the_rck | Entries tagged with freebies

Three interlibrary loan books done. Three to go. Two of those can't be renewed, but the third is a volume of manga and so will likely end up being read first.

I came up with a title for one of my WIP yesterday, changed the sheets, and ran two loads of laundry.

We watched Supergirl last night. I hope I get more into this season than last season because I'm not going to be allowed to drift away to do something else when it comes on. I think that part of my problem last season was simply not comprehending the attraction of Mon-El.

Oh-- Now I know why I got cranky when I watched last season-- The point of his arc was him becoming a responsible person, but the timing and the writing made it him becoming a responsible person not through choice or circumstances but rather because Kara loved him, and I loathe that trope.

I'm tired enough that I'm missing things like tracking who I'm chatting with online or remembering that I refilled that one prescription Friday and didn't need to ask my doctor for a renewal (which I totally did before I realized). I'm also losing track of what things on my to do list I've dealt with and which I haven't. Those are a little easier because I can, say, look at the sink and see the presence or absence of dirty dishes.

My Gdoc of potential titles (mostly song or poetry fragments) is getting too long to work with. The response time is sluggish, and I know that separating it into pieces would help, but that will be ever so much less convenient. 36 pages is just too long, but this isn't something with obvious break points or useful ways of sorting things. Dividing by author would cut the length but make browsing a PITA. Dividing by theme-- Well, I can't actually tell what sort of theme a particular snippet is likely to fit. Maybe use of certain substantive nouns like 'time' or 'wind' or 'mirror'? Except that I'm sure there are a lot of snippets that wouldn't sort that way.

Anybody in need of a few dozen titles? Free to good home.

Anybody have interest in old recipes and/or cleaning tips that my great-aunt and her mother clipped out of newspapers or otherwise got on cards or small bits of paper and saved? My aunt passed away in 1989, and I got her little box of recipes (because no one else wanted it when my grandparents were cleaning out her house) but never got around to going through it before now. Her mother passed away in 1966 or 1967, some time during the year before I was born.

I'm mainly interested in keeping anything handwritten or obviously done on a typewriter. I have no way of knowing which were written by my relatives and which by friends of theirs, but they're a sort of family history. A lot of the handwritten recipes just list ingredients without any sort of instructions. My mother thinks the typed recipes were likely from my aunt and that the hand written ones are more likely from my great-grandmother as Mom's sure that it's not my aunt's handwriting. (These are relatives on my father's side, so Mom didn't know that great-grandmother particularly well.)

Some of the recipe cards are from Detroit Edison or the local gas company. One of the gas company ones includes an add for a gas operated refrigerator ('half the cost of flameless'!) which I had not realized was ever a thing. The Detroit Edison ones have a little bit on each that says 'Have enough light in your kitchen for comfortable seeing. Learn how to use your appliances economically.'

Others are old Betty Crocker things. There are a couple of little newspaper clippings that talk about substitutions for when certain ingredients aren't available. One talks about how to approximate semisweet chocolate with unsweetened plus sugar or powder sugar and shortening. Another talks about 1/2 tbsp of cornstarch being a viable substitute for a full tbsp of flour (also those being equivalent to one tbsp granular tapioca or two tsp quick cooking tapioca or two tbsp of 'granular cereal').

I just hate to throw them away if anybody might want them.

ETA: There's a definite skew toward desserts. Here's a list of what I've got to give away:

13 cards from the Detroit Edison Home Services Division with a different recipe on each side.

3 newspaper clippings about baking substitutions.

26 cards from Michigan Consolidated Gas Company; some two sided, some not; some still connected to each other; all appear to be from the mid-1960s.

3 single recipe cards with 'new-from Hudson's kitchen' in green letters at the top. Recipes: Chocolate Marshmallow Filled Angelfood Cake, Twin Angel - Cakes Pies, Banana Chiffon Cake.

11 folded/creased Betty Crocker pamphlets with multiple recipes.

