The Result

Okay I am posting this blog to let all of my fabulous followers know how my extreme couponing trip turned out yesterday.  Let me begin  by saying that as Clay, Addi and I were getting out of the car, and I was getting my 8 coupons situated, ( thats right, I said 8, baby steps..), we see this lady getting out of her car carrying a HUGE binder full of coupons.  I am woman enough to admit that she is more than likely going to be on the Extreme Couponing show before me.  So here we are in a grocery store that I haven't shopped at before, with my sale ad and 8 coupons in hand.  We were a force to be reckoned with.  Our first stop was to the bathroom, because you can't coupon on a full bladder.  This was the first glitch that occured.  I was planning on walking in to a bathroom with at least 5 stalls and  a few sinks.  This was a single bathroom, in a grocery store.  I wasn't sure those still existed.  It really threw me for a loop, and made me second guess this whole shindig.  I am a creature of habit, I like knowing where I am going.  This store was new to me and I felt awkward and out of place.  It was really bizarre how out of my comfort zone I felt, and when you throw in the fact that I was holding coupons in my hand, well lets just say someone had a meltdown, and it wasn't my 19 month old daughter.  There was stomping and whining and I am pretty sure I said something along the lines of " I just want to go to Wal-Mart and buy the Great Value brand."  Thank goodness I had Clay there with me or I really would have left.  As I was arranging and rearranging my coupons trying to look like I had some sort of clue what I was doing, he took a couple of coupons and went and found those items for me.  The idea of extreme couponing is to match the coupons with the items the store has on sale that week.  I only had a few coupons to match with their sale items, so thats where we started.  Honestly I don't know if my personality is good for couponing.  There was a level of anxiety involved that I am just not sure was worth it.  I almost felt like I was doing something wrong, and I just couldn't breathe correctly until we left the store.  On the plus side we spent $27.00 but we saved $21.00.  That was exciting for us, but I just can't grasp the whole idea of buying something that you normally wouldn't buy just because it's on sale.  This is going to take some more practice for me to totally get it and to see if it is the right fit for our family.  If momma ain't happy, noone's happy, and I was a bundle of nerves in that store.  We did share a few laughs however as we were walking up to the checkout counter we looked at the coupons again and realized they said "do not double" on them.  And then we realized that you had to have that grocery stores savings card to get the sale prices.  Clay and I played paper-rock-scissors to decide which one of us was going to ask the cashier about these questions.  I lost so I had to go ask which brought my anxiety level up a notch or two.... Good Times......Thankfully we could apply for a store savings card right then and we were able to use the sale prices.  And they did double the coupons.  Overall it was, in my opinion, more trouble than I was prepared for.  But again I think it has more to do with my personality than the actual couponing.  So I will try it again, but I have a feeling that for the next few weeks our pantry will be full of the Great Values brand.

Do It Already...

As many of you already know I have a gigantic small tendency to dream BIG, and watch those dreams go nowhere.  That may be a tad bit on the dramatic side.  I blame hormones for my exaggeration.  In fact I blame everything on hormones. Hey don't judge, I'm a woman, it works for me.  If you are reading this and you happen to be a woman, you should totally try it sometime if you haven't already. Where was I?  Oh yes, I have added to my list of goals to accomplish in the near future...  Are you ready for this?    To be......  An   Extreme Couponer....  Thats right, has anyone watched that show?  Keep watching for one day you will see me on there, having $1,000.00 worth of groceries in my cart and only having to spend $1.00 on them.  In case you don't see the pattern here, I tend to set too high of goals for myself.  Let's take the me becoming a millionaire making bows for example.  I have come to the bitter conclusion that it's definitely more than likely not going to happen.  I have however sold 4 bows.  What has happened in the bow business is that people come into the shop, examine my bows to try to figure out how to make the bows themselves. This results in me jumping over the counter, bodyslamming them, and holding them there until the authorities arrive.  This makes for a very awkward situation for everyone, but drastic times call for drastic measures, and I am sorry , but I can't have copycats.  Did I copy other peoples bows?  Maybe so...But the buck stops with me!  So along with the bow business, me learning how to use Photoshop, learning how to use my photo scanner my dad gave me, learning how to use my vinyl making machine, I am going to learn couponing.  And just like my Photoshop book, my scanner and vinyl making machine are all stacked neatly in my "hobby" armoire, I clip coupons and keep them in my purse.  I have just been waiting for the "perfect" time to learn how to coupon.
But the waiting is over, it's now or never, do or die!  And today I shall make my shopping trip and plan around the grocery store sale adds, just like they do on Extreme Couponing.  Now just so I don't set myself up for disappointment , I don't expect people to be gathered around me at the checkout today clapping for me because of how much I just saved with coupons.  Also in case you were wondering , there will be no camera crews there, unless I have my husband videotaping of course, which I might.   But I will be using coupons and hopefully saving money, and this will be the start of my Extreme Couponing  journey. I will keep  you posted, I know you are dying to know how it turns out.

