Bargain shopping AGAIN...

Sunday we went to Kroger. I needed eggs and of course they come in Styrofoam so I won't touch the carton, therefore, Sam got to see how well I do this coupon shopping task.

The toilet paper were both FREE

veggies 50 cents each

Kashi cereal 1.00 EACH

Danactive 1.00 EACH

Activia 1.00 EACH

00p cost: $6.06

my TOTAL SAVINGS were $17.51

Bargain Grocery Shopping

Last Saturday I went to Meijer and stocked up on some stuff I had coupons for and that was on sale. How do you like my haul?

I got:

1Bisquick (99 cents)

3 loaves of bread(bog2f)

1Chex Mix (I just made umteen batches to take to Erie for Christmas gifts and we didn't go yet due to too much snow fall) (FREE)

1Turkey bacon (not on sale)

1 Green Giant veggies (FREE)

2 Fiber One poptarts (FREE)

6 Fiber One bars (I hope they're good) (1.00/box)

12 yogurt (39 cents EACH)

2 boxes of potatoes (20 cents each)

1 pouch of potatoes(9 cents)

2 boxes of snackers (1.00 EACH)

2 pizza rolls (FREE)

2 pepperoni packs

1 Hunts spaghetti sauce

1 can of pudding (FREE)

1 Snapple drink (29 cents)

3 biscuits (FREE)

4 cans of soup (not sure but I had coupons and Sam was needing soup)

2 Yoplait drinkables because Blake enjoys these (50 cents each)

I paid $29.78 for it all. But I saved $60.67!

Brrrrrrrr, Baby It's Cold Out There

Oh my goodness, today I woke up to -8 degrees! For some reason I am not as cold today as I was yesterday but yet I have my heat at the same temp setting, weird. I'm glad about that. My hands are not even cold as I type so it can't be I am just getting used to it. Today I have slowly noticed the temp rise to +4 so we're making progress. :-) When we get to San Diego next month and enjoy their average 66 degrees we will be running around in shorts! Well, OK maybe not shorts but 66 will seem like summer compared to weeks like this one. Tomorrow will be 27 and a good day to take the recyclables to the drop off. They're almost over flowing. Here's an Old FAVORITE of Blake and I from December '06. Just perfect for this post.

A Lot Of Unspent Money

I cleaned out my coupon pac, yes it is spelled that way on the front flap and this is what I ended up with.

Happy Birthday Mychele

Today is my niece, Mychele's birthday. She was born in California in 1977. I can always remember that year because that is the bicentennial year of our country. Remember those "drummer boy" quarters they had 1977 on them. She made a big flight when she was 3 months old as she moved to Pennsylvania. Oh, I still remember those days....

I was just 13 when she came back and I would carry her everywhere I could. I hated to go to school because I missed her so much. One day I was carrying her to the back yard and I tripped on the garden hose and to save her, I fell straight down on my knees, OUCH on a blacktop driveway in shorts! I wasn't going to let anything happen to her no matter what. I was totally shook up because of what COULD have happened if I dropped her. On several occasions I would take her for rides in her buggie. I was a paper girl and I would take her to see some of my customers whom I totally adored and talked about her immensely. It was such a joy to show her off.

As she grew a bit older like 4-6 years old she would occasionally get mad at her mom (as all kids do from time to time). I told her she could move in with me when I was big and got my own house. I would tell her that to make her feel better that's the kind of love I had for her. Well needless to say that never happened but it sounded good to both of us (at the time). She was thrilled!

Time passed and eventually they moved to New York and she grew up. She is married to Kip and they have James (their dog). They live in Michigan and we don't see each other too much anymore, but nonetheless, I still love my niece, MYCHELE. Happy 32nd birthday!

"Are You Really Taking ME There!?"

A little over a week ago Sam came up to the computer room while I was on and he wanted to print something. I thought it was a little off his normal routine because *I* was on and he has his OWN home office which contains anything and everything he could possibly need, so why bother me. He gave me a lovely new computer,monitor and printer/scanner/copier for Christmas so maybe he wanted to print off of the new stuff. Who knows.

So now he is hovering over my shoulders typing and doing this and that and I see 3 words that catch my attention, like you could pick out your name in a big sheet of a hundred words, it interest you so it catches your attention. I scream "your really taking me there!" He says he doesn't know what I am talking about and then I tell him what I saw, by now the printer has spit out 2 sheets, he asks me to grab 'em.

