Resistance is NOT futile.

After reading about the $10/$40 coupon at Walgreens that was good through today, and then reading this post, I can't tell you how tempted I was to make a run out to Walgreens today.

But I resisted. Why? Mostly because I'm shopped out. I've done more shopping these last few weeks than I have in a long time. (That's okay, though. Savings tend to come clustered around here.)

Another reason I resisted, though, is because I didn't want to "invest" any more money into my Walgreens gift card. I goofed last month and didn't request my rebate in time. They processed the rebate for me, but it was for a check instead of the gift card (which means I didn't get the extra 10%). So this month I "reinvested" the amount of the rebate check to keep things going.

I haven't had to put money into my Walgreens purchases since November of last year. Unless something is free, I do technically take it out of the appropriate category, but in practice I haven't spent a dime outside of my gift card in nine months. I like that kind of business!

Anyway, I said all that to say this: I was exhausted, there was work to be done at home, and I didn't really need any of the deals I was passing up.

Sure, that camera would have made a great gift - IF my store had any, which is very unlikely since those kind of deals sell out within the first few hours around here. And that extra $10 on next month's rebate items would have been nice, too, but I'd have to invest another $30 (at least) into my gift card to get it.

So I resisted. Instead, I stayed at home, washed my Squeezo and juiced my garden tomatoes that were about to attract fruit flies.
It was a good feeling to get that done. It was hanging over my head all week while I had company, but I didn't want to take visiting time to do it.

I also worked on clearing out some of the clutter from my craft room. Mostly it had to do with going through old magazines, clipping the few articles I really want to save and tossing the rest.

Then I took a little bit of time in the evening to make a small gift. I'll post about that on Monday.

This was a "regrouping" kind of day.

Happy birthday to me!

My parents are down visiting for the week, and we had fun for my birthday today.

The original plan was to go to the beach and see the wild horses. But Mom woke up feeling pretty badly (she has a heart condition), so we changed plans. She thought she could handle thrift stores, so that's what we did today.

My grandmother is also visiting, and she absolutely loved going to all the thrift stores with us. She picked up a few things and was so delighted that she had so much fun and spent under $2 the whole day!

My parents scored some good deals, not the least of which was a Baby Born "drink and wet" doll in a fairy dress that looked brand-new (the doll and the dress). The price: $0.25.

I'm a little disappointed that our local Salvation Army will stop accepting and selling toys in a few weeks, but I did enjoy the "75% off all toys" sale going on! I got some Discovery Toys pre-reading games, a child-sized Hot Wheels puzzle (62 pieces and complete!), two Tonka truck Easter baskets, a fancy N-Strike Nerf gun (complete with a clip) and quite a few "$0.10 bin" items for under $1 total.

We had a picnic lunch at the park. It was fun, even though the yellow jackets were trying their best to steal our soda in cans! I made two subs out of French rolls (from the discount section at Wal-Mart), and they were the best homemade subs I've ever had. I cut the rolls down the middle and spread them with salad dressing. Then I added some of my home-sliced ham, cheese, shredded lettuce, salt and pepper. The French roll must have made the biggest difference!

My husband made supper for us so I wouldn't have to cook on my birthday. Hey, hot dogs and baked beans sounds pretty good when you get a break from cooking! :)

Making do ... and making it fun!

This post reminded me of a few things my parents did while we were growing up.

You owe it to yourself to read the post. She talks about how popcorn and soda parties were the result of unfortunate incidents when she was growing up ... but her mother never let on, and actually made it a fun experience. She had a wonderful mother!

But you know what? I had wonderful parents, too. Let me tell you my story.

Before I was born, my father worked at the railroad and made good money. In light of the good salary, my parents bought a house and a nice car before I was born. But one month before I was born, the unthinkable happened. There was a massive flood in the town where my dad worked. The railroad was wiped out and the nice car was totaled. Dad lost his job as a result, but we count ourselves fortunate that he was able to get out of town on the last road that was open.

When I came along, the picture was totally different than when my siblings were born. Work was hard to come by and sporadic at best. I think we lived on unemployment more often than not. But my dad is a proud man and a hard worker. If there was work to be had, he would do it, even if it was just sweeping streets.

