The Kitchen - part 3

But wait... I thought the kitchen was done?  What is this all about?  Dishwasher details?  Nope, sorry.  But I was right there with you as far as thinking this was done... until my family came to visit for Easter.   Not exactly sure how it happened, but next thing I knew we were back at Lowe's - my parents, sister and her boyfriend included - looking at Formica colors, sinks, faucets, etc.  Somehow we managed to convince my husband that granite is not the only option for a kitchen countertop, and that we could make a wonderful - and much more reasonably priced - change by simply picking new laminate.  We picked a color (from the 4 colors of countertop that they carry in-stock) and thought we could install it ourselves, perhaps with the help of a handyman with a bit of experience.
On their way out of town, Mom called her handyman, who gave her the name of a laminate installer buddy of his.  Within a few days, "Bob the builder" (turns out he lives next door to a co-worker of mine whose young children lovingly gave him this nickname) was over to give us his thoughts.  For various reasons, we couldn't use the in-stock pieces, but his price was very affordable, and his schedule was open enough to get us done before Baby, which was crucial since we were about 4 weeks from due date.  Pro: we got to go back to the sample-board to pick a new color... great since I hadn't actually been 100% sold on the in-stock one we had picked.  Con: we had to go back to the sample-board to pick a new color... this time, without the color-wise eyes of my family members in tow.  We came up with the following options:

Didn't take too long to eliminate the middle option due to the distinct leaf pattern that I wasn't sure we wanted on as big a space as our kitchen counter (it was called "Frosted Leaves" after all).  But then we got stuck.  I wanted the lighter top color as I feared the lower would be too dark.  Isaac wanted the darker color, fearing the other would be too similar to what we have and would show too many spots.  We nagged votes from 2 family members... who were also split down the middle.  Oh man.  Headed out on the morning of my birthday to buy the new sink, faucet, disposal, etc. planning to poll my cousins that afternoon when they came over to celebrate, and hoping they'd break the tie.  We stopped at the sample-board again, and (yeah God!) stumbled across another color we must have missed the first time around:

Though closer to the dark one, it was light enough that I thought it might be okay, and yet dark enough that Isaac felt comfortable.  My cousins' votes, interestingly enough, had one going for either of the 2 lighter colors, and the other for either of the 2 darker!  Thus, the middle ground won :)  Isaac and I both felt good about it, and we had external confirmation that we weren't making a terrible mistake.  By Friday, our buddy Bob was over and ready to get to work.  He took it from this:

to this:

to this:

 to this:

in about 36 hours (no worries, he went home to sleep for part of that time!).  Wow.  What a difference!  I'll be honest, the darker countertop took a bit of getting used to. 

 But the sink, faucet, and filtered water dispenser had me at hello :)

 In all it's completed glory:

FINISHING the kitchen project... Soli Deo Gloria.

Christmas in May!

So much for being "back" to blogging.  Oops.  All kinds of posts in the works, but the long and short of it is that now that pre-baby prep is essentially finished, perhaps I can use some of my "down time" before his arrival to update this.  No promises, since you see how well I did with that last time :)

Anyway, no time like the present, and what's a post without pictures?  After using my 10% off Amazon registry completion coupon, this is what I came home to today:

Felt like just a little bit of Christmas, I tell you!  Of course, I already knew what was in all these boxes, but still fun none-the-less.  What was in them, you ask?  I certainly wouldn't be so rude as to keep that a secret.  Here you go:

What you see there is a Graco Travel Lite Stages playpen in Nottingham (to be used as bassinet & pack 'n play), some Seventh Generation wipes, a crib bedding set, some unbleached cotton cloth diapers, 2 Kissaluv's diaper pail liners and a pair of Lily Padz.  Oh yeah, and an under-the-sink water filter.  See - isn't that kinda like Christmas?  I mean, if you have a baby on the way it is.

Shopping for baby... Soli Deo Gloria.

