Coupon Savings Monday!!

I know!! It's been a while since I have done a Coupon Savings Monday, and thats mainly because I haven't had a grocery shopping trip worth mentioning in a while. I'm not sure why, other than the fact that the Hubs has been doing the grocery shopping over the past few weeks & quiet frankly...not doing a good job. I decided last Sunday that I was gonna start doing it again. Bottom line, I HATE grocery shopping. Nevertheless, I got ALOT of stuff this week for next to nothing. So, here's what happened:

Bilo
Althought I didnt have any coupons for BiLo, I did get a good bit of stuff on sale:
- JIF Creamy Peanut Butter: On sale for 2.60
- Southern Home Old Fashioned Oats: 1.79
- Blue Bonnet Light Margarin: 1.00
- Tony's Pizza: On sale 10/10 $, got 2 for 2.00
- Dawn Dish Soap: On sale 10/10 $, got 1 for 1.00
- Southern Home Sugar: On sale 10/10 $, got 1 for 1.00
- 2 pounds of Bananas: 1.84
TOTAL: 14.27
Savings: 1.66

Publix
- Doritos: On Sale, B1G1, got one for 2.00
- Barilla Spaghetti: On Sale for .79
- Del Monte Fruit Cups: On Sale, B1G1, got one for 1.32
- Kraft Easy Mac: On Sale B1G1, got one for 1.70
- Ritz Crackers: On Sale B1G1, got one for 1.90
- Publix Eggs: On Sale for .99
- Pepperidge Farm Bread: On Sale 2/4$, got one for 2.00
- Italian Salad Mix: On Sale 2/5$, got one for 2.50
TOTAL: 13.20
TOTAL SAVINGS: 10.32

Ingles
- Kellogs Mini Wheats: On Sale 2/5$ + Coupon for 2.00 off of 2 = 3.00
- Pringles: On Sale 2/3$ + Coupon for 1.00 off of 2 = 2.00
- Laura Lynn Cooking Spray: 2.00
- Pepsi Products 12 pk: On Sale 5/12$, got 3 for 2.40 a piece = 7.20
- Borden Shredded Cheese: On Sale for 3/5$, got 1 for 1.50
- Activia 4pk of Yogurt: On Sale, 2/4$ + 2, 1.00 off coupons = 2.00 for 2
- Secret Deodorant: On Sale for 1.98, got 2 + 2, 1.00 off coupons = 2.00 for 2
- Gillette Series Shaving Gel: On Sale for 1.58 + .55 off coupon= .93
- Oscar Mayer Shaved Deli Meat: On Sale 2/6$, got 1 for 3.00
TOTAL: 24.87
TOTAL SAVINGS: 16.39

Target
This is my favorite :)
- ALL Laundry Detergent: 3.99 + 1.00 off coupon = 2.99
- Tostitos Scoops: 2/5 $ + FREE Tostitos Salsa = 5.00
- Kellogs Nutrigrain Bars: On Sale for 2.39 + FREE Gallon of Milk when you buy 2 + 1.00 off coupon = 3.78
TOTAL: 12.01
TOTAL SAVINGS: 9.76

OVER ALL GROCERY BILL TOTAL: 64.35
OVER ALL SAVINGS: 38.13

So, over all, I think it was a pretty good week for groceries. We would have spent less than that, but alot was for Bree's birthday party (Hence the 3, 12 packs of Pepsi products). My favorite thing was definitely the Target deal. Free Gallon of Milk?! I mean, you really can't do much better than that. I am tempted to go back and get another because I have another 1.00 off coupon for the Nutrigrain bars. I get excited when I save money like that. It makes me smile :)

How was everyone's weekend? Ours was okay. We went to a wedding Saturday night. I've known this girl my entire life, and it was probably one of the most beautiful weddings I have ever been too.

I took this picture from the balcony. Not with my Canon Rebel, which I wish I had taken with me.

It's a pretty gloomy day here in the South. Being lazy is definitely on the agenda after I vacuum the floors, do some laundry, mop the kitchen, wait a minute...that doesn't sound like a lazy day to me. Oh well. Lazy days don't exist for Mamas now do they? Have a happy Monday! Oh & I lost a Follower, so if you stopped Following me, lemme know what I do/did wrong & come back!! Pwease? Pwretty pwease with a cherry on top?

