A little end of the summer reading

I know....summer is almost over, at least in a back to school sort of way. 

My kids head back to school in a little less than 3 weeks....uugh! 

It went by so fast it hardly got started. Despite the fact that it's almost over, I thought Corban and I could read through a fun book together and brush up on some math skills before he heads back to school. 

Yesterday I stopped by a new little store up the street called SAVERS. Did not know what to expect at all since I had never heard of them before. Apparently it's like a Goodwill, a much nicer cleaner, better organized Goodwill and it benefits Big Brother and Big Sisters.  

I didn't really need anything so I just mostly shopped the books and found some perfect ones for Corban at a mere .69¢ each. 

That's better than most garage sales.

Now which one should we read first? 

I'm thinking there is surely enough time to make it through Treasure Island. 

Visit Life as Mom for more great frugal ideas

They're back!!!

Yeah...it's finally here.....garage sale season! I've missed you my sweet friends and all your bargains just waiting to be snatched up with mere change. I hadn't even planned it, but I found 3 good garage sales today and spent a total of $3.50. I originally went to take cupcakes to Corban's school and then head to the bank and post office, but there it was a little orange sign luring me down the street. We turned around the corner and sweet mercy there it was...the first sale of the season and it was loaded. Huge I tell ya....Josiah spotted it a block away and screamed "this is awesome!". He loves a good bargain too, or maybe it's just the cardboard boxes full of tiny little toys. Oh the possibilities! We walked away from the first sale with only a plastic tool belt for the boy....50¢. Every boy needs a tool belt! We came across 2 more sales and managed to find a very nice dress shirt for Corban to wear on Easter. $2.50 is normally over my garage sale budget for a shirt, but it looks brand new and it was a $30 shirt for $2.50....not too bad! I also found a couple pairs of baseball pants for Corban for .50¢ (for 2 pairs)....the boy's seemed to have done quite well for themselves today. Head on over to Life as Mom for more frugal Friday ideas

Things I like!

♥ First off, I really like my hubby and he hasn't really had the best of weeks so I decided to switch the menu up a bit (since, due to possible freezing weather, we won't be grilling tomorrow). I showed my love by fixing him some smoked meat. What guy doesn't like a little smoked meat when they are down and out? ♥ I love this necklace! What mom wouldn't totally love this for mother's day. It's a little dressy with the pearl, but casual enough to be worn everyday. (hint, hint!) You can find it here if you wanted to buy one or look at other cool personalized jewelry. ♥ Britt and I really want to make (eat) these. If I had seen these before the baby shower I did last month I would have totally made some. Who knew? cake pops? Soooo cute and they look easy to make! Get your directions here. ♥ Stephanie over at Homegrown Hospitality makes the most wonderful "doodles" I've seen. I would so love to be able to do that. (Isn't it ironic that I picked the "be content" one to show you when I'm obviously wishing I had this ability...so not content of me). I do think I will try my hand at it and use this quote to put in a frame by my front door. ♥ I've always like to make stuff and be creative, but patience has never been my strongest character trait. I also have a bit of an issue with follow-through, unless somebody is counting on me doing something...then I'm good. Lately I've been oooing and aahing over some gorgeous quilts. I would love to try it at least once, but I'm not sure I'd ever get it finished. I love blue,orange and green together so of course I was drawn to this one. I'm so would love to make one of these for Christmas. I've got 9 months, do you think I could get it done in time? As you can probably tell, I like the basic quilts the best. It's really the colors that I like more than anything....and that you could snuggle up with one or maybe have a picnic on it...so many options, what's a girl to do??? ♥ If I thought I'd get it done in time, I'd make one of these cute little Easter baskets. I know spring has started, but I sure wish the weather would cooperate again. I liked it much better at 65° than say 40°. These springy colors are making it much worse! The directions can be found here. What do you like??

