Family Spam

In this day and age, it's not uncommon to get hundreds of spam emails a day, or get the occasional Farmville requests from your "friends" on Facebook. I'm used to the Nigerian prince asking for my credit card information, and Virginia Blood services begging me like a starving vampire. But there is a point when spam has crossed the line...

thanks, Mom.

Crazy Coupon Lady

My mother is the frugal queen. Growing up, I'm pretty sure I never once ate an item that was bought at full price unless I was visiting a friend for dinner. To this day, I have never had to buy a toiletry item (with the exception of toilet paper...there are some things I splurge on) and every time I visit Target, I walk the perimeter of the store first because that's where you find the clearance items.

Every Sunday in my childhood, one "lucky" child got to go shopping with Mom after church. The three children in the house took turns being the gopher for their mother in the grocery store and being bored out of their minds while walking every. single. aisle. Somehow I ended up going with my mother the majority of weeks. So much for rotating. When I complained, I was often met with, "It's Mother-daughter bonding time." from my mother and, "Well, you're the girl." from my father. Rough life. There is nothing quite like being a ten year old who has to go through the cashier line by yourself to by feminine pads, toothpaste, and hair dye, because their mother has already gone through and can only use so many coupons in one transaction. I can't decide if those events made me more or less self-conscious.

I have seen "Extreme Couponers," and I can fortunately say that I have never had to dig through my neighbor's trash to find coupons (though I'm sure the thought has passed her mind) and I never had to push more than one cart through a store. thank goodness.

What I'm about to admit makes my mother very happy. She has been able to bond with my sister-in-law over marriage and babies and now she has finally found something to bond with me over.

I am an extreme couponer.

I am fairly new to admitting it, but it does feel like I conquered the world when I walk out of the store with a free product!

Check out my freebies so far:

There are certain ground rules I have set for myself when I set out on these shopping adventures:

1. I will not buy anything I will not use or cannot give away/donate. I will not be buying an hair dye in the near future. (Yes mom, even if it's free)

2. I will not extreme coupon if time and gas cost more than the items I purchase. Nowadays, the internet has made it super easy to coupon, they do the math for you! (my favorite site right now is moneysavingmom.com) I refuse to walk up and down EVERY aisle.

3. I will only extreme coupon for fun. I will always coupon, but I will only hunt down the crazy deals if I enjoy it. If it every becomes more of a hassle than an adventure, I'm out.

When I told my mother my new found game, she responded, "It's about time." That's my mother. I wouldn't have expected anything less.

Well, Mom, thanks for the lessons taught in the 15 grocery store trips every Sunday years ago. I would have never thought that those days of penance would turn into days of fun.

I guess it's only appropriate that this post is written on my parent's anniversary. Maybe extreme couponing is the secret to their marriage! ;) Happy 29 years, Mom and Dad.

Sister Love

Having two older brothers and no sisters, I grew up in a predominately male household. I loved my childhood and have no few complaints (When playing live action Ninja Turtles with my siblings, I was only ever allowed to play the part of April. I'm still bitter.) I enjoyed playing on an all-male baseball team, playing GI Joes in our basement (with the dubious thought that someone would later play Barbies with me), and building forts with my brothers. I probably could have cared less for being a dummy so my brother Rob could show off his wrestling skills he learned in PE. I can't say being the “robber” in a weird game of “Cops and Robbers” where Stephen tied me to his desk chair, blindfolded me and ran away was the most fun I ever had. And being shoved in a trashcan and forced to sing Oscar the Grouch’s, “I love Trash” before I was let out definitely wasn't one of the highlights of my younger years. However, looking back now, I have to say, those moments sure created character. Right?

I couldn't be more thankful for the relationships I have with my siblings. Don't get me wrong, there were years where we could care less about each other, and my brother's would do anything not to be seen with me. Those times are long gone, for the most part. I love spending the weekends baking and carving crazy Disney sculptures with Rob, or renovating Stephan's house while singing Disney music. Life is good.

You know what's even cooler? My big brothers are married! Female interaction! Girly movies, shopping trips, girly drinks, conversation that doesn't always involve poop. (Don't get me wrong, poop is in my daily vocabulary, but it's nice to act classy every now and again.) Sarah and Caroline are amazing. They have amazing decorating skills, give me lots of babies to play with, find me great bargains, and most importantly, they think I'm cool. (I got them to drink the Kool-Aid...how else would they have agreed to join this crazy family?

