Weight Watchers Ice Cream Sandwiches

This is a recipe I got from my friend Robin from T&U back when she was doing WW while I was studying for the CPA Exam (one of the many times I studied for it haha). I used to make these all the time because they are so stinking good. Why I stopped, I don't know.

1 chocolate graham cracker (use low fat if you can find them)
2 Tbsp fat-free Cool Whip

Make a sandwich by breaking the graham cracker in half and smearing the cool whip in the middle and freeze. They are so good, you won't feel like you are missing out on anything!

I couldn't find low fat chocolate graham crackers, so it is 2 points. I think if you use low fat, it is just 1 point.

How easy is that? You're gonna love it!

(That's not the best picture I have ever taken, but I just ran and pulled out the ones I have already made up and set them on the lid of the container I have them stored in.)

Happy Early Birthday To Me!

My birthday isn't for a couple of weeks, but Scott couldn't find a good hiding place for my present...so he gave it to me early!!

He gave me a Sansa MP3 player! It is pink and small and he got me an external drive thingy so I have a total of 8GBs of memory! He is ripping a bunch of my CDs to MP3 right now and loading me up! I am really excited! All I need now is that cord thingy that will hook it up to my stereo in my car and I can listen to my CDs much easier than having to worry about flipping through my CD case while driving down the road.

I am really happy about this present. I will enjoy my walking at the park on the days that Scott plays disc golf much more now!

Let's Go Krogering!

I went to Kroger and they still have their Tyson boneless skinless chicken breasts for $1.99/lb, so go get some before they stop doing that. They weren't advertised, I don't think. I spent $41.51 and had no coupons, but my Kroger Plus Card savings were $27.38! I didn't buy anything that wasn't on sale! I got squash, zucchini, and apples for $1/lb, an onion for $0.89/lb, 2 mangos for $1 each (b/c I had never bought a fresh mango, so I wanted to try.) I also got some Del Monte fruit cups for $1 each, the ones with no sugar added! I needed some hotdogs for a the joint birthday party we are having for Kristyn, Stephanie, and me in a couple of weeks with my family so that I can make pigs in a blanket, so I found some Light Hot Dogs (made with Turkey, so we'll see) 2 for $7, but I only got one pack and it was still $3.50. This last thing is very interesting to me...they had potatoes - 5lb bags were $3.69 and the 10lb bag was $3.99! So, I got the 10lb bag! If you refrigerate your potatoes, they will last a long time. We eat a lot of potatoes. I recently read an article on the WW website and it said that the skin of a potato has more potassium than a banana! HA! That makes me feel much better about not liking bananas. There's all kind of other healthy things about potatoes, too. That made me happy because I love potatoes!

I hope we don't need groceries again for a while, because it sure is costing us a lot to save all this money! HA!

Well, I am rambling. The point is I saved money and I am happy. I am full of chicken stir fry that I prepared very similarly to a hibachi-style japanese restaurant (and it probably cost me less than $4 to make the whole meal and Scott gets to take leftovers tomorrow!) meal and so is my husband and he is happy. Mmmmm...

And, I went ahead and bought enough squash to make the squash casserole recipe that Bethany gave me so Scott is excited about that too!

Okay, enough rambling really.

More, Better Savings!

This weekend, I went online and looked at the Publix circular for sale items of things that we didn't necessarily have to have right now, but that we do use and would have to buy at some point in time. I really like their site because anything you want to buy, you just check it and it adds it to your shopping list and you can just print it out when you are done. Then, I went through all the online coupon sites looking for coupons that would match my items. I even googled coupons for ___ and sometimes I did get something! There were a couple of big priced items that we bought that were not on sale that we discovered that we needed. If you ever see the scrubbing bubbles refills on sale or get a coupon you don't need for them, let me know. We are always needing that stuff.

Anyway, drum roll please:

We bought about $85 worth of stuff for about $49! Plus, between this trip and the one last week, we are really stocked up now on things like granola bars, 2 Liters of Dr. Pepper products (which we take to fellowship meals at church or parties and stuff like that), cans of coke products, cat treats, canned green beans, and Ritz Crackers. I have discovered that it never seems like ground turkey breast is on sale. And, I need to buy more boneless skinless chicken breasts when they are on sale for $1.99/lb because man, we eat a lot of chicken.