As a result, money was pretty tight for most of my childhood. But you know what? I have such wonderfully happy memories of that time. I'm sure there were plenty of worries on my parents' side, but not much of that got transferred to us.

I remember many winters when we would move our beds to the basement and pretty much live in the basement simply because we couldn't afford to heat the whole house. It was such a fun experience! Mom and Dad made it an adventure - like camping out. The only trick was that we couldn't tell our grandparents that we were doing it. Whenever they might come over, we went upstairs and pretended everything was normal. Why was that? Because my parents were determined not to take handouts if they could help it.

Another thing that comes to mind is something I didn't know until I was an adult. One year money was so tight that Mom and Dad knew they weren't going to have much for Christmas. So that summer they scoured yard sales for like-new toys that they knew we'd enjoy, and we had our usual big Christmas. You know what? Even after they told me, I couldn't figure out what year it was. They were so good at it that we had no idea. (Not that we would have minded!)

Those are the kind of memories I'd like for my children. No, not memories of hard times; memories of creative fun inspired by the not-so-fun realities of life. My parents were very good at it! (Thanks, Mom and Dad!)

Book Spotlight: Emilie's Creative Home Organizer

I mentioned before that Emilie Barnes is one of my favorite authors. And Emilie's Creative Home Organizer is one of my favorites of her books.

It's full of helpful tips and ideas that I've never heard anywhere else. Tips like:

• If you keep plastic wrap in your refrigerator, it won't cling to itself when handled.
• To keep bugs out of your flour canister, put a stick of spearmint gum in the flour and it will be bug-free.
• After making pies or pastry buns, sprinkle the counter with salt. The counter wipes off easily and the dough does not stick to your washcloth.
• Add cold water immediately to pans, dishes and utensils that were exposed to raw eggs, hot milk, cooked cereal or other sticky starches.
• Pot holders protect against cold as well as heat, so wear your kitchen mitts to protect your hands when rearranging food in the freezer.

And those are just my favorite tips from two pages of my current re-reading!

There are chapters on organization, food preparation, the kitchen, storage, cleaning, the garage, the laundry, the automobile, finances, time savings, raising children, good health, sewing and crafts, plants and the garden, beauty, moving, our wardrobe, and safety.

In short, this is a 337-page treasury of useful tips. On a scale of five stars, this gets the full five. If you don't have it, you need it!

Cousin Camp 2008: Day Four

This was the day for pictures! The weather was beautiful and we had lots of fun things planned for the last day of Cousin Camp.

Of all the "Cousin Camp Celebration" activities (ring toss, water balloons, etc. for prizes), I think the obstacle course was the favorite. This was my sister's brainchild, and it was absolute genius! [Did I ever mention that she and I are a lot alike? ;)]

She did a farm-themed obstacle course this year. Some ran on foot, others wanted to use their bikes. We let them do what they wanted, and it (surprisingly) didn't seem to affect the scores much.

First they ran through a lane made of two boards and zig-zagged through orange cones.



Then they loaded a 5-gallon bucket of hay onto a wagon and guided it through another narrow lane made of bricks and a series of zig-zagging cones.



Then they pumped four times on the water pump (for effect only - the watering can was already filled with water since the pump no longer works).



Next, they loaded the watering can onto the wagon and pulled it over to the cage that housed several stuffed animals. Here, they shelled an ear of corn for the animals,



fed them some hay from the bucket,



and poured water from the watering can into their bowl.



When they were done with that, they hopped onto this toy 4-wheeler and raced across the finish line (a rope held by two other cousins).



Here they are in the order of finishing times (quickest time on the left). Surprisingly, it didn't go in age order! Notice the Olympic-style "medals"? I got those at Dollar Tree and they all seemed to like them.



Then my brother-in-law brought out their miniature horse and, just for fun, took him through the obstacle course. Dusty made the worst time of all, but we all had fun watching!



(And no, he didn't actually get on the 4-wheeler!)



Later in the afternoon, we visited my brother-in-law's parents' farm just up the road. They have a dairy farm with a soft ice cream machine on the premises. You can guess that we accepted the offer of free ice cream cones!



