A Slice Of My Life ........I'm Such a Dummy!

This is what happens when you step on your laptop! Any suggestions? It still works, I just have this big blob in the corner with a few lines running across the screen.

Oh well, life goes on!

I have posted some pictures of some sewing projects on my other blog, ANGEL SCRAPS QUILTING. I hope you'll go over and take a look.

Somewhere Over The Rainbow.....

Dreams really do come true.

Looking out my kitchen window early this morning:



Early morning.

It was almost cool this July morning after record breaking heat THE WHOLE MONTH of June.




The Four O'Clocks are still blooming.



My mother found the Topsy Turvey kits on clearance at Walmart and thought I should have one. She even furnished the tomato plant. Since we have a long growing season, maybe we will have tomatoes on it before it frosts in the fall!



Our other veggies:






My sweet daughter gave me two of her sweet potato vine tubers last fall. I planted them inside in pots. After the weather warmed up I moved them outside. Aren't they gorgeous?



The old fashioned Crape Myrtles are blooming.






I used the old clothesline that was here when we came. Ms. Albertha would approve!



Buttlerflies love Zinnias!



Remember all those Petunia plants I bought on clearance at Lowe?









Oregano, Marjoram, Petunia and Celosia planted in an old rusty enamelware pan. Drainage holes were no problem!




I was sneaking up on this "guard frog"!



Looking down the driveway



Dream...



Self sown Impatiens



The bluebird of happiness? I think so!



Mr. Sunshine of the shade garden.



What a glorious summer morning!

Unbelievable Deal on Newborn Diapers at CVS

Yesterday I saw on the 30 dollar weekly grocery challenge blog that Pampers Swaddlers were on clearance at CVS for $2.99, AT SOME STORES. I decided it was worth a trip, since I was near the CVS.

I know from experience that CVS puts items on clearance when the packaging of a product, or the product itself, is being updated. So I looked for any older looking packaging first of all. With the advent of the scanner at the front of the store, its easy to check prices before buying. I took 4 or 5 packages of Pampers Swaddlers to the scanner and sure enough, the Pampers Swaddlers "Sensitive" in the NB size ONLY were on clearance for $2.99.

I had just received some high dollar Pampers coupons in the mail from Vocal Point: $3.00, and 3 or 4 for $1.50. I also had a $2.00 one in my coupon organizer. So after using the coupons and a $1.00 extra buck coupon, my total out of pocket was about $4.00. IN ADDITION, through today you get a $1.00 extra buck as a result of buying Pampers.

So I got basically about $40.00 worth of pampers for $3.00!

Now, you may be wondering why a grandmother of an almost 3 year old is buying newborn diapers. Number one, they make great baby shower gifts and at the moment I know of at least 2 expecting mothers that could use them; and Number Two, you never know when a new grandbaby will come on the scene. :o)

So, my advice is IF YOU ARE NEAR A CVS OR PLANNING TO GO TO CVS, check to see if your store has these diapers on clearance. I would not make a special trip, because at my store there were only 4 packages available. Just look next time you are there.

While you are there you might be able to get some almost free Pantene shampoo that is on clearance too if you have any Pantene coupons.

Update on CVS and Walgreens

WALGREENS:

Thanks to the note on my computer screen, I realized I had a $7.50 Register Reward that expires on Monday! I'm off work Monday and won't be coming back to the town that has a Walgreens, so I made a quick trip over there on my lunch break today.

For $7.50 I bought:

2 boxes of Rice Krispies Treats (used 2 $1.00 off coupons)
2 bottles of Dawn Dish Detergent
A 3 pack of recordable DVDs (to make my own picture movies!!!)
1 chapstick (needed a filler)

I received a $2.00 Register Reward as a result of purchasing the Rice Krispies Treats. This made them 50 cents each after coupons and register rewards. Hubby will appreciate them as a lunch box treat next week!

Register Rewards on hand: $5.00



CVS

Since I was right next door (our CVS and Walgreens are beside each other!) I went back into CVS and bought another one of the Pantene Shampoos on clearance, less a $1.50 coupon; and 1 more Energy Bar for 99 cents. I paid for all of this with extra bucks and coupons, for no money out of pocket as well as received a 99 cents extra buck.

Extra bucks on hand: $10.98.

My Store Deals of the Week

Good Friday Morning! I am super excited that I will have a four (yes I said 4!) day weekend. As Elizabeth said in a comment this week, there will be lots of sewing going on! In fact I started last night. Pictures will be coming soon to a blog near you!

