ghetto

Ghetto isn't a word I normally use and definitely isn't how I would describe myself but after today it is really the only word that comes to mind. Lara has been trying to get me into cycling for years but I just haven't wanted to invest the money. This year I thought I would give it a try if I could do it inexpensively and ended up with a mountain bike that I borrowed/stole from my dad's cabin in Driggs and a very old and well loved bike trailer that I found for $50 on KSL. I have actually been really excited about my old/new stuff and have fallen asleep the past few nights with visions of me cruising down one of the bike trails near my house with my boys in tow.

This morning I loaded up the bike trailer (which takes up the whole back of my Honda CRV) and after realizing that there is something wrong with the quick release on the front wheel of my bike I opened the back window of the car, put a blanket over the car so that I wouldn't scratch it (this was actually done at Paul's insistence) and put my bike in with the front wheel hanging out. I put my boys in the car and we were off. I wanted to ride along the Porter Rockwell Trail which starts about two miles from my house but I had to drive there because it is two miles straight downhill and I knew I would never make it back up the hill with the 100 lbs that I am towing (70 lbs of boy and 30 lbs of bike trailer).

We made it safely to the parking lot at the trail head and I successfully got my ghetto gear out of the car, set everything up, put helmets on my boys and secured them safely in their little trailer. I don't have a helmet (I am going to buy one later today) because honestly I really didn't think it was a big deal. I am not hard core and the only reason I put one on my boys is because I know it is the right thing to do but after today I am feeling peer pressure from my fellow bike trail riders (who aren't really my peers because they know what they are doing and have gear that isn't jimmy rigged together) to put a helmet on my head when I ride. We rode 1.26 miles to Draper Park, nearly all of it at a slight decline. The boys played for an hour at the park while I felt self-conscious in my bike/workout clothes for a lot of reasons but mostly because there is no hiding a muffin top in a cycling shirt. I then loaded the boys up and we headed back to the car which was 1.26 miles of steep incline (weird how it changed during that hour we were at the park but it did and I now totally get that "walked up hill both ways" thing). I could barely breathe by the time we got back to the car and I am incredibly embarrassed to admit (but always willing to make fun of myself) that it took me 45 minutes to ride back to my car. I could have walked it faster...probably. Also there was a 70 year old jogger in front of us who we never passed.

Once we made it to the car I had to disassemble everything which ended up turning into me actually kicking the trailer latch loose because I couldn't get it to budge and then loading it back into the car. I won't go into details but I will tell you that it took me six tries/slightly different configurations to get everything back inside. In spite of the circus I feel good about my first ride mostly because I don't remember the last time I worked out (it has been at least a year, maybe two, maybe just 18 months) and everyone has to start somewhere, but I also hate not feeling at least a little bit cool. I mean if you have the right gear you can at least look like you know what you are doing and feel good about faking it. If you are in really good shape and know what you are doing but have crappy gear you don't care because at least you look good but right now I have neither and I am feeling a bit sad.

ode to my blog

Oh how I miss you...
I miss chronicling the mundane
And the not so mundane
Of the every day.

I am having a hard time
Keeping my head above water.
I have been working too much
Traveling too much
And that horrible cold?

All my routines have disintegrated
And I've fallen behind
In every area of my life.

And now I am in a slump
And my mind isn't working
And I miss my blog.

today i saved...

$204.55

I am tired and still don't feel great so there is no pic of my receipt (you'll just have to trust me) but here is the run down. It took me 15 minutes to prep for my trip to the grocery store and an hour at the grocery store. I purchased 91 items and spent $94.71 plus earned a $10 mail-in rebate. My total before sales and coupons was $299.26. My total included lots of stock up items plus I spent $20 on medicine (both Paul and I are sick) and $10 on fresh orange and grapefruit juice.

I promise I won't continue to catalog my trips to the grocery store. I am just really excited about my new adventures in couponing.

Couponing!

Lara and I taught a class on how to use coupons at our mother's retreat over the weekend and I thought I'd share the handout I created in case you weren't able to attend but are still interested in saving a lot of money. Honestly, it is the best natural high around.


Pinching Your Pennies: How to use coupons

1. You need to subscribe to the Sunday paper. It is recommended that you purchase one paper per person in your household. Alternatively, you can purchase a Sunday two pack (Tribune and Deseret News) for $2 at most gas stations but you need to go early because they go fast.

