Flashback Friday

I am going to follow the "theme" that Jill over at Scarymomy started with her Flashback Friday. You know those uncomfortable questions that you are not quite sure what to say or how sarcastic you should be in your response. Go check out her post! After reading mine first of course!!!

( I would like to add that now that my atty is making progess in this case, I am not feeling quite as bad as I was. I am feeling much more confident and certain that my son will come home, and things will work out the way they are meant to be-my son home.)

Tuesday, October 28, 2008

How do you do it?
How do you do it?I just don't know how you do it.How do you do this?How do you make that trip so often?How, how, how.I hear that an awful lot. I always have the same answer. I do this because I have to. I really do not have any choice. Sure I could not go. But is that really an option? This is my son here. I will do whatever needs be done to see him, and try to bring him home. If that means getting another job, ok. If that means no time or money for any extras and eating beans for dinner every nite, then that is what I would do. Thankfully for me (and my co-workers) I have not been reduced to beans every night.Often folks tell me that they could not do this. I am so strong for being able to stand this. They don't know how I get through this. How do I get up and function every day? The truth is I don't. What choice do I have though? I have trouble sleeping, I have nightmares when I do get to sleep. I find that I am irritable. I have been told a couple of times by the gals that I work with that I am being crabby. ( I am just glad that I work with people who are not afraid to tell me I am being grouchy. Then I can try to adjust my attitude and not take things out on them.) I am often short tempered with my family. I do not attend any family functions because it hurts too much. I used to go to my sister's house with my mom and we would have dinner all of us girls. My sister's husband works on second and she has two little girls. I used to want to take my mom or my sister and her girls with me when I went shopping. Now I only take someone when I am going to one of the grocery stores that are about 40 minutes away. That way the cost of gas is offset by the savings that all of us receive. I have tried to go on a couple of family outings, but I do not have as much fun as I used to. I try to avoid family get-togethers. I feel like something is missing. And it is. My heart and soul are missing. My son is missing.I have talked briefly to one of the pastors at the church that my sister belongs to and I rent a house from. They are willing to listen, but do not feel that they are qualified to help me in any way. This is beyond what they are trained to deal with. I cannot go to "traditional" therapy because that would be like waving a red flag in the air that I am "not mentally stable" to my ex and his attorney. Now mind you I would be getting therapy for the stress this is causing me and how to help my son deal with his stress and unhappiness.I cannot talk to support groups because there are none. I do not fit traditional support groups because my child did not die and he is not missing. He is lost, but not in the sense of the support group. You cannot find support groups for this because of the "symptoms" of the diagnosis of MSBP. According to the "symptoms" if I talk about this I am seeking attention and must have this MSBP. If I do not seek help, then I must have it because I won't talk about it. So I have decided that there is no point in keeping quiet.That is where this blog comes in. I get to vent out all of my feelings and start getting the awareness out there. This can happen to any mom out there. I get to use this blog to type out whatever I am feeling at the time. If I am frustrated and want to repeat myself 10 times over something that my ex said or did to my son or to me, then I can. No one tells me they are tired of hearing it, there's nothing we can do, or try to change the subject. If I put it on here, You can just skip over it. :) And that is okay. I know that there are not lots of people out there reading this and that is okay. It makes me feel better just putting it out there. In this very unhappy time of my life, I can at least get some satisfaction through this blog.

Walwart - from the 15th

I went back to walwart last night to exchange a few things I purchased a couple of weeks ago. I had a really good trip and will actually post my total here for you. I used up a lot of salad dressing q's in this order buying the dressings I thought my mom used. Turns out I was mistaken. So I had one bottle that was already past the expiration date and eight more that I needed to exchange. I also needed to exchange some of the wheat thins that i bought. I thought with my q's I would try the artisan wheat thins. I got the wisconsin colby, yeah, not so good. At least to me. So I had three more boxes to exchange. I got the regular whole grain kind. I then went to get the dressing. They only had three fat free bottles! The shelves were empty. So I took my three boxes of wheat thins and my three bottles of dressing and stated looking for vitamin water on my way back up to customer service. I could not find that either. Not in the water aisle, not in the drinks aisle, not in the center aisle. It was no where to be found. This is why I do not like our walwart. They have a lot of stuff but never the stuff I want. I get to customer service and she refunds the rest of my money. I am holding it aside as I will use it to get the other six bottles later. Anyway here are the totals of that trip from a couple of weeks ago:
Total purchased: $85.36
total q's used: $49.13
total tax: $1.92
Total Spent: $38.15
Savings: 58%
Not too shabby for a walwart run.

Makin' Bread!

Mary Hunt over at Everyday Cheapskate/Debt Proof Living has posted a link to her blog and in the blog is a link to a book called Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day. Check out her blog to get the scoop on this bread. While you are at it, sign up to receive her daily emails. They are packed with great money saving ideas. I signed up and I absolutely love getting the tips and stories. I bought the book and will update with how it goes. I can't wait to get it in!

Challenge update

Wow, did I spend a lot of money this weekend. I have to say I did not save any money really at all. I did use a bunch of the $1 off vitaminwater10 q's. I got free water for us for the weekend camping. That was good since it was hot. We went to walwart on Saturday night, Sunday night, and I went with my son on Monday morning. I spent each time I went. Not gobs each time, but for a total of $31.42, I think that I should have planned my trip a bit better. Most of the food prices are higher, and the tax is way higher. I could have saved a bunch to have thought ahead and brought the stuff we wanted with us. And not forgotten things. And not decided that we could do without it. Only to need it.... Live and learn. I will do better next time. Of course next time it will only be me, and I am just dandy with pb&j sandwich. Or would have been except I forgot any kind of bread....I had a spoon though, I was good!

