happily random

I just have to ask...

Is it spring in other parts of the world? It isnt' here. Saturday morning greeted us with another foot of snow at our mountain home. Rebekah has decided that we now live in Narnia in a world of eternal winter. It's beginning to feel that way! As slow as spring is coming, my seedlings are going to be ready to be in the ground long before the ground is warm enough for them.

Today begins my kids spring break. I have to laugh at that. We all want to be outdoors and warm, but there really isn't much to do right now. With all the schools in the area also being on spring break, the indoor activities are going to be packed. We toyed with the idea of a trip to Seattle, but with gas prices what they are it'll be $200 just in gas. What is this world coming to?

Speaking of gas, that reminds me: plastic baggies. A few weeks ago I opened up a new box of Ziploc sandwich bags. When I went to use them, I noticed the plastic is much thinner than my last box. Oh, and the top of the baggie rips off when you go to open it. Very annoying. After that I noticed that I began to observe that a lot of plastic items are getting thinner, more flimsy. The price of oil seems to be having an effect on more than just gas prices. Why do we put up with that? I have a cardiac episode every time I have to fill up my Suburban.

And the God of all grace, who called you to his eternal glory in Christ, after you have suffered a little while, will himself restore you and make you strong, firm and steadfast. 1 Peter 5:10

My Deal of the Week

Anyone who knows me knows that I have become a coupon freak. Well, here's my deal of the week, through Saturday. At Wal-Mart (and I really hate Wal-Mart, so you know it has to be good if I'll darken their doors), Fast Fixin' Dino Bites are on sale this week 2 for $2, making them $1 each. Well, the manufacturer has a printable coupon on their website for $1 off 1, so if you use the coupon for your purchase, it's free! Gotta love that one!

Here's the link: Fanatics Club. If you sign up for their Fanatics Club, it will send 5 $1 off coupons to your printer. Once those are printed, hit the back button on your browser and then reload the page and it will let you print 5 more! Then on their website there are links to print 2 more $1 off coupons. So you can use those coupons to get 12 bags of Dino Bites for free! Oh, and save those UPC Codes, mail them in and you'll get one more free bag! Chicken Nuggets are practically a 5th food group in our house.

And a parting gift for moms: Mom Your Ride on YouTube. My Suburban gets looking like that in about a month if I'm not careful!

Easter Sunday

Rebekah and Lucas have been in a drawing frenzy for the last couple of days. Here are a couple samples of their works of art. The top is Lucas's giant Easter egg, with some some Spiderman stickers thrown in for good measure. What art is complete without Spiderman stickers? Rebekah's is self-explanitory except that she is now learning cursive in school, so she loves to write it everywhere!

It's a quiet Sunday morning. Joel is still in bed (it's his turn to sleep late; mine was yesterday) and I've been reading the paper. Actually, I've been going through the ads in the paper; I don't actually read the paper. No coupons today due to the holiday. So disappointing.

Our church has 8 services this weekend: 2 on Friday night, 2 on Saturday night & 4 on Sunday morning. Our pastor asked the members to attend a service on Friday or Saturday, "giving up our seat" for those that only attend church on Easter Sunday. Our church is currently building a larger sanctuary but it wasn't ready in time for this weekend. We went last night and Pastor Mike gave a great message on the tearing of the temple veil when Jesus was crucified, giving us an "All Access Pass" to God.

At that moment, the Temple curtain was ripped in two, top to bottom. There was an earthquake, and rocks were split in pieces. Matthew 27:51 (The Message)

Happy Easter!!

Spring?

So much for it being Spring. This is what our house looked like yesterday, on the 2nd day of Spring. We actually got 6" of new snow throughout the day. I think it's time for a little vacation to warmer climates!

I did start my garden for the year and it looks really odd seeing my lettuce sprouting inside when the ground is snow-covered outside. I'm so longing for warmer whether that I can almost taste those fresh veggies. When we lived in California, springtime didn't really make that much of an impact on me, but now that we have weather, it certainly does.

Anyone else surprised at how early Easter is this year? Since we'll be headed to church in the snow and hiding Easter eggs in the drifts, I sure did! My grandmother sent me this little bit of information and I thought I would share it.

As you may know, Easter is always the 1st Sunday after the 1st full moon after the Spring Equinox (which is March 20).