2. There are three different types of coupon inserts included in the Sunday paper: Red Plum, SmartSource, and Proctor & Gamble (P&G is not weekly). You need to organize your inserts by week, date them (use a Sharpie to write the date on the front cover) and store them together.

3. Go through your local store inserts to see if there are other deals you want to take advantage of (I usually clip my Michael's Arts & Crafts coupon and since I get four papers I receive four 40-50% off coupons per week).

4. The key to savvy couponing is to match your coupons to the weekly sales and there are several websites that do all of the work for you. Oh, and many of them are FREE. The website will rate the sales by store (per state) and then tell you which insert to clip your coupons from. They also provide links to online and in-store coupons. So you don't need to clip a single coupon until you are preparing for your grocery trip. This means you don't have piles of coupons you are trying to track and organize.

5. Find a website that you like and stock up when you see a five star deal come along (there are several each week). Below you will find instructions and tips for using grocerysmarts.com


Grocery Smarts Instructions & Tips

1. Go to http://grocerysmarts.com and enter your PASSPORT (password for Utah is g84csg, if you aren't in Utah you can contact grocery smarts and or search their message board for the passport for your state).

Click Submit.



2. Select your store from the drop down menu.



3. Click the Start button in the upper right hand corner of the page.



4. Select the items you want to add to your grocery list (they will turn white).



5. Type in any notes or other items you want to purchase to create a complete grocery list.



6. Click the Shrink button in the upper right hand corner of the page.


This will compress your list to include only those items you have selected as well as any notes you have typed. If you need to start over click the Un Shrink button.



7. Click the Print Now button to print your grocery list.



8. Print out coupons from the links provided.



9. Clip coupons from your inserts.


This tells me that in the 8/17 Smart Source (SS) insert there is a coupon for $1 off of 10 Dannon Light & Fit Nonfat Yogurt Cups. If I have four 8/17 SS inserts I can buy 40 / 6oz cups for $0.40 each and depending on how much yogurt my family eats and when they expire I may want to max out on this deal.


10. Tip: Go through your printed grocery list and write the number you want to buy next to each item. The number will likely be based on the number of coupons you have and what you think you will use. Do Not Buy Things Your Family Does Not Use.


11. Tip: Put all of your coupons in one envelop per grocery store and throw it in your purse along with your grocery list. For example, if you are going to more than one store and have printed more than one shopping list you should have a separate envelop for each store.


12. Tip: Once the cashier has wrung up all of your items, pull out your envelop and hand her/him your stack of coupons.


Good luck and let me know if you have any questions or additional tips! Also, one last thank you to Jane who taught me everything I know.

wednesday...

Nothing. Nothing productive was completed today. I have a horrible cold and feel like poo. I tried several times to trick myself into not being sick by starting some task on today's to do list but each time ended up back in my bed, light headed, and sweating.

today...

I detailed my car! As a mother (I am blaming my kids for this one) my car is always a mess but today when I dropped George off at preschool I was embarrassed enough to do something about it. It took me a little over three hours of vacuuming, scrubbing, and washing to get the thing looking and smelling like almost new. I also cleaned and organized the linen closet which really doesn't house any linens. It is now the very organized home to medicine, first aid, sunscreen, insect repellent, beach towels, and a couple of extra quilts.

Also on the docket for this week:
Garage
Storage Room

hooray for free

I don't watch Oprah (not because I don't like her...I do...but 4pm doesn't work for me and we don't have TiVo) but my mom does and she sent me a link to some of the home organization tips featured on her show today. As I was perusing the information I discovered that Snapfish is running a special promotion for Oprah viewers. You can get a free (plus $6.99 shipping and handling) 8x11 custom photobook here. The only catch? You have to place your order by this Friday. "Free" gets me motivated so I created a Hebgen Lake 2008 book as a thank you present for my grandparents who allow us to enjoy a week at their cabin each summer.

It took me four hours to make my photobook and was a frustrating experience (their website either couldn't handle the load Oprah's viewers were putting on it or is super buggy) but like I said, I am motivated by "free" so I kept plugging away and two hours after my planned bedtime I have a finished product.

Laundry Room...Check

Feels good to check this one off the list. I finished organizing it tonight, now I just need to tackle the mounds of laundry that need to be washed, folded, and put away. I don't mind the washing part, it is the folding and putting away that I dread.