The Kitchen - part 2

What I failed to mention at the end of the last post is that, when we decided to not renovate the whole kitchen, my hubby agreed to getting a new dishwasher.  Ours still technically worked, but it was icky-looking on the inside and it gave me the heeby-jeebies to think about washing baby bottles in it.  So at the end of my peaceful sleeping week, we were in Lowe's starting the dishwasher investigation, and Isaac stumbles across some clearance cabinets.  Can't say I ever even knew they sold pre-made cabinets at home improvement stores.  Next thing I knew, these puppies were sitting in our kitchen:

At $4 each, they had our "renovation" plans started back up, and at a whole different level.  Wow.  So much for sleeping well!  Had to bring the "design team" back in, evaluate whether it would look tacky to add new cabinets on top of our existing ones, how we'd get them to match (i.e. whether we felt comfortable painting them or not), and determine whether neighbor/cabinet guy would be interested in the project and at what price.  In addition to the significant savings on cabinetry, another benefit to this option is that we would not be forced to replace the countertop at the same time.  We could split the cost by doing the countertop in a few months/years/decades.  We eventually decided to move forward, and by mid-April, our kitchen looked like this:

We saved so much that we were even able to add fun features like the shelves to the left of the sink, and the roll-out shelves to the right of the fridge!  Now... how to make them look like one unit, rather than a hodge-podge of miscellany?

Mom and I were in a paint store preparing to paint nursery furniture (post forth-coming), and "happened" to overhear a lady ordering paint for her kitchen cabinets.  Always on the ball, my Mom starting asking her questions, and turns out she was an interior designer and had a cabinet painter that she regularly recommended to her clients, who was also getting ready to have him paint her own cabinets!  Wow.  Again.  We snagged his number and called him on the way back home.

His price was very reasonable, and after painting (or assisting with) the nursery furniture, I was ready to never see another paint brush again, so we signed him up.  We had picked a paint color back in phase 1, so that was easy-peasy at this point.  Just a few days later, our kitchen looked like this:

Crazy!  We went out of town for the weekend to avoid the fumes from oil-based paint, and then came back to hang the doors.  By Easter, we had this:

And just in case you forgot where we started:

Beautiful.  Lovely.  Wonderfully spacious and practical.  Fresh and clean.  Not orangey.  Oh, so many ways to describe our "new" kitchen.  (P.S.  Did you note the new dishwasher from picture 3 to 4?  My hubby still let me follow through on that one.  We haven't done a great job of capturing photos of that, but maybe one of these days.)  Essentially, I was in love, content, and not broke.  And there was even time to spare before Baby's arrival!  Life was good.

Going green (really)... Soli Deo Gloria.

The Kitchen - part 1

Get ready... this may be a long post (I mean, it's already long overdue, so why not just make it long as well, right?).  Scratch that - I'm going to write it in phases, pre-dating it so you can see a basic timeline.  Feel free to read it all, or just look at the pretty pictures :)

For Christmas this year, Isaac gave me a card that said we were going to renovate the kitchen.  As that's something we've been talking about since we moved in but never felt like spending the money on, that was awesome and exciting!  If it didn't happen now, one could safely assume it would "never" happen after Baby's arrival, so no time like the present.  This is what we were starting with:

My pet peeves were the orangy tone of the cabinets, and the essentially unusable (and poorly decorated) space above the cabinetry.  My husband's was the white laminate.

We had two contractors come to give us estimates, and essentially we discovered that our "budgets" were quite different... oopsies :)  Lesson #1... at least minimally discuss budget with spouse BEFORE starting to get estimates.  Then we found a neighbor who goes to our church who does custom cabinetry.  Turns out, his price was in the same ballpark as the other folks, though of course it required us to track down our own countertop installer.  And thus came our tour of granite shops.  As it would be, we have expensive taste in granite.  Who knew? 

The whole thing snowballed into chaos - in an effort to find some clarity, we had several design-savvy friends (including my sister-in-law) and a realtor friend come to give us ideas.  Of course, that just led to more confusion, as they all had wonderful - but very different - suggestions.

In the midst of all this, and with Isaac spending 3-4 nights out of town with work for several weeks in a row, our fridge broke.  Appliances were never part of the original plan, so that threw us for a loop.  Praise the Lord, we found a 1-yr-old but unused fridge on Craigslist for essentially half-price.  My "blog-friend" Kim had recently purchased a new fridge, and thus had done all the hard work for me, and the fridge on Craigslist met all the requirements.  Wow.  Total God thing.  So with the help of some cousin-muscle, we brought this puppy home one Saturday in February:

Tax refund unexpectedly put to wonderful use :)  We continued to mull, plan and investigate, all the while realizing that most projects would take 6-10 weeks (order or build cabinets, install, cut granite, install, etc) and that we were running out of time if we didn't want a half-completed kitchen when we headed off to the hospital for delivery.  Add in some potential job changes which essentially served to remind us that we have no idea exactly how long we'll be in this house, and we finally came to the conclusion that the project was not meant to be at this time.  We could have our dream kitchen for way too much money, or we could have a half-baked partial upgrade for more than we wanted to spend for something only half-baked.  The Lord gave us peace, and I slept beautifully for a whole week!

