It's not tie-dye...

... it's 365 days of Florida sun beating down on it, changing its colors.

I keep old t-shirts around as seat covers in my car. Once they get too ratty / tattered on the seat, they get refurbished as cleaning rags. 

I've kept a New England Revolution shirt as the driver side seat for several years now, and it's high time it gets changed out. The holes are starting to become pits and the inside is shredding to the point little cotton dust bunnies are roaming around my car. 

Side note, allegedly lint from your dryer can be used as fire starter if you're out camping or need heat in your fire place at home. It's not to be confused with the stuff Amazon sells, as the website has boxes of pellets that look like lint but aren't (they're a mix of charcoal, pine and or other materials). It's pre-wrapped and ready to be sparked. Versus the stuff you scrape off your dryer trap, which is all the materials from your clothing, including hair and other nasties you might not want to think about. I've read that if you put a decent amount of a lint ball inside a (finished / used) toilet paper roll, it's got enough of a bang to allow you to save a couple pieces of small timber for your pit. It's almost the equivalent to using old newspapers to line the bottom of the fire and start cooking that way. 

But I digress. I'm not going camping any time soon and my condo doesn't have a fireplace. So I don't need to save the cotton; I can rid the bunnies one dust buster cycle at a time. 

I did want to show what years of sun can do for fading on things, though. Which is the whole point of this post. 

I took various photos: 

In the living room

In the guest room

and outside on the lanai

Just to show various light sources and that I wasn't trying to do any trickery. 

It's so weird to see how the colors are transformed through out the shirt. You can tell at the sleeves and bottom of the shirt how dark the blue originally was, and how the constant sun has faded it to not a light blue, but a very well mutedly lighter shade of dark blue. Almost dirty dark blue. Some points are whiter than others in the natural light, but overall in the house, it looks like it needs a good washing. 

My car is a 2013 Hyundai, and it's starting to show the fading on spots around the vehicle as well. The handles to open the doors, the internal seat belt "push" button is now a soft but very light salmon pink instead of a deep red. The Boston Red Sox decals are now a starched white instead of the red we're all used to. 

It boggles my mind to see the slow creep of things fading into the past. I try to take good care of things, and the longer I seem to be keeping them, the more prone to slipping away they become. 

Which is weird because I have one of those Himalayan pink salt lamps in my bedroom.

I've had it for at least six years already, if not more, and there's no sign of it wearing down. There are some spots where it's starting to clump off, but a simple brushing over it, solves everything. As if it's still brand new.

The night table that it's sitting on, is as old as I am. It's been sanded down and repainted so many times, I'm surprised it's still standing. I've got so many stickers on it, that it's a crazy advertisement for various bands, quotes, protests, and everything in between.  I acquired them either from (band) promo days at a local (New England) music store (okay, Newbury Comics) or through various promotional advertisement with things I was looking in to at the time of receiving. With some of the bumper stickers (quotes), I found them to be inspiring. Or just cool and interesting. Or as an ally for friends and family.

I keep rambling off topic because I've got other things to post as far as pictures are concerned.

The other day I was in the passenger seat of the car and we drove through the resident side gate into my community. I always like to see who's got their Wi-Fi up and what my phone catches. 

Well, there are some neighbors around the gate with pretty epic and weird sprays:

I did edit the generic ones out - like the security system the community uses. By the look of it, someone likes Dr. Seuss and I happened to not catch "Pink Fluffy Unicorn", which usually pops up every once in a while. Someone obviously has a Google Nest, but I don't know what the hell "The Chinese" is. Someone doing random Asian take away? Who knows. That's the first time I've seen that one. I tried Googling that "we piranha" one and have gotten mixed reviews. No one can really answer it, but it seems like it has to do with Comcast's modem. 

The holidays are nearing closer and for those who love wine (my mother needs to pick up a bottle of Kosher wine to take to a house we might be going to), there's some pretty interesting wine bottle holders on the market. We have something similar to this table, but it doesn't hold glassware. It holds about a dozen bottles, all spaced out. 

What got me thinking about the drinkies, was that I saw this holder in one of the stores the other day:

I thought it was different and rustic. I wish I got a different angle of it, so you can see the sides. But it's a giant bottle of wine (outline) that holds four bottles. I tried searching for a "wine bottle shaped wine rack", and all I got was this. Several different hits but mainly single holders or more than 4 bottles, holder. I wonder, for those who don't drink alcohol, if you can fit cola bottles in the spaces? 1 liter bottles or even two liters if you're lucky? I know racks exist for water and soda bottles / cans, but it makes me wonder if a wine rack can hold a thinner bottle of something else? I might have to try it on ours one day. 

I feel like I have squirreled enough on today's post and have listed way too many odd things for one shot. So I will stop here and let everyone decompress. If you're not a wine drinker, there are other "Holiday gift ideas" on Amazon, but the first page is food, clothes and a couple gift cards. 