4 newspaper clippings with cleaning tips.

2 cards (different colors and different sizes so probably not related) with cleaning tips. Who knew you could use Calgon to clean a shower curtain?

Recipes on the back of a partial label from a bottle of wheat germ. The company name is partially missing. '...tschmer' is all that remains. Recipes: Beef Loaf with Wheat Germ, Applesauce Spice Cake.

2 yellow cards with a recipe on each side. No clue as to origin. Recipes: Quick Hot Cross Buns/Horn of Plenty Salad, Strawberry Peach Igloos/Baked Fruit Meringue/Nut Meringue.

2 small pamphlets labeled as 'No. 14 in a Series of Mary Alden's Famous Recipes' and 'No. 21 in a Series of Mary Alden's Famous Recipes'.
Recipes in No. 14: Beef 'N Noodles, Beef and Tomato Sauce, Tuna Turnovers, Chicken Pot Pie, Plain Pastry, Buttermilk Biscuits, Tulip Cups, Upside-Down Meat Pie, Steak and Kidney Pie.
Recipes in No. 21: Meat Fritters, Baked Corned Beef Sandwich, Chicken Cheese Shortcake, Beef Biscuit Fan, Baking Powder Biscuits, Frankfurt Roll-Ups, Salmon Chowder Pie.

1 folded sheet of recipes featuring Jell-O and Hellmann's mayonnaise. Recipes: Vegetable Souffle Salad with Tuna Fish, Egg Souffle Salad, Grapefruit-Celery Souffle Salad, Strawberry Souffle Salad, Spinach-Cottage Cheese Souffle Salad.

Part of a folded sheet/pamphlet from (I think) Fairmont (dairy products). Recipes: Pointers for Whipping Cream, Fairmont French Fried Potatoes, Fried Chicken Homestyle, Dad's Strawberry Cream Torte Cake.

Small folded sheet from Duncan Hines with two frosting recipes. Recipes: Butter Frosting (with chocolate variant), 7-Minute Frosting (with coconut variant).

Folded sheet of recipes from Rita Martin/Robin Hood Flour. Recipes: Doughnuts, Mince Meat Cookies, Date Cake, Old Fashioned Pumpkin Pie, Bread (recipe for four loaves at a time).

Small sheet of paper (index card size) with a recipe for DOLE Crushed Pineapple Upside-Down Cake.

Small sheet of paper titled 'Pillsbury's $10,000 PRIZE WINNER STARLIGHT MINT SURPRISE COOKIES'.

3 newspaper clipping recipes. Recipes: Marvelous Brownies, Yorkshire Pudding, Banana Cupcakes and Banana Frosting.

5 recipes that seem to have been clipped from food packaging. Recipes: 2 copies of Molasses Sugar Cookies (Brer Rabbit Molasses); 2 copies of Famous Oatmeal Cookies and Prize Winning Meatloaf; Chicken and Broccoli Au Gratin (PET Evaporated Milk).

Folded sheet that I think is a Mary Lee Taylor meal of the week recipe set. Has ads for Fibber McGee and Molly (radio) and for Jimmy Durante (TV) and for Mary Lee Taylor (radio?). Recipes: Tuna Macaroni Slices, Baked Lemon Pudding, Banana Orange Dessert, Vegetable Meat Stew.

I gave three books to Cordelia’s English/social studies teacher today. Two of them are hardcover books on the Presidents of the U.S. up through Obama. The eighth graders study U.S. history, so those are likely to be useful to have. I also gave her a library bound copy of Journey to Topaz which is a novel about the Japanese internment during WWII from the point of view of an eleven year old girl. The author based it on her own experiences, so there’s a lot of solid details to make the book feel real to kids. The eighth grade curriculum has a focus on 'genocide literature' and includes the internment under that umbrella.

All three books were in extremely good condition.