Putting projects on hold... Soli Deo Gloria.

Baby, I'm back!

Anyone who actually reads this may have noticed a suspicious absence in new posts lately.  Not that I've ever posted very regularly, but I generally try to post more than 1x/quarter!  I'm going to "blame" my lack of posts on this little punk:

Yeah!  I'm at 16 weeks along today, and can't wait to meet this little guy/gal in late May!  In the meantime, while I can't truly complain about nausea, I definitely had a few months there when I wasn't feeling so hot, definitely didn't have much of an appetite, and was hardly cooking or grocery shopping.  So... no posts about good steals deals.  Cancelled a few Absolute Organics deliveries, so no post about that.  In fact, pretty much all I did when I got home from work was lay around on the couch and maybe throw in a load of laundry - so no posting about anything else either, since I didn't figure that my couch or belated laundry would interest even the most bored among you.  And when I did start to feel better, we weren't quite ready to "go public" with this great news, and everything else felt too inane to post about, with this shocker at the forefront of my life!

Other than growing a baby, cooking a bit less, and sleeping a bit more, the rest of life is about the same.  I continue to love my job, my husband, my house, my church and my friends (in no particular order).  Hopefully Baby will let me cook, shop and blog a bit more now, so until next time...

Incubating an infant... Soli Deo Gloria.

AO Price Check-Up

It's been a while since I've posted about my Absolute Organics deliveries, but have no fear - I still get them!  Don't know what I'd do without them.  Well, not completely correct... I DO know what I'd do without them, but it wouldn't be pretty (i.e. wouldn't eat nearly enough fruits & veggies).
Anyway, no picture today (my kitchen is a bit of a mess), but I weighed and price-checked my goodies and have a list to share with you.

• 2+ lbs plums = $5.75*
• approx. 1 lb carrots = $1.49
• 1 dry pint cherry tomatoes = $4.64*
• 1 lb red onions = $1.99*
• 1/2 lb spinach = $5.58
• 1 small head Romaine lettuce = $2.99
• 4 lbs 6 oz Fuji apples = $12.20

All prices are listed from my local Harris Teeter's website, and a * indicates that they don't seem to offer it organically, so the price is for non-organic.  If my calculator adds correctly, that adds up to $34.64 - and mine was ALL organic and delivered straight to my door.  Ummhmm.   You know you want some.  Go ahead, just call/email Vonda and she'll be happy to get you set up (if you live in her delivery area... sorry for those that don't!).  Tell her you've got a brochure that says $10 off your first order (I'll give it to you next time I see you) and be sure to tell her that I sent you, too.  I would love the free box of yumminess she'd send my way, just for you trying them out :)

Eating organic produce... Soli Deo Gloria

Bi-Lo Clean Sweep

I most definitely should be in bed by now, but I'm practically too excited to sleep... which says something about me, I guess.

Anyway, a while back (think a year-ish) Bi-Lo sent me several flyers with coupons for free grocery items. Each flyer would have 8 total coupons - 4 coupons for free food (usually for related items), and 4 for $8 off a $50 total purchase - and they'd each be good for a different week.  Somewhere along the line (I think when a flyer arrived after one had already expired) I found out that they take them expired - no matter how late.  So, I've saved most of them up until I had a need for the particular item.  Many of the items I haven't yet had a need for (or, at least not when Bi-Lo was on the list for that week, or I remembered about the coupon, or whatever).

This afternoon I went to Bi-Lo for the first time in probably several months to grab a few good deals (primarily Organic Peaches for $1.79/lb).  I wasn't getting much, so I almost didn't go, but with my hubby traveling, I've got plenty of free time and I went.  While standing in line with my 3 items, I saw a sign that said "As of Sept. 1 we will only except Bi-Lo coupons that are less than 30 days expired."  As it turns out, Sept. 1 is tomorrow - and all those freebie coupons are waaaay more than 30 days past due.