Motherload

I have been couponing for about a month now and today I did my first BIG shop. I spent $256.28 and saved $233.25. I purchased 120 items including $20 in diapers, two DVD's (Kung Fu Panda and Tinkerbell), six units of laundry detergent, 15 cans of Progresso soup, 24 boxes of cold cereal (General Mills and Kellogg's), ten boxes of Betty Crocker cake mix, and a lot of other items. My total also includes our weekly staples (two gallons of milk, two gallons of OJ, two loaves of bread, fresh veggies, etc.). I am not nearly as coupon savvy as these two women but I am learning and am loving the thrill of saving major bucks while feeding my family good food and building my food storage. It took me two hours to prep for my shopping trip and an hour and a half at the grocery store. I filled two carts and was a little embarrassed but when I checked out the person behind me was amazed at my savings and complemented me on my coupon savviness.

So once I got home I had to figure out where to put all this stuff (my pantry is full because I have been stocking up with little shops for the past couple of weeks) and decided it was high time I organize the storage room. One of the things that I LOVE about my house is the amount of storage space we have. I have a huge storage room (the unfinished kind) and then a smaller room that is also designed for storage (tile and drywall in this one). I call both of them "the storage room" and it is really confusing when I am trying to tell someone where something is and can't distinguish between the two rooms. I tell you this because I am hoping you can educate me on the proper name for each of these rooms. Anyway, even though I have an amazing amount of storage space every nook and cranny is disorganized and overflowing with stuff (most of which needs to be sorted and probably tossed). So today I tackled the smaller of the two storage rooms and decided to make it our food storage (which it kind of already was) and holiday decor storage room (pending another name). I am still wondering if I made the right decision here with regard to what to put where. I felt like I should do research first to determine the best way to organize your storage room if you have more than one. And then I decided to just go for it and change it later if it doesn't work.

This is what the storage room looked like at 8:00pm tonight.

And this is what it looks like now.


Food storage on one side...

and holiday decor on the other side.

This is what happens when your storage space is so cluttered that you can't find anything and you are about to host a party so you send your husband to Costco to buy paper dinnerware and then you clean your storage space and discover you have two of everything.
I anchored screws to the wall and now have a handy place to hang my wreaths and Halloween witch when they aren't in use.

Now I must confess that I took a lot of stuff out of this room that I didn't put back in because it didn't fit into one of my two categories (food storage or holiday decor) and it is now piled outside the door of the other storage room. It seems that in order to clean up one mess I have to create another.

Sunday, Sunday

After an hour and a half of folding, hanging, and throwing away I spotted the floor in my bedroom closet. This major feat motivated me to keep folding, hanging, and chucking until I was finished and I now have a clean closet. Unfortunately, my bedroom floor is still MIA.

So here is my list for his week:
Find my bedroom floor
Finish organizing the laundry room
Organize the linen closet
Prepare my presentation for the retreat

There are several other tasks I want to add to this list but I am trying to be more realistic this week so that's it for the list.

Weekend Digest

I miss my husband. He has been at AFI Fest since Thursday but it feels as though I haven't seen him in weeks due to a pre-festival crunch. I am still plugging away at this week's list and have promised myself that I will be more realistic when I create a list for next week. Today we took down the Halloween decor and decorated for Thanksgiving.

George and Charlie made these cute turkey's to hang on the back door. George wanted to put eyebrows on his and after I hot glued them into place he was stressed because he said his turkey looked mad. Then he embellished his turkey with sequins, feathers and pom-poms to cheer the poor guy up. Speaking of poor guy...George missed out on story time tonight because he spit at me (we have had MAJOR problems with spitting this week).

On Monday morning we woke up to snow which motivated me to find a solution to the "Where do we store all our winter accessories?" problem and after three different trips to two stores we have a solution that I think will work. Simple cubbies with four bins...one for each of us.

I reorganized the boys' closets and now they only contain clothes that fit them and in Charlie's case, a couple of bins of clothes that he will be growing into this year. I also organized our coat closet and now it not only contains coats but also all of our kid craft, activity, and preschool supplies. Tonight I started on the laundry room cupboards but still have a ways to go. I am throwing away a ton of junk and have several bags of old clothes, shoes, and gadgets ready to take to the DI. Unfortunately, I have a really long way to go...My storage room is such a wreck I can't get in there to put away the Halloween decorations that I took down today and ended up leaving them piled by the door.

Whew!