My sister's are there for me time and time again, and they frequently do pretty amazing things for me without even a blink. For example, check out this pretty snazzy North Face jacket Sarah bought me.

I'm twice her size, and she still looks out for me at Goodwill outlet. It takes girl power to always be on the lookout for a deal for someone else. That's the snazziest apparel item I own!

A few weeks ago, Caroline came over, looked at my recliner, and proceeded to proudly say, “I am going to reupholster this chair!”

I had reupholstered this chair over a year ago and recently bought a new couch. My living room is slowly becoming pretty chic but that green recliner stuck out like a sore thumb.

So who was I to stop a pregnant lady with a mission?

At girl's night the next week, she covered my chair for me, never once asking for my help. The girl is pretty rockin'. If she didn't already have an amazing talent for photography, and a job doing it, I would encourage her to explore a side job in upholstery.

Thanks for the snazzy new chair, Caroline! More importantly, thanks for putting up with me talking poop with your husband. I love you. (after reading this book, you don't think you're post are that long, do you?)

I'm going to repay my sister-in-law for all their love with free items I get now that I'm an extreme couponer...stay tuned!

Disney Spud

I receive lots of love when I leave the office for a Disney Vacation...

My Beautiful "Out of Office" Message:
What My coworkers did while I was gone:"Mickey was glad Theresa visited him, but it's time for you to return to work. Welcome back from Never-Never Land where the only dust here is from drywall. Oh, how we missed you!"

Cooties!!

I think it’s safe to say that anyone that has met me knows that I’m a big kid. Peter Pan has nothing on me! It’s pretty darn awesome when you’re childhood toys grow up with you…

Most of my friends here in Midwest Virginia know nothing about this epic game (though they have monuments of it in their backyard), and it's quite unfortunate. For those of you who missed out on your childhood, here is a snippet of what The Game of Cootie is:

"The Game of Cootie is a children's roll-and-move tabletop game for two to four players. The object is to be the first to build a three dimensional bug-like object called a "cootie" from a variety of plastic body parts. Created by William Schaper in 1948, the game was launched in 1949 and sold millions in its first years."

source

Now that you've been educated, go play it! It's super cool, but I do hope you got your Cootie shot!

Wolverine

Over the past couple of weeks, I have been referred to as Wolverine by several people. Though my friends and family are probably sick of hearing about my terrible genes and awesome healing powers, I have decided to finally share the epic saga that was my leg growth with the blogging world.

Sometime in June I started to have pain in my right leg, just below my knee. I'm prone to doing stupid things that result in random injuries, as I'm a pretty eccentric person who gets excited easily. So, I thought nothing of this throbbing pain at first, but as the weeks went by and pain was still there, along with a rather large bump on my leg, I started to wonder what was going on. What kind of pain? Think of a headache that never goes away...and is in your knee.

After my family's annual Myrtle Beach trip in July, I decided to get it checked out and made an appointment with an Orthopedic Doc for late July.

The initial diagnosis was bursitis of the hip and knee. Not too shabby, nothing some rest and stretching couldn't fix. It was also an excuse to not run fo

r a while...I'll take it! The Doc also ordered some x rays

to be safe. Turns out those x rays showed something a little different from bursitis...a bone growth. My favorite analogy is to say my leg was like a tree that grew a new branch. Pretty cool if you think about it.

The official term for my growth is exostosis osteochondroma. So fancy, even my spell check doesn't have any suggestions for what I meant to type.

Now, my doctor is no Hawkeye Pierce. He may be great with a knife, but he has the people skills of a rock. Okay, maybe the people skills of a blade of grass, after all, pet rocks used to be all the rage. After the x rays were taken, he walked back into my room and said “So, I still think you have bursitis, but you also have a bone growth. I'm going to get an MRI to rule out cancer.” Okay. I could get behind that. He was friendly, let me know what was going to happen, and what to expect. Little did I know, that was the longest sentence he would ever say to me.

Insurance is great to have, but it stinks to use. My initial MRI was declined because I didn't have 4 weeks of physical therapy first. My Physical Therapist nearly laughed in my face when I explained my situation and he kindly replied, “I can't do anything to make that bone go away.”

Four Weeks of physical therapy later and I was given the go ahead for the MRI. Nothing like laying on an MRI table on a Sunday morning before mass in a dress...

