My Trip To Matthew 25 Ministries

This is from my previous postAbove is the sign, it speaks for itself.
These are just some of the nations flags, I couldn't get them all in my picture.

Here I am sorting out donated clothes, I'm checking for stains, and rips/tears, if they have any they go into another bin, maybe for rags, I'm not really sure.

A cute crib, a perfect way to recycle pallets.

A sea of shoes. Sometimes they're not tagged as a set, people sort for the missing one and then they tag them together and put them in their own separate clear bag with the shoe size written on the bag.

I hope you enjoyed my trip I was so happy to go and make good use of my time. Get a hold of me if you'd like to go with me sometime.

One of My Charieties

Kelly over at http://www.kellyskornerblog.com/ is asking us to list our charity(s) so let me talk about Matthew25 Ministries. They're my latest charity, they collect, sort and distribute donations around the country and WORLD when disaster strikes, Haiti, Hurricane Katrina, and so many other places. This is copied from their website http://www.m25ministries.org/ :

The mission of Matthew 25:Ministries is to fulfill Matthew 25:34-40 of the New Testament by providing nutritional food to the hungry, clean water to the thirsty, clothing to the naked, affordable shelter to the homeless, medical care to the ill, and humanitarian supplies to prisoners.
The people we help are not receiving a handout, but a helping hand. It is only when a person’s most basic needs are met, that one can become self reliant. Because of this belief, Matthew 25: Ministries has always placed an emphasis on education, job creation and providing aid to children.

The pictures below are some I took when a friend and I took 2 large van loads over there collected by our wonderful church families:

Above you see a makeshift hut (home) with a cardboard woman, (looks real) this is a one room home with dirt floors and the kitchen too. You can see a couple hamocks hanging.

another... "backyard" they collect water it's dripping off the leaves of the plant into the barrel. You see the various items they use for "sidding"

Nothing goes to waste, this chair would be tossed in the dumpster at most anybodys home here in the U.S.A. they found a way to use it by putting a block under the leg, almost as good as new.

Cintas donated a LOT of clothing to M25, here they are folding it and passing it on.

I am heading over there today to help out a while. I'll be back with details of my visit. What is the charity your passionate about?

P.S. the next post is about my trip to volunteer. (the one dated Monday March 15)

That's a Heluva Good Coupon!!

Look what I got in the mail!! I signed up for a coupon that I thought was going to get me a free dip, but instead it's for ANY Heluva Good product valued up to $4.99. I don't think I'll waste this on 99¢ dip, nope, it's going to have to be a block of cheese with this one.

My Collections...Dreamsicles and Pandas

Click on the images to enlarge them. Me in the back of my glass curio cabinet w/a few of my panda statues. This is a San Francisco Music Box Company statue Sam got me for some occasion some years ago.
This is my little "MOM" corner of dreamsicles Jennifer got me. This is Jennifers' hand print she gave me some years ago.

Lot's more Dreamsicles and some pandas.

Plenty of Dreamsicles, all my music boxes and globes are from the San Francisco Music Box Company. I got them for birthdays, Christmas's and anniversary's and just because's. (is that even a word?)

Did You Know...

The crocodile cannot move his tongue. The whole tongue is rooted to the base of his mouth.

My Shopping Trips Lately...

This was such a fun, quick trip into Walgreen's, what makes it so fun is because Sam was with me and he got to see how I do this bargain shopping...(of course he hears about it all the time from me) This is how it played out....I had a coupon for buy one get 1 free Purex. This was great because they were running a bogo sale to begin with, so that made the other bottle absolutely FREE, so I got $12.00 in laundry detergent for FREE. Giving to my sister will be greatly appreciated by her. I also had a coupon for a FREE pkg. of Oreos when I bought a gallon of milk and an additional pkg. of Oreos(milk and cookies yum). Since the coupon didn't state what size pkg to buy I bought the small box of Oreos for 99¢ and got the BIG bag FREE. I did all the talking to the nice cashier and told him exactly how I wanted to play this coupon game out and Sam stood there quiet as a mouse taking it all in. I loved it. I had $2.00 in Walgreen's money (RR=register reward) The milk was on sale for $1.99. So I handed over just $1.35 in cash. Yeah ME!!!

Click on the pictures,you know you want to:-)This receipt is nearly as long as my granddaughter is tall!!! To get the best deal for my bucks I made 4 transactions so I could get all my Catalina's, (a paper worth X amt. off my next order, which I used to get the higher priced items: dog food, meat, toilet paper, dog treats and a jar of spice and several bags of french fries)
I couldn't even get it all in a single shot.

