Random Things

Along with a being a much happier and satisfied baby, I guess there are other positives in having to feed Nathanael supplemental bottles of formula. :)


I turned 21 last Tuesday, September 30th....at least that's what the candles on the birthday cake said. This past weekend my supercool friend Jen and her husband Eric blessed us with their presence for a subdued afternoon of Sesame Street, NFL, hot dogs, and birthday cake...all organic, of course. Ehem....not really.

Hunter has been putting his clothes on by himself lately, which is a super-big help for me. When he puts his shirt on he likes to make it stay stuck over his head and he giggles. He then says, "That funny mom? I funny?"

About 4 weeks ago I joined a really cool organic produce co-op called Green Village Organics. It's $25 a week for two bags of produce: one for fruits and one for veggies. Or, if you want a smaller amount you can pay $15 a week for one bag, but you won't get everything offered for the week. I haven't done the full price research to see if it really is cost effective or not and the amount kinda varies from week to week, but there are some definite pros for us to do this. The biggest one for me so far is that it's making me think outside of the box for what we're having for dinner. For example, two weeks ago we got Bok Choy and my adventurous husband cooked an outstanding stir fry. I was so proud of him. It was so delicious. And last week I made a side of red chard to go with a meal. Both of those items I never would have made if I hadn't joined the co-op. This week my new adventure food is Kale. We're having it as a side tonight with a squash casserole. Below are two pics I've taken which represent two separate weeks of produce. Both of these weeks were kinda low on the volume scale, but like I said earlier it all seems to even out to the same amount after you do it for 3+ weeks or so. I wish I would've taken a picture of last week's because it was a really good amount and mix. Here is a list of what I got:
Cabbage, Green, Local
Carrots, Juice,
Celery,
Chard, Red
Salads, Spring Mix (Mesclun)
Squash, Zucchini
Apples, Gala, WA Extra Fancy,
Banana, Breaker,
Berries, Strawberries
Pears, Bartlett
Nectarines,

Replacements and credits

Onions, Red - for last week's missed Shallots

Limes - for last week's bruised apples

On another note, couponing is still going strong. I've gotten some tremendous deals over the past several weeks with my most recent Publix trip totaling $101 out of pocket with $139 in savings. So, I got $240 of groceries for $101. My stockpile is getting pretty big and each week I find myself having to buy less and less for our "needs" and more and more to build the stockpile with the rock-bottom sale buys that I have coupons to match with.

CVS continues to be TREMENDOUS with the free stuff and deals. Last week I bought two Tide Free and Clear detergents (the smaller botttles) for $2.45 with coupons, sale price, and extra care bucks. Tomorrow night I'm meeting a couple of friends at CVS to give them a how-to on maximizing savings and using extra care bucks. It's so fun couponing for our family and I'm having even more fun now sharing it with friends.

Now that I'm confident at CVS I'm starting to dabble at Walgreens. The other night I got some dish liquid and Crest for $0.81. Okay deal, but not the best. There's a really great Glade Wisp Candle deal there this week and they didn't have them in stock when I went earlier, but I made a stop last night on my way home from tutoring and they had them in-stock at another Walgreens. So, I bought two candles on sale for $5.99, used 2 $5.00-off coupons and paid $2.70 total for both candles with tax. But, the thing that made this deal great was I got $6 in register rewards (basically like a Walgreen's gift card to use on anything in the store) when my receipt printed. Woo hoo! So I made a profit of $3.30 for buying these candles.
That's all for now! I'm gonna go take a nap! :)