Been a Long Time

I got out my Pledge and a dust rag and dusted off this little blog of mine tonight. I don't know what happened. I really don't. I used to be a pretty faithful, little blogger girl, but I guess life got a little busy and 3 months later...here we are.

In a few short words, the past 3 months have been Kye & baseball, coupon-clipping, road-tripping, Duke, OBX, NYC, back to school, 40th anniversary celebrating (hi Mom & Dad!), Camden=preschool, Jordyn made the jr. high basketball team, Durham-turned-into-Mama's boy (love it!), busy, busy, busy...

It's good to be back. I hope you'll stop in from time to time.

5 Days Into Summer Vacation...

And I've accomplished a lot!

*I've been babysitting my parents beautiful flowers for the past 2 weeks while they have been vacationing in Hawaii and I've managed to NOT kill any of them...Amen!! I delivered them back home to their house today.

*I joined the rec center and have been their twice. I've been the only person in the machine room who has to stop on the elliptical every 5 minutes because my legs feel like jelly and my lungs are on fire! Exercise + Me = Disaster but I will keep plugging along.

*Went to the drive in to see Shrek with friends.

*Finally bought some flowers and planted them.

*Got a (free) pedicure.

*Organized my coupons.

*Took the kids to McGraw park in Bloomington. If you have never been there...go! It's one of Bloomington's best kept secrets.

That's about it. I haven't taken any pictures in a while, but will post some when I do.

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Random...
Durham is walking now. I love watching his wobbly little self walk around the house. He gives kisses now and is starting to feed himself.

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Camden mooned the entire bible school this evening. *gasp* I thought no one saw him because it occurred in the parking lot due to a slight wardrobe malfunction. My friend, Becky, called tonight and broke the news that everyone saw. Ha!

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Kye is on the DL list for baseball. He had been complaining of his shoulder hurting so Brandon had been taking him to Champion Fitness for them to work on it. It just didn't seem like it was getting better so we took him to a specialist. Evidently he has a gap in his growth plate in his shoulder area. He goes back in 2 weeks to get it checked out again. Hopefully, he will get to play the last part of his season. He hasn't followed doctors orders in full to not use that arm so we will see how the Xrays look when he goes back.

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Jordyn is an official teenager. She turned 13 on May 16th. I'm not sure where the last 13 years went because it seems like she was just a toddler running around.

Top 10 Things I Learned This School Year

1. Going back to work after having baby #4 was hard. It may take me all summer to catch up with things around the house. And that laundry crawling up the walls...oh dear!

2. Getting pneumonia after the 3rd week of school is not cool. I would not recommend it. I felt like I spent the rest of the year playing catch up.

3. Not all 2nd/3rd graders are fully potty trained!

4. 2nd and 3rd graders like to color.

5. My 2nd graders liked to hold my hand and needed help tying shoes. Bring on the Purell!!

6. I had more IEP meetings this year than I may have had in the previous 2 school years.

7. Even though I resisted changing schools and grade levels, it all turned out okay.

8. I got to work with some people that I have for years and got to work with some people who I didn't know at all. I made some fun friends this school year.

9. I worked with some of the greatest parents this year.

10. When you raise the bar, the kids usually rise to those expectations.

Clipping Coupons = Free & Cheap Goods

Kmart had their double coupon event this past week and I loved (almost) every minute of it! Here's how it worked. You could only double 5 coupons per day. So....that's what I did. I also got Brandon to hop on board and that way we were able to double 10 coupons per day. Kmart doubles was a way for me to stock up on the things we use every day at little to no cost.

Here's what I purchased (*denotes free after coupons):

4 Bounty napkins

4 Pampers wipes

2 Febreeze air fresheners

1 Endust dusting spray

2 Masterpiece BBQ sauce**

1 Softsoap hand soap**

4 Playtex tampons

6 Gillette disposable razors

1 Rimmell lipstick**

10 Softscrub

2 Tide laundry soap

4 Dove deodorant**

2 Suave deodorant**

3 Oxiclean stain tablets

3 Scrubbing Bubbles

1 Palmolive dish soap

2 Dawn Hand Renewal dish soap

2 Reece's Dark Chocolate candy bars**

1 Kellogg's fruit snack**

1 bag of Sunchips**

2 bags of Lays potato chips

1 Spotshot carpet stain remover**

3 Gillette men's body wash**

2 Nivea body wash

1 Herbal Essence conditioner

1 Tweezers

So my total before coupons for all my purchases this week was $291.04. Using coupons, I actually spent $71.75 and will get (2) $10 rebates back for a grand total of $51.75! That is a total savings of 82% off of the retail price. Wahoo!!

So how can you save, too? Here's a few tips to get you started using coupons.

*Buy multiple copies of the Sunday paper so you have access to multiple copies of the coupons. This is one of the major ways to get things cheap or free. Ask your non-coupon-using friends and family to save their coupon inserts for you.

*Print coupons off the Internet. Most coupon sites have a print limit of 2 coupons/item. If you have multiple computers in the house, you can print 2 coupons/computer. DO NOT photocopy coupons you printed off the Internet. They do have a unique serial number on them and every one is different. Photocopying coupons=fraud...just don't do it! If the coupon pops up as a .pdf file, be wary, those are probably put out their illegally.

*The items I find that I can get cheap or free are typically cleaning supplies, cereal and toiletries so those things I almost refuse to buy unless I can purchase them for next to nothing.

*Use multiple coupons to stock up when you find a deal.

*Follow money saving blogs. They do the hard work for you, which is finding the deals. Type "money saving blogs" or "frugal mom blogs" into your search bar and you'll be linked to a ton of blogs out there.

*Find your own system for clipping coupons. If clipping them and filing them floats your boat...do it. I don't have a lot of time to clip coupons, so I rely heavily on the blogs to tell me where to find them and in what coupon insert to locate the coupons. I guess you could call me a clip-as-you-go-kind-of-gal.

I hope this helps you get started or continue to save money by using coupons. Happy savings!

You Know You're Getting Old When...

You are picking out a shirt for your daughter at one of those hip teenage clothing stores (ahem...American Eagle) and, at first glance, think it is really cute until you read the fine print on the bottom of it: FRIENDS WITH BENEFITS. Then you pick up another one and it says, "FEELING LUCKY TONIGHT." And yet another one that says, "RUB HERE" across the boobie area. What?!?!?!

My friend Becky and I just stood there staring at each other and chuckled in disbelief. Maybe I just don't know fashion or what is cool these days. I am officially old.

That's all I have to say about that.

New Direction

Hello...anyone out there?? As you can probably tell, my little blog has been pretty neglected lately. I'm playing around with some ideas of making some changes on here or maybe even saying "the end" to this little blog. Drop me a comment if you drop by here from time to time. I'm just seeing if I have any readers left. :) If things look promising, changes are a coming...

Where Have I Been???

I've been MIA the past few weeks. If you're wondering where I've been, I've been at the Wal Greens and the Wal Marts and the Targets.

I've been a clipping coupons and reading Tweets and surfing the web for the lastest deals. I've been getting toothpaste and soap for free. I've been collecting my rebate checks and depositing 'em in the bank.

I've been a swagging? Curious, aren't you. Try it...you're life won't ever be the same. Click HERE to get started.