I'm a WINNER!

I won!  I won! I can't believe I WON!

See- over at The Coupon Goddess, she gives away some pretty cool stuff.  That's what happens when your blog is interesting and fun and lots and lots and lots of people read it- you get sponsors and companies that give you stuff to review..........and even PAY you to advertise on your blog. And then you have lots of stuff to give away!  She's changing the focus of her blog- away from coupons and on to food blogging.  I still read her though- her life story is an interesting one that involves four kids and a near death accident last summer that she not only survived, but has thrived ever since.

I'm a sucker for inspirational life stories- what can I say.

The point here is that she gave away a box of stuff from a blogger conference (oh how I would LOVE to go to a blogger conference) and I WON IT!

 Dude- I could hardly wait for this bad boy to arrive.  She didn't detail everything that would be in it- but I just knew it would be some awesome stuff!

 And boy was I right!  Although I will say there was some rather embarrassing items included (not going to go into detail- but Eden's Fantasies was a large sponsor of the blogger event- and there were some items from them.........stop looking, I took them out of the photo)

 Fake nails, shopping bags, chapstick, t-shirts, jewelry............we had so much fun going through this box!!!

 Not to mention tons of coupons and giftcards!  Some for free product, some really high dollar product coupons, some store gift cards, some website giftcards!!!

 A super cool t-shirt!

 A reflective runners headband (how cute is that!)

 Hot wheel cars!

And even a stuffed bean bag Hot Pocket that Rosie claimed as her own.

There was something for everyone- even Dan got a $25 giftcard to Hanes.com.  But I will spare you the photos of him in his new skivvies.  You're welcome.

An update

I know I should offer some sort of an update, but I'm stuck.  Stuck in a land of undecided paint colors, animals trapped behind fireplaces and tears that fall for no reason.  A land where my children are gone all day and I really just don't have anything to share. 

Damn- there come the tears again.

Everything is fine- I'm just in a strange place right now as the dynamics in our home change.

Yuck.

Interior Design Nightmares and the woman who create them

I know what you're thinking- you LOVE what we've done with the place.  Decorating is not really my thing- but this time I think I've hit the nail on the head.  Bringing in the 15 foot scaffolding was a bit of a gamble, but I think it adds a bit of hominess. 

The reality is, last June my husband began the process of closing off the window from the upstairs playroom to our living area.  Thus making the play room, allyson's personal bedroom.  All three of our children officially have their own bedrooms now.

And once the drywall was hung and kind of in place- all progress stopped.

So for 3 months our living room has had dry wall dust and a half finished wall.......classy.

This week, Dan has begun trying to finish it up.

And it is a long process, I'm here to tell you.  We can't even use the living room right now- which is cool since we all have our own space we can escape to.

My largest concern is that I need to make a decision on paint. 

When we bought this house, I spent hours and hours and hours with tiny paint samples, colorful cards and magazines to select the perfect colors for our entire house.

And then we proceeded to paint every room elephant gray.

Yes- I managed to pick a different shade of gray for every.single.room.

You see this is not a gift, right?

So now, for almost a year, I've begun the process of picking a new perfect color for our living space (which includes the hallway, entry way and the kitchen- it's a commitment dude).

Apparently I'm leaning toward browns.  I thought I was last time too when everything turned gray instead.

I have a friend who randomly paints walls, furniture, children- it always turns out beautiful.  Then, a few months later, she does it again.  She says it's JUST paint.

Yeah.

I really need whatever I pick out, to really love it.  I just need to LOVE LOVE LOVE it.

I can't paint all of this again if I manage to pick some lamo horrible color.

I need help.  Or I need to at least paint the scaffolding if it's going to be a permanent part of our home.

It's tough being a girl

I bought Ally a box of home waxing strips. 

Ally has been getting her face waxed at the salon, by actual hair waxing professionals.  But see, I'm cheap stretching our resources, and therefore this time when it came due- I hesitated to shell out twenty bucks to tend her lip when I could get 12 wax strips for five.  So we gave it a whirl.

I came into the bathroom after she finished and her lip looked good.  A little red, but mainly hairless.  So I thought, what the heck- I'm doing me too!  I used to wax my face when Dan's mom was an active beautician and she would do it for free out of love.  But since then, I've taken to plucking and fancy trimmers.

I warmed the strip in my hands.
I carefully applied to my lip, being careful not to include my actual lip.
I rubbed and waited.
Then I grabbed the end and ripped it off as fast as I could and HOLY HECK the pain was everything I remembered!!!!  I was anticipating, since it was a cheap at home kit, that it wouldn't work as well.  But it did.  I swear to you, had I not already had the other half glued on the other side of my lip, I wouldn't have gone through with it a second time. I would today have half a mustache.

After I dried my tears and stopped mumbling about the pain, I applied the oily clothe thing and in my head wondered what would keep that oil from making tons of pimples in the raw open pores that I just rubbed it in?

And this morning, I discovered that the answer is NOTHING.  My lip is swollen up like a crazy nut ball and is loaded with giant mosquito bite looking things!  (Ally looks fine- by the way- at least she can have a relatively free from embarrassment day).

You can stop scrolling down- there are no pictures.  As if I would do THAT to myself.

Will I do this again?  Probably.  Being beautiful comes at a cost.  But next time, I will not do it with anyone in the bathroom with me.  Allyson was laughing so hard, which didn't help my pain at all.  No audience and some stridex pads- that is what I'm gonna try next time.

The dog is a better farmer than I am

In the spring, I did what I always do.  Plan a garden.

Dan tilled my stuff up.

The kids bought me lots of different fabulous veggie plants for mothers day.

And I planted.  This time I ran string and created a grid- very formal.  None of that crazy love garden planting I did last year.  No way, this time I was serious.