Plus the gas prices have started their annual climb, so the gas for the trip cost more. Also had two extra nights at the campgrounds. We played mini golf, played a few games at the game room (0nly 50 cents each-not the money breaker), and went on the water slide.

I did not do any other shopping or hounding since last week since I was getting ready for my trip. I think I brought my average down this past week. Oh well. I will try again.

How you doing?

What I did not do this weekend:



I did not get sunburned-oh woohoo, you have no idea how happy that makes me!

I did not stay at a hotel-saved me some money

I did not miss any days with my son

I did not buy water balloons-my son has asked for these for weeks now

I did not bring very much money home



What I DID do this weekend



I did HAVE A BLAST WITH MY SON!!!!!

I did go down the water slide

I did buy a water gun- to have a water fight cuz we already had one water gun

I did stay at the campgrounds

I did cook on the campfire

I did have an extra day with my son

I did play all day

I did wear a hat to keep my face out of the sun

I did play games with my son - bakugan and pokemon and nintendo(gameboy and ds)

I did watch a movie

I did walk with my son

I did take several pictures

I did spend every available minute as close as possible to my boy. We sat next to each other for nearly the whole time.



This was a pretty costly weekend. I had three days with my son. I went down on Friday afternoon. I left work a little early. Thank goodness I got gas the day before because gas rocketed up on Friday. It cost me about $15 more to fill up the night before than it has for several trips. I stopped to get gas again later and prepayed to $50. I did not quite get a full tank and I was not even out! Then we had to check into the campground on Friday night. That cost an extra $10 because my mom went. I do not need to check in on the Friday night. I can sleep anywhere. My mom however has to plug in for her sleep apnea machine, so from now on when she goes I guess I will be paying for an extra night. We got to the campgrounds only to find that someone was parking their vehicles in our spot. They got up the next morning and left in one of their cars so we took that opportunity to start unloading since they vacated our campsite. Then they come back and the guy tells us that it is his campsite. I sort-of-in-a-nice-way argued with him that I have been staying on this campsite for nearly a year now for every other weekend and am pretty sure I know which one is which. He tries to tell me that he was told he was in the wrong spot and he was supposed to be where we were setting up, but that since we are all unloaded and he was already unloaded the day before it was all okay and he did not worry about so neither should we. There was plenty of room for all of us. No shit!? Well, good thing since I had that site reserved for over a month. I spend a lot of time there, I know where all the sites are. But, whatever! I did not plan on moving my stuff anyway. So we just smile and say that's all right. We'll be fine. We go get cleaned up to go get my son. No problems with that. I take S straight back to the campgrounds. We finish setting up the site, S rides his bike a bit, we play a couple of games on the nintendo's. Then he wants to ride his bike more, but with me following to go all the way down to the ball field. Now going to the ball field is easy. It's all downhill. Coming back would then all be uphill, ya know? So S cannot ride up a hill yet. It is too hard he says. So I have to push the bike. Then he tells me it is too hard to walk up the hill, he cannot go any further. (Drama anyone?) I am trying to be nice to him, and let him sit on the bike while I am pushing as long as he helps. HOWEVER, I will not do it again. If he rides his bike somewhere it is his responsibility. He can bring it back. If it is too hard to ride up hill and too hard to push uphill, then leave it at the site. S begins to tell me I am mean and his dad is right about all the stuff he says about me and that I am mean (notice he is repeating himself?), and this is all just not nice of me. Except I am still pushing the bike. I did make him get off of it because it was too heavy with the bike and him going uphill for this fat-out-of-shape mom. (I discovered this past weekend that I definitely need to start working out or something!) We kind of get into an argument about him even saying that, it is not acceptable, and if he feels that way and does not really want to come home, why does he tell me he wants to come home. He does not really answer me just says now he wants to go play mini golf. I told him no, we were not playing anything if he thought it was appropriate to talk to me like that. He pouted for a minute and said he was sorry. I informed him I was not pushing his bike back and we were not driving across the park since we could cut across the tennis courts and grass to get there faster than driving all the way around the park. He insisted he would push his bike back. So off the three of us go to play golf, with S riding his bike. We get down there and pay our fee and pick which color of ball we want. This goes really well with all of us with the same score for about three holes. Then S starts making some really really good shots, he got a hole in one, he got several in two shots. Yeah, then there was me, and there was my mom. We never got a hole in one and the first couple that we managed to get in two must have been a fluke. I think we both had scores of over 50 when we were done, to S's 38. I think, it might have been 35 because I think he miscounted a few times to go against his favor. He was just really bouncy and silly when he discovered he was beating the pants off us. We wander up to the office so I can pay for the campsite. It was a lot cooler in the office so S and mom come in with me. S wants to play air hockey and pool. I play a game of air hockey with him, and mom plays a game of pool with him. The games only cost 50 cents each so this part is no big spendy part of the weekend. Time to go back to the site. I tell S lets cut across the field because it will be faster. He cannot ride his bike up the road anyway, he will have to push it because it is a hill. Let's take the short cut. I offer to help him push a bit since pushing through the grass is much harder than the road. I tell him when we get to the gravel, he can take over pushing. He tells me how tired he is and that he cannot possibly push the bike. So leave it here. I told you I was not pushing it all over the place for you. He starts getting mouthy and hateful again. I smack his arm and tell him to watch his mouth and he hits me back. I grab his arm and he starts howling and crying about how I am hurting him, that is his hurt arm. Of which I know nothing about. I ask mom to take the bike, we are going to find a little privacy in the bathroom which was fortuitously right there. I drag him into the bathroom and tell him he needs to talk to me and explain what the hell is going on, why is acting this way, saying these things and being hateful to me in general. He starts sobbing on how tired he is, his dad kept him out late last night, kept him up late when they got back, and how come I did not come to his game the night before. AAHHHH, now we are getting somewhere. I explain that I was driving and I cannot go to the games when they are not on my days unless I take off work, and I am saving my days for court and when he comes home. He stops crying so hard, and we talk for a minute or so about does he still want to come home. He says he does. I ask why he says things like that about me being mean. I tell him if he is telling everyone that I am mean that the judge will not let him come home. He apparently only tells me I am mean. His dad tells him I am mean and he tells his dad that I am not mean. He only says that to me. Because he was mad and tired. We hug and put a cool wet paper towel on his arm which he holds in place like a badge of honor, he's so tough because he was able to stop crying and his arm was all better. It did not even hurt now. We spend some down time watching a movie and playing video games. I get him to lay down for a bit. He did not actually nap, but he did rest. After which he was a new boy. He was quite cheerful again, and did not say anymore mean things.