Here is what they were!
He gave us two tickets to see the Trans-Siberian Orchestra, for the very next day! I had minimal wait time and totally enjoyed the show. We had center stage floor seats. They lost power about 25 minutes into it but kept us entertained (we sang a few Christmas songs) while men worked feverishly getting all power restored during the next 15 minutes.

Something else wonderful happened to me that same day:

Before the concert started we were in the concession line and I hear my name being called. I turn around thinking it's for somebody else but what if they're calling ME. To my delight, It was my very first friend I met when we moved here 18 years ago. We had spent numerous hours together while our little girls were growing up, we went on vacation together, movies, sometimes even church, out to eat and a million other things. We had a good 10 minute conversation while in line and an hour long phone call later in the week. We both are eager to meet up again and get reacquainted.

Christmas At Our House

OK, so now I am really late on this post but I've not been interested in updating lately. I wanted to share with you our tree, I just LOVE, LOVE, LOVE it. It's the "pretend kind" and we've had it for several years, we don't put it up every year, once because we were moving in January and I didn't need extra stress. Another year, we decided to celebrate at our new house (the one we live in now) when we were actually still living in Indiana, and we were making weekend trips to our new house till we actuallyMOVED here nearly 4 months later. Another year we vacationed in Alabama during the week of Christmas. This year Blake was helping me to decorate it and asked "gramma is your tree real" I said, "no, it's the pretend kind". Then I said to myself how is he supposed to learn things if I don't call them what they are, so I told him it was actually called artificial. They ALWAYS get a real tree, and he probably noticed it felt different.

A CHRISTMAS TREE "hat"?

Blake is very interested in Sprout T.V. so his mom and dad took him to this promotion at a mall a few months back. I've been wanting to post this but go on to do other things and I just rememberd about the "Christmas tree hat". It's a short video and I hope you get a chuckle out of it. Turn your volume way up. http://app.wishoo.com/events/pbssprout/index.asp?gid={6A630B34-BFB5-4799-8716-3D903D2A773E}

I meet a new friend

I met Joyce (this is not her) out in Salt Lake City a few years back. *I* was there to tag along while Sam and his business partner were doing a 2 week job in the area. We (Joyce and I) were just there to enjoy the awsome beauty of Temple Square, feel the Lords presence all around us, and she was also there to visit her son who lives in the area. We met on "The Square" while waiting for a flower tour. Later that day I met her son and the 3 of us had lunch together. Joyce and I pal'd around for an entire week. I was like a lost puppy dog when she had to go back home to Oregon and Sam still had one more week of work to do.

Anyhow, her son went through a terrible, horendous car accident LAST January which nearly took his life. BTW he did end up losing a leg but yet we continue to praise God he is still with us! You can read about him through my blog. In the upper Right hand is a link to a "TRAGIC ACCIDENT" or just click here: http://davidewatson.blogspot.com/ I would suggest starting at the very beginning which means scroll down to FIRST post. And with the black background I find it much easier to highlight a few entries at a time and read them. In order to keep everyone informed of his day to day hospital struggles and progress his daughter, Nicole started a blog on him.

I contacted Joyce and asked to get in touch with Nicole (her granddaughter). I was amazed at the time and details of each post she wrote. I wanted to email her directly. Well from that day I've considered her my blogging friend.

She is traveling through from Detroit to Atlanta to her new home as her pilot husband got a transfer. Even tho we had talked about meeting once before it just didn't work out. Well yesterday was the day, we finally hooked up! We had a great lunch and conversation. I totally enjoyed meeting her and her daughter Rosie. Here is a picture of Rosie and I. We even have the same terrific haircut!

What A Scarry Guy!

Everyone has a picture with Santa so a few weeks ago we went and had the kids picture taken. Well, guess who was not for the idea, no way, no how. Jennifer took her back from Santa, got her all calmed down and we did it again, she STILL wanted nothing to do with him, not even with a big, protective brother next to her. He had his own shyness to deal with but he over came them fast. Blake was asking Santa for a skate board and all kinds of stuff before we left.

Catch up Time

I am desperately trying to play catch up on all my life lately. These posts might be out of sequence but *I* will feel better knowing I've caught you all up on us. So please bear with me for the next few post.

A Caring Congregation

Our church congregation adopted a family a couple years ago. This family consists of 6 children ranging in age from 6-16. The dad (let's call him "Mark") has adopted all these kids. Some are brother and sister who were going to end up in "the system" but a man with a very compassionate heart was not going to let them possibly be separated, I think some are his nephews and niece's. Mark has some health issues of his own and is on disability.

