Shopping Trip 8/31/09

As an example of the shopping I've been doing, and because I'm so excited about it, let me record the shopping I did today.

CVS

Cheeze it crackers 4.5 oz normally $1.99
Oreo Double Stuff 6 oz normally $1.99
Ritz Cracers 4 oz normally $1.99
Wheat Thins 4 oz normally $1.99
Club Crackers 5.25 oz normally $1.99

Sale - buy 5 for $5
coupon - $0.75 off
$1 ECB from CVS
= $3.25 total $0.65 ea

1 Gallon Milk $1.99 normally $2.49

1 Glade Candle $6.99
$2.00 off coupon
$6.99 ECB from CVS
= PROFIT of $2.00

Used $4.00 ECB from prior trip

Total Amount Paid out of pocket: $7.75 (including Tax)
Total Amount of ECB received for future trip - $7.99
PROFIT of $0.24
Full Price Value of merchandise taken home: $19.43

Walgreens

Battery Operated Tea Light (my first Halloween purchase!!! Hooray!) Normally $1.69
with coupon $0.79 ea (purchased 3)

Jello Normally $1.19 ea
on sale 2 for $1 with Walgreens coupon
Manufacturer coupon $0.50 off 2
total paid $0.25 ea

5 lb bag of sugar normally $3.19
coupon $0.70 off
$2.49

Used $5.00 Register Reward (RR) from prior trip

Total Amount Paid out of pocket $0.57 (including tax)
Full Price of Merchandise taken home - $10.64

KMART
** Note**
I don't usually go to Kmart, but they are doubling coupons this week only
ALSO - I got a couple extra things (gift and paid extra for Tide) to qualify for double coupon, must have $25 in merchandise to participate

Rimmel Mascara normally $3.29 (purchased 2)
doubled coupon - FREE FOR BOTH

Huggies wipes normally $2.99
doubled $.50 coupon
paid $1.99

Tide normally $8.45
doubled $1.00 off coupon
paid $6.45

Pringles Honey Mustard Chips (mmm!) normally $1.89 ea (purchased 2)
doubled $1.00 off coupon
paid $1.78 for 2 or $0.89 ea

Carnation Instant Breakfast 3.99
gift for my brother

Paper Towels normally $0.99
Free with coupon

Used $3.00 Register reward from prior trip

Total Amount Paid out of pocket: $15.43 (including Tax)
Full Price Value of merchandise taken home: $26.78

Target
** Note** I don't usually go to Target (waiting for my Target to open 10/11/09!) but for this deal I decided the trip was worth it

Mt Dew Code Red normally $1.89
sale - paid $0.89

Dove Peanut Butter Chocolates normally $2.99
$1.00 Target coupon AND $1.00 manufacturer coupon
total paid $0.99

Shiick Quattro Titanium Razor normally $7.94
On sale for $6.99
$4.00 coupon
total paid $2.99

Dryers Slow Churned Ice Cream
(these coupons are from my ice cream party)

Purchased 5 cartons - normally $4.69 ea
on sale for $2.50 ea

2 Totally FREE coupons
3 $1.00 off coupons

$5.00 gift card when you buy 5 cartons of Dryers

Total paid for 5 full size Dryers - PROFIT $.50

Total Amount Paid out of pocket: $9.82 (including Tax)
Total Amount of gift cards received for future trip $5.00
Full Price Value of merchandise taken home: $36.27

Shopping Day Totals
Paid out of Pocket: $33.57
Gift Cards Received for future Trips: $12.99
Full Price Value of merchandise taken home: $93.12

See why I'm excited!! : )

A few little updates

I realize it's been a while, so I thought I ought to put a few things down because I know I do have a few friends who follow me on here.

First, Ben's last pathology report came back with no cancer so the surgery and radiation did the trick! He has another surgery tomorrow to get everything put back together, and then a couple more rounds of chemo, but I for one am feeling relieved. (Easy for me to say, I don't live with it everyday.)

Also, I have been searching for work, as I was not able to stay on at the daycare due to the suffering economy. No hard feelings or anything, I love Janicca as much or more than ever seeing how much she loves the kids she watches. In fact, seeing how great she is with babies and knowing how much I struggle, I'm fully prepared to "share" my next one (God willing) with her until they are a year old (aka fun).

Verizon has offered me a job back, so the current plan is to return to work there effective 9/25, but I will work nights and have Thurs/Fri off (I think, still subject to change) so I will be impossible to contact for 6 - 12 months. Just send me a text, email, etc. and I'll reply when I can.

For anyone in the area, I did win that Ice cream party for 100 from Dryers, and it will be in my front yard on 9/18, so please contact me if you plan to come (YOU CAN!!)

ON the boy front - he is learning to read. Seriously! He can read about five or six words now - Go, What, Key, Duck, etc. and we are learning to sound out words, so I am having a TON of fun watching it all come together in his mind.

Finally, I want to say this right. I tend to be good with tact but have all the spirit of a bull elephant. I think being a stay at home mom is a totally respectable and admirable choice. However, I am not sure that it suits me. I love my boy, but I tend to be bad at homemaker things like keeping up with the house and cooking. I have found something that I am enjoying and I feel like I am adding value to our families bottom line while I look for work. I am coupon-ing! I've cut our weekly grocery budget in half and and I am bringing in more food. I am a bit dictated by what goes on sale, not what we prefer, but for us this is working. If nothing else I can stock up our pantry and food storage, which is most always woefully lacking. (No joke, my food storage is a box of hot cocoa, about 13 packages of spaghetti noodles, and a lot of water. That's all. At least I could add some sauce right? ugh.) For all three of us, I'm spending about $50 a week now. Hooray!