Ummm...RSVP Maybe?

RSVP
"Répondez s'il vous plaît", a French phrase that translates to "please respond" or "respond if you'd please" and word for word means "respond if it pleases you"[1].
It is with this meaning that invitation cards and similar documents are often marked with "RSVP." It is proper etiquette to reply to an RSVP request whether confirming attendance or declining.

Bree will be two years old on September 5th. I, of course, am throwing her a party! Well, I sent out invitations last week and asked for people to R.S.V.P by this coming Saturday (the 29th). I need at least a week to get the rest of her party stuff together. It is now Thursday, and I haven't heard from anyone! I was beginning to wonder if anyone was coming at all. So, I just decided I'd call and ask the people who I invited, if they were coming or not. "Yes", they said. I'm not sure that anyone would have let me know if they were coming or not had I not asked. Maybe I was just supposed to assume that they were coming, but if working at Chick-Fil-A for six years taught me anything, it was "Assume nothing."

My Mom said that no one R.S.V.P's anymore, but if someone goes out of their way to write a date beside the R.S.V.P section of an invitation, I think you should R.S.V.P! I don't mind to sound mean, or angry, but I'm doing the food and everything for this party and I just need to know how many people I'm going to have. I don't want to have 10 people, and food for 40. I don't want to have food for 10 and 40 people show up. I still R.S.V.P, why don't you?

*sigh* I've already started stressing, and this party is only a week away. The hubs asked me why I do this to myself. Because I love it. I love seeing my baby girl have fun and be happy. I'll probably give her party's every year until she tells me to stop. Seriously. I had said that this year, I wouldn't have as big of a birthday party for her as I did last year (her one year), but sure enough...45 people made it on the guest list. I can't help it!

HEY! It's almost the weekend! Get excited. See you guys tomorrow & I won't be doing Lose the Fatty Friday anymore. Instead, I'm working on something else :) Surprise soon.

Wordless Wednesday: I'm Not Overweight, I'm Just Under-tall

Because I'm Such a Noodle...

I've been so air headed lately. I'm blaming it on my 2 year old. She makes me tired. Anyway, so I meant to tell you that Mrs. M over at "I've Changed My Name to Mommy" gave me an award! You can see it over there in the right hand column sitting perfectly next to my Fab. Find Friday award that I also got from Mrs. M! It's so pretty :) I'm very grateful to have gotten an award, and I'm still trying to expand my audience, so please feel free to introduce my blog to any of your friendly bloggers!!

The deal with the One Lovely Blog award is that I get to pay it forward! Browsing through some of my favorite blogs, it was hard finding someone who already had received this award (that's because they're so awesome). But I found a couple, and these blogs truly are GREAT!:

Mrs. Musings of The Musings of a Mrs.
Mother Mayhem of Mother Mayhem

I love you guys!

Now, if you will excuse me. Charter Digital Cable took it upon themselves to shuffle all of the channels on the television, so NOTHING is where it should be. Nickelodeon is where MTV used to be, and I don't even know what happened to Lifetime. So, I must go figure this out. Have a wonderful Tuesday, and thank you again Mrs. M for the "One Lovely Blog Award"

Is It Friday Yet?

I made up mind last week that today, I would get up early, workout, have a few moments of peace to myself before Bree got up, and then continue my day as normal. I accomplished the first three things, but after that it all went down hill. Nothing was going my way, and nothing would work the way I NEEDED it to work.

First of all, can someone tell me what is wrong with picnik.com? Whenever the website loads, it says it needs more elbow room & would like to borrow space on my desktop. It gives me a few instructions, I follow them, and nothing. I still can't get into the site. What's wrong? Is anyone else having this issue?

Second of all, I've been trying to upload the same pictures to Facebook for 2 weeks now, and every time I try, something ALWAYS happens that forbids me to upload them. Today's problem is that the Facebook uploader isn't working. I thought it was my Java needing updated, but evidently not.