You can imagine where this is going, right?  I headed home, grabbed the coupons, went to Back-to-School night for a few hours, and then back to Bi-Lo - at 9:30 at night.  I grabbed all the free stuff, and a few extra items so I could hit the $50 and get $8 off (essentially scoring $8 more of free food - mostly organic stuff that I would hesitate to buy because of the price), and headed to the (oops!) only open register.  My list:

• 2 bags of Pirate's Bounty puffs
• 2 pouches of Uncle Ben's Ready Rice
• 1 loaf of Nature's Own Premium Specialty Multi-Grain bread
• 1 box of Strawberry Cereal Bars
• 1 8-ct bag of hamburger buns
• 12-ct brown-and-serve rolls
• 1 10-ct box of instant oatmeal
• 1 bottle of ketchup
• 50-ct heavy duty paper plates
• 1 8-oz bag of shredded cheese
• 1 lb of butter
• 4 yogurt cups
• 1 frozen pizza
• 1.5 qt Blueberry Cheesecake ice cream
• 1.33 lbs ground beef
• 4 lbs Earthbound Farm Organic Oranges
• 16 oz deli potato salad
• 1 small bag of Earthbound Farm dried mangos
• 1 small bag of Earthbound Farm dried plums

Total:  $60.13. 
I paid:  $4.41.
That's an average of 18¢ / item.
I think that means I saved 93%.
See why I couldn't sleep 'til I "shared" this with someone?
I think burgers and ice cream will be on the menu for this weekend when our friends come in town for Labor Day.

Buying free food... Soli Deo Gloria.

A wonderful new "trick"

Stopped at EarthFare the other night... great store, too far away.  BUT - it was right on the way home from our friends' house where we had been for dinner, so I couldn't NOT stop :)  Didn't get much, but I had a coupon for a free pound of organic grapes (wonderful, since they're on the so-called dirty dozen list), another for a free reusable lunch bag, and a third for $1.50 off some organic chicken.  Needless to say, it was a pretty successful trip, savings-wise. 

So what's the trick, you ask?  First, a bit of history:  I found a recipe a while ago for Pork Chili Colorado since I had gotten some cheap pork (also at EarthFare, if I recall properly).  I stuck the pork in the freezer since the recipe is more of a winter stew-type, and will pull it out this Fall when the weather is better for that sort of thing.  The recipe, however, calls for 1/2 tsp of Ground Coriander.  As it turns out, I don't have that particular spice, nor do I have room in my cabinet for any more spice jars.  Not to mention, since I have "survived" without it for the full 3 years of my marriage, I wasn't too keen on spending $5 for a spice that I'm probably never going to use up.  Being a "perfectionist" - especially when experimenting with new recipes, I wanted to make the recipe correctly.  So, I decided to be modern and offer a trade on Facebook... I buy Basil, Parsley, Cinnamon and Garlic Powder at Costco, so I've got more than enough to trade.  I got a few offers, but all the local ones were for Coriander Seed, not the ground kind.  Having it mailed by a friend in California was somewhat appealing, until someone posted that EarthFare sells bulk spices - who knew such a concept existed?  Sure enough.  I came home with this:

They don't have actual measuring spoons there, but it's close enough to 1/2 tsp to work for me.  And it cost 14¢!  I will DEFINITELY be keeping that in mind for future spice needs that are not native to my pantry :)

Buying bulk spices... Soli Deo Gloria

Calendar for My Classroom

This past week I ordered a personalized calendar for my classroom to give a bit of "cultura" to my students.  I used my own pics (and some from Isaac), and then was able to put all the special school dates and student birthdays (just my 13 homeroom students) pre-printed right on the calendar.  I started with August so it follows the school year.  Here are the pictures that I used.
 Front cover:

August:

September:

October:

November:

December:

January:

 

February:

 

March:

April:

May:

June:

July:

 

What $20 can get you

I guess I took the latter part of the summer off of blogging, even though it wasn't exactly intentional.  Oops.  I've got at least one post in my head, but haven't taken the time to get it out yet... but you still have to wait for that one :)  Don't feel too bad, though.  Most of what I would've written would probably have involved commentary about the TV show Bones, since I spent a good chunk of my free time this summer watching the first 4 seasons on Netflix.  Now I've got to wait until October for season 5 to come out on DVD... argh.

