Am I back?

I've just recently started Project Life and I'm thinking I'm going to need a place to post all the pictures. So am I back to blogging? Maybe. I don't know how long I'll last but I'm going to give it a go. Why not, right? Even if I'm the only one who ever reads it, at least it will be here. I just have to convince myself that I can just say what I want and not worry about grammar, spelling, other people's opinions, all that jazz. It's my blog, who gives a hoot other than me? Exactly.

Week 4

Well, it was my birthday this week, which means people want you to eat goodies. At work, a girl made this ice cream pie (with cookie tombstones since I keep saying I have one foot in the grave, lol) and I had to eat a piece of it because they bring you into the meeting room and everyone's in there- I mean, they sing to you. You can't really avoid it. So I did have a piece of that deliciousness. My boss went to a meeting yesterday, though, and the person he was meeting gave him cupcakes for the office. I passed. Go me! I was still afraid the ice cream was going to bring me down though, but it didn't.

I'm down 3.4 lbs this week! Which brings my total to 10.8! Isn't that crazy? I almost wanted to pad it on my weight loss spreadsheet and only put 2.4 because what if it's a fluke!?! I always think it's a fluke. I always assume a big loss like that will come back to haunt me next week. Let's hope it doesn't!

Yeah, that's not my bedroom :) It's a set up in Ikea, but I took a picture because that paint color will MOST DEFNITELY be in my bedroom. Love it. Anyway, so I missed last week. What was I thinking? I was probably thinking my weigh-in wasn't that fabulous so who cares? Well, I still need to update, darn it all. Last week I was down .6 (lame!) I know, I know... it's still a loss, but it sucked. Especially because it was week 2. Week 3 kind of made up for it though. I was down 2.8 lbs this week. Woot! I'll take it. I'm finally down to one full sugar soda a week, hopefully soon I'll be able to curb it entirely. I've suddenly developed an urge for Sweet Tea's again from McDonalds. It was a long road convincing myself to stop drinking those, so I need to get back on the wagon.

Well, in other news- I've been making a weekly list of what we're going to have for dinner and using it to buy groceries. It's nice to fly through the grocery store w/o browsing- also saves money. What else? Oh- duh, most importantly- my Aunt. My mom flew down to Florida a few days ago because my Aunt was in the hospital (she's doing better now- and she better do what she's supposed to from now because we're not letting her go anywhere!), but she won't be back until February 12th. :( I miss her already! Tomorrow I'm turning 30, so she sent me some beautiful pink roses that I have sitting on my table and she promised dinner when she returns. 30 is really frightening for me, so I think she's trying to make it a little easier, which is nice. I went shopping on Saturday w/o her and it was no fun. Kohl's had a huge 3 day sale and purses were 40% off! I almost grabbed a Ralph Lauren Chaps one which was really cute and only $28 but I ended up going with a Nine West bag that is more functional. I also bought a new scale! It was a steal at 1/2 off, and it's really fun and modern looking. It's glass and the display lights up blue. I love gadgets, and it's pretty much a new gadget.

As usual, I'm babbling, but tomorrow I turn 30 (did I mention this horror!?!), and I'm trying to console myself over here with talk of deals. Tonight is my last night in my 20's. That's a really hard thing to deal with. I won't let it derail me this week- although it really wants to. I'd really like to drown my sorrows in a fat pumpkin spice frapp from Starbucks and a hot fudge cake from Big Boy. Someone stop me.

Wk 1 Weigh-In Jan 9 09

So I officially started on a Monday but I wanted my weigh-in day to be on Friday, so I weighed in on January 9th. I was a little nervous because I'd found that just one soda per day was still not enough and I'd caved to 2 per day. A small on my way to work and a small to med w/ dinner.

That was kind of making me nervous, but food wise I did very well this week. My mom made us a home cooked dinner on Friday because my little sister spent the night (delicious, mom, thanks!) so I decided to do lunch out friday instead (as I normally do a friday freebie meal). Well, on Saturday we ended up going out to lunch during our shopping trip, too, but I still did very well thank you! 

I'm down 3.8 lbs this week. I have to say I'm happy with that. Of course I'd love if 30 lbs would just drop off overnight, but who wouldn't? They say that 1-2 lbs is average so I'll take the 3.8. Very excited and I think this week I'll be able to handle 1 soda per day. We'll see, I'm not making promises- almost 30 years of non-stop access to caffeine is a huge habit to break.

Lunches are kind of hard for me. I can eat Lean Cuisines w/ salads a couple days and then I'm flat out sick of it. Very bizarre because I could eat McDonald's chicken nuggets every day and not get sick of it. I think that's just crap my mind does to me, so instead of caving in, I brought peanut butter and jelly sandwiches one day last week and that worked well. I'll mix it up a bit next week, but keep a tight grip on my point intake.

Day One....So Far So Good

Well, it was good other than the fact that I could not make it through the day without a fountain soda. I seriously could not make it, it was headache city. I'd even had a cup of coffee and a Cherry Coke Zero on my lunch- no dice, I needed a regular coke. I finally succumbed and said -Okay, one a day for the first week to help the cravings. It was the craziest thing- I stopped at White Castle and got a small coke and actually shivered when I took the first drink. That's a freaking addiction people. Good gawd.

