Until Saturday......

I graduate on Friday w/ my Master's, but we have to go to Stillwater tomorrow to tie up loose ends. Just wanted to say 'have a good weekend' and i'll be back with lots of photos on Saturday/Sunday.

Guess what?

I received and accepted a job offer today!!!!!! :) I will have to go and check out the contract and everything tomorrow, but I'm really excitied!
It's with a school district in the town we live in......

just had to share....

Change

While in OKC yesterday, i took time to see one of my favorite families. I've been friends with them and worked w/ Jocelyn since May 2006.
Jocelyn and I in 2006:
now, in 2008: I can't get over how much she has grown! I truely believe that Jocelyn and her parents have shaped me into the speech language pathologist I am/will become. I feel like I've learned more from them then I ever taught her!

Oh my....

For Andrea's bachelorette party last night, we attended a aerobic pole dancing lesson! It was quite a hoot- I won't go into details, but it actually was quite an arm and leg workout :)

Bachelorette cake

Tonight is my friend Andrea's bachelorette party. She asked me to make a cake for the occasion- so this is what I came up with:

photos

Here are our pretty flowers we planted in the front flower beds...

and this is an apron Nannie and I made for part of a wedding gift :)

And the bloggy giveaway winner is.....

.......Elaine! Check out her blog over @ http://alguires.blogspot.com/.

I used the random # generator at www.random.org. If Elaine doesn't claim her prize, the next numbers in line are:
post 38, then 10, 63 & 28

Media hype?

This morning on the Today Show, there was a segment about rising grocery prices. The reported that discount/bulk stores such as Sam's and Costco are limiting each customer to 4 bags of rice and flour.

Do you think it's just media hype or do you think we are actually going to run low on food?

They made an interesting point in the news piece about people choosing between fuel and food......just makes me glad that I've figured out this couponing thing!

Bloggy Giveaway!

It's Bloggy Giveaway time!
Welcome to my blog! Please feel free to look around at my frugal/couponing tips and to click anything on the sidebar that might peek your interest.

What will be given away?
An envelope full of coupons and a $7 Williams and Sonoma Gift Card.

How do I enter?
Leave me a comment about changes you/your family has made to become more frugal. If you aren't a blogger, make sure and leave me your email address so I can get ahold of you.

The contest will end Friday, April 25th @ 3pm. I will post the winner here on my blog.

Fine Print?
Multiple enteries will be deleted and I will only mail within the U.S. Also, I'll use a random # generator to pick the winner.

Good luck! :)

Target's deal of the week

Lay's Cracker Crisps are on sale for $2.50
so.........
$2.50
- $1/1 target coupons for lay's crisps
- $1/1 manf. coupon (from a few Sunday's ago)
= $0.50 for a bag of 'chips' that are healthier than normal chips

(These normally go for $3.29)

The great tomato plants....

The weather has been so great this weekend. We've done alot of spring cleaning and yard work. We even planted the tomato plants we bought last weekend.

I hope by July 4th we have tomatoes!

Saturday catch-up

Tuesday night was our Sunday School class recipe exchange pot-luck. Chennelle and I have been planning this for over a month- and it turned out great! The table decorations turned out even better than we had hoped and we were able to try alot of new recipes and take copies home with us :)Erica and Chennelle

This morning I woke up early and ready to tackle the day.

I went by Wal-mart for the free reusable grocery bag. It wasn't as nice as the ones I bought for $1, but free is free.

On my way to the gym- I saw this great garage sale....for $4.50 I got 12 or so books and a discovery toys letter game (all for speech path).