Anyway, I've also taken some time off from couponing a bit.  Between 10 days of vacation (and the preceding days of clearing out the fridge), and then my husband's extensive business travel lately, I haven't been cooking much and thus haven't been shopping much.  But with school starting up, I decided to stock up on some lunch snacks - especially when I saw the General  Mills promotion on Southern Savers.  Yes, I probably spent an hour finding the right coupons and trying to determine whether it was worth it or not to run the deal, but I'm totally thrilled that I did!  Basically, a bunch of GM products were on sale, and if you bought 20 items, you got $6 off your order instantly.  So... grab a bunch of items you've got coupons for, and it works out pretty well.  Here's what I ended up with:

Grand total:  $20.00 (yeah, even... which is awesome in and of itself), and most of these items have BoxTops on them that give money to the school, which I love.  The organic tomato paste was not part of the deal, but in working up the deal I found $0.75 coupons which doubled to $1.50... and since they're only $1.55 and I needed some anyway, I grabbed some nearly-free ORGANIC tomato paste - sweet!  I also realize that most of these items are very NON-organic, but there is a convenience factor :)  And they were cheap.  Let's face it - 7 boxes of cereal, 5 boxes of granola bars, 4 boxes of fruit snacks, 4 4-pks of yogurt, and 2 cans of tomato paste = 22 items for $20.  Who could turn that down?  I think my receipt said I saved $40+.

And it gets even better!  The granola bars and fruit snacks had special promotions as well... buy 3, 4 or 5 and get coupons for $$ off your next purchase.  So the 2-lb bag of frozen shrimp (normally $26) that was on sale for $8.65 ended up costing me a little over $3.  See why I had to post?  As one blogger I read would say - yeah, I took an hour to organize the coupons... but I saved over $60.  That's like getting paid $60/hr :)

Saving money... Soli Deo Gloria

Birds' Nests... for dinner?

We tried something new for dinner last night, and since it was kinda fun, I thought I'd share.  I came across this recipe for Potato, Zucchini, and Carrot 'Nests' with Eggs while reading Denise's blog, Wholesome Mommy (formerly The Centsible Sawyer).  I've been reading her blog for over a year probably, and I love the turn she's taken with it lately, focusing a bit less on general coupons/saving and more on eating healthy on a budget... I'm sure subconsciously she's affected my own healthy-eating focus over the last few months as well.
Anyway, she posted this recipe a few days ago, and it's just my style - 6 ingredients!  Since I received some zucchini last week from Absolute Organics, I figured now was a great time to try it out.  Stopped by the store (on the way to see my cousin Mimsies, who I'm thrilled to have living nearby now!) to grab some Organic Russet potatoes, and whipped up these bad boys for dinner:

We both liked them, and the recipe made just the right amount for the 2 of use for dinner with no side items (though we did try them with a little ketchup, which was also good).  I'd only make a few changes to my preparation:

1. I'd remember to add the salt to the veggies. - Not a big deal, as it can always be added later, but it saves some hassle at the plate if it's already got it.
2. I'd shred the potatoes immediately before cooking. - Since I cooked them after my Zumba class and didn't want to eat dinner too late, I shredded the veggies ahead of time, but then of course the potatoes took on that beautiful pinky-brown shade that they get when exposed to air so they didn't look as pretty as they could have.
3. I'd follow her baking time. - Having never baked eggs before, I wasn't sure what they were supposed to look like when they were cooked.  I'm not sure what I was expecting, but after 11 mins they didn't look "done" to me, so I left them another 7 or so... and they were quite hard.  Still tasty, but hard.
4. I'd probably make 5 nests instead of 4, and use 6 or 7 eggs.  One more egg mixed in with the flour and veggies may have helped the "hashbrown" part to stick together more, and a 5th nest would require an extra egg for the center and make them each a little bit smaller and easier to flip.

So there you have it.  Buried vegetables + protein in a creative meal.

Soli Deo Gloria.

Splurge

I don't spend money often.  However, Kohl's had some good sales this weekend (for Father's Day, I guess), and with a 20% off coupon that they emailed me, I decided to go see what I could find.  Since I wasn't looking for anything in particular, I found plenty of things :)  So I splurged a bit and bought some fun little decorations for the house.  Want to see?  I knew you would!  Here you go:

A new shirt

A little decoration and reminder for the entryway

A new decorative pillow for the guest bedroom:

Life takes us to unexpected places, love brings us home.

A reversible (and clean!) rug for the guest bathroom

A frame: Live, Laugh, Love... the most important things in life aren't things

Now I just have to replace the beautiful models in the photos with my own beautiful family and friends!

I'm not the best at decorating - I truly don't mind blank walls - but I have to say that in the 24 hours or so that these things have been around, I'm enjoying them so far :)  I guess a splurge from time to time is okay, right?

Soli Deo Gloria

Pizza Party!

