Miscellany Monday

1. Saving money
I am slightly obsessed with websites that gives tips on how to save money or pay off debt, if you couldn't tell from my last post. Like, all of my web surfing tonight has pretty much been on The Saved Quarter, Penny Pinchin' Mom, Money Saving Mom. I guess it's getting me away from Facebook for awhile, which I was sorely in need of a break from.

2. Parent teacher conference week
I am doing 24 parent teacher conferences between tomorrow and Thursday. I don't think I really need to say anything more about this miscellany, now do I?

3. Snow
Just for the record, I do not want a snow day tomorrow, or any day this week. See #2 for my main reason why. Honestly, I'm just tired of snow. I want it to be spring. I want to wear my favorite capris and play outside with Raegan. I hope that Phil was right about spring coming earlier this year!

4. Annual review
I had my annual review at work today, and it was pretty good. I don't take compliments well, so it's weird for me to sit there and read and hear good things about myself. But it is nice to know that my hard work is noticed. :)

5. Shoes

I bought these beauties at Target last week. Aren't they fabulous?!?! They pinch my toes just a smidge, but are a lot better than high heels, but cuter than my other black shoes with no heel. This miscellany doesn't quite tie in with my desire to save money I suppose. :) Eh, I don't have to penny pinch all the time, right?

Great Deals!

So in my quest to start eliminating debt, I've started clipping coupons and checking out various blogs for ideas on how to save money. I thought I would just share a couple of the gems I've come across in the last few days.

First of all, if you go to P&G's Facebook page and "like" their page, then click on the Special Offer tab at the top, you can sign up to receive a coupon booklet for over $110 in coupons for P&G products. P&G products include Bounce, Charmin, Pringles, Crest, Pampers and Luvs, to name a few, so I'm pretty excited for my booklet to come in the mail. Surely there will be a few coupons that I'm going to use in there, right? Apparently the website is running a little slow because of all of the interest in the offer, but if you persevere, you should be able to sign up eventually. I actually got through with no problem, and after I signed up as a member for P&G and filled in my address, they said my booklet would come in 5-10 days. I'll let you all know what I end up with.

My second find in the last week (and I am SUPER!!!! excited about this one) is Amazon Mom. If you click the link, it will direct you to the page that explains the whole process, but let me sum it up a little for you here. Basically, you sign up for this completely free program. (And I went over the whole thing with a fine tooth comb - it is 100% free.) You get three free months of Amazon Prime (which means that you get free two day shipping). For every $25 you spend at one time in the Baby Store, your free membership in Amazon Prime is extended for another month. THEN, you sign up for Subscribe and Save (which means that you are just setting up what you've ordered to be delivered to you on an ongoing schedule) and you will save 30% on whatever you've ordered. If you decide you don't want to do the Subscribe and Save bit anymore, you can unsubsribe at any time at no penalty. At that point you will only save 15% on what you order because of your Amazon Mom membership. So as long as you spend more than $25 a month (and that's $25 before your discount), your free two day shipping will continue for a whole year.

So here's what I'm ordering: diapers. Gonna need 'em, right? With this fabulous deal, I'm able to get a box of 204 Luvs diapers for only $24.18. After tax, $26.16, which comes out to about 13 cents a diaper. Before I found this deal, I was buying a box of 96 diapers for $15.97 which is almost 17 cents a diaper. Biiiiig difference. I'm pretty sure that 204 diapers isn't going to cover a whole month, but it should come pretty close, and if I buy a box of 96 at Wal-mart, it should last me several months with only having to take some out to supplement the big box from Amazon. Granted, the amount of diapers I get will go down when Raegan goes up to a size four, but it would go down in the box I would get from Wal-mart too, so I anticipate this continuing to be a money saver. I priced Diaper Genie refills, another necessity in our house, and we would save money by ordering a three pack through Amazon with the 30% discount, so I'm going to start that subscription for awhile also. If you don't use disposable diapers, I saw that Amazon also sells all forms of cloth diapers. I don't know enough about cloth diapering to know if you are saving any money by going this route, but it wouldn't hurt to check it out, right?

I feel kind of silly to say this, but you cannot imagine how freakin' excited I am for my huge box of diapers to show up on Wednesday. :)

In other savings news, I took some advice from Penny Pinchin' Mom before I went grocery shopping. I looked at the sale ad for Dillons (and compared them to what I knew some of those items cost at Walmart - Walmart is usually cheaper, but not always with a good sale!), organized my coupons, and figured out what I already had in my cupboards and freezer. With a little planning around what was on sale this week, I managed to get away with only spending $76 on groceries (plus paper towels, shampoo and a couple other non-food items). Normally I spend about $100-$125 a week, so this was pretty big. I know we won't be able to save that much on groceries every week, but it was a nice start to keep me motivated.