Should you choose the snacks option, keep in mind, Christmas Calories Don't Count. Just be nice to one another. 

Yes, that's a decal and a skeleton on my bathroom door. I keep them up year round.

Until next time...

Cheers.

See also (photos taken / editing):

* All photos taken on an iPhone 11

* All editing done with Photoshop

Stickers on table:

* Bon Jovi promo sticker for Lost Highway

* Eleanor Roosevelt quoted bumper sticker: No one can make you feel inferior without your consent

* Always Remember You're Unique. Just Like Everyone Else – Bumper Sticker/Decal

* Mickey Avalon promo sticker for Stroke Me

* (HRC) Equality sticker

* The OBX sticker is "Don't Drill off OBX". Not available on Amazon.

* Recycle decal

* "Tank" is from the Surf's Up movie

* Jiminy Cricket Umbrella sticker

* Spongebob Squarepants faces stickers

* Alien head sticker

* Union Jack sticker

* Australia flag sticker

* There's a JLab sticker that came with the Go Sport earbuds

* plus many more that are not in blurry background pictures

Change the batteries

I can't tell if it's a battery issue, a struggling issue, or some other type of issue, but my mother attempted to use the Kitchen Mama Mini Electric Can Opener again today. When the battery door is off of the machine, the contraption whirrs like no tomorrow. It's ready to fight and it knows it'll win. When the door is on the machine and it's on a can, the opener struggles to maintain full speed. Almost like being on and in motion / gear is draining the battery to the point you've used it too much and for too long and you forgot to charge it after you used it last... like a decade ago and you're lucky it's still running.

Don't get me wrong, it works wonders - this opener. It's so cool to just attach it to the lid of the can and let it go round and round, but you do need to attach it in such a way, that it will latch on and actually create a different type of seal. You still need to find a way to loosen the newly formed cover because the seal is that good, that you need to pry it off the can. 

Which is great, considering we are all so used to the lid falling in to what we just opened and that's not cool (it's gross). If you plan on keeping the can for something else (or splitting what is inside), the new top is a nice way to have everything together instead of using multiple containers. Or, if you recycle / upcycle, you know you have a top to the can and have it all together. 

You'll see the struggle in the video I'm posting below, on trying to get the lid off, however. Even with two hands, my mother had said that she needed a spatula for help prying on a different can, because she was afraid the rounded / buffered edge was going to cut her. It's slightly sharp, and I think if you're holding it too tight, you will get cut. So you have to be really cognizant of what you're doing. It's duller than a normal edged lid, but it still can do damage nonetheless.

So, after a few false starts again today, we got open two different sized cans for a meat sauce for dinner. We opened a small (6 ounce) Publix brand tomato paste can and a big Tuttorosso (28 ounce) can of tomato puree. Both went in the Crockpot with seasonings and hamburger meat (which is what my mother is working on as I was making a video of the can opener doing its thing). 

We currently have enough leftovers, that we've got meals for days. All because she bought enough meat and put enough stock in the two quart slow cooker, it simmered enough gravy that we can do all sorts of stuff with it.  

She originally intended on giving some to a neighbor (as it is, all cooked) and when she offered to bring some to them, the person thanked her but said they had already eaten (this was around 5:30). Their spouse is in the hospital and my mom thought a fresh home cooked meal might be good for the person instead of worrying about dinner. By the time the question was raised, the person had already eaten and was too nervous to accept the food, as they are worried about the spouse. Which is totally understandable. So we got back in our house, split the sauce up into multiple packages, and froze a couple containers for when we get company in another week or two. 

Be advised: at one point in the video, my mother dripped the puree can on the counter so I had to reach for some paper towel and still try to get the video of the can opening, so don't mind the crazy back and forth when you watch it. I also dumbly shot in vertical (portrait) mode rather than horizontal (landscape) mode because I wasn't thinking. The part I was thinking about, was "don't get everything that's sitting on the counter in this video like last time". I'm not that bright some days. Haha.

I used my iPhone 11 to film the video, Pinnacle Studio to edit the video and I also used stock audio that comes with the software. Again, the video exported with some arrows looped in. I still can't figure out how that happens. Apologies in advance. 

Hopefully it's just the generic batteries we use in this opener, that makes it slow, because taking 3 minutes to open a 28 ounce can is not so economical. Especially since you have to put the opener on the top of the can just right, to get it to turn on, and then start moving. 

It really did take a few starts and pushes to get it going. The generic AA batteries we used were opened for this specific thing too, and they were bought... maybe in July? So it's not like they're 5 years old; just five months old. Guess for these purposes, using name brands are always better? Who knows though. When we open the Duracell pack, I'll be sure to update the review and say we've tried those, and let it be known how they fared. 

Until then, stay hungry. 

