A Few Random Things

There are a few things, and pictures, I want to share, but none of them are quite enough for a regular post.  So here’s a very random post, with lots of pictures.

I love grocery shopping, and I love getting great deals on groceries.  Today was one of my best deal days in a long time. 

A Publix opened here last year, practically across the street from Harris Teeter, and they seem to be in competition with each other more than any of the other local grocery stores.  Harris Teeter has been sending a month’s worth of $10.00 off of a $50.00 purchase almost every month.  There are four coupons in each flier, and they’re each good for a week.  One of my coworkers found out that Publix will take them too.   I haven’t used mine there yet because overall I prefer Harris Teeter. 

If you’re not familiar with Harris Teeter, they typically have at least a few buy two get three free sales every week.  Their loyalty card is the VIC card, and if you link an email you get extra sales and specials attached to your card every week, usually for only a few days.  This week it was $5.00 off of a $30.00 purchase. 

One of the many things I love about Harris Teeter is that the discounts don’t come off of your total until the very end.  It makes me really happy to see the total suddenly drop, especially when it drops from $254.69 to $85.14.  The receipt says $86.00, but 86 cents of that was rounding up for a donation. 

I meant to take a picture of the items in the cart because I knew this one was going to be good, but Harris Teeter seems to take it as a personal affront if you spend more than 10 seconds in line, so I got moved to another register before I had a chance to get any pictures.  Hopefully this one of the groceries in the trunk will give you an idea.

It’s hard to tell, but it’s five bags of frozen shrimp, five packages of shredded cheese, two packages of Boca burgers, ten ears of corn, a bottle of multivitamins, 2.37 pounds of cherries, a package of hamburger buns, and a small bag of cat food. 

And here’s the receipt.  I’m not sure how well you can read it, but the shrimp alone at normal price would have cost $179.90, so significantly more than what I paid for everything.  I had a coupon for a free bag of Purina One cat food (which is the brand we normally feed the cats) and the rest of the coupons were store coupons.  The vast majority of the savings came from sales.  The total saved was 66%.  My goal is to keep it around 50%, so I was very happy with that. 

Honestly, back when I was a diehard couponer I could save a much higher percentage than that sometimes.  It took a lot of time to track down coupons, it took a lot of ink to print them, and it was for a lot more processed food.  Now I tend to stick with store coupons, shopping sales, and the occasional manufacturers coupon if it’s easily accessible, and for something we normally use anyway.  Most of what I bought today fits in with our new style of eating, so that made paying a lot less even better.  Okay, enough about groceries.

We made a decision not to have a garden this year, or add a lot of new plants.  As I’ve mentioned, we’ve been working on getting rid of clutter and organizing the house.  There’s only so much time in a day, so we thought it would be better to continue focusing our time and energy on the house. 

We’ve stuck with that decision for the most part.  I can’t resist snapdragons, though, so we bought a few, and I planted them in the flower beds.  They’re very low maintenance, so haven’t really taken our focus from the house.  This one in particular is doing very well.

We also bought a shepherd’s hook, and a hanging basket to put on it.  The basket is a mix of purple and yellow flowers.  The dominant color seems to change from week to week.  This week there seem to be more yellow flowers.

Last week there were more purple flowers.  And they matched my nail polish, so I had to get a picture.

We’ve finally been able to find cotton candy grapes this year.  We had them for the first time last year, and they quickly became my favorite kind of grape, and one of my favorite fruits overall.  The only place we’ve been able to find them is Sam’s Club, and they don’t have them most of the time.  I check every single time I go in there, and they finally had some on Tuesday.  I’ve been happily munching on cotton candy grapes all week.

There’s a white squirrel in our neighborhood.  I’ve been trying to get a picture for a while, but hadn’t been able to.  White squirrels are somewhat common in a neighboring county, but not so common for us.  This one seems to live, or at least spend most of his/her time at the other end of our street, and I just haven’t been able to get a picture.  A couple of weeks ago s/he was closer to our end of the street while I was out for a walk and I was finally able to get a picture.  It’s not the best picture, so I’m hoping for another opportunity to get a better picture.  