After taking him back to his dad's house, my mom and I discussed how much bad behavior my son is learning down here. He is learning how to lie, to cheat and to be manipulative. When I confront S on his behavior that is like what he displayed for a couple of hours on Saturday, I basically get told that is how he behaves down there. Everyone behaves like that. The kids at school, his dad, everyone. I wonder how this is going to go when he gets to come home. It will be a whole new world to him to be around people that won't tolerate that kind of behavior out of anyone.



I did not say this in front of my mom, and I am not sure that I would want to, but I have also noticed that this piss-poor attitude and behavior is almost always worse when she comes down. I don't know if it is coincidence or what. He does want to see my mom, but he always has a bad day on Saturday when she comes. The Sunday visit usually is just fine, it's just the Saturday. We (S and I) have many visits where he may have a bit of attitude, but no other displays of hatefulness. Just sometimes he is down-right mean when it is just the two of us. Of course since we had three days this time, once we got past the Saturday readjusting, Sunday and Monday were just fine.



On Sunday and Monday, we had good days. We played and goofed off. S had some money to spend, so he wanted to go to walwart on Monday morning after I picked him up. He bought a couple of toys, and I bought cheese, the water gun and donuts for my mom. We had a water fight on Sunday and Monday. We went on the water slide on Monday. We just really enjoyed ourselves. We spend a lot of time just being together which is the best part. When it is time to pack up, S really likes to help take the gazebo down. It is much easier than the one from last year and he is able to help with all of it. I think it makes him feel useful and helpful. He likes to feel like a big boy. Which he is, just was hard to do anything with the last gazebo. Plus it keeps him busy until it is time to go. Neither of us wants to dwell on the fact that the end of the visit is nearing. We get everything loaded and S climbs in the van and off we go to his dad's. The end is here.

I am keeping my fingers crossed for a speedy court date and a satisfactory ending. I am ready for all of this to be over.

Flashback Friday

I am going to try to remember to participate every Friday in Flashback Friday, hosted by Jill over at ScaryMommy. Now my blog has not been around long enough to have flashbacks from the blog. I also have only had a digital camera for a short while. I do have a picture to share though. My son has had a camera for about three years now. This picture represents about half of all the pictures that I have from my son S.

I mostly throw these pictures away after a while, when I think that S won't notice that they are missing. Now I can keep them forever on a disc because what fun to show S the super photographer he used to be! I do have to admit however, he is getting better. I swear I have not seen an up and close eye ball shot for a couple of months! Or the ever popular "Up the Nose See all My Nose Hairs" type of shot.

Gee, what will I do with no more nose hair shots?

Preparing For the Weekend

Tonight I am going to stop at Wags to get some ice cream. I love love love Bryers ice cream. Just most of the time I refuse to pay what they ask for it at the store. But you can't beat BOGO free and a MC to boot! I have a couple of MC to use on the ice cream. In my neck of the woods, it is $6.29. So I will get two for the price of one, which will be even cheaper with my coupons! So $4.29 for two with 1% food tax=$4.34 ish. I can totally handle $2.17 for a quart of Bryers! I have some leftover christmas candy (the old fashioned kind) that I am going to break into little pieces for a topping. What a tasty treat! I am also going to get some goodies to make s'mores. We love s'mores and S (my son) has been asking for them. We will get to roastin' those marshmallows and makin' some gooey goodness. Right now at Wags, they are 2 for $6 for the graham crackers and Hershey's bars, and get a bag of marshmallows free. I also have a q that if I get chocolate and marshmallows I get $1 off Honey Maid graham crackers. I will hope for it to go through. My favorite cashier should be there tonight, so I most likely will be in luck. Hopefully for less than $10 I can get all of it. I do not have any RR to help offset the price, but these are pretty good deals for my area and I do not want to miss them just because I am out of RR.

When I get home, I have to check in the super messy garage to see if my mom's folding table is still in there from my yard sale last fall. If it is I will load it into the van. I also have to wash/dry a load of clothes, wash the dishes, sweep the floor in the kitchen, and then take out the trash to get ready for the weekend. I will also try to remember to dump one of the litter boxes. I am going to try out some new litter. I got some Yesterday's News litter a while back. I am going to dump it in there and see how it does while I am gone. If it can hold up to the "weekend gone" test, then I know that it is good litter. I will let you all know what I think of it and how it held up, and more importantly, what my kitties thought of it. They are totally laid back on litter choices and will use just about anything without protesting. My favorite litter was Swheat Scoop. Unfortunately there are never any q's for it and it is super expensive. So back to Tidy Cats.

I had my mom order me a book the other day. I am super excited to get it. It is called Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day. I could get the basic recipe off the internet, however, I prefer to make whole grain bread. I could not find the recipe for that. I also would like to see the variations and directions to make lots of different styles and types of bread in an easy fashion. I read over on Mary Hunt's Debt Proof Living where she is joining the BYOB challenge. It stands for Bake Your Own Bread, has nothing to do with beer! I am hoping that this is another challenge for me to try! I will let you know when the book comes in. On the Debt Proof Living blog there is a link for the bread book authors. It is artisanbreadinfive and is the official website. I will let you know if it is as easy as it sounds.

