Round 1 of 3

Christmas! Wahoo for Christmas! I was SO ready for this break to get here! I need a break from students who were equally ready to be done with the semester as I was. Brian gets a nice long break from work too! On the 24th we usually go see a movie with my parents and brother, but there weren't any movies that sounded good, so we decided to play some board games instead. My dad (who is one of the most competitive people ever) won Clue. I was mad because he guessed the correct answer and I was going to win on my next turn! We played Scene It after that - my mom and I were WAAAY ahead until the guys got some lucky rolls of the dice and went ahead of us - and won. :( After losing, Brian and I went back to our apartment so that we could change clothes before heading to Christmas Eve service. As we were driving up to the church we were talking about how we should have talked with our friends Andrew and Amanda and asked what service they were attending. When we pulled in the parking lot we were EXTREMELY excited to find that they had arrived about 30 seconds before us! The service was good - but I'm fairly sure I drifted off to sleep - it did start at 11:00. Whoops. We came home, went to bed and I actually slept through the night. This might only be the second year that's happened. I'm generally too excited for Christmas morning to sleep through the night - and I always have to go downstairs and peek under the tree. I'm a snooper. However, we slept in our own apartment. It was the first time ever that I hadn't slept in my parents house on Christmas Eve. I thoroughly enjoyed my own bed.

We finally made it to my parents and started opening gifts around 10:30. I love that I am now far more excited to see how people react to gifts given to them than I am to receive gifts. I had spent some time shopping with my dad for gifts for mom and I couldn't wait to see if she liked some of the things I/we had picked out. My dad got her a pair of uggs. I'm jealous. She looked pretty cute wearing them. My favorite gift was a cookbook, given to me by my husband. He went through tons of recipes on allrecipes.com and made me a cookbook - complete with pictures and all. It is SO impressive. I thought it was an actual cookbook that he purchased until I saw the recipe category labels printed in my favorite font. It's full of recipes for foods that I love! It's a perfect custom cookbook. I love it.

Once we finished opening presents my dad told us that my Aunt Chris had passed away in the early morning hours. She's had cancer for a long time, and it was expected, but very sad.

Round 2 is tonight with the Foxworthy siblings. Derin can't make it to Florida with the rest of us, so we're going to get together tonight.

Round 3 - sunny Florida. Can't wait!

V8 and Holiday Sweaters

Have you seen the V8 commercial where this guy orders a hamburger with extra bacon and no lettuce or tomato - just to be hit smack dab in the middle of the forehead by the woman working the drive through window? The narrator then says, "You could of had a V8." I usually have to chuckle when I see that commercial. I often find myself in my job as a teacher wanting to give my students a similar forehead smack for the dumb things they say.

Me: Why don't you have any of your stuff?
Student: I forgot my backpack in my car.

I mean, seriously. FOR REAL. How can you forget your backpack in your car...Didn't you notice you felt a little lighter on your feet walking into the building?

Me: Why don't you have any of your stuff for class? (notice a theme here?)
Student: I let some kid use my backpack and he stole it.

Oh My Word.

Student: Do you want us to do this in SPANISH?
Me: You can do it in French or Japanese if you prefer.

Yeah...Spanish...cuz we're in SPANISH class.

Student: I was absent yesterday. Did we do anything?
Me: No. I saw you were gone so we sat and did nothing for an hour and a half.

I mean, come on. Do they hear the words that come out of their mouths? Did we do ANYTHING? They can't possibly think they didn't miss anything, can they???

I have to share this story... About two weeks ago we had a spirit day at school and students and teachers were supposed to wear tacky holiday sweaters. I didn't have one to wear - because amazingly after four years of teaching I still haven't succumbed to "teacher clothes". I thought of borrowing one from my mom - but I hope that over the years I've made clear that holiday sweaters with snowmen and trees and fuzzy balls aren't fashionable. Stacy and Clinton (fashion gurus from What Not to Wear) have said it MANY MANY times. I have a student - she is just about the sweetest girl - I love her to pieces and she said, "Señora, I have this teacher and she had on a sweater today. I, like, totally wanted to tell her that I liked her ugly sweater. But then I didn't know if it was on purpose. It's, like, totally the kind of thing she would wear on a normal day. I didn't want to tell her I liked her ugly sweater if she didn't mean for it to be ugly." Oh, bless her sweet heart. I told her she made the write choice. When she told me what teacher it was...I emphatically agreed that she had made the right choice.

Ah - ya gotta love 'em.

it just felt normal...

Four years ago I moved back "home". Yes, I lived with my parents again - but I was student teaching and not only couldn't afford to live on my own but I also didn't have time to cook for myself, clean anything, or do my laundry. If it hadn't been for my mom, I may have been the mangiest student teacher around. Way back then it was just a blonde (Amy) a brunette (Emily) and a red-head (me). It was a hard year - lots of transition and we were so thankful to have each other. After a few months, we found a fantastic church - and although it took a little while, we got plugged in and got to know some wonderful women in the church and after time, many more of our friends moved to the area and church became a place of wonderful community.

