It's almost 4am here and I'm still awake. It's like Friday nights have some sort of weekend magic where I can manage to stay up all night. I stay up really late most Friday nights / Saturday mornings and I'm not 100% sure why. Maybe it's because I get alone time? I mean usually we don't have anything going on Saturday mornings, although I always end up regretting staying up so late. I'm not really doing anything important. I usually spend my time watching mindless tv, playing on facebook, reading blogs, and working on mine. It's a nice way to unwind though after a long week.
This week has been long too. Work was just kind of off all week. We were pretty busy, like we always are at this time of the year; but it's more because this week has been marked by some pretty significant losses. I don't think I should go into too much detail (sorry people), but a former co-worker suffered a major loss in their family (this hit everyone very hard). And one of our great senior techs is leaving; it's a really great opportunity for her and we are all very happy for her, but she is going to be sorely missed.
I have been really looking forward to this weekend though! John's parents have been nice enough to get the boys haircuts today (Saturday), I really can't wait to go. Oliver's hair is getting totally unruly, it just sticks out everywhere. Owynn's hair is so long it's starting to get into his eyes, it's just so shaggy! At least with Oliver I can touch up his hair a bit between haircuts so it stays out of his eyes, but Owynn won't let me anywhere near his hair. Sunday we are going to John's best friend's 30th Birthday Party, we are bowling then going out to dinner at the place they all used to hang out at in high school. Should be lots of fun!
Saturday, October 13, 2012
Thursday, October 11, 2012
What The Hell Wednesday
Brought to you by www.bluemonkeybutt.com
Wednesdays are great for Wordless and Wordful posts, but we decided to
go a different route and create our own Wednesday fun. We figured what
the hell. That’s how we started What The Hell Wednesday. Who are we kidding? That’s pretty much how we decide on almost everything.
It's Wednesday again and another payday. John and I were looking over the budget last night and our money is all gone already. WTH I hate bills. I think work should pay me more.
I'm tired of grumpy customers! Work is really pushing us to promote flu shots right now. I had this conversation last week:
Me: And just to let you know we are offering flu shots now.
Snotty Lady: Well I don't think you even have someone here giving them right now.
Me: (In my head: Really?!? Ugh!) Killing with kindness: Actually m'am our pharmacists give the shots, we offer them 24 hours a day.
Snotty Lady: Oh, well...
WTH I hate it when people presume to know more about my job than me. I work there, you do not.
This is not so much a WTH, but... I was laying on the floor earlier today playing with the boys and Owynn decided to lift up my shirt a bit and wipe my tummy with a baby wipe. I asked him what he was doing, and he says "Poop!" And then gave me a raspberry, what a goober!
I have been playing a ton of Song Pop on Facebook lately. I just can't stop. WTH, why did they have to make it so addictive? (Sorry if I've like spammed you trying to get you to play song pop with me; I feel like I am spamming my own fb page with all the song pop. I just can't stop playing.)
Saturday, October 6, 2012
Beginning Potty Training
I've been generally leaving the when of potty training up to John since he will probably end up with the brunt of potty training. He's home with them every day, and plus they're all boys and Mummy doesn't have those parts. We have one pretty basic straight forward potty seat. We pulled it out today in hopes that the boys may be interested in it and to try to get them used to it before we really dive into potty training. Well interested in it they were. They fought big time over who got to sit on the potty seat. They yelled, pushed, shoved, and cried big tears about who was sitting on the potty seat. I have never seen them fight like that, it was definitely not the reaction we were expecting. Apparently we are going to have to get a second potty seat sooner rather than later, because sharing one just is not going to work. At least they are showing interest in it though.
Friday, October 5, 2012
How We Try to Reduce Our Grocery Bill
A few weekends ago I was actually able to do some serious grocery shopping, it felt great. It has been a long time since our freezer and pantry were full. Lately I've been keeping to the same few extra cheap meals to keep us on our super tight budget. We spent more than normal and a bit more than I would have liked last time around, but our cupboards were pretty darn bare.
I have been in charge of our budget and the grocery shopping / meal planning for several years now, and here are some of the things I do that I have found that save us money and keep us within our budget. Some of these may seem like common sense, but you'd be surprised how many people I know that don't follow any sort of budget or grocery list.
John teases me sometimes about my notebook, but that thing is like my best friend and keeps me organized. In it I have my master list of all the meals we make. I keep record of all the grocery sales, my grocery list, and meal plans for the week. For me grocery shopping is a bit of a process, between organizing and planning and shopping at several stores, it can be time consuming. I think I make up for it though with the money we save. I get the Sunday paper every week for the coupons. I'm not into the whole extreme couponing thing, but they definitely save us money. A few weeks ago our local paper was having a promotion where if you prepaid for a subscription they would deliver the Wednesday and Sunday papers for only $1 a week (awesome!) I buy the Sunday paper pretty much every week anyways, and was thrilled to get such a great deal.
I shop mainly at 5 different stores, yes 5! Wal-Mart, Sam's Club, Walgreens, and two of our local grocery stores.
