This & That...My Silly Life

Hi everyone! I would like to apologize for my absence for the past few months, I have been busy, tired and just not spending much time on the computer lately. Not much has changed around here since I last posted. I am still working out every day which consumes over an hour of my evening each day, but it is well worth it... I think I have lost 15 pounds and dropped two pant sizes. Doesn't sound very appealing for months of work, but I am quiet pleased. It's hard to make the effort each day to work out, and that is probably the main reason for my lack of blogging but it makes me feel good so I guess the end justifies the means :)

My next excuse is hunting season. Yes, I am a hunter...who would have guessed? Deer season is serious business around these parts!!! I can proudly report that I did kill my first buck with my bow this year and as a female hunter that is a great accomplishment...at least in my book. I will have to post a picture when I get the chance. So as you can imagine between the work outs and hours of sitting in the woods I am pretty much out of time for anything else.

Ahh yes...and the holidays. It's that time everyone. Running from family to family, stuffing our faces and feeling totally drained. Who doesn't love the holidays...LOL I can only discuss Thanksgiving at this point since I have a rule not to talk Christmas until after my birthday (December 15). Seriously, never have children around a holiday....having a birthday 10 days before Christmas sucks! Thanksgiving is looming, only a week away! This is my favorite holiday because I am "thankful" that the day after Thanksgiving is BLACK FRIDAY...my favorite day of the year :) I am just itching with excitement, I LOVE LOVE LOVE this day! Who else is crazy enough to wake up in the middle of the night to go shopping? Actually I never sleep...I stay awake until it's shopping time. I think it's because I am scared if I fall asleep I might not wake up and my whole day will be ruined. Who can sleep when there are tons of deals waiting for you on the shelves just begging you to take them :)

well that is it for today. I hope everyone has been doing well and enjoying life as much as possible. I Will try my best to find some time to update a little better than I have been recently. Hope everyone has a wonderful Thanksgiving and good luck deal hunting on Black Friday....just stay out of my way :) Just Kidding!

I apologize for my lack of blogging recently. Making time to work out in my busy life has taken away my blog time. This post will be short, because it's almost 12:00, I am tired and actually I am just waiting for a load of laundry to finish :)

It's been a rough week and a half for several reasons. We have lost 2 of our puppies in the past week to Parvo. We have been working out but off trying to keep the last two well. My evenings have consisted of force feeding and watering the last two pups and keeping a watchful eye on them. Right now we feel pretty sure our male will make it, he is quiet healthy. The last female is touch and go...she is weak but still making it, we are keeping our fingers crossed she is going to pull through. They have had two rounds of their shots but they could have been exposed before the shots entered their immune system so it was a losing battle. I have been so upset about it, but we have done all the right things and it's not in our hands. So everyone keep their fingers crossed for the two remaining pups they are definitely fighters!

Other than that the garden, pool and yard work have been keeping us busy. Today was grass cutting day, garden picking day and weeding the flower bed day. I am exhausted!!!

Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry
My picks from the garden today...yum!

I noticed in the garden today that we have lots of new plants flowering. I noticed tons of tiny string beans and the butter beans are flowering. All I know is that is going to equal a TON of picking and a TON of shelling...not to excited about that part! We also have cantaloupe starting to bloom and I am thinking by the end of next week I will have tomato's and cucumbers ready to pick. I foresee a lot more work in the garden in my near future...I will let you know how I feel about that later (LOL)

The pool is crystal clear :) Too bad Mark and I spend to much time working to enjoy it :( I look at the pool every day and want swim so bad, but there are just not enough hours in the day. For example this evening I never set foot in the house until 7:30 this evening. By the time I cooked dinner I had to get outside to walk before I ran out of day light. It never ends!!!!

The diet and exercise thing is going great :) I think I have lost 3 pounds. I have not been in the gym but 1 day this week, but I have walked/jogged at least 4 miles every day. So it's good...just time consuming. I haven't had any type of fast food in 2 weeks now, and it is killing me!!!!!!!!!!!! I miss my Big Mac :( It's hard to cut out fast food, but I am managing. I had got away from eating a good healthy meal with veggies so now I eat veggies or starve. I eat the veggies...LOL I wish I could wake up tomorrow and have 10 lbs magically disappear, but that's not going to happen. Working out, eating less, eating well...too bad the results are not immediate, but I am going to keep going strong for the next month and see what happens.

Well folks that's it for now. The load of laundry is done and bed is calling my name. I have a busy weekend ahead. House work has to get finished up tomorrow night, because we are cooking out for a friends birthday this weekend and I am sure we will be eating at Marks parents house Sunday for fathers day. Hope everyone has a wonderful weekend :)

In the garden!!!

Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry
Growing beauties :)

You know I love the garden, but this week I am super excited! I have retrieved two huge Zucchini this week and have so many things coming to life in the garden. Woo Hoo!!! Yes, you are fixing to be graced with many pictures of my discoveries today....get excited!!!!

Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry
Silver Queen Corn, growing big and strong

Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry
A plant full of Squash

Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry
these tomatoes can not grow fast enough...I want a sandwich!!!

Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry
Spice it up with these yummy jalapenos

Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry
a baby cucumber :)

It's wonderful that all these good veggies are growing so quickly, I need them for my diet!

The Weight Loss Thing...

So my last post was about working on my fitness. I am happy to announce a few things... Yesterday I stepped onto the scales at the gym (gasp) but to my surprise I am lighter than I first guessed. I weigh a cool 145 lbs. I was pretty happy about that. So I need to loose 10lbs to get where I need to be (in my opinion) and a extra 10 lbs would be just lovely ;) I have really been doing a great job over the past week in working towards this goal. I have been jogging, walking, swimming, major calorie cutting and yesterday was my first day back in the gym. Today I have mananged to eat only 800 calories and I jogged a mile and walked 2 1/2 miles. Not to mention I cut my part of the grass after work (push mower) and went swimming for an hour. My goal right now is to try to stay under 1000 calories a day and do some sort of exercise each day. I promise to be in the gym at least 3 days a week. I don't know how it is going to work out with the actual weight I want to loose. I am lifting serious weight at the gym so i will probably end up gaining weight. Note to self: take measurements to see how many inches are lost/gained by the weight lifting. Anyway, the jogging at the end of last week left me where I could barely walk up and down the steps to our house...LOL Then yesterday I way over did myself at the gym. I think I got a little weight happy and couldn't lift my arms all day. Hopefully they will be feeling better tomorrow so I can get back to it. My main problem is I can't do anything half way!!!! I walked and jogged tonight until my legs were jello...I could have gotten another mile in if I hadn't started so late.
So for now its all good on the diet/exercise track, I will keep you up to date on the progress.