Sadly, after a year after all seemed settled, people started to move, our church opened another campus and people changed campuses - we got married and started to go to first service. Church became, well, just a place to listen to a message and sing worship songs. I knew people at church, but my friends I had gotten to know over the last two years were at a different campus, in a different state or at a different service. It was not the great place of community it had been. This has been continuing on for almost two years now. It just doesn't feel right.

THIS morning, however, it felt like it should. I heard that the guy who used to lead worship for Christian Challenge was leading worship at our church's other campus. Brian and I decided to head to that campus this morning because this guy is AMAZING. We both wanted a little piece of college back for morning worship. He did not disappoint! We're praying he gets the job for the new worship pastor at this campus! In addition to an awesome morning of worship - there were tons of friends at church. We stayed and talked to people after church for a long time. It was what church used to feel like. It's what church should be like. It was just a refreshing morning full of good community and good worship!

A first...

Never have I gone shopping on Black Friday. Well, that's not totally true. I used to go with my mom and aunts to the outlet mall in New.ton - if there was time and the day allowed, but usually that was on Saturday. Today, on Thanksgiving, I ventured out to find some deals - and I did. CVS had their Black Friday deals start on Thanksgiving day. I got LOTS of stuff for free. I met another lady who was doing the same thing - she told me she had trouble sleeping because she was thinking about the deals she was going to do today! She was very nice - and gave me a coupon for gator.ade - which I think is disgusting, but it was free - so I'll take it anyway!

I paid about $6.50 for all this stuff - and my receipt says I saved over $142.00. I also made $20.00 in ECBs. This was my best day yet at CVS. I love that store. I'm now excited to fill my belly with yummy foods. I will NOT venture into the herds tomorrow...that's just a little too ridiculous for me.

Ready to Give Thanks

This week has got to go down as one of my least favorite weeks. Ever. Monday around 10:30 we (the staff at school) got the terrible news that one of our senior students had been killed in a car accident. I didn't have this student, but I've had his younger brother for 2 years. I always talk to mom at parent teacher conferences and could pick her out of a crowd. It's been a long somber week at school, to say the least. Death #4 in 2008.

On top of that, I had bus duty before and after school. I hate bus duty. One would not believe what hooligans high school students are until one has bus duty. I got off easy this year. Last year I had bus duty during a week when it had snowed. Kids were throwing snowballs. One of those snowballs hit someone in the face. Startled, the kid dropped his iPod under the bus - and it broke. Then a fight broke out. Being the huge, strong and beefy woman that I am, I got right in the middle and broke it up! I'm glad bus duty is over. Phew.

I had to lecture 3 of my classes on why they shouldn't draw penises on the folders I use to keep them from cheating. Ok - actually that was funny because they were shocked to hear one of their teachers actually say the word "penis".

Ok - enough ranting. I'm very thankful for our principals. They have been incredibly supportive of the parent issues I've had this week- as well as the district coordinator for foreign language. My colleagues have been fabulous - sending notes of encouragement and simply siding with me because they're nice. They make it worth going to work every day - and my 5th block class - but they're another story. My husband was great too - sending voicemails, e-mails, packing notes in my lunch - he's just great. I don't know what I'd do without him. The week ended well enough too. We got to have some awesome hangout time just the two of us. Tomorrow I get to see Mark, Emily and James. I got to talk to my dear friend Jenny last night on the phone. I still can't believe I've known her for 19 years. Even though the week was tough, there were lots of good things - God was gracious. As always.

Thanksgiving is coming. I'm so excited. I love big family events. I love my family. I'm ready to give thanks.

7 cents and the importance of paying attention...

Well, I haven't posted about CVS in a while, so I thought I'd do a quick one. I must admit that sometimes I've gotten excellent deals on some items because I haven't read very carefully (and neither have the CVS employees). I wasn't trying to be deceptive, but I simply didn't read carefully enough. On Friday, Brian and I ran a quick errand to CVS because I had some Extra Care Bucks that were going to expire and and he was in need of some deodorant. I also thought I'd pick up a few tubes of toothpaste that were a part of the monthy deal. After paying for the items, we realized that the Extra Care Bucks for the toothpaste didn't print. I personally think this kind of toothpaste is disgusting. I won't even let Brian use if I'm around because I hate the smell of it. I sure didn't want to pay for disgusting toothpaste so I had the employee look at the ad and since they couldn't make the Bucks print, they had to refund the cost of the toothpaste and give them to me for free. Since I had used ECBs to pay for them originally, CVS paid us over 4 dollars to take 2 tubes of disgusting toothpaste, some kitchen cleaner and deodorant out of the store! Awesome!

Then I went again today to get some of the new deals for this week (and was terribly disappointed to visit three CVS stores and not find things in the ad). But I again purchased the same toothpaste, some hairspray and some water. Once again, after I paid for the toothpaste, the ECBs didn't print. That's when a more astute CVS worker read that I had purchased the wrong toothpaste to get the ECBs. WHOOPS. I guess that means I kinda stole those other tubes. I thus, returned the wrong toothpaste, bought the right kind and after those transactions my total bill came to 7 cents. So, I guess, all in all CVS paid us about 4.00 to take 6 tubes of toothpaste, 10.00 of deodorant, a huge bottle of water, 10 toothbrushes and a can of hairspray out of the store.

