All this for $44.00

Sorry for another picture of my groceries, but I am still amazed at what a little bit of pre-planning your grocery trip and actually reading the ads can do. I used to see the Oprah shows where people would pay 50 - 60% less on their groceries after the sales and coupons, but I just didn't see how that could happen with the few .25 and .50 coupons I would get! Now I understand that it's not just going into the grocery store and buying whatever you need, it's going into the grocery store armed with the sales and additional coupons to make the sale items even cheaper. Before the Safeway Club Card, weekly Ad coupons and the regular newspaper coupons the cost of this was $106.80, I walked out paying $44.00, I like saving 60% on my groceries!


I pretty much shop at Winco so it has been years since I have even looked at the weekly sales ads that come in the Tuesday paper, (now if they came on Sunday I would have probably looked at them more!) Winco has some great prices overall, some things really cheap, some average, I figured it all balanced out, and I would still try and buy what is on sale and use a coupon here or there if I happened to be able to find it, before it expired and it actually made it to the store with me! But lately I have really been seeing the benefit of checking the ads for the more expensive stores! This week Safeway had coupons for $10.00 off if you spent $50.00 or more, a coupon for .99 for a pound of butter, a free liter of Pepsi (not show, left in the garage fridge), and a coupon for a box of Raisin Bran or Frosted Mini Wheats for .99. All great deals, plus I had a coupon for .70 off of the cereal, so I paid all of .24 for the Raisin Bran, now that's a great deal!

I matched my Safeway ad with coupon moms site to locate my weekly newspaper coupons with Safeways weekly sales. This site will bring up the weekly sales and then tell you were to find the newspaper coupons, you can then check the box of the items you want, print your list and then cut out your coupons (I save them every week in a binder, but that's another post). The trick to all of this is to only buy what is on your list, (well, unless you find a great deal that you might have missed!) otherwise I think that the effort to save some money will go out the door. Oh, and the other trick is to go to the store alone, so you don't have little helper asking for things that are not on your list!

Now I am getting a nice little stock pile of pantry items and some extra meat in the freezer, and I am finding that we don't need as much week to week, I have items in the pantry/freezer to pull from and I can continue to buy what happens to be on sale each week.

Hackey Sack anyone?

Trevor's newest fascination ~ I knew I was in trouble when he asked how to spell hackey sack so he could google where to buy one, then he started to tell me what they were, man, am I THAT old? I think he was surprised to hear that they were around when I was a kid!

Sunday already?

How is it that the weekends go so fast? Well, I guess part of it is that I played all day yesterday so I didn't get any of my chores done!

Yesterday I met an old, well not old, how about long time friend that I haven't seen in more years than I care to remember, we had a great time at lunch catching up, and before I knew it it was after 4:00! Man time flies when you have 10+ years to catch up on. Thanks Alesia, I had a great time and it was so good to see you!



Then I got to spend the evening scrapbooking with some friends, even though I brought my laptop & external hard drive and not anything paper, it was great chatting and eating yummy snacks.

Today was our usual church and bagels. We hung out at home and relaxed this afternoon. It's so rainy and cold I didn't want to leave the house, but I did need to stop in at Safeway and Trev has been bugging me to take him to a skate shop to have his new board "gripped". Since I didn't get home early enough to do that yesterday I figured I better take him today, we even called to make sure they were open on Sunday. So we get there and the store is VERY dark looking from the parking lot, and there is a sign on the door stating they are closed till tomorrow, sorry for the inconvenience! uugghhhh, Trev was NOT happy and now I've gotta make another trip over there.

So, gonna go pick up and get Meghan to bed and hopefully watch the latest episode of Survivor.

What picture do you wish you had?