Random other stuff:

Who knew...my pool is actually starting to look crystal clear (it has taken long enough) Just a few more chemical adjustments and it will be perfect.

The new puppies are growing fast and they are so cute. They have so much personality and I love just watching them play with one another. My sweet Daisy seems to be the ring leader of the pack. She goes to the food bowl and stands in the middle where the other pups can't eat. Don't worry I always stand in the pen and hold her for a few minutes so the others can eat. Let me tell you...Daisy is SERIOUS about her puppy chow (LOL) Maybelle is the quiet one of the bunch. She just sits back and watches everything, she is calm, cool and collected...she could care less what those other pups are fighting over. Then there is the last girl Shelby...she tries to stand up to Daisy the bully, but she always backs down. When she is lucky they team up to take over the food bowl. My one little boy Bocephus is the sweetest one of the bunch. He is the attention hog and always the first one to meet me at the door to the pen. If all the pups are gathered around me he just climbs over top of them to get to my hand and lick it...he's such a sweet baby.

Tomorrow is my brothers last day of middle school....man time flies! Next year he is onto the best years of his life. If only kids would believe you when you tell them these things!!! I can't believe how grown he is... Oh and by the way I love him and all, but I am keeping my fingers crossed for ONE B this time...geezzz I can't take another $100 A honor roll!

Well that's the update. Coupon match ups to be posted tomorrow.

Good Night :)

Since the beginning of the year I have been saying I was going to go on a diet. It's June and I have done absolutely nothing!!! A dusty gym key and a batch of cookies baking in the oven, no wonder I can't loose weight. I always say eating right and working out is so much easier said than done...I am sure several people can relate :) My husband lost a ton of weight about two years ago and he manages to keep it off which leads me to believe men loose weight faster than women. I know my weakness (fast food and sweets) I have a plan (in my head) so why can't I just put it into action hmmm I am going to chalk it up to being lazy!!!

I am not over weight by any means, just have a few (cough 20 lbs) I would like to loose. If I woke up tomorrow 10 lbs lighter that would be great...don't see that happening. So today I have made a plan. I figured if I wrote it on my blog I would be more likely to go thru with it just because I want to prove I am not a lazy blob of flubber. HA! I took my first step today by taking a walk/jog this evening and I think I made it a little over a mile. Yay! It would help if I actually knew how much I weighed but I honestly don't. I would guess no more than 150...gosh I hope not anyway!!!! In my eyes my perfect weight is 135 which would put me in a size 5 or maybe smaller...it's been a little while.

The Plan:

My goal will be to weigh 135 by December 31st. I am going to start slow and see what happens.

The major things I want to work on now are...drinking more water, cutting out fast food and STOP SNACKING!!! Then I want to make an effort to do some type of work out 4 days a week. Walking, Jogging, going to the gym or laps in the pool. We will see how it goes, but I have decided that if I want the result I am going to have to do the work. It's not fun but I feel it is necessary. At least Mark goes to the gym a few days a week so I am going to tell him to FORCE me to go with him. The last 6 months every time he ask if I want to go to the gym I always make an excuse...LOL I am also going to try to go to bed earlier. I think some of my problem is I am exhausted all the time so even though I am a night owl and never go to bed early I am going to try. I will shoot for 11:30-12:00 every night besides the weekends ;)

So there it is...I am going to hold myself accountable!!! Geez I think of all the times people told me that when I got older I would start to put on weight. I laughed and thought not me.

So that's it for now. Hope everyone has a great weekend! I am planning on laying by the pool (and swimming) catching some sun and hopefully getting my 4 wheeler a little dusty. Have a good one!!!!

Searching for motivation this week. I think I found it in a cup of coffee and a soft comfy couch...LOL So much to catch up on today so lets get to it!!!!

Memorial Day Weekend:

Hooray for a long weekend! This is the first day we have had off since New Years so it was much needed. I thought our weekend would be pretty blah and low key, but that is never the case. There was lots of work to be done around the house and garden this weekend and we managed to get everything done and squeeze in a little bit of time for good food, friends and family...who says you can't do everything? Saturday Mark and I decided to host a small cook out at our house. Grilling, music, corn hole friends and fun. We had a nice time hanging out and spending time with our friends. Sunday was fun day this week ;) Off to a cook out hosted by our friend Katie...same story different location. Lot's of fun!!! Sunday and Monday I relaxed by the pool and ended up with a mild sun burn. Quiet unusual for me...I never get burnt oh well I welcome the redness that will fade to tan. Monday night Mark and I went out to eat by the pond (a place at the mall) with my Mom and Winston we had dinner and ice cream afterwards. What a great ending to a long weekend. All of my favorite things :)

Puppies:

The next generation of rabbit dogs arrived at our door step on Sunday. Three little girls and 1 little boy they are so sweet and super cute!!! I guess that I should explain that our hunting dogs are beloved pets as well...they just have a little more purpose than the average pet :) I have been waiting for these puppies to arrive here for the past 4 weeks and we have named them all and they are settled in, now they just have to play and grow. Benny one of our males is the father of these pups and they are beautiful just like their daddy.

Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry
So cute...my babies (Daisy, Shelby, Maybelle, and Bocephus)

Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry
Look at those faces :)

Garden:

If you haven't figured it out I love the garden. I get so excited every time I see something new popping up in the rows or a plant starting to bloom. Your probably thinking...LOSER ha ha I don't care, once you work so hard on something you will understand. I walk through the rows almost every day inspecting every plant to see whats new. Today I have super exciting developments!!!! The garden has dried out to the point where I can walk down the rows without sinking up to my ankles in mud. We were worried that a few of the last seeds we planted had been washed away, but to my surprise today I saw the cantaloupes and okra protruding from the ground :) Some parts of the rows did wash out so we have some missing okra, cantaloupe, squash and cucumbers but for the most part our garden is looking very fruit full. I am almost done with the garden peas...I think I have about 2 good pickings left before they are done for the season. So here are all my discoveries from today.

Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry
baby tomatoes...this is the first time in several years that we have had healthy looking tomato plants. Almost every plant we have has blooms or small tomatoes on them and we have at least 20 plants. Can't wait to sink my teeth into a tomato sandwich!!!

Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry
Banana Peppers

Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry
Zucchini

So you may be wondering what all we have planted in our garden. I don't know if I can remember everything without standing and looking at the rows, but I will give it a try. This year we planted all of the following things: garden peas, potatoes, silver queen corn, cabbage, black eye peas, snaps, butter beans, okra, squash, cantaloupe, cucumbers, tomatoes, cherry tomatoes, bell peppers, banana peppers, jalapeno peppers, zucchini, and I am pretty sure I am missing something but that's all I can remember. I can't wait to start picking everything and having plenty of fresh veggies...yum!


