What about the juice?

Almost all the time when I'm out with friends and of course (since I'm now apparently addicted) coupon shopping comes up someone always mentions my juice stockpile. Then I hear comments like "OMG, what are you going to do with all that juice?" or "I couldn't drink all that juice!" ... something to that effect.

Newsflash: I'm sick of hearing it! 

I'm not asking anyone to help me make life decisions on what I should do with the juice and also... I don't HAVE to drink it ... either by myself, next week, next month or even at all. It expires in a year. I could sit and drink it all within that time, donate it, have a party, bathe with it (hey you never know, don't knock it till you've tried it).

My point is in my current situation I don't ever have to worry about what is at home to drink. In fact when I now go to the grocery store, I buy water (I'll soon stop that as well) and don't even think about what else I need to get to drink... cause guess what... I have juice.

The funny thing is I also have a large stock of laundry detergent and toilet paper and yet no-one ever asks what am I going to do with all that toilet paper. In fact, they mostly ask how much I paid for it or where they can get it too. The fact that my husband won't ever have to buy body wash for the rest of the year pleases me greatly. Even better is that I got it all for FREE! Win!!! Yet no-one asks what are we going to do with all that body wash. Before I started coupon shopping I would also stock up at Bath and Body Works' Semi-Annual sale to buy my own body wash. In December I would stock up enough to last until June and in June I'd buy enough to last until December. Until this past December I still had enough left over and didn't have to buy any until probably June. No-one asks what it is that I plan to do with all that body wash. Ever! The juice though, seems to be of great concern to people.

So to answer the question about the juice. We are probably going to drink it. If you come over for a visit, I'll probably offer you some to drink as well.

 

Coupon Shopping

I must admit, I've always been a bargain shopper. I saw Extreme Couponing on TLC just like everyone else and thought OMG I could do that. It took a lot of research to realize that while the results seen on the show are really just that, extreme, it is still possible to save quite a bit of money using coupons.

 Photo from http://www.njfamily.com

Just the idea alone that all it takes is for me to spend a few minutes cutting or printing paper that is FREE for me to access and that alone will save me money at the registers. I was all in! Sign me up! Although it took a while for me to see the value in printing web coupons, I thought the trade off in using printer ink vs. the actual dollar value the coupons offered off just wasn't enough to substantiate the ink costs. Boy was I wrong! Especially in the land of refilling your own printer cartridges.

Then there are the freebies! Who can resist getting free stuff in the mail? I am careful though to only request the things that I will use in my household or things that someone I know will use. Otherwise my home would be overrun with stuff I got just to get free stuff and what sense does that make? As some of you know I have a magazine addiction and this getting magazines for free business does not make it any easier to control. It's still by far my favorite freebie! I love magazines!

While I don't plan to become one of those coupon bloggers that have been sooo helpful in guiding me through the couponing process. I do plan to share on this blog some of the great deals I've gotten. Also, it does help to coupon with a friend. I might not be able to snag all the great deals but my coupon buddy might catch one that I've missed or vice versa.

I am now ashamed to even think of all the money I've spent buying things at full price all these years. Or even looking at a coupon and thinking "Oh well, it's only 25cents off, so that's not even worth it." Couponing will show you how to easily turn that 25 cents into 50 cents or the difference between having to PAY 25 or 50 cents versus getting the item in question for FREE. It's not JUST a 25 cent coupon to me anymore.

Gay Marriage

Via Pinterest

I saw this pic on Pinterest and it nicely summed up my point in a recent discussion with my husband on the topic. Love it! Also, if you happen to be on Pinterest... follow me! I'll falla back! Promise!

New Age Nix for 2012!

I have so many ideas swirling around in my head, I feel like I need a minute to focus.

I feel a sense of maturity taking over me. I have less tolerance for crap these days. More importantly, I'm not fighting with stress right now. For the past 15 years or so I feel like I've been in a pressure cooker. Just coming out of one stressful situation to heading up into another. I think that the situations may still be there but I'm figuring out that there is only so much that I have any control over and it will work out... either favorably or unfavorably... but things are constantly changing. What I do have control over is my attitude. I can sit and fret and worry, but in the long run it won't help anything, will it?