Wal-Mart - Where I get most of my dry / frozen good staples. I find they usually have the lowest prices on these type of items.
Sam's- I go there usually for only a few specific things that I know I can't get cheaper anywhere else. Like apple juice, fish sticks, and boneless skinless chicken breasts are only $1.77lb (I keep an eye out at the grocery stores for a cheaper price).
Walgreen's- Drug stores are typically more expensive, but they have some good sales once in awhile. I can get milk at a great price and Sara Lee's cheapo brand bread for 99 cents a loaf. Last month I was able to get a 12 roll package of Cottenelle toilet paper for only $2.75! They offer "friends and family day" fairly often where you get the employee discount. It was on sale for $5, then 15% off = $4.25, then they had $1 off in store coupon, plus my $.50 off manufacturer coupon =$2.75, yay me!
Local Grocery store- I get my meat and produce there. I also am constantly checking the sale ads for good deals.
I do our grocery shopping every two weeks on the weeks that I get paid. First I go through the sale ads; I've gotten to the point where I know off the top of my head what a good price is for several items we buy on a regular basis. I write down everything that is a good price and we can use. I then make a list of all the meals we will eat, starting with any meals we may not have had in the previous two weeks. I base my meal plans off of what is on sale that particular week and what we have already in the house. I make my list off of what I will need to make all these meals, then I add on any staples we need that we may have run out of. I make several recipes from scratch and I tend to bake a bit, so I make sure I always have flour, white and brown sugars, and yeast on hand. I also try to keep ingredients on hand for quick easy meals, like tacos, in case something comes up and I need adjust my meal plans. After I have everything planned out and my list made, I go through my coupons, then it's off to the different stores to do all my shopping.
We don't keep junk food in the house any more, which helps keep our grocery bill down a lot. Occasionally I will buy some sort of "treat", like Oreos, donuts, or ingredients for dessert (brownies, cookies, rice krispy treats, etc). This summer we also tried to reduce the amount of soda we drank, and that saved us a surprising amount. We haven't been as good with this lately, we just love soda too much. At the same time though I refuse to pay any more than $2.50 a 12-pack, so if it's not on sale we don't buy it. If I do find something that we use a lot on sale for a great price I try to stock up on it. Lately we've stocked up on things like: 99 cent packages of tortillas, 80% hamburg at $1.99/lb, Kraft cheese for 88cents a bag (amazing!), and bread for 99 cents a loaf. By stocking up on these type of things, it saves us quite a bit in the long run. Usually by the time I'm running low on something it has gone on sale again. I've also been trying to freeze more, I currently have meat, bananas, bread / buns in the freezer. You can freeze a surprising amount of food that I totally didn't know you could until pretty recently.
By far though the biggest things that save us money is meal planning and sticking to my list when at the store. Unless I come across a good unadvertised deal, if it's not on my list I don't buy it.
I have been in charge of our budget and the grocery shopping / meal planning for several years now, and here are some of the things I do that I have found that save us money and keep us within our budget. Some of these may seem like common sense, but you'd be surprised how many people I know that don't follow any sort of budget or grocery list.
John teases me sometimes about my notebook, but that thing is like my best friend and keeps me organized. In it I have my master list of all the meals we make. I keep record of all the grocery sales, my grocery list, and meal plans for the week. For me grocery shopping is a bit of a process, between organizing and planning and shopping at several stores, it can be time consuming. I think I make up for it though with the money we save. I get the Sunday paper every week for the coupons. I'm not into the whole extreme couponing thing, but they definitely save us money. A few weeks ago our local paper was having a promotion where if you prepaid for a subscription they would deliver the Wednesday and Sunday papers for only $1 a week (awesome!) I buy the Sunday paper pretty much every week anyways, and was thrilled to get such a great deal.
I shop mainly at 5 different stores, yes 5! Wal-Mart, Sam's Club, Walgreens, and two of our local grocery stores.
Wal-Mart - Where I get most of my dry / frozen good staples. I find they usually have the lowest prices on these type of items.
Sam's- I go there usually for only a few specific things that I know I can't get cheaper anywhere else. Like apple juice, fish sticks, and boneless skinless chicken breasts are only $1.77lb (I keep an eye out at the grocery stores for a cheaper price).
Walgreen's- Drug stores are typically more expensive, but they have some good sales once in awhile. I can get milk at a great price and Sara Lee's cheapo brand bread for 99 cents a loaf. Last month I was able to get a 12 roll package of Cottenelle toilet paper for only $2.75! They offer "friends and family day" fairly often where you get the employee discount. It was on sale for $5, then 15% off = $4.25, then they had $1 off in store coupon, plus my $.50 off manufacturer coupon =$2.75, yay me!
Local Grocery store- I get my meat and produce there. I also am constantly checking the sale ads for good deals.