Monthly Round Up:

Last but not least tonight my monthly round up for May. Not so great on the grocery shopping this month, but in my defense I do have a freezer full of chicken and these totals include our last minute cook out, which I did not have coupons for any of the items :( I spent $304.30 and saved $528.08 a savings of 63.5% I am not too disappointed, but not the greatest month of savings.

As for coupon match ups for the week...right now I have posted nothing. I have seen the Kroger and Harris Teeter ad for the week and they are not looking to hot. Tomorrow I should receive the Food Lion and Lowes food ad tomorrow so we will see what they look like. Seems like this will be a good week to take a break from grocery shopping. I will keep you posted.

I have started watching The Real Housewives of New York and New Jersey. These shows just baffle me! Surely these women have more things going on in their lives than gossip and hanging around, but maybe not... I would like to see some of those ladies come on down to Franklin County North Carolina, they wouldn't last half a day I am sure of it!!! I can't even answer the question why I watch these shows but I think I am just in awe of the lives they lead. In their defense I did see them make some pasta sauce to can for the year, but other than that I just laugh at them. I guess living in a small country town is a totally different type of living. I sure ain't dressing all cute, having tea with friends and getting manicures.

I guess my life just wasn't made for reality tv. I was thinking of this because today when I got home from work I went right to work at home. It never ends. Here I go pulling out the push mower to do my part of grass duty, by the time I was done I was dripping in sweat, but that was just the beginning of my evening of work. Then it was over to the pool to start vacuuming, and working on that surely people in a high society have pool boys...not me! Oh and most interesting I wade through the dog pen to feed and water the beagles. The highlight of my day...a country pedicure! This would include sinking in the muddy garden to put baskets on a whole row of tomato plants. I wore flip flops :) That's the closest I will be getting to a spa(LOL) Last but not least at 8:00 (I get home from work at 4:40) I am in the kitchen cooking chicken, boiled potato's and green beans. Yep that's my reality, and I wouldn't have it any other way.

Most days are not quite that busy, but this time of year there is a ton of work to be done. I still have to clean the house, finish with the pool since my vacuum decided to break today, more work in the garden and I have some flowers and bushes that are begging for my attention. This weekend we will be bringing home 4 new beagle puppies who will also demand my love and attention. And so the story goes...

Yep, I am not glamorous nor prissy or anything else extremely girly. I am just a country blue jean and t shirt wearing kind girl that don't mind getting my hands dirty. My husband sure got lucky when he married me because I am a hard working wife :) He is just the same. For everything I do, I think he does twice as much...maybe its a competition that I am unaware of ;)

So I wonder...are these reality TV shows really reality? Who lives like these people? I don't know anyone like this, then again I guess people like that wouldn't really hang out with someone like me.

Garden Time!!!

Since I was talking about the garden earlier I thought I would show you our lovely mud pit. At least we have a few dry days in the forecast!!!

Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry
I had a great mud foot massage today :)

Last, my harvest of peas from Tuesday. Not fun to pick or shell, but they were some good looking peas which made me happy. Today my legs are killing me from squatting to pick them. At least it was a good work out...LOL

Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

I often wonder why I try to make plans, it seems they never go as expected. This weekend has been one thing after another and I am almost glad it is over!

Saturday I had to get up at the crack of dawn to get Winston to his friends house so he could go fishing. Then I decided to help Mark in the garden and pick some of the peas. As soon as I was 1/4 done, the bottom fell out, and here I was picking peas in the pouring rain. I am SICK of rain at this point!!!

Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry
The first peas to plucked from the garden :)

Then we venture out to the cookout. Hang out with friends and enjoy some good food for a little while and what happens??? The bottom falls out!!!! So everyone is under shelters or in thier cars for over an hour. Well it pretty much rained off and on the whole night so it was a wash out, but we stll managed to have a good time.

Super Doubles at Harris Teeter has been really great this time around. I have shopped almost every day and have gotten some great deals! Hope everyone got the chance to get out and get the things they needed.

Here's to the start of a new week. I am looking forward to this week being over since we are looking forward to a long weekend ahead :)

I am so excited!!! Today after work I went shopping at the Harris Teeter Super Double event again :) Such a great day of savings I was jumping for joy when I left the store. I spent $30.37 and saved $77.25, or 72%. You may wonder why I am so thrilled over 72% savings and let me explain. First of all our meat stock is low so I am trying to replenish that... I bought 4 packs of chicken leg quarters, a loaf of bread and a gallon of milk which I had NO coupons for!!! It was an awesome day at Harris Teeter. I ordered coupons online the other night and hopefully they will be in the mail tomorrow so I can get the other items I need. I am going to stock back up on dog food and coffee and a few other things once my coupons get here.

Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry
This is a picture of the items I brought home for $30 bucks :)

The new pump is hooked up and the pool is running like a champ. Hopefully I will have it cleared up by next weekend so we can enjoy a long holiday weekend by the pool!

This will probably be my last post for several days. I have a busy few days ahead of me. I am watching my brother tomorrow, Sunday I have to take him to his baseball game, cookout Saturday, cleaning and getting the pool ready, super double shopping and Mark has a softball game Monday night...ugh so much to do!!!!! So I hope everyone has a great weekend. I will see you on the flip side (LOL)

I am going to talk about a ton of different things we have going on. It seems I can never get the time to talk about everything I want to so tonight you will get a blog post full of several random things. Sorry, but I hope you enjoy it either way :)

Graduation

Last Friday my sister Jayme graduated with her associates degree in Human Services Technology. Don't ask me the details I have no idea what you do with this...help humans(lol) We all know graduations are boring as all get out and it happened to be a 90 degree day...lovely Not to mention it started @ 6:00 on a Friday when folks work! I made it and saw her walk across the stage. I must say I am super proud of her, she has been working on this off and on forever and I think we were relieved that she finally accomplished this goal.

