it’s starting to pay off
I don’t wanna work, it’s raining, my house is trashed, my husband is 2800 miles away, he took my camera with him, I stayed up too late reading, my roots are showing, I broke my glasses, and twitter has killed comments.
And yet, I’m in a pretty good mood. Something must be wrong with me.
Oh, wait!
It might be that I tried on every pair of pants, capris, shorts as well as every skirt in my entire closet and most of them went in the ‘get rid of’ pile. Cause they’re all too big!
I guess all that running and counting calories might just be worth the effort eh?
All I have 2 pairs pairs of capris, one skirt, and a couple ratty shorts that actually fit. Nothing else.
So now I get to go shopping!! (Especially with BlogHer coming up quickly - it’s time to start thinking about what to wear!)
Only drawback? Who is going to pay for my BlogHer wardrobe???
the post that turned into an ad for Trader Joe’s by accident
I think it’s a good day for random bullets!
- The boy and I spent a great day puttering about town today. Just doing whatever we felt like. It was great!
- One of our stops was Trader Joe’s. God I love that place!
- DH is in Boston for a conference until tomorrow - hence our ‘free for all’ day. It kept us busy and kept us from missing him.
- I was glued to all the Blissdom tweets this afternoon. It’s a bit of a sickness, but It’s killing me that so many of my friends are in Nashville and I’m not!!
- It makes me long for BlogHer 09 in July. I booked my hotel reservations today just to make myself feel better. :) Shhh, don’t tell dh!
- Normally when dh goes out of town, the boy and I get Chinese food delivered. Since that’s not approved on my new healthy eating plan I wasn’t disappointed when the boy didn’t want it. Instead, he requested stuffing. For dinner. Stuffing?
- It was pretty good with Trader Joe’s sun dried tomato chicken sausage and some spinach though. Yum!
- While we were out today I broke down and bought a couple of things for the boy, a movie he’s been asking for, a bionicle, that sort of thing. What has he been playing with since we got home? The free balloon from Trader Joe’s. Of course.
- How many times can I say Trader Joe’s in one post??
- Trader Joe’s.
- If I say Trader Joe’s enough do you think they’d sponsor me for BlogHer? No? Huh.
- Tomorrow I’m roasting a head of garlic and eating it with organic crackers from, um, Trader Joe’s. Who wants to come over and get garlic breath with me? ;)
Filed Under food, shopping, the boy Tagged groceries, shopping, the boy
soup obsessed
I think I spent the whole day in the kitchen today. I bought some great pork ribs cheap yesterday along with a 4 lb chicken for 3 bucks!
I had the ribs in the oven by 9 this morning (3 hours on 250 = perfect ribs no matter what sauce you like on them) so we had our “big” meal of the day for lunch. I like to do that as much as possible, although it’s hard to do on weekdays. I just think we all feel better if we have our smaller meal at night.
I also roasted the chicken to make soup with. I used my new Pampered Chef dish that my friend Nicole gave me for Christmas - I seriously love it. An hour and a quarter on 400, (covered) and the chicken comes out gorgeous.
We’ve been on a soup kick around here lately. Partly because it’s been so cold and snowy (another 7 inches last night!!) that it’s nice to have a soup cooking all the time, and partly because we’re (always) trying to eat healthier. We seem to eat a lot more veggies, and much less meat when we have soup. I’ve been skipping the pastas more now and going for brown rice, barley, black beans, and quinoa in our soups. It’s a good way to get more whole grains and fiber in our diet without really noticing it.
I have a hard time digesting whole grains when they aren’t cooked well so I can’t really have most of the whole grain breads on the market. If you can see the seeds I can’t eat it. Same goes for pasta. The whole grain versions are really hard on me. The only one I can eat is Ronzoni’s Smart Taste, which is basically a white pasta with added fiber (6 grams per serving). I just wish they would make a frozen ravioli or tortellini out of it! We love cheese filled pastas but they are all seem to be made out of white flour so we don’t have them very often.
I find myself obsessively reading ingredient labels for fiber, protein and sugar content lately and I’ve noticed some interesting things. Since we cut white rice out of our diet I just bought whatever brown rice was on the shelf. Last weekend I had three different brown rice brands to choose from. A well-known brand that was the highest price, a never-heard-of-before brand that was the lowest price, and an organic brand that was mid range.