Not even from standing up on a chair w/ a wide lense. haha

ok, I really could have but it's too tough to see what all I have.

So I'll just "spell" it out for you.

15 boxes of B.C. potatoes FREE

12 B.C. Helpers 25¢ each

2 Macaroni Grills $1.99 ea.

2 pouches of U.Bens rice $1.16 ea.

4 cans Chunky soup 65¢ ea.

1 Barilla sauce $1.00

2 boxes of Swiss Miss 50¢ ea.

2 Welch's gr. juice $2.00 ea.

1 G-2 Gatorade FREE

3 Warm Delights 17¢ ea.

1 Louis Kemp crab delights 99¢

3 fruit cups 67¢ ea.

1 bag crappy iceberg lettuce FREE

1 bag baby organic carrots FREE

1 pkg. sliced mushrooms $1.50

3 Lunchable subs 25¢ ea.

1 Smithfiield bacon $1.58

4 Ore ida potatoes $4.00

7 Gr. Giant boxed veggies $8.?? BECAUSE I DIDN'T REALIZE ASPARAGUS WAS NOT INCL. AND THAT COST ME OVER $3.?? FOR JUST ONE BOX, SHAME ON ME. (I really splurged on that, it was really good tho, but won't do it again) ANYWAY...

2 Heluva Good Dips FREE

1 12 Big Rolls Charmin $4.79

6 pkgs. Pillsbury cookies $1.00 ea.

4 tubes Pillsbury biscuits $1.00 overage!!

6 yoplait 26¢ ea.

1 bag Chef Michaels dog food $2.99

4 B.C. fruit snacks of various kind 50¢ ea.

4 Ortega seasoning packets 12¢ overage!!

2 B.C. Supreme brownie mix around $1.17 ea.

4 Chex Mix FREE

4 toaster struddles 50¢ ea.

1 box of Tyson chicken patties $1.50

1 bag Gortons Fish fillets $2.49

1 5# box of cuties oranges $3.97

1 Kraft parm. cheese $1.99

1 shoe lace pkg. $1.59

2 different kinds of dog treats aprox. $2.49 TOTAL (one was free)

2 hershey candy bars 37¢ each, (bogo)

1 lager bag dog food $7.99

1 pkg. ground Angus beef $5.97

1 tube pillsbury sweet rolls 9¢

1 loaf bread 89¢

1 pear $1.08 OUCH!!! but it was sooooo yummy

1 pkg. Barilla pasta shells $1.98

1 small Calif. pizza $1.69

1 bag pretzels $1.34

2 bags of Joy of Cooking meals CLEARANCED out 1.99 ea.

1 jar sage $3.75

Transaction #1 Before coupons $33.98 PAID: $13.79 saved 40.59%

Transaction #2 " " $29.85 " $10.21 " 65.80%

Transaction # 3 " " $176.28 " $70.01 " 60.28%

Transaction #4 " " $49.01 " $ 6.60 " 86.53%

Combined.............. " " $289.12 " $107.01 " 63%

Target had these twin packs on clearance for $5.08 EACH. With Sam eating one just about every month, I had to tackle this deal while the getting was good. These sell for $10.35 a twin pack at Kroger!!!!
A savings of $5.49 per package and a GRAND TOTAL savings of $23.96.

CVS made a BIG woops 2 weeks ago and put ALL their Huggies wipes on sale for 2/$5.00. It was just supposed to be the little tubs but I was able to get in on the deal with a rain check. Jennifer gave me a couple coupons and so one of the 4 pkgs. ended up being free because I had a $2.00 off any Huggies coupon that printed out for me at CVS, I paired it w/ a mfr. coupon and made it free.
With all my coupons it ended up going down to $6.00 then I used part of a $25.00 gift card I had for transferring a RX. I actually gave them NO money that day! Yeah ME. These wipes come in handy for messy sticky little faces and hands, cleaning up around the counters and the bathrooms between disinfectant cleaning. I will also donate 2 packs to Blake's teacher because she uses wipes in her classroom. Donating makes me feel good.