So being the mean person I am I was sick of everyone talking up my little sister. All I heard is Jayme has been working so hard to get here, she paid for it by herself, she worked and went to school...blah blah blah I finally asked my Mom what the big deal was. Why did I ask this? Well I graduated with two associates degrees in 2 1/2 years while living on my own and working two jobs. My Mom got mad at me...LOL I was just trying to make the point no one made such a big deal out of my graduation WITH TWO DEGREES. Really I am proud of her though :)

Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry
Jayme @ Graduation

I have been wanting to go back to get my bachelor degree forever!!! I am not worried about the work, it's something that I want for myself. Once again I am checking into schools thinking I can maybe take 1 or 2 classes and take my time. No rush this is something I want to do before I have kids. After checking out the schools I just want to cry! $315.00 a semester hour??? Are you kidding me? I am not rich!!! If I remember correctly most classes are 4 credit hours so that means 1 class cost over $1,200.00 well at that cost I will never be able to get my bachelor degree. I will keep looking maybe I can find a better price...can you price haggle with colleges (LOL)

RELAX

Finally Mark and I took a day off from all of weekend chores to enjoy a day at the lake with some of our best friends. The boys went swimming, but us girls were having no part of that. The lake is still freezing! We really needed the day off. We have the best group of friends in the whole world and I love them all dearly. What a great day just relaxing on the boat :)

Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry
Mark and Josh trying to talk us into swimming

Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry
Dusty decided to join them and they had a secret meeting under the boat...LOL

Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry
enjoying the water and company of good friends

Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry
Mark and I :)

Pool Woes

After trying a million things to try to save the filter to our pool we have failed. Our pool is our vacation spot since we are poor folks so we had to break down and by a new filter today...and I was crying as I watched my budget for next month fly out the window :(

We went to the pool supply store today and decided to change from a sand filter to a cartridge filter. It is the new thing on the market and to be honest the sand filter is a pain in the butt anyway so we will see how it works this weekend. Luckily we got a GREAT $300.00 discount since our pool was bought from that store. Lucky for us we were close with our neighbors before we bought the house from them and we had all the information on the pool. Since we have been unable to run the pool it is so nasty looking. I am hope I can have some pictures of a new sparkling pool on here very soon!

Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry
The new filter (yay) and my sweet husband who put it together tonight...he is the greatest!

Super Doubles @ HT

Quick coupon update from my shopping trip at Harris Teeter. This week is super doubles where they double coupons up to $1.50. This picture is all the items I bought, but there are also 4 coffee creamers that I couldn't include since I had to leave them in the fridge at work today. I spent $29.67 and saved $66.04 or 70%!!! I am going to make a few more trips this week, but I have to wait until the coupons I ordered from the clipping service come in :)

Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry
Super Double Deals!!!

Other things...

A few last things... I have been begging for rain for our garden and boy did I get my wish. We had rain Friday, Saturday and then the bottom fell out Sunday and Monday. Our garden was severely flooded so Mark and I had to go outside in the pouring rain and dig trenches to keep the plants from washing away. The garden was totally submerged water. It was great fun...j/k! I told Mark he should be glad that he has a awesome wife who will dig ditches in the pouring rain. I am sure he already knew that :) So from now on I think I will stop begging for rain!

Hope everyone is ready for the weekend. We are excited that the yearly J&J birthday pig pick'n is this weekend. A yearly even where we cook a big, play games, dance and hang out until the wee hours of the night. I am so ready for this...can't wait to hang out with the besties and have a good time. Yee haw!!!!

Since I have decided to make an honest effort to put my top match up's from each store on my blog, I just wanted to say a few things about coupon shopping. Coupons can be fun but you could become easily burnt out by all the weekend trips here and there trying to grab all those deals.

I know I can do better with coupons. I could probably end up saving 80% most of the time, but honestly it is too time consuming. When I was saving the maximum amount I was spending at least two hours a day going between sales papers and coupons and then working major math magic to make sure I was doing everything the right way. I have more time than most...I have no children to take care of so my evenings are what I want them to be, but for most people that is just not the case. I still save a ton of money at least 60% each time I shop, but I spend a lot less time working on my deals. I find that is my happy medium and sometimes I save more. Right now I have cut out all my drug store shops because I am so stocked with shampoo, body wash, deodorant, toothpaste and all those other personal care items that there is no need to spend time tying to get something I have 20 of...LOL Stocking is good, and it also allows you to take a break for awhile. Now I am just grocery shopping and that is good! I have three deep freezers, a large walk in pantry and a bedroom dedicated to stocking so I don't feel the pressure to hit the grocery store if I don't feel like it. Trust me no one here is starving!!! My main advice to everyone is to start slow and be satisfied with the money you save. Every trip is not yield a great saving event, but who can complain about 60%?

I just want everyone to realize that. So I will post the deals that I would personally run after and a few other good ones :) And that is what you will find here. I am not going to post the whole ad, just because something is in the ad doesn't mean its a good deal! Good deals are all you will see. Enjoy :)

It's me again. I am promising to help everyone with the coupons and shopping trips. If you look to the right you will notice two new links under the Pages label. Coupon 101 which you can find some tips I use to help folks get started with coupons and you will also see the Coupon talk and Match up tab. Under Coupon talk I will try my best to give you my top grocery store picks for the week and the coupons that match up with those sales. Keep checking because I usually don't see the Lowes Food or Food Lion paper until Thursday. Also feel free to post comments on special deals you may find while out shopping. Let's all help on another! Lets see if we can slash those grocery bills!!!! Yippe :)

There is nothing better than the country in the spring. Well I think every season is best in the country, but spring is my favorite time of year.

Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry
Beautiful, today I came home to see my first day Lilly had bloomed. My favorite flower and I have a small flower bed full of them, can't wait until they all bloom. I have been talking about the garden and just to get an idea of how we do it out here in the back woods I took a picture of the whole garden today. Sometimes I don't think people understand that this is a real garden! It kinda looks like a pile of dirt since we can't get any rain!!!! We plant pretty much everything from seeds so some have not sprouted at all and others are barley poking out of the ground. Please BRING ON THE RAIN...our little corn stalks are trying to burn up already :(

Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry
You still can't see the whole garden with that tree blocking it

Can't find a garden like that in the city :) So it's the time of year where everyone is breaking out the pig cookers and grills and just enjoying the nice weather. A warm evening where everyone can hang out side and enjoy a beverage, play corn hole, reminisce on old times, and just enjoy each others company...I LOVE it!

So I was talking about the pool yesterday. Here is a picture of our disaster.

Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry
So we are going to try one thing with the filter, and if that don't work we are heading to the pool supply place this weekend. Ugh, I can already hear the wind blowing away my budget for the month...

How about a RANT?

I can't help myself, I haven't been mean lately...LOL For some reason I just have this on my mind so I am just going to throw it out there. I can't help but notice every time I go to the grocery store and other stores there are always people standing outside wanting money for something. It's a church group, girl/boy scouts, sports teams and a million different organizations. Seriously not to be rude but it really gets on my nerves. I buy girl scout cookies every year (a ton of them) and I hate to be attacked every time I leave a store to buy cookies when I have 10 boxes sitting at home. Saturday I was at Sams Club getting my pool chemicals I walk out the door to someone standing right in my face wanting to know if I will donate money to needy families. Who are these people? I say "no" and they look at me like I am the most awful person in the whole world. Ughhh, I just wanted to go on a rant, but I politely walked away. So here are my reasons. First of all these people don't know me, I could be in dire financial straights. I'm not but the point is why can't they just sit at a table and let you approach them? Secondly, I have no idea who these people are with and what type of families this money goes to. We give money to organizations, I donate food to the food bank, I donate clothes to goodwill, and I support school fundraisers. Not to mention my husband is a active Mason which supports the orphanage. We are not bad people! Yet this random person looks at me like I am the scum of the earth for not giving them a dollar...give me a break! The biggest problem is the fact that I get so TIRED of people begging for something ALL the time!!!! Hello...I go to the grocery store and the people in front of me buy $200 worth of groceries with food stamps and I just happen to be parked beside them and see they are loading them up into a new model Tahoe. What the heck? It's the most ridiculous thing I have ever seen. Yet my mother who is a single parent and works 3 jobs can't even get a dollar of food stamps. Sometimes people are "needy" because they are LAZY and thinks the government should pay them to sit at home on their butt, while the rest of us go out and work for a living. Sorry, if that's the "needy" folks you are helping they can keep being needy.