I’ve given several books to the librarian for evaluation as to whether or not they’re useful for the collection. The two Dork Diaries books are pretty likely to end up in the collection. The three Miss Bianca books are iffier. They’re pretty pristine hardcovers (book club editions from around 1990, I think), but I’m not sure if kids these days are interested. It’s hard to tell. Pretty books are more likely to circulate, and these are.

Anybody reading this have a child or know one who might be interested in a Backyardigans CD? I’ve got a copy of Born to Play that I’ve just finished listening to to make sure it plays. It sounds fine all the way through.

I’ve been testing Cordelia’s old CDs and seeing whether or not I can get the scratches out of the ones that won’t play. I’m only willing to trying grinding the scratches off twice because the thing we have is manually operated and kind of tiring to use. (We tried an electronic one once. It didn’t work well, died fast, and Scott lost the instructions.) Those that don’t become playable after that are going into the trash.

We’ve got about twenty empty CD jewel cases. None of us have any idea where those CDs could have gone. They’re not in the basement. They’re not in Cordelia’s room. They’re not with my CD collection or in any of the carrying books we’ve got. I can’t imagine that that many CDs are really lurking under couches (I’ve checked) or got thrown out accidentally, so I assume there’s a cache of some sort somewhere in the house. I’ve been keeping my eyes open for about three years, however, and haven’t found them yet. I’m getting tired of keeping the jewel cases, though, as they take up a lot of room.

Would it be terrible to just throw out the CDs Scott’s parents have made and given us of inspirational sermons? None of us have ever listened to any of them, and I don’t expect we ever will. I don’t know. Maybe Scott’s sister’s SIL might know someone who would want them. She works for a church of the same denomination as the one Scott’s parents attend. I was wanting to email her anyway to find out if there’s a place I can donate those cotton rag socks.

Crossposts: http://therck.livejournal.com/1052953.html

I slept soundly from a little after 11:00 last night until about 4:30 this morning. I didn’t sleep at all after that. I don’t currently have a headache. I’m keeping my fingers crossed that the dratted thing stays gone.

Cordelia is doing okay at school in terms of getting around with her crutches. I think there’s less stuff that she goes downstairs for this year than there was last year, and they’re not doing any classes in the basement any more. Tomorrow is a half day, so I’m going to have to remember to set my alarm to tell me to go pick her up very early. Thursday, I have an oncology appointment at 1:00.

Before Cordelia’s injury, I wasn’t worried about getting back before school ended because our cleaning lady will be here then. Now, though… If I see the nurse on time, I should easily be home in time, but if they’re running very late, it gets tight. Normally, Cordelia stays at school until about 3:45 on Thursdays for the GSA meeting, but that meeting gets canceled sometimes with no warning, so I want to be home by the time school ends at 3:03. If I’m done at oncology by 2:30, I can probably make it. If I’d known last Thursday that Cordelia would need help getting home, I’d have talked to our cleaning lady and asked if she was willing to do it if I wasn’t home in time. At this point, I could call her and try to explain over the phone, but English isn’t her first language, so that’s challenging for something complicated. I could leave her a note, but leaving a note wouldn’t give her a chance to say no.

Scott has come down with the cold Cordelia and I had (and still kind of have).

I poked at the Zenni Optical website last night. I measured the frames of my current glasses according to the instructions and discovered that I’m either doing it wrong or have a really weird head. The frame width on my old pair is 125 mm (I measured four times and had Scott check that I wasn’t miscounting). The website considers that to be a child’s size. I can’t find anything at all that matches the measurements I got from my old pair, not even approximately. If one dimension matches, others don’t. There aren’t any instructions I can find for measuring one’s head to figure out sizing. I’ve never had problems finding frames that fit when shopping in person.

Yesterday, I did three loads of laundry, baked a cake for Scott, did the dishes, took out some of the trash, and cleaned out my two dresser drawers and the floor of my closet.