Kroger has zucchini, squash, and vidalia onions on sale right now, so tonight I am going to go pick us some up and we are have chicken stir fry - yum-o!

So, have you found any really good deals that are going on right now that everyone else should be taking advantage of?

Savings?

I have decided that we need to do better with using coupons, etc...

So, I have discussed the best ways to save with Shana and to also keep from going insane from feeling like I have to go 15 places every time I grocery shop. There is this website called couponmom.com and it lets you search for you grocery store and it will list all the best deals from their circular for the week and which coupons are still valid for those deals. It tells you based on which coupon book from which Sunday's paper. So, it's very helpful. Lots of people say that Kroger doubles coupons, but I don't think I got any double coupons last night, so that is a little confusing. Well, we spent an hour and a half at the grocery store. This is why we have never been good with coupons and shopping deals. It takes too long. But, I am told that once you get used to it, you get a method and it is easier. Let's hope so. We spent about $155 but we saved (if you include coupons and the "Kroger plus card savings" which are a scam anyway) about $43. We did buy some things because they were on sale. Like, they have coke products 3 12-packs for $12, which isn't the cheapest you can usually get them, but if you bought 3 12-packs, you get 2 free boxes of Ritz crackers. Both of those are staple items in our house. I got the whole wheat ones, which I didn't know existed until Bethany told me about them, and they are really good and better for you! And, believe it or not, we bought all "zero" products and nothing with sugar. But, of course, we already had plenty of that at home anyway. I also found this website where you can download coupons automatically to your shopper's card. I loaded all of mine to my Kroger Plus Card because that is where I shop the most often. The website is shortcuts.com. I actually used more of those coupons than I did any others.

I just need to learn to work the system by buying things at their lowest cost and combining that sale with the manufacturers coupon and the store coupons to get them almost free. One of these days...

P.S.

I just had a yummy frozen lunch, which is unusual. It was a Smart Ones chicken quesadilla. You should try it. It really does taste as goos as it smells. Again, unusual. Just thought I would share.

Update

So, it's been more laid back lately. So far there have been two full work days this week and so far this week I have left at 4:30 both days. I have been toying with the idea of putting this on my blog, but I figure why not? I could use some accountability: I have started Weight Watchers. I am on week 3. I have only lost about 4 lbs so far, but I don't weigh again until Friday. SO...if you have any recipes that you want to share, send me the links or email them or scan them and share! I may start sharing some of my favorite healthy recipes on here. I haven't really done any recipes lately. Sad times.

This past weekend was a whirlwind of showers. I went to a bachelorette party/shower for Caitlin on Friday night, a bridal shower for my friend Kim on Saturday, and a bridal shower for Caitlin at church on Sunday. I was so proud of myself because I went out the week before and bought gifts so I wasn't rushing around on the day of!!! (See any previous post where I talk about how I have turned into a procrastinator!) I didn't take pictures of the cards, but I made them. I used the pre-made blank cards you can get at Joann or Walmart and then cut squares of my wrapping paper and made them super cute. My wrapping paper was like squares with different wedding-type designs. I just wanted to share that because I had never thought about it until I was looking at that paper and I was like, wow this would make a cute card.

Shana did a good job summing up Caitlin's bachelorette party on her blog, but I want to talk about it, too. Lauren, Caitlin's wonderful sister, planned it and did a great job. We all carpooled down to Fuego, this tapas restaurant downtown. It was really good and we had good company too! Then, we came back for the "shower" time and Lauren made this yummy apple crisp (I didn't eat any of it, but I have had it before) and I made Margarita Punch, which is nonalcoholic but does taste like a real margarita. It's super easy, but things are always better when someone else makes it, so I always make it for the girls (I made it up, but I am sure lots of people make it my way, too). How can I say no when they shower me with compliments on my bartending abilities? One of the highlights: Shana was there! Yay! She and Josh came home from Louisville (where Josh is attending seminary) for the "Caitlin and Andy wedding shower circuit!" I can't share all of the pics, which were almost all good (b/c there are just too many for one post), but here are some of my favorites. All the ones Shana posted are super good too, but since she posted them, I won't. So, look at her post too if you want to see more good pics! The one up top is Caitlin surrounded by her gifts drinking margarita punch. Too cute! Then, there are pictures of Lauren (the hostess with the mostess) and me and Maggie and me. The last picture is a belly picture of Shana. She's just the cutest pregnant person ever. I had to share (I hope you don't mind Shana).