This week's deals:

CVS:

I was very interested in the Picture Movie DVD Extra Bucks offer that CVS has going on this week through Saturday. The DVD is on sale for $9.99 and you get $9.99 extra bucks. On Tuesday, since I am not an extremely technical person, I went into the store to inquire as to how it works. I was hoping it could be done online, but it turned out that you come into the store and insert the little disc from your camera, or a memory stick, etc. into the Kodak machine and make your own picture movie.

I decided to come back later in the week when I was more prepared and had time to make the movie. While there I scanned my CVS card and got a $2.00 off Pantene Shampoo coupon. Right beside the machine on the end of the aisle were Pantene Shampoos on clearance for 50% off. These Pantene Shampoos were on sale because the bottle design has been changed recently and these were the old design. That's the only reason they were on sale. So after the coupon the price of the shampoo was only 49 cents.

I remembered to bring in my reusable shopping bag with the CVS green tag on it and what do you know? It was the 4th time in a row that I had used it so I got a $1.00 extra buck. After extra bucks, I made 51 cents on this trip.

Then I went back yesterday to make my movie. I was limited to what was on the camera disc that hadn't been deleted, since I don't have a memory stick. I plan to get one, but didn't have one at the time. Luckily, I leave old pictures on the camera disc, especially if they are pictures I like. So I proceeded to make my picture movie DVD with no real plan, just using what was there.

I LOVE IT!!!!! You get to choose your background music and I chose Pacobel Canon D. I named it 2010 Magical Memories. The 60 pictures I was able to use on the DVD are from the last few weeks spent at my old home and pictures taken at the farmhouse. I could look at this for hours. It is wonderful and I would highly recommend that you take advantage of this deal.

I scanned my card before paying and got a bonus $1.00 extra buck! I already had enough extra bucks to roll so I only paid the sales tax and still got the $9.99 extra bucks coupon for my next deal.

In addition, if you look at the bottom of your receipt it will tell you if you have reached the limit of each deal. I saw that the Energy Bars are still on sale for 99 cents and are generating 99 cents extra bucks. So I spent $10.98, plus tax, paid with extra bucks, except for the tax and got back $10.98 in extra bucks.

As a side note my laptop has the movie maker feature on it and for the cost of a DVD I can make my own movie dvds with music and everything. Just gotta figure out how to do it!

Walgreens:

There were some free after Register Rewards deals at Walgreens this week, but I was late in going over there and my store was sold out of some of them.

I was able to get the pair of Aloe Infused socks for $3.00, which generated $3.00 in Register Rewards. These will go in my gift closet for a stocking stuffer!!! Of course, I paid for them with the Register Rewards from last week.

Food Lion:

Don't forget to scan your MVP card before shopping. You never know what deal you might get. I love to get a coupon for something that's already on sale. It happens!

I haven't made my trip to Food Lion yet this week, but these are some things I'm thinking about buying:

Boneless Chicken Breasts on sale for $1.77 per pound

Capri Sun 10 pack (for grandson) on sale for $2.07. Use the Food Lion $2.00 off coupon found Here. Final cost 7 cents.

Breyer's Ice Cream on sale for $2.50 with 75 cents off coupon

Scottie's Tissues on sale for 94 cents each with a 50 cents off 3 coupon. Remember that Buy One Get One free items at Food Lion ring up half price, so you can buy just one if you want to. With this deal I can buy 3 and use the coupon and each one will ring up half price.

Sweet Deals Promo - Buy 5 items and get $5.00 instantly. 5 Cool Whip = $5.00, so would be free. BUT, do I really need 5 cool whips? Probably not! But there are other items you might be able to use.

Kraft Promo: Buy 5 bags of shredded cheese at $2.50 each, earn $5.00 off instantly. Cheese has a long fridge shelf life or it can be frozen, so this would be something I could use. I need to crunch numbers to see if its really that good of a deal and also to see if there are any coupons.

But there are many other Kraft items included in this deal that you might find useful in this promotion and would be worth checking into.

For a GREAT list of the Food Lion deals with coupon matches go HERE.

I will carefully make my grocery list so that the items I buy will complement what I've got in the pantry. Many of the items in the pantry are only good for using in recipes, so I need to figure out what else might be needed to make a special dish!

