Couponing 101

For those of you who don't care to read about couponing, feel free to move on and wait for my next post. For those of you that do, I know I said I was quitting couponing, and I did, and I am less stressed out which is good. Matt and I have also analyzed the couponing and found that we don't really buy a lot of things that you could use coupons on. Sure there are the toiletries and cleaning supplies. But food-wise, I don't really buy much food in a box other than pasta and maybe some canned veggies, so I didn't use a lot of the deals that were out there.

But I do know from reading blogs, that couponing can be ridiculously successful. Things like buying $200 worth of groceries for $3. Now that is something I could get in on. I was so not good at it though. I would maybe save 30% and then have a lot of things I didn't even want. Now I have a chance to learn how to do it better. Here. I will be attending the class that is in Marietta and would love some company!! It is only $10. I actually do not plan on couponing again after this class though. With me working and running a household, I have determined that it is too much for me. However, one day, Lord willing, I will be staying at home with kids and then I can coupon with my new found skills.

Who wants to come with me?? :)

Empty room

The first room when you walk into our house is still quite empty (I am pretty sure I have blogged about this before, and the bench we bought for Christmas). Now I have my eye on this chair:

Two of them, to be exact. They are not that expensive (comparatively) so I'm wondering if I'll be able to talk Matt (and myself) into buying them. They are on overstock.com where we also bought the bench. I have to give a little love to overstock.com here. We got free shipping on the bench. And right now their website says $2.95 shipping for your whole order (meaning my order of 2 pieces of furniture!). Sure it's probably built into the price somehow, but doesn't "free" always make you feel better anyway?

This weekend has been fairly low-key and kind of a downer due to the rain. We didn't really do anything Friday night. Saturday I had a Wesley board meeting thing from 9-3. Last night we went out to dinner at chick-fil-a (a treat for us!) and then went to Dad's Garage at 10:30. Dad's Garage is an improv comedy club in Midtown that I have been to probably about 5 times. I haven't been in a few years and have been trying to convince Matt to go. He was never up for it. Then, we went to the famous comedy place in Chicago called Second City, and I told him that I didn't think it was any better than Dad's Garage. So he agreed to go last night and it was HILARIOUS! I laughed so hard, and was still laughing when I was trying to go to sleep last night. I was so tired, laying in bed, and kept thinking about the show and laughing out loud. I highly recommend it, and we'd be happy to go with you ;-) My favorite thing they do is TheatreSports which they do Saturdays at 10:30pm. It's similar to Whose Line Is It Anyway? if you ever have watched that show.

Today Matt didn't have to sing at Northside so we opted to try the 11:30 service at Trinity (we usually go to the 9:30). We saw so many people we knew! How funny. It was awesome, and very nice to take one car to church with your husband and to actually get to take communion together instead of Matt having to jet out to get to Northside after the sermon.

It's time for me to go perform "surgery" on Molly's toys. (I sew them up over and over until they can't take it anymore.) I've been putting it off long enough. Have a great week!

Craigslist! what's your bid?

I just posted a ton of things on craigslist and thought I would give anyone who reads my blog first dibs if you see anything you want ;-) And, um, if you gave us any of these for our wedding.. I'm sorry!!

This is the modem you need if you sign up with evil Comcast. I'm selling for $40 with power source & cables.

Platters from a studio in Athens, GA. $65 together or $50 for the oval platter and $25 for the rectangle. Rectangle retails for $54 and oval retails for $95.

Sea Shell platter, selling for $10

Picture speaks for itself. Retails for $100, I'm selling for $50.

Check this link, selling for $100. http://www.crutchfield.com/S-kYiq5Ydhj2i/p_500CDA9807/Alpine-CDA-9807.html

Gorham crystal water goblets, 11oz. I have 3 of them, selling for $20 for all.

Mossimo maroon leather shoes from Target. Super cute, never worn. Size 5 1/2. Selling for $5.

Spongebob and Finding Nemo pillows, selling for $7 together or $4 each.

We also have a few more things I haven't posted yet including a VCR and a Playstation 2. Let me know if you want either of those!