I have been in an organizing frenzy. More to come...

today

I am so tired and though I never go to bed early I will tonight...right after I watch my favorite show. No significant project work to report but I have started several small things and am hoping that tomorrow will bring the completion of at least one of them.

bad mom day

Have I mentioned that my biggest downfall is my lack of consistency? Today was a really bad mom day which completely derailed my plans to work on Charlie's scrapbook. I did however come to terms with the fact that because my three year old no longer takes a nap in the afternoon I need to provide some type of structured entertainment for him. I feel like this is information that I should just intuitively know, but because I tend to learn my lessons the hard way it took a lot of tears, yelling, timeouts, and other negative behavior for me to arrive at this ephifany. Anyway, I know from successful attempts in the past that when I do projects with George in the afternoon his behavior is at its' best. So I did I bit of research out here on the world wide web and decided to put together a bunch of preschool activities (learning worksheets, crafts, and games) that I can have at the ready for George's afternoon sessions. I need to be able to organize the materials so that either one of his nannies (we have two awesome women working for us right now), Paul or myself can easily jump in and work with him and still maintain a decent level of consistency. I think one of the hardest parts about being a mom and a professional is that I can't just have everything in my brain, I also have to document it and/or communicate it in a way that others can replicate the "mom role" as they need to. So in summary my planned project of the day didn't get any attention because a new project was created as a result of a really bad day that I ended up salvaging because now I have a plan that will make tomorrow much better.

Project Update...

After all of my grand planning last night I didn't end up finishing my work report which bumped it to the top of my priority list today (which was okay since I had scheduled myself to work today any way). I worked on it for over 10 hours today (not sure why I thought I could finish it last night) and was finally able to get a draft that I feel okay about out to my client, which is a good thing because I am presenting the preliminary document via webinar tomorrow afternoon.

Around 4pm I grabbed some preschool worksheets and retrieved George from the basement where he had been entertaining himself for three hours (the nanny left at 1pm today and I was starting to feel the onset of mommy guilt) and we worked on counting and matching. George was really proud of his work and wanted to hang it on the front door for all of his friends to see. But because it is quite windy and rainy in our neck of the woods we decided on hanging them on the window by the front door. Charlie woke up from his afternoon nap and wanted to get in on the action so he taped a blank piece of paper to the window below George's worksheets.

Then it was time for George's Little Gym class so I loaded up the boys and we headed out. I dropped George off and Charlie and I went to Kohl's to take advantage of their 30% off Fisher Price toys sale (plus I had a gift card) so we got a bit of Christmas shopping done (I never shop early for Christmas because I don't trust myself not to spoil the suprise but am turning over a new leaf this year). While at Kohl's Charlie spotted a stuffed dog that his nanny bought him a couple of weeks ago and wanted me to buy him another one. I told him no and he had a complete melt down, started crying, petting the dog, and telling me it was soft. I didn't cave (huge for me) and left the store with a screaming baby. After we picked George up from class we headed home for dinner and a quick family night lesson. We have been talking about being happy helpers and I asked George to bless that we could all be happy helpers in his prayer. After his usual "bless the beds, bless the decorations" (don't know why he blesses the beds...he loves our Halloween decorations and has been blessing them since I put them up) he asked Heavenly Father to please bless us to be happy helpers using his silly old man voice and then Charlie screamed Amen at the top of his lungs and "raised the roof."

After the completion of the boys' bedtime routine, Paul returned to his batcave (he has another festival comming up) and I turned on SNL's Election Bash and cleaned and organized my kitchen cupboards. I didnt' get to the laundry room so that will have to wait for another day.

NaBloPoMo

In honor of NaBloPoMo I will not only be posting each day but will also fill you in on a project (little or big) I have worked on that day. November is like spring cleaning month for me...The onset of the cold weather awakens something in me and I become surprisingly motivated to get my house in order.

Projects on the docket for this week:
Today: Finish the report for work that I haven't had time to finish because I have been too busy procrastinating to really put in a solid effort.
Monday: Clean and organize all the cupboards in my kitchen and laundry room
Tuesday: Print pics and finish Charlie's first year scrapbook
Wednesday: Finish #2
Thursday: Take down Halloween decor and put up Thanksgiving garb
Friday: Work on #19
Saturday: Work on #10
Sunday: Work on #10

Oh! The Places You'll Go!

This morning I woke up in desperate need of an adventure so I packed up the boys and after a quick stop at the gas station (where we purchased a nice breakfast: two varieties of donuts, chocolate milk for George, apple juice for Charlie, and a cherry Coke for me) we were off to Silver Lake.