I think people may be getting toothpaste for Christmas. We have 11 extra tubes. :)

hurm.

Welp, after spending my Sunday grading papers and entering grades, I think I can fairly say that I am ready for summer.

While I was grading papers I was watching a show where a doctor pulled a live june bug from a girl's ear. Ew.

I haven't painted my toenails in a month.

I love pumpkin seeds and it pained me to have to throw some out today.

I went to a marriage conference on Saturday and spilled my coffee 4 times.

hurm.

tears...rolling down my cheeks!

I've just got to say, if you haven't seen this blog yet, you should really check it out. There's a link to it over on the right, but it's called "Cake Wrecks".

I have known about this site since Marie mentioned it on Facebook a while ago, but one evening while I was chuckling about one of the INSANE creations, my laughing peaked my husband's interest and he leaned over to find out what was amusing me so much. He then proceded to check out the blog on his own computer and after a few minutes he found the entry from September 16. He laughed. And laughed. And laughed REALLY hard. Harder than I've ever seen or heard him laugh in the 4 years I've known him. I love it when he laughes hard. His eyes get all squinty and his intense laughing will have me laughing so hard I have tears rolling down my cheeks. This went on for about 5 minutes after he looked at the 'what it's supposed to look like' vs. 'what they got' picture. It took him a while to calm down from that...

Then today as I was again giggling about something related to interesting balloons, he decided to visit the blog again. He checked out September 16 one more time, and here I am, again, wiping tears off my cheeks because I was laughing so hard at him laughing so hard. Anyway, if you haven't checked it out, you should. You just might laugh until you cry!

I don't believe he did it...

Friday at school was a little interesting. The schedule was insane, tons of kids were absent and I had an extra 78 minutes with one of my classes (due to the schedule) - and it was my favorite class! It was incredibly laid back and a ton of fun. I did, however, make the kids do some work. They had an activity where they had to write commands and then give those commands to a partner. The partner had to do what was told to him or her. I was sitting in a chair observing this whole process when one of my favorite students (who is a guy) walked over to me, got down on one knee and kissed my hand! His command was that he had to kiss me! I don't believe he actually did it! I laughed so hard - as did the rest of the class!

Brian loved the story too - but he couldn't let someone get away with kissing his wife - so we took a little field trip to DQ last night (where this student works) so Brian could finally meet him. It was a ton of fun - and our blizzards were a little bigger than normal!

I truly feel as though I have gotten sucked into the world of school recently. I kinda feel like I live there. Things are going well this year - I'm feeling like I finally have a good handle of some good practices and ideas and that the kids can't get to me anymore when they ask me questions about the language that I can't answer. It's just a little more relaxing. One of my favorite parts is lunch - we have an awesome lunch group and I have enjoyed getting to know people from other content areas. I love the ladies I work with too! Enjoying the people I work with has made going to work every day so much easier.

I'm also taking Razor's Edge 2 this year (a class through church). It's been a parallel with what we've been discussing in church on Sunday and has made me look at my job a little differently. I guess in some ways I always thought and assumed that the main point of my work was so that I could be show/share Jesus with and to other people who don't know Him. That is a large part of my purpose in my job, but I hadn't really thought that my actual work is of extreme value as well. The quote that has been seen often on the big screen on Sunday is by Dorthy Sayers which reads, "The only Christian work is work is good work, done well." It's been something to chew over during the frustrating days or when all I want to do is have a baby and be a stay at home mom. It's also been good to debunk the thought that if I really loved God that I would go be a missionary somewhere far away. I still see extreme value in that and some day would LOVE the opportunity to do just that! However, now just doesn't feel like the time. It's good to know that what I am doing right now has value to the Kingdom of God.

Next weekend is the 5th Annual Pumpkin Carving Party. I met my husband at the 1st party before it was know that it would be an annual event. I was sitting on the porch steps at Emily's parents house when he walked up the driveway and I knew. I knew I wanted to marry him. It's crazy to think about all of the things that have happened in the last 4 years. It makes me wonder what insane changes will occur in the next 4!

Pregnant...

Pregnant????

We had some friends over on Saturday evening. Just a little get together, no reason, we just wanted to hang out and welcome people into our home. After about 20 minutes my friend Rachel told me that she thoughtBrian and I were having people over to make a big announcement and tell all of our friends that we're pregnant. Even my best friend Emily admitted that the thought had also crossed her mind. Nevermind the fact that I told her on Tuesday that I wasn't. She then reminded me of what a good liar I was. About two years ago I told one of the best lies ever. She was wondering when Mark would propose and thinking that every weekend might be the weekend. The morning she got engaged I told her that I was so glad that I didn't know anything because I thought it would be too hard to keep that secret from her...even though Mark had told me weeks before when the big day would be!

I was utterly amused that they both thought that's why we were having people over.