Emily made a map so we could keep track of what we had done.

And then I watered and waited and watered and waited and watered.

Everything died except the tomatoes.  And they have yet to get any bigger than a golf ball before ripening.  It's a sad sad excuse for a garden.  And dang I really tried.

And then low and behold- right in the middle of the yard I noticed this.....

A pumpkin vine.  Last Fall our crazy dog loved taking the kids pumpkins and pumpkin parts as we were out back carving and running around the yard with them.  We gave her a little pumpkin to 'play' with when Halloween had passed- and I do believe that this is where she left it.

No water.  No tilling.  No chart.  No strings.  No rows.  No planning. Nothin.

Unbelievable.

I read an article on how to 'artificially inseminate' pumpkin plants to ensure fruit and I was contemplating grabbing some qtips and giving it a try, but chances are if I go near it, it will die. 

I'll just leave the heavy farm lifting to Rosie I guess.

What do YOU do?

I coupon.

We have family that could really use the benefits of couponing, but I can't get them to think BEYOND the thought of saving $.30 on an item they don't need anyway.  She always says that most coupons are for things she wouldn't normally buy and then she spends more than she would have trying to use them.

And there have most certainly been times in my past I did the same thing.

But now I am a couponer, as opposed to someone who uses coupons.

I watch sales, I know the sale cycles, I shop multiple stores and buy only the items on sale, and I combine store incentives with my coupons to get double bang for my buck.  And I don't buy one of that item when I find a great deal at or below my price point- I buy 4-6 of them.  That is what a couponer does.

I pay $.50-$.80 for a jar of spaghetti sauce. I pay nothing for shampoo, toothpaste, make up and deodorant.  I never pay for than $1 for a box of cereal (name brand cereal).  I most generally don't pay more than $2 for laundry detergent and even milk can be bought with a store credit earned or a coupon used.  There are very few times that I grocery shop and pay for than 50% of whatever the shelf tags say.

Sure- there are things you can't get around.  Fresh meats, fruits and vegetables.  But when they are on sale, I try and stock up.  And if they are not on sale, I look for an alternative that is.  Grapes at $3 a pound?  We go for the bananas on sale for $.29 lb that week.  Chicken at full price?  How about tacos instead with the $2 ground beef.  Nothing else, we fall back on spaghetti- cause you know I have multiple jars of sauce in my cabinet.

I shop smart, or at least I try to.  I buy light bulbs when they are free, even though I have a package in the cabinet, because eventually I'll use them and that is a savings.  I stock up on Advil when it is $.40 a bottle so that I don't ever have to pay $5 for it when I actually have a headache.  I have more canned tomatoes in my cabinet than I would ever dreamed possible- but at less than $.10 a can how could I go wrong?  I've had to make room in a few extra cabinets in my kitchen to store the food- but I never worry about not having plenty for my family now.

And I MAKE money sometimes with store deals.  Which I apply to the stuff that is hard to save on. 

I read blogs daily (hip2save and the krazy coupon lady are my favorites) and I read the store circulars like it is my job.  It takes time, but I love it and therefore I never think of it as a chore.  And if one week it starts to feel like a chore?  Then I don't do it.  And I don't worry about missing a week or two of deals because I know I have most everything we need in my cabinets already.  And if there is a product for free that we will never use, I most generally pass on it.  Unless it is something that would be useful to the food bank or someone I love- then I pass it along.

For our family, it works.  It is who I am and who I have always been- I've just refined it a bit.  And I LOVE doing it.  I feel like I'm hunting and there is such a victory in stretching an already tight grocery budget even farther!

UP!

 Yesterday was just a regular ordinary day.

Dan is working nights/afternoons/early evenings this week, so I suppose that is out of the norm.

 And both Emily and Sam stayed home sick yesterday, one with a huge headache and one with a stomach thing- probably both the same thing. That was not normal.

 Oh- and Dan burnt up an entire tray of turkey bacon in the microwave and you can smell that horrible odor from as far as the mailbox.  I had to boil lemons in the microwave just to begin to make it less stinky. That is (thankfully) something we don't do every day.

 And I suppose that there is one more thing that was a bit different.......... I GOT TO GO ON A HOT AIR BALLOON RIDE!!!!

 One of the generous souls at the air show has been teasing me for years that he was going to take me up, and then yesterday he called and confirmed that last night was the perfect night for a flight.  AND he wanted me to bring Allyson!

 It was without a doubt AMAZING!  This world that we live in, the one I drove through on the way to his home, seemed much more ugly than once we were up above it.  All the ugly melted away and all I could see was beauty.

 I was amazed at how glorious this experience was.  And that I got to experience it with Allyson???  So amazing.

 This was the poor soy bean field we we 'scruffed off' some speed before landing.  Poor beans.

 This was our pilot.  Who was also Ally's 5th grade teacher.  God is amazing.  No coincidence there, I'm sure.  She was calm and reassuring, in command and yet relaxed.  She made it such a beautiful ride for us.

 I had a hard time snapping this picture because I had to let go of the death grip I had on my pole- but it was so amazing I had to take it.  And then I grabbed my pole again.  It is so quiet and calm up in a balloon.  Yet you can hear small children screaming HI and dogs barking and chasing your shadow on the ground below.  At one point we were 1000 feet up, at some points we were 300.  It was unreal.

We live in a broken world where mean and hatefulness seems to fill even the most gentle of people.  It is a true testimony to our Lord that HIS peace and love still live in this land when a group of people give their entire evening to someone else, just because they want to.  That gift that was given to Ally and I was not lost, and I will be forever grateful for the kindness, given out of Christian love and goodness, that was given to me.  I feel renewed that the world can be good, that people can be good, and that God's good is continuing to flourish.