I have one overstuffed trash bag of things that I think are still wearable and therefore worth donating. I have one trash bag about 1/4 full of things that aren’t worth donating for resale. I know that most of the places around here sell such stuff by the ton to companies that do… something with it.

I haven’t done much weeding of what’s hanging in my closet yet. I might get to that today, and I might not. The closet is packed, and it’s going to be challenging. I have a lot of dresses that are cotton knit and that are too worn at the seams for me to wear them in public without feeling self-conscious (most of the wear, I doubt anyone but me would notice). The dresses are 1X petites, long sleeved mock-turtlenecks, with elastic waists and A-line skirts that go down to mid-calf on me (I’m 5’2"). There’s a lot of fabric in each that’s still in excellent condition, some of it in big pieces, but it’s only going to be useful to someone who sews and who can make something else out of it or take it in to be worn by someone smaller than I am. I’m wondering if I should try the local freecycle list or something similar.

I haven’t really worn dresses since the cancer diagnosis in 2015. I couldn’t wear them immediately post lumpectomy and didn’t want to deal with them during radiation. Once I started the Tamoxifen, I couldn’t deal with clothing that heavy/warm. I haven’t worn anything long sleeved since December 2015. No, I take that back. There was one afternoon I felt chilly and wore a cardigan. (After Cordelia’s concert, Scott’s mother kept trying to get me to zip up my coat before we went outside. She didn’t say it directly but kept talking about how very cold it was out there. If I’d zipped up my coat, I’d have melted by the time we got to their car. I finally realized that I needed to explain that.)

I’m trying to decide how much to keep and how much to get rid of in terms of the things I’m not going to wear while taking Tamoxifen but will wear again after. I’ve got almost four years of Tamoxifen left, and that’s a long time to keep things, but, you know, cotton turtlenecks aren’t going to spoil or anything if I store them for a while. Buying replacements would be expensive.

At any rate, my first priority today is changing the sheets (that became urgent this morning). The second is the rest of the trash. Then I must make about three phone calls (well, ideally, I’ll intersperse the calls with other things). After that, I’ll consider my closet.

Crossposts: http://therck.livejournal.com/1046195.html

Anybody here have an interest in about a dozen pairs of cotton rag socks? They’re very warm, but I have trouble putting them on because they’re thick and kind of stiff. They’re thick enough that they can only be worn with certain types of shoes.

They’ve also been sitting, unworn, in my dresser for about a decade. Some pairs are orange; others are various shades of blue. They’re crew length, women’s. My feet are size 7-7.5.

I’m pretty sure I bought these from Land’s End, probably remaindered (no way would I have bought this many pairs at full price). I’m not sure how many times I wore any of them or exactly when I bought them.

I’m pretty sure that none of the resale shops take socks of any sort. If no one here wants them, I may query the local homeless shelters, but that means phone calls, and I really would rather not.

Crossposts: http://therck.livejournal.com/1045790.html

This is the list of stuff I'm willing to give away to anyone who's willing to pay shipping, four CDs, one DVD, and six books. I don't know that anyone will be interested because none of it is very exciting.

( The list )

Crossposts: http://therck.livejournal.com/1032763.html

Anybody interested in an unabridged book on CD copy of Little House on the Prairie? I haven’t tried playing the CDs, but none of them have visible scratches, and Cordelia was always very good about keeping those in their sleeves (mostly because Scott and I were the ones taking CDs out and putting them away during the years when she cared about Little House).

The book is read by Cherry Jones, and the case also lists someone named Paul Woodiel. I think he did music at the points when Pa was playing in the story.

I’m willing to pay shipping in the US, but for anywhere else, I’d need the recipient to pay shipping.

Claimed.

Crossposts: http://therck.livejournal.com/963310.html

I do, in fact, have about a quarter of a sandwich bag of glass beads. They’re very pretty, multiple shapes and colors, but they’re also quite small with equally small holes. They’re a little dusty, so I’d recommend rinsing them before using them.