Today, the computer hates me and believe me, the feeling is mutual.

I also need some suggestions. It seems my child has back tracked on the potty training. Pretty sure it all started slipping backwards while we were at the beach. How do I get her back to where she is telling me she needs to potty EVERY TIME she needs to potty?

*sigh*

How is everyone else's Monday going? Hopefully better than mine. Is it Friday yet?

Happy Saturday (night)

Why am I blogging on a Saturday night? Shouldn't I be out, hitting up the town, getting into trouble, and calling my Dad to come bail me out of jail? Not tonight. The In-Laws are over and have taken over my television. With what? Nascar. Major b-o-r-i-n-g. Oh well, good thing I have a computer and another television! I'm just thankful to NOT be wearing my glasses anymore.

This past week, I've suffered from severe eye trouble. Well, not severe. I guess that's an exaggeration, but it's been agitating. Last week while we were at the beach, my contact somehow got a hole in it. I was able to make it a week on a pair of contacts with a hole in it. How? I'm not sure. I felt like I had a bug in my eye the whole time. Thursday night, the hole got bigger and I went from feeling like I had a bug in my eye, to a shard of glass! I was forced to wear my glasses for two days, and by the time my eye appointment rolled around this morning, I was ready to throw the glasses on the floor and stomp on them! I didn't of course, because that's money and I never know when I may need them again. The eye appointment went well though. I thought about Mrs. M when they gave me the poof-of-air-in-the-eye test (a.k.a Glaucoma). My left eye remained the same, but the right eye had gotten a little worse. He said it hadn't gotten much worse, but I consider it bad when I can't see a detailed face from across the room. Anyway, he proceeded to take a picture of my eye balls. This consisted of a flash of light from a camera through a machine in my eyes. I was seeing spots for hours. He informed that I have a stigmatism in my left eye, but it's not bad. Anyway, since I don't have health insurance, I came home 220.00 poorer. 145.00 of that was for the eye exam and 75.00 dollars were for the contacts. The lady did inform me that I could buy 8 boxes of contacts and get a 50.00 mail in rebate. To which I said, no thank you. Why? Why do I want to spend 200.00 on contacts, just to get 50 of it back? And anyway, I can generally make 2 boxes last an entire a year.



How has everyone's weekend been? Good I hope. I pray you all have a wonderful Sunday, and I'll see you all Monday!

Falling Back Into Old Habits...

It's funny how quickly you can fall back into old habits. Over the course of the past couple of weeks, I have noticed that our dinners have turned back into being unhealthy. Fried pork chops, Velveeta Mac N Cheese, white spaghetti instead of wheat...and the list continues. I'm glad I noticed it before I had gained all my weight back, and for the past couple of days I have been thinking about ways to re-vamp our food into healthy stuff again.

So, I was wondering if you had any QUICK (because I can't stand standing in the kitchen for more than 30/45 minutes) and HEALTHY meal recipes. Please feel free to share them with me! I'm desperate, because I am in the rut of cooking the same thing every week and I know the hubby and the Breester are getting pretty tired of that. In fact, the hubby asked me the other day if I would be interested in taking some cooking classes, and that was on a night we had spaghetti!

Here is a Stuffed Portabello Mushroom recipe I found. I'm definitely gonna cook this up, but I wanted to share it with you too. Sounds delicious & it's only 233 calories!

Spinach Stuffed Portabello Mushrooms

Ingredients
- 4 large portabello mushrooms
- 1/4 cup chopped onion
- 2 eggs lightly beaten
- 1/2 Reduced fat sour cream
- 1 package (10 ounces) frozen chopped spinach, thawed & squeezed dry
- 1 cup crushed seasoned stuffing
- 1/2 cup crumbled feta cheese
- 1/2 tsp. of garlic salt
- 3 tbl. grated parmesan cheese

What to do:
- Line a baking sheet with heavy duty foil; coat the foil with nonstick cooking spray and set aside. Remove stems from mushrooms; set caps aside and chop steams. In a microwave safe bowl, combine chopped mushrooms, and onion. cover and microwave at 50% power for 1 to 2 minutes, stirring every 30 seconds.
- In a small bowl, combine eggs & sour cream. Stir in the spinach, stuffing, feta cheese, garlic salt, and onion mixture. Spoon into mushroom caps. Place on baking sheets.
- Back at 350 degrees fro 35 minutes. sprinkle with parmesan cheese. Back 5 to 10 minutes longer or until mushrooms are tender and cheese is melted.