Kim's shower was a lot of fun too. It was great to see Kim. I know her because we used to go to church together and I worked with her mom, Teri at T&U. I still stay really close with my T&U friends. The shower was at Cheryl's house, my old boss from T&U who also went to church with us. It was fun because there were lots of people there that I like a lot who I rarely get to see. I ended up making bow-quets from all the bows on Kim's gifts, so that was a fun way to be crafty. Okay, the pictures from this shower are kind of small, probably because I saved them off of Facebook, so they probably are not normal size pics. But, there is one of me making the bow-quets and then one of Kim with her bridesmaid Cristy (Cheryl's daughter) holding their bow-quets. Fun. (Okay, I just tried a different way to save those pics from FB, so maybe they are better.)

Caitlin's church shower on Sunday was fun too and she racked up! I have my pics downloaded, but I haven't emailed them to everyone so I don't have access to them at work right now. That is for a later post.

200th Post & an Update

Happy 200th Post! Wow. If I had known this was going to be my 200th post, I might have done a contest or something witty. But, I really don't have it in me right now.

We filed our 10-K at work! Yea! Of course, we still have the proxy, and I have month-end stuff still going on and in April we will have quarter-end and the 10-Q, but whatever. We enjoyed the moment today! My boss left at about 3 and my other co-worker in my department, Linda, and I gave him about 15 minutes head start and headed out too! Did we feel bad? Nope! He had said not to stay late...so we didn't! I really do like most of the people I work with, so it's a good place to be. I do feel kind of stupid sometimes because the people in accounting seem to have higher than usual IQs even for accountants.

I made a slide show of the pictures from our snow day the other day. There are two in there that our friend Kelly from church sent us as she had her camera at church and was snapping pictures of everyone outside playing in it. Some of the pictures in the slide show are just because the snow was so pretty. Some are to show off what great pictures our new camera takes. Some are to show how stinkin' sweet our kitties are.

Like this one:
I know it is blurry and it actually turned itself sideways just now. I was actually standing in the chair to take pictures out the window and Maxwell got up into the chair with me and started rubbing against my legs. For some reason, maybe because I was too close, the camera didn't focus on his little face, but isn't this just so sweet how he pushes his head into my hand.

Here is the series of events:

He got up and started rubbing my legs

Then he went to see what Sampson was looking at

Then he came back over to me

He rubbed my legs some more. After this is when I bent over and started rubbing his head. Too cute.

Well, it's supposed to be beautiful this weekend. I am going to try to get out and enjoy it some!

Snow!

It snowed today. A lot. It started (I think) right around lunch time. We were at church, so I don't know what time it started here, but it snowed (hard) for about 5-6 hours. It is just sitting in the grass, on the sidewalk, and the streets. The streets look kind of slushy. It has stopped now. It is supposed to be freezing temperatures tonight, so hopefully it will dry up fast. It was a lot of fun to be at church while it was snowing. We were all out in it, watching the kids throw snowballs at each other (and sometimes at us). It was really beautiful. When we got home, we had lots of birds all day. It was interesting to watch them. We have a bird that is not in our bird book called Common Birds of Atlanta. It is solid black and has a small red stripe just above a small gold stripe on each wing. I'll get a picture of it next time and upload it to see if anyone knows what it is.

Not this past Thursday, but the Thursday before that, I got a hair cut. I will post a picture so you can see it. I had about 6 inches cut off, layers cut, and some long bangs. I like it.

We took a bunch of pictures today at the house, but we have not downloaded them yet. Such is life lately.

I am still working 10-12 hours a day. We should file our 10-K this Friday, so hopefully it will ease up some. I know I will still have a good bit of overtime, because we still have our proxy to file and then it will be time to do our 10-Q (for quarter end), but I really don't intend to work this much for that much longer. It's kind of crazy. I am glad to have a job and I do like my job. But, enough is enough. My understanding is that it is much better this year for our department than it was for them in previous years. So, for that I am thankful.

Scott is still working away at his same job. They keep having layoffs, so we are trying not to be nervous about that. The good thing is that with the two companies they have, they really do need to keep 2 IT people. So, that is sort of a little bit of piece of mind.

Anyway, that is a brief synopsis of our status. I know I have not been good about writing. Hopefully I'll be better about it soon.