Movies

I wonder if anyone who reads my blog shares the same movie tastes as me? I have a rather strange taste in movies. I absolutely love indie films and weird films that other people don't find as catchy. I love most chick flicks and the little kid movies (Up, Finding Nemo, Lizzie McGuire Movie, High School Musical, etc). I also love science fiction movies (I loved Avatar, despite everyone hating the story line and loving the graphics, I just loved the movie as a whole). I thought I would recommend a few and maybe if you see them, you can tell me what you think ;-)

Recently I saw these two and absolutely loved them:

The Answer Man - Jeff Daniels and Lauren Graham. Jeff Daniels is a famous, reclusive author and Lauren Graham is a new chiropractor and single mother. I shouldn't even try to write some sort of review or recap because I'm terrible at that. I'll just say I loved this movie.

Waitress - Keri Russell. This movie was way better than I was expecting. I thought it would be a corny chick flick but there was so much more to it.

Nine Months - Hugh Grant and Julianne Moore. Call me crazy, I know this movie is old, but I have recently rediscovered it and it is absolutely hysterical. I can't believe how much this movie gets me laughing. Cheesy, yes, but hilarious.

I'll write more later on movies I love, maybe someone will get something out of them ;-)

(ps - I have no clue why my posts give me different size fonts when I always select the same size. I could go fix it in the html but I don't care enough)

Church shopping

I've been feeling a little more at ease lately, as if I haven't super over-committed myself. I'm sure that will come back, although I hope not. This at ease, extra time, feeling has contributed to my three blog posts within one week ;-) We'll see if the trend continues.

I wanted to post about our church shopping experience. Matt and I attend a large church in Buckhead that has a lot of good things going for it. We love the people, love the young adult group, and Matt gets paid to sing their in their awesome choir. However, there are a lot of things we don't really like which I don't want to mention here and offend anyone. So for the past year or so, we have been on and off attending two churches. We began our church shopping by visiting another church in Buckhead which we had heard good things about. We fell in love with the pastor and didn't try any other churches out (until today). The big thing is that I want to hear an incredible sermon that moves me and I desperately want to find a small group to plug into. I feel like we are not doing enough spiritually, I want more.

So we found the awesome sermon in that church but still didn't plug into a small group. Today we tried a new church in the Marietta square. It had a lot of things going for it (including the potential for small groups around where we live) but Matt didn't like the music and I didn't care for the sermon. Going to that church convinced me of how much I like the other one we had been attending. So, we will go back to that other one with the amazing sermons and get plugged into a small group. There are three that are semi-close to where we live (they divide them by parts of the city) so we will be trying out one soon I hope!!

Today will be a good day, consisting of seeing lots of friends and four babies :) Just need to stay warm!

Happy Saturday!

Hope everyone is enjoying their Saturdays. They say it is (or was this morning) in the teens but I feel like it's warmer today than it has been in a while with all the sunshine and no wind. The wind is what kills me.

Matt is having his first band practice in the basement right now! Success! He is practicing with some new guy to play in that guy's gig at Smith's in a few weeks.. they sound pretty good down there. I'm baking some sugar cookies.. had a craving. Already got my grocery shopping done for the week and halfway done sealing the tile and grout in our shower. So far a good day :)

Also wanted to say a bit of thanks and congrats for my coworker Alice who had her twin boys this week! They were born on January 7th and mom and babies are doing great - Andrew and Lucian. I can't wait to meet them!! We should be headed to the hospital tomorrow to see them. Their pictures look like a spitting image of mom and dad, beautiful baby boys.

Tonight is my company party. We don't have a Christmas party, but every year in the beginning of January we have an Anniversary party. Gas South just turned 4 years old! It should be a lot of fun, good food and good conversation with coworkers and spouses.

I think I mentioned a while ago that Matt and I signed up for Netflix. We have been loving it. Saw a movie last week I think worth mentioning. It's called The Answer Man with Lauren Graham and Jeff Daniels. I thought it was fantastic!! You should check it out.

Also, in the biggest news ever (haha), we dropped Comcast finally!!!! We have Clear internet and so far I love it. We pay $15 less per month for the same speed, except we are actually getting two times the speed we are supposed to get, so that's awesome. So long, evil Comcast.

Back to enjoying my Saturday...

Oops.. it's been over a month..