If you are participating in the Challenge, how are you doing? Got any good ideas to pass along?

The Outdoor Kitties

EDIT/UPDATE: I talked to a lady that I work with and she brought me an antibiotic that she used for one of her pets. I am going to start giving him that in some canned food. I gave him a super small smidge of an antibiotic that my sister had left over (the pharmacy gave her too many). I opened the capsule, put a tiny bit on a plate and put the canned food on it. He ate all of it last night and I put some more out there for him this morning. I figured the worst that would happen is he would have a reaction to the meds. If I don't get some into him though, he will most likely die anyway. He will not let my get near him anymore. I am sure he is in pain and scared. I will let you all know how he does. Hopefully he will be fine as I will be leaving Friday night and will not be back until Tuesday morning for the holiday weekend I am spending with my son. I will just resume the meds then I guess.

I have several cats outside that I have been feeding. Last year I also gave them flea treatments and the like as I did not have to catch them and take them in to the vet for that. I had one of the cats die not too long ago. I was saddened by that, but that is the way of life. I now have another grey cat that comes around. He did not stick around too often when the old cat was there. The old cat was kind of the "boss" of my back porch! Now that he has gone, this new grey cat comes around a lot more. It took about two months before he would allow me to just pet him anytime I walked up to him. It was a gradual process that allowed me to be standing at the door, then be on the porch at the same time, to being near him as he ate. When I was finally allowed to pet him, I found a sore on the side of his face. He had obviously been in a cat fight. I figured it would heal on it's own. A few days later, the sore is now a wound and it looks infected. I got some neosporin and smeared it all over the side of his face. He did not come around the next evening due to the storms we had all evening and into the night. I saw him again on Saturday and put more neosporin on his face. I am assuming it hurt a bit because he flinched a bit as I was applying it. I did not see him on Sunday. When I got home last night, he was on the porch. I was thinking "oh, boy, I can put some more stuff on his face". Then he turns around. The poor kitty. The whole side of his face is swollen, puffy and oozing. He even looks like his eye is infected. It has green puss looking stuff all over his eye. I am thinking that he could not really see because he was scared of me and would not let me touch him. He was probably also in pain. I am sure that the infected area hurts. This morning I call my vets office. I wanted to get an antibiotic that I could set out in some canned food to make sure he gets it all. They won't give me any unless I catch him and bring him in. Now, I can't afford to pay the vet visit fee for my own three cats, I sure can't afford to for the strays in the neighborhood. Not to mention if I catch him and take him in, he would probably never let me near him again. Then how am I supposed to take care of him? The gal at the vet office just repeated herself and said to try to catch him and bring him in. I told her thanks anyway. I figured at that point that nature would take it's course and another kitty would die.
Then I ask another animal lover in my office who also helps with the local animal shelter if she thinks the shelter would be able to help. I do not want to take him in. I know that they will put him down. He looks a little mangy from living outside and has this awful looking infection. They are not a no kill shelter, so killed he would be. I just want an antibiotic. She says they don't give out meds like that, and only treat animals that they are going to try to adopt out. BUT there is this lady that lives in the county that rescues cats. Call the shelter to get her number. I call the shelter, they do not know her number, but try calling this other lady named Connie. She helps rescue cats. I do give her a call. She tells me she cannot talk right now as she is not in a place to talk about this, can I call her back? Absolutely I tell her. I call her back and basically she says the same thing. I need to trap him to take him in and then keep him in a cage to make sure he gets the meds each day. Well, I simply cannot afford that. She also tells me that there is a low cost spay/neuter program for community animals like this that I can participate in to keep from having more kittens in our little kitty community. I will definitely take her up on that as the female cat has already had one litter of kittens. I assume she abandoned them as I have never seen them. She was probably right around a year and this was her first litter, so it does not surprise me that she did not care for them. Hopefully I can get her fixed before she gets preggers again! I am really worried for this little grey kitty. I wish that I had the money to get him better care. I will update if there is any progress in the help of the kitty. Most likely he will die from infection before I can find someone to help. With my luck it will be the same as the last time the cat died, I will find his body in my yard when I come home from my visit with my son. Then I will just bury him as well. It makes me sad that there are not more programs to help with feral animals.
If you have any ideas, please let me know.

Just about me.

