Four Things

Elizabeth is having a link-up for 4 things Christmas gifts. Her image was so cute I just had to participate. This is my realistic list. I could have totally made another one say that I "needed" all new kitchen appliances  I wanted living room furniture, for wear I'd include casual Saturday-type lounge clothes, but I'd still say I Christmas books for the read section. I just love my Christmas book collection!

Christmas Book Collection

I spent my Sunday afternoon photographing and cropping these pictures of my Christmas book collection. Then I spent some time browsing Amazon for new books to add to the collection. All the while I should have been working on lesson plans for my 4th and 5th grade classes. Oh well. This is more fun and more festive too. 

I started collecting children's Christmas books when I got married in 2008. The goal was to add one a year and then eventually I'd have enough to read with my (future) children one book a night each day in December. It was quickly pointed out that unless I planned to wait 24 years to have children I wouldn't have enough. Ooops. So I've started adding 2-3 books each year. Sometimes I get them as gifts, other times I buy them while J & I are traveling, or I pick them up at the Goodwill store. There are even a few that were my childhood books. Those are extra special. 

If I counted correctly, I have 21 books now. Only a few more needed to have "enough" and then I'll keep adding so that I have some to rotate in and out. :)

 I love the Christmas Story book with the babes! This book is new but was a favorite when I was little. 

 My first book in the collection. 

 Tucker was very interested in my books when I was taking pictures. 

 Then Tucker decided to climb in the book basket!

 I bought this book in honor of Tucker's first Christmas with us!

 

The entire collection. All 21 books!

Midweek Confessions

www.emyselfandi.com 

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! I'm linking up a day late (and dollar short!) for E, Myself and I's Midweek Confessions. I'm not sure anyone would be interested in reading these confessions but anyways...that's not my problem.

1. I baked a cake yesterday and it miraculously didn't stick to the pan. I used Wilton's Cake Release and I may never go back to using regular baking spray again. 

2. I love dressing. It is my favorite part of Thanksgiving. I could seriously do without the turkey. I used to only liked my Nanny's dressing but now that we spend time with hubby's family for Thanksgiving I've started to enjoy other people's dressings too.

3. I got out my DSLR camera this morning. Why is it that I suddenly want to play with it at holidays? I'm not good with it so I'll probably end up with icky pictures today.

4. I've read all of the other link-ups on E's confessions this week and I loved reading this blog: http://lott2love.blogspot.com/ Love finding other blogs + especially blogs without kids. Not that I dislike kids but I just don't have any.

5. I really don't like to dress up in dress pants for holidays. I'd rather wear jeans but today I'm wearing some comfy dress pants because I plan to eat lots of dressing :)

I hope everyone has a Happy Turkey Day today. 

Here's a peek at my Christmas mantle. Love having a fireplace and mantle to decorate in our new house!

Midweek Confessions

Want to read more confessions? Check out Emily's blog at www.emyselfandi.com 

-- I have a pan of smores bars sitting on the stove waiting to get cool enough for me to eat. They smell good, they look good, I just hope they taste good. I found the recipe here. For the most part, they actually look like the picture except I had regular size marshmallows instead of minis. 

-- I have to go to a meeting at Human Resources tomorrow about benefits for my NEW JOB! The last time I went to HR there was road construction and a huge detour and I was almost late. I'm planning to leave super early so that won't happen again. 

-- I wanted to stop for a ham sandwich at the Honey Baked Ham Co. today but I was finished my errands around 10:30am and wasn't ready for lunch. I was so excited too because I had a really good coupon to use. When I got home I cleaned out my wallet and realized my punch card for Honey Baked was full and I get a FREE sandwich! I'll be going there for sure tomorrow!

-- I also found a coupon for a free Dunkin Donuts drink in my purse from my birthday last month. Woohoo! Will have to save that for another day. 

-- My sunglasses broke at the beach last week. So I quickly rushed to Target and bought a new pair. I was desperate because of the bright beach sun! Now, I wish I'd waited because they aren't very comfortable and I really would have liked a more stylish pair. I'm suddenly intrigued by dark purple sunglasses. Sigh.

-- I ran into the Dollar Store Monday night and found a great zebra scarf for $5! I guess that makes up for my  not-so-stylish sunglasses. 

-- I also went to a makeup class Monday night on eye makeup. Pretty neat. Since then I've been watching lots of tutorial videos for hair and makeup from http://www.thesmallthingsblog.com/ and http://www.beautybroadcast.net/ Both ladies have great blogs and videos! After watching their videos I decided I needed eye make up brushes instead of trying to use q-tips. I knew exactly where to go...Target to the ELF makeup section. I found brushes for $1 each!

Road Trip Snacks

I have this really cool Thirty One cooler bag that was given to my husband from a student. It has been a very well used gift! The cooler comes out for every road trip. I always stock it with bottled water, sodas, and some snacks. 

It's the snacks part that get my husband excited. Sometimes we pick out our road trip snacks together. Other times, like the vacation we just came back from, I like to surprise him somewhere along the interstate by pulling a treat out of the cooler. The day before our trip I was perusing the cookie aisle. We're big on sweet treats. I was debating chocolate chip cookies, fudge grahams, oreos....all some of our usual go-to treat choices. 

Standing there in the cookie section I began to reminisce of days gone by --- 

PaPa (my grandfather) and I always went to the grocery store together in the summers when I stayed with him and Nanny. We'd walk every aisle of the store, carefully checking the items off the list that Nanny had sent us with. Then, my favorite part of the trip, PaPa would tell me to go pick out a treat for us. Occasionally I'd pick a can of cheese balls or maybe french onion dip to go with the chips we'd already put in the buggy. But most of the time, it was these cookies. EL Fudge Elf Cookies.