Oh, but yeah. Not pregnant...as far as I know. :)

La Familia/Los Amigos

What a weekend! Wednesday we got some sad news that my sister and brother-in-law's mother passed away. She had been sick and she loved Jesus, so we know she's having a blast now! I was excited that my in-laws came for a visit from Florida to attend the funeral. We haven't seen them since March and hadn't planned to see them again until after Christmas. They've been staying with us for the past few days - and for any of you newly weds, it's much easier to have guests in your home after you've been married for awhile! Below is a picture of all of my Brian's side of the family at the funeral.

In addition to getting to spend the weekend with my in-laws, my most oldest friend Jenny came for a visit. We took this same picture about 3 months ago when Emily had quite the baby belly. Now she's a mom. I still can't believe it. I haven't shared with her yet that I want to steal her baby. I love him. I love these girls too. I don't know what I'd do without them for every single life stage.

The weekend was topped off by a birthday dinner for my brother-in-law Derin. He wanted to go to Texas.Roadhouse. This, by the way, is a terrible place to go if it is your birthday. I remember 2 years ago when we ate there for his birthday. I have been appalled ever since. The wait staff brings over a saddle, calls attention to you, makes you sit on the saddle and yell 'yee-haw'. You have to make a terrible fool out of yourself and you don't even get a free dessert. Seriously. It's awful. And yet, we went again and he mentioned to the waitress that it was his birthday - and sure enough - she made him get into that saddle and yell. This year, at least, I had my camera. So here are some pictures of the most embarrassing event.

He was an incredibly good sport about the whole thing. Had it been me, you would have had to drag me out. I would have rather eaten a bug than done that.

Yee-haw. Happy birthday BRO!

I'm kind of an aunt!

Yesterday I had the great honor to meet my best friend's son! J was born around 5:00 in the afternoon. It was perfect timing! I was able to be there right after I got home from school and was able to go back for another visit this afternoon! Way to go J and Em for weekend births!

Here's a pic of Mom and Baby J right after he was born!

Here's one of Dad and Baby J the next afternoon!

He's such a sweet baby. I am so excited to get to know him and his personality over the next few years! I can't wait until my kids are friends with Em's kids! I'm still in a little bit of shock that she has a baby...

And well, this is just typical of Andrea and Em. We always take pictures of the food. I had to post it because it's going to make her laugh when she sees I chose to put it on my blog. I love you Em! The food does look pretty tasty! It smelled good when it was wheeled into the room!

Kitchen/Bathroom

Um, yeah, so can you tell what this is?



What about now?



Did you figure it out? Well, these are pictures of our "King Feature Room" at the Holliday Inn in J.C. where we stayed last weekend when we went to my aunt's fundraiser for PanCan. We and my parents were curious as to what a "King Feature Room" included - and well, this is the feature, apparently. It is a window that looks into the shower. Yeah. You can be in the bedroom area and watch your spouse shower. An idea that was obviously designed by a man - so says my husband. We thought it was hilarious! Not very practical, since the light from the shower shines into the bedroom when your husband is still sleeping because it only takes him 15 minutes to get ready and it takes you an hour... Anyways.


And below - well, I've had some interesting 'mishaps' in my kitchen recently. But here's how you know it is the weekend. This is what the kitchen usually looks like on the weekend. It's due to the fact that we're both home and I try to cook at least once on the weekend.

This is one of my favorite things to make - even though it isn't technically cooking. It may be my last go around of tomatoes now that the weather has gotten cooler. I'm already eagerly anticipating tomatoes next summer.

This was my first 'whoops'. I, uh, took the lid off the pot, set it on a burner, ate dinner and realized that it smelled like something was burning. The burner I set the lid on was still on and it changed the color of the lid. Permanently. If you scroll down you can see what color it used to be.

And now for the second 'whoops'. You would think I'd learn from my first lid on a burner mistake, but nope. I did it again. Below is what tomato sauce looks like when it is charred to the top of a lid. This has been through the dishwasher. But, thanks to some good husband scrubbing, it looks almost as good as new now. I'm a little bit surprised. I didn't think that stuff was going to come off. I got lucky that the lid is still a beautiful silver color and not some strange goldish rainbow shade.


Ok - that was a ridiculously random post. I don't have much to report at this moment.

Pulled Pork for PanCan

On Saturday morning Brian and I headed over to my parents house to make the trip to J.C. for Pulled Pork for PanCan. My Aunt Chris (my dad's sister) was diagnosed with terminal pancreatic cancer and her 4 kids wanted to do something to raise money for pancreatic cancer research. I read on a sign that pancreatic cancer research is where breast cancer reasearch was in the 1930s!

Brian and I ended up sitting at this table (really, I sat) and took money from all of the people coming to eat the meal! They served pulled pork, baked beans, cole slaw, potato chips and desserts! The event was held at the school where my aunt used to teach and where my dad and his siblings graduated from high school. It's an old school with out aircon. We were super thankful for the 65ish degree weather. It was still hot in the building, but Brian and I were FREEZING while we sat at the table in front of the door. It was also while we were sitting at this table that a woman came up to me and said, "I just have to tell you that I had the biggest crush on your dad in high school! I mean, I really had the hotts for him!" I didn't even know who she was! Apparently, my dad was a total stud in high school. I think he's a stud now too, but I guess he was a big hit with the ladies!