For anyone who wants more info on how to do all that (it is A LOT of work, but I think worth it) send me a message and I"ll get back to you with more info.

Thanks and big hugs to you all!

Welp, I've pulled out my Christmas music for the year

I just love the spirit it brings. There is plenty of drama around here, just like every place else these days, and I am doing all I can to stay centered.

Andy is having major back problems, I was laid off and am now interviewing again, and Andy's job ends sometime soon so we have tons of job and financial stress.

Not that I expect our trials are more overwhelming than anyone else's but it's plenty for us. I've heard lots and lots of sad stories, seems like every house has one. I am very, very happy to see what this depression is doing for our community and country though. It seems like people are getting more centered around what is important (I know we are!) and I think less excess is good for a person, although we don't really give that up voluntarily.

The big thing that has been bothering me is this: there seems to be a movement towards focusing ones life around being happy. Not that a person should not be happy, but please let me be clear:

LIFE IS NOT ABOUT BEING HAPPY.

Life is doing what you should, what you can, to help, to do the right thing, to be content with ones lot in life, to make friends and be content in your place. We should be happy with where we are. Not that you can't strive to improve or have ambition for a better life, you can and should! But this grand scheme of orgaizing an entire life around what makes one selfishly happy is just wrong. Life is about doing the right thing.

Not doing all you can to care for your kids because it's hard for you?! Not standing up for truth because it is scary and you don't want to? Not doing the right thing because it requires too much effort?

What about long term happiness people? Let's get on that train! Less whining, more eternal salvation!

As for me, and getting along in my world, I'll still take you in and care for you if you feel differently than me because that is the right thing to do, but for me to really respect you, please know that some emotional fortitude is required. Eyes on the prize!

Baby Funny

I took my newly 2 year old to kindergarten graduation to celebrate a couple of the daycare kids achievement. Before it started a couple women near us were talking, and one of them said "oh, I don't know where that is I'll have to look it up" Elias leaned over and said to her "Google it" I looked at him and asked incredulously "Did you just say Google it?" And he looked at me like I was the biggest idiot on earth and said while rolling his eyes "Yeesss, ugh"

For goodness sake, he can't even read. LOL.

My boys watching Sponge Bob

Thoughts on getting healthier (religious)

Next Saturday is the end of my eight week program at the gym. (It's kinda like biggest looser). SO far I've lost about seven percent of my body weight, which they tell me is great, but not quite great enough to win probably. Not to worry, I'm far more concerned with my long term health than if I win the big TV or not, because much to Andy's chagrin, I honestly don't want it.

But during my frequent, long hours logged on one cardio machine or another, I have had some thoughts.

First, I've found that for me, which is not to say I believe all these things are universal, but for ME; when I eat something like spinach or carrots, I will get full of that flavor and be done and feel satisfied, if not full. But if I eat something like an ice cream sunday, I don't get full of that. I will just continue to try and cram in one delicious mouthful after another, until I can't contain one more bite. And then I find myself wishing I could hold more because I delight in eating it (while feeling awful about the calories I'll have to burn to negate that binge). But you know what? If I am still wanting to eat, then I'm not really satisfied.

Now, anyone who knows me knows that the last thing I will do is agree to give up ice cream and taquitoes and the like forever, but it has changed my eating patterns so that those things are a treat and the majority of my food is frutis and veggies, whole wheat carbs and less of them, and lean protiens. And it got me thinking, I really think that God designed me in such a way that my body is telling me it prefers healthier stuff, it just says it quiter than the screams I hear from my stomach and mind for all the things that have made up the majority of my diet the last, oh, thirty years or so. Like listening to the Holy Ghost, which does not yell for me, but I have to listen really hard to get the impressions, my body tells me it does better when I eat cherries for my snack than donuts, but quietly, in the ways that it just goes without tiring as easily, allows me to get on the floor faster to play with the kids at work and up a little faster when I'm needed elsewhere, stuff like that. And over time, the screams have dulled to yells, mostly.

And this brought me to the thought that all things are in similitude of Him, and the life of our Savior. Clearly, the sacrament on Sunday is to remind me of the covenants I've made so that I can renew my efforts to keep with them. I have also heard that marital relations can be a sacrament, reminding me of my covenants to my spouse. But the last couple weeks I've been thinking about how my cardio time is like a sacrament too. When I do it, it often feels like a dear sacrifice: of my time, time with my boy and my husband who I miss, time I should be doing other important things for my family like dishes and laundry, time I could be relaxing and getting to bed at a reasonable hour for once! But as I contine to pound away on one machine or another, I am honing my body to be better, I am remembering the choices I've made that brought me to this point. I take stock of my food for the day and try to think how I can do better, make better choices, come back the next day for more, and in general just do better with this body that I have been blessed to steward over.

I am sure that for much of my life I have not been that happy with this body of mine, especially with the many ugly and hard years of suffering it took for me to have my boy, and how hard I can see it will continue to be when Andy aquesces to allowing us to try again. Why should I put in so many hours, hours that could honestly be spent doing other worthwhile things, sweating over some machine?

But I know the answer now. When I began this program, I made covenants to myself and the Lord about doing better, finally doing all those things I knew I should do, but in a reasonable way that would fit my personality and life, and I really meant it. Always one to use music to speak to my own soul, I generally begin my excersising with the song "End of the World as we Know it" by REM. And you know what? I really do feel fine.

I am an idiot

I just turned down a really generous job offer at a place I like with nice people and mostly reasonable responsibilities at a time when my husbands job is being eliminated and we have almost no prospects, so that I can work at a minimum wage job at a daycare, where my boss is awesome but my responsibilities often include cleaning of human waste.

I know I made the right decision, but I pretty much feel like an idiot right now.