KatScan

I know that I've posted quite a few times about taking a vacation, and one of the places that I am always talking about going for a vacation, is wanting to be able to afford to go and rent one of those really gorgeous Outer Banks vacation rentals in North Carolina.
Carolina Designs has one of the most awesome, most amazing looking rental homes for just such a vacation.
I mean, just look at the outside of the house, this big, beautiful house right on the Outer Banks.


The house is called SEAHAWK, and it's just yards away from the beach.












It has five bedrooms, and two of them are master bedrooms.
It also has a private pool and a hot tub.
There are 10 tv sets in the house and three VCR's, two DVD players, and a video library so there's always something to watch.
It has a stereo and a game room with a sports bar and a pool table.
It also has an Xbox for you and your kid's video gaming needs, a wet bar and a gas grill, and tons of parking spaces for you and all of your guests.
(If you choose to bring people with you. *wink wink*)

Here is a view of the private pool and the living room.




























Here is another view of the living room, one of the master bedrooms, and the room with the pool table.









































This home is just so beautiful, isn't it?
This is the exact kind of vacation rental home that I would want to stay in.
I hate camping, and hotels and motels are OK for short stays, but if I could truly afford to go on a really nice vacation for two weeks or more somewhere in the US, I would totally go for this exact place, or this exact kind of place, and definitely in the Outer Banks.

I have been hearing for years and years now, about just how awesome and gorgeous it is in the Outer Banks, about how beautiful and peaceful it is there, and that's exactly the kind of vacation that I want to go on.
Somewhere truly beautiful, and somewhere truly peaceful.
This house, the SEAHAWK, just looks so beautiful and so peaceful.
It's nice and big, clean looking, it looks really comfortable, "homey looking", and it has some incredible views of the area that even just looking through the pictures, it makes you want to go there because of how beautiful and peaceful looking it is.

This house is available to rent year round, and of course during "season", it's going to cost more to rent, but the weekly rental rates aren't that bad actually.
I've spent more than the weekly rental cost on airfare to fly the three of us back to Maine for 2 weeks, so it's really not that bad at all.
I don't know why, but I always thought that I couldn't afford to take a vacation to the Outer Banks, but looking at just this home and the rates, it is something that is totally do-able for me to do some one of these days.
Yeah, it's always nice to fly home and visit with family, but I really want to take a vacation some day that is just away from it all, away from everything, just go to a place that I want to go, no stress, no mess, just go and stay in a big, beautiful home, sleep in as late as I want, stay up as late as I want, go for long walks on the beach whenever I would want to, and just relax, just really get away from it all, and leave all of my stress and troubles at home for a week.

I really love this house, I would totally love to stay there for a week someday, just me and the teens taking a relaxing vacation for just one week in a gorgeous home like this.
Some one of these days, I will.
I really will. 

I've totally used eBillme before, and it was a super easy process, but it's even better when they offer deals and special offers like onecall coupons to one of their partner shops like OneCall.
They have a TON of electronics at insanely low prices, and now with coupons to use, AND eBillMe, it's easier and easier to find and get what you need at super low prices.

I have Christmas coming up soon for the teens, they don't want silly action figures anymore, they want stuff, gadgets, more video games, I need a new home cordless phone, so I may just be buying a lot of my Christmas wish list shopping items through them, and paying the super easy way with eBillMe.
Yu can't over-spend on another credit card, you can only spend what you have, and eBillMe protects your vital information from having to be typed in and possibly stolen by hackers.
It's definitely a much more secure way to pay, and with all of their deals at TONS of retailers, you're sure to find everything that you need for less money, and let's face it, in this economy, we all need to save as much as we can, and knowing that our private banking info stays private, you can't beat that.
I've now shopped with about a dozen times or more, and it's been a totally smooth transaction every single time, no glitches no goofs, and the best prices.

I've already begun looking for the stuff the teens want. 

I got Sebastian almost every single thing that he needs for back to school this year.
He has all of his actual school supplies, I shop for those year round when stores have stuff on sale.
Like about seven or eight months ago, Walgreen's was having a massive sale on school and office supplies, and so I got him I got 10 folders, 10 wire-bound notebooks, a trapper keeper, 2 packs black pens, 2 pack blue pens, 4 packs of pencils, 2 packs loose leaf paper, white-out, stapler and staples, and a calculator for just $29.00.

