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I love a good deal. I mean I REALLY love them. But something has been happening lately. I have been feeling trapped, anxious and bit overwhelmed by my own deal hounding.

I follow several daily deal sites like Groupon. They send me an email, I look through the offers and sometimes buy. In the past we have gotten some great deals, some good deals, and some 'I can see why they needed to offer it at half-off' deals. It was fun trying out new products and experiences.

Lately though I have been wondering if it was all worth it. Because after I buy the deal I have to remember to use it. Now, I am no stranger to coupons and expiration dates. I use coupons every week to grocery shop. And granted, lately the coupons/deals have started retaining their paid value even after they expire.

Bottom line: it is stressing me out.

Eric's take on the whole thing is that many times we are making plans (in other words spending money) we would not have JUST to use our coupon/deal. I am starting to see his wisdom (can't you just hear Eric yelling out loud FINALLY!!). I think there was a time when we needed more ideas about what was out there to do but I'm thinking that season is starting to fade.

As a result of both these thoughts and a recent challenge in Sunday School to 'create margin' in our lives, I am unsubscribing to most of these emails. I will leave the deal hunting to Eric. What are you doing today to make life more simple and manageable?

Photo from here

Mommy & Evie Time

A few weeks ago, Evie & I were home alone together in the evening. We turned it into some 'Mommy & Evie Time'. The kids know this means they pretty much get to pick the activity and that they have their parent's undivided attention. (*mom benefit: usually I have the wonderful and amazing child that somehow disappears when the other sibling is around). 

I can almost always guarantee that making cookies will be at the top of the priority list. Sure enough, Evie remembered that we had bought the ingredients for her favorite cookies (peanut butter blossoms) and she was ready to bake! 

While I manned the oven, she unwrapped. This time, we happened to find a variety pack at the store. So, instead of just kisses in our cookies we had peanut butter cups and rolos as well. It was a fun variation. 

My little artist at work.

This is her second favorite part, after rolling them in sugar!

Traditional

With a rolo. Surprisingly good.

 While we waited for the cookies to bake there was a request for dancing. There was also a request for Evie to be the photographer rather than the subject. Wish granted. 

Saturday Night Fever....

....Karate Kid....oh yeah, I got the moves!

 After sampling our wares, (which were super yummy) we still had some time so we played games. Mr. Mouth was one of our games. 

Mr. Mouth, Mr. Mouth.....are you hearing the song from the commercial in your head now?

At first, we were both pretty sorry at this game....notice NO flies in his mouth. 

Then we perfected our technique, Evie got the hang of it sooner than I did. 

It was really nice to spend some time with Evie one on one. I forget sometimes how much sweeter and mature she can be when she isn't trying to one-up her brother. It's like wow, this is a GREAT kid. I know it's always a true statement but I am not always feeling it.....and it's nice to know it AND feel it! :D

Zero Cost Makeover

I rearrange my furniture a lot. Like it might be an illness. You should never walk around my house at night without a light. Things are NOT where they used to be.

After many wasted hours looking on Pinterest  I decided I needed some bookshelves. I have avoided bookshelves for years because they just hold stuff I have to dust. I'm more of a 'closed storage' girl. But, I realized I needed height along my super tall wall and bookshelves were the only answer I hadn't tried. 

I checked out some retail sites for a baseline price. I love garage sales but furniture goes FAST. So, I thought Craigslist might be an option. I scanned the local listings for two days and found very little. Then on a whim I decided to look in the free section, figuring it would be total junk. Lo, and behold, someone just a few miles away from us had listed FREE bookshelves. I looked at the posting time....20 minutes ago! I threw Everett in the car and we got them! Here are my beautiful free shelves!

Problem: I had NO idea what to do with them! I had never worked with shelf arranging. I sat and looked at them empty for a few days. Then I couldn't take it and went through the house looking for bookshelf worthy items. Below is my pathetic attempt at shelf arranging. It's...fine....ok....a little bland.

Fortunately for me, I recently made a new friend and it turns out she LOVES to do stuff like rearrange furniture and organize stuff on shelves. I asked her to help me! And, you know what? She did! It looks WAY better now. You can see for yourself below. She actually pretty much rearranged my whole house. She likes to do it as much as I do. We were giddy. :D

I have some more tweaks to make. Like, you know, actually hang pictures. But, it was so fun and everything we did so far was zero cost (not zero work, I worked up a good sweat several times). She had some suggestions for purchases but those can all wait till the budget allows. I am enjoying my zero cost makeover!

What has been your best free/cheap find? 

Smoothie Time

“When I'm good, I'm very good, but when I'm bad, I'm better". 

― Mae West

This quote kind of defines my relationship with food. Hahahahaha. Anyway, I thought I would do a post about smoothies. I'm sure you know how to make a smoothie. But this is about how I make a smoothie. My goal is to avoid having them be a calorie and sugar bomb (yes EVEN fruit! I know it's natural but it's still sugar). With these variations you will be getting a meal supplement that provides plenty of protein (to fill you up) and not a lot of sugar/carbs that cause the bottom to drop out later.

