Great Deals

I thought I would share with you a few deals I got in the past few days using coupons. Did you know that you can save your family a ton of money just by clipping a few coupons. Even if you just clipped coupons on items that your family uses like toilet paper, shampoo and the like you could save so much. A lot of people say that you can't buy anything but junk food and stuff you wouldn't normally buy with coupons. Let me prove you wrong!

This is what I bought on Saturday at my favorite store, Target!

I got all this:

2 pairs of Mossimo Jeans, *FREE after 2 $5 off Jeans purchase
2 x 24 ct Up&Up Ibuprofen *Free after 2 $1 off Up&Up pain relief item
2 x 30 pk Halls $0.38 after 2 $0.50 off Manufacturer Qpn's stacked w/ 2 $0.50 off Halls Target Qpn

2 x degree deodorant $1.94
Reach floss *Free after $1 off Reach Floss or Toothbrush
Dove deodorant $0.64 after $2 off Dove deodorant or body mist stacked w/ $1 off Dove deodorant Target Qpn
Colgate Total $0.49 after $1 off Colgate Total Manufacturer Qpn stacked w/ $1 off Colgate Target Qpn
Natural Instincts Hair dye $1.98 after $2 off Natural Instincts Manufacturer's Qpn
Nutrisse Hair dye $1.87 after $2 off Nutrisse Manufacturer's Qpn
Nice & Easy Highlights $1.98 after $2 off Nice & Easy Man. Qpn & $1 off Nice & Easy Target Qpn
25 pk Garnier facial cleansing wipes $0.74 after $2 off Garnier facial care item Man. Qpn stacked w/ $2 off Garnier facial care item Target Qpn.

for the huge total of $10.02

Last night we went for a quick trip back to Target cause hubs had to get a prescription so I quickly scanned for a few things I knew were on sale!

This is what I scored:

Tide Stain Release 36 oz, $2.94 after $3 off Tide Stain Release Man. Qpn
3 x Purex 3 in 1 laundry sheets, $3.74 after 3 $3 off Purex Man. Qpn
Benefiber fruit drinks, $0.49 after $2 off Benefiber product stacked w/ $3 off Benefiber Target Qpn
2 x Finish Quantum 10 pks, *FREE after 2 x$1 off Finish Quantum product stacked with 2 x$1.50 off Finish Quantum Target Qpn.

Total: $7.15

So proud to be able to save my family money. It's a great feeling watch your total dwindle down. Have you tried coupons yet? What do you do to save money in today's economy?

Cards

I love making cards. My favorite thing is putting a card in the mail and knowing that it will brighten someone's day. Here are a few I made over the weekend. I can't wait for one day to have a craft room but for now I will settle for just being able to have the tools and toys to make beautiful cards. Happy Monday!

*Feel free to use for inspiration in your own crafts but please don't claim as your own. Thanks!

Learning to LIVE with Less

My husband and I have ventured our way into a new land of sorts. It started out with an article he passed me one day last summer and said, "how about this for an idea?". The article you ask, something to the effect of living a vagabond lifestyle. Of course my first thought was one of plenty, plenty of not wanting to do it! As time has marched on in our life and we have started to make way for space in our little home, we have seemingly moved into an era of living our life with less and at the same time, I feel as though having less "things" and not so much clutter is allowing me to LIVE more. I felt for many years that what we had was going to make us what others might have seen us to be but after tragic loss and the struggle to revitalize our son, I see that living with less is going to do more for us.

It is a very hard struggle to choose items to give away or no longer own but I'm finding in the freedom it is giving way for more dedicated thoughts of what I hope for to be what our family's life will be about. Who do I want to be? I feel at an impasse you could say, stay at home mom with an almost four year old wanting my life to have some purpose. To be able to enjoy the time I take to do something and feel good after having done it.  I want to create and share with others, have beauty and learn. I want to be a good friend and good mom and good wife. I want to excel and pray that with less, God will be able to show me more of who I am.

Man Down, Man Down!

It seems as though someone had the idea that I needed a wee vacation of sorts...Saturday morning went as planned for the most part. Got some laundry started (total accomplishment btw), Let the wee one paint (even bigger accomplishment) and then was going to head out and take the kiddie to see the cutest set of twins!