This dating of Easter is based on the lunar calendar that Hebrew people used to identify Passover, which is why it moves around on our Roman calendar. Based on the above, Easter can actually be one day earlier (March 22), but that is pretty rare. This Easter, March 23, 2008, will be the earliest Easter any of us will ever see for the rest of our lives!

Here are the facts:

1) The next time Easter will be this early (March 23) will be the year 2228 (220 years from now). The last time it was on March 23 was in 1913. So, only the most elderly of our population (95 years or older) have ever seen it this early before!

2) None of us have ever or will ever see it a day earlier! The next time it will be a day earlier (March 22) will be in the year 2285 (277 years from now). The last time it was on March 22 was in 1818.

So, no one alive today has or will ever see Easter any earlier than it will be this year!

Happy Easter! He is risen!

BOGO

Buy One, Get One Free. This is a lovely phrase in the couponing world. It seems pretty simple: you buy one item at regular price and you get the second item for free. Good deal, huh? Well, it gets even better.

Did you know that you can use a coupon on the item you're getting for free? I didn't. I figured that it was free, so you can't get better than free, can you? You can! For example, today I bought Lloyd's Barbeque Chicken (yes, I'm a Southern girl at heart) which were BOGO, for $6.99 for the first. I had two $1 off coupons, one for the full priced item, one for the free item, reducing the price to $4.99 for two! That's about $2.50 each on a item that's regularly $6.99 for one.

It gets even better. This week at RiteAid Dove Chocolate Eggs (very yummy!) are BOGO on sale. But there is also a BOGO coupon for Dove Chocolate. You know what that means? Free chocolate! You use the BOGO coupon with the BOGO sale and that equals two free items. I currently have 14 bags of free Dove chocolate. At the end of this I'm going to weigh 400 lbs. LOL.

Just to warn you in case you want to do this, the BOGO sale with the BOGO coupons doesn't always work that way. It completely depends on how that particular store rings up it's BOGO items. Some ring them up as the first item at the full price and the second one as free. Other ring them up as each item at 1/2 price, in which case you pay the 1/2 the price of one item for both items. You never know unless you try.

And still other issues with the deal is the checker you get. My friend went in to do this deal the other day and the checker said to her, "We don't give away items for free," and wouldn't let her use the coupons on the chocolate. When you get seriously into couponing, you learn that not all checkers get it: coupons are just like using money for the store. When you use a manufacturer's coupon at the store, they get reimbursed for the face value of the coupon PLUS 8 cents. So the store actually makes an additional 8 cents for every coupon you use, so it's a good deal for them to use coupons. Read the fine print on the coupon; it's there. So when you use a coupon that is 30 cent off one item, it's just like you're handing them 30 cents. With a BOGO coupon, there is actually a place for them to write the amount of the coupon on it for them to get reimbursed by the manufacturer. Realizing this change my whole concept of what coupons were all about and that the store is not losing money when I use them, they're making it! A good deal for everyone!

Buy One, Get One Free. Music to my ears.

Moose in our yard???

Is that the theme to Northern Exposure I hear? As I was sitting at the dining room table yesterday, I saw movement outside our windows. To my surprise is was a moose eating the evergreen bushes on our deck! He spent about half an hour munching (our bushes do need trimming after all), then moved into the yard to look for something else to nibble. Welcome to the Great White North!

And yes that is snow coming down. More snow today too. It's coming down, but it's only sticking to what is already there. March is definitely here: the month with the most annoying weather. First snow, then rain, then sun, more snow and lots and lots of mud! If you don't like the weather, just wait 5 minutes... and then you'll like it even less. ;)

Sunday was a beautiful day that gave us hope that Spring will come eventually. We even braved the unmelted snow drifts and took the kids to the park for an hour. The play structure and about 2 feet surrounding it was complete devoid of snow, but all around was a foot of crunchy, slushy snow to wade through to get there. But the kids enjoyed being out in the fresh air and sunshine, even if they did have their coats on. It was a scorching 50 degrees!

I reorganized my pantry before church on Sunday. With all this couponing I have quite the stockpile of food that I had to find places for. Before I reorganized a lot of it was in grocery  bags on the floor and you could hardly walk in the door. Now it is all neat and tidy with everything in it's place. I even put a doorknob cover on the door to get it to keep little people out. No one in my pantry but Mommy! And Daddy if he promises to put everything back where he found it! :)