A couple days before Christmas I helped with taking off the name/gift tags which originally hung on the tree that our congregation chose from to purchase gifts for this family, (you chose the gift tag, shop/purchase the gift, wrap it and tape the tag to the gift(s)then return it to church.

Gifts consisted of items the kids wanted/needed such as toys, shoes and clothes. Then there were items the family needed such as lamps, cooking pots, toaster, microwave cart and the list goes on and on. We cut those tags off and just put the childs' name or "FAMILY" on the new tag. I totally enjoyed helping in this big give.

His place is the hang out for any child that wants to come over after school and with 6 kids you have plenty of friends. His rules are quite simple: 1) homework FIRST, all must do their homework. 2) ALL are welcome to stay for dinner, BUT you must first participate in the Bible lesson. No bible studies then no meal and that sounds very reasonable to me. This goes on every day. He knows where his kids are because his house is the "in house".

Our church has also done some home repairs for them. Mark, your a very reMARKable guy! Merry Christmas.

Bell Choir

Blake was in the bell choir a couple Sundays ago, he is the 3rd from our RIGHT, and Joel is next to him with the yellow bells. Blake has the orange bells. They played Joy To The World. We enjoyed watching them on their first live performance, their first of many? If you take the time to watch it, Blake gets into it at :55 seconds into the video, kinda cute how he wiggles a bit. Also, at 3:16 he decides to take a short rest. http://sharing.theflip.com/session/4453a6aea17a66daa088bd9982c573cc/video/2596100

Even Jayde gave them a standing ovation!

That was very, very time consuming!

I spent a few hours trying to get the after bath pictures of Jayde just right and into black and white. I was able to get to black and white and cut out some of my purple shirt but as far as the entire shirt being out of picture....nope it wasn't going to happen. The other one... I was totally lost, I could not cut out the bright white pillow. Determined to get those into 8x10's Sam spent about 3 hrs. yesterday and was able to achieve all I failed at. (I love you honey!)

Walgreens was offering a free 8x10 (actually they put out 2 free codes) so I printed one of each for FREE, have you noticed I love FREE? The best part...even better than the "free"...when we went to Walgreens to pick them up they told me they were professional prints and asked for the copyright. I was very flatterd and told them I appreciate the compliment but I took them with my own camera. I'm sharing these again because she is so darn scrumptious!

A lot of little things DO COUNT

As you have probably noticed, I like to go about and collect up all the bargains I can find and then hang onto them till either we need it or till I have somebody to donate it to. Well Jennifer and I have collected up a good stash and we are donating to the 2 families currently being helped out by the Bridge of Hope Organization of Butler County, Ohio. Jennifer is one of the Board members.

The mission of Bridge of Hope is to end and prevent homelessness for women with children with assistance of trained mentoring groups within church congregations. The single mother acheives permanent housing and financial self-sufficiency through employment and threfore aquires stability in the family household and improved self-esteem. The mother feels a great sence of accomplishment with all these things and BOH helps with SOME of the bills, transportation and teaches how to operate on a BUDGET. These are just some of the wonderful things that BOH does. If you would like more info please feel free to ask me. Their local phone number is (513) 330-4278. If you would like to leave a donation of supplies/food or whatever their address is: 115 North 6th Street, Hamilton, OH 45011

Thank you very much for your time. And I pray that you have a wonderful Holiday and a terrific 2009!

Little Miss. Santa Claus

Jayde looks so cute and warm in her little

Santa outfit while walking with mommy.

Who Knew 75¢ is a TON of FUN!!!

We went to see Santa last week at the mall and after lunch Blake wanted to ride this car. It was the cheapest purchase with the most excitement of the day. Jayde was giggling and laughing too.

SMILE or Not?

Blake obviously did not want to co-operate, therefore, making my face wrinkly and odd looking. Sam and Jayde did amazingly well. I could just crop us out but then it wouldn't be funny looking.

A Little Inside Fun

I just loved these pictures of Jayde, so precious and calming. I think I need an 8x10 of each, side by side. I need to figure out how to block out my purple shirt first.

Blake enjoys me reading to him and I love the snuggle time I get.

Just like his daddy

Immediately after we checked out our condo, Blake wasted no time getting that annoying tv on. Jennifer said that's what his dad does as soon as they get home from anyplace. So why not? Fortunately, we had one in each bedroom also so the adults didn't have to be stuck with kid shows. Just for the record, the guy is MY husband, Blakes grampa, Jennifers dad.