And my most exciting accomplishment of the day? I ran 1.4 miles today!!!! (I just started running again this past Sunday)

A Speech Path Poem

My friend Melissa writes little poems for fun and to announce things. She's done this all through school. Anywho- she sent this last poem out today- I like it :)

An uphill battle we feel that we've won,
The all-night study sessions are finally done
We've passed all our classes now let's see what we know
No more comps, no more praxis, it's just time to go
We've "boned up" on research and ethical law
Stuttering treatment's for some but hearing screenings for ALL
Dysphagia, cognition, and developing speech,
Be it clefts or group treatment, or maybe to teach,
As we each coose our paths, we just want you to see
How thankful we are that we're all SLP's

Quick update...

I'll post my photos tomorrow.......I have been getting behind on that.

Just had to share....my excitement of the day! The price of our cruise went down on the cruise website. So, I called our travel agent, and the cruise line is refunding us $100! It always pays to check the travel websites even after the trip is pd in full :)

And- if you don't mind, if you could say a little prayer for me tomorrow morning- I have to retake that test over @ OSU......

WFMW: Reusable grocery bags

It's another WFMW! Check out more tips @ www.rocksinmydryer.typepad.com

This is a repeat for my normal readers......

Now, we all know I don't really like Wal-Mart. However- I found this pretty sweet deal on their website.......check it out:
1 Million Reusable Bag Giveaway on April 19

As part of Earth Month 2008, Wal-Mart and Kellogg’s will be partnering to give away one million custom-made reusable shopping bags on Saturday, April 19th at 8AM local time*. Plastic bags can take as long as 1,000 years to degrade. Wal-Mart sells reusable shopping bags every day made from recycled materials you can use instead, for just $1.
*While supplies last.

We are trying to be more green, so I went to Wal-Mart tonight and purchased 5 of these bags with my free $5 gc I earned a few months back for taking a survey.
While checking out, the cashier told me that in 2009, Wal-Mart will either not have plastic bags or they will charge a small fee per bag. (like IKEA does now)

coupons & tomato plants

Found some great links to printable coupons this weekend over @ Hot Coupon world......

Some require you to 'register'. I have an email address I created just for these coupons/promotions so that the product emails don't cluter my inbox.

Anywho, here's the links:

$0.55 off Mission chips & $0.55 off Mission dips or salsa

go to http://www.missionmenus.com/ and then click the 'extras' tab in the upper right corner

(I was able to print 4 of each!!!)

$0.40 off a 2 liter of Diet Pepsi Max (this goes great w/ the .88 2 liter sale @ Reasors this week)

http://bricks.coupons.com/Start.asp?tqnm=rc5gbbd49357790&bt=wi&sssdmh=dm24.128722&o=52364&c=PE&p=NlokVmyX

$1/2 Classico Sauces

http://www.classico.com/promotions/promointro.aspx

$0.25 off 1 Little Debbie Family pack

http://www.littledebbie.com/about/coupon.asp

$1 off 2 Motts for Kids Juice or apple sauce (doesn't expire til October!)

http://bricks.coupons.com/Start.asp?tqnm=rdgpagz69565790&bt=wi&o=52294&c=CS&p=XqosdFVI

Also, Brandon and I picked these up:

There tomato plants! I love tomatoes and I don't feel like paying the high prices for them all summer....so for $2.54 total, we will have tomatoes all summer (hopefully).Since we rent, they will have to be planted in pots- I hope it works out well!

Trying to be 'green'

Now, we all know I don't really like Wal-Mart. However- I found this pretty sweet deal on their website.......check it out:

1 Million Reusable Bag Giveaway on April 19
As part of Earth Month 2008, Wal-Mart and Kellogg’s will be partnering to give away one million custom-made reusable shopping bags on Saturday, April 19th at 8AM local time*.
Plastic bags can take as long as 1,000 years to degrade. Wal-Mart sells reusable shopping bags every day made from recycled materials you can use instead, for just $1.
*While supplies last.

We are trying to be more green, so I went to Wal-Mart tonight and purchased 5 of these bags with my free $5 gc I earned a few months back for taking a survey.