So to anyone reading this blog: What websites do you read with advice for saving money? Or what strategies do you use that have worked? Leave me a comment and let me know!

Super Bowl Sunday

We are Steelers fans, so we camped out in front of the big screen tonight to watch the game. Raegan actually paid some attention to what was going on, but mostly she just had fun being downstairs with her family.

Procrastination, ahoy!

I won't lie - having time off of work is nice. The timing of 2011's Snowpocalypse? Not so nice, from a work-related standpoint. Our tri-yearly child assessment tool is due this Friday. This means that I have to assess 31 children on 64 different developmental objectives. Do the math, that's a lot of work! I also have parent teacher conferences starting next Tuesday, which requires quite a bit of prep work to have all 31 children's portfolios ready. Luckily, this year I was seized by a very abnormal urge to get things done ahead of time, so I'm pretty much ready for conferences. What I have left involves printing off reports related to those developmental objectives I mentioned above. Which requires me to get them done.

I was a good little employee and made the decision to work from home this morning. So off Raegan went to daycare for the morning, and I cracked down and didn't let myself get too distracted by the internet. At this point, 17 out of 31 children are completely finished, and I feel like I have some breathing room on Friday now. I also came to the realization that because we will only have one day with children this week (I'm assuming that we will be back at school tomorrow, and I don't ever have children on Fridays) I can simply recycle this week's lesson plans into next week, and just come up with new small groups for next Thursday. My Friday is looking a whole lot better now.

All of that being said, I decided to spend Raegan's nap writing in my blog instead of working. My good employee skills only reach so far. :) And since I've already bombarded this blog with photos and videos, I decided to do some actual writing instead.

As I am slowly getting the house more organized by going through closets and purging, I'm faced with my own clothes closet. I think one of the things I would really like in our next house would be a walk-in closet, but in the meantime, I have to make do with what I have. It's not pretty. I have a lot of clothes. And shoes. And purses. And yet, I wear the same rotating 7 or 8 outfits and never change out my purse. So, obviously, it's time to tackle my closet.

What is it about clothing that makes it so hard for us to get rid of it? I absolutely know that I am not the only woman who has this problem. I've mentioned my need to purge my closet before to co-workers and friends and have gotten the same responses about how they need to do the same. Why do I hang on to t-shirts from high school? I don't really need a rotation of 15 different t-shirts for working out - we *do* have a washer and dryer. Obviously, there are things you hold onto because you love them. They fit well, you feel good in them, they're super comfy. My K-State sweatshirt falls into this category. I wish I could clone it so that I would have it to wear every day of the week and it would never wear out. Some things you keep for the memories. I still have my wedding dress in it's garment bag, and the souvenier shirts that I got on our honeymoon to Cancun. Some things you keep for practicality. I have all of my maternity clothes packed away in an under-bed box, for if we decide to have another baby. But then there are items of clothing that I have no idea why on God's green earth I've held on to for so long. Like the above mentioned high school t-shirts. Or the khakis from 8 years ago that I seriously doubt I will ever fit into again.

I think a lot of women hold on to clothing in the hopes that it will motivate them to get back down to a smaller size that they used to be. I know that's why I still have those khakis, and some other various items taking up room in my not-walk-in-closet. But as I think about it, I don't know that it's actually motivating to hang on to those clothes. Instead, doesn't it kind of beat you up? When month after month you still don't fit back into those clothes. Or on the other hand, maybe hanging onto those items holds you back? Keeps you from being happy with your body the way it is now, instead of wishing for what used to be.

Having a baby can be hard on your self-image. I've pretty much gotten my pre-baby figure back, but there are still some signs of pregnancy. I was all stomach when I was pregnant, and I have the stretch marks and lumps all over my stomach to prove that I'm not just saying that. The rest of me has bounced back fairly well. (Although let's not talk about how hard nursing can be on your boobs....) I fit into all of my pre-pregnancy jeans and dress slacks for work. It's the shirts that are a different story, because I no longer have the smooth stomach that I did before. Most days I'm okay with that. I've bought some new shirts that cover things up, and I just shrug and figure that I got something pretty spectacular in return. But somedays I look at some of the clothes that are still in my closet and get kind of negative about my body. So maybe it's time to get rid of all of those old clothes, and be happy with the here and now. (Or at least box them up with my maternity clothes so that I won't have to look at them every day.)

