Awww. 57 Degrees As The Car Drives.
It’s not really raining. And it’s not really 57 anymore. The temp is inching up again. And this wasn’t even today. I know that I should NOT be taking pictures, with my phone camera, while driving, on the expressway, in the rain. But I did. I saw the car ahead and sometimes you never know when you are about to drive past something cool. Be alert! The world needs more lerts! (That’s from an old poster I used to have about a billion years ago when I was young. It really stuck with me.) Anyway…it’s a picture I took and I really have no other use for it except to show my son and then delete it. So here it is, headlining a world famous blog on a semi-cloudy-sunny-sneaking-can’t-decide-if-it-should-be-dreary-or-not day. Man, I can really stretch out a sentence. Anyway anyway…
I’m about to go into the 3-part Tire Drama, I spoke of last night, told in HD Camera Phone Picture Quality Storytelling. That is a patented technique for my new posting style, basically more pictures so there can be less words, not successful so far, that I will let you adopt as your own for a small fee if you find it works for you too. Or just works at all. But here, you are getting it for freeeeeee….(Bedtime Story Style. Look it up.) Stay with me now, because, as usual, it will be a long and round-a-bout, drawn out, possibly all day and night, tale for the ages. In fact, you may not even see the thread or the connection in the beginning and will most likely forget the original idea for the story in the first place. That’s OK though. It’s Monday. And it’s Tax Day. I have a whole money post thing that I do. Truly. Today might be the day to update that, 3 years late, feature too. (Yes. 3. THREE. Years. Late.) It’s called “Found Money.” It’s real and it’s kind of interesting and cool, I think, but I am sooooo far behind. I have kept all this loose change, for 3 years, in different containers, (to tell each year apart), in my hall closet, without even tallying it all up! My whole family knows it’s there and just leaves it alone. FOR THREE YEARS! We even add the most current change to the most current container, and never disturb the previous ones. You know how when you live with crazy people, but you don’t realize that they are crazy, because you have never known them any other way, or even known any other people, for that matter, all up close and personal, until you spend time outside your small bubble of family, and suddenly realize that your normal is other peoples abnormal, but because you are deep in the crazy too, you just go along?? You know?? Well. Then you find that you have three years of loose change sitting in a closet that everyone is very careful not to move, or knock over and spill, or mix up, every single day, when they are just trying to get a towel out to take a shower. Thank you family!
So today may be our lucky day! The madness ends. Well, this one point of madness. Maybe. It’s not like I am counting that change yet. In fact, I haven’t even ended this long-ass post, and I have gotten so far off topic, and even started 2 new ones, maybe three, (I can work alot on very little) that I can’t even remember how I was going to end this thing. Tires. Money. Weather updates. Flowers. That’s four actually. And I really can’t (don’t) want to go anywhere right now anyway until I get my car back. Oh yeah. My car. The reason I don’t have it right now. That’s it. I found the start of breadcrumb trail! Lo and behold and the laundry shall never get done! More time a-wasting over here. Maybe I will just throw a load into the washer and switch the dryer real quick and then type some more. There’s no time schedule for crazy. I mean creativity. Later.
Street Money Update! WTF-It’s-Been-19-Months!! Edition
So I checked back over my pages and yes, it has been 19 months. I know some of you are out there shaking your heads because you just can’t believe that it has been THAT long. And that you have been reading this crazy blog for longer than that. AND that you actually remember that I pick up loose change off the ground whenever I see it and keep a running log. And that I have my kids and BF sucked into the madness too!
It’s all true. The last posting was for February of 2010. I would say that’s pretty bad. We have still been collecting the money, in fact, that picture above is the bowl we put all of last years loose change into. (I have a separate container for the 2011 money). Stevie just found a dime today! I will picture and post that whole mess later tonight! Are you excited?? Are you going to change your plans and stay in just to see if I actually do it?? I am on a roll here. I think this is three consecutive days. But don’t change your plans—Shameless Self Promotion Alert—just subscribe to the site (upper right corner) and you can get an e-mail whenever I add my “two-cents” to the world. See, with laughs like that how can you NOT subscribe. Let’s just get to the count shall we?
Now, before I fell off the money wagon, I would post amounts as found, on what day and where. Intimate details about this dirty, filthy, left-behind money that you may or may not have cared about. I used to even write all that stuff down, Major OCD, the date/place/amount/condition…it really was/is a sickness. Takes alot of time too. Obviously I ran out of all that time during school, which is good thing so that I was able to re-direct that mental focus on more important tasks, like getting my degree. So it just got put in a random cup and here it is.
It’s still all 100% off the street. Or sidewalk, store floor, vending area, bowling alley, etc., etc. You get the idea. We found it. We picked it up. Pennies, nickels, dimes and quarters. That’s all we scored last year. Nothing big like previous years, and no bills. As the economy has buttoned down so has the available loose change. People are holding on to it. And when they do drop it, they pick it up. It’s still pretty slim this year too. We have some, and I will update the main pages to the left and try to keep track now with random posts as the money enters our lives in real time.