I do our grocery shopping every two weeks on the weeks that I get paid. First I go through the sale ads; I've gotten to the point where I know off the top of my head what a good price is for several items we buy on a regular basis. I write down everything that is a good price and we can use. I then make a list of all the meals we will eat, starting with any meals we may not have had in the previous two weeks. I base my meal plans off of what is on sale that particular week and what we have already in the house. I make my list off of what I will need to make all these meals, then I add on any staples we need that we may have run out of. I make several recipes from scratch and I tend to bake a bit, so I make sure I always have flour, white and brown sugars, and yeast on hand. I also try to keep ingredients on hand for quick easy meals, like tacos, in case something comes up and I need adjust my meal plans. After I have everything planned out and my list made, I go through my coupons, then it's off to the different stores to do all my shopping.
We don't keep junk food in the house any more, which helps keep our grocery bill down a lot. Occasionally I will buy some sort of "treat", like Oreos, donuts, or ingredients for dessert (brownies, cookies, rice krispy treats, etc). This summer we also tried to reduce the amount of soda we drank, and that saved us a surprising amount. We haven't been as good with this lately, we just love soda too much. At the same time though I refuse to pay any more than $2.50 a 12-pack, so if it's not on sale we don't buy it. If I do find something that we use a lot on sale for a great price I try to stock up on it. Lately we've stocked up on things like: 99 cent packages of tortillas, 80% hamburg at $1.99/lb, Kraft cheese for 88cents a bag (amazing!), and bread for 99 cents a loaf. By stocking up on these type of things, it saves us quite a bit in the long run. Usually by the time I'm running low on something it has gone on sale again. I've also been trying to freeze more, I currently have meat, bananas, bread / buns in the freezer. You can freeze a surprising amount of food that I totally didn't know you could until pretty recently.
By far though the biggest things that save us money is meal planning and sticking to my list when at the store. Unless I come across a good unadvertised deal, if it's not on my list I don't buy it.
Tuesday, October 2, 2012
Chicken Bacon Mac & Cheese and Cake Mix Cookies
I made one of our favorite dinners tonight, chicken bacon mac & cheese, we got the idea several years ago after eating at Dave & Busters. I also made cake mix cookies for dessert, yum!
We found the base recipe for the macaroni and cheese here. For some reason I have a hard time finding monterrey jack cheese, and usually just end up using a colby-jack blend.
For this dinner I actually cook the bacon instead of just using bacon bits. I really don't like cooking bacon, but I have gotten much better at it, and it tastes so much better. I crumble the bacon once it has cooled and I just kind of eye ball the amount of bacon I want to add, (or whatever is leftover after we've snacked on it while cooking) approximately half the package.
I use 2-3 boneless skinless chicken breasts, cut up into bite sized pieces, and pan cooked. I cook it in a little bit of extra virgin olive oil with some onion, garlic, and italian seasoning. I usually make extra chicken so I can use it on chicken alfredo pizza later in the week. (I make my own dough for the pizza, usually adding a few extra seasonings)
I mix in the bacon and chicken before I add the macaroni, then bake as directed in the recipe. Super yummy! Even though this dinner is usually in our rotation, for some reason it still takes me quite awhile to make. So make sure you give yourself plenty of time if you decide to make this.
For dessert I made these cake mix cookies, I found the recipe on one of my new favorite blogs. These were by far the easiest cookies I have ever made, and they were delicious! I used devil's food cake mix and added some Reese's peanut butter chips to the dough, I cooked them for 12 minutes and they came out perfectly! Since dinner was so time consuming, I wanted something quick and easy for dessert. I can't stress enough how easy and yummy these are! I did underestimate a bit how much these cookies would spread while baking, so make sure to space them a good distance apart. I yielded just over 2 dozen cookies.
Enjoy!
We found the base recipe for the macaroni and cheese here. For some reason I have a hard time finding monterrey jack cheese, and usually just end up using a colby-jack blend.
For this dinner I actually cook the bacon instead of just using bacon bits. I really don't like cooking bacon, but I have gotten much better at it, and it tastes so much better. I crumble the bacon once it has cooled and I just kind of eye ball the amount of bacon I want to add, (
I use 2-3 boneless skinless chicken breasts, cut up into bite sized pieces, and pan cooked. I cook it in a little bit of extra virgin olive oil with some onion, garlic, and italian seasoning. I usually make extra chicken so I can use it on chicken alfredo pizza later in the week. (I make my own dough for the pizza, usually adding a few extra seasonings)
I mix in the bacon and chicken before I add the macaroni, then bake as directed in the recipe. Super yummy! Even though this dinner is usually in our rotation, for some reason it still takes me quite awhile to make. So make sure you give yourself plenty of time if you decide to make this.
For dessert I made these cake mix cookies, I found the recipe on one of my new favorite blogs. These were by far the easiest cookies I have ever made, and they were delicious! I used devil's food cake mix and added some Reese's peanut butter chips to the dough, I cooked them for 12 minutes and they came out perfectly! Since dinner was so time consuming, I wanted something quick and easy for dessert. I can't stress enough how easy and yummy these are! I did underestimate a bit how much these cookies would spread while baking, so make sure to space them a good distance apart. I yielded just over 2 dozen cookies.
Enjoy!
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