That sounds pretty darn good to me. Slap a salad, and a piece of bread on a plate...and you have a meal! So, give me your recipe suggestions. I'm only interested in healthy ones, and preferably quick prep/cook time. Remember, I refuse to get fat again :)

On a side note, I'm having to wear my glasses until tomorrow afternoon. They're driving me crazy. I want my contacts back!

"Mommy, WOW! I'm a Big Kid Now!"

I always hated the first morning of school. You could hear my Dad chirping cheerfully through out the house, "School days, school days, wonderful golden rule days..." Of course, those were the only lines he knew of the song. I don't know the rest either, but you can guarantee that he sang the line of that song each morning of the first week of school. It was just more irritating the first day. I always liked school, it was just the people I couldn't stand. I wasn't popular, I wasn't a geek, I wasn't a weirdo, and I wasn't gothic. I was just me. A loner, I guess. I had maybe 2 people that I could call friends. It hadn't always been that way though. At my first Elementary school, I knew just about everyone and everyone knew me. Sure, I would get picked on and stuff, but everyone was mostly friends with everyone. It was a small Elementary School, and most of the parents of the kids I was in school with, went to school with my Parents. It was one of those types of schools and towns.

I miss that little town, and that little school. If I could have lived every day of my life as an Elementary school kid at the school, I would have. Not much went wrong. At that age though, you're more concerned about growing up than you are enjoying the present. I couldn't WAIT to be a 5th grader. 5th graders were the coolest people ever! They were so big and smart and cool! But then when I got there, I wanted to be a 2nd grader again. 5th grade was no fun. I had more responsibilities in my 5th grade classroom. More homework, stricter teachers. It wasn't fun. Being older was no fun at all.

Truthfully, who wouldn't give anything to go back to their childhood? We didn't know how good we had it back then. I would have enjoyed family vacations more, and playing with my siblings more. I wouldn't have worried so much about growing up, and paid more attention to being a kid. When we're kids, we think being older is the "coolest, most awesomest" thing in the world, but then when we get older; it's not as cool or awesome as we thought it would be. We forgot about the responsibility that comes with being older.

Remember when you were in school, and your 5th grade boyfriend/girlfriend broke up with you? Or how about the time your Mom forgot to pack your lunch, so you were forced to eat cafeteria food? What about the time you lost a middle school friend, or someone spread a stupid rumor around about you? We all thought that was the end of the world. We just knew we were going to die. It was over. That was it. No more living. But now that we're older, we compare those "tragedies" to our present tragedies and would give anything to have those childhood tragedies back.

I don't want Bree to be forced into being a big girl too fast. She's already grown up fast enough as it is. I don't want her to feel like she can't wait to be 5, or 10, or 16! I want her to stay a baby. I want her to enjoy it all, because I grew up too fast and I can't get those years back. I don't want Bree to EVER have any regrets.

Back from Vacay: Relaxed, Tan & Poor

Who doesn't come back from vacation poor? I guess it's all part of the experience. Speaking of experiences, we have had just that with Bree over the course of the week. Bree has learned how to climb out of her crib & open doors all at the same time! It was inevitable I know, but still, it's scary. We had her crib as low as it would go, and I definitely don't think she is ready for a toddler bed. I'm pretty sure that she would NEVER go to bed. So, we decided to take the bars that her mattress sat on, out, and drop the mattress to the floor. She can't get out now. Believe me, at 6:30 this morning I was desperate for a solution. Not only is she waking up bright and early in the morning, climbing out of her crib, and traipsing into our bedroom; she is also only taking hour naps compared to her 2.5/3 hour naps. Yes, I know, her naps will get shorter as she gets older, BUT (this is a huge but) she is waking up incredibly grouchy which leads me to believe, she's not sleeping to her full extent. She's getting up just because she knows she can get up without me, regardless of how incredibly tired she is. Nevertheless, we have fixed the problem, and for that I am happy.