Well as I was remembering the laundry, I ran out to the said laundry room, which is out in our garage and surrounded by a few extra craft supples that SOMEBODY I, should have picked up and put away, a while ago. In an effort to be Suzy Housewife Extraordinaire, I dutifully grabbed the basket plopped it in front of the dryer, opened 'er up and leaned in for the mother load of clothes....ummm what I got though instead was two bulging discs and a 3 day hospital stay (so far)! If I do say so myself and I do, it was pretty awesome. Imagine if you will for just a moment...Mom at home with Little Miss, while Sir-reads-a lot is at a teen church conference, luckily he was just down the road and close to coming home. Now Little Miss or LM for short today, is for all intents and purposes, potty trained, thank you Lord! Only thing is, is that she has this affinity to liking someone else have to do the dirty work and wipe for her, oh and put her on and take her off. So just as I lean in to get the laundry, I feel a lightning bolt shoot up and down my back. I lean to the washer to hold me up because with each infintessimal move I anguish in more pain and the feeling that my legs are going to drop out from me and I will go crashing to the floor. I take a few deep breaths and try to move...WRONG IDEA LADY, what am I thinking...and then I hear it, you know what I am about to say don't you??? "MOMMY!!!! I have to go potty....NOW MOMMY!!!". What the heck am I supposed to do now??? Of course like any super mom I don't want LM to pee her pants so I take a few deep breaths and tell her to run to the potty and get herself on and mommy will get there in a minute to help her. So I get myself to the floor on all fours and crawl to the bathroom and get LM off the potty. I crawl to the living room and lay myself over the the large ottoman, knees bent, head on pillow and there I lay. I successfully reach my sister in law and request for her to come and get me and take me to the hospital because if she can't then it was going to be 911 coming and now while it would have been necessary, I think it would have just given LM a bit of a heart attack to see that happen. The boy came home shortly after I make the call to my SIL and he helps with LM while I wait, stuck on the ottoman.

My super sister in law got there and brought another super sister in law along as well who stayed with the kiddos (phew, now I didn't have to fear the kids by themselves!). They all work together, get me in the car and we are off to the hospital. Now lots of pain meds, say ouch, an MRI later, what happened at 12:45 on Saturday is now running into Wednesday evening and hopefully after the cortisone injection I got this morning starts to work it's magic, I will get to go home. Oh and home right now is a lovely morphology of chaos with LM getting the flu last night, Mr.Subby getting it today and waiting to hear that the Boy has it too...maybe another night in here doesn't sound too bad!

What's Happening Wednesday

Haven't been engaged the past few weeks but am trying to get back in the groove. I find that I feel so much more fulfilled and less anxious when I actually share the depths of my life and what I have been up to. Which seems a little backwards to me. I have been trying to keep busy lately. Challenging myself to cook more and bake more for my family. Learn about wholesome ingredients and how to keep that in our budget. Let me share a bit of what I have been up to.

Crafting! Love paper crafts folks, it's true. Now that my daughter is of the age where she can entertain herself for a few minutes and I don't have to worry that she is eating the dog food, I have taken to getting back into the one creative outlet I seem to do sort of well at. I recently got a Cricut Expression for Christmas! Oh man, I'm in love. She is Aqua and we have become quick friends her and I. Here is a little project I did the first time I tried it out. A little "B" for our front door. Super simple and a personalized door hanger for under $2! Cute and budget friendly.

Isn't she pretty??

I started out with a 5"x5" wood block from the craft store $1.59, used acrylic paint (about 5ml, $0.05) with a foam brush I already had. Painted 2 coats to make sure it was evenly coated and let dry overnight.

 

Using the Cricut Classic Font I cut out 4.5" letter B's in 'tall ball' (Mango Frost matstack, printed paper) & 'tall ball shadow' (Hippie Chic matstack, metallic brown). Both papers are by DCWV.

Next I glued on the metallic "B" with ModPodge and coated over once, allowing it to dry for about 15 minutes.

 I then did the same for the patterned "B" and added 2 more layers of ModPodge and let dry overnight.

 

Lastly I used thumbtacks to pin the hanging ribbon in place. By the way, found the ribbon at Dollar Tree and it was $1 for 9 yards and by golly it is decent ribbon, decent enough I bought 5 rolls in different colors but am thinking I need to go pick up more!