While we were in Maine, I went to an outlet store and got him 3 pairs of rocawear jeans, 4 cargo shorts, and 10 t-shirts, all for just $41.00.
All I have left to get him now is his sneakers, that's what's going to set me back the most, I know that those are going to be expensive, so I will probably spend all totaled on his back to school needs with the sneakers included, about $120.00-$150.00.
That's not too bad in my opinion.
I try to buy things all year round so that I'm not rushing around come the last week or two before school starts trying to get him everything that he needs to start school with.
It works out really well if I do it that way, buy items on sale all throughout the year, and then just put them away until school starts the following year.

I really need to get my own wholesale club membership going because I cannot constantly rely on other people to get me to the place to do my shopping.
I need to start saving even more money, and buying things in bulk and getting discounts, being able to use coupons, and get really good deals, is what I need to start doing more of if I'm going to be able to continue surviving in this economy.

I don't have a lot of money to start with, so going shopping for food for the teens, for my family, is getting tougher and tougher these days.
I had my friend pick up a loaf of bread and a gallon of milk for me today, and it cost me $5.89.
That's crazy!
A loaf of bread used to be just $1.29, today, that same loaf of bread cost me $1.90.
If prices keep increasing like this, we'll have to start getting even more creative with how I do the shopping

So like I just said on my other blog, my doctor and his PA have left the other practice they were at and moved to a new practice in a different part of town.
I have never ever seen the other doctor at the old practice, and I hate having to start with new doctors, so I will happily go to an all new place to see my old doctor and his PA Mary.
They have always treated me really well, been nice, caring, supportive, and they actually listen to me, so I will go to their new practice on the other side of town just to stay with my doctor and the PA who already know me and my history, instead of staying at the old practice with the doctor there who has never once treated me and would probably have to go through my entire medical history which is wicked long as most of you know, so yeah, a huge pain in the ass.
And as long as my doc and the PA write me scripts for meds that my Medicare part D plan covers like they always have, things will be good.

I had the most horrible time finding a particular receipt this week and I really needed to find it.
I searched through every box, my folders, every drawer, all over my desk, in my desk, the coffee table drawers, freaking everywhere and I could not find it.
It drove me absolutely nuts!!

I really need to come up with a far better document management system for all of my receipts and other important papers that I have so that I don't lose anything ever again.
I even have a filing cabinet, but it's in my room and such a pain to get too, so I rarely use it.
Then I set up folders in a portable filing cabinet that has drawers, and that became a total pain so I stopped using that too.
There just has to be an easier way for me to store and save all of my important papers and receipts  without all kinds of hassles that I face right now.

I never did find the receipt, I actually had to call the store that I purchased it from, their corporate offices, speak to their receipts office, and have them try to find it by the date, then the amount spent, and then finally they found it through my debit card number.
It took about 45 minutes for them to find it.
Such a pain, I really need a way better system for this stuff. 

I have good days and bad days, and some really bad days, and then some really good days.
Last week, I had some really bad days, so bad that I couldn't even get off the couch, I just laid there trying as hard as I could to not move around too much because every single joint ached so bad it felt like my limbs were going to break off if I so much as moved an inch.
This week, well at least so far, I am having some really good days, so I am taking full advantage of them and trying to get some things done around the house.

One of the things that I am doing is trying to clean the terrazzo flooring in this house.
I hate the terrazzo.
What I wouldn't give to have some cheap laminate flooring in every room instead of this crappy stuff, but I have what I have, so I have to deal with it.
Terrazzo is just so hard to clean, it's made with concrete, stones, and marble chips, then it's given a protective coating which is supposed to keep it shiny and looking good.
Every so many years, you're supposed to have it restored, sand-blasted down, sanded again, buffed, given a new protective coating, and then polished and polished until it looks all shiny and new again.
But I don't think that the terrazzo in my house has been restored in many years, I mean, I have now lived here in this duplex for 12 years and the floors didn't look that great when I moved in, so yeah, I'm pretty damn positive that they haven't been restored in ages.
This duplex was built in the early 1970's, and that's when the terrazzo was laid down, and I'm not even sure that it was restored in the years following that.
Cleaning it is a real hassle, you can wash it, scrub it, wash and scrub it again, and it still doesn't look all that great.
But I got a brand new mop that I have only tried twice now, and while it hasn't made the terrazzo look brand new and all shiny-polished like new, but it has made it look a whole lot cleaner than I have ever been able to get it in the 12 years that I have been living here, so I plan on doing a full review of my new mop within the next few days.
Yes, I do believe that it's the mop that has made the difference in how clean the floors are getting and looking.
It's a brand new mop, just now out on the market, and I can't wait to tell you about it!
Yeah, I'm a total dork getting all excited about a mop, but I have used all kinds of different mops on my terrazzo flooring over the last 12 years, and this is the only mop that has ever made the terrazzo flooring look any good at all.
Yup, it's that good of a mop.