I can't wait for this weekend. I am really excited to go see my son this weekend. I get to see him for three days! I get to have for the holiday on Monday! YIPPEEEEEE! I always love to have extra days, especially this year as we have so many weekends that are getting cut short. I am pretty sure that I will get sunburned this weekend again! I have camped out two weekend visits in a row, and have been sunburned two visits in a row. I did get a hat from my dad, so hopefully that will keep my face from being burned again. I will also make sure to wear my sunblock.
I like it when we have extra days as well for the "vacation" feel of it. My mom is also going this weekend. When we drive down after work on Friday, it is usually around 2 or 3 in the morning when we stop. I have to get up and finish the drive which is about one hour and be there by nine am. So I try to get up around 7 or quarter after to make sure I can leave the "stopping spot" by 8. We get up and clean up in the bathroom, get some breakfast, get gas and just stretch our legs seeing as we've been in the car for about 12-15 hours or more at that point. We do get a bit of sleep though. Well, I get more when my mom does not go because she snores like a chainsaw when she does not have her sleep apnea machine on. This weekend will be the first time she has gone down with the sleep apnea machine while we are camping, and we are both curious how this will all work. I say it has to be an improvement, as I am the one that has to listen to her snore all night! Normally when we only have the two days, Saturday night is an early one as we are so tired. We drop my son "S" off and go back, take showers, sometimes eat then go to bed. It is pretty much the same on the long weekends too! But, ooohhhh, Sunday is such a nice day. We have no sadness as the day is the last, we have no moodiness as I have to go and leave him yet again. No, we don't have that stress on the Sunday visit because the visit is not over yet! There is one more day! Sunday we just get to play all day. No unpacking and setting up camp like on Saturday, no packing up like a regular Sunday visit. Just a whole day to play. Well, eight hours. But that is better than a poke in the eye! Monday will be stressful when the time comes to pack up, but what a blast those extra hours are. Then on Sunday evening we can sit around the campfire. We will probably have one while S is there as I am planning on having S'mores this weekend. He has been wanting to make them for the last two visits, but I did not get the "stuff" yet. I will pick the goodies up this week at cvs. We will also have hot dogs cooked over the fire. My mom is going to bring her dutch oven and we will make peach cobbler in the fire as well. And, I think this is the weekend that the ice cream man starts coming around! He drives an old fashioned ice cream truck and sells the ice cream treats every weekend in the summer. This is also the weekend that the pool and water slide open, along with the putt-putt. The game room is open the whole time the park is open. Mostly we swim or just play outside. Eat some ice cream, have a fire, ride bikes, play ball. I love my visits. I can't wait for this weekend.

Challenge Update-The Weekend

I went to walwart on Friday night after work. I do not have my receipt with me today as I need to return/exchange some of the Kraft dressings that I bought. I was buying it up for me and my mom to use as marinades, and it turns out she will only use the fat free ones. So, I will take it back to get fat free.....I will post my actual totals when I am done with that reciept, but my savings were somewhere around 50%. Not too shabby for walwart.

Saturday morning I took my van in to get the windshield replaced. I went to the used parts junkyard which has an agreement with a local company to put windshields in at a reduced rate. Yeah, it's reduced cuz they do a lousy job. There is a gap on the outside molding at the bottom of the windshield. I called and they contacted the guy who did the replacement and he said it should be fine. Just take a hose to it to make sure it does not leak. But surely it will be okay. Oh we shall see, with my luck it will leak. He already had informed me Saturday he did the best he could and to leave the tape on the window for at least a day or two to make sure the glass did not come out. Let the glue and all that dry.

Since I could not use my van on Saturday, I did not get all my errands done. I called my sister to borrow one of their vehicles. I got to use their car. Compared to my van, it feels like I am sitting on the ground in the car! It feels really weird driving something that low and small. So I first go to wags to see if they will let me use my rr which expired the day before. NO we will not. So I leave. I will try tomorrow with my favorite cashier. She is really nice and does not complicate orders by arguing about my q's.

Then off to cvs. I was not sure about going as I lost my extra care card. The cashier told me to call 1800 shop cvs and see if they would help me out. I do plan to call today. I am not making any phone calls as I am still waiting for the return call about my windshield. She gave me a new card to use temporarily. I did pretty good.

For my first order, I used my rain check for the command strips 2 for $5 and get $5 when you buy $15. I bought my six and used my six $2.50 off q's and also purchased the bayer meter. I had one q for it and got my $5 for that. I only pay 1% tax on the monitors. I pay 7.75% on the general merchandise. My subtotal was zero and my tax was $1.31! Not too shabby for getting $10 in EB back.

On my second order I got four boxes of the Kellogs cereal which were $2.00 a piece. I also bought three ragu pasta sauces. I only had three q's for this, and did not have any q's for the peanut butter as I had already used them. However the 3 for $5 on the pasta sauce is a good price here anyway. I found CFL bulbs on sale for $1.49 which is a super price! I got two of those. I can always use light bulbs. I am trying to replace all my old light bulbs with the cfl's as the old ones burn out. I used four $1 off cereal q's, three 30 cents of ragu, and my $10 EB from the previous order. I paid $1.14 total on the second order. No EB but I was not sure if I would keep this card as my cashier said if I call the 800 number and explain what happened, they may be able to print off the eb again and send them and a replacement card. That would be cool if they can.

So my total cvs purchases this weekend was $2.45 for $143.21 worth of merchandise. I can live with that. I gave some of my purchases this weekend to my mom. I have not donated the monitor yet as my mom was recently diagnosed with diabetes. Her doctor wants to wait and see if her numbers change after being on the sleep machine at night. If they improve, then I will donate it. If they do not and she has to start checking her blood sugar, then she will not have to buy the machine. I also shared some of my q's with my sister at walwart this weekend when we went shopping together. She used the q's and did some price matching and she saved around 50% as well. Not too bad for either one of us this weekend. I added to my stockpile relatively cheaply, and my sister started hers.

Here are a couple of pics of my deals this weekend. The first is the walwart run and the second is the cvs run.

After I went to cvs I decided to run to walwart again to get more diet pepsi as it was marked down to $4.98 a case. On my way there, the check engine light comes on in my sister's car! I call to tell her, run to walwart and then run by Advance auto so they can see what is wrong with it. I take it back to her because it is something to do with the emissions but it will run okay for now. I swear at this rate no one is ever going to let my use their car, I can't keep any of them running!

Challenge Update

I did not actually follow my list for last night. I did try to get my van greased but my mechanic got called out and was not there. I will try again tonight. I am also going to make a run to walwart tomorrow as I have a couple of good q's expiring and I want to use them. Tomorrow I also have to go to Wags as my RR expires tomorrow and it is one of the $10 ones! I must make sure to use it!
Tomorrow at walwart, I intend to use that last of my Pace q's and get chips and salsa. I will also use a couple of my Kraft q's and if the A1 is still on sale will be using some of those as well. While I am there, I will have them price match my County Market who has Hunts Ketchup on sale for $1. I have 20 cents off q's for that. I will also check their price again on Wheat Thins as I have one more q for BOGO artisian wheat thins and also a $1 any box. I will also have them price match the kfart ad for the general mills cereals. I have q's to use for that as well. Hopefully they will not give me any problems. I don't ususally go to walwart because the staff is not friendly, and there are many brands that they carry but not the "flavor" of what I want. We will see. I will let you all know how I fared!