Food-wise, I did well though. I had what I wanted for dinner because I'm not eating anywhere near enough points for breakfast or lunch. I know that's not the healthiest way to do this, but that's what I want right now. But, dinner was something I made here- definitely not going for fast food.

Hopefully tomorrow will be just as good.

A New Year

I'm dieting again. Finally. I'm going to be 30 at the end of this month and I've got to get myself under control. This happens every new year. I get all motivated to get my diet on, go back to school, be more active and I fold after a few weeks (sometimes days). So I'm not making any promises here, ya know?

I wasn't going to blog about this here. I was going to start a whole new blog so people who might have this blog's address wouldn't be able to read about my dieting. But in all honesty, who really cares? If someone does happen to check this like once every six months and sees I'm dieting- who's it going to hurt? Why does it have to be some secret? So I'm not going through all the drama of creating a new blog. It's here and I don't really care what anyone thinks of that ;)

Anyway, I'm going to go ahead and do Weight Watchers again. I briefly considered South Beach Diet but changing the entire way we eat, having to get rid of all that we have in the pantry already and rebuying just isn't an option right now. I might change to it later if I find myself having sugar issues, but at my last test the Dr found my sugar levels were normal so that's awesome. She still wants me on Metformin, but I'm not starting that yet. Maybe next week.

Alrighty so wish me luck, my non-readers :)

**Oh, by the way- I don't know if I mentioned it before, but I read the first Twilight and figured I wouldn't bother with the others. It was okay, but some parts were kind of dumb and I figured it'd be a waste of my time. Well, someone convinced me to read #2 and here I am on #4 which was a gift from the hubs for Christmas. I'm 3/4 of the way through and I'm freaking out because there won't be another one for a while. I'm addicted to the story and characters now. I think I'm in love with Edward Cullen, by the way. Team Edward!

I will post more often...

That's my goal right now. I've been posting on my myspace page but that doesn't really count- what if myspace were to close up shop? I suppose you could ask the same question of Blogger- but at least I'd probably get the option here of transferring over to something else.

So I'm going to post more often. Our lives are not really that exciting at the moment, but I'm going to focus less on what's going on with us or the world (since that equals fewer posts) and more on things that I'm into. Things like music, shopping, reading, makeup, scrapbooking (which I get a big FAIL at recently) and weight loss. Weight loss is important because it coincides with lowering my blood sugar. Lowering my blood sugar means I'll have more of a chance of ovulation. Ovulation gives me more of a chance of getting pregnant. We're dealing with the male factor too, but any extra shot is one we need right now.

I'm rambling. I've had the past four days off and I'm really not looking forward to going back to work tomorrow. I love my job but after 4 days off, it's not sounding exciting. The weekend was filled with Christmas shopping and family time. I scored two pair of pants at Old Navy for $4.99 each after a bit of haggling with the store mgr. I don't usually do such things, but it was Black Friday, they were in the clearance section of the store and they don't carry this line instore any longer. I basically just said the same thing to the mgr, and he knocked them down from $19.99 to $4.99. SCORE! Also nabbed 3 Wallflowers and 3 refills from Bath and Body Works for just under $10 after coupons. Rock on.

Speaking of Black Friday, though- a man got killed in NY at a Walmart. There was a stampede to get in the store and this man is dying on the ground and people are running past to get to their deals. I understand the sportsman like fun of black friday- but there is no deal worth someone's life. Let's get a grip- and Walmart? Get a damn plan together so this won't happen again.

Anyway, that's about it- I'll post more soon and maybe actually invite people to read this thing. Maybe.

Obama 08

I know I haven't posted in quite some time, and that's just disgraceful. I mean, really. Recent obsessions- couponing, Obama, pumpkin spice frapps at Starbucks, Anderson Cooper. Still no babies, but still working on it. Will update w/ more soon.

Wk of 10-19 through 10-26

First let me touch on last week's amazing deals. I mean seriously. AMAZING week if you're a couponer ppl. Let me show you (or feel free to skip ahead to this week's so you can get in on the goodness)...

Walgreens
-Robitussin- got paid $7.50 for every 3 I took off their shelves. Caught wind of this deal late in the week so I was only in for 3 transactions- but that means I got paid $22.50 for picking up 9 bottles of Robitussin. YES, you read that right.

CVS
-Free Always Infinity. In for four boxes. These require using your extra care card.

