My Haircut

It's been over a year since I've gotten a haircut.  Since we're due to get some family photos taken next weekend, I decided it was time for a cut.  Since it's so hot, and my hair was weighing me down, I decided to really chop it.  Here's my before:



And here are my after pics:

And let me tell you, I feel like a completely different person right now.  Most days, it was too hot to dry my hair, so I would let it air dry.  As you can see from the before picture, it has a slight wave to it, but it never looked nice.  It was frizzy and just looked crazy.  I would then end up putting it in a ponytail.  Real sexy!  I knew I needed to get something easy to fix, and possibly even something that will look decent air-dried.  It looked nice this morning after sleeping on it all night, we'll see how it looks once I do it myself.  One thing's for sure though, I really need to get a haircut a little more often!

Mid-Summer Garden Update

So our garden is doing pretty well this year.  We’ve got five roma tomato, two cherry tomato, one yellow pear tomato, one Tigerella, and three beefsteak tomato plants.  Cool story: The one beefsteak is one that we had started from seed in the spring of 2010.  We then transplanted it outside in May.  Then, in October, we moved back into the house, in our big south-facing bay window.  We pruned it down to just a few branches.  By February, it had tomatoes on it!  Now, they weren’t the yummy, red, juicy, tasty tomatoes we got from outside in the summer.  But, they also weren’t the yucky, white, tasteless ones from the store either.  I call it a success.  Well, at the beginning of May, we transplanted it back outside.  And we have more tomatoes!  It's the first of the beefsteak to ripen.  Now this plant has been around since March 2010 and is still producing.  This is the third harvest for one cool little plant.  We’re so proud!  We plan on making some yummy salsa again this year, as it was a hit last year. 

We also had a bunch of pickling cucumber plants that produced a TON of cucumbers.  We canned 14 quarts and 28 pints of pickles, and still have tons of cucumbers left.  We pickled enough, so we’re just eating them as we pick them.   I use premade seasonings, as I'm afraid to make my own and have it still taste good.  Anyone have any good recipes?



We had thrown all of our pumpkins and gourds out our front door into the flower bed at the end of the season last fall.  Well, we have two plants that came up from there.  One is a “monster pumpkin” that we had last year with at least 6 pumpkins on it.  I think the other one is some sort of gourd.  AND we have 8 butternut squash that magically appeared in the middle of our cucumber patch.  I LOVE butternut squash.  I did a ton of baking in the last year, replacing pumpkin with butternut squash.  Boy is it yummy!  Pie, cookies, cupcakes, and muffins….drool…

Hot, hot, hot!

Summer time is in FULL swing here. We've been in the 90s and even in the 100s (the highest our outside temp reached was 104!) for over a week now, so the pool has been our best friend. And luckily, all three boys now officially love the pool.

C (who's 5) began the season out in the pool swimming around with his floaties on. Now he is leaping off the diving board and spending as much time as I will allow him in the pool.  He loves the "crocigator".

H (who's 3) began the season not wanting to touch the water. I would bring him in with me and he would clutch to me in fear. Now he'll jump into my arms in the pool, and spends his time cautiously swimming around. He's not a strong swimmer yet, so he wears his lifejacket.

And G (6 months) loved the pool from the beginning, and floats around like a cool dude in this infant floatie.

Whoops!

So it's been awhile since I've posted.  G is still a bit attached to me...ok, 24/7, so I find it hard to sit down and type something out from time to time.  And recently the only free time I seem to get I spend grocery shopping or working in my veggie garden (no pics yet, I promise some though!).  But since it's been raining for what seems like forever, I figured I'd at least come on and put SOMETHING on here. 

Have you heard of Extreme Couponing on TLC?  If not, check it out, just for an episode. I like to coupon, so I thought it'd be a great show to watch.  Well, I've learned a few things I didn't know before, and got some good tips, but WOW are these people crazy!  I mean, 77 bottles of mustard, just because they're free?!  I can see getting a handful, it's great to take to picnics in the summer... but they don't last forever.  They DO have an expiration date.  I like to get deals, as I've said before, but only when it's actually going to help my family out, not when it's going to prevent other people from buying things they actually need.  But it's like a train-wreck, I can't tear my eyes away.