Organizing

A lot of folks over on the Pound have been talking about organizing pantries, cabinets and closets in order to fit all their goodies in. So far I have been purging as I declared I would in my resolutions, albiet slowly. I do have a before and after picture of one of my kitchen cabinets though.

Here is the before picture. As you can see, I was just stuffing things in! I could not really even find anything. Now the after:

I totally did not have as much as I thought I did! Of course this is one cabinet. I did not remember to take pics of other cabinets, but with all of my purging, I now have two - count 'em- two empty cabinets. That is a lot to get rid of.



I also cleaned my furnace last night. I vaccuumed all the dust bunnies around the outside, pulled out the filters to clean and vaccuumed the inside as well. I pulled the deep freezer out of the bathroom and put it back in the kithchen (I don't like it in the kitchen as the only place it fits is right in front of the door where I come in and out. I like it less in the bathroom though I guess!).

I moved my two sets of plastic drawers into the bathroom in the freezers place. This makes more sense to me as the drawers are where I keep my stockpile of toiletries like shampoo and conditioner, bandaids, you get the idea...

I will hopefully remember to take more pictures as I clean and organize my house and stockpile.

Challenge Update

For Wednesday:

I will have my car greased tonight. My mechanic says it will only take him a few minutes. I asked him what he would charge and he did not answer me. I will probably give him $10 for his time and grease even if he says no charge. I do not want to be greedy and take advantage of him.

I gave my cats a treat this morning of a can of tuna. I can usually get tuna cheaper than cat food. I use only one can of tuna and two cans of cat food. The only time I get canned cat food is when Kmart is doing their doubles. Then I can get the food for cheaper than the cheap-o tuna.

I made my lunch for today. I made tuna salad, found some leftover taco soup ( not really sure how long it has been in there, but it smelled all right!), and brought some green beans. If I need a snack of some sort later, I have some popcorn that I keep at work.

Tonight, I am going to meet up with a friend of my dad's. She is a single mom(I think), and she has four kids. She wants to learn how to coupon! Hopefully another new face on The Pound!

I have been turning the heat down to 58 or 60 degrees. The heat does still come on occasionally. I did turn it up yesterday morning and this morning while I was getting ready for work and I was cold. I just turn it down before I leave for work.

I keep the lights off in the rooms I am not in. In fact, the two upstairs rooms have no items plugged in at all. The storage room downstairs only has a lamp plugged in, the kitchen has only the fridge and stove that stays plugged in because I unplug all appliances when not in use. The living room only has one lamp and one "nightlight" plugged in to timers to come on at some point in the evening. The lamp goes out fairly early, and the "nightlight" goes out in the morning when it starts getting light outside. I do not even have the t.v. on a power strip, it is just not plugged into anything!

I will try to find something to fix for dinner if I get home early enough to have for lunches and freezer meals. I had several errands to run last night and did not get home early enough. I ended up being at my sister's house until around 11:30!

I ordered a windshield for my van at the car recycling center yesterday, and they have a guy that will put it in on Saturday's for a discounted rate. It will save me about $100 going through these folks. The crack in my windshield is now pretty large and you can definitely tell it is there. I want to get it fixed before I get a ticket. Then I would have to pay for the ticket and to repair the windshield anyway. I had to get the money from my dad though. I did not have enough money to pay for it right now.

I do not plan any shopping today. I have no money right now. Thank goodness Friday is payday!

Challenge Update

I did spend money Monday. I got $50 worth of gas. I cannot say I filled the gas tank because as gas prices creep back up again, $50 does not fill my tank. I really hope prices do not keep going up again for the summer.
Other than that I spent no money. I did however cost myself some money for Tuesday. I stopped by to see my dad. I ended up staying longer than I meant to and did not have time to cook anything before I dropped into bed. I was really tired from my trip home and by 8:30 I was ready to fall asleep standing up. I managed to get some q's clipped and that was all. Since I was not able to stay up longer, I did not cook any food for my lunch on Tuesday. I did not have anything in my freezer ready for lunch either. I have apparently used all my pre-made meals up and did not realize it. So I will get a pizza from the pizza dude at lunch today, and will make sure that I make food tonight for lunches this week. And extras for days like this. I will also batch cook this weekend again.
Since I was not home for very long before I went to bed, I used next to no electricity last night. Lights were only on for about an hour. I also did not eat dinner last night, so no food costs.
For Tuesday, I am going to buy pizza for lunch. They are $5. I am not going to any stores so I will not spend any money there. I do plan to swing by my mechanic's house and have him grease the front end of my van. When the "other guy" fixed it, I don't believe he greased it very much or at all. It has started creaking and groaning as I am driving. It did that just a bit for the first couple of weeks, but in the last week or so, it has gotten substantially worse (louder). I am not sure what he will charge for that, but am certain he will not charge too much. He may tell me nothing, but at that point I would insist on paying him a little bit. I do not want to take advantage of him. He has a family too( a S/O and four kids!).
Tuesday night I will do a load of laundry in cold water and hang the clothes to dry.
I also plan to go to my sister's house for a bit to get a couple of wipe tubs to repurpose for my q's. This saves them from going to the landfill, and saves me from buying another container for my q's since the one I am using is now too small. I am taking some magazines to her that I think she will like which saves her money from buying magazines to read (they are freebies that I receive).

How are doing on your challenge?

