Mommin' It Up!

January 16, 2008

WFMW: Organizing Your Coupons

Are you sick of hearing about coupons yet? Well, too bad! It may ~~be obvious to~~ surprise you that I am not the most organized person in the world. Last week I told you I got my coupon organizing ideas from Money Saving Mom, this week I’m gonna show you how they’re working for me. To store my coupons at home, I use this old Rubbermaid container.

I have coupons organized alphabetically by category in an envelope with the flap cut off. The category name is written on an index card which is placed longways into the envelope. Now, since it’s a smidge inconvenient to cart a box this big AND two kids every time we go to the store, I take this more portable coupon organizer in the car with me.

(Kudos to my hubby for putting this in my stocking on Christmas! He got it at CVS! Woot woot!)

I have a tab labeled for each store I regularly shop at (including separate tabs for both my and my husband’s CVS ExtraCare cards), the front tab is just for CVS coupons, and I also have a tab for scrap paper and one for rebates. In each store’s tab there is an envelope with the coupons I want to use in that store. If I have the kids with me, I just take in that store’s envelope and leave the rest in the car. Here’s what it looks like all opened up:

If I am lucky enough to get out by myself for a big grocery trip, I take my whole big coupon box just in case I see I deal I hadn’t previously planned out.

So, that’s how I keep my coupons workin’ for me! For more great Works for Me Wednesday tips, check out Rocks in My Dryer!

January 15, 2008

It’s cold as balls in Ohio.

And let me tell you, it is fantastic in Florida.

My poor little toes nearly froze off when I descended from the plane last night… in my flip flops.

We had a great trip!! And, I am happy to say, returned alive.

I was a wee bit nervous getting on the plane. I used Jane’s strategy and said hello to the pilots. I was happy to see that they were both sporting wedding rings… I was hoping their marital (and presumably parental) status gave them a little more incentive to land safely. Like when your car insurance goes down when you get married, you know? So anyway, the flight was great and we arrived without a hitch.

As I mentioned, we were traveling with two other sets of parents, one of which travels without their kids a couple times a year (smart people) and has also been at this parenting thing longer than the rest of us. They suggested that we call home and check on the kids, tell the grandparents we arrived, etc, but wait til the next day to actually talk to the kiddos. Again, these are smart people. But did Andy and I listen to them? Um, of course not. I thought it would be a great idea to talk to Kate… even though it was about 7:30 p.m. and she hadn’t had a nap that day. She, of course, started crying and asking me to come pick her up. It was AWESOME. Oh, and then, like five seconds later, I was putting beer bottles in the mini-fridge and one EXPLODED in my face. Seriously, it popped like a balloon. I have no idea why or how it did that, but it scared me to death. I had beer (but not glass, thank God) in my eye. It was horrible!

So after these two fabulously traumatic experiences, we got settled in our room at the Polynesian, and went to dinner at Jiko in the Animal Kingdom Lodge.

The Disney Marathon was actually the reason for our trip – on Saturday, Andy ran the “Donald,” which is a half marathon (13.1 miles), and then on Sunday, three of our friends ran the “Mickey,” the full marathon (26.2 miles)… and two insane people in our group ran the “Goofy,” which is BOTH races! That’s ca-razy, if you ask me, but what an accomplishment. It was so wonderful to see them all accomplish their goals, and it was such fun to cheer them on. The whole atmosphere was so neat… the runners cheering each other on, the spectators cheering for each runner (not just the ones the knew), and the Disney employees (sorry, cast members) who congratulated each of them all weekend long. It was very cool… almost makes me think about training for such a thing. Almost. But not quite.

Anyway, we had a great trip and even though we missed Kate terribly, it was really, really nice to have some adult time with our friends and with each other. I highly recommend a long-weekend trip (or longer!) for all of you parents out there… it takes a lot of effort, coordination and planning to make it happen, but it’s SO worth it.

The only thing that would have made it better was if my Christmas tree had taken itself down while we were gone. Ugh, it’s back to reality!

January 14, 2008

The Milk Maid & the Dairy Queen

A couple of days ago my mom called me with a good joke. “I saw Elisabeth Hasselbeck on the View with her new baby,” she said, “And she’s calling herself the Dairy Queen because it wants to nurse day & night, night & day. So, I thought you should call yourself that, too.” With that she gave a little “tee-hee” in reference to Sophie’s ardent love of nursing. Oy. Unlike the Dairy Queen down the street from my house, THIS DQ is open all winter at least. Yikes!

Saturday Sophie earned herself the title of Milk Maid to my DQ. She was eating an afternoon snack in her high chair (and I was – what else? – filing coupons!) and I’d given her a straw cup of milk. She will usually drink an ounce or two and then do what she does when she’s done with anything – unceremoniously throw it on the floor. It’s one of her signature moves. When she’s done with a toy, a food, whatever, she just chucks it and moves on. Well, this time when I heard the cup hit the floor, I noticed it wasn’t as full as usual. As a matter of fact, she’d downed almost all the milk! My heart skipped a beat in excitement! Could it be that she was moving toward loving the cup more than the DQ? I decided to see what she’d do if I got her some more. So I gave her another 4 oz. cup of milk, and went back to filing my coupons. Then I went into the kitchen and unloaded the dishwasher. While I was in there I heard the cup hit the floor again, and when I went to check on her that cup was DRY. She had drained the whole thing!! Just then the phone rang. It was Bobby, checking in (he was rockin’ out with his music buddies. Jam session. Very cool). I excitedly told him about Sophie’s milk consumption. He couldn’t believe it either! When I got off the phone, Sophie was making her “all done” sign of raising her hands in the hair and then clapping for herself. So I went to get her out of her chair. She was wearing a little pink velour hoodie (thanks Bethany!) over her overalls. When I took her high chair tray off, I noticed that the hoodie was soaked. When I undid her buckles, I noticed her torso was soaked. When I picked her up, I noticed her BUTT was soaked.

She’d drank and then SPIT OUT at least that entire second cup all over herself!!!!!!!!! And probably half of the first.

Geez kid! Her super-toothless grin showcased her pride. What a booger.

So the Dairy Queen stripped the Milk Maid down to her diaper and took her upstairs and ~~tossed~~ gently placed her in the bathtub for a good soak.

I guess I’ll be retaining my title for awhile. I wish it came with a tiara!! Or at least a Brownie Batter Blizzard!!!