Wanna Do's

New Year's Resolution time, right? I'm not very good at resolutions, but I have been thinking about things that I would like to do this year. More like habits I would like to establish. Here are just a few thoughts about things I wanna do this year...

Read more
A few books on my list are:
*Book of Mormon at least once
*10 Habits of Happy Mothers
*Love & Logic Magic
*Parenting with Love & Logic

Anyone have good fiction recommendations for me?


Sew & create more
I have a HUGE list of projects that I want to do... the things below are just the projects that I know I have supplies for off the top of my head. Its kind of scary long if you ask me... I would really love to try and tackle one project per week. Thats seems realistic enough without being overwhelming.

*Beanbag chair (Carter)
*"PLAY" canvases (playroom)
*Book slings (girls room)
*Drapes (master bedroom)
*White Button-up (Allison)
*Red Wool Dress Coat (Allison)
*Angelina PJs (Allison or Lindsey)
*Rapunzel PJs (Allison or Lindsey)
*Covered Art Supply boxes (Carter and Allison)
*Rapunzel dress-up (Allison)
*Sleeping Beauty dress-up (Allison)
*Winter yarn wreath
*Herringbone pencil skirt (me!)
*Yellow summer dress (me!)

And the sewing projects listed here probably don't even encompass a third of the fabric I have stashed away. Oh... and the girls are absolutely going to need some matching summer wardrobe something. :)

House projects
We've lived here nearly 2 years and are still in the process of making it "ours." Just a few things I'd like to see done by the end of the year...
*Paint away the pink!
*Hallway photo gallery
*Dining & living room drapes
*Recover dining chairs
*Finish a craft room in the basement (okay... this is a honey-do really)
*Paint master bedroom

And, of course, I have the ever ubiquitous goal of eat healthy/exercise more/lose weight/get in shape. I'd love to see my pre-Carter body again by summer. We'll see if I can find the energy or will power to make it happen. :)

What about you... what do you want to do this year?

Can you picture...

Can you picture my dining room AS a dining room? Not just the mostly empty, often cluttered dumping ground/playroom annex that its been masquarading as for the last year? But AS an actual dining room?







How about now!

Its a terrible picture, but I just snapped one really quickly before dinner. I found this 7 piece dining set (there are 2 more chairs, and 2 leaves) at a gargae sale this morning. "Luckily" our van wasn't actually ready to be picked up yesterday even like we'd been told, so I was taking Brian to work again this morning and we passed the sale on the way to work. I turned onto the street to look closer on the way home (thinking that maybe I'd find a small dresser for baby) and saw it, disassembled, sitting on the porch with a big price sign... $50!!! Done and Done! The chairs could use a reupholstery (mostly because they're a little dirty and stained, not torn up), but thats easy enough. And the top has some scratches and could use a refinish, but its not in desperate need of it. It really just looks like its been used in a house with kids... some wear and tear, but nothing terrible. So we'll probably just leave it be until our kids are past the stage where they're climbing on the furniture. :o)

The lady selling was even nice enough to offer to deliver (since it was only about 2 miles from home and our van is STILL having its A/C issue worked on by the dealer...) later in the evening if we came cask to help her load.

And now I'm really excited to actually finish the room. I'm thinking roman shades or bamboo blinds and curtains for the windows, a fun fabric to reupholster the chairs, and some art on the big blank wall. Oh, and some non-carpet flooring, eventually. That one may be a few years. :o)

Super Savings Saturday

Wanna guess how much I got all this for?

$1.82.

No joke. I've been wanting Lucky Charms since they were part of the Albertson's promo that ended on Wednesday, but I always throw away the coupons for sugary cereal thinking that 1) we get SO much cereal on WIC and 2) I'll never use them since we're not big sugary cereal people. And on that note, I'm wrong. I mean who doesn't like Lucky Charms? I'll tell you who... my brother-in-law to be, David... but he's the only person I've EVER met that doesn't.