That is the question over on Jessica's Blog today. That really makes you think. There are pictures that I've missed, or didn't get the result I wanted. I think though that the picture I would really love to have is a picture of Mama with Meghan. She always asked when I was going to have a baby, she wanted a little great granddaughter. Unfortunately she passed away before Meghan was born. And I think it would have been very cool to have the 4 generations all together in one picture, and how happy would she have been to have not just 1, but 3 great granddaughters and 3 great grandsons! I am happy that she was still with us when Trevor was born and I do have some pictures with the two of them, not nearly enough though. She was in the latter stages of Alzheimers when Trev & Hayden were born, she loved loved loved to hold them, so much so that she also didn't want to give them up! She thought that they were her babies. So we would usually let her hold the boys real quick and then take them back before she got too attached to them! Those pictures were before the digital days, I'll have to go find some to put with this post.

So, what picture do you wish you had? And can you go and take it?

Getting things straightened out . . .

Whew . . . it's only been 2 days but it feels like more than that when you are worried about things like money missing from your checking account, oh yea, and you can't access the money in your checking account that is really yours, but someone is trying to steal, oh yea, and now that I can get to my money I have no card to do so since I had to cancel it and have them send me a new one.

I was hoping that I would log on to my bank this morning and it would have all fixed itself, but no, it hadn't, in fact 5 NSF charges had been applied, making me $175.00 more in the red! I called the bank before work and the lady said that it could take 3 - 4 business days before it was all cleared up. I didn't have time to deal with it at that point, but I can't believe that they expect you to go that long without access to your account. Well, Daryl wasn't too happy with that answer and got on the phone when he got home. He talked to Sony and confirmed that they had canceled the charges, which they had, then he called the bank and after talking to a few people he was finally able to get most of this issue resolved. There is still one charge to Sony on there and the $10.00 to Skype, weird, still trying to get through to them to see what that is about. So at least I have most of our money back and the rest should clear up tonight or tomorrow night at the latest. This is not a fun thing to be dealing with, leaves you with a sick feeling in your stomach wondering who would do this. Anyway, dealing with the police so that we can get the subpoena and hopefully some information about who did do this.

So, on to happier things! Just posting a picture here so that I can enter a contest over at my favorite web-site, jessicasprague.com. She is having a contest for a free class, there are already over 1,000 comments, but hey what they heck, someones gotta win and that would be a very happy ending to my otherwise crappy week!

So the questions is:

"What is one of your very FAVORITE photos of a person that you’ve ever taken?"


I have a few pictures that I absolutely love that I have taken of my kids, but this one, this is the actual layout I did for Meghan's album, is probably one of my most favorites. Her eyes have always spoke 1,000 words, she is so expressive and I think it really shows through in this picture. She was totally annoyed with me following her around, it was for a good cause, my homework for my "Oh Shoot" Class. I simply wanted her to sit on the rock by the little stream, well, anyone who knows my daughter knows the battle I was up against! So she sat, for a brief moment, and this is the result, but I love it, so intense, so simple, so Meghan. She is my heart & soul.

Alright, time to get off this computer and head to bed, for some reason I'm exhausted this week, so glad tomorrow is Friday!

A little wake up call . . .

On my way home from work today I stopped by the bank to get some cash, the little ATM machine tells me that my account doesn't have enough funds and that taking out my huge amount of $20.00 would likely cause additional fees. As my heart sinks to my stomach I figure that there MUST be some mistake, I know that I have money in the account. I look at my account balance and it shows that I am about $600.00 in the red! WOW!!! I wish I remembered having that much fun on a little spending spree.

Driving home I'm trying to figure out what happened . . . maybe they paid every bill that is in my bill pay Que . . . Daryl really forgot to tell me about some charges he made??? It is an awful feeling and I couldn't get home quick enough, ran to the computer and logged onto the bank.

There are 20 charges for $59.97, for a grand total of $1199.40, a $10.00 charge to Skype and $1.00 to itunes that I didn't make. I was on the phone with the bank and have filed a report. Then I called the company that the charges were made to, SOC on-line, it is an on-line gaming web-site. Someone was trying to have a little fun at our expense. I talked to someone at Sony who was very helpful and since the charges were still pending he was able to cancel them. So I'm crossing my fingers that by tomorrow or the next day all my money will be back into my account. We will also be contacting the Oakley PD so that we can get a case number and hopefully convince them to subpoena the records as Sony states that they have the IP address of where the downloads initiated from and will release them with a subpoena.