Here is my mom and Alex, the boyfriend of one of my cousins. He and my cousin Jeff built a smoker, looked up a recipe online and smoked all of the meat. It was seriously the best pulled pork I have ever eaten!

You could buy raffle tickets. My mom bought a ton for our family. My dad was in charge of the raffle. He somehow managed to pick my name on the 3rd or 4th draw out of that big huge thing! I never win anything! I totally scored a FREE pair of COACH sunglasses! All my students own Coach stuff. I'm too poor. Yay for free. And if you've been reading my blog, you know how much I love free!

The whole fam - minus a husband and one great grandchild.

My aunt Chris with her three daughters and two granddaughters.

It was a hugely successful evening! My cousins are hoping to donate 5000 dollars that they raised to Pancreatic Cancer research! I was impressed with all they did and the HUGE crowds that came out to support our family. Everyone felt really blessed!

It was a good one!

My weekend and this week's trip to CVS, that is.

I went in to CVS with 13.99 in Extra Care Bucks. I left with 20.99 in ECBs and paid 3.44 out of pocket for all of this. I actually use that shampoo and conditioner and would pay more than that at WalMart, so it was a good week. If CVS would have given me money back, I could have spent about 75 cents out of pocket. I had a few purchases that left me with negative balances, so I had to get the gum, mints and mentos. I'm not very excited about shopping at CVS and having the people recognize me - especially since things have not rung up correctly almost every time I've gone. I don't want them to see me coming and run! However, a whole bag of stuff for 3.44 will keep me going back!

Other than the CVS trip, my Saturday was wonderful as well. Brian and I, along with my parents headed to Junction City to help my cousins with a fundraiser for pancreatic cancer. My dad's sister (my aunt) has terminal pancreatic cancer. It was an amazing fundraiser. I'll post more about it once I get pictures from my mom! We had tons of fun - but wish it could have been under more happy circumstances.

Why can't every weekend have 3 days?

Ah, three day weekends are the greatest. I love them more when they come on Monday than when they come on Friday. I like coming home from church and feeling the total freedom of not having to do anything too productive because it can be put off until tomorrow (P.S. I'm a total procrastinator).

This was a wonderful 3 day weekend. I have to admit, I was a little bored on Saturday - but during the school year you will never find me complaining about being bored. I think Brian and I were both stir crazy and couldn't come up with something we wanted to do. I don't even remember what we did...

The two of us spent the whole weekend together (wahoo!!! it was a surprise that Brian got Monday off - he always works holidays except Thanksgiving and Christmas). We had some really good heart conversations and just overall good time together.

A quick story - the first time I was ever really frustrated with my husband occurred some time in March 2006 - BEFORE we were even dating. My roomates (Rachel and Emily, at the time) and I were all head over heals for some guys we knew (and we are now happily married to them) and we wanted a way to get to know them better. We came up with a great idea that we would like to have a co-ed Bible study during the summer. However, we wanted one of the guys to lead it - because we believethat in a co-ed situation, the girls shouldn't be leading the guys. Plus, one of the motives of the Bible study was to see what kind of spiritual leaders they were. I'll never forget the phone call where I talked to Brian about this - and I learned that sometimes, just for the fun of it, he likes to challenge people - for the sake of a good discussion. It doesn't matter if he totally agrees with you, he'll still play devil's advocate to get a good discussion going. Anyways, he proceeded to argue/discuss with me why I thought the guys needed to be the leader of this Bible study we wanted to do - even though he agreed with me (but didn't tell me at the time). We talked about mens/womens roles (and he was just being a pain) - he quoted Eph. 5:22 to me. I had no idea what it said, but not wanting to sound stupid I told him I knew what it said. Anyways, I ended up more and more frustrated with him as the phone call went on, not understanding that he was arguing just for the sake of discussion. Anway... We never ended up doing anything with that Bible study - but we did start dating those guys...so I guess we got what we wanted anyway.

All that to say, on Saturday night (present day, 2008) Briand and I had an awesome conversation/prayer about marriage/roles in a marriage, how we're doing in our marriage, the great premarriage counseling we had, and we watched our wedding ceremony on DVD - it was just so good. I was glad we had come a long way from that "argument". I have also learned what Eph. 5:22 says - and it was even read at our wedding. :)

Monday - sleeping in and drinking coffee while watching the Today Show - one of the things I miss most about summer. We went grocery shopping together (which isn't normal - I've been going alone since June) and I really appreciated not having to bring in and put away all the groceries on my own. My husband is such a servant. Seriously. I love him a lot. A lot a lot. I got to spend some good time with my friend Em and chat about her baby. I stole tons of tomatoes and basil from her garden and am super excited to gobble them up over the course of the week. Brian and I made dinner - well, I made dinner and he did the dishes - he's so wonderful! We topped the evening off with a game of Nertz. Our friends Brandon and Rachel taught this game to us MONTHS ago and we play it almost every day. I usually win. :)

Welp, I think I may go to bed early. I love sleep.