Snapping back to real life, I began to search the cookie aisle for my elf cookies. Hoping that they still made them. I searched and searched until I saw them on the very top shelf, almost out of my reach. And then they were mine! I was thrilled to have found them! 

Fast forward a bit through me checking out at the store, driving home, and packing away my road trip snacks so that the Cookie Monster in my house (aka my husband!) wouldn't find them before our trip, waking up the next morning, and about 3 hours of interstate drive time. We were hungry and ready for a treat. 

Out came the EL Fudge cookies and the Cookie Monster was confused. He'd never seen these cookies before. Never tasted the yummy-ness of the elves. Never fear. Five days later, we're home again. All the elves have been eaten, I shared the story of the elves with the Cookie Monster, and now scribbled on my grocery list for the coming week: "elf cookies". 

Those elves sure are sneaky :)

*All opinions are my own. I was not sponsored to write this post but if the Keebler elves would like to sponsor me in exchange for some cookies that would be awesome!

New Design

I'm so excited to have a new blog design...now to see if I can find something worthwhile to say :)

Midweek Confessions

I'm linking up with E, Myself, and I for Midweek Confessions today. I am very proud of myself for getting the linky button to work in my preview post. Hope it really shows up when I publish!

Getting right to the confessions....

-I made this candy tonight. But don't be fooled by the photo below mine look nothing like these! I couldn't find square pretzels so I bought the regular twisted shape. I was convinced this would be the easiest candy ever and started making them about 9:30pm. Did I underestimate the amount of time it would take to unwrap those kisses? Yep. Then, it took forever to bake and melt. But before that I sent half my cookie sheet of pretzel-kiss stacks flying when I put them into the oven and of course sent them flying again as I took them out. I was able to put the M&Ms in without problems, thank goodness! Then it was taking forever again for the kisses to re-harden. They are now sitting in the refrigerator and I have eaten way too many of the "not so pretty ones".

I 

Photo from FamilyFun Website

Busy, Busy!

Life is so busy lately! Good thing I like being on the go.

I changed my blog background. I'm not sure why it loads in as all black. Oh well! 

31 Giveaway

My Twitter friend Hillary is giving away a 31 tote bag. You can go here http://fruitbasketreviews.blogspot.com to enter.

Lessons Learned

Today’s lesson of the day: Thou shall not grocery shop when hungry.

At least I was having healthy cravings. LOL. I now have cantaloupe, watermelon, orange juice, strawberry yogurt and bananas in my house.

I guess it could have been worse.

Target Savings

I had lots of fun at Target this morning.

Finish Dishwasher Gel Packs - I've never used these before but when they only cost 4 cents for a pack of 20 I think they're worth trying.

Target price: $3.79
Manuf. Coupon: $2.25
Target Coupon: $1.50
Cost to me: 4 cents!

Rimmel Eye Liner - I rarely use eye liner and I'm not sure if I will like this or not but at 14 cents I can try it!

Target price: $4.14
Manuf. Coupon: $2.00
Target Coupon: $2.00
Cost to me: 14 cents!

Market Pantry Turkey Sandwich  Meat - I bought 1/4 pound at $3.99/lb.

Target Price: $1.00
Target Coupon: $0.50
Cost to me: $0.50

Baked Lays BBQ chips - maybe I could have gotten these cheaper but I need them for tomorrow's lunch

Target Regular Price: $3.79
Target Sale Price: $3.00

2 Fuji Apples - again, I needed them for tomorrow's lunch at $1.69/lb

Target Price: $1.79


Total Spent at Target Today: $5.85
Target Gift Card: $5.70
Cash that I spent for these items: 15 cents!

Super Savings!

Today, I headed out on my first serious couponing expedition. I've been collecting coupons for several months and never using them. My biggest struggle was my lack of organization and lack of knowledge of the policies of the stores in my area. Over the last few days I've gotten the coupons semi-organized and have studied the coupon policies of the stores I shop at and the sale flyers for deals for this week.

I am proud to say that all of the above items cost me $5.13 and were purchased at CVS or Publix, two stores that I have never shopped at regularly. I was thrilled with the sweet check out lady at CVS. She was so helpful in explaining the CVS card, the Extra Care Bucks, the GreenBagTag and benefits of bringing my own bags. I will definitely go back to that CVS!

Publix, on the other hand, was less than helpful. The clerk wasn't sure how to use any of my coupons, or if they would double. I was under the impression that if I used a "buy one get one free coupon" during a "buy one get one free sale" that both items would be free. Maybe I misunderstood the Publix coupon policy but it would have been a much more enjoyable trip had the clerk and manager not argued with me when I simply wanted an explaination of what the correct coupon policy consists of. In the end, I did have to pay $1.68 total for the 2 boxes of cereal instead of getting them both free as I had hoped. It was still a good deal, I thought.

Breakdown of the cost per item:
Listerine Zero from CVS (regular price $5.99, I think) = 50 cents per bottle
Tums Smoothies from CVS (regular price $5.49) = $1.99
Special K Cereal from Publix (regular price $3.35) = 84 cents per box

My favorite deal of the day: Peter Pan Peanut Butter from Publix (regular price $2.47) = 23 cents per jar

Total Spent with coupons, sales, and ECBs = $5.13

Would have been  $29.11 without coupons, sales or ECBs

Total Savings of $23.98 or 82%!

I didn't think 82% savings was too shabby. Now, if I can just find a way to lower the price of milk. LOL!