While checking out, the cashier told me that in 2009, Wal-Mart will either not have plastic bags or they will charge a small fee per bag. (like IKEA does now)

Target Deals

We're headed to Target after church today.......

Pepsi Brand 12 pks are 3/$15 as well as the family sized frito lay products.
When you buy 5 of these items, you receive a $5 gc back.

So, this is my plan:
4 pepsi 12 packs
2 frito lay chips
-$1/2 pepsi (target printable)
-$1/2 " "
- $1/2 cheetos or fritos (target printable)
= $15 oop
- 5 gc
= $10 total spent on pop and chips

Target also has a $1/1 coupon for lays cracker chips- we received $ 1/1 coupon in the inserts a week or so ago- so I'm going to check that out......does anyone know the price?

I have a $5 off any $25 grocery purchase- today seems like the perfect day to use it!

playing catch up....

I've gotten a little behind here w/ my project 365 posts and my frugal posts. After the storms, job hunting and work this week, I just haven't been online all that much.

So, here is what's been going on:

I feel like a frugal failure! Homeland hasn't had a sale worth driving over for....so we've been living off our stockpile. I finally ran out of beef, chicken and some other staples; thus I broke down and went to Sam's and Wal-Mart.

I haven't been to Wal-Mart since December 2007, so my pride was hurt (just a little) to go in there. But, I was able to price comp my strawberries and beef, so I felt a little better.

Between the 2 stores I spent $56.23

I hope there are some good sales soon- I think the poor economy is finally showing up @ my grocery stores though.

I bought this PedEgg @ Walgreens w/ some RR I had left over from a while back. This thing is amazing! My heels are super soft and I can't wait for flip flop season :) It retails for $9.99 and I think it's well worth the $.

Friday's photo:

Today, we cleaned out our closets and did some spring cleaning! 1/2 of these clothes are going to Goodwill, I might try to consign some of the others.

3am.......

We had some crazy storms through here last night.
At about 3am, Brandon and I both woke up to the wonderful sound of hail. Our porch is covered- w/ a tin type roof........so the hail sounded alot louder and larger than it was. But of course, I was awake so I went downstairs to take a better look. So, here's my photo of the day- a blurry, 3am photo of hail :)

Weekend Photos

What a pretty weekend! Karen, her mom and I went garage sale-ing Saturday morning.

For $1.50 I got 5 childrens books, a baggie full of those lacing shapes for fine motor development (for speech path) and a cake carrier. :)

Brandon and my dad went fishing, and when he got back we watched the Final Four. We were cheering for Kansas- its always good for a Big 12 school to win.

Watching the Final Four made me a little sad- I remembered when just a few years ago, OSU was there! Now, we are w/out a coach and lost the in the 1st round of the NIT.....but I'll always be an OSU fan, no matter what.

Today, after church we worked on the yard and cleaned out the flower beds. I love this time of year!

Photo 95: Scrapbooking!

Friday night was our monthly scrapbook night. When Allison lived here in Tulsa we started going to the local scrapbook stores about once a month- and I was hooked. Paying $8 for a 6 ft table, dinner, snacks and time w/ friends is well worth it to me.

Now that Allison's gone, some gals from church and some of my college friends go with me.

Anywho- here's some photos of the pages I completed:

for one week....

For the past week Brandon and I haven't gone out to eat, and we added an extra day @ the gym.

Not only did we save $$- but we both lost some weight!

So, now we are going to try and keep it up- stay healthy and get in shape for the cruise.

more food.....

Are you noticing a theme with my Project 365 photos this week?
It's alot of food :) I didn't plan it that way....but I enjoy cooking/baking, and that's what's going on with me right now.
Oh, that and job hunting....but that's another post.

Photo 93: Banana Bread

Photo 94: Dinner! We're having kabobs (spelling?) on the grill tonight- yum!

Photo 92- before and after

Monkey grass before.......

after it's spring haircut......now if I can just get rid of the leaves and weeds- that's another day. :)