An interesting fortune cookie

The schedule of a teacher is slowly taking over my weekends. Last night I fell asleep on the couch promptly at 9:45 and crawled into bed around 10:30. I was wide awake at 6:55 a.m., which is a whole hour and a half later than my normal wake up time. I was okay with this. My husband needed to go to CVS to get a prescription filled. I hadn't seen any particularly good CVS deals this week, so I didn't go. Since he had to go, I thought, 'well, I"m sure I can come up with something!' Brian was still asleep, so I figured I had a while to figure out a good deal. After an hour or so of research and printing coupons, I came away with a deal to increase my ECBs from 5 to 14 with only 4 dollars out of pocket. I was excited. However, all the work was down the drain as our CVS was out of items needed to make my transactions work - and I didn't really want to mention to the GUY who checked us out that I couldn't find the Kotex panty liners I wanted. I'd rather have crawled under a rock. So, instead of an awesome deal, we left with two cans of shaving cream and two bottles of nail polish for $1.50 (the nail polish was free). Still not bad, but I wanted Brian to see this whole "CVSing" in action. Plus, I was sad I had wasted my morning on something that didn't work.

This afternoon I sat down to check and see if any blogs had sneak previews of things going on at CVS this next month or this next week. While doing that search I found a link to a guest post on a blog. Brian and I both laughed out loud, and if you are a CVSer or a coupon clipper, you should read this and get a good laugh. Read it here.

I get coupons from two ladies I work with - and I guess I must talk about couponing a lot at work becuase I've had comments made like, "Andrea, I thought about you when I was shopping and saw I could get a coupon to make this salad (that she was currently eating) free!" I love talking about it and people are continually amazed when they hear I have purchased toothpast for 24 cents. Anyways, I suppose it could be my superhero identity. That would be okay with me. "It's supercouponclipperwoman - she saves the family budget with several snips of the scissors!" I guess I could just use the scissors as a weapon if my superhero capabilities didn't hold up against a 'bad guy'.

I was further amused when my fortune cookie from dinner last night said, "You should't overspend that the moment. Frugality is important."

A good, but frustrating trip to CVS

Now that I'm back at work full time, I have to shop when the rest of the world shops. It stinks. But, that's life. Anyways, I decided that I do my CVS trips on Saturdays before they changed the sales for Sunday. Not such a good idea. All of the 'sale/deal for the week' signs had been taken down so that one might know which things are a part of the add special - and one of the girls who was working in the store today had reset the computer sistem and it invalidated all of the deals/sales that were still on for the week, and made it ready for the sales for next week. It took me about 20 minutes at the cash register to get everything straightened out (so that I got the right price and got my Extra Care Bucks). Once that was taken care of, I got a good deal. I paid $3.85 for all of this stuff!!! Yeah. $3.85!

The Downey was on sale for $3.99 - so basically I paid less than the bottle of Downey for all of it! It would be insanely hard to explain it all, but with coupons from the news paper, 2/10 purchase coupon, 3/15 coupon and $8.00 in ECBs, plus the cash refunds they had to give me because the ECBs didn't print for the toothpaste and mascara, I only had to pay $3.85 out of pocket. The only bad thing is that I walked into the store with 8 ECBs and came out with 5 ECBS (instead of the 11 I had hoped for) because they had to give me the 'after' ECB price for the items for which the ECBs didn't print. Oh well.

Having my husband guess the final cost and impressing him with the total is so much fun! He guessed I spent $15.00 on all of this. Needless to say, he was impressed!!!

Ay Carumba!

Yeah, ay carumba...that's what one of my 'charming' Spanish 2 students blurted out on the FIRST day of school after I told the class what my name was (about 10 seconds into class). Oh joy. Oh bliss. It may be an interesting year with him. Other than that, the massive wolf spider that waltzed into my room on day 2 and learning that chicken waffles don't exist, I think that this year is off to a good start.

I'm teaching on a cart this year. Our school has grown SO much that I lost my classroom to a science teacher (it was originally a science room). After some tears, I've come to realize that it's not that bad - although, I would like to hit a few students with my cart because they walk right in front of me. I may invest in a bicycle horn. I think that would be funny. Honk Honk.

I LOVE my Spanish III classes. I teach 2 sections and those sections are filled with students from last year. It's nice to come in knowing most names in the class and being able to converse with them. I've got some sweet kids. I hope the rest of the year is as fun as these two days have been. Even though I've been working 10ish hour days, I can say that I do like my job. I'd still rather have a baby and stay home, but I suppose I can work on being content for now. :)

This is gross...but I bet you'll still look.

Okay, it's actually more than gross. My husband just said, "Oh, that's disgusting." Well, I agree completely. Brian and I live in a lovely apartment with fantastic maintenance people who will fix anything usually the day you call. I've been hesitant to call because I'm home during the day and I don't really want a man coming into the apartment while I'm home. Especially if I could be in the shower when he arrived. And that's where the problem was. It's now been fixed - Brian fixed it.

