a time, I worked myself up to having $150 in eBay gift cards in my drawer.

Then PayPal sent me a coupon for 8% off the purchase of any one item on eBay.

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!

I found Copper Moose Fibers on eBay, where they offered this loom for $184.85 with free shipping.

I practically hurt myself with the maniacal laughter at this point.

$184.85 - $150.00 in eBay certificates - $14.79 coupon = $20.06 cash.

Snoopy Dance of Pure Avaricious Glee.

It’s supposed to get here tomorrow. Tomorrow!

eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee! Can’t wait! Can’t wait! Can’t wait!!!

So, you know, if you don’t hear from me for a few days? I’ll be in a corner trying to figure out how to do the “easy, one-person warping method” and sobbing that I am the dumbest, stupidest, most clumsy person in the whole world because HELLO, this is supposed to be an EASY method…!

…groan…

Gah. Pass the coffee, I’ve had a rough night. It started with staying up too late because I had actual billable work to do – huzzah! By the time I’d tracked down the problem (which as it turned out was not my bad, HUZZAH!), mapped out the solution and sent an email to the client with my radical suggestions, it was eleven o’clock.

The Den was still buzzing with child-noise, too. Captain Adventure didn’t want to go to sleep, he wanted to play. The girls didn’t want to go to sleep either. They wanted to talk. The husband didn’t want to sleep either-either. He was watching one of the endless variety of Fight Nights out there.

I threatened the girls into semi-silence, rubbed Captain Adventure’s back until he finally gave up and went to sleep, then piled into bed myself for a few hours of HOLY CRAP WHAT IS THAT NOISE?!?!

The noise would be Captain Adventure, who was sitting up in bed howling like his little world was ending, ending I tell you!

Enter the fun of trying to figure out why he was howling. Since his communication is rather poor under the best of circumstances, and given that he tends to revert to infant-levels of word-usage under stress, you can imagine how fun it is to get him to tell you what’s wrong when he’s sitting up in his bed at 1:00 in the morning howling.

His own bed was apparently acid-coated, because I couldn’t even get him to lie down on it. He’d start to lie down, then bolt upright again and scream in my ear. (Owies.) (He is loud, people.)

I had no idea what his problem might be. Was he sick? Headache? Toothache? Nightmare? Sheer contrariness? Say something other than WaaAAAAAaaaaaAAAAAaaaaHH, kid!

Eventually, I bundled him into our bed – where he sighed happily, snuggled in, and proceeded to keep us awake most of the night in tag-team style. First he’s digging his feet under Daddy, then he’s head-butting me, then he’s climbing on top of Daddy’s head, then he’s shoving his feet into my stomach.

It was a long, long night.

Followed, of course, by the 5:30 wake-up call so that we could be ready in time for the bus to arrive.

Even the hot cocoa and chocolate breakfast cereal bar couldn’t make my boy happy this morning.

And needless to say, there is not enough coffee in the world to get my eyeballs all the way open.

Now, in the light of day and with a couple cups of coffee in me, I think the problem was fairly simple: Daddy left the ceiling fan on in the Man Cave, which is directly under his bed. When that fan is on, there is a distinct vibration that comes through the floor – his bed hums, and has a slight but noticeable quiver going. With his quirky way of processing sensations, I imagine something that seems pretty minor to us might indeed be like acid to him.

I am a very grumpy mommy this morning. Even the fourteen skeins of deliciously soft Merino ready for the dye pot can’t cheer me up, or motivate me to get off my backside.

Well. Maybe it can. Just a little bit. Got an idea for a Fall-ish kind of colorway, light and dark browns with some spruce and maybe a couple splashes of burnt orange…like late Fall in the foothills, right where the deciduous trees begin to mingle with the pines…should be fun to paint and make for a pretty cool finished skein…OK, OK, I’m moving, I’m moving…

Money Monday: June 29, 2009

OK, so right after I got done boasting about my thrift store scores…you know what my biggest peril is, at the thrift store?

The “scores.”

It’s not just the thrift store, of course – it’s the same trap we all face just about every time we emerge from our caves. “SALE PRICES!” “Best prices of the season!” “Buy three, get one free!” “Two-two-two for the price of ONE!”

Now, if you need four t-shirts, the buy three get one free deal might be awesome. If they’re going for ten bucks, you pay $30 instead of $40 and who doesn’t love that?!

If you only needed one, though, you’ve just paid $20 more than you intended or needed to spend.

And if you didn’t need any…ahem…you just spent $30 to save money on something You. Didn’t. NEED.

You see where I’m going here?

The ‘great deal, must snatch’ instinct runs strong in most humans. Oh sure, there are people out there who just buy-buy-buy regardless of price, but for most of us? We want a deal.

For some of us, the deal itself is more important than the goods it represents. Did I need this? Shoot no, but! I got a grrrrrreat deal on it!

I may have spent $200 I didn’t have, but by Gantry, I saved $50 doing it!

Usually, we talk ourselves into thinking we did need it. After all, who doesn’t need more t-shirts? The things have a way of shredding before our very eyes. Also they get “old” and kind of “blech” and furthermore this one has a cute little winking pirate princess skull on it! How cool is that?!

The thrift store is not unlike a minefield for me. The deals can be soooooo spectacular. A bread machine for $15! A crockpot for $5! An endless parade of dusty whatnots, fifty cents each! ohmygah, have you ever seen such an adorable…um…thing?! Only fifty cents, too! I simply MUST buy it!

The easiest way to resist is to never leave the cave. You know, just stay home, forever, and never go out there into the Big Bad World where all the deals are. There you go! Problem solved!