The charges were made on my card, they had the card number and the very faded 3 numbers on the back, I opened my wallet today and it crossed my mind that my card wasn't pushed in the slot all the way, didn't think much of it, but I always put it in all the way . . . now I'm wondering if someone actually got into my wallet, and if so, when, and who? Kind of a creepy feeling since my card hasn't been out of my sight that I can remember.

So I'm hoping that this all gets cleared up quickly and that we can find out who is responsible for this, you hear about stories like this but you never think it will happen to you.

Project 365 - Last 2 weeks Layouts

Just getting the last 2 weeks layouts completed so I can qualify for the little "Hodge Podge" challenge over at Weeds & Wildflowers.

Happy Valentine's Day

I hope everyone has a wonderful day celebrating the people in our lives we love.

Bunko went much better this month than last, mostly because I came home will all my teeth still in my mouth but also because I had a great bunko game with 19 wins and 5 bunkos!

And the gifts were sooooo cute wrapped up in cute little tea cups, and I got 2 of them, 2 gift cards to Home Goods, can't wait to go do a little shopping!

And yummy chocolate chip covered strawberries for dessert.

Busy, Busy, Busy . . .

It's been a busy 2 days around here . . . so much for rest & relaxation!

Yesterday we went on a field trip to the firestation with Meghan's school, very fun, the kids loved sitting in the firetruck and spraying the water ~ and the fireman also gave them all hats, too cute!


After the firestation we headed over to the Post Office with the big kids (the kids learned about Community Helpers this week) so that they could mail their valentine cards ~


After the field trip Meghan and I went to Wendy's for lunch, she just happened to remember that we went there last year after the firestation field trip, so I guess now it is a tradition! Then headed home to make Meghan's Valentine cards and some rice krispy treats for her class party today.

I had Meghan draw a picture to use for her cards. My vision of her picture would have been cute little hearts, all done in pink & purple or pink & red . . . she of course had her own ideas, this is a picture outside, there is a sun and grass on there somewhere, with all of her friends at school. Anyway! So I scanned it and then printed them and wrapped it around a box of candy hearts. They didn't turn out quite as I expected, but that's ok!

Today started with the Valentine party at 9:30 this morning. Meghan is still on a sugar high from the cupcakes, cookies, chips, fruit snacks, jello and rice krispy treats. Luckily she didn't eat all of it . . . although apparently it was a little too much sugar for one little guy who ended up "tossing" his cookies on the kitchen floor, and we all know how I feel about THAT!!! uugghhhhh.
Meg & I in our Valentine shirts!



That has been our last two days . . . off to bunko at Steph's tonight, maybe I will win something this month instead of losing my tooth like I did next month! Wish me luck.

5 Days

I don't have to go to work for 5, yes FIVE whole days! And I'm really happy about that! Lots of things that I'd like to do, painting, scrapping, napping . . . we'll see how much really gets done. I'm just happy having a little mini vacation!

Good Weekend . . .

which meant no blogging! Now I feel behind, I was doing so good there.

So Saturday got a slow start and I had a few things I knew I wanted to get done. I got up, got the kids breakfast and then sat on the couch to drink my coffee and read a magazine for a few minutes. Well, me + couch + magazine = bad combo! Usually ends up with me getting a little too comfie and closing my eye and taking a little nap! Which I did, guilt free, and to add to my comfieness (so not a word I know) Daryl heated up a rice bag for me (I didn't even ask for it) so, yea, nice and warm and comfie!

