Scrapbooking giveaway on my blog! Project life by Becky Higgins and item...

American Prepper Journal is having a giveaway!

You could win your very own bug out bag.

http://www.theprepperjournal.com/2014/01/23/bug-out-bag-giveaway/

"The Hangman's Daughter" and "The Dark Monk"

I am a Bzzagent and have been reading "The Hangman's Daughter"  and "The Dark Monk" by Oliver Pötzsch.  

I just want to say that both of these books are riveting and I can barely put them down to do the things in life that need to be done!  I can only hope that everyone will buy these two books and read them as well.

What I been up to

I have my garden going for the year now.  I have lettuce, spinach, broccoli, sweet banana peppers and zucchini in the raised bed.  (I also have a green pepper plant but the frost got it and all leaves died.  Not sure if it will make it or not, but waiting to see.)  I also have 6 tomato plants in pots.  I have 4 Cherokee Purples, 2 Pink Brandywines, 2 yellow tomato plants, 1 Mr. Stripey, and 1 Homestead.  All tomato plants are heirloom varieties as I like them best.

Last weekend I went to the local farmer's market and bought the Cherokee Purples for only .40 each as well as some sweet potatoes and a big bucket of strawberries.  I canned 10 half-pints of strawberry jam out of those strawberries.

Friday I stopped at Aldi and bought 2 big corned beef briskets.  I have canned them up am getting 4 quarts of corned beef.  No spices in the jars as I may want to make corned beef hash or something and want to be able to have that option.

Didn't make it to the farmer's market this weekend.  Oh well.  It was rainy and I didn't want the grandkids soaking wet.  Maybe next weekend...

Been a while...

Well it has been quite a long time since I lost posted on here!  I have been so busy and life has really gotten in the way of much of anything.

I was spending a lot of my time couponing and stockpiling items last year.  Not so much this year, though.  I am pretty well stocked up so I have slowed down on the stocking up of items.  Now it is just the basic items that one needs to pick up every so often.

I was in a car accident back in November that totaled our only vehicle.  We ended up having to buy another one through E-Z Way Auto Sales.  Then the end of December some bimbo let her car roll into the foundation of our house and now it looks as though we are going to have to take her to court.

I have been teaching my oldest daughter how to coupon the past couple week.  I think she will get the hang of pretty quick.  I am only trying to teach her one store at a time though so as not to overwhelm her.  After she get the gist of the grocery store, I will teach her CVS. :)

I have also started making a few YouTube videos.  So far they have only been video responses, but I am considering expanding that to what is happening in my kitchen and garden.  It would be a way to make a little extra money and if I can expand my subscribers, I could make enough to pay the mortgage each month.  Just a thought...

Oh, and I adopted a blind cat.  he gets around the house pretty well, so I don't have to worry too much about him.  I had him fixed first thing so he wouldn't spray the house!  My old cat seems to have taken to him as well as the dogs.  Well, at least by one dog.  One tolerates him, the other wants to play with him non-stop.

I am still driving school bus and hubby is still driving long-haul.  Not much has changed there.

I am in the process of learning how to knit.  I can cast-on, do the basic stitch, and cast-off.  So far I have made three scarves, one for each of the grandkids and one for my oldest daughter.  I have started one for my youngest daughter.

I am also trying to study to upgrade my Ham license from a Technician to a General.  That is going to be tough on me because I don't understand math very well.  It gets rather confusing once it gets out of basic addition, subtraction, multiplication and division!  The rest is Greek to me.  LOL

Happy Vetern's Day

I want to wish all the veteran's out there a Happy Veteran's Day and thank you for all you have done for our freedom and safety.  Thank you to all who are serving right now, and a super big thanks to those who have made the ultimate sacrifice with their lives.  You will never be forgotten.  I may not know you personally, nor your name, rank, etc., but I thank you.

Todays CVS haul

I went to CVS first thing this morning.  I had to wait for like 15 minutes for them to open up, but that is okay by me.  :)

I bought:

3 Stride Spark gums $1.00 each
2 Wet & Wild nailpolishes (on clearance)  .99 each
1 Irish Spring Bodywash $2.99
1 Colgate Total toothpaste $2.79
1 Sally Hansen Instant Dry nailpolish $5.49
1 Hershey's Bliss candy $5.99

Subtotal: 22.24 (I had already saved $6.17 because of sale prices at this point by using my store card)

Coupons used:

$5 ECB
$4 ECB
$1/1 Hershey's Bliss
$1/1 CVS coupon for Irish Spring
$1/1 CVS coupon for Colgate
$1/1 Colgate
30% off CVS coupon
$1/3 Stride gum

New Subtotal: $5.83
Total OOP: $6.67
Total savings after coupons and sale: $22.58

I also got back:
$5.99 ECB from Bliss
$2.00 ECB from Sally Hansen
$2.00 ECB from Irish Spring
$2.00 ECB from Coglate
$1.00 ECB from green bag tag usage

I will have to go back to CVS on Wednesday after the truck delivers on Tuesday to get the Schick Hydro 5 cartridge refills for BOGO because they were out and the People Style Watch and People magazines.  (They were out of Style Watch and don't give rainchecks for them, although I did get the raincheck for the cartridges just in case!).  I will get a $2 ECB when I buy both magazines.  Basically, I will be getting my refill cratridges for free thanks to the ECBs and still have some ECBs left over. :)

My Walmart Haul yesterday evening

Okay.  So I needed to go by bread and Walmart has the cheapest price on the kinds I will actually eat.  I also had some wonderful $1/1 NYC coupons (seven of them to be exact) and one $5/$10 NYC purchase.

So the breakdown of this trips is as follows:

Bread $2.88
Renuzit Crystal Refill (clearance) $2
Renuzit Crystal Refill (clearance) $2
NYC Brow liner $1.86
NYC Brow liner $1.86
NYC nailpolish $1.72
NYC nailpolish $1.72
NYC mascara $3.57
Tic Tacs $1.04
Tic Tacs $1.04

Subtotal: $19.69

Coupons used:
2  of the .75/1 Tic Tac
5 $1/$1.72 NYC purchase
$5/$10 NYC purchase
2 of the $3/1 18 oz Renuzit Crystals (making them each $1 MM toward rest of purchase)

New subtotal: $2.19
OOP: $3.55