I read a post at the blog Kendie Everyday (which I found through my old college roommate Kim) with rules for purging your closet. I don't think I'm quite ready to do the 30 for 30 remix like Kim is, but I think a good start would be to get rid of some things in my closet. It might free up a lot more than just some closet space.

More snow day fun!

Luke and Zane showed Raegan how to do somersaults last week, and she LOVES it. L-O-V-E-S it. I was thinking about doing a Mommy and Me gymnastics course with Parks and Rec later this spring, and now I'm definitely going to do it. :)


Here are those pictures of the kids entertaining themselves that I wasn't able to upload last night. But first, a few pictures to show you what we've been dealing with the last couple days:

Yep, that says 6 degrees. That doesn't even take the windchill into consideration.

I don't think our total snowfall was actually all that much, but the wind made it drift quite a bit on our back deck.



Anyone want to sit on that rocker? :)

Raegan is super obsessed with putting on her hat and gloves right now.

Lots of chasing and running around games the last few days....

Raegan spent forever trying to wrap this dish towel around her. When she finally got it, she walked around the house forever with it on like a cape.

I started working on my February goals by going through my cookbook drawer. Raegan decided to help me.

"Let's make this recipe Mama!"

Stuck at home, but still having fun!

Looks like tomorrow is going to be Day Three of no school. I'm surprised to tell you the truth - Salina often has school when the surrounding area schools and even non-country schools in nearby counties close. I think that it's a good call though, because it's bitterly cold and the wind is causing snow to drift all over the roads and making it hard to drive. I have never been more thankful for my all wheel drive V8 SUV than I was today. My mother-in-law came over for a little while to watch the kids so that I could run over to my school to feed my classroom rabbit. I will say that it was nice to get out of the house and be by myself for a couple minutes.... ;)



Zane actually said this afternoon that he would be okay with going back to school tomorrow, since we really can't do much of anything anyways. There isn't any good snow to play in, and even if there was, the wind chill is in the negatives so going outside is pretty much out. Raegan and Zane have managed to keep their spirits up for the most part. Although this Mommy's spirits weren't exactly up when a certain little girl got up for the day at 6:30 this morning. Little stinker!

My original plan for this post was to post pictures of how the kids have been entertaining themselves over the last two days, but as usual Blogger is taking forever to upload photos, so instead you get a couple videos.



I was trying to get a video of Zane playing a song on his trumpet, to show you all how good he's getting. Didn't quite work out with Raegan there. She often sings along to Zane's playing, and it's pretty funny!



Zane's cousin Keenan came over later in the afternoon. Raegan seems to really wish that she was old enough to just join in with them. She starts making noises when she hears them making noises in this video. Originally she was trying to put her jacket on (which means she drapes it over her head or around her shoulders.)

Kids Say the Funniest Things

I'm going to go ahead and do the Writer's Workshop for this week today, since I'm at home thanks to ANOTHER SNOW DAY! :) Gotta love a four day weekend! So the prompt I chose for this week is:

3.) Describe the last thing that made you laugh really hard.
Last week we went to Kohl's. I had Kohl's cash plus a 30% off coupon, and Zane was desperately in need of new shoes. (We ended up getting him a nice pair of Nikes that were originally $65 but we paid $33 for - score!) As we were standing in line to check out, Zane was looking at his advertisement, something about how you could register to win a trip to L.A. He said, "I don't know if I would really want to go to Los Angeles, would you Shannon?" I said, "Well, yeah, a free trip is always good." He said, "Yeah, but I'm just not really into gambling." (Totally serious and thoughtful when he said this, btw.) It took me a second to figure out what in the world he was talking about, then it dawned on me. "Zane, gambling is in Las Vegas, not Los Angeles." Hahahahahaha, I'm giggling just typing out the story.

And since Zane was the last thing to make me laugh really hard, let me add another story about him. One morning, not that long ago, when Zane and I headed to his school to drop him off, there was a Nickleback song on the radio. As I pulled up to the curb at his school to let him out, he said, "Shannon, that song is full of metaphors and similes. I was just picking them out as he was singing." (Obviously this must be what they are studying in English right now.) Sometimes I feel a little bad laughing at him because he's being so darn serious, but he just says the funniest things sometimes.