The MRI concluded that the bone growth was beni

gn and the doc decided to try a cortisone shot as a last resort before chopping me up. That was terrible. The shot itself wasn't bad, but about an hour later I thought I was going to die. I think of myself as having a pretty high pain tolerance, but this was something I had never experienced. Though I have yet to go through child birth, I would rate this as the worst pain I have felt in my life thus far. Luckily the excruciating pain subsided after a few days, but it didn't do anything for the throbbing pain that had been their since June.

I'm sure you can guess what came next. Yep, the knife. At this point I was so ready to have this thing out of me, I barely thought about the consequences it might have on my trip to Disney World in 3 weeks. The doc gave me an initial prognosis of 6-12 weeks on crutches. I told him I had a vacation at the end of the month and asked him if I should wait till I was back to get fixed. He replied, “Do it now so you can get to the front of the lines at Disney.” Good point. I was in.

The following week, I had the surgery which lasted an h

our. My sister-in-law was gracious enough to shuttle me back and forth and take care of her one and a half year old at the same time. She was pretty disappointed I didn't have any crazy hallucinations or profess my love for the world when I came out of anesthesia, but I'm a pretty weird person, I don't know how weirder I could get.

Remember how I said my Doc had no people skills? Yeah, he came in before the surgery and said, “I'm going to cut here (draws on my leg) and send it to the lab” After surgery, he came in and said “Well, I cut it out, see you next week.” Wow.

How big was it, you ask?

About this big:
Yeah, pretty crazy

Well, this story is getting mighty long. To cut to the chase (pun intended), and the title of this post, I healed fast. I was cleared to drive in 5 days, off crutches in 6, running in 10, and almost 100% for my trip to Disney World in 15 days. I am awesome.

I have a pretty wicked 3 inch scar that will make for a good story one day.

11 days after surgery:

today:

During my senior year of college when I started to wonder and worry about what I was going to do once I made it into the “real world,” my Mother sat me down and said something along the lines of, “I don't care what you do, as long as you have health insurance.” Those words stuck to me like a leech in a swamp and I'm thankful it did. This surgery was probably the best thing I have bought myself in a while.

Though I'd like to attribute my absence from blogging to said injury, the truth is that I'm just a very lazy blogger with a very crazy life. Hopefully my hiatus is now officially over.

The Art of Recycling

A few weekends ago I ran across an amazing idea for toilet paper rolls. It was fancy, frugal, and I had to do it.

Now, I live by myself, and I'm not frugal when it comes to the cloth that touches my bum, but one person could not possibly go through enough toilet paper and paper towels in months to get this project done. It doesn't help that I lack patience. what was I to do?

I embarked on my toilet paper adventure. I was going to make my art, and soon! ( I don't lack determination! ;) )
Step one: contact family

When I ask my family to save something for me, they do not take that task lightly. A few years ago, I asked my parents to save me the comics from the Sunday paper so I could send them to a soldier overseas. What did I get? Entire paper bags filled with nothing but comics! Needless to say, it was no big deal when I sent the email along to the family asking them to save me some rolls. Turns out, my sister-in-law already had a big bag filled up and it was all mine! I love you Caroline!

step two: gather other materials

What I used:
3/4 inch balsa wood cut into 4 10inch strips (99 cents for 32inches at Michael's)
Paper towel rolls for straight pieces (approximately 3 rolls total for all nine squares)
Toilet paper rolls (free!)
1 bottle Tacky glue (1.29 at Michael's)
Black and White spray paint (98 cents a can at Walmart)
1 pair of scissors
1 ruler
1 pencil (for making curly edges)

Step three: Turn on a Boy Meets World marathon and get started!

After about an hour I had my first creation:
This was so cool, I had to keep going! It took me an hour for the first one, but only 20 minutes for the other eight. I had it down to a science!

Step four: Spray Paint

Now, anyone who knows me knows that I do not like to paint. At all. I thought spray painting wouldn't be too bad, and the final creation looked pretty darn nice:

Yeah, I painted three of them and gave up. Did I mention I HATE painting?
of course that didn't stop me from moving on to the next step

Step five: assemble on wall


Step six: admire pretty artwork


So it's not done, but I couldn't hold it in any more. They look so cool!
total cost of project: $15!! That's 1.67 per square.
Sure beats this one square I found that retails for $49.99:

I'm so frugal and fancy free!