We're Back!

We are back from our much-needed get-away. We enjoyed Asheville and the Biltmore House. There really isn't much to do in Asheville, so if you want to take a 5-day trip, I suggest you plan two stops, maybe 2 days in Asheville and then the rest somewhere else close by with not much to do. But, we still made the most of it. We thought we were going to have an indoor pool, but as it turns out, there are 2 Country Inn and Suites in Asheville. We ate at the Tupelo Honey Cafe that Lindsay suggested and it was really good. We at breakfast and dinner at the Moose Cafe next to the Farmers' Market close to our hotel. All the restaurants in Asheville are all about fresh food from the farm and stuff like that. The Biltmore House was fun to go through and they had even recently reopened one of the important rooms in the house. All the flowers were really pretty. We ate at the Stable Cafe on Thursday for lunch and it was really good.

While we were in Asheville, we also played a round out Putt-Putt and saw two movies: Monsters vs Aliens (in 3D) and Star Trek. I had never watched an entire show or movie of Star Trek. I am not sure how I avoided them growing up as they were on a lot since my dad and sister were big fans. I thought that the Star Trek movie was really good. I would definitely like to own that one once it comes out.

We have downloaded our pictures, but I haven't finished editing them and I need to create a slide show to share on here.

Also, we threw a baby shower for Shana on May 3 and I have those pictures downloaded but not posted yet either, so sorry.

While we were away, it rained a good bit, so everything grew a lot! Our neighbor Nan was also sweet enough to check on the boys and water my pots on days that it didn't rain.

I will post a slide show or two later this evening, hopefully.

TTFN (ta-ta for now!)

Flowers and Cats

While we are away, I want you to have something to look at on our blog. So, I am leaving you with some pictures of our flowers for so far this year. I planted some things in our front bed called celosia. They look pretty cool, but I don't think they like all the wet soil from the rain. I really hope they don't die. I am pretty sure I am done with planting pots and baskets for the summer. I planted just a few...ahem. We have also planted 2 tomato plants, a bell pepper, and a jalapeno plant. So, we'll see how those turn out. I saved all my geraniums from last year and have incorporated them into this year's pots. They are already getting some pretty green leaves. I really hope they bloom as well as they did last year.

I have also adding in some pictures of what the cats do while I am working on the gardening. I usually open the windows to air out the house and the boys sit right in the window and watch me. They like to sniff the air, which is what Sampson is doing in one of the pictures where he is making a funny face. We've been getting a lot of bird activity lately, too. The boys love it. The birds and the cats are eating us out of house and home.

DVD Giveaway @ A Full Heart

My sweet friend Erin at A Full Heart is giving away some DVDs from the Vision Forum. Check out her post here and enter to win! The deadline is May 14! Erin's blog is always an encouragement to me, so be sure to read some of her posts while you are over there.

Wolverine

We went to see the movie Wolverine on Saturday. It was really good! I enjoyed the action and it also explains a lot of the mystery surrounding Logan in the X-Men movies. Also, it definitely left room for another movie between when this one ends and the first X-Men movie began.

There are a lot of movies coming out this summer that we want to see. Harry Potter, Transformers, GI Joe, and I am sure there are a few more that Scott mentioned last night. Are there any movies out there this summer that you just have to see?

We leave on Wednesday morning for our trip. I can't wait!

Update

Wow. It has been a long time since I posted anything. Almost a month. That wasn't really my intention, it just worked out that way. First of all, I was sick twice in three weeks. I am still sort of recovering from my last illness. I am kind of tired of being sick. I usually only get sick about once a year. This makes 4 times in 6 months. Scott was sick too. He got sick with some sort of sinus thing at about the same time as I got some sort of stomach bug. Then, he went to the doctor and started feeling better and once I had recovered from my stomach thing, I started getting sick with whatever sinus thing he had. No fun. I started to feel sick a week before my birthday, on the day of our joint birthday party with my family for Stephanie, Kristyn, and me.

Our birthday party was a lot of fun except that I wasn't feeling great, Stephanie was starting to have some sort of allergy thing, and Kristyn's stomach wasn't feeling too great either. But it was still good to get together. I got so many great gifts for my birthday. Obviously I don't think that my birthday is all about getting gifts, but it did sort of lessen the sting of turning...ahem...30. This is our group picture. Love the bunny ears. haha.





Here is the face I made when I opened my Cuttlebug. I was really surprised that Daddy and Stephanie got it for me. I had always just thought that I would end up saving up and getting it for myself. But, sometimes looking at my expressions is scary, seriously!







I got my first gift wrapped in "Over the Hill" wrapping paper this birthday. Thanks Daddy and Stephanie.













They got a special cake for my birthday...and added their own finishing touch of 30 candles!








Here I am trying to blow out all the candles! I was not successful in blowing them all out in one breath. They were all so spread out! It was a lot of ground to cover.










I won't list all my gifts, but I got a compilation of Jane Austen novels, some CDs that I had really been wanting, a movie, a Cuttlebug die cutting/embossing scrapbooking tool, and a new cookbook I really wanted. On top of the MP3 player that Scott gave me a couple of weeks ago, he surprised me with the perfume I really wanted, Armani Code for Women. I love the way it smells!

On the date of my actual birthday, April 18th, our close friends Andy and Caitlin got married. It was a beautiful ceremony and it was an enjoyable time to get to see a lot of people that we had not seen in a long time.











The weather has been absolutely crazy the last few weeks. Just this week, the lows have been about 35 and today it got up close to 90 degrees!

I have planted some tomato plants in pots with cages this year and a jalapeno plant. Hopefully we will have a good crop with them. We also purchased some dirt to amend the soil in our garden and I have started dumping my pots from the winter out and planting the whole thing out in the garden, kind of around the big area that I usually plant on that is raised. I put a lot of bulbs in them and I am hoping that by planting them in the garden, they'll come back next year and bloom. Scott and I went over to the Growers' Outlet today and I liked some of the stuff they have, but was disappointed that they didn't have more things I like. So, we didn't end up getting anything. I think that we are going to go back next weekend to see what they have and hopefully they'll have more stuff out. I still have plenty of time to plant. I don't have a lot of stuff to do in the yard this year because I have so many perennials, but I do have some things to plant. Mostly though, have my pots to take care of. The other day when I was working in the gardens and Scott was cutting the grass, I walked over to the side of the house to go through the fence and was surprised that all the hostas on that side that I planted 2 years ago have come up and they are monsters! The closer they are to the fence, or the more shade they are getting, the bigger they are! I will have to divide them this fall if we are still living here.

Did I ever say on here that we dropped the price on our house? Since that happened, we have had a pick up in traffic. We are not sure if that is because of the price decrease or because of the fact that it is spring. We would really like to be able to sell our house so that we could take advantage of the low prices on a house closer to our offices and church.

Today was Founders' Day for Scott's fraternity at GA Tech. So, we went downtown and got to spend time with friends. It was really nice.

I am still doing Weight Watchers. I have lost almost 12 pounds. I still have about 18 more that I want to lose.



Scott and I are taking a trip to celebrate my birthday. I decided that I would rather do that than have a big party or something. We are going to the Biltmore House in Asheville, NC. Neither of us has ever been. We will be there the last weekend of the Flower Festival. We are going to drive up on Wednesday, May 13 and come home on that Sunday. Obviously we won't be spending all of our time at the Biltmore House. I know that there is a lot to do up there, but I haven't spent a lot of time researching it. Does anyone have any suggestions of things we can do or restaurants we can visit?



Well, if you are still here, I am impressed. I hope you have a blessed week.

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...