New Rug

My mom had a great birthday present for me in B'ham this past weekend: a new rug! It is just perfect in our dining room. I love it!!

Thanks Mama! Thought you would enjoy seeing it in place.

Birthday in the Big City!

I have been wanting to take a getaway for a couple of months now. Life has been busy to say the least! My birthday fell on Easter weekend this year and I had a long weekend. So we set off for the big city to celebrate! Thursday after work we headed to Birmingham and then on Friday morning we headed to Atlanta.

The weather was beautiful for the whole weekend! Our first stop was Chipotle for lunch. We enjoyed MASSIVE burritos in the sunshine.


After lunch and a fun stop at Trader Joe's, we checked into our hotel in Buckhead. We found a great deal on travelzoo.com (one of my favorite bargain travel sites) and we were not disappointed at all. It was really nice and we were in a great location that was central to walking everywhere- great shopping and eating and just a block or two from a MARTA station.

We took the MARTA to downtown and walked through Olympic Centennial Park.

Then we arrived at the Georgia Aquarium. We enjoyed seeing so many interesting types of fish. So colorful and some huge!



Afterward we enjoyed a Coke in honor of being in Atlanta and right next to the World of Coke.



We headed back to Buckhead on the MARTA and walked around some more. We went to Lenox Square and Phipps Plaza and did a little shopping. Ronnie enjoyed car watching while we trucked all over the place. We saw so many Ferrari's, Lamborghini's, Maserati's, and Bently's!

We headed back to the hotel and changed then headed out for a birthday dinner at The Cheesecake Factory. We split a piece of the Lemon Raspberry Cheesecake and it was fantastic!


Saturday morning we walked to breakfast at a nearby bakery and then set off to Ikea! It was fun to wander through the room displays.


We ate lunch there and then headed off back to Birmingham, but with a detour to meet my new niece. We share the same birthday!



Isn't she a cutie?! She is just itty bitty. I'm so glad that we could meet her. We finally returned to Birmingham and enjoyed getting to spend sometime with my parents and friends. We celebrated Easter there and also celebrated my dad's birthday a few days early.

It was a great getaway....just what I wanted for my birthday!

The 1-2-3 Roast Post

So remember that roast from the other day? Thought I would share how we got 3 very different and delicious meals out of it!

1- Traditional Roast:


2- BBQ Baked Potatoes

In Birmingham there is a great place called Broadway BBQ. They have these HUGE baked potatoes that they load up with butter, sour cream, cheese and then BBQ to top it all off. IT.IS.YUMMY!


We made our own version. I shredded up the leftover roast and added some BBQ sauce, then we loaded up our spuds. Talk about a filling meat and potatoes meal!


3- BBQ Pizza

Fear not tiresome leftovers...get creative!

What we have been up too...

Yesterday marked the beginning of my Spring break and I am excited!

After school I did some couponing at Rite Aid. $1.40 spent for all this!

Several weeks ago when my parents visited they brought an early birthday/house warming present...this fabulous Le Creuset that my mom found a deal on at Tuesday Morning:

I was eager to use it so I put in a roast (a la Pioneer Woman style) and then got to play with this cutie:

After a little nap and then saying goodbye, this was smelling wonderful


We enjoyed our roast and then some Thursday night TV.

Today the weather was beautiful yet again. I am loving the blue skies and sun shine!


Ronnie unexpectedly had a break in the middle of the day so we packed our lunches and headed here:

I love a good picnic even if it just is PB and honey.


Happy Spring is almost here to you!

Free!

A good source for free full size products is KraftFirstTaste.com. I signed up several months ago and have received several offers to try new products...including a Digiorno pizza, Oreo Cakesters, and today I just received an offer for Philidelphia Minis (cream cheese). They send the coupons in the mail for free products and its fun to try them out! The Oreo Cakesters were interesting... umm give me the original oreos any day over these though! (If you like moon pies you might like them.) Afterward you can go back to the site and fill out a survey about the product. I always try to do this in hopes that they will keep the offers coming!