And because no post is really complete without a cat picture, I’ll leave you with Howard’s latest picture.

So what have you been up to this week? 

So Much For Blogging Regularly

Well, I didn’t  wait quite as long in between blog posts this time.  Once again, my absence has been mostly due to everyday life.  There have been a few bad things, a few good things, and mostly just average things going on.

Our neighbors invited us over for Easter.  Nick was sick and didn’t get to go, but I went.  They made a delicious dinner (I brought sweet tea, per their request), and they sent lots of leftovers home with me for Nick to enjoy.  The best part, though, was that I got to hide and hunt Easter eggs for the first time ever.

As we were sitting around talking after dinner Lori asked me if I wanted to help hide eggs for the kids to hunt.  I had never done it before, so I jumped at the opportunity.  Lori hid eggs in their front yard, and I hid eggs in their back yard.  When it was time to hunt them, Lori hunted with the kids in the back yard and I hunted with the kids in the front yard.  It was so much fun!  I had no idea what I had been missing out on for so many years.

The neighbors have said we’re invited for Easter next year.  They said we can do Thanksgiving, and they’ll do Easter.  I love that we’re establishing holiday traditions.  We are now in possession of our very own Easter eggs.  The neighbors gave us some, and one of my coworkers gave me some.  I’m looking forward to filling them to take to hide next year.

I’m still very, very, very slowly losing weight.  My weight loss total is now at 55 pounds.  I still have a long way to go, but it’s still ever so slowly moving in the right direction.  Sometimes it gets discouraging thinking about how much I still have to go.  It doesn’t exactly make me feel good that I’ve lost 55 pounds, and still need to lose more. 
The nice thing, though, is that I’m starting to notice some positive differences in how I feel.  I feel a little better in general, and I have a lot less trouble with my feet hurting.   People at work all started noticing around the same time, too.  Honestly, it was a little strange.  No one commented at all for months, which is fine.  I’m losing weight for myself, my health, and the future Nick and I want to have.  But over the course of a week or two, it seemed like half the people in my building started telling me I looked like I was losing weight.  I guess there’s a certain point where it does become noticeable, even to people who see you every day. 

We’ve been watching The Golden Girls on Prime.  Nick had watched reruns as a kid, but had never watched the whole thing in order.  I had never watched it at all.  In our defense, Nick was two and I was three when the pilot aired.  We’re about halfway through Season 2 now.  I love it, and am totally addicted. 

The rose bushes we bought on clearance and half dead a few years ago are absolutely thriving.  It still surprises me a little bit every year when they come back, and that they’re doing so well.  Neither one of us thought they had much of a chance when we planted them, but decided to give them a try anyway.  I’m so glad we did. 

Nick taught a first aid class for the Boy Scouts a few months ago.  Our neighbors are actively involved with them, and it came up about Nick teaching.  I think he was happy to get the practice in before he taught a class for work, and the kids really seemed to enjoy it.  They gave him a very sweet thank you card.

I’ve been trying to learn how to crochet.  I need a hobby that doesn’t involve food!  It’s taking me a while to catch on, but I’m enjoying it so far.  I’m left handed, which makes it difficult to find someone to teach me.  I’ve been using You Tube videos so far.  My aunt has also said she’ll help me whenever they come to visit.  She’s technically right handed, but does a lot of things left handed.  She said she’ll practice her left handed crocheting so she’ll be ready to teach me.  She lives in Florida, and there’s not a definite date lined up for a visit yet, so I’m hoping I can learn the basics before I see her, and then she can help me with some of the more advanced things.  I’d love any tips or recommendations anyone may have for learning.

We are still working on organizing the house and getting rid of clutter.  That seems to be another slow process, but we are seeing progress.  It’s a small thing, but now that we’ve organized our board games and made them much more accessible we seem to use them more often.  

I know that’s a really small thing, but I’m beginning to think that’s kind of the point of having everything in your home in good order.  It makes all of the many, many small things you do throughout the day or week easier.  We still have long way to go, but I am planning some posts with some our progress.  Maybe it won’t take me months to get around to them this time. 

So what have you been up to lately?