Target (hello, lover)
-Purina Dog Chow -crap but doogie likes it-
20lb bags for $3.50 each. Would explain but it's over so what's the use? In for 6 bags (would have bought more but DH protested when I wanted to go to Target yet again)

K-Mart (I know...ewww... but I thought that when I was 16 and now I'm almost 30 with a mortgage so I'll brave the mess) In about 3 trips- I got $430 worth of stuff for about $45 out of pocket. How, you ask? Read on...
DOUBLE COUPONS up to $2. That means a $2 coupon is worth $4 off. There was free stuff aplenty! I'll list a few of the highlights-
-FREE Dove Shampoo/Conditioner
-FREE Dove Body Wash
-FREE Bottled Water (Nestle)
-FREE Lipton Tea
-FREE Tylenol
-FREE Advil
-FREE Glade sprays
-FREE Vegetable Steamers (I think they're Green Giant)
-FREE Ore Ida Steam and Mash (new potato thing)
-FREE Endust
-FREE Scrubbing Bubbles
-FREE Resolve Carpet Cleaner
-FREE Glade Carpet Deoderizer
-FREE Ronzoni Pasta
-.99 Bags of cat food (the 3.5lb bag of Goodlife Recipe- in for 5 bags)
-2 for $1 Revlon Hair Dye
-2 for $1 Revlon eyeshadows and lipglosses
-.99 Almay Makeup remover wipes (love these!)
-.50 Pillsbury Ready to bake cookies
-.75 Ragu
-.75 bags of Halloween candy (like the real deal, no cheap crap)
and a ton of other cheap stuff to be had

NOW -----something more useful to you----- THIS WEEK'S DEALS

CVS
-Free oral-b toothbrushes
-Free just for men hair dye (you into that?)
-Free stuff for kids
(you do need ECB to make these officially free, but if you spend the $10 to make an initial purchase- I'll give ya stuff to use it on next week to keep the freebies coming)
-FREE Excedrin- no ECB needed. They're on sale for $1.99, use $2 coupon that came out this weekend. Free baby, free.

Walgreens
-Free Pert Plus (Dh likes this crap) use the monthly easy saver coupon (found in store) combined with the manufacturer coupon in this weeks paper. Yes, you can do that- it tells you in the Walgreen's ad this week to do it. FREE! Free is good, my friends.

Kroger
-Free Sally Hansen Nailpolish
-Free Scotchbrite Nailsaver Sponges
-Free Celestial Seasonings Tea
-Free Whisker Lickins Cat treats
-Free Cottonelle Toilet Paper
-.35cent Sizzle and Serve Armour sausages
-$1 Energizer batteries (4 pack)
-$1.50 Poptarts (try the chocolate chip one..mmmm)
These are all with coupons that came out recently (most are THIS WEEK. Buy a newspaper- get freebies....pretty simple)

I know there are more freebies to be had but I haven't got my plan going for the week yet (behind!). Heads up.... K-Mart will be doubling again starting the 26th. Rumors are that either A) they're going out of business and trying to get rid of stock or B) they're making one last ditch effort at getting back some momentum. If it's B, it's working- I haven't seen that many ppl in K-Mart since I was a kid! Anyway- go get your free toilet paper and cat treats!!

Hot Deals At Kroger

I'm sorry I've been neglecting this blog!!! I'm going to start posting again. Beauty stuff, book stuff, baby stuff- I promise.... (you- my one reader-should appreciate it lol)

If you didn't know it already, I'm a cheap bitch ;) If I can avoid paying retail I'm all over it. Well little lovelies, there are some pretty good beauty bargains at Kroger this week if you have one near you.

Before I get into the deals I used coupons on, let me just tell ya about this sweet find because I know some of ya aren't couponers and all the crap below this will be totally confusing. L'oreal Skin Genesis (new moisturizer that is all the rage on the beauty blogs/forums) was closeout for $8.28. Kroger's probably not the first place you'd think to shop for items like that- so that's probably why it was a closeout. I did actually have a $1 off coupon, but even at $8.28 this is a steal! Kroger's regular price is $21.69! CVS and Target are a little cheaper at around $19 but for $8??? Holy guacomole that's a good deal people. Get you some.

Okay, onto the coupon deals. I totally prefer Tigi Bed Head or Matrix products for my hair- they just do something for me. However, being that Dh is currently unemployed and the magazine is just starting to shape up- I have to be cheap and get drugstore brands. So back to Kroger- they're doing this buy 3 participating items get $3 off your order- here's what I got

3 Secret Deoderant $2.57ea
- $3 from promotion above
- $3 from $1 coupons that came out last Sunday
$1.71 for all three

3 Pantene Shampoo or Conditioners $3.33ea
- $3 from promo
- $6 from $2 coupons that came out last Sunday
.99 for 3 Shampoos or Conditioners

6 Herbal Essences Shampoo $2.50ea
- $6 from promo (each time you get 3, you get $3 off)
- $9 from $3 off 2 coupons that came out last Sunday too
FREE!!!!!!!! (Awww shit! ...likin that ain't ya?)


This and the free Covergirl lash blasts and eyeshadows I got at CVS last week has me all geeked and I had to share. I don't normally post any deals that I get here, but I'm going to start from now on (maybe?). Anyway- get thee to a Kroger and get some cheap stuff!

McDonalds Sweet Tea

Is bad ass. Seriously, I think I have a problem. 32 oz in a styrofoam cup that keeps it nice, icy and fresh? For a buck? Who can pass that up? Who, I ask you? Not me. Another score for McDonalds in the beverage department. You all know how I love their fountain soda. The tea may have just as much sugar but it has less calories and it’s cheaper. Yeehaw.

I know I haven't updated in a while, I've been reading like crazy and it's taking up all my blogging time :) I'll update soon.