Oh, you’re welcome…you guys know I’m always here for you with the brilliant suggestions and all…

OK, right. So obviously, that can’t possibly work…any more than somebody with a food addiction can overcome their issues by never eating again. With very rare exceptions, we do not live in a world where we can live off the land and provide all of our needs without need for the filthy lucre and a store to spend it in.

I may technically know how to grow, spin, weave and sew (badly, because my poor sewing skills are legend around here) the cotton, but folks? Ain’t no way I’m going to be able to keep my family in t-shirts from the cotton fields of my backyard. Shoot, I can’t even keep them in socks, let alone Everything Else.

Most of us have to go shopping for the things we need. We must risk the perils of the deal-that-wasn’t, and the awful feeling later of what was I thinkin’, buying this?!

I keep my own horse trading instincts at least mostly in check when I brave the yard sales and thrift stores that I hold so dear to my heart with two simple things.

First, I keep a list. A real, physical list – not a list in my head (which is full of holes and subject to deciding that no, really! I needed a fourth crockpot!), but a physical piece of paper that stays on the fridge. It’s a pretty jumbled up thing, actually, because people add to it as we go through the week. Whenever something breaks or it occurs to one of us that it would make our lives a thousand times better if we just had a purple widget for the front room, we make a note of it on the list.

The list helps to keep me focused, and puts the brakes on my enthusiasm when I see some awesome! deal on something we just really neeeeeed, seriously, I mean, c’mon, it’s an awesome! deal!!!

Ya, OK, maybe so. But it isn’t on the list. Which means it isn’t something I needed before I left the house – it isn’t something I needed before I saw the deal.

Which means it probably isn’t something I need at all.

Now, if I’m just absolutely sure we did need it all along and just didn’t realize it earlier – I’ll put it on the new list and walk away from this deal.

I’m going to tell you guys a little secret, OK? No matter how good the deal is? You’ll probably find a similar – or even better – deal later.

Have you ever noticed, for example, that stores advertise the “lowest prices of the season” just about every weekend, on essentially the same things? They always swear that no, really!, this sale, this one right here, this one right here-and-now-only-for-a-few-days-so-act-fast, is the Best Possible Sale Which Shall Never Be Equaled Again, EVER!

Or how about this one: How often have you said, “Wow, what a great deal!” and bought the four t-shirts on the 4-for-3 deal…paying $30 for the four shirts, clever you…and then opened the circulars to find another store has the same basic deal for $5 each.

Could’ve gotten the four for only twenty bucks, yo.

And of course for those of us who haunt the thrift stores, we’ll immediately find four brand-new-with-tags t-shirts for fifty cents each and howl like somebody just jammed a credit card shard under our toenails. Oooooooh, I HATE that!!!

Even when it’s a “one of a kind” thing, like a sweet glide rocker at the thrift store or a PERFECT sleeper sofa on consignment…there will always be another one, down the line. Letting this one go doesn’t mean you’re letting all of them go.

So don’t be fooled into thinking a deal is the deal – there will be others, and they will likely be as good or better than the one that currently has you in a lather.

The second thing that keeps me honest with my spending is that I really do limit the number of times I leave the Den with my wallet a-blazing looking for deals and steals. I try for no more than twice weekly, once on the pickup day for the CSA basket (usually that day is for standard grocery store / mall / Target kind of trips), and then maybe a weekend cruise through the farmer’s market, yard sales and thrift stores. That second one is totally optional, and frequently skipped.

Sure, making yourself resist temptation builds strength of character and all that – but avoiding temptation in the first place is equally valuable. I’ll admit it, I sometimes get bored around here. I wanna go do something, anything!...and when it’s 110 degrees outside (like it is today) and there’s no shade and Outside is just…darned unpleasant…and furthermore it is already 80 degrees in my bedroom/office at 10:00 in the morning and definitely climbing but turning up the AC is going to be like throwing snowballs at the sun until 4:00 when said sun finally stops glaring at my Den like we owe it money…and the mall…the mall will be 70-something because what do they care about the environment / electric bills? They just want me to be comfortable because they think if I’m comfortable I’ll stay longer and spend more money which more than makes up for the expense of the air conditioning…mmmmmm…aiiiiiiiir conditioning…

Now I know that if I go to the mall, I will spend money. Oh sure, it might not be much, I’m not going to be buying new appliances or re-outfitting the Denizens from bangs to toenails, but! Am I going to buy, say, a pretzel to munch? Or perhaps a frothy coffee drink? A chocolate cookie, or a steak sandwich?

And of course, there is a Barnes and Noble in my mall, which for me is like saying, “Hello, moth! Would you care to visit our lovely flame…?” {fffffffzzzz-POW! Tama’s wallet goes down in a blaze of glory and then she’s sheepishly trying to explain how she could spend two hundred dollars on books about Polish history, Eskimo philosophy and duh, fiber arts of every description…} {thank $DEITY for the library, y’all, otherwise I would be even further into the poor house than I already am…}

Right now, retailers are pretty desperate for your business. They’re coming up with promotion after promotion, designed to get you to buy NOW.

The deals have never been…louder. Not necessarily better than times past, but yeah…definitely louder. And with most of us either experiencing the recession directly or getting rocked by the waves of others, we’re possibly a bit more susceptible to the pressure than we might otherwise be.

It’s a great time to remember that the best way to save your money is to not spend it in the first place, and that no matter how great the price is, if you don’t need the darned thing, you aren’t saving a dime by buying it.