A sampling of rambling

Sunday night Sis and I went to the Lucky Turtle casino for $10 free play in our pj's. I won $15. So last night I lost my $10 free play at the Big Fancy Casino like in about 10 minutes. I NEVER take my purse into the casino because if there happens to be any money in it I'll be tempted to spend it. Last night I took my purse. That $15 I won at the Turtle was calling out that it missed being in a slot machine and wanted to go home. So I sent it home.

There are three games that I really like to play. Two are penny machines. Just slot-type games that you can waste a lot of time, if you choose to be cheap and only bet pennies, and not a lot of money on. The other one I like is Red Ball. The Red Ball machines are hard to come by. None of the casinos around here keep too many in house. Why I have no clue because THEY ROCK. On Ladies' Night your chances of getting on a Red Ball machine before 10 are slim to none. So after about 10:30 I went on a mission to find me some Red Ball. I found one. I put in $10 and started out playing Blackjack first. This is what I do when I'm playing on money that I won. Because Blackjack is a fickle game, my friends. Well, the gods of Blackjack were shining their favor down on me last night and while I didn't just blow the world away with multiple Blackjacks, I did beat the dealer 9 times outta 10. I got my $10 up to $19, played back down to $15 and then switched to Red Ball. I have certain numbers I always play on Red Ball, at least to start. It's a keno-type game, hello random chance. I always use 6, 25, 64, 42, 1, 21, 73. (Should I actually tell you this? Does this decrease the luck in the numbers? Has anyone watched Lost lately? Hmm...) And I usually start out betting .15 a roll. First hit I got the bonus spin and I was excited. Things looked good already. But the most exciting thing is when you get a bonus spin off of a bonus spin. Then it pays big. I won 130 nickles! That's 6.50, people. I was livin' large. I won 75 nickles. I won 10 several times. Then I bonus spun off the bonus spin again. Another 130 nickles. I upped my bet to a quarter at one point, then back down to .15. It's a science. I think. All told I got up to $23.75 and cashed that puppy out. So I now had $28.75 because I hadn't spent the last $5 of the Lucky Turtle money. I got my cash and then watched Angie play awhile (She won $368 last night, lucky chick) then decided to try a different Red Ball machine. Shoulda known better. It ate $5 in 5 minutes. The bastard. Then I couldn't help it, I played the $3. But I left the casino with $20 and that's $5 more than I went in with. It was a good thing. I now have $120 towards Branson. I'm still taking donations, too.

**********************************


Tonight was finance class. I think at one point my brain began smoking slightly. It was the class about investments. Yikes. But now I can actually tell you what a mutual fund is. AND I know what a growth stock mutual fund is as well. I seriously doubt that comes up in casual conversation in the circles I run, but just in case it does, I am so there. We stay at home moms rarely delve into stocks, annuities and mutual funds convo, but stranger things have happened. We're not all oatmeal heads. Close, but not all the way there anyway. I also know that I have a lot of research to do in the next month or so because we're nearly to the point where we're ready to begin investing. Glory be.

***************************************

Tomorrow is Ab's six month eye exam. She hasn't complained so I'm hoping that her eyes have slowed down a bit. Bless her heart, she got glasses in April of her Kindergarten year. She went almost a year with those before she started complaining of headaches. Upon examination the doctor found her glasses to be less than half what they needed to be. At first I was ready to pounce all over the last eye doctor we had used, but the new dr said it was just a case of bad genes, not poor examining. Poor kid. So this new doctor sees her every six months and every time, her eyes have gotten worse. Usually quite a bit, too. Mine were the same way though. Heredity's a bitch. My gray hair and horrible eyesight's a testimony to that fact.

*******************************************

On a really cool, awesome happy note: Sis and Bub sold their house!

They're moving in with Mom. For probably a year. Mom wouldn't have offered if she didn't want them to be there, but y'all know as well as I do, throwing family of four into house with single Grammy is bound to be a reality show all it's own. I told Sis tonight that if we had the room, they could live with us. She didn't respond. I broke the silence with, "Yeah...but ya know...one of us would end up dead." She said, "Whew! Glad you were thinking that, too!" So I'm just going to help her move. I figure that's healthier for all those involved.

***************************************

Sunday the temp here got up to 75. Today it barely got over 50. Tomorrow it will be 43 and we have a chance of snow. Next week is Spring Break. When Ab and Sam were little, two years in a row we got our heaviest snowfall over Spring Break - one year, over two feet. I kind of figured that would happen this year since we've gotten all of 3 inches all winter. But I checked weather.org today and it's supposed to be really nice and by the end of the week temps in the 70's again. It's no wonder we are all sick. No one's felt it necessary to stay in the house with temps as nice as we've had. Grr....I hate germs.

*************************************

Speaking of germs....would y'all hop on over to Courtney's blog and drop her a little get well note, wouldya? She's super sick with what seems to be double ear infections. I offered her the magic ear drops Abby got over the weekend last night and she called me this morning, taking me up on that offer. She had valiantly gone to school, but when the barfing began, she gave it up. I met her in the yard with the magic ear drops and a bottle of Tylenol w/codeine since no one in this house can take the vile stuff. 3 out of 5 of us are allergic to it. So she might as well use it. I hope she went straight to bed after medicating the hell out of herself. She hasn't posted today, so that must mean she's really sick. But drop her a line and wish her speedyquick recovery, k?