And to make this a little more disgusting, the maintenance staff has already done this twice since we've lived here (right after we moved in and about 6 months ago), so we're fairly certain that it was ALL my hair. Yep. I left the bathroom thinking that I might hurl. I didn't. Thank goodness. Did you read the whole thing? I thought you would. It's hard to not let curiousity get the best of you. :)

A Baby Shower!

My dearest bestest friend in the whole world is having a baby! This last Saturday I hosted a baby shower for her (along with the help of my fabulous mom and my friend A). Here are some pictures from the super fun partay of the year!


The FOOD! This wasn't all of it...we also had bagles and cream cheese and mini quiche. The diaper cake in the background is actually something I made. Brian and I were on a hot date at the Cheese.cake Factory a few months ago and a woman walked into the restaurant carrying one. I eavedropped a little and found out what it was and thought, "heck, I can make that." So I looked it up online and found some directions. It was actually a lot of fun!


The hostessess with the mommy to be!

Ricky the Racoon! E's husband had a "Ricky" when he was little so his mom made one for Baby J!

We all went to high school together and here we are 7/8 years after we graduated.

The three of us have TONS of pictures of us from different life stages. J and I have been friends since 2nd grade. Oh, I love these two! They make my life so fun. I'm excited for the stages of life these two ladies are about to enter into! Man I can't wait to hold that baby!

57 Cents? Seriously!

I ventured over to my parents house this morning to get coupons my mom had been saving for me, and I stopped at the CVS just down the street and got some cool things for 57 cents! I had another coupon for a buy one get one free Covergirl makeup item, and again, paired with the store promo, I got both 7.99 items for free! Then I picked up two bottles of Pert Plus - which had a BOGO free promo, and I had two 2.00 off coupons and got them for free, too! I paid 57 cents, in tax, I guess. It's awesome because we actually needed one of those Pert Plus bottles.

Good News/Bad News

Good News -

Today I took my first "couponing" trip to CVS. This trip (hopefully) will be one of the more expensive trips I make, because I need to build up my ECBs (Extra Care Bucks - which are in store credit that you get for buying certain items. They can be used like cash on anything you want in CVS.). Even still...I got some good deals. Here's what I got.




It doesn't look like a ton - but all of it essentially cost me $6.51. Yeah. I'd pay $3.00 more than that just for the foundation at Target. This is how I did it:

1. I clipped coupons I got from the Sunday paper.
2. I got a CVS Extra Care Card (actually I stole my husband's).
3. I read the CVS add that came in the paper and wrote down what I had coupons for and what I wanted to buy.
4. I went to CVS and got it! Easy - but takes some time.

Okay, so I walked into CVS and immediately scanned my Extra Care Card at the scanner box near the entrance. It spit out a coupon for $3 off a $15 purchase. Wahoo! That was a surprise!

I purchased:

* Bottle of Tide - on sale for $4.97
* Bottle of Dawn dish soap - on sale for 88 cents.
* Crest tooth paste - on sale for $2.49
* Oral B toothbrush - on sale for $2.49
* CVS toothbrush - on sale for $1.99
* 1 Covergirl Foundation - $8.99
* 1 Covergirl mineral powder - $8.99
* 1 Almay eyeshadow - 8.99
Total = $39.97

CVS had a buy one get one free deal on the CoverGirl products,so one was free.
Coupons:
* .50 for Dawn
* .75 Crest toothpaste
* 1.00 Almay product
* 1.00 Tide
* Free CVS toothbrush
* BOGO (buy one get one) free Covergirl face product (BOTH were free!!!!)
* 3.00 off my 15.00 purchase
Total = 12.57 + 1.94 in tax (OOP - out of pocket total = 14.51)

However, I got 8 ECBs back with that purchase (5 from the Almay eyeshadow and 3 from the toothpaste and one of the toothbrushes). So next time when I go, I can use those 8 towards that purchase and not have to pay OOP!

Bad News:

It's good I got a steal on that CVS stuff, because I found out today that it's going to cost about a week worth of my teaching salary to fix my car - which currently has no air conditioning! Yikes. Too bad they can't balance out a little more... At least there was some excitement in my day.

At least...

Ok - after weeks of reading about awesome things that people get for free at CVS, I'm going to give it a shot. It's not hard, but you do have to think about how to get the best deal, but thanks to Shannon things are a little easier!

At least I'll get a toothbrush for free. I have a coupon for that.

Bored?

If you're bored, I have a solution. Go visit www.scrapblog.com and have a great time. That's how I got my blog picture thingy at the top of the page. I think I've found a new love.

It had to end...

...summer that is. This week I started getting back on a wake up earlier schedule. It's painful. And when school starts, it will be an hour and a half earlier with no hope of a nap during the day. I just must look back and ask, where has the summer gone?

1 Year Anniversary in Rome, Italy!

Spending Time With Good Friends

Picking Blueberries!

It's been pretty fun. I'm sad it's almost over!

A tasty breakfast

Brian doesn't work on Fridays, so I decided to make french toast for breakfast to usher in our weekend. I have always disliked french toast and pancakes because ususally you eat those things with maple syrup - which I really dislike. After some searching I found a good recipe for the french toast and some yummy syrup. It turned out great! There were two things, I think, that made it so great. 1 - Home made bread and 2 - the syrup. So here are the recipes for each - if you're up for some really great breakfast!