I don't feel like giving my hard earned money to people who think they are too good to work at McDonalds and think that I owe them a hand out. My little bit of left over money will go to buying some groceries for my mom or helping her with some monthly expenses!!!! Don't get me wrong, I know their are good people out there who have had bad things happen and need help. As a matter of fact that was my Mom a few years ago, and you know who helped her? NO ONE, but Mark and I. Exactly my point to these people begging for my money every time I leave a freaking store!!!!

To be brutally honest, I get tired of everyone complaining about money. I often feel like people are giving me a guilt trip because they don't have money for something. They want my sympathy because they are broke. Well let me see here... People complain about not being able to pay their bills, but they go out and buy new cars or constantly go shopping for clothes or whatever. Sometimes I just want to scream out that it's your own fault! Stop wasting money all the time and you could pay your bills. If you didn't have that $400 a month car payment you could pay your bills. Duh! I want a new car, but guess what I don't want a car payment every month or to have to pay more money for insurance and taxes.

I can pay my bills every month. I can do this because when I want something I save my money to buy it and don't just take out a credit card. I can do this because I put a decent amount of money in my savings account when I get paid every other week. No debt besides our home. We live within our means and we manage our money. When you see me splurge on something, it's because I have spent months or years saving to be able to. No pity from me...so sorry!

Oh and I already know the statement that comes next "I don't have any extra money to save from my pay check". I agree that some people don't have extra money to save. I know for a fact it takes everything my mom has to pay her bills and it is very little left for the monthly expenses. That will change for her one day though...she does have a car payment because she had no money and had no car when she came to live with us several years ago. Actually my mom does save money in the summer when she works an extra job. I think it is ok to not be able to save money if you are trying to pay off debt. A few years ago we were not saving money because we were paying every extra penny to our debts and I was trying to pay my car off early. I paid my car off almost 2 years early because I worked hard to do so. You can always save a little bit even $20 is something. All I ask of people is before you beg or put a guilt trip on someone, look at what has caused you to get this way. If you are driving around in a car that isn't paid for or wasting money on needless items you have no reason to ask for pity. If something happened and Mark and I faced a budget crisis I could tell you the first things we would let go of... Cell phones, house phone, gym membership, Direct TV, Internet... if I had trouble paying the bills I could drop $350 off our budget in an instant on things that are NOT necessary. I think people today have no sense of what is a "need" and a "want". Get a clue!

So now that you all probably think I am a horrible person I will just shut up. I can't help myself sometimes. I know I am not the only person in the world who thinks like this. Well hump day is coming to a end now, so we can all start to look forward to the weekend :) YAY!!!!

Another day in my little world. I have been super busy and super lazy. My motivation is seriously lacking lately. I think I have been living in my own little world and I need the alarm clock to go off soon! I don't think I have an action packed life by no means, but geez it seems like we always have something to do.

Here is what I have been up to... It's that time of year to start working on the grand opening of the pool. It's nice to have a pool to swim and lay out by, but I don't think people understand what a pain in the BUTT they are!!!! Our filter is leaking, nothing new... We knew this at the end of last year, but figured we could fix it with some epoxy. Think again! We are only able to run the pool on low, which means I am having a really hard time clearing the water up. I think a muddy pond would entice more swimmers than our pool. I have yet to seen the bottom and the water is a blue haze topped with pollen. I need to actually get in the pool to clean the walls, but that is NOT happening! I would have a full blown panic attack when my feet hit the bottom b/c I am sure it is slimy...yuck!!!! I am not sure what the remedy is for our pool at this point. A new filter (what we need) is $400.00, and that is an expense we need to spare, so I guess we will see what happens.

It is also garden time... Luckily so far the work has been on Mark, but soon I will be picking and canning it's alot of work, but well worth it. Our garden is quiet large and we really need rain to keep our little plants alive and growing. Below is a picture not long after Mark planted everything. We have 60 cabbage plants...LOL I can't wait for all the yummy goodness to make its way to my kitchen!

Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry
Cabbage and Potatoes :)

A Family Day!

So I LOVE my little brother, he is growing up so fast. He is fixing to start drivers ed this summer, so I am trying to take in the time we have. I know soon he will be driving around and doing stuff with his friends and won't have as much time for his aging sister...LOL A couple of weeks ago Mark, Jayme (my sister) and Me all went to watch his baseball game. He is so darn cute!

Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry
Winston and his team before the game

Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry
Winston's looking for a home run!!!

Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry
Winston's aging sisters :)

So beside the daily household stuff, and watching way too much tv this is what I have been up to. Who knew how exciting life could be...ha ha!

As I was saying in an earlier post the bedroom is pretty much complete. At least it is to the point where I can actually deal with looking at it every day. It needs a few more pictures and Marks flat screen tv and then it will be perfect, but for now it is livable by my standards...LOL

So here are the pictures...Yay!!!

Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry
This is the vanity dresser, I chose this dresser because it was different and the extra drawers come in handy too :)

Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry
The 5 drawer chest and the cute little picture...it looks really small in this picture for some reason

Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry
ahhh, my favorite...the KING size bed! I get a great night sleep here, I barley notice that my wonderful husband is in the bed!!!!

Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry
Up close picture of the curtains. The colors matched perfectly with my color scheme. They are quite girly and believe it or not no complaints from Mark!!!

Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry
The seating area with a little accent table. It was hard to get a picture of the whole thing but there is a picture of the chairs in a earlier post.