Time flies when you're not posting ;-) The holidays have come and gone and I'll give you a little summary of our Christmas holidays. I was off of work from Friday the 18th and returned to work on Wednesday the 30th, yes it was awesome. On the 18th Matt and I drove to Ann Arbor, Michigan in order to be there for my brother's graduation. We passed the 11 hour drive by listening to Harry Potter 7 on audio CD! Charlie graduated with his masters in Industrial Engineering with no less than an A in any class - way to go, Charlie!! My whole family went up for the event. Ann Arbor was a very cool city. Here are some pictures:

Charlie and I in front of one of his class buildings

Mom and sister

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Me and dad

Charlie, Matt and I

Ok I know you can't really tell from this picture, but Jeff Daniels was the commencement speaker which was really cool

Graduated!

So after the graduation on Sunday evening, Matt and I drove to Chicago (it's only 4 hours from Ann Arbor so why not!). We enjoyed two full days in the city seeing the sites and also visiting with my friend Jeff who is pretty much the only person I keep up with from high school. Jeff and I have known each other since kindergarten (I think) so it's really cool to keep up with him and he showed us around Chicago.

Matt and I in Chicago! (in front of Navy Pier)

Matt and Jeff in front of the yummy pizza place we ate at

Somewhere in Chicago

Snow!

Me in front of the "Cloud Gate" bean sculpture (notice the cute boots I had to buy because I didn't bring any waterproof shoes for the snow). Also, you can see a little bit of the snow in the top of the picture, the top of the sculpture was covered in snow and looked really neat.

Then on Wednesday Matt and I made the 11 hour drive back to Atlanta to spend the evening with some of his family for Christmas. Thursday we were up early again for the drive to Augusta! We spent Thursday and Friday in Augusta for Christmas with my family. We had our usual tradition of going over to our neighbor's house for Christmas Eve and then my aunt's house for Christmas lunch. And we got to spend a lot of time on Christmas with Emili too :)

Playing Beatles Rock Band at the neighbor's house

Christmas at my Mom's house

Cousin picture L to R - Charlie (brother), Zack (cousin), Erin (Zack's wife), Erin (sister), Kristen (cousin), me, Matt

Emili and me.. and Molly. Molly's first Christmas! Look how happy she is ;-)

Saturday morning we woke up and drove to Estill Springs, TN - 5 hour drive (one of the very exits we had passed on Wednesday)! We spent Saturday and Sunday in Estill Springs for Christmas with Matt's immediate and extended family. Sunday we drove back to Atlanta, home sweet home, after about 36 hours on the road (all worth it).

Christmas in TN - all of those gifts were opened in about 6 minutes, it was hilarious!

I spent Monday and Tuesday off of work at home recovering from our trip. I had a chance to clean, relax, and take down the Christmas decorations (always sad). And this past weekend, with having Friday off for New Year's, Matt and I worked on the house a little. He has been working on the basement and has done a phenomenal job preparing the basement for his music stuff and band practice. I did a little tiling in the bathroom to finally finish off the tile work that is in there. I also plan on sealing the tile in our shower this week so for now we are showering in our guest bathroom.

This is what Matt and I gave each other for Christmas - our first piece of furniture for our empty front room. I will also be getting a pillow or two for the top.

Tiles before being finished (and before painting and medicine cabinet too)

My handy tile work after (the top pieces)

One side of the bathroom

Basement "before" picture.. even before we took out the walls and floor

Basement "after" - the man-cave Matt has been working on for months and months

I'm sure there are many things I am leaving out since it has been so long. Let's see.. Biggest Loser starts tomorrow! I finally started running again! I have gone twice in the past week and that was the first time in 2 months since the marathon. My knees are not happy about it but I will press on. And yes I went running on Sunday when it was about 30 degrees out. Andy and Crystal are getting married in about 3 months!! We are very excited for them and can't wait to partake in all the wedding fun :) I have watched Julie and Julia about 4 times in the last week - MUST SEE. Seriously, I love it. We saw Avatar this weekend which is also a must-see. We opted to see it in 2D and I'm glad we did even though I'm sure 3D would be awesome as well. And here's to hoping I post again soon. Happy 2010!