Beyond Excited

I'm beyond excited for my dear friend, Page, from Crazy Joy! 

As some of y'all know, Page and I became friends last year when we were team teachers teaching next door to each other.  What a blessing she is in my life! She is one amazing person and such a faithful follower of Christ.  Go on over and congratulate her on their precious blessing of their first baby! I have no doubt she'll document the journey on her blog in such a precious way pointing right back to her Savior.

Happy Thursday!

I might stink.

Today began our shark dissections in 4th grade! (Hence the smell.)

The lovely smell of formaldehyde has taken over my classroom.  Today was our first day with our Dogfish Sharks.  The kiddos got to put on gloves and touch and observe the outside of the shark.  Tomorrow will begin our actual measuring and opening up of the sharks.  Thursday will include pulling out and opening up parts of the shark.  Yum.  If we're lucky, we'll find the shark's last meal.  (Two years ago when I did this we found fish in the intestines.  Double yum.)

I had to suck it up and be an adult today.  I won't lie...my stomach tossed and turned when I had to reach into a juicy bag and pull out six dogfish sharks by their tails.  I've done this before, but that smell hits you each time.  The stench burns and I definitely need a shower.

Here's to another day of stinking.  Does learning get any more authentic than this?


So what about you? Have you ever dissected anything? Taught a dissection? Have any dissection horror stories?

thank you, Lord, for the weekend

This weekend was a fabulous break that was much-needed after the first full week back to teaching since before Christmas break.  (Yes, we've had at least one or more snow days a week since then.  Crazy!)  Our weekend has been nice and relaxing!

Friday

On Friday night we went with a group from church to Winter Jam, a Christian concert that included awesome artists such as Newsboys (fabulous!), Kutless, Francesca Battistelli, and our favorite, David Crowder Band.  You can't beat a concert that is $10 at the door.  We had a great time!

David Crowder Band

Chad and Justin cheesin'

Me and Cheri

Saturday

Well we slept into 10:30 on Saturday.  Amazing.

Met my parents to try out a new Mexican restaurant...which was delicious.  I had a "soft" chimichanga for the first time.  Love that they give a non-fried option!

Meal-planned, cut coupons, and got my grocery list ready.  

(We have started using e-mealz which I am super excited about.  You get a week's worth of meal plans each week that has been matched to a store's sales ad.  My friend Cheri [see above] found it.  It's endorsed by Dave Ramsey.  Perfect.  And because we do almost everything together, we're trying this new meal planning thing at the same time to help both of our budgets.  There's nothing like having close couple friends! I will probably blog more about it another time, but so far it is fab.u.lous.  Check it out.)

That afternoon we relaxed at home, I did some laundry because dirty clothes had taken over our house.  

No joke.

We ended the day by having dinner at Justin's mom's and dad's...yummy, homemade meatloaf.

Sunday

Our morning consisted of Sunday School and church.  Our sermon was amazing...about following God as a disciple and answering His call.  We even studied Matthew 16:24 ("...If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me.")  What is so great is the fact that Justin and I decided yesterday that we were going to commit ourselves to memorizing a verse a week as a couple.  And yesterday, I wrote Matthew 16:24 on our whiteboard on our fridge as our first verse to memorize.  

God is so neat like that!

  

Wendy's was the after-church lunch choice.  Yum.  I love their apple pecan grilled chicken salad.  (And yes, I have now written about three different meals in this one post.  Another one is coming.  Wait for it...)

After lunch we headed to the grocery store to try out our first shopping trip for this new meal planning thing.  So far it's working and saving us money.  Whoo hoo.  Just when I thought we couldn't shave down our grocery budget anymore, we have.  To God be the glory.  For sure.

Now we are "vegging" (do any of y'all use that term?) at home before heading back up to church for "Soup"er Bowl Sunday...soup for dinner and then watching half of the game with the youth group (while hubby does his youth-leader thing and I do my grading papers thing.)  And I will add...yes.  I confess.  I honestly only watch for the commercials.  We're a basketball state, not a football state.

What were the highlights of your weekend?

a perfect evening

After a crazy day at work where my emotions were up and down, I was so relieved to have such a nice, stress-free evening at home tonight.  I don't know what it was about me today...but I know that my poor kiddos sometimes saw the "not so nice" side of me.  That probably is still pretty nice compared to some teachers...but I was off, so therefore, as you other teachers know...they were off.  Tomorrow will be better.  I'm determined.  It must be.

So a perfect evening was exactly what I needed...

Grocery shopping that I dreaded turned into a great trip where almost everything that was on my list was on sale, most things I also had a coupon for, and I purchased three items for free.