Happy Mother's Day

Now I do realize that yesterday was Mother's Day, but as I was visiting my son, I was not able to get to any computers. No offense to any of you, but I would much rather spend the day with my son! And what a day it was! We had a blast.

I went down for my visit and on Saturday my son had a ball game. I watched him play and then we went to the campgrounds. Just about the time we pulled into the park it started raining. Since it is quite a-ways back into the park to the campgrounds, I was hoping it was not raining there. It was not raining as we checked in for our site, but my son wanted to play a game of pool. We played a game pretty quickly, and by the time we were done it was raining. No surprise. I hoped it would stop quickly, but the van is plenty big enough to crawl into the back and play. We opened the windows to let the breeze come through and played Pokemon, bakugan, and watched a bit of a movie. Then I realized it was no longer raining. I have no idea how long it had not been raining, but we got out to play my son's version of laser tag and set up the gazebo. My son's version of laser tag is basically what we used to call cops and robbers and the previous generation called cowboys and indians. It is so interesting how the names of games change but the actual game stays the same? I made him change his clothes to get out of his ball uniform. He put on some clothes that I bring for him. A good thing too! My son wanted to ride his bike and me walk with him. And he found the only mud puddle in the whole park! So he played in it. He had tons of fun and got totally soaked! After a while I made him go back up to the camp site as it looked like another storm was rolling in. We then played in the water more by dumping water on each other. It was really too cold for that, though. I told him I was cold and done playing in the water and I was going to change my clothes. He was not done. He was not cold, he was going to keep playing in the water. I told him that he could wash the dishes that we had if he wanted to keep playing in the water. So he did, and served me food with bubbles (which he called the good tasting chemicals!) So I had a chemical lunch! Before we knew it our time was almost up, and I had planned on taking him to McDonalds for dinner. We packed up and drove to the restaurant and got our happy meals. They did not have the KidzBop cd that my son wanted, but he got two more, one from each happy meal and the staff was kind enough to let us have two different ones. Then it was time to take him back. That is one crappy time of day. At least when it is Saturday, I know that we have another day.
Then here comes Sunday morning. Yea! Time for the next visit. I go and get him and we drive in to get gas and ice for the cooler. He tells me he is still hungry even though he already ate breakfast, can he have eggs. My son love hard boiled eggs, but only the egg white. So we boil some eggs, I make scrambled eggs and toast for me, adding a hot dog. My son ate a hot dog and jelly beans while waiting for the eggs. Then he is not hungry anymore when the eggs are done. That is fine, I can stick them in the cooler. He changes into some play clothes that I have for him while I put away the dishes and food. Then off to the ball field to practice some ball. We go back cuz we are tired. I was so happy that my knee is feeling better because I was actually able to run the bases some and chase him to try to get him out! Back up to the camp site to get drinks and play laser tag again. Now it was time to get out the bike and race back down to the mud puddle. I took my camera with me this time so that I could get a few pictures of our visit and the mud puddle adventure. After a pit stop in the bathrooms, we play at the playground. I take several pictures again because my little man tells me he wants more pictures of the day because he wants to make a cd and call it the best times of his childhood, his days with his mom! I wanted to cry, but I managed to hold my tears. He said that he was not happy down there but he sure had fun on our weekends together. They were the best times ever since he was down there. So we talk a bit while swinging of what he wants to put on his cd, how he wants to title them and store them on the disc. Then we take a few more pictures and then go sit under a tree to look at them. He was really pleased with his idea. I think it was the best Mother's day present EVER! To hear that my son cherishes our time together just as much as me....That is the best. After looking at the pictures and talking a bit more on his disc ideas, we go play a little more. Finally I tell him he is going to have to push my up the hill on his bike if we don't go pretty soon, I will be too tired to walk. We go, except I end up pushing him and his bike up the hill! He was too tired! It is a pretty steep hill though. We played some more, laid around and watched more t.v., played more Pokemon, and ate lunch until it was time to pack up. My son and I both hate that part of the visit. Sunday afternoon when it is time to pack up and go. He does however like to help take the gazebo down, he pretty much took the whole thing down by himself! We load everything into the van, make one last potty break, and start the awful drive. I try hard not to, but invariably I get crabby, and he gets whiny. We try not to, but it happens, then we say we are sorry and try to hold in the tears. I don't linger while dropping him off, because the longer I linger saying bye, the harder it is on both of us. As I back out of the driveway, he stands on the porch and we wave at each other, I flash the headlights and honk the horn. We do this until we can no longer see each other.
When I call him later Sunday evening, and I ask how he is, he tells me he is being strong. That is what we tell each other to do until we make it through this. Be strong. We talk for a bit, but his dog starts coughing, and he wants to get off the phone to keep an eye on her. Then she hacks up whatever she was choking on and he changed his mind and wants to stay on the phone. We talk for a bit until our time is up. We say our bye's and hang up. I finish my drive home.
The only other exciting thing is that I stop to get a couple of papers in Indy. I stop at a couple of truck stops and get the paper. While I was there this time, I took the coupon inserts out of the papers that were still in the machine. I am not sure if this is something that I should do or not, but it is usually after one a.m. when I stop and I figure if anyone wanted the Sunday paper, they would have gotten it on Sunday, not go looking for it on Monday morning. I was just pleased to get a couple of extra coupons! Especially since the ones in my area are so crappy. Now to wait for the sales so I can use my q's.