But, once I got moving, I got moving and didn't stop, for about 12 hours! I've been waiting for the motivation to tackle Meghan's room, to reorganize, hang a shelf and some pictures and clean from top to bottom. I went through all of her drawers, her closet, under her bed, everything, and found quite a bit of stuff that is MINE that's been missing! Man that kid is a little pack rat, and I have NO idea where she gets it from :-) Daryl got the shelf hung up and the little shadow box beside it, and I hung up her new little "MEGHAN" picture that she got from Grandma O for Christmas. Feels really good to have that done. We found places for all of her "stuff" so that we can work on putting things back where they belong when we are done with it, I know, but I can try! She is actually pretty good at putting stuff where it belongs if it has a home.


And if that wasn't enough, I continued on my kitchen mission to get the baking cupboards finished up, I threw out a ton of stuff and made more room, aaahhhhh, so nice not to have to dig to get to stuff. Even though I have about triple the cupboard space from our old house, I somehow managed to fill them up very nicely! To baskets on the top shelf are holding all of the decorating stuff, by season/event! I'll make some cute labels for them one of these days. The decorating stuff had outgrown it's previous home so I needed a new plan, this top shelf was wasted with stuff I wasn't using, so I moved some stuff around and found these baskets from a long time ago and started separating, I love that I can pull out one basket and have everything pink and red for Valentines and not have to pick through everything Christmas first.


In between all the cleaning and reorganizing there was the laundry, dusting and finally hanging this up ~ I have had this for several months but it required a big ladder and moving furniture to get it up, I somehow convinced Daryl today was the day ~

Meghan was a big help, as usual, she was following me around with the feather duster dusting everything within her reach. Daryl and I were cracking up when she said "I'm helping you mom, I just dusted the basement!" She meant the baseboards!!! Too cute. This is a picture of her playing in her playroom, I mean playcloset, she was being silly because she didn't want me taking her picture ~ She will go in there and color for hours . . . notice her camera on her desk!



On Sunday we had Daryl's sister Corlina and her family over for dinner and the Tidwells too! Lots of fun. As I was looking around for something to photograph for my daily photo I noticed the buds on the tress in the backyard already ~

Then as I was putting my camera away I noticed the tree in the front already had flowers ~

The weekend went to fast and I'm really looking forward to an extra long weekend coming up.

oh, one more thing for those of you who keep up on Meghan speak, as we were walking upstairs for bed tonight she was counting, one, two, THree, notice anything wrong with that? I asked her to say it again and she definitely said THree, made me kinda sad. Since she could talk she has said one, two, wee . . . her TH and L's are W's. She asks to listen to KAT country one o wee point wee . . . her best friend is La La La La Warren (really Lauren) She sings the song One Two Wee like a bird I sing . . . I'm not sure I like her learning the proper way to talk, I'll have to talk to her teacher about that!

How cute is this background?

Thought I'd try and find a valentinee background for this month and came across this one. Someone must have made it just for me! oh, AND it matches my rice bags!!!

Project 365 - Week 5

Finally got my layouts done for last week

Rice Bags . . .

where have they been all my life? I had never heard of them until recently when Mom got one from a friend, she raved about how great it was and then her friend made me one too! oooohhhh, it was heavenly, the one night I actually got to use it, which happened to be the night that I had that bad bad toothache, it felt so good. Somehow Meghan figured out how great they were too, I think Mimi had a little something to do with that, so now she is using mine EVERY night. And I know that if I go in and take it when I go to bed she will notice and she will wake me up looking for it. Oh, and to make matters worse she comes into my room sometime between 3am & 5 am asking me to heat up her rice bag. uugghhhhh . . .

So, I decided I needed to make myself my own rice bag, I stopped at Wal-Mart and got some brown flannel fabric and some really cute brown with pink polk-a-dot material, not flannel but too cute to pass up, and it matches my scrapbook room! I unburied my sewing machine from the corner and dusted it off, I've actually had it for many many years but it looks brand new since it doesn't get much use, anyone who knows me well knows that I don't sew much, I much prefer glue or staples if I need things to stick together! I do believe that there is a great sewing gene somewhere deep within me, my grandmother was a great seamstress, she made me cute little dresses all the time when I was a little girl. I remember sewing with her on many occasions, making potholders mostly I think, and I made a patchwork pillow, which I still have (big surprise I know) it looks gross as ever, but I'll never throw it away.