Automatically I chose that lowest price, because, of course, rice is rice is rice. Right? Wrong. The no-name was only 1 gram of fiber per serving. I just happened to glance at it and that really surprised me - I thought it would be more! So I looked at the top name brand - same serving size but it was 2 grams of fiber. Huh? Okay, so what was the organic? 3 grams! Weird isn’t it? I suppose that means the organic is less processed so more of the rice germ remains?
Apparently I need to learn more about buying organic, and I need to pay even more attention than I am. If that’s really possible.
Btw, I bought barley on the same trip and wouldn’t you know, it has 5 grams per serving! It’s slightly more expensive than rice but I guess it’s worth it.
Bored yet? I know I’m analyzing my food way too much. Hopefully I’m not the only one!
Anyway, I have my rice, barley, and veggies cooking right now, just waiting for me to throw in the chicken. That means I have to go tear apart that darn carcass. That’s the only bad thing about making soup!
So what are you having for dinner?
ps. Got a good soup recipe for me? Make sure you leave me a link in comments, I’m always looking for new soup recipes to try out. (As long as it’s not beef!)
Filed Under cooking, food Tagged cooking, food, groceries, shopping, soup
holiday gift plans
Did you know Christmas shopping in an unexpected sleet storm bites? If I didn’t know before I sure do now! Gah! Add in that special circle of hell also known as Wal*Mart and my day today was pretty horrid! I did get a couple of gifts at the local used book store though - yay! That almost redeemed the rest of the day.
I actually have very little shopping to do since I’ve made quite a few presents already. I wish I could tell you more about them but I don’t want to ruin any surprises for my anyone in my family who might be reading this. I thought I could do a post about possible handmade gifts, but I’m making so many of them it would give too much away! Sorry!
I can tell you though, that one of the best things we’re doing to save money this year is a “hand me down” Christmas exchange with the little ones in my family. All the kids have way more toys and books than they can use so they’re picking out some their own stuff to give away to their cousins. I think it’s going to work out really well, and the kids love anything that’s “new” to them, they don’t care if it’s not new in a box! I’m so psyched the rest of my family was as excited to do it as I was! (We haven’t done gift exchanges between the adults in my family for years. There are waaaayyyy too many of us!)
Next up is holiday cards. I think I’m going to have to give up on the idea of making all my own cards. I’ve done it before, but not during a year when I was making all the gifts too! A girl has only so much time for this stuff! At this point I’ll be doing good just to get the cards in the mail on time.
All in all I’m coming along really well with my plans and I shouldn’t have to do any unexpected last minute shopping. I’m soooo glad of that!
ps. This is the final day of NaBloPoMo! Wooohoooo! I think I’ll let you all catch up on your feed readers before I post again! ;)
wish list
One of the reasons why I waffled about participating in NaBloPoMo was that I was afraid the pressure of posting every day would make me despise my own blog. Well, if you could see my stats, you’d know, as I now realize, that my real fear should have been that I would make you all despise my blog. ~bwahahahaha!~ Have mercy, this was the dumbest of my dumb ideas evah, but I vow to see it through! Just don’t expect a freaking post on December 1st. Sheesh.
So the boy finally made his Christmas wish list yesterday - we haven’t written our usual ‘Dear Santa’ email yet but at least I know what he wants now. (You read that right, no old fashioned letter in this house, we send an email to the North Pole!)
Here’s the list:
- Bakugan - typical cartoon tie-ins! No surprise there.
- Lego sets - he’s getting good at the hard ones! Castle, Star Wars, and Indiana Jones are all vying for top spot in his heart. I think he’s getting whatever Santa finds on sale.
- Pokemon cards - this is his newest obsession that must. be. collected!
- Leapster games - I’m down with this - love the Leapster! He’s had it for almost 3 years and it’s still going strong.
- a CAMERA (!) - well at least I’d stop having a heart attack every time he uses mine. I fear for my cute little Leica lens.
- a CELL PHONE (!) - who the heck is he gonna call?? Seriously, a cell phone? I told him not to hold his breath.