So there you have it, my personalized door hanger that takes barely any effort and looks adorable. A peek into my next project, art for the wee girl in my life...

One of 3 for our girls new room decor. The others will be an owl and possibly a bird. Stay tuned.

Now off to pick up my adorably handsome son! Night folks.

 

 

New BzzAgent Campaign!

If you know me, you know I love all things FREE!! and NEW!! First let me tell you about the fact that I am a BzzAgent. In my own words, being a BzzAgent is basically me the average person in America who uses everything from t.p. to high cost home electronics signs up to help companies with W.O.M. (Word of Mouth) advertising. Now you might think this means that my words have to all be positive since the companies 9 times out of 10 let you try their product or service for free in return for your W.O.M.. This could not be more untrue. These companies want your honest opinion and they want you to tell your friends and a lot of times they want you to share the product and coupons with your friends! What could be better is what I say! So there you have it, that is what being a BzzAgent is all about.

So with that being said, let me introduce you to my newest campaign. As with my previous post I mentioned "fixing up myself" and I got in on the 50th Anniversary COVERGIRL campaign! You can sign up for fun quizzes and to win freebies and celebrate with them and all the while learn new tips on how to bring out the inner beauty in yourself!

Covergirl's Facebook page


Also looking forward to the Stouffer's® Corner Bistro® Stuffed Melt and Soup campaign about to start as well! Can't wait for my BzzKit to arrive in the mail for this one. I will tell you all about it when I get it.

Becoming less "processed"

I strive to be a great sort of good homemaker. Alas my poor husband has had to live with a not so great homemaker for 6.5 years of our 7 year marriage! Now to put it in perspective between September 2009 and September 2010 I went on a "fix my faults" kind of mission. Now in no way did I want to change who I was, leave myself at the door or anything of the sort. I really wanted to remember that before I was a slave wife, mother, I was little old me. Somewhere between moving to a new country, getting hitched, going through a crazy custody battle for 5 years, trudging through miscarriage and infertility, finally becoming a biological mom, becoming a full time custodial step mom, seeing Sir-Reads-Alot through the murder of his younger 1/2 brother and the incarceration of his bio-mommy I lost, forgot, ignored and took advantage of the person I once was.

This started me on the "fix my faults" journey. I started out by heading into the doc's office and making sure I was a-ok. Well came to find out I was going to again struggle trying to have another baby and was diagnosed with PCOS. We tried a few rounds of Clomid and when that wasn't even working after 3 rounds and a few "emotional breakdowns" later I gave it back to God and said if we were meant to have another child, He would provide and let it go. We are heading into year 3 now as of the new year. Next I decided after the tragedy and trauma our family had dealt with in the previous year, a bit of soul seeking and talking might do this mama some good. So I found myself an amazing counselor and off we went. I went through an amazing and life changing  period. I will never be the same. I learned that I could be the person I wanted to be if I only rearranged a few things and worked on a few others. During that time, we came to the conclusion a lot of my stress came from my inability to get normal, daily and routine things done. You know things like all of my daily duties like cleaning, laundry, dishes and anything else that would fall into the realm of what a housewife does. We came up with a plan to have me tested and evaluated for ADHD. Something that after talking about more than just my current life challenges, went through my whole life and it's challenges. So off I trotted to a different clinician for that and low and behold, something I have thought for many years and even Mr. Subby who was diagnosed at 13 for ADHD thought I had. My life changed the day I started my medication. That day I was able to clean off my kitchen table. in one sitting. that is unheard of. really, unheard of for me. So life changed. The laundry was getting done, the house was clean, things were put away. I was starting to see what the "whole" me could do as a wife, mom and friend. I was blown away.

So the long way of getting to the title of my post. In the fact that my house is a bit better on the organized side, I have been able to increase my curiosity in cooking and baking. Making things for my family that are less processed and made with more love <3! Tried out my hand at prepping and making ahead today. Made 3 meals of Chicken Cordon Bleu from Fix Freeze Feast and Whipped Sweet Potatoes from Fix, Freeze, Take and Bake. I thought we better try them out and freeze only 2 meals of each. So. Good! I know everything that went into it and it was delicious. Bonus! I am excited to keep going. Tomorrow I think I will be trying out Mozzarella Meatballs and Tomato Corn Chowder. Watch out Martha, here I come!