If anyone wants them for the cost of postage, I’d be happy to send them. I might be able to figure out how to provide a picture, but I can make no promises, and I might not be able to do that until our internet stabilizes.

If no one wants them, I’ll likely donate them.

ETA: I found someone local who wants these.

I’ve got a couple of books of poetry from the library that I would really like to finish, but I read poetry so very, very slowly that I get frustrated and give up after no more than about fifteen minutes.

I suppose it doesn’t help that I keep stopping to note down 2-6 word phrases that I think might make good story titles. I can’t seem to stop doing that even though I’ve probably got over a hundred such snippets already in that document (it’s eight pages, so one hundred is a very low estimate). I’ve been trying to keep track of the authors and titles of the works I’m pulling from, too, which adds to the time involved. I keep stopping and thinking that I like something and then debating with myself whether I like it enough to spend the time transcribing the information.

I’ve got those bits in a Gdoc, and I know I’m never going to use all of them. I write no more than five stories in a year and that only if I don’t put in time on longer projects. If any of you are looking for title ideas and would like to look there, let me know, and I’ll give you the link. All I ask is that you tell me if you use one of them so that I can delete it. There are so many snippets there that I don’t see the point in keeping those that have been used already.

I'm wanting to get rid of some CLAMP anime DVDs. There are three of them, and they all seem to be going for about $10, used, on eBay and/or Amazon. If I sell them through Books By Chance and they go for that amount (plus shipping), I'll get about $3.50. So I was thinking that, if anyone here wants one of these for $5 plus shipping, I'd be willing to send it. I'm not sure what shipping would cost, but in the US, I'd expect it to be under $3 per DVD (looks like, if I was sending one of these to my father in New Mexico, it would be $3.02 for first class and $2.61 for media mail). I'm not convinced that it would be worth the cost of shipping to send these outside the US (sending to Canada, for example, seems to start at $41. I may be putting some sort of detail in wrong, but... That's one heck of a mark up).

I have the following:

RG Veda. This is the US Manga version with the heavily red cover. It's subbed and dubbed. There are DVD-ROM features, but I have no idea if they'll even play on current computers. The box says they need Windows 95 or higher or OS 7.5 or higher, but how much higher is higher?

Rayearth. This is the standalone DVD from Manga Video. I'm not sure if I'd call the primary color of the cover blue or purple. It's subbed and dubbed. It has a small poster inside.

Miyuki-chan in Wonderland. This is an ADV Films DVD. Subbed only. The show is only thirty minutes long and marketed as 15+.

If more than one person is interested in a given DVD, I'll use some sort of random number generator to decide. I seem to recall that there are websites that do that.

Hm. I think I can't trust the facts in this supposedly non-fiction DVD (a biography of Charles Wesley). One of the first assertions is that the high infant/child mortality of the era was entirely due to parental neglect which, um, no. There were a lot of other reasons for that in the eighteenth century.

I ought to go over to Cordelia's school and pick up the ibuprofen I left in the office back in March. Cordelia didn't take any of it, so the bottle should still be unopened. If I don't retrieve it, they'll throw it out. It won't take long to do it. It's just that I'm still utterly worn out.

I've got three library DVDs that I haven't finished (including the biography I'm watching now). One has a two week check out period and so isn't due until a week from Sunday. The other two can be renewed because there's no one else asking for them.

I slept until 10:00 this morning and only woke up then because we got a spam phone call. I tried to nap a little bit ago, but my brain wouldn't stop moving enough to let me. I feel really, really exhausted and am not sure what to do about it. Cordelia will be bringing at least three friends home with her after school, and they'll all be around for hours. Cordelia refused to talk to us about getting food for her guests. They're planning to go to the ice cream social at the school and have ice cream, but that's not dinner, and it won't keep them for six hours.