This is one of my favorite pictures of this niece. It was taken at the same farm, where there was a batch of newborn, just-opened-their-eyes kittens right outside the front door. This niece is absolutely crazy about cats, so this picture is a great reflection of who she is at this point in her life. Can you believe I didn't even have to pose this one? I just looked over and saw it, whipped out my camera and was fortunate enough to catch it while it lasted!



This is my 14-year-old nephew, just to give you an idea of how big this tricycle was. He enjoyed it, and I joked that this would be a blackmail picture in a few years. :)



This cart is similar to golf carts, except they use it to get around the farm. The kids all enjoyed taking rides in it.



And lastly, when we got back to my sister's farm, we had a "candy shower." My brother-in-law stood on the balcony and rained candy down on them. They had a blast, and the candy was fairly evenly distributed (can you believe it?).



We ended the day - and Cousin Camp - with a pizza party. All in all, it was a great success, even if the weather didn't cooperate and we had to change plans a few times.

Next year, we're having it at my house. We're still trying to figure out how to get everyone here, but we're going to make it work!

Cousin Camp 2008: Day Three

Thursday went much more like we had planned, thanks to weather that mostly cooperated. In the morning, we did our Personality Box craft.

We started with these:

Everyone went through old magazines looking for pictures, sayings, anything that said something about them. Then we cut them out and glued them collage-style onto the outside (and some even put some inside) of the boxes.

Here are the finished lids:
And the finished fronts of a few of them:

As you can see, some of them really got into the project, while others went with minimal decoration. It was all okay, since it really says a lot about their personalities either way. :)

However, in hindsight, I would recommend making a sample of any craft projects so they have a better idea of what the finished project should look like. They weren't familiar with the idea of a collage, so a sample would have helped tremendously.

The afternoon was spent in indoor games, none of which went very well. The launcher broke on the first try for one game, and they didn't seem to be in the mood for the competition involved in the other two games. Oh well! I'll have to try to remember to stick to non-competitive games in the future.

That evening, we hid the treasure stones. I put erasers inside the girls' rocks and army men inside the boys' rocks, so I had to distinguish between the two. I decided to use my paint pens to place either a blue dot (for boys) or a red dot (for girls) on top of each stone so they'd know if it was for them or not. Also, I put a limit on how many stones they could collect, just to be fair to everyone.

Once they had found the stones (not an easy feat, since I hid them in the grass and they look just like rocks), I told them to break them apart. They knew there was something special about them from the beginning (why else would I have them search for rocks?). The reactions ranged from a, "Cool," reaction to a "Wow! Look at this!" reaction. I think they really liked the concept.



I also think my youngest nephew (seen above) thought I was a little off my rocker putting these army men inside stones. :)

At the end of the day, we had Chocolate Yummies for our snack. I can't recommend them enough! We ate the whole pan, and we could have eaten another. (Good thing I only made one pan!) This is the yummiest treat I've had in a very long time!

Cousin Camp 2008: Day Two

Day Two was the day we were supposed to go to a local nature preserve and walk the trails for free. It was the only day we had enough vehicles at once to take everyone somewhere. Unfortunately, it decided to rain all day.

My grandmother came to the rescue by offering to pay our way (and all of the kids') if we could come up with an alternate place to go.

We decided on a local coal mine that had been shut down and turned into a museum of sorts. We rode "cars" down into the mine, got out and toured a small portion of the mine on foot, and then rode the cards back up to the surface. It was very interesting, and the kids seemed to enjoy it a lot!

Afterward, we had a picnic lunch under a pavilion while it rained harder than I ever remember in my life. (We got wet even sitting under the pavilion!)

Later on back at the house, we had our treasure hunt indoors. Beginning with the youngest and working to the oldest, each cousin got a clue that told where the next clue could be found. Once the oldest figured out his clue ("where every teenager wants to be" - the driver's seat of my sister's van), they distributed the goody bags (candy and gum) amongst themselves.

They enjoyed the goody bags, even if one of them had just had a root canal and couldn't have any of the candy inside. (We had a hard time convincing her to save hers until later, but reason finally prevailed - once we hid the bag on top the fridge.)

At the end of the day, we enjoyed homemade soft pretzels before turning in for the night.

The day didn't go as planned, but it was still a good day, and we had fun!