It’s funny, it seemed like such a normal list at first. Then it went off the deep end! Clearly, it’s a very bad thing that my husband is a techno-geek and we have so many electronic things around the house. Now the boy wants them too, and thinks they are basic necessities. He is just like his father. Well, maybe his mother too. But his father is much, much, much worse. His father might actually give him a digital camera. (A used one, but still (!) a camera for a 5 year old.)
And what do I want for Christmas? I just want a new a kitchen faucet, and maybe a decent soup pot. Really high tech eh?
ps. dear family members, that is not supposed to be a hint! (at least, it’s only a hint to my husband!) ;)
pps. what do you want for the holidays?
ppps. if you really want to give me something, you can click on my ads! hee hee…
Filed Under shopping, the boy Tagged holidays, shopping, the boy, the husband
grocery savings
It’s been awhile since we talked about the current high cost of living, but I think about it every time I go to the store. Sure, gas prices have gone down a bit, but groceries haven’t at all. I’ve come up with a few strategies to help me cut my grocery bill, including, gasp, the dreaded coupons.
Yes, coupons. I hate them, but they do help. I follow the rule of “only buy what you normally would anyway.” There are lots of coupons out there for things I don’t use and won’t try just because I have the coupon. I also make sure the coupon isn’t giving me a false sense of bargain shopping - if another brand is a better price even without a coupon of course I’m going with that one.
I’ve noticed more lately that my local grocery store not only gives me really good coupons at check out for items I actually buy, but they have quite a lot of printable coupons on their website. There are, in fact, lots of printable coupons across the web.
The best coupons of all though are the ones in the meat department. I don’t know if it’s just my store, or if others do it too, but when they need to get the meat and poultry sold quickly they put on “manager’s special” coupons on them. Certainly nothing has gone bad, it’s just getting too close for the sell by date for their comfort. Every time I go to the store now, I check the entire meat department to see what the best deal is, not only by sale price, but by how good the coupons are too.
My best deal so far was this week when they had an overabundance of ground turkey. It was already on sale 2 packs (1.25lb each) for $5.00, normally a package is $4.99 a piece so they were already half price. Then they each had a $1.00 off coupon. So I got name brand ground turkey for $1.20 per pound! That’s the best price I’ve ever seen for it, and we use a ton of ground turkey here (we don’t use any ground beef) so I bought 20 packages. Yes, I know that makes me a dork but I had plenty of room in my chest freezer and I now have enough meat to last through much of the winter.
So this is how I shop now. I plan my meals by what’s on sale and I how I can combine it with what I have in my pantry. I stock up on things I know I’m going to use. I also make a lot more soups and stews than I used to. It’s a great way to use up leftovers, and frankly, onions, carrots, rice and other soup makings are still relatively cheap.
So am I missing anything? What have you changed about your shopping habits lately? Do you have any other money saving tips? Can you tell I’m obsessed with this??
one more day to blogher
Today is a much better day! No headache and a decent night’s sleep do wonders for the psyche.
I’m mostly ready for tomorrow. I have adorable (and comfy) new shoes, and a huge new laptop bag. Both on sale - so it wasn’t a huge splurge. I really really needed the laptop bag, the shoes - well you know, they’re shoes!
I’m also happy: 1. because I got my BlogHer ad code today - yay! and 2. because DH fixed the pictures on my blog!
Since I need to test uploading images, let’s show you my lovely new purchases!
See how cute?! The bag is pink inside! Uh. Don’t look at the table though. I swear those are watermarks, not fingerprints!
So what do you think is holding that bag upright? Why it’s the giant pink can of coffee I won in Mamaspohr’s contest in honor or Breast Cancer Awareness Month!
It’s like the Godzilla of coffee cans! Thank you Mamaspohr. :)
I think that’s more than enough coffee to wake me up tomorrow morning. At least I only have a 45 minute drive, but I still have to be up WAY too early. I’ll try to post something from there during the day, hopefully some pics and maybe even liveblog one of the sessions for fun, but I can’t promise anything!
Well you know what I’m doing, and probably thoroughly sick of hearing about it, so tell me, what are you doing for the weekend?
holiday $pending
I’m curious.
I know it seems early to ask this, but I’m really curious how everyone is planning to handle their holiday shopping this year. Especially compared to years past.