A sweet day

This past Wednesday was an absolutely beautiful day here in Kansas City (around 68 degrees..considering it's like 20 degrees out now that sounds really good). I had a couple of returns to make and some errands to run so Josiah and I set out to enjoy the day. We did make it out to the Legends (a very nice outdoor mall) to make my returns, but we didn't make it much farther. It was just way too nice not to just hang out. We did our returns and then headed to Panera for some lunch. Josiah wanted to eat lunch by the fountain so we did and surprisingly he actually sat and ate first before he went to play. He is very much into "being" somebody at all times, hence the jet pack he had to wear. I think he was some Star Wars character or maybe Buzz Lightyear...not sure...quite possibly a combination of the two. He enjoyed playing in the fountain with some other children that were there and he was pretty wet by the time we left. Good thing I had an extra shirt in the car...and a giant chocolate chip cookie from Panera that we shared. This is him about 5 minutes before he fell fast asleep. Enjoying a nice "spring is just around the corner" kind of day makes me very happy and is certainly one of the finer things in life. Check out Amy's finer things for more thoughts on this subject.

Frugal Fixes

I've totally been nesting since I took down my Christmas decorations...nope, I'm not pregnant! I'm just really bored with what I look at each day here at home. Time for a change I think. So in the interest of not spending much, but updating things I've been doing things on the cheap. Here are my new curtains in the living room made with my fabric I found for $3/yd and it was such a nice day yesterday that I broke out the spray paint and painted the rod as well. We did splurge on the plantation blinds, but I've been waiting about 9 years for those so it's all good...and I love them! The next thing I did was spruce up my boring brown candles I have on the mantle. Just took a couple sheets of scrapbook paper and a couple pieces of ribbon to dress them up all nice and perty! I found the candle stick on the left on clearance at Kohl's plus I had a 30% off coupon so it was about $6 and the one on the right was on clearance at Hobby Lobby for $5 ....pretty good for wooden candle sticks. They went from this: to this in about 5 minutes...time well spent! My next fix is for the boys room. When Corban was born Eric's mom gave me these Norman Rockwell prints that she had kept for a number of years, but never used. I love Norman Rockwell and have intended to use them once we turned the boys room to a sports theme. I picked up the frames at walmart for $2.50 each and painted them the red in their chair rail to match. It has taken me a year to finish this project, but hey it's finished now and I think they are pretty cute and timeless . My next project is still in progress. When I originally got this light fixture in the kitchen a couple of years ago I covered paper shades in black and white toille (sp?) fabric and they looked nice, but the paper has cracked on the inside from the heat of the light bulbs so they needed to be replaced. I was at Home Depot the other day picking up my blinds and found these shades on clearance for $2.50 each...a steal since they are exactly what I had in mind, but I thought I would have to pay at least $7/shade. They are shorter than my other shades so they look too ...umm...short to me so I am looking for some sort of trim to go along the bottom to lengthen them. I'm happy with them as is for now though. I have more to show, but I'll save them for another day. I'm currently working on repainting several picture frame for a collage display on my kitchen wall beside the table. Should be done next week sometime. For more frugal ideas visit Biblical Womanhood

Sweet whole wheat goodness

I really like the idea of using whole wheat flour in my baking since it's much more nutritious than white flour. I also like the idea of using "unbleached" flour....who wants their flour bleached? eww! Anyway, I've found that Bob's red mill Whole Wheat pastry flour is great for use in pastries (hence the name) like cookies, muffins, pancakes, quick bread etc., but could never find a whole wheat flour that I liked for bread and roll making. Most made the bread much too heavy and just not very tasty. I have managed to make a decent roll before with white flour (the best, my husband says), but always came up short in my whole wheat roll endevors. Not any more! I have found, thanks to Laura over at Heavenly Homemakers (she grinds her own...seriously), that Whole Wheat flour made from hard white wheat is much softer and lighter in texture, but has the same nutritional value as that made from red wheat. Once I learned this I went searching and let me tell you, this stuff is hard to find! Sure, I could order it online, but I find that to be a hassle and I certainly don't want to pay shipping charges. I finally found some and it is made here in Kansas so it's local and I love that. It is Hudson Cream whole wheat flour and I found it at Price Chopper. It is so much lighter and softer than regular whole wheat flour and doesn't weigh down your dough. I'm so thankful to have finally found a better alternative than regular old processed white four and it still tastes great! visit Laura's Gratituesday, Kitchen tip Tuesday and Talk about it Tuesday

I'm a material girl!!