Anyway, back to our vacation. It was truly a wonderful week with a few minor exceptions:
1) Bree had to sleep in the room with us, where she could climb out of her play pin and wake us up at the butt crack of down
2) I had PMS
3) A week is never long enough

We did come back 1,000 dollars poorer, but 600.00 of that went to my brand new Canon Rebel! Yes, I treated myself with the money I earned from two photography gigs I did. Believe me, I had a very hard time purchasing something for that much money. But I did it, and I am absolutely IN LOVE with this camera!

Bree was great on the beach. Unlike she was in June, she stayed right there with us. I never had to get up once. I got to lay back in my beach chair, and get my tan on. That was perhaps the best part of the entire week. I was relieved that Bree was very cooperative, but that only lasted while we were outside. While indoors, she was a demon. Paul and I were able to get a date night in, and my Parents kept Bree. They claimed that Bree was a perfect little angel the whole time we were gone. She ate her supper, she didn't try to climb on the table, she actually sat down. To which I say, Bree hates me.

Oh well, it was a wonderful week...I'm relaxed and inspired once again. You should see my blog start taking off again now that I have recharged!! Below are some photos for you to enjoy from our week at the beach!

Lose The Fatty Friday: Taking a Break

Alright guys, so we've been working four long weeks on losing the fat! It's time to take a break. I find that taking a break after 2 or 3 week of exercising, helps the body to drop a few pounds. Therefore, I exercise 2, sometimes 3 weeks and then take a 1 or 2 week break. So, over the next 2 weeks...eat right, continue to drink water and watch the pounds fall off. I generally lose 3 to 5 pounds during my exercise breaks! I just reached my 3rd goal of 125 pounds. I for one am trying not to lose anymore weight, and concentrating now on repairing my post baby stretch marks and uneven skin. For that I use Palmer's Weight Loss or Post Pregnancy lotion. It works!

I wanted to also let you guys know that we will be leaving tomorrow night for a week of family vacation at the beach! I may or may not be in touch. Just depends on the internet connection at the beach. I hope you all have a wonderful weekend and week. Don't forget that this weekend is also TAX FREE weekend! So make sure you get your school supplies!!

Love you all & talk to you soon!

O.C.D - Obsessive Cookie Disorder

My daughter has O.C.D; Obessive Cookie Disorder. Cookies are a new found infatuation for her, and it's driving me crazy!! She won't eat regular food and every other word in her vocabulary is "cookie". Last night, I handed her a plate of spaghetti and some Texas Toast, and she handed it back to me saying, "I want cookies." I wish you could hear her say "cookies". It's probably the cutest thing she has said yet (besides "I love you"), but still...I'm not going to be one of those mother's who lets their kids eat nothing but sweets.

So...I put my foot down last night.

You should have seen her then. She melted into this puddle of screaming baby. You would have thought I had chopped her toe off. "Coooookiiiiieeeee..." she cried. I continued to tell her that she had to eat all of her supper first, and then she could have a cookie. "Cooooookiiiiiieeeeee...." she cried some more. I ignored her to the best of my ability. The tantrum lasted nearly 10 minutes before she relented and finally began eating her spaghetti (which had gotten cold during the tantrum). When she finished her plate, I gave her one cookie. She, of course, asked for more after that...but I stood my ground and she complied.

I realized that Bree's O.C.D was serious when she finished a box of Ritz Bits by herself. I'm not even sure that I could do that, so I know my 2 year old doesn't need to be eating that much. She could eat every minute of the day, and wouldn't think twice about it. She's not fat though. She's tall an thin. She'll be 2 next month and she can still wear 9, 12 and 18 month clothing. She still wears a 3 in diapers. She eats, eats, and eats and never gains a pound. But again, I REFUSE to be one of those mother's who lets their child eats sweets all of the time.

Random Thought of the Day: I bought Edge shaving cream the other day. I bought the Extra Protection Againts Nick and Cuts. When I used it to shave my legs yesterday...I swear I got more nicks & cuts than I have with any other shaving cream.