We hiked around the lake and the boys did awesome. George walked/ran the whole way and Charlie toddled along most of the way on his own. It was beautiful and refreshing to be in the mountains and I couldn't stop thinking of Dr. Seuss so I am going to let him narrate our adventure.

In that case, of course,
you'll head straight out of town.
It's opener there
in the wide open air.
Out there things can happen
and frequently do
to people as brainy
and footsy as you.
And when things start to happen,
don't worry. Don't stew.
Just go right along.
You'll start happening too.
Oh! The Places You'll Go!
You'll be on your way up!
You'll be seeing great sights!
You'll join the high fliers
who soar to high heights.

We returned with our spirits lifted and in enough time to make it to our 1:00pm church meeting. Though I believe you can create adventure in the ordinary of every day I am grateful I live in a place that makes it so easy to get away and breathe some fresh air at the spur of the moment.

eight

8 things i am passionate about:
1. my boys (paul, george & charlie-man)
2. criminal minds (seriously the best premiere ever)
3. chocolate
4. holidays (love halloween, christmas, independence day & easter the most)
5. reading (i really love memoirs & historical fiction but will read pretty much anything except most sci-fi and that vampire crap)
6. having fun
7. using as much toliet paper as i want to
8. my friends

8 words or phrases i say often:
1. hurry (approximately 826 times a day to my kids)
2. just a minute (approximately 257 times a day to my kids)
3. georgie porgie pudd'en pie
4. charlie barley boo
5. love you baby boy (charlie likes me to call him my baby)
6. no messing
7. lets go
8. 1...2...3

8 things i want to do before i die
1. watch my boys grow up
2. play with my grand babies
3. take paul to costa rica
4. celebrate our 50th wedding anniversary
5. serve a mission with my hubby
6. catch a fish
7. see the fruition of paul's dreams
8. learn how to efficiently run my home or develop super powers

8 things i have learned from my past
1. don't make a mountain out of a mole hill
2. i can choose to be happy
3. you can pee without pooping but you can't poop without peeing
4. laughter really is the best medicine
5. i can't handle the presence of contention in my life and will do what needs to be done to properly eliminate it
6. go to bed mad (a good night of rest will clear your mind, calm your nerves, & make whatever it was that had you so upset the night before much easier to solve)
7. just when you think you have it all figured out something will happen to burst your bubble
8. boundries, boundries, boundries

8 places i would love to go or see
1. hawaii (i've been a couple of times but can't get enough)
2. disneyland with my boys
3. new zealand
4. the christmas tree lighting ceremony at rockefeller center
5. italy
6. russia
7. any five star hotel
8. peru

8 things i currently need or want
1. a wood floor in my family room
2. new carpet everywhere else
3. to finish my list
4. these and these
5. to lose seven pounds
6. to tell my husband i love him...seriously haven't been saying it enough lately
7. to clean my car
8. abs

thanks for the tag darci

Hello!

I have been hesitant to reenter the blogging world because I have yet to construct a formal plan to control the amount of time I spend here and quite frankly the break has been kind of nice. I have read a couple of good books and been checking projects off the list. School has started and routine and schedules have begun to take hold of our days. It is always sad for me to say good bye to summer but after three months of craziness I am welcoming routine back into my life. Besides the weather is still beautiful and that makes me smile. The pic is from our trip to Bear World in August. We had an amazing vacation and I have a ton of pics and video that need to be edited and posted but I am pacing myself.
Charlie made up a song that we call "The Happy Song" it goes something like this..."Happy, happy, happy, happy, happy, mama, happy, happy, happy, happy, Georgie, happy, happy, happy, happy, daddy, happy, happy, happy, happy, Darc, happy, happy, happy, happy, happy, happy, nannie, happy, happy, happy, happy..." He sings it while riding in the car. George has become really awesome at going potty (both in the bathroom and on the grass). I am not sure why I need a formal blogging plan. I like to create plans though I don't take them seriously and enjoy breaking the "rules" I create for myself. I have taken my Google Reader portlet off of my iGoogle page and unsubscribed to many of the blogs I had been stalking and I am suprisingly not missing it a bit. Paul has been traveling to AZ the past couple of weekends to finish up filming on Hi My Name Is Ryan. The film was just accepted into three more festivals and we are keeping our fingers crossed that it will sell this year. So I am back. Did you miss me?

Summer Concert

Glorious weather, Elivis Costello, The Police, and great company.