In The Kitchen With Debbie - The Country Bumpkin Edition

Last night I made this dish, which my hubby jokingly called a "Tater Souffle". LOL It is a concoction that I came up with to make use of pantry and fridge items. It contains "taters" of course, onions, browned hamburger and a small amount of cream of celery soup left over from a squash casserole I made over the weekend. The potatoes were small and so after washing them well, I sliced them peeling and all. It turned out pretty well and was a way to put the potatoes to use before they went bad, which was imminent!



This African Violet and chicken sit on the window sill over my kitchen sink. Since we moved to the farmhouse my African Violets have been blooming like crazy because they get so much more sunlight sitting in the window.



This is a bell pepper picked from our sweet bell pepper bush we have growing in a pot. It is perfectly shaped and miniature in size. So we decided it must be a "hairloom" pepper. (yes we were being silly last night)



I was given more wonderful fresh corn yesterday and although we love it, we have eaten as much as we can stand for a while. So, after getting home from work and while the "tater souffle" was baking, I shucked, washed and blanched several of the ears for freezing. I broke the ears in half and stuffed a gallon freezer bag with them. It may not sound like a lot of freezing, but there are 20 pieces in this bag. Breaking them in half allows you to put more corn in the bag. When I need a side dish I will just cook the number of ears needed for that particular meal.



This is my freezer which is part of our side by side refrigerator/freezer. As you can see there are 3 frozen pizzas, several packages of frozen hamburger, a package of frozen boneless skinless chicken breasts, the frozen corn from above, and various odd items. I hope to fill it with more summer bounty as well as meat purchased on sale. But, I will make sure I use what's in here first!



I must admit to you that I cook too much and we have too many leftovers! I need to work on cooking just what we need for a particular meal. Even though we eat as many of the leftovers as we can for lunches, etc., there is too much waste!

Simple Abundance in July, 2010

I'm still putting together my plans for cooking, menu planning and grocery shopping for July. My theme will be "Simple Abundance". I will be using what I have on hand as much as possible and hope to have a "low spend" month on groceries. I will still concentrate on using coupons combined with sales, but need to start shopping only to replenish the pantry.... and then actually cook FROM the pantry!

So, in an effort to kick start my plan of cooking more dishes from the pantry, this was last night's menu:

Rotini Casserole (wacky mac, cream of mushroom soup, petite diced tomatoes, cheese, browned hamburger, french fried onion rings) I had all of these things on hand!

Tiny garden peas (canned) In stock also!

Easy cheese cake (graham cracker pie crust, cheese cake pudding mix, milk, light cool whip) I have had the pie crust since I bought it on sale at Christmas. I bought the pudding mix on sale with coupons while coupon shopping yesterday as well as the light cool whip, which was on sale. We always have milk on hand. So it was a very frugal and light summer dessert!

My thanks go to Denise of MOUNTAIN QUILTER for the idea of making Rotini Casserole as a way to use the french fried onion rings! You can only eat green bean casserole so often and it was a delightful new recipe that my family liked.

I used the recipe found HERE. Even if you aren't interested in the recipe, please go look at the casserole dish collection shown on the same post. Aren't they gorgeous?! I have one similar in harvest gold:



I have had this one for over 30 years and I would love to start collecting more by searching yard sales and thrift shops.

Oh well, back to the subject of this post. I have come to the conclusion that I must really concentrate on eating from my pantry in the upcoming month of July! We are so abundantly blessed with foods of all kinds, including fresh vegetables and items bought on sale and with coupons.

Just yesterday I was given a bag of okra, a bag of new potatoes and corn. Last week I was given 12 pints of blueberries. After work today, I carefully went through the isles of Food Lion using some coupons that were about to expire and when I got home, my pantry was so full, there was hardly anywhere to store my new purchases. Also, We are starting to get ripe tomatoes and green peppers from our own plants.

The dirt still clings to these potatoes:



We love okra, both fried and in vegetable soup.



Our first tomatoes were picked this week. Tomato sandwiches, here we come!



We are so fortunate to be the recipient of gifts of fresh summer produce, but even if we didn't receive them, I pass by at least four places that sell fresh produce on my way home from work every day. If I need any veggies, I could supplement our food supply and help out the local farmers at the same time.

I have already made some progress this past month in cooking from the pantry by taking inventory and making a list of what I have on hand. I also cooked some dishes that included many of the ingredients found on the list. In July I want to continue with this quest of cooking from the pantry and also to make sure we eat the fresh veggies that are so plentiful this time of year so that there is no waste.

I am going to grocery shop only to take advantage of great sales and coupons and of course to buy milk, bread, eggs and meat. During July I plan to post the ways I have cooked from my pantry.

