8/23/2009 Sunday's "Snookie Shares"

I got some good feedback on this from last week so we're going to try it again.

SHOPPING:

Do you hate finding a parking place at the mall? Standing in line at checkout? Do you find that a lot of your shopping is done online? If so, you may be interested in the web site www.retailmenot.com. This site helps you find coupon codes for discounts on online purchases.

With the holidays coming and some big ticket items being bought, and maybe some not so big ticket items, you'll want to make sure you get the best deal out there. Of course you don't have time to drive from store to store to check out sales every week. This web site, www.dealalerter.com , will take care of that task for you. The site is easy to use with a demo given.

This is a site that friends Bobby and Shelley told me about. Take your time to look through everything, its massive but the deals are REALLY GOOD! Go to SLICKDEALS.NET

TRAVEL:

Do you have airline travel in your future? If so, you may find these web sites useful.

AIRFAREWATCHDOG.COM Sends alerts when prices fall for domestic and international flights, checks seat availability, and list Web-only fares. It also shows unadvertised and short-lived fares (often call fat finger fares, because they are caused by human typos) which airlines frequently honor.

YAPTA.COM This site goes a step further: it'll help you get a refund if you buy a ticket and the price later drops.

When on a road trip do you look for all the "normal" tourist attractions? Here's a site that will you lead you to some really oddball tourist attractions. Bob and I have actually seen some of them thanks to this site ROADSIDEAMERICA.COM If in the area you can see the largest Avon display, a 24-hour Church of Elvis, a giant roller skate and a travel trailer that looks like a bumble bee. Just put in the city and state and see what comes up. Who knows, there could be an "oddball tourist attraction" in your own backyard and you don't even know it.

GIFT CARDS:

Have you ever gotten a gift card for a shop or store you just don't use or shop in? If so, you can "exchange" unwanted gift cards with other recipients of unwanted cards. CARDAVENUE and PLASTIC JUNGLE both verify gift cards before listing them.

SPECIAL! SPECIAL! SPECIAL!

I recently wrote about RESTAURANT.COM and now they are having a sale but you will have to act quickly.

Through 8/24, (possibly later) use code PALATE to take 70% off dining gift certificates at Restaurant.com. This means that $10 gift certificates which normally sell for $3.00 are now just $0.90 and $25 gift cards, normally $10, are now just $3.00! Restaurant.com restocks their gift certificates at the beginning of the month, so there is still a great selection available! Just be sure to read the fine print, as many places exclude alcoholic beverages, weekends and other things.

FOOD:

I use my crock pot more in the winter time than I do summer. I don't know why, that's just the way it is. I use this site for recipes: CROCK-POT.COM I've never been disappointed!

HANDY HINT:

I just heard about this today thanks to my friend Janet from Quail Run. To make it easier all the way around I'm copying her email to me rather than me re-typing it.

FLIES BEGONE!

We went with some out of town friends to Sweety Pies on Sunday for breakfast, and we sat in the enclosed patio section beside the house. We happened to notice a couple of zip lock baggies pinned to a post and a wall. The bags were half filled with water, each contained 4 pennies, and they were zipped shut. Naturally we were curious! Ms Sweety told us that these baggies kept the flies away! So naturally we were even more curious! We actually watched some flies come in the open window, stand around on the window sill, and then fly out again. And there were no flies in the eating area! This morning I checked this out on Google. Below are comments on this fly control idea. I'm now a believer! More comments not included here were about pet dogs and fly problems.

Zip-lock water bags Sue says:

Many people swear that a zip-lock bag filled half-way with water and attached over entry-ways will repel flies. No one yet knows how or why it works, but there is speculation that it has something to do with the way the moving water refracts light. If you have tried this please use the comments form at the bottom of the page to share your results with the rest of us.

Ann Says:

October 5th, 2008 at 5:51 PM I tried the ziplock bag and pennies this weekend. I have a horse trailer with full LQ. The flys were very bad this weekend while I was camping. I put the baggie with pennies above the door of the LQ. NOT ONE FLY came in the trailer. The horse trailer part had many. Not sure why it works but it does!!!!!!!

Danielle Martin Says:

September 20th, 2008 at 8:43 PM Fill a ziplock bag with water and 5 or 6 pennies and hang it in the problem area. In my case it was a particular window in my home. It had a slight but significant passage way for insects.Every since I have done that, it has kept flies and wasps away. Some say, that wasps and flies mistake the bag for some sort of other insect nest and are threatened by this.

Maggie Says:

June 7th, 2009 at 11:40 am I swear by the plastic bag of water trick I have them on side porch ( our house entry) and all around the basement door. We saw these in Northeast Mo at an Amish grocery store & have used them since. They say it works because a fly sees a reflection & won't come around.

Just DJ Says:

May 16th, 2009 at 7:25 PM Regarding the science behind zip log bags of water? My research found that each of the millions of molecules of water presents its own prism effect and given that flies have a lot of eyes, to them it's like a zillion disco balls reflecting light, colors and movement in a dizzying manner. When you figure that flies are basically prey for many other bugs, animals, birds, etc., they simply won't take the risk of being around that much perceived action. I moved to a rural area ant thought these "hillbillies" were just yanking my city boy chain but I tried it, worked immediately! We went from hundreds of flies to seeing the occasional one, but he don't hang around long.

NOTE FROM SNOOKIE: If you don't want to put a nail near a doorway to hang these ziplock bags I would think that those plastic hook hangers that leave no marks on the wall may work.

There it is...I hope you find something useful here.