Not Me Monday

Over at www.mycharmingkids.net everyone is talking about what they don't think they did, but in reality we really did it, we just don't like to spread our faults around too much.
***This picture does not go with the day I am going to talk about here but it's the only one I have of her in her carseat.***

Last week one day I meet my daughter at her work so could have some "Jayde time" while she worked. Jayde and I went shopping and then she saw McDonald's Valentine cards in my car and wanted to go there. Naturally I gave in. It was only 10:00 A.M. and I thought she'd have a fun time in their play area and work her way up through the tubes and slide down. She had so much fun and she and another boy her age were the only ones (yippie). So we finally got done with our running around and it was near time for her mom to get out of work...this is where the NOT ME part kicks in...
We were not 2 blocks from her work and I would never have thought just for a second not to return her to her mom but instead take her straight to my house and play some more indoors while Jennifer finished up her last 10 minutes and drove the 7 min out of her way to my house to get Jayde, this way my sweet granddaughter would be riding home in a warmed up car instead of getting into Mommy's cold car in the parking lot. Always thinking about what is best for my grandkids...but not the most convient.

What didn't you do?

My Collections...PANDAS!!!!

Here I am a few years back on my birthday, notice my shirt?
Isn't that pretty clever, a cupcake cake...I love it!

OK, so I collect dreamsicles too, just not as crazy about them anymore, I still like them tho:-)


A better picture of my special message build a bear from my dear husband.

My dear, dear friend drew and painted me that panda picture. I've got the border and comforter too.

The 3 8x10's on the wall were ones we took at the Memphis, TN zoo.

This is my profile picture, I'm not REALLY touching the mural with my lips, don't worry. This was taken at the San Diego, CA zoo last year. We even bought matching shirts. We have 2 more zoo's to tour...Washington, D.C. and Atlanta, GA.

Over at http://www.kellyskornerblog.com/ everyone is linking up with their collections today. These are what I collect and make me smile when I see them. This one I got in Florida on vacation many years ago. He swings above the t.v. in the living room, so I see him everyday:-)
Our bedroom, they guy with the safari hat has a special message my husband recorded at the Build a Bear store. You can't see it very well but the curtains have pandas too, and the valance has bamboo.

from one of my Sanfran music statues

This rock weighs 35 pounds and came from my parents, they brought it all the way to Ohio from PA. My sister has an armadillo (she collects them) and my brother has a groundhog (he was born on groundhog day) I've had it for about 15 years, it's been thru 5 moves! Talk about a back breaker.

Valentines Day (a little late post)

Sam had been eyeing this car for a few weeks and he knows I have to be able to drive it too. The weather was not co-operating with his plan so we didn't go the first weekend because of the snow...The next weekend we were able to make a deal and put him in this bright shinny FORD TARUS SHO. Then the weather turned bad again and he hasn't drove it for an entire week it just sat in the garage waiting and waiting for a snow free trip to the local shopping center and out to dinner. Now it sits back in the garage. We need to get it sealed before we really start driving it around. He doesn't want the dealership to drive it to the sealer place because really now; don't you just love to jump on the gas and see what a new car can do???!!!! So why would they be any different? They offered to give us a loaner while it's being taken care of but we declined.
This is the message Sam had on my vase of flowers.

He totally caught me off guard because I've always told him to NEVER get me flowers for Valentine's Day because they're just too expensive. Besides I don't need flowers to know he loves me. (Awwww, I know) The were delivered the Friday before Valentine's Day. So maybe be got off cheaper than THE DAY.

I couldn't resist one more picture.

Bargain Shopping at CVS

Can you read that receipt? OK, I made a close up bellow.

Oh and I still have $14.00 FUN money to spend.

Shopping Bargains Walgreens

These are SOME of my purchases from Walgreens this past week

I used several coupons and brought this soup way down to LESS than 15¢ a can!!!!

after coupons and RR this ended up costing me just $1.36.

And I STILL have $22.00 in FUN money.

Our Funny Valentine

Last Saturday we had our Prayer Partner reveal at church, it was such a joy to let our "anonymous self be revealed" to the person we've been covering with prayer for the last year. Jennifer was getting ready to leave and Jayde took it upon herself to grab all their bags.
and now she looks like she's been shopping for the day with 3 bags hanging off both arms.

We All Scream For ICECREAM!!

Superbowl Sunday we were at our friends house and Seth was all about making ice cream, he put ice cubes and salt in one bag and put another bag consisting of milk, vanilla and I don't know what all. We tossed it around for 3 min. and wa laaaaa, we had ice cream! I didn't think to take a picture of that.

Then I suggested he make my recipe for snow ice cream, here he is after he went outside to get some clean white snow, putting in the ingredients and mixing it up. (I just discovered snow ice cream this week and right now I can't get enough of it.) Then we took a sample of each down to Cori to be the "judge"

The winner was Seth's ice cube version but she wasn't jumping up and down for either. Nothing beats Graeters Ice Cream!!!!

Tippy Tuesday

I thought I'd share with you how I take my clothes out of the washer in the winter time,

I wear mittens and then my hands don't get cold:-)