And sorry for being all over the place with this. 😟

Cheers;

"Yes we can can"

Okay, it's not the protest / coming together / "we can work it out" song that the Pointer Sisters' had on the radio - Yes We Can Can (track 1 off of Yes We Can Can: The Best Of The Blue Thumb Recordings) or the Young@Heart Chorus cover of the song on their 2008 Documentary. But my mom received a Kitchen Mama Mini Electric Can Opener as a surprise gift from a cousin because he wanted her to try it before he bought one for himself. He has a new house and wanted something small and easy and knew she not only needed a new opener, but she would gladly give it a shot. 

Since this week has been soup weather in Florida (it's been high of 75 all week with no humidity. Low of 40 and they're expecting frost at some point), my mother tried the opener by making meals for a few days. 

It took a few tries once we put the batteries in (2 AA), but we figured it out (because of false starts). It has to align just right with the can in order to work properly. You don't think it's doing its thing, but it really is. You just need to trust the process, I guess. Watching it spin around the can, all I could think about was the line in the song "yes you can can" because the opener was turning with a struggle and we wanted to help it out, but knew not to touch it while it was going. It has to move without help or the can won't open right and you'll break the mechanisms in the opener.

As much as the description says it doesn't leave sharp edges, you have to still be careful because the cut creates a lid to put back on the can. So you need to attempt to wiggle off the new top since it no longer falls into the can you just opened. 

Don't mind the K-Cup in the bottom picture; we try to combine recycling when we can. 

The lid is dull, but it's still sharp because it's piercing the sides of the rim. It's weird to explain and the pictures don't do it justice. 

Not even the video helps, but it did seriously take almost three minutes to open the can, and these are new batteries. 

I think; it doesn't sound like they're new batteries, but at least it worked? 

My mother also took a video and sent it to her cousin. She gave her review and he was excited. He told my mother's brother, who ended up buying one for himself as well. So now three people have this can opener because one person wanted it for himself. What a whim of a purchase? Too bad ours is orange, because it doesn't match everything else in the house. Cousin should have spent the extra thirty one dollars and bought the rechargeable red one. Shh; don't tell anyone or it may just happen. We tend to get random stuff sent to us - sometimes amazing, sometimes not so amazing (once in a while we get repeats). 

Switching gears, while I was in Bradenton last week, we stopped in Ollie's. 

I ended up buying five Tazo Iced Passion Tea concentrates because it's the lowest I've seen them in years ($1.99). 

I used to buy them in Publix for $3.49 and sometimes found a dollar off coupon (making them $2.49). Then the price went up to 4.49 and 5.49. There's been no coupons for a while either. Now they're up to $6.49 and I've been saying "nope" ever since they were 4.49.

Walmart has it for $5.28 and that's still too expensive.

So seeing it for under two bucks, I'm like "don't be greedy", but I was the fat kid in a candy store. I couldn't help it; I like this tea, as much as I know I shouldn't drink it. Spending ten bucks and change was worth it, because I don't have to worry about watching for any type of "sale" for a while. 

Yes, before you ask, the dates on the Tazo are far enough out, that I am happy to report that they won't spoil before I have opportunity to drink them. I might end up trying a little in a smoothie one of these days.. see how that plays out.

To go online shopping, Amazon has it for over six dollars, but it's one of those "sold by Whole Foods" things attached to it as well as an added delivery fee (almost $14), so that's out of the question. However, there's a two pack that is "Sold by Amazon" and with subscribe and save option for $10.98. It's retailing for  $14.99, so the sale price right now makes it $5.49 a box. Which is a dollar cheaper than Publix and 21 cents more than Walmart. However, if you're already doing a monthly subscription for something with Amazon, it goes down to $10.43 and you save five per cent. 

Is it worth it? For the little times I drink it lately, no. But as a treat, yes, espcially for the deal I got. You still need to do your research when buying things. This is something I've said time and again, and this particular thing shows how prices fluctuate in different places. Even the Ollie's sticker says "Their price $4.49", if you look close enough. 

Ollie's is good like that: They put a competitor's price on the tag so you know you're getting a "deal", as big or little as that may be. I've seen a swing of fifty cent difference, all the way up to ten dollars or more. Shopping at Ollie's makes me miss shopping at Building #19 (and their other shops) as well as Ocean State Job Lot. At leas the latter is still in business. The former has been defunct for decades. I'm willing to bet a lot of New Englanders reading this post remember Building #19. Wonder which one you all went to! I think there was one in Norwood, but my mother remembers the one in Hingham.

You don't know what you miss until you see knockoffs. I know Ollie's is using Building #19's artwork, and that's originally what I said about the store - Ollie's is the new 19. Which makes everything relevant again in some way, shape or form. Got to get "good stuff, cheap" as they say, and sometimes the cheap is worth it as you never know what you'll find. 

Going to wrap this up for now, and hope to find more bargains some where, some time, soon.

Stay warm and stay classy for nostalgia;

Cheers; 

See Also:

* All photos (and video) taken with an iPhone 11

* Photos edited in Photoshop

* Video roughly edited in Pinnacle Studio (because I really need a new computer. This edit took way too long and I had a faulty ending)