I've also had a life-changing experience recently and I'm still kind of wrapping my brain around how things all came together. It was as if everything lined up and after years and years of watching talk shows and "Locator" type shows where people look for long-lost people and wondering what if... I did it. I reached out and within a matter of two weeks I found my brother. I still have yet to meet him face to face and we're working slowly on building a relationship. It's quite strange after soo many years of being an only child for someone to call and say "Hey sis!" I mean, when I was in high school I adopted an older brother and to this day we still call each other brother and sister, we've grown apart though and haven't seen each other in years, but I still love him and still am very thankful to have had him there looking out for me while I was growing up.  But to have someone I truly just met call me "Sis" and mean it literally is taking some getting used to, but in a good way.

Also, this weekend makes a year that I've been living in this apartment. I moved in on Super Bowl Sunday. Try getting some guy friends to help you move on Super Bowl Sunday, that's like the true test of friendship. LOL. But anyhow, things that were okay for me when I moved in is now getting on my last nerve. The fact that my curtain rod is leaning up against a wall from the floor is unacceptable. It should have been installed and stuff should have been hanging from it a long frigging time ago. The fact that I have yet to buy a proper table to put my tv on is now bothering me. It's on a makeshift table with a table cloth over it. Working on that. Then also, there has been talk of a dining table set that was supposed to come over here from about 10 months ago, we'll see. What I do like about that though is that it's kind of a DIY project. I have to look for fabric to re-cover the chairs and to spray over the metal legs and stuff on the table. I love that kind of thing. So we'll see when it gets here. But I hope to have some curtains hung by this weekend. We'll see.  I actually need to go to the Thrift stores soon to work on another DIY project I saw online and felt it had my name all over it, more to come on that one soon. 

Anyhow, with all these changes that are taking place... I'm excited, nervous and stepping out on faith.

Holiday Recap!

OMG!

My holidays turned out to be sooooo much different than I expected. I had a REALLY good time. I ended up going to spend it with my family. I've never been with so many people with my last name during the holidays ever before. Yes I have spent it with family but not usually this side of the family. Which is why it was sooo important for me to go.

My father's sister lives in Connecticut and she invited some of her nieces and nephews to come to family dinner there with her and her husband. We had been trying to go but it didn't seem to be working out. Then at the ninth hour I ended up leaving my hubby and doggie to go up North. Incidentally, it so happened that the very day I flew in to New York was the very same day that my father died in New York many, many years ago. That was a little eerie, but it went okay. In fact some things happened during the visit that was a little eerie.

I got to spend some much needed time with my cousins who I have not seen in years and years.  I feel like I reconnected and came back home with fresh eyes. I was home in time to spend New Year's Eve with my husband, my cousin (other side of the family) and some friends.

I'll be sharing more about the trip in upcoming posts, but just had to check in, in case you thought I was stuck at home with hubby eating tuna out of a can. Incidentally, he got to spend Christmas with his parents so he was just fine.

Holidays

I get so depressed around the holidays.

I used to think that it was because my father died a few days before Christmas. Since then my mother didn't REALLY celebrate Christmas. My grandma always made it Christmassy for me though. We'd put up the tree together. She'd bake goodies and even though we wouldn't host Christmas dinner at our house we'd always be at some other cousin's house for Christmas Day, Boxing Day (The day after Christmas as celebrated in Jamaica and other current and former British colonies.) , and then start out the year on New Years Day... with family again.

My mother worked in the airline industry for many, many years and so of course Christmas was just another day at work for her. When I moved here and realized that not just airline personnel worked during Christmas and that the job I had required me to work then as well, it became less and less holiday like in the family sense.

Later on when I got married I tried to recreate the sense of being together with each other around the holidays. I started decorating the house, making a big to do dinner with all the trimmings even if it was just for us both. It was our Christmas.

Then as the economic state of our affairs started taking a down turn, instead of focusing on our being together and roughing the storm of the year that passed, we started focusing on all our failures throughout the year. All the unfulfilled resolutions, all the plans we made that were not touched at all. Every year we vowed to make the following holiday season a better one, and yet we've been in the same rut. Then this year we made plans. Good plans. Stuck to it throughout the year, then wrench after wrench we're slowly realizing that our holiday plans, yet again, will probably not come to fruition.  We still have each other, so it shouldn't be soooo bad, but for once in a long time we were looking forward to it being different. It's the disappointment in that, that kills me. This is why I hate planning, the failure. But I'm gonna put on my big girl panties and pull out the Holiday lights and light the shit out of my apartment. Just as soon as I can pull myself out of bed.