Recent Cards

Here are some cards that I made recently. Someone off of a message board wanted me to make five birthday cards. I ended up making 10 so they could have some choices. Here are the results.

Weight Loss

Lately I haven't been feeling good about how I look, yet again, and figured it was time to get back on Sparkpeople and tracking/watching what I eat. Since July I haven't been tracking my food and I've been trying to make healthy choices, but I know that I've really slacked off and can and should do better.

I've been putting off weighing myself, but figure since I'm going to start tracking my food again, I need to see how much I've gained. In those 4 months I've only gained 3 pounds! Granted, that is weight I shouldn't have gained, but from the way I was feeling it felt like a TON more than that. I'm so happy. Now to get those three pounds and some more off. Time to get serious again. :)

Saved $51.51 on groceries!!!

I've gotten into couponing quite a bit, and finding the best deals and stocking up when things are on sale. Saves money in the long run. Our budget for groceries, toiletries, cleaning supplies, etc. is $200 a month. I thought it would be hard to plan meals on that, but since moving to using cash it's been easy.

Jason and I typically do our grocery shopping one day, and we shop for two weeks. If things are a really good deal or we are out in the area we do shop more than that. But typically it's once every two weeks. Tonight we ran out to eat and I had printed some Target coupons that I wanted to match up with the sales they have going on. Now, this isn't our typical shopping trip, we have food and meals planned out through the end of the month and I still had $60 left over. I figured I could stock up on some unnecessary items.

We bought the following:
6 bags of Cheetos (9 oz size and up)
12 bags of 14 oz M&M's
5 boxes Stove-Top Dressing
1 container Sour Cream (16 oz)

The normal retail value on the groceries is $60.36
With the sales going on the total was $30.10
After coupons we paid $8.85!!!

THAT IS A SAVINGS OF ABOUT 85%!!!!

Jason is thrilled, we is stocked up on Cheetos and M&M's. Now we normally only buy these items when they are on sale anyway, but with the coupons, it was an awesome deal!!

The Cheetos were 50 cents a bag. The M&M's were 28 cents a bag. The Dressing was 29 cents a box. And the Sour Cream was $1.04.

While we were there, we picked up a printer for me for Christmas. I need a printer hooked up to my laptop, and I also looked at the ink. Target has a special going on if you buy 2 single packs of ink you earn a $10 gift card. For the ink it was actually a pretty good deal since the ones for my new printer were marked down anyway. The $10 gift card is now going back into the Christmas money to buy more gifts.

Autumn Walk

Today I decided to take a break and take my camera, ipod and go for a walk. I managed to take 130 pictures in about 45 minutes. Here are my favorites.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/12086456@N02/sets/72157603097656999

If you can't get the link to work, let me know. Comments are appreciated.

Been a while

It's been a while since I've posted here. I have a few pictures that I wanted to post for a while but haven't.

First I need to start out and say I am now officially part-time!!! As of October 31, I was part-time. My first actual part time day was Friday. I was in class in the morning and then at noon I was done for the day. I walked home, since I figured I could beat the bus home and I was right. It took about 15 minutes. The exercise is a good thing. :) I figure as long as it's not too cold or snowy I will walk home when I'm done at noon or 1 and when I work at noon or 1. My back-up plan is to take the bus. This next week I 1 1/2 days only! Plus I'm off Thursday, Friday, and Monday and don't have to take any PTO. I'm so looking forward to being part time and being able to take care of the house and Jason more. :)

The other day I was really wishing that I had a fall looking table cloth, napkins, and placemats. I didn't want to spend the money to buy one, and figured that I would just use my black & white one a little longer. Jason was upstairs cleaning out the extra bedroom, which turned into the storage room and pulled out a box. In it was the tablecloth that you see below with matching napkins! What perfect timing! I also pulled out my fall decorations. I haven't added anything to them, so the same as last year. I really like the small pumpkin on the kitchen table.















I made a couple of *very* simple cards for a wedding and for my niece's birthday. Jason said that she really liked her card and her favorite gift seemed to be the chapter book we gave her. She is just getting into chapter books and I got her a Junie B. Jones book.
















This week we went grocery shopping. I managed to get a couple of really good deals. For $6.88 I got 4 Pillsbury cake mixes and 4 Pillsbury frosting's, 1 jar of Jiff Peanut Butter and 1 box of Hungry Jack Pancake mix. I thought that was pretty good. Hy-vee had a great deal going on, where if you bought 10 products on a page, you got $5 off. Plus I used other coupons to get it lower. I'm planning on going back to do this one more time. Since I got more coupons. Ma you need any cake mixes??? :D

While we were at the store, I seen a whole row of pink cans. I thought they looked so cool I had to take a picture. I really think I embarrassed Jason this time. But I had to. How often do you see pink and white soup cans???













Jason and I also went to Target and other places today to get some Christmas shopping done. While at Target, there were some awesome clearance sales 75-90% off in the linen area. I can't tell you exactly what all we got, but if you have a Target it is WELL worth the time to go and look. We left there spending under $20 and with a cart full of stuff.

Let's see, I went to the Scrapbooking retreat last weekend and had a blast!!! I still need to take pictures of the altered stuff that I made, and need to finish up a couple projects. Expect pictures soon.

Oh and my business cards arrived!!!! They look AWESOME. WELL worth the money. I love them. They are perfect.