                                                   This will could be me someday

These photos were taken in December 2009.  I love looking back at these pictures.  I remember the events of this night just like it was yesterday.  Clay and I were still functioning on 3 hours of sleep each night, barely.  Not long after these pictures were taken we started putting a little bit of  cereal in Addi's nighttime bottle, and we became normal, well-rested human beings once again.  It was glorious. Also when I look at these pictures I think about how Zach and Bre were in the same school.  Zach was in 8th and Bre was in 6th.  It reminds me of how fast time flies.  Zach is now almost through his freshman year in highschool.  I cry daily because of this.  It is not fair to Moms, the whole growing up idea.  Bre is almost through with 7th grade, and will be entering her last year in middle school.  Addi is walking running everywhere, putting words into sentences, and she understands when I ask her "Are you poopy?"  All of these events are almost too much for my heart to handle.  I am so grateful for whomever invented cameras, although I think as moms and dads the events of life are forever burned into our memories with or without the pictures there to remind us. To add fuel to my fire as I am writing this Kenny Chesney's song Don't Blink is playing on the radio.  Cue the waterworks!

this one is my favorite...can you say real life at its finest?

                                                           

These photos of Addi were taken when she was 10 months old.  She had never worn this outfit before. I was saving it to have her pictures taken with it on, and realized I had about 10 minutes left to put her in it before she outgrew the whole thing.  I don't  think we were even able to button her pants.  She gets that problem from me.  Bre and I got her all fancied up and took her outside for some pictures. 

Breanna made me promise not to put any pictures of her

on here without her permission first.  I hesitantly agreed to

ask her before I had her face splattered all over the internet. 

 I remember other parents telling me as my

children were growing up about how sometimes they would

give in to their children so as to not start a battle with them.

I never believed in picking battles with your children until I

became the mother of a 13 year old girl.  At that point I

entered the Twilight Zone,and everything I thought I ever knew

about being a parent disappeared into the great unknown and

was quickly replaced with uncertainty and a call to my

mom apologizing  for everything I ever put her through.

Having said all of that, Mom still trumps Daughter, and I

have the God-given right to veto anything I want to. So I am 

 posting these precious pics without my daughters permission

 because I love them, because they are precious and because I can!

                                                                     

                                                                  

                                                   

                                                                                 

For those of you who read my blog, Hi Mom and Dad, you have probably noticed that I have been MIA lately.  It has been totally crazy round here.  I plan on posting about our Easter pretty soon.  Yes I am aware that Easter was like 3 weeks ago.  So I'm a little bit behind.  I also plan on telling you about an awesome day my hubby planned  for me and the kiddos last Saturday, but those will have to be for later. 

This was Mother's Day week at the flowershop.  When you work at a flowershop holidays are not just one day for us. They are actually the WHOLE week.  We work hard ALL week so that the rest of you guys can enjoy that ONE special day.  Valentine's Day, not at the flowershop, it is Valentine's Week.  Mother's Day, nope Mother's Day Week.  Memorial Day, nope Memorial Week. I could go on but you get the picture.  So all you ladys out there, when you receive you bouquet , just remember all the blood, sweat and tears that were poured into those flowers.  Well hopefully not blood, but thorns CAN make a florist bleed sometimes.  I had a point with all this....  Oh yes and here it is.  I had planned on taking pictures this week to show you the hustle and bustle at the flowershop, but I hustled and bustled so much that I never got around to it.  I also never got around to sitting my booth outside and selling my bows. That pretty much went out the window after working until 7:00 p.m.a few nights this week.  This girls gotta get her sleep, becoming a millionaire will have to wait.

Along with Mother's Day Week , we had a festival in town.  We live in a small town so alot of people look forward to this festival all year long.  My 13 year old daughter is one of them.  After work today my hubby and I decided to take Addi to the festival.  Bree, my 13 year old was already there.  She and I were going to ride a few rides together, but she had already used up all of her tickets except one, and apparently I wasn't important enough to use it on so I got jousted!  I know Happy Mother's Day to me right?  So after being ditched by the daughter that I was in labor with for 25 hours, thats not true it was more like 2 hours but still it was LABOR!, Clay, Addi and I went walking around  and we ran into some of our friends.  We chatted it up for a while and she then asked if I wanted to ride one of the rides.  Well of course I did, I'm cool, I can ride any ride out there.  So we did, we chose some crazy ride that buckles you in twice, I like that, AND encloses you in this cage, you know in case the buckles fail.  All good.  We get in and all of a sudden I am not cool, I am a sweaty, heart pounding, shaking scaredy cat.  I check all of our buckles as if our lives depended on it, which technically it did. I even got out to see how some other people were buckled in to make sure we were locked in correctly.  It never hurts to be to safe !  So as the ride starts I am having serious second thoughts and vote that we get off . But its too late, the next thing I know we are UPSIDE DOWN just hanging there, our bottoms not even in the seat, and I am so thankful at this point that I did all the extra checking to make sure that we were buckled in correctly.  After we get off the ride my friend still looks put together and I know I look a little disheveled to say the least.  We go to where our husbands are, and they make fun of us for riding rides that are really for teenagers, and I don't even take offense to that because I agree wholeheartedly that I shouldn't have been anywhere near that ride.  At this point I was getting extremely hot and sweaty.  I had sweat dripping in places I never knew were supposed to have sweat dripping . Yet here I was, and along with the sweat I was also fighting back the vomit that was gathering in my throat.  I played it cool , just chatting away and then I blurted out "I'm hot we've got to go"  which was actually code for I am fixing to vomit all over the place if we don't leave now! So we left hurriedly and walked back to  the flowershop, did I mention its a small town,  where I went inside, laid down with a fan blowing on me, then went to the bathroom and hurled, and cursed that stupid ride and promised myself to never go back to that stupid festival again.