I am reminded of something my mother always used to say: "I can always knock up something to eat from what I have in my cabinets".

Month End Coupon Organization

This is me sitting on my couch with the laptop, snuggie (which I definitely don't need these days) and my coupons.

Tomorrow is the last day of the month, so I started going through the coupons this past weekend to see if there were any that I especially wanted to make use of before they expire.

Saturday my mother and I made a trip to Walmart and I was able to use one coupon for $2.00 off Quattro Disposable Razors and $1.00 off fluorescent light bulbs. Both of these items were on my list of items to buy.

Today I need to pick up a few items at Food Lion so I'll check to see if any more of the almost expired coupons are worth using. If not, I'll happily throw them away. I don't intend to use them unless they are for items I really need and will use.

I hope to get my CVS and Walgreens list together today. I'm a little behind this week!

Another Great Gift Idea

Here's another great gift idea! Yesterday I made a hooded towel using an easy and quick tutorial found HERE and HERE at Obsessively Stitching. All you need is a bath or beach towel and a hand towel. The hand towel is cut in half, so one hand towel is enough to make two hooded towel gifts. If you want to be a little more fancy you can add trim like the John Deere fabric shown in the second link.

Now is a perfect time to make this project for gift giving, either for the pool/tub/beach for warm weather use, or for a Christmas gift that can be used by a child after a bath in colder weather. Beach towels work great and have kid type themes. These are available everywhere right now and will be marked down on clearance within the next couple of weeks. You know as soon as July 4th passes, all the summer things start being put on sale and clearance to make way for back to school things. So I plan to watch out for clearance priced beach towels.

My model was more interested in playing with his cars and trucks!





The hood used in this tutorial is made from half a hand towel which fits the child much better than putting a small triangle on the corner of the towel.



I can think of several children who would love one of these.

My Food Lion Deals For This Week

****Don't forget to scan your MVP card at the front of the store before starting your shopping! Some of the coupons that have printed out for me were for products that were on sale at the same time. Many of the coupons have to be used the same day, but there are some on the sheet that expire at later dates. Unless these items are on sale at a good price the day I get them, I file them in my coupon organizer for possible use at a later date.

****I have found that the Food Lion Coupons that come in my Food Lion Email Newsletter may not be for items on sale that particular week, but the item is often put on sale before the coupon expires. So hold on to them until the expiration dates.

*** This weeks store coupons from my Food Lion newsletter can be found HERE.

These were the best deals at Food Lion that I saw for my family this week and these are good until midnight on Tuesday, the 29th.

Red Baron Pizzas, Buy One Get One Free. A $1.00 coupon printed out at the machine at the front!

French's Honey Mustard Dipping Sauce - 2 for $3.00. I used 2 $1.00 coupons so the final cost was 50 cents each.

Food Lion brand Cheese on Wheat crackers (these are actually made by Lance and taste the same as the ones Lance used to sell) $1.99. I used the $2.00 off 2 packages coupon from my Email newsletter, (see link for the coupons above), so these ended up being 99 cents a box. That's only 13 cents for each individual package of crackers. These are great to put in with a lunch at work for my hubby and for snacks.

Kraft BBQ sauce - Buy one get one free, The bonus size in the traditional flavor is included so you get two large bottles for $1.75, or 88 cents each.

Buy 2 boxes of select varieties of cereal, and get a 64 oz carton of Food Lion orange juice free. We don't eat a lot of cereal at my house, but cereal is great to donate to the Church food pantry. Also a $1.00 off any two Kelloggs cereals printed from the machine at the front! Corn Pops were 2 for $5.00, less the $1.00 Coupon. So I got 2 boxes of cereal for the Church food pantry and a carton of orange juice for us for a total of $4.00.

I also bought some 93% lean hamburger that is on sale and will buy a whole chicken that is on sale for 99 cents a pound this weekend to roast in the crock pot.

Happy Shopping!

One Small Christmas Gift Made!

Its still June and I actually made a Christmas gift! I'll admit its small, but its a start.

I searched the internet recently looking for tutorials for gifts to make. THIS TUTORIAL is for a cute bookmark that uses cute scraps. I love using scraps and have lots of them, so its a perfect idea. Its also really great that they are a quick project and use the small scraps that are hard to find a use for.

I made this first one as an experiment. My sewing machine has a hard time going around the corners, but I'm going to work on that problem. These will be cute for stocking stuffers and other small gifts.





I am having a good time going through my scraps putting together color combinations and themes.