Wow, that sure got off track. Anyway, out came the sewing machine, the kids were quite interested in seeing what mom was going to do with this machine, I warned them not to expect much, (if you saw the shorts I made in junior high you'd totally understand, right mom?!)


Surprisingly, I actually cut out and whipped out some rice bags, I was so impressed that I actually remembered how to make a bobbin and thread my sewing machine. I made a longish one so that I could put it around my neck and then I had this idea to make a smaller one to use for my feet. My feet are always freezing, so, as I sit and type this my feet are resting on a very cute, brown & pink polk-a-dot rice bag!

A little reorganizing

I love when I get stuff done that I never planned on getting done. I ended up running errands after work today, Raley's to get a prescription, the bank, and Winco since we were out of everything! As I was putting groceries away I ended up cleaning out the pantry, not that it was that bad to begin with, but I re-organized and fit in the 8 or so "extra" boxes of cereal I have accumulated, got some stuff put into the tupperware holders (I hate boxes in my cupboards, so I try and get almost everything into plastic, less ants and other buggy friends that way too!) Can you see the 3 containers of Mayo in the back there?

It seemed like Winco had a lot of markdowns today, so I stocked up on a few things we always use. Feels good to have everything all organized. I also started on my baking cupboard, I'll have to finish that one tomorrow, it has somehow expanded beyond it's allotted space so I need to to a little re-organization so that I can get a few items that moved into the extra bedroom during the holidays back where they belong! So, more on that little project tomorrow.

Nice to go away, nice to come home!

We had a great weekend away up to Sutter Creek with the Tidwells. The only not so good part was that we decided we should be a little more budget friendly so we stayed here instead of our favorite place here. It turned out to be ok, well, after a little negotiating anyway. The first room we were given was arctic temperatures and was blowing more freezing air when we turned on the heat. We decided that we have been spoiled and didn't want to stay at this place. The guys went down to try and get us out of the reservation but we were going to be stuck with one nights charge, which defeats the purpose of staying at a cheaper place! So there were these little "cabins", Daryl asked if there were any of those available and if we could go and look at them. They were definaely nicer than the rooms, they were like converted apartments, it actually reminded me of my first apartment, although nothing as nice as the picture shows on the web-site, there was no fireplace in our room! So in the end, and after one more cabin change due to a very overbearing smell of glade plug-ins, we were settled into our cozy little "cabin". To bad you can't see the pot of dead flowers and ashtray on the table, classy, I know!


But we still had a great time, we spent Saturday shopping in Sutter Creek and Sunday shopping in Jackson. Didn't find to much to buy actually, a really cute "egg" basket, might need a little paint to darken it up a bit, I haven't decided, or I may leave it as it and use it in my scrapbook room.


I found this really cool jar, well, the jar is pretty ordinary, but it has a really cool lid on it, I've never seen a lid like this on a mason jar, and believe me, I've seen (and collected!) a few jars in the last few years. It is silver and has a glass piece under it, very different and the lady at the store was very upset that she had not noticed it before me, and it was only $2.00.


And I found this cute little jar to put sugar in with the cute little spoon, have I mentioned that I love collecting jars when we go antiquing?

Then we had our traditional foot long corn dogs and ice cream at the Ice Cream Emporium for lunch



And we had dinner at our favorite restaurant ever, Taste. We have gone to this restaurant 3 times and it seems to just get better and better. We are still amazed that a restaurant like this can survive and is always packed in the little town of Plymouth. This was Daryl's Expresso Ice Cream he had for dessert, it was yummmmy!


I thought this was something to take a picture of, I think it would be a great photo for mom to paint

And then we spotted this beautiful brick building on our way out of town, amazing the things you notice when you take the time, Steph and I got out and climbed up the side of the hill to try and get so shots of this


So there is our weekend in pictures.