I really ought to move yard sale stuff out of the living room before Cordelia and her friends come home, but I'm not sure I'm up to it. We'll take a load of stuff up to Scott's parents' house tomorrow because Scott and his father want to golf tomorrow. That will work better in the morning because the forecast is for temperatures in the 90s. I'm just not sure how that fits with Scott returning the cable stuff. He hasn't been willing to make the effort to cross town with it after work this week, and I doubt very much that he will next week. I don't think that I could do it, partly because of anxiety, partly because of the difficulties of getting there with the equipment, and partly because my name isn't on the account.

Scott wants me to search online to find out if any of the VHS tapes and DVDs that I want to get rid of are worth anything. I can see doing that with the DVDs because Books By Chance will sell those. I don't think they'll handle VHS, however, and I'm not willing to try to do it myself. Fortunately, none of the VHS tapes so far is worth more than about $7. I did a generic search on the Disney VHS and found the internet myth that those are worth lots of money. Fortunately, it was clearly a myth, so I didn't get my hopes up. Searching DVDs and VHS tapes is made harder by the fact that there's not something like an ISBN that I can use. Finding dates on those is pretty challenging, too.

I've got three VHS tapes that I'm pretty sure are fansubs but that I hadn't realized were until I started looking around. The cases have artwork and fancy printing and such, but there's no company name or blurbs or anything, and there's nothing printed on the tapes themselves, just a little sticky label with the series name and episode numbers. I couldn't find them anywhere on Amazon or Ebay, and I take that as more evidence of them being fansubs. I'm not sure of the ethics of putting those in a yard sale. I can't find evidence of a commercial release, but it might have happened under a different title. Anybody know? Anybody want these for the cost of shipping?

ETA: I suppose it would help if I said what the fansubs are. Oops. I thought I had said. They're Ah My Goddess mini episodes, twenty four of them, eight to a tape. How did I manage not to specify the title?

I'm wanting to get rid of a complete set of the FAKE manga. I don't think I can put it in the yard sale because, if Scott's parents look too closely, they're likely to freak. Fortunately, I think the Friends of the Library will be happy to take them. (I did search those carefully since some editions seem to be worth a bit of money, but none of these ISBNs matched to anything worth even as much as $1 a volume.) If anyone reading this wants the set and is willing to pay postage, I'd be happy to send it your way.

I found a handful of unlabeled CD-Rs in Cordelia’s room. Two are blank, as far as I can tell, but my drive only offered to format one of them, so who knows. The third crashed my laptop, so I threw it out. That may be extreme, but I really can’t imagine what might be on it that might be worth fighting to retrieve. I haven’t checked the others because I haven’t felt like dealing with it if they, too, crash my laptop.

I also found some empty cardboard boxes shoved in Cordelia’s closet. Those are going into the recycling. I can’t see any reason to keep them. The empty gift bags in the closet are going into the cupboard where we keep such things.

( I have the following CDs to give away )

I’m sure there will be more CDs later on, and it’s not likely that I can get to the post office this week. Going next week might happen, but I can’t promise.

Anyone interested in a set of the Baum Oz books? I’m pretty sure I’ve got all of them. They’re mass market paperbacks. Most of them are the Del Rey edition, but the copy of The Land of Oz isn’t. It’s got a green cover and so doesn’t match the rest. Taken.

I’ve also got a handful of Great Brain books. I don’t think I can donate them to the school library because they’ve been weeding those out of the collection for the last four or five years (that’s how I ended up with so many duplicates. I forgot what I already had).

Also, anybody local want a paraffin bath? I haven’t touched it since before Cordelia was born, so I can’t be certain that it still works, but it worked then, and I only used it about three times. It’s the right size for a foot or a hand up to the wrist. I’m pretty sure we have some clean paraffin to go with it, but until I open the bin where it’s stored, I can’t be certain, and that bin is shoved to the farthest point under the stairs. If someone’s actually interested, I’ll brave the cobwebs to pull it out.