Anyway, how'd I get it all so cheap?

• used 5 coupons for a free glade 2 oz candle to get all the candles free
• used a $1 off Archer Farms bread Target coupon to get the bread for free
• customer service price matched the Lucky Charms to $1.68 (Macey's advertised price) and I used a $1 off Target coupon plus a $1 off 2 manufacturers coupon to get them for $0.18 a box.

Of the $1.82 I spent, $1.10 was tax.

I also went back to Target later and got them to mark down two about-to-pass-their-best-buy-date whole chickens to half price for me. I combined that mark down with a $1 Gold N Plump chicken on each one I bought to get two whole chickens for $3.12, including tax. Which reminds me... I need to roast those today. I really do hate dealing with bone in chicken, but I'm willing to deal with whole chickens. I just roast them in the oven, let them cool until I can handle them and pull all the meat off, toss it into ziptop bags and freeze or refridgerate for later use.

Mmmm...

What's a girl to do when she (through no fault of her own of course) ends up with 7 pounds of strawberries in the house?

*Disclaime: they were an AMAZING price!*

Strawberry Freezer Jam! Yummy!

Want some? Its so easy. Strawberries, sugar and pectin. Be sure to buy "no cook" or freezer jam pectin. Just follow the super easy directions on the box. I made two batches... thats about 5 pints. Probably enough jam for about a year.

Too bad we'll be moving in less than a year... guess I should have thought that one through a little better and made cooked jam. Oh well.

Learning to Coupon

My current career transition (from part-time teacher to full-time domestic engineer) has made me start thinking about ways to save more money and stretch our budget further. I decided that part of what I would do was learn to coupon... serious couponing where you get stuff super cheap or free. So, a few weeks ago I signed up for 3 copies of the Sunday paper and started reading lots of couponing blogs.

I've learned lots. Mostly I've learned that the way to get a ridiculous deal is to combine a good sale price with a store coupon and a manufacturer coupon. Also, when things are a good price, use all the coupons you have and stock up.

So, today, I made a Target run... they issue new store coupons (just a handful) every 2 weeks, which only makes me love them more! Anyway, here's what I bought and how I did:

*Please ignore the two lightblubs and the two bottles of Shout... those got returned. The lightblubs are the wrong ones (I have a raincheck for a specific type) and I didn't notice until I was out of the store and my one of my coupons for Shout was expired, which doesn't make it a good enough price, since I have adequate stock of it in the house right now.*

• 2 Desitin
• 2 Head-to-Toe Baby Wash
• 2 Johnsons Bubble Baths
• 1 Evenflo Nursing Pads
• 1 Johnson's Nursing Pads
• 2 Pledge Furnitue Wipes
• 6 boxes Market Pantry fruit snacks
• 2 Betty Crocker Warm Delights Minis
• 6 Suave Naturals Shampoo & Conditioner
• 2 Suave Professionals Shampoo & Conditioner
• 1 trial size baby lotion (for my purse... no coupon)
• 1 trial size "Hello Kitty" band-aid (Allison's $0.97 splurge, no coupon)
• 1 four-pack of travel size kleenex (for the diaper bag, no coupon)

My out of pocket total: $38.82. Amount saved with coupons: $26.70... thats a 40% savings... all this stuff SHOULD have cost me over $65! I had at least one coupon for every single thing I bought... with the three exceptions noted.

I think my best deal today was a toss up between the shampoo/conditioner and the fruit snacks. The fruit snacks were just $0.52 a box using a printable Target store coupon... you can find it here. The shampoo (the "Naturals" kind) I paid just $0.39 a bottle for... I had two manufacturer coupons for $1.75 off of any 3 Suave products. A steal, right?

I love a good deal. =) I think I'm going to track what I buy this month with our regualr budget money to see how much more I can get with the same amount of money... see if my $12 newspaper subscription is worth. it.