I made a decision that we’re cutting way back this year. We’ve never done really extravagant presents for anyone, even the boy, but all the little things really really add up. Part of the problem is that I end up getting a bunch of last minute things that I shouldn’t have. This year I’m planning better, budgeting better, shopping smarter, and frankly, shopping less. There will be no new camera, no new iphone, no Wii in sight. (We don’t really have video games around here, and I don’t mind keeping it that way.)
This is embarrassing to admit, but last year, I thought I did really well with my planning for presents for the boy. I found some Lego sets and action figures on clearance in September/October, hid them from him, and apparently from myself too, since I promptly forgot about them. No really, I forgot I bought them, and went and bought completely different things for him in November/December. When I found everything the week before Christmas I was pretty mad at myself. I had enough freaking toys for both Christmas and his birthday in March. Ridiculous.
That won’t be happening this year, that’s for sure.
So here’s what I want to know, how is the current economy affecting your plans for the holidays? Are you cutting back a little, a lot, not at all? Did you already cut back in recent years? If you are planning to spend less, what are your strategies, or tips for doing so?
Have you even thought about any of this yet? Am I too early to even ask the question?
I’m really very curious.
Filed Under shopping Tagged christmas, holidays, money, presents, shopping
life’s little irritations #9
Latest irritation: the current prices of groceries. Frankly, it’s more than just a little irritation, it’s a huge aggravation for me.
I understand the whole concept about gas prices going up so shipping is more expensive blah blah blah. I call bullshit. You can’t tell me that every single item in the store needs to go up by 20-40 cents per item for them to make up for the extra shipping costs. Three cents, five cents? Maybe. But a can of black beans that used to be $0.69 is now $1.09? Eff that. Milk from a company in the same state I live in is up from $3.99 last winter to 4.29 now? Did their trucks really use 30 cents more in for every single gallon to be shipped? I have a really hard time believing that.
I think we’re being screwed - just because the product manufacturers and the grocery stores know they can get away with it. They have a great excuse and they know we have to buy food right? Well guess what? I’m just buying fewer extras, buying the no-brand items more often, buying in bulk, and waiting for good sales. (And don’t freaking tell me that taking 10 measly cents off a 2.99 item is a sale - it’s NOT.) I have a set amount I can spend and that’s not going to change.
Seriously, when was the last time you saw this make headlines in the news? When the economics of oil is discussed all I hear is about are the prices at the pump. When are we going to really talk about how gas prices are affecting EVERYTHING we buy, and far more than it should. This affects me every single day and I don’t want it buried on page 23 anymore.
As I see it it’s price gouging at its finest, it’s barely been perceptible as it’s crept up on us for the last few months and no one seems to notice. But I see it clearly now at the bottom of my register receipt.
Have you noticed this where you are? Has it affected your bottom line? Are you shopping differently now to lower your grocery bills? I’m really curious if I’m the only one that’s going crazy about this.
Filed Under life, shopping Tagged groceries, life, life's little irritations, rant, shopping
moisturizer advice?
I need the internetz help! I want your recommendations on moisturizers. I’m in the market for a new one, and frankly I’m tired of buying them, using them for a month, hating them, and having to try another one, and another one…you get it.
I just don’t have the time or the money to experiment right now! I don’t know if I should stay with Loreal Future E, which is the one I’ve used for the last few months. I didn’t hate it and I didn’t love it, but it’s better than anything else I’ve ever used. I was also thinking about trying Cetaphil’s facial moisturizer since I like the cleanser but I really want to know if there’s something better out there I’m missing.
Here’s my criteria:
- Must have an SPF. I have enough sun damage on my face, I don’t need any more, and I know I won’t use a separate sunscreen.
- Must be light weight. I hate the sticky gooey stuff!
- Can’t use Oil of Olay or Mary Kay products, both make me break out very badly.
- I have both oily and flaky skin, dang that combination!
- Not overly expensive, as in, I’m not going to go to Macy’s and drop $50 on a little pot of cream, ya know?
So can you help me? At least tell me what you use, and why you like it? Help a sister out!
Filed Under shopping Tagged cosmetics, moisturizer, products, shopping