Since I love my sister-in-law and want to be just like her, I'm posting this a few days late, and a few pictures short.  My hubby and I had the privilege last Friday night of hosting a DiGiorno House Party.  If you've never heard of HouseParty.com, you're not alone - I just found out a few months ago.  Basically, it's a marketing gig.  Companies sponsor parties - Individuals apply to host parties - Companies mail cool stuff to the Individuals they select - Individuals host parties to show off the product - Everyone is happy.
I received a party pack that included:

• 6 coupons for FREE DiGiorno pizzas
• 15 guest coupons for $4 off a DiGiorno pizza
• a pizza cutter
• a chip clip
• some World Cup country flag bandanas
• some blow-up "bam-bams" (you know, those silly things people wave around at sports games)
• some soccer-themed whistles
• DiGiorno paper plates/napkins

Since the party was to be held on the 1st day of the World Cup, clearly the host pack was soccer-themed.  Unfortunately, they failed to take into consideration that the games were at 10 am and 2:30 pm - not quite party time on a Friday!  Oh well... so we didn't watch a game.  We still had plenty of fun!  We had a great group of our friends show up, so pretty much everyone knew someone but still got to meet lots of new people.  And we were a diverse group!  We represented at least 8 countries: Spain, Peru, China, Ecuador, Mexico, Costa Rica, New Jersey, and the good ol' USA - haha :)
We ate 9 pizzas (good thing most of them were free!), a bunch of chips & salsa/guac/spinach dip, and some ice cream.   It was the 1st time I'd ever tried DiGiorno pizza, and I really liked it - but my favorite part was definitely having 20+ of my favorite people around, hopefully enjoying themselves and getting to know each other better.  For those of you who couldn't make it... we missed you!  Maybe HouseParty will give me another excuse to host in the upcoming months - I'd do it again in a heartbeat!
I'll leave you with the one pic I remembered to take - BEFORE everyone showed up.  Oops!

Soli Deo Gloria...

Mmm... lunch!

Yeah for school being out!  I finished up on Friday, had a fairly relaxing weekend, and am (of course) loving being out for the summer so far this week.  Thankfully, I have been able to be rather productive so far - I even had the fleeting thought that I wasn't sure what I would do with the rest of the summer, since I'll probably finish everything on my list by tomorrow. 
HAHAHAHA.  And then I remembered all the non-urgent stuff that I haven't done for the past X months that really should get done.  I might need a few extra months of vacation to finish it all.
Anyway, since I can, I thought I'd share my fun, non-lunchbox lunch that I just enjoyed.  Really, it could work in a lunchbox, which almost makes it better.  I started with this recipe for Creamy Apple & Carrot Roll-Ups that I stumbled across this morning.  5 ingredients - I can handle that!  And I had them all on hand (organic apple and carrot thanks to Absolute Organics, of course).  Don't tell Nature's Own, but I used tortillas that I had on hand instead of their bread.  Even though it says "serves 4," I honestly figured I would end up eating it all... 'cuz that's how I roll.  But alas!  It was more filling than I thought.  I used the big tortillas, so it made 2 and I've got 1 leftover for tomorrow.  I ate the extra 1/2 carrot by itself, and the extra 1/2 apple I dipped in Dark Chocolate Peanut Butter that I got from EarthFare a few weeks ago.  Yummy!  Top it off with a Wild Berry Simply Tea that I got for free with a coupon at EF (with a little sugar, since tea is too bitter for my tastes) and I'm a happy girl.
Hope your lunch was as good as mine!  I'm off to be productive again.

Soli Deo Gloria...

Look what the mailman dragged in

I've always upheld that getting mail is fun.  Granted, bills a little less so.  And junk mail not so much either, but I don't get tons of either of those items... so getting mail is still fun.  Especially on days like today.

• $10 off ANY purchase @ Kohl's
• new black ink for my printer
• a reusable grocery bag from Earthbound Farm
• Earthbound Farm organic produce coupons
• an aluminum Sigg water bottle 
• Avatar

I paid for the ink (though not much, since I used Staples Rewards "money" that I got from recycling old ink cartridges).  And technically I paid for Avatar, since we pay $10/month for Netflix.  But everything else was free!  The water bottle I won from a giveaway @ MummyDeals, the grocery bag and coupons I signed up for online during Earth week in April, and the Kohl's coupon was a straight-up surprise!  I see $10 worth of free clothes off the clearance rack coming my way in the next few weeks!

Don't believe me?  See here:

Soli Deo Gloria