So after loading these picture I realized I forgot to take pictures of the night stands and media chest. If I think about it I will add them later, it's too late to take pictures now since Mark is sleeping. Not to mention he would probably think I was crazy to be snapping pictures of furniture in the middle of the night...LOL

My favorite spot is the seating area, I absolutely love it! I go and sit in the chair and try to talk Mark into sitting in the other one, but he just looks at me like I am crazy...go figure! I have noticed that clothes seem to accumulate on these chairs. Not my clothes. Hmmm, I guess Mark thinks one of the chairs belongs to him and therefore he can use it as a clothes hamper. I can live with that, better to have some clothes sitting on the chair than in the floor :)

The other day I cleaned up our closet. We have a huge walk in closet and even with all the space it seems to stay a mess. I put two clothes hampers in there, one for white clothes and the other for colored clothes. I explained to Mark which basket to put the clothes in... He then told me he was not stupid...LOL I bet $100 when I go to do laundry on Friday there are white socks in the colored basket!!!!!!!!!!!! I think I have a mild case of OCD and this will drive me crazy.

Speaking of crazy... I love my darling husband so much but he is so funny sometimes. I wonder if other husbands do things like Mark... For instance, Mark mentioned today at lunch "I am going to clean the kitchen this evening". I had to go to my brothers baseball game tonight so I knew I wouldn't have much time to get things done. When Mark makes statements like this I take it as April needs to clean the kitchen because it is a mess...ha ha I have asked him if that's what he means and he said it's not, but deep down I think it is. Even if he doesn't mean it, I will always take it to mean that! So today as soon as I walked in the door I went straight to the kitchen and cleaned up. In my defense the kitchen wasn't that dirty...I mean give me a break! I cook dinner, and sometimes I don't feel like wiping down the counters, putting away all the left overs, loading the dish washer and sweeping.

I love a clean house, but lately my cleaning motivation has been lacking. Work has been really stressful lately and when I get home I am pooped! I have been so ill and really I just need the down time when I get home to regain my sanity. My husband is such a hard worker...ugh he makes me sick sometimes. He gets off work cuts grass, takes care of the dogs, the garden, and other random things... Don't get me wrong I do my part too. I cook dinner, sometimes I will take care of the dogs and I help in the garden when he needs me too and I push mow the parts of the yard we can't mow with the zero turn. Still I always feel like I don't get enough done. I want my house to be spotless 24-7 and everything to be perfect. I have decided that my expectations of myself are way too high, but yet I still go to bed every day disappointed and feeling like I should have done more. Geez...why must I try to do a million things in such a short time? Oh well!

So that's it for tonight. I still want to put a post up about my triple coupon trips. Maybe later... Hope you have enjoyed my insanity for today :)

I have wanted to find the time to actually post a few things on my blog, but it seems the time never comes. This time of year is super busy for Mark and I. Keeping the yard up and our extra large garden that I hope to post pictures of soon. Since we haven't had rain in a few days and these 90 degree tempatures have threatened the survival of our recently planted items so we spent the evening walking 5 gallon buckets of water to the garden to try to keep some life in those plants...not a fun task! Hopefully we will be seeing some rain here tomorrow, I have my fingers crossed.

My last post was talking about how I was going to save my money and not finish my room. Blow that out the window... I couldn't deal with my room being half compelete so I went ahead and finished it, picutres to come soon. I am dreading my budgeting this money because it is already looking bad. No one to blame but myself, but atleast my room is compelete...LOL Not to mention it has been a million things to buy or hand money out for this month, baby shower, house warming gifts and then Winston and his A honor roll cost me $100. Geez, I hope nothing comes up this month because I am broke. Well not broke like I can't pay the bills, but broke for me means I might have to cut back what I put in my savings this month. Since my savings account is pretty low because of the furniture purchase this does not make me happy. I will have to do better.

The coupon scoop. Triple coupons this week at Harris Teeter, I made 3 trips which is pretty slack for me. Actually the deals were not items I use that often, but I did get some items I wanted for free or very cheap. Actually I have not been grocery shopping much this past month. I am stocked so well I have only shopped for the basics while hitting a few sales items here and there. Not very usual for me, but like I said Mark and I stay super busy this time of year. My monthly totals are in and I am actually pretty happy being that a few of these shops were with no coupons. My decided to have a nice steak, bake potatoe and salade meal which was like $30, so I am happy with my shopping for the month. I spent $169.64 and saved $265.85 or 60%. I have been slack with my coupons lately and I have really got to do better, but still 60% savings is better that full price :)

Well I just wanted to give an update on my list of failures for the month(ha) When I get the chance I will really get to work on this blog and get some pictures on here. Well I must go clean the kitchen and get ready for bed, believe it or not Monday is knocking on the door again :(

I have had so much fun shopping and spending money the past few months. I love new things! Since the begining of the year we have bought a new trailer, bedroom suite, mattress, my chairs which arrived today, several new bed linens and some decorating items. I still have some things I want to buy. I have my eyes on a new set of curtians and some framed art for the new bedroom, but after a lot of thinking I have decided it can wait for awhile. I hate for a room to be half compelete, but I need to concenrate on getting my savings account back to a comfortable level. For me this means NO more shopping :( I have decided to skip buying prennials for my flower beds this year and every other expense that I can spare. This makes me sad, but it needs to be done...so that's the story. Back to being super frugal for awhile.

Since I can't spend any money I guess I will show a few of the things I have put in the bedroom. It will be awhile before the decorating is complete.

Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry
New lamps from Kirklands...I love that place!

Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry
The new little seating area. These chairs are so awesome I am so glad I decided on these the pattern is perfect.

I am so glad the week is half way over! It is going to be a long few weeks comng up at work, but hopefully they will fly by. I am looking foward to the weekend. Can't wait to go and watch Mark and our friends play thier first game in the softball tournment Friday night.

Well I think I'm going to call it a night :)

So I must be in a typing mood today. I was just thinking about some family shout outs I need to make :) We all have families...some are normal, some are crazy but at the end of the day you just have to love them. Here are some things that make my family the best.

My sister has made it her mission to help me get coupons. Ahh how I love her. She works at a nursing home and a lot of her residents get the Sunday paper, and since they are not going out shopping she gets the coupons for me on Sunday. In my mind I see her sneaking around stealing coupons from their Sunday papers, but this is not the case at all. Luickly she is awesome at her job and her residents love her so they take the coupons out of their papers and save them for her. How great is that? Not only do I love my sister, but I love her residents as well they are so thoughtful :) I guess I need to make them some little gift baskets in the near future!

Winston (my brother) came by the house last week with his report card. At the begining of the year I made a deal that every time he makes the "A" honor roll I would give him $100. This kid is really breaking my bank! He proudly brought me his report card this week and of corse he is on the "A" honor roll yet again. Seriously one "B" isn't so bad...LOL Geez he will be getting his money when I get paid this week :) I am so proud of him, he is into everything. He is on student council, national honor society and plays sports and anything else he can join. He is so much like me when I was in school. For a 14 year old he is truely amazing and wise beyond his years. Must be from growing up with two teenage sisters. Everyone loves him and he is just an all around good kid. I hope he keeps up the good work, even though it makes my bank account sad!!!!