Unless of course I win the lottery. We have Mega Millions here and I just found out it rolled over again. I have a good feeling for Tuesday….and in that case, I will never post again. No wait. I will. But I’ll change the blog and format to:
All The Places You Can Go To And All The Things You Can Buy When You Are Filthy Stinking Rich And Just Shy Of Pretty.
It’s a working title. I can always tweak that later. Here’s what you read all the way through for:
Current date: September 24, 2011
Money found from 2/21/2010 to 12/31/2010 (that’s LAST year):
Total= $7.09 Seven Dollars and Nine Cents. Anti-climactic for sure.
BUT…If you add that giant number to the previous amount from the first few weeks in 2010, you get the equally unimpressive number of:
GRAND TOTAL= $10.89. Woohoo. Ten dolla and eighty-nine cent! Sad.
Hey it’s a way to pass the time. Here are some loose change stats you might be interested in, and super easy to list because all the money is sitting right in front of me!
First of all, this money is DIRTY. Seriously, it’s gross. Dusty and rusty and covered in white powder (road salt? I hope) and corrosion. Some of the coins are hard to read. They’ve lost their definition and edges. I had a hard time determining the denomination. With enough wear a penny can wear to the size of a dime and they both take on a sick grey color.
Second, the money stinks. Really. It just smells bad. Like rusty metal covered in dust. Gets in the back of your teeth and makes your mouth water. Yum.
BREAKDOWN:
124 Pennies
9 Nickels
14 Dimes
16 Quarters
So the pennies have it, but look at those quarters! Using that ability to roll away fast and lodge somewhere inconvenient and out of reach. Good for them! They’re still no match for my money-hunters. My kids will move all kinds of stuff to get at the coins they spot on the ground. They will squeeze in and work together, stuntman style, to retrieve that lost change. But never dangerously or with risk to life and limb. I mean it’s still just garbage on the ground, whether it’s money or not, and that’s not worth an injury.
So that’s it. I hope you enjoyed this update from nearly two years ago. Click on these words to go to the main 2010 page of money and if you still crave a little more money fun, feel free to check those numbers above. Do the math. See if the coins add up to what I said. I counted in dollar increments, then separated by denomination and counted those, but I’m not re-checking my math. It all gets dumped into a giant Pepsi bank anyway that we are trying to fill up so we can take to the bank and see what it will hold. Coins only. It’s an OCD within another OCD. The fun just never ends over here. Cha-Cha-Cha-Ching!
Day Quote…talking about that whole money thing…edition.
I need some. Well, I need a job anyway. Sent out lots more applications yesterday, that took a long time actually, so I couldn’t switch over to here before the never-ending-afternoon/evening/night-day ended. I have more places to try today too, but since I am here and I did take the time to go find the quote I was looking for, I might as well stay and share.
I think that after my kids and BF, and school, as applicable, the thing I think most about is money. I could be considered shallow I guess. Or one-track-minded. But you need money to live. I just heard a quote on TV about it, I think it was from 30 Rock, Jack’s line, “Money doesn’t buy happiness. It IS happiness.” That’s not my quote, it’s just an extra. Feel free to repeat it all you want, it was on TV!
Anyway, I don’t want money just so I can buy a bunch of crap. I want it so I can pay all my debt and pay off my house and buy another one if I want to. And I would like to have some extra in a bank somewhere that I can go online and look at whenever I want. And you can’t depend on other people for that money. Even if they owe it to you from, like, forever. Sometimes you have to let that crap go. I mean, don’t get me wrong, totally take legal action if you can, but don’t beat your head against that brick wall until you’re bleeding and stupid. Serves no purpose because most everyone’s in it for themselves anyway. But this is not a complaining site. It’s just a little lesson I learned over the summer. And it gives the quote some backbone. A little “meat” if you will. It’s like, all relevant, and junk. Hmmm. I may be building this thing up too much. Hopefully I haven’t already used it. I checked back a ways, but not ALL the way. Besides, I am about to recycle a few more anyway and if you’re like me, you’ll just read it, like it’s all fresh and new, maybe say to yourself, “I heard that somewhere, I think. Where did I hear that? Oh well….” and move on. So without further ado, let’s, a do this.
FYI, the picture above has NOTHING to do with money. I just like it. I will be posting the pics from the cross country meet locations. They were all outside and the skies have been beautiful the last few weeks. See? Multi-tasking! Progress!
QUOTE OF THE DAY
How we treat our money and the things that money buys is exactly how we treat ourselves and the people in our lives.
–Suze Ormon
Were not wiser words ever spoken? Ooh look at me. Fancy. And just so you know I don’t take all this too serious, here’s my new favorite song/slash/video, off of the You Tube and hopefully not pulled from my site. I even made it my ringtone. Cha-ching!
just shy of pretty 