Andrea's Grandma's French Bread

* 2 and 1/2 c. warm water (between 90 and 95 degrees)
* 1/4 c. oil
* 1/3 c. sugar
* 2 t. salt
* 1 egg
* 2 packages active dry yeast (about 2 T.)
* about 7 cups of flour (I almost always use all - and I like to use 1 c. whole wheat flour and the rest white flour - it's not very tasty to use all whole wheat...)

This is easiest if you have a kitchen-aid!

Add oil, sugar, salt and egg to bowl. Then add water and yeast. Mix with flat beater until 1/2 of flour has been added. Switch to dough hook, slowly add remaining flour and run mixer for 5-10 minutes. Cover bowl with a towel and let raise (about 45 min). Remove dough and divide in half. Knead each section until you have a nice smooth ball. ( I use my counter top - sprinkled with lots of flour to keep it from sticking and use my palms to pull the dough from the outside to the middle to make the ball) Set both balls on a greased cookie sheet (air bake sheets don't work well - I use a large jelly roll pan). Let sit - covered for ten minutes. Using a rolling pin, roll each ball into a 10ish by 12ish sheet (maybe 1/4 to 1/2 inch thick). Roll sheets tightly to make the loaf. Seal and pinch the edges underneath (so it looks nicer). Put back on the baking sheet seam side down. Let raise again until the rolls of dough have doubled (or a little more).

Bake at 350 degrees for 25-30 minutes

FRENCH TOAST
*4 eggs
* 2 T. milk (I used vanilla creamer)
* 1/4 t. ground cinnamon
* 1 t. vanilla
* bread slices - I used seven fairly thick slices of the bread from above recipe

Beat cinnamon and eggs together; add mil. Dp bread into mixture until coated. Heat a lightly oiled griddle or frying pan. Cook bread slices until they are golden brown.

SYRUP
* 1/2 c. packed brown sugar
* 1/2 c. white sugar
* 2 T. all purpose flour
* 1/2 t. ground cinnamon
* 1 t. vanilla extract
* 1. c water

Stir together the white sugar, brown sugar, flour and cinnamon in a small sauce pan. Stir in vanilla extract and water. Bringto a rolling boil, stirring often. Continue to boil and stir until mixture thickens to syurp consistency. Remove from heat. Cool 10 min. before serving.

Let me know what you think. The syrup and french toast recipes I got from allrecipes.com.

Ah...Summer

I must say, the best part of my job...summers off. The last three have been particularly wonderful, but I think one of the reasons it is so great is that most of my friends are also teachers and are home during the summer. So, here are some of my favorite things about summer (in no particular order).

1. Sleeping in
2. Staying up late
3. Not showering until AFTER lunch
4. Doing laundry during the week instead of 5 straight hours of it on Sunday
5. Grocery shopping without crowds when the rest of the world is working
6. Going to the Farmers Market
7. Random lunch dates/hangouts with friends during the week
8. NOT grading papers
9. Flip Flops
10. TOMATOES!
11. Taking naps
12. Occasionally feeling bored
13. Watching Jon and Kate Plus 8
14. The overall feeling of being relaxed all the time.

Ok. I think being a stay at home wife sounds like a great job. Too bad it doesn't pay a salary with benefits.

Money! Money! Money!

Ah...this has seemed to be a big topic of discussion around our house lately! I feel as though Brian and I are starting to transition out of our honeymoon phase - not that we aren't totally in love and enjoying marriage to the max - but we are starting to enter into the big decision part of life. Kids, house, blah. How do we best honor God with our money? Can I stay home with our kids when we have kids? When exactly should we have kids? Should we get different jobs? What do we really need in life? I feel extremely challenged after many conversations about money this week. Summer is often an awful time for me with regards to spending money. I'm home all day and shopping is one of my favorite things to do. I'm not ridiculous with my spending, but I know that I sure could do with a lot less stuff! Brian re-worked our budget this week based on a few changes in the past few months and now that I know where our money is going (who knew you'd spend so much on TP once you got married?) I want to see how little I can spend on things I can control. I guess I'm going to follow in the steps of my best friend and become a proud owner of a coupon organizer. :)

The challenge is on. At least for now, while I have plenty of time to find good deals and coupon clip!

I spend to much time reading others....

Many years ago in college I blogged. Back then I used Xanga and had NO idea that the word blogging existed. I took it down when I began teaching high school students, for fear that they would find me. Although I searched for my own site and never found it, my husband somehow managed to - and I was therefore afraid that my students might be able to do the same.

Anyways, I spend SO much time reading other people's blogs that I thought I would create one of my own before a fun name was taken. The one I wanted to use was already taken by a woman named "Terry" and she hasn't even posted a thing, even though she created it back in 2003. I guess the same could eventually happen to me if we never end up with kids...honestly, that's why I'm creating this. I hope one day I'll be able to use this to help keep up with friends and family when/if Brian and I have kids. We want to do so someday - but only the Lord knows when!