Challenge Update

I have sort of saved money for yesterday. I ened up having to take my van to the mechanic to get the spark plugs changed and put the new fuel filter on. I drop it off on Thursday morning. My mom takes me back to my car on Thursday evening, and the guy tells me I need more parts. He says he can put everything back together, but it will still probably not run very well. So off we go to get more parts. My mom is babysitting the girls, but they were being pretty agreeable. We get to the parts store and it is another $66.02 for the new parts. I had already spent about $30 on the first set of parts. So we take them back to the mechanic and he says he can be done in about an hour. I tell mom to leave me there, I will just wait. Then Drama Girl wants to stay and get all pouty when we tell her no. I tell her I will come over when he is all done with my van. She still pouts but says okay. I stay and help a bit on the van to hurry things along, and then pay my mechanic $40 (what a super deal- he really is cheap). I go to see Drama Girl, but she already fell asleep on the couch. Mom and I get her ready for bed, and I take her upstairs and tuck her in. She was a happy camper that I came back and tucked her in. Then on to home so I could start getting the last few things done at home before I leave tonight.
I also went with my mom to cvs. I do not have my reciept with me, but can give a recount as best as I can here. For some reason, I thought that the cereal deal was limit of two. I read the ad, and saw it in the store but was just confused. I am going to claim that it was the heat. It was really hot in my office and also the store. I got 6 boxes cereal, 3 dry idea deo that were clearanced out to $1.12, one bottle of excedrin at $6.99 because I can never have too much excedrin. I spent $1.52 (I think), used $10 EB, 6*$1 for cereal, 3*$2 for dry idea-I got the whole amount they did not change it down, $1 excedrin, $1 cvs excedrin, and a $5 off $30. No picture today as I was too busy getting my stuff ready for my trip. Not too shabby, even if I did only get back $5 in EB. I was confused all the way out to mom's car.....I think I was a bit slow yesterday!

How are you all doing on the Challenge?

Challenge Update

Wow, I feel remiss. I have not posted anything on here for days.
- did not purchase anything on Friday.
-I did get gas on Saturday. I got $2.50 worth for the lawn mower to mow my yard. Then I spent $50 to fill the tank on my van. On Saturday afternoon, I went with my sister to CVS to help her and spend a few EB. I spent $2.60 of my cash and got back $7 in EB. According to my receipt, I saved $18.69.
-I did not spend any money on Sunday. I did drive to a small town in the next state (IN) about 20 minutes away because I was told that I could get the Indy Star at the IGA there. I was out of luck. They did not carry it. But my mom and I drove past a flower stand. We definitely had to stop. Mom got a plant called a straw flower. I bought nothing, just looked and enjoyed all the beautiful plants. I think that was kind of a waste of gas because I wanted to see about getting the newspaper so that I could get the q's and came home with nothing.
-On Monday morning on the way to work I stopped at Advance Auto to get some gas treatment for my van as it is not running smoothly right now, it seems to be missing. Actually ever since my trip last time. And here I am almost ready to go again. I hope it smooths out before I have to drive down.
-Also on Monday, I took a half a day off work to go with my mom to her doctor appointment in Champaign and to go to Meijer. I found out once we were over there that mom wanted to go to Target first. I spent $1.84 there. I got a camp flashlight for my son that has interchangeable lenses with different creatures on them. It has a spider, snake, frog, lizard, and a moon. I also got a tub of betty crocker frosting for 75 cents. Then we went to meijer. I did not need a lot of groceries, just a few things. I spent $46.05 and saved $32.77. I took advantage of their buy 2 of "x" products and get a free gallon of milk. I got two boxes of wheat thins and used a bogo free q and got a free gallon of milk. I also got 2 oreo cookies and got a free gallon of milk. I planned on buying oreos already for my son and me to eat on this next trip, so I got two and a bonus gallon of milk! I love free!
-On Tuesday, I spent no money again.
-On Wednesday, I am going to buy spark plugs for my van and go to my dad's to see if he can help me change them. If we can do it, that will save me the cost of paying someone else. Hopefully that will fix the missing problem with my van. If this does not fix it, I will be having the fuel filter changed when I get back (and get paid..).

Tuesday night I talked with my friend. She was telling me some of the financial difficulties her family is having right now. They own a farm. They have crops from last year that they have not sold yet. She is happy that her husband is no longer working a full time job on top of running the farm, but now they do not have as much money. She told me that they did shop around and found that they can save a little over $200 a month by bundling some of their services for internet, cells, and satellite. Her big expense that she did not know how to lower was groceries and household and health items. I am going over there next week to hang out for a while, have dinner and borrow some books. I did not tell her but I put a bag together for her and the family with some items out of my stockpile. I put in all kinds of stuff for her. I am so glad to be able to help her like this. I also told her the same thing I told my sister (who did not do it), which was to make a list of the most commonly eaten foods, the items for HBA that they can use if they have preferences. If they don't have specifics that have to be used to let me know that. I will then make a list for her the same time I make mine and get all the corresponding sale ads and then go to the store with her. We would go to walmart so they can price match. She does not go alone as she has three kids and it is too much to try and match sales to coupons, and keep an eye on three kids. I offered that I would go with her to cvs as well to get the really good deals there as well. She was really excited and told me she would most definitely do that. She would really appreciate all the help. I think it would be lots of fun, and I would be helping a friend that has helped me alot in the past. I hope this works out for all of us.

Monthly Totals

Now I have my totals!

I am actually posting my monthly totals two months in a row. This month is no where as good as last month. I am including the two times I ate out and the time I got donuts (this is me embarassed now) and they are counted as 1 item each. I am also including the postage I spent this month. I got the forever stamps which come in a book of 20 and I got 5, so I counted them as 5 separate items, and the packages I mailed each count as one, which was a total of 3. I did not count anything from my trips, and I did not count the items I bought for maintenance on my car.
Without further ado:
Number of Items: 199
Total Spent: $327.42
Total Saved: $352.41
Total Value: $679.83
Percent Saved: 52%
A little better than half, I'll take that.

Not up to par with last month, but that was a really good month for me, and I may not do that good again, unless there are some kick ass sales.