My mom has lost 20 lbs since the begining of the year. Yay for her! I know it is hard to do at 50, but she has stuck to it and she looks great. She called me Saturday to say she bought some new jeans over the weekend...size 6 Good job Mom just rub it in... I need to loose 10 pounds so I can get a size 6 too...LOL I am not willing to give up my junk food.

My wonderful husban never lets me down. I just know he is the best husband ever, at least in my eyes :) This weekend while I was out shopping he went to my Moms house got her car and changed the oil for her. Did anyone ask him? No he just wanted to do something nice for her. Not that cutting the grass every week, power washing the house and do random handy man work isn't enough. My Mom loves Mark so much she thinks he is the best, and she is right!!! He works so hard. Mom and me joke about how he is always working around the house. Fixing stuff, cutting grass, working in the garden, staining the decks, washing the cars, changing oil and last week he had to put new brakes on my car. I don't know what I would do without him :) Not to mention he puts up with my craziness every day. I am so thankful to be blessed with his awesomeness!

My inlaws... Well some people do not like thier inlaws, but I love mine. Believe it or not Mark and I are pretty close with our families. My Mom basically lives in the backyard. Her place is right behind out house. Marks Mom and Dad live about 1 minute down the road. Marks parents are great. His dad buys me a Sunday paper every week and when I wake up I go to my door and it is there waiting for me. They are always doing little things for us. I love it!

Never overlook the small things. I know our families can be a pain sometime, but luckily I have been blessed with a great Husband, Mom, Sister, Brother and in laws. they can be aggrivating and difficult at times, but I couldn't imagine a day on this earth without them. Families come in all different varities, and over the years they can change but be thankful for the ones you have and hold dear to your heart.

So my new bedroom suite has arrived and I have been so busy. Moving clothes and trying to get everything in it's right place. Easier said than done. I feel like my house is still in transition, but soon everything will be perfect. I can't wait to show off my room to everyone once it is finshed. I have started getting all my decor together and for me this is always a giant task. I always have a vision in my mind yet can never find the perfect items. I thought I wanted a green and brown color scheme, but it has now changed to a brown and blue color scheme. At least Mark likes the blue :) I ordered two armless chairs yesterday to make a sitting area in the bedroom. I can't wait for those to arrive on my door step. So for now you can only get a sneak peak at the bed. I have hung a few pictures and bought the cutest brown and blue lamps. So this area is complete!!! I will update with new pictures as I get the other areas finished.

Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry
Here is this wall and it is complete...so cute :)

So after the chairs arrive I will have to take a break from my decorating. I am out of money :( My poor little savings account is on it's last leg so I have to take a break from my spending. What can I say, it's a process. I wanted to start on my next project which is refinishing my old bedroom suite. This is going to have to wait a few weeks as well. However I do have a new project that won't cost me a penny...yay! My super shopping skills are going to work for one of our friends :) He is in the market for a new bedroom suite and mattress and has asked me to help him find a great deal. I LOVE it! Oh and I think maybe he will decide to paint his house soon, so maybe I can just work on a project for someone else. I have already priced one bedroom suite for him so I am excited. I love doing stuff like this so I am always willing to help!

Speaking of great news about my mattress I bought over a month ago. Mattress Firm has a price match guarentee so I have priced matched the mattress yet again. I have gotten an extra $208.00 off the price!!! So this mattress was orginally $1500 and we have ended up only paying $780.00 for it...how great is that? I can tell you I will sleep easier knowing I saved even more money.

So that is the scoop on all of that stuff. Other than that I have been getting flower beds ready for the spring, and trying to get this house organized. We have some busy weekends ahead. Mark is playing on a softball league so I will be going to those games on Friday and Saturday. It seems like there is always so much do to on the weekend. There is never time to just rest and relax, I guess I will get some rest when I get old...LOL

Well hope everyone is doing well and enjoying the beautiful weather!

I am a little late on getting my monthly totals together, but it has been a busy couple of weeks. So tonight I finally had the time to sit down and see me grocery savings for the month. It was an ok month. I am not to excited about my savings but hey 69% isn't that bad. After it was all said and done I spent $314.94 and saved $724.95. Not too shabby. I can always do better :) I didn't do any drug store shops this month. I have so much shampoo, body wash, tooth paste and medicine I have cut out my trips to the drug stores for awhile. I need to use some of my stock first.

I hope to save more this month. Actually I really don't plan on doing too much shopping unless something wonderfull comes up. I have pretty much everything I need so I am going to take a break from the all day Saturday shopping trips running from store to store. The weather has been beautiful and I want to spend more time working in the yard and spring cleaning. Soon I will have to start working on getting the swimming pool ready which I am not looking forward to. So I am taking my full stock room as a hint that I need to use some stuff up and stop chasing after the deals for a couple of weeks.

On to a few other things... I want to take a minute to talk about some random things that I am happy about right now!!! My new bedroom suite that should be arriving any day. Everyone buys new furniture from time to time, and we all know it is a big investment. Being a savvy shopper I want to pass my knowdlege to others to help them make smart purchaeses. We usually think of the mom and pop shops as having the highest prices, but when it comes to furniture that is usally not the case. When you are looking for new furniture I would advise to set a day aside to go to several stores and get an idea of what you want to buy. Take pictures of the items you like in the store so you can look at them later for future reference. I also take pictures of the price tags so I know how much the sets are from store to store. After you pick out what you like get the manufactor code and start calling local furniture stores to check pricing. It's that simple! Let me give you an example... When we moved in our house I wanted to full size reclining couches for my living room. I went to the Ashley Furniture Homestore in Raleigh and found what I wanted. I called a local furniture store and saved $400 a couch at the local store. These big stores with the large show rooms have a huge overhead and they pass those extra cost onto the consumer. Plus all the sales people work off commision so they rarely budge on pricing. Most mom and pop shops are run by families and they are not commision driven and they have smaller places and less overhead which equals great pricing. Also the mom and pop stores will often try to undercut thier local competition, so if you have a better price from another store you can use that as leverage. I am buying my bedroom suite from Woods Home Furnishing in Louisburg, by far the best price and great service. So if you are looking to buy something check them out, I highly recommend them :)

Now to my next love! Pampered Chef!!! I always thought the products were a little pricey, but I have been more than staisfied with all the items I have accumulated. I love the Deep Covered Baker!!! I work all day and I am tired when I get home. I hate spending hours preparing and cooking dinner, it's like having to work when I get off work(lol) So I bought my Deep Covered Baker about 2 months ago and I use this thing at least 3 times a week, it is marvlous. It cooks anything in the microwave and it is tasty. A whole chicken will cook in the microwave in 32 minutes! Yesterday I cooked a meatloaf in 22 minutes. I could not believe it, it takes a hour in the oven. So here is the other upside, no oven heating up the house durring these warm months and my light bill has dropped over $50 this month. This is one of the best investments I have ever made. My husband was skeptical at first about cooking all this food in the microwave, but he loves it too. I have ever herd him telling people how great this baker is and how great the food taste. Plus he is getting a tasty meal every night so he is happy and I am spending no time standing over a stove so I am happy to. I absolutly love this :)

Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry
Deep Covered Baker meatloaf in the microwave in 22 minutes!