My couponing right now is more along the lines of: buying a newspaper, cutting out coupons, matching up the coupons with the weekly store deals, and saving some money.  Yes, I've got a few things stockpiled (15 toothpastes, 10 boxes of tissues...), but it hasn't become a full-time job.  Apparently B wants me to become more like them though.  For Mother's Day, he got me a coupon organizer for my purse.  What's weird is that I ordered one off of Amazon the night before, and he had to tell me what my gift was early.  Luckily I had time to cancel my order from Amazon before it went through.  It was one of the most thoughtful gifts I've gotten from him.  I'd never mentioned I wanted one, but after watching the show with me, and seeing me use envelopes to try to organize everything, he thought he'd save me some trouble.  What a sweetie!

So what about you, what's your couponing style?

Frugal Friday

Can I make a confession? I LOVE being thrifty. I mean, it's like an addiction for me. I walk into a store, I head straight for the clearance racks. I look through all the weekly ads looking for a good deal on chicken. If I find something super cheap, I stockpile it. I coupon, bargain-shop, eBay, Amazon, swagbucks, etc. Any way I can save money, I do.

So every Friday (if I get the chance that is) I'm going to post about something I did to either save money, or at least not spend as much!

Today? My awesome eBay score!

My wardrobe is seriously lacking. I mean, I was down to about two pairs of jeans, one of which had holes in the knees. I just lived in sweatpants for about six months while I was pregnant, and when G was born, I was done with it. I was inspired by a blog to actually get myself dressed everyday. So I make it a point to, at the very least, get dressed, cover up my dark circles, wear some piece of jewelry, and even brush my hair! And it has done wonders for my attitude and mood! I mean, I was up half the night with G, but putting forth the effort to do something for myself makes me feel somewhat human.

Ok, back to my eBay score... Since I'm done being pregnant, I figure I'm safe to buy some clothes for myself. Jeans! I need jeans! My frugality keeps me from spending full price for clothes. I just can't do it. So, I did a search on eBay for Express jeans in my size. I know my size in Express, so I figured I had a decent chance of purchasing a pair that actually fit, without spending $70 for a new pair that will no doubt get puked on, or muddy. And I found a lot of 5 pairs! The seller also had two pairs of twill shorts from NY&Co, as well as a pair of Old Navy jeans and a pair of Gap jeans. And she was willing to combine shipping for me! I was lucky enough to win all three auctions, and got a total of 7 pairs of jeans and 2 pairs of shorts shipped to me for $68!!! That's less than one new pair! And I didn't have to go to the mall to try them on (tough to do right now with a little one permanently attached to me). And the best part, I got them...and they ALL fit! All are in great condition and I have a variety of styles.

So that's all for my first installment of Frugal Friday, more steals and deals next week!




- Posted using BlogPress from my iPod Touch

Spring is (almost) here!

So the weather was decent today and the kids were going stir-crazy, so we went for a walk.  The kids had a blast (and we only went around the neighborhood!), and it felt great to get some fresh air.  G was all wrapped up on me in my gorgeous Natibaby wrap and slept the whole time.

Natibaby "Ocean" - no action shots, sorry!

So while on our walk, we came across something that made my heart skip a beat.

A flower, a real live flower!! Actually, there was more than one... and we saw the start of some Irises...I think.  I'm not a botanist by any means.  B and I have a running joke.  He asks what kind of flower something is.  I NEVER know, so my answer is always "daisy". So it may or may not have been Irises.  But either way, let's rejoice over my purple "daisy"!  And purple just happens to be my all-time favorite color, so that makes it all the better. 

I let the kids play for a bit longer outside, just til their ears got a bit frozen on the ends (only 49 out, and windy), then drug them into the house.  They're NOT happy with me for that.  Oh well, this week looks like it's going to be pretty nice, so we'll go outside a whole lot more.  Friday is supposed to be 70!  I could get used to this.  Fingers crossed it stays. 

Now to get a start on dinner while G is sleeping.  Chicken Corn Noodle soup tonight with salads and leftover homemade biscuits.  Toodle-oo!

Blue-screen Blues

Well, about a week ago, my PC refused to boot up past the dreaded "blue screen of death". It's been giving us problems for months (it's 5 1/2 years old), and we'd been planning on a new one for awhile. So, we decided to just bite the bullet & buy a new one.

As of this morning, the ETA for it was 3/4/11. I cannot wait for it to come. Blogging on the iPod is annoying! So hopefully once the new one comes, I'll be able to get some new, interesting posts up!

Check back in a few days!


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPod Touch