I came home to a clean living room including a vacuumed floor and my sweet hubby had pulled out some of my artwork today and found a spot for it in our living room.  He's too sweet.

We had an amazing dinner of homemade chicken pot pie.  Yum.  (And there are plenty for left-overs!)

While dinner was in the oven, I cleaned the kitchen.  (Yes, cleaning makes me happy when I have the time and energy to do it.)

Our dessert (which isn't a common occurrence around here) consisted of these yummy little things that yep, were on sale too! Dessert for less than $1.50? Yes, please!

A relaxing bath where I was able to read two...yes, two...chapters of my current read! And the relaxing sound of rain hitting our home added the nice background music.

Paid a stack of bills including tuition for this semester.  (The happy part here is just checking it off the to-do list.)

Now I am relaxing on the couch, with a moment to blog, and looking forward to sitting still.


Pure bliss.


What does it take for you to have a perfect evening?

How Much Can I Save in a Year? Link-Up!

 January Savings 

$112.54

Best of Savings

{Free Items this month using coupons}

-Stayfree Pads

-Floss

-Horizon Organic Chocolate Milk Singles (6)

-Vitamin Water

-Colgate Toothpaste

-Honest Tea (4)

-2 oz. Carried Away Bath and Body Works Lotion

-Three Burger King sandwiches

Savings Tips

Jessie asked:  

"I want to know how you can use 2 coupons on one item, and what in the world is a Catalina?"

There are a few situations where I personally use more than one coupon aka "stack coupons":

-Target:  You can use one manufacturer's coupon and one Target coupon on an item.  (Find Target coupons on their website.)

-Kroger: You can use a manufacturer's coupon and an e-coupon (found online here) that you can load to your Kroger card to be automatically deducted when your Kroger Plus Card is scanned.

-Drug Stores:  You can often use a store coupon and a manufacturer's coupon on items you purchase at a drug store.  For example, at Walgreens, you can use a coupon from their ad or their monthly store coupon booklet with a manufacturer's coupon.  See all the details on how you can use coupons at Walgreens here.  And Money Saving Mom is a great resource to find info on the specific for each store when using coupons.

About Catalinas:

A Catalina is basically credit toward your next purchase.  For example, often at a store, if you buy a certain amount of an item, let's say 3 boxes of Ziploc brand plastic bags (just as an example), the register will print out a coupon good for a certain amount off your next purchase.  Often, Kroger will have a tag under an item explaining the Catalina you will receive from buying an item and you can also find these deals posted on deal blogs as well.

Rachel asked:

"I don't know where to find coupons. that's why I don't use them. Like where are you getting these?"

I get most of mine from the coupon inserts in the Sunday paper. I also find a lot online herewww.coupons.com, www.smartsource.com, www.redplum.com, and also, Target has online ones you can print. I use Money Saving Mom often to look up items on the coupon database. It will tell you where to find a coupon for a specific item you are looking for. The coupon inserts are labeled with a date on the binding that the database will refer to. For example if it says you can find a coupon in SS 1/23, it means it is in the SmartSource coupon insert from the paper that came Sunday, January 23rd.

Now it's your turn! Link up below with a deals post of your own.  Whether its an update on your savings so far this year or just a great trip you had with great savings! Anything goes! Also, make sure to go check out Thankfully Thrifty to see how Ashleigh's savings are going so far this year!

simple things

I've been really exhausted lately.  It seems like I can't keep up with anything.  And it seems like I have so much to take care of that I'm almost frozen and can't seem to take the small steps to get big things accomplished.  Is it fair for me to blame it partially on this long, cold winter we seem to be having?

So right now, it's the simple things pulling me through.  The simple things that are bringing joy.

-A weekend of fellowship,worship, and laughter with our youth group and some of my church family for a Youth Conference.
-Having dinner with my hubby and parents tonight at a local Mexican restaurant.
-Sunshine.
-Reading blog posts from you awesome ladies.
-Watching Boone smile when we picked him up from a weekend at his "grandparents".  Yep, our pup smiles.
-A new book I'm reading that I'm positive was an answer to prayers.

How about you? Do you ever have those times where the simple things pull you through?

How Much Can I Save in a Year? Update!

Remember where I introduced you to my "How Much Can I Save in a Year" project for 2011? I just wanted to remind you that you'll have your own chance to link-up your savings! On January 31st, Ashleigh from Thankfully Thrifty and myself will have a link-up on both of our blogs that will run through February 7th where you can post your savings update from the month or simply a post about a great way you have saved money recently.  This link-up will occur at the end of each month throughout 2011.  So how much can you save this year? We can't wait to have you join us!

For more information, see Ashleigh's updated post here!