So enough of me pushing my favorite things. At the end of the day I just want everyone to save time and money. My time and money saving ventures bring me so much happiness :)

Well, we didn't get everything accomplished this weekend. We still managed to get a lot done so I am happy about that. Mark done a ton of work this weekend. He cut the grass, which is a task since he is so picky about how it looks. We have the greenest grass and the prettiest yard for miles thanks to the hubby. He baby's our yard! I am not allowed to cut grass because he wants lines in the yard and I don't do it right...LOL

Mark cutting his beloved grass.

Our front yard, it looks like it is time to mulch again :(
Mark also stained the decks...again. I know this doesn't sound like a hard task, but we have a ton of decking. We have wood walk ways to both the back and side door. We have a large patio deck and then the decking around the pool. Poor thing, he got that done and it looks great. I wanted to take a picture, but the deck is covered in pollen (yuck) so you can't even tell.
The last thing Mark got finished this weekend was a new dog pin for the beagles. These are our two rabbit hunting dogs Slim and Russel, hopefully we will be able to add 2 more at some point this year. Mark and my little brother really enjoy rabbit hunting and these two pups are the best, and they are cutie pies :)

Now to my projects. I was painting the bedroom. I ordered the bedroom suite today, and hopefully it will be here by the end of the week. Now the room is freshly painted and ready to move some new stuff in. I am so excited!!!

Getting started...
Painting is one of those things that is very time consuming and it takes a lot of patience. Painting and waiting I call it, it took all weekend to get this done since I have 2 coats of Kiltz and 2 coats of paint. Finally it is all done and this is the end result.

Right now we have moved almost all the old furniture out of our room. All we have left in our room is the media cabinet, dresser and bed. I put TV tables beside the bed for the time being. We didn't see the need to move our old furniture back in when we would be moving it out in a week. Today I hung new curtain rods, they are so cute!

Oh yeah, today I went to Wal Mart and bought some "Space Bags" these things are awesome!!! My hallway closest was busting at the seams with sheet sets and comforters. I used 4 space bags and almost got all my sheet sets and comforters in them...I was amazed! Now I actually have extra space in the closest! Check it out...

So both of these bags have 2 extra thick comforters and the big bag has the 2 comforters and 6 complete sheet sets. (WOW)

My hallway closest now, I can't believe I can open the door without stuff pelting me :)

Here we go again with the home projects... My dear husband hates my projects, and I know when I start one he is ready to strangle me! Mark is the type of person who could really care less about these things for the most part. However I am a project queen and I am not happy unless I am reaking havick on something in the house :) At least it's spring time and he spends most of his weekend on our near perfect yard. That leaves me all alone in the house looking for something to change!

So I know I have been talking about the new mattress and bed room suite, which is the motivation for my new project. When we first moved into this house the previous owners had very strange taste in color. We spent the first day here repainting. Of course moving was a big enough task so we only tackeled the worst colored rooms. My living room and hallway which was pink, the computer room which was an awful navy and burgendy and the back kitchen wall which was Barney purple. Yes, our house had some major color issues, which I have spent the past two years tackling. The other rooms were ok colors so for times sake we left them alone. Since we moved in I have painted the guest bathroom, one guest bedroom and redone the kitchen wall from the orginal beige we painted when we first moved in. Mark hates painting, but I love it for the most part. So I am the one that takes on these projects because like every woman I want my home to be perfect. So now to the project...

We bought the new mattress and brought that home about 2 weeks ago. I just found out my tax refund is on the way so I will be ordering my bedroom suite hopefully in the next week. I have spent days trying to find a furniture store that has the set I want on the showroom floor so I can look at it first. Finally I found one, but they had sold it...go figure. They are expecting to have a new one on the floor by the weekend so I hope to go take a look and get mine ordered by the begining of next week. Before the furniture gets here I must paint our bedroom!!! Right now it is a mint green (yuck). A color I have lived with for the past 2 years, but will be happy to change, or so I thought. Friday I went to Lowes and picked out about 10 paint chips to bring home. Once I laid them all out I picked 3 favorites. Sunday, I went back to Lowes to get testers. I am not a fan of the testers, but for some reason light colors never come out right so I knew I needed to do this.

I know I want a lighter color paint. My furnitute will be a Merlot finish which is almost black. So my thinking is the walls need to be a light but warm color, this will bring out the beauty of the merlot finish and make the furniture the focal point of the room. A dark color will just wash out and make the room look smaller. First 3 samples did not go well. Two of them looked pink once I put them on the wall. So I pick two more colors and go get testers. I paint those colors on the wall and still I am disappointed. By now I am having a nervous break down and don't understand what the problem is... Here is the first 5 colors on the wall.


These colors do not inspire me!!!!

So after all this testing paint and being disappointed I got an idea. The walls are mint green now, so maybe it is throwing my colors off. I knew from the get go that this was a possiblilty but I never thought it would change them this much. So today while I was on my lunch break for work I ran home grabed the Kiltz and painted the wall. Yes I keep Kiltz at my house...LOL I told you I am ALWAYS painting something! So when I came home from work the wall got one more coat of Kiltz and then I started the testers all over again. I was amazed by the difference, see what you think.


Believe it or not these are the same colors in the picture above.

So now I am trying to pick a color. Still not in "love" with any of them. I realy like earthy tones like brown, and maybe that is the problem. I don't much care for blah colors, but I know that is what this room needs and in the end I will be happy. So my plan of action now is to look at the colors for the next few days and make a choice by the weekend. I plan to start painting over the weekend, I will keep you posted.

So I have a vision in my mind of how I want my room to look like. We will have to see how it comes out. My next few projects are already lined up for me...woo hoo! First on my list is to take my old bedroom suite and refinsish it. I have never done this before, but I am going to give it a try :) Then my next project, installing real wood blinds throughout the house. I already ordered samples from the manufactor to pick out the color I want. Shhh don't tell Mark! He will actually like the new blinds the rest not so much. I do have a planned purchase that Mark will be happy about. I am planning on buying a new flat screen TV pretty soon to replace our old tube TV in the bedroom. That new bedroom suite deserves a proper TV set :) Mark will LOVE that!

On another note... Triple coupons at Harris Teeter was awesome! I am going to get a post together about all my good shopping trips in the next few days. Hope everyone is having a great week :)