Also, if you live near a Kroger don't forget to play Hit the Hoops Sweepstake at Kroger.com. Remember last week I won a free king size Reese Cup? This week I won $5 credit loaded to my Kroger card! You can play daily so keep at it...I went a lot of days without winning anything. Let me know if you win something fun!

Buggy Buster Sale

Hopefully this post will encourage some of you that are just starting out with couponing. I was looking back today and saw that on my first real venture into couponing I saved 25.76 in coupons and Kroger card savings combined. That number grew a little bit more each week. I have been at this now for over 6 months and still have lots to learn, but I am settling into a groove. It takes time though! So even if you feel like your savings are small, I encourage you to keep at it. It really will pay off. This week I saved $122.67 (75%). You can too!

Kroger is having a "Cart Buster" sale right now. My witty sister in law stated that in the south this could be termed a "Buggy Buster" event. Today I went and busted my buggy and I was pleased with the results. There are a lot of things that could be gotten free this week and a lot of cheap baking mixes to stock up on...I think its great to have brownie and cake mixes on hand for quick dessert/entertaining options. (Confession- I NEVER make brownies or cake from scratch).

Now the nitty gritty and some deals to look out for if you are headed to Kroger this week:

Items free because of combining coupons, ecoupons and sales:
4 multipacks of yoplait Fiber 1 yogurt
2 multiplacks of Yoplait Delights
2 bags of Chex Mix
2 tubs frosting
2 Betty Crocker Warm Delights desserts
3 pouches BC potatoes

Items free because of free product coupons I have received: (keep reading those coupon blogs to see opportunities to get stuff like this)
2 boxes Kashi cereal
1 box Oreos cakesters- these are like oreo moon pies, kinda strange.
1 box Tampex tampons (a catalina that has mysteriously printed for me twice now)
2 boxes Cheerios (these came in my Valentine mailer from Kroger)
1 king size Reese cups (play the game on the Kroger website, that is where I won this...other people are winning all kinds of fun products and even store credit)


Buggy Buster Good Deals:
6 Green Giant Steamer veggies .28 each
5 lb Gold Medal flour 1.24
Manager's special roast 6.34
4 Pillsbury sweet rolls .10 each
12 roll's Marcal TP for 3.99
2 BC Brownie Mixes .63 each
2 BC cake mixes .25 each
2 BC muffin mixes .50 each
3 BC cookie mixes .30
2 Old Spice Deodorants 1.38 each
2 Cascadian Farms organic granola 1.74 each
1 Softsoap .30
1 Sun laundry detergent 1.25


Needless to say we should be set on sweets for a while :) I jokingly told my sister and brother in law on the phone last night that I wasn't going to post a pic this week because I knew I was stocking up on dessert mixes. But upon request, there it is all out there for you, desserts and all :)

A Letter to Ms. Stewart

Dear Martha,

Recently, I was quite excited to find one of your craft project sets on a clearance shelf for just 1.99. I snatched it up thinking that the crepe paper roses would look pretty in a vase, I wouldn't have to worry about them wilting, AND I thought that I would enjoy putting them together. Having worked on them for several hours now and having only 2 and a half roses to show for it, I have a few questions for you:

1. Have you ever tried to make these?
2. Do you have more than 10 fingers?
3. Who writes your instructions? Are you currently hiring? I would love to apply to help simplify!
4. Do your craft products end up on clearance shelves a lot? (I can't imagine why!)

Now I know you are the crafting genius and I am far from it, but really I'm not sure how this craft is supposed to be enjoyable. I gathered my supplies, sat down in front of the Olympics and settled in for an evening of leisurely crafting. There was no leisure involved I'm afraid! I quickly found myself exclaiming in frustration and having sticky fingers covered in residue from floral tape.

Well at least I have 2 pretty roses to show for it. Maybe sometime I can muster up the patience to work on the other 4.

Sincerely,

Gracie