Many moons ago, my BFF Jess and I went to our local amusement park, King’s Island, about every other day. They had a fake game show that we were dying to win, and one of the standard contests was to see who could come up with some random item in their purse. We’d stuff our little Esprit bags with a pen, a hair clip, some lip gloss, and hope for the best.
These days?
I could win that contest in a heartbeat.
Ladies and gentlemen, I give you… the contents of my purse.
This first one’s not so bad…
My wallet, planner, vitamins, three prescription bottles (only one was empty!) and some black licorice (what? You don’t carry black licorice around?).
But it’s downhill from there.
A book, another wallet, three (empty) packs of gum, a CD, a Flip camcorder that I forgot I owned, moisturizer, and nail polish.
Here’s the serious randomness.
A family picture from 5 years ago, two iPhone cords, earbuds, some other random cord, a Fitbit that doesn’t work, two mis-matched socks (??), a bag of crumbled up cookies, and an icing tip. Because you never know when you’re going to have a cupcake decorating emergency.
And finally – the crap.
Pens, gum wrappers, grocery lists, receipts, a crumpled up napkin, and who knows what else.
Nine years ago today at nine a.m. exactly, and after a whole lot of effort and trauma, I became a mom. I gave birth to my first baby boy, Joshua Kenneth.
I would like for someone to explain to me how he went from this:
To this:
In like, 2.2 seconds.
Because the last nine years truly have flown by. And my boy has gone from a snuggly baby to a hilarious toddler to a ginormous 3rd grader, all in the blink of an eye.
This past year I have watched him conquer his fear of water and become an excellent swimmer.
I have watched him love on and teach his little brother. I’ve witnessed his rise from Star Wars ignoramus to Star Wars expert. (As Emily says, the NERD is strong with this one!)
I have watched him get his feelings truly hurt by a friend for the first time, and tried to help him through that. That’s been a hard growing pain this year. But, I’ve also had the joy of seeing him make and cultivate new friendships.
He’s made me proud as inch by inch, he is conquering some of his other fears. He’s becoming more aware of adult conversations around him. He’s still innocent, but he’s growing up fast.
He’s still my most loving and affectionate child, and I’m so glad he still loves to snuggle me. He also loves to hear me tell stories about him when he was little. Because he was such a joy, so EASY, I sometimes long for his babyhood back. “Mommy, was I your BEST baby?” He’ll ask me when he needs a pick-me-up. And I’ll tell him a story of how his Daddy and I used to take him everywhere because he was just so darn agreeable. And then remind him that I love his siblings just as much (gotta keep it real, kid!)
Oh, there WAS that time you climbed into the tub with all your clothes on.
I’m very proud of who my Joshua is and who he is becoming. Most of all I am proud of the way he treats others. I think he truly does treat them (with the exception of his sister, perhaps. Ergh.) as he would want to be treated. What more can a mother ask for?
This weekend I had some serious grocery shopping to do, and it was also seriously random. I needed to get our weekly staples, plus snacks and baking stuff for Joshua’s family birthday party on Sunday and friends sleepover (which is coming up Friday, eeek!) I was also excited to try out a new app to help with grocery planning and saving, Grocery Nation. Full disclosure, Grocery Nation is sponsoring my review – but – I would’ve tried the app anyway because some of my genius friends are part of the team that produced it!! I’m talking about Andrea from Savings Lifestyle and Erin from $5 Dinners. Not only are they kind of a big deal, they are my friends and I am super-proud of them!!
Right now Grocery Nation is in beta and only available to us lucky shoppers in Ohio and Indiana. I say “lucky” because oh em gee BFF’s, this app is awesome!
Right now it’s only available on Android, so I used our Motorola Xoom tablet, but you can also use it on your Android phone.
Here’s how it works! First, you pick your store. Then, you view the sales items and check which ones you want to buy. If you want more detail on the sale, you can view each one individually. Then, you email your list to yourself.
Here’s the best part: When you email your list to yourself, all the coupon match-ups are listed including LIVE LINKS to printables and digital coupons! So you can open your email and just click down your list to print coupons on load them to your store loyalty card or program. If you’re going with paper coupons, it will list the insert to find the coupon in and what date it came out.
1) Select your store 2) view the sales 3) view sale detail 4) Email your list!
Here is what I really loved about the app: It is soooo much easier to scroll through sales and match-ups on my phone or tablet than it is on the computer. I can’t always sit down with my laptop but I can have my phone with me just about anywhere. Anytime I have a few minutes of downtime, I can browse the sales, pick which I’m interested in, and email it to myself ( or my friends if I want to share a deal, which I do often!!) so it’ll be there waiting for me when I am able to sit down with the computer. Half the work of preparing my grocery trip is already done by the time I sit down to get myself organized. WIN!
This past weekend I went to both Kroger and Meijer and shopped using the deals I found on Grocery Nation. I haven’t been to Meijer in for-ev-er but now that Kroger is discontinuing double coupons, I may have to shop coupon deals there. My Meijer trip yielded a great score on yogurt thanks to Grocery Nation. Jonah eats a TON of yogurt, and it is his main breakfast food since he can’t eat oats or wheat. He was pretty happy that I got these 4-packs of yogurt for 88 cents each using my list with printable coupon links from Grocery Nation!
My mom uses Grocery Nation! Woot woot!
Ohio and Indiana Android users, grab this app here. It’s free and it’ll save you tons of time and cash. And you know, time IS money! Apple users, keep your eyes peeled because this awesome app will be available for iOs devices later this year. You can visit the Grocery Nation website by clicking here and enter your email if you want to be notified when it’s available for your device.
Bottom line: this is a great app and I’m so happy to know about it and use it. Give it a whirl and let me know what you think!
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As I mentioned, Grocery Nation sponsored this post. All opinons about the app are my own.