Want to see my fabric?? It all started when I went to the Dr. again this morning to be re-packed for a little more pain relief. Afterwords, I wanted to go by this home fabric store that carries high-end fabric at rock bottom prices, well they didn't open until 10 and it was 9:15 so we went over to Joann fabrics to kill a little time and see if they had any good clearance. Oh My Word....I totally scored! Their clearance fabric was on 50% off the clearance price.....here's where it gets so good I can hardly stand it! It was all $3/yd....normally each was between $20-$25/yd. I am so proud right now I would like to scream....I called Eric to tell him, he was excited for me, but guys just don't get it. I bought enough fabric to make curtains for our living room, make a new window topper for my kitchen sink window, re-upholster the 2 mission rockers in the living room and re-upholster a footstool that goes with one of the chairs & make 2 new valances for our bedroom. The fabrics match perfectly with the new couch we bought in the fall....I'm so stinkin' excited I could pass out! Here is a picture of the living room & kitchen fabric. The plaid is for my living room curtains and window topper in the kitchen, all the way to the right is my couch, the top middle is a tiny red dot print and below is just a basic upholstery fabric that matches my couch perfectly. Haven't made up my mind about how to use the dot one and the solid one, chairs or footstool, pillows?? Yep...I already clipped it up to see how it would look! They are kinda silky so the sun shines through it and doesn't make the room look dark at all. Love it!! I plan on painting the rod black and eventually the walls will be one of the rich golden tones in the fabric (I think). Since our windows are so very ugly and I've always had a topper to kinda cover them up and now they will be a bit more exposed, my hubby agreed we could get some white faux wood plantation blinds for these windows...yipee!! Here's the tiny red dot fabric....this picture really doesn't do it justice. And finally here is the fabric remnant I bought for our bedroom. I was hoping it was big enough to do our headboard, but it's about 6" shy so I might use it for window toppers or pillows. It's very soft and yummy!! Head over to Biblical Womanhood to hear more frugal stories.

Bargains galore!!

I am not one to shop at a drugstore unless I need a "drug" mostly because I see them as being overpriced and I think that is still a correct assessment, but have I got news for you!!!! I started reading about "CVS'ing" and was quite interested in how it all works. Let me start by saying I am not an expert in the matter since I just started yesterday, but oh my I can certainly see how you could get a bit obsessed with this. Here is basically how it works: You go in and sign up for their extra care savings card (all I had to do was put down my name and phone #) and they will give you your savings card right then. Next scour their monthly add (in the store) and their weekly circular for items that are on sale and ALSO give you Extra Bucks (these are basically a credit you can use for purchases in their store) plus you might have coupons for these items on top of their savings. I won't buy things just to get the credit unless it is something I would normally buy or could substitute for something else I normally use. The first time you go in (like I did yesterday) you might spend a little more than you normally would, but it is going to pay off! Here is what I got yesterday: 5 Rightguard deodorants 2 16 packs Duracell AA batteries 1 2 pack 9V Duracell batteries 2 Crest pro-health whitening toothpaste I paid $48.75....this might seem like a lot for such items (it did to me), but here goes the fun part..... I received a total of $32 in store credit to spend next time. So I will reap the benefits of that first time purchase. The real key is to stick with the items that give you Extra Bucks with the purchase and you will keep building up your credit each time. So next time I go I will use my $32 to buy what I need and more than likely I will only buy items that earn Extra Bucks, I will earn more credit and so on a so forth. I radiated with pride when the cashier said "you just got this card?" and I said "well, yes" and she said "Wow!, good job!" There are a lot of ladies out there taking full advantage of this system and can probably give you far better info than I can like here so happy bargain shopping!!!