The Big Boss which Eric says would be better if it was named The Big Hoss Hehehehehe

I have had a regular blender and two different 'smoothie blenders'. I much prefer the second option. A regular blender is just too big to make a single serving and honestly I could never pour it neatly into a go-cup.  I find more and more I am wanting to blend and go so when it was time to purchase another smoothie maker I took it up a notch. It has two cups, two of those lids for a straw and several other lid options seen here. (I got mine from a Groupon type deal, not Amazon.com)

So what do I put in them? I'm glad you asked. I put in protein powder. When shopping for protein powder there is a ton of factors to consider. I am considering MY top priority to be Sugar & Carbs. This Jay Robb stuff is low in both. And, BONUS, look at him! He is SO HOT! He is like almost as hot as Jacob Eric! Just kidding, the bonus is that it tastes good and comes in several flavors. I get it at Kroger (choc and vanilla only) but HEB carries all the fancy flavors like Pina Colada, Tropical Dreamsicle, etc. 

On a plain jane day I just put in almond milk, ice and protein powder (unsweetened vanilla, not the sweetened chocolate! That is Everett's. This pic just had both). Simple. Out the door. If it's first thing in the morning I have subbed in coffee for the almond milk.

If I am feeling awake like putting some actual effort into it I might do some 'add-ins'. These would be chia seed or flaxseed meal (which I keep in the fridge). I have also experimented with a handful of baby spinach and a handful of kale (NOTE: you are gonna need an actual VitaMix to do kale. NO GO. Spinach did fine).

Let me warn you to proceed with caution here. Eric is NOT a fan of the add-ins and if I put that stuff in I have to tell him it is a TRACIE smoothie. He finds this changes the taste/texture thing a bit too far for him. The add-ins are quite a nutrition/fiber boost but just know you may not like it either.

I encourage you to do your own research and find your own combination. Just know that for weight loss you  want to avoid yogurt or fruit or juice in the smoothie. Those taste great but you would then have to treat them as something from the dessert category, rather than a meal.

How do you make YOUR smoothie? What is your blender of choice?

Baking Frenzy

Table full of stress baking

When I get stressed I start organizing, making to-do lists, and cleaning things out. Notice I did not say clean, I said clean OUT. I never, ever, EVER do actual cleaning when I am stressed unless someone is coming over. I'm sure Eric would prefer that I did. But, alas.....

So, this weekend I suddenly decided to dump out my 'baking ingredient' container and see what was lurking at the bottom. I had the following that I thought I could work with: A bag of cherry flavored M&Ms (left over from Valentine's day clearance), several random packages of pecans (must have hit a sale), and some pomegranate infused craisins (I bought those for another recipe but didn't use them all). I also found unfinished packages of Baker's chocolate in unsweetened and semi-sweet.

I turned over the packages to see what THEY recommended I make with their products. Here is what I ended up making!

No-bake white chocolate craisin haystacks

Pecan Pie bars

Chewy chocolate covered cherry cookies

Much to my children's disappointment, they didn't like ANY of it. Not that they would even try the haystacks or pecan pie bars. But they were both completely disgusted by the cherry flavored M&Ms (go figure!). I caught Evie trying to 'wipe the taste off her tongue' with a napkin. *sigh*

Adults, however, declared them a success. I thought they all turned out pretty well for brand new recipes. Not only that, there was alot of substitutions going on. No corn syrup....hmmmm I have honey. No more butter.....I have coconut oil. No more white sugar....I'll just use this brown sugar. 

It really helped me work through some of my stress and I finally got my ingredient bin emptied, cleaned out, and washed up. Now THAT feels better. 

I think Eric forgave my lack of cleaning since by channeling my energy into baking I didn't yell at anyone and he had yummy treats to eat. He even invited me to watch a movie with him so we had a mini date night (The Mummy Returns)! Evie heard what movie we were going to watch and said 'OH, that was the movie where I was made!' Hahahahahahaha, what she meant was that we got her name from the character in those movies. She said she wanted 'to see what she looked like when she was in the movie' Hahhahahaha. We laughed, then we put her to bed :D 

So, what do YOU do when you are stressed? Do you ever look on the back of an ingredient package for a recipe idea? Do you substitute ingredients or are you a strict recipe follower?  

Please note: that this post violates my Disneyland Project 2012 challenge in every way and that I totally ate ALOT of what I made Hahahahahahaha. So, don't be looking for anymore updates on THAT particular project until school starts. As seen in this post, I have just not been able to keep any kind of schedule (or progress) during the summer.

Way Behind!

I guess there are just some movies you don't pay any attention to when you do not have kids. Recently we have been discovering some of these classics kid movies for the first time. Here are three we have determined to be winners. 

First, Spy Kids. How could we have missed this? I mean there are THREE sequels and a LOT of stars in it (at least the original-- Hello George Clooney cameo!) Well, 11 years later we are running this movie on permanent replay. I suggested it to the kids after I got REALLY REALLY tired of watching Shark Boy and Lavagirl. (And with Jacob Taylor Lautner as Sharkboy, that is really saying something). Fortunately for me they took the bait. Now we just have to get 2, and 3, and apparently 4. *sheesh* is George Lucas behind these?

Our next 'what do you mean you haven't seen that?!?!?' title is Rio. I was sitting there thinking 'hey that's Anne Hathaway and the guy from Facebook'. They aren't B-list actors. It was a cute movie but what I loved the most was that my little guy Everett was full-on cracking up during several scenes. It put a huge smile on my face to see him so tickled. We still need to borrow this from the library so Evie can watch it. *a special shout-out to Meghan and Chrissy for making sure we DID get to see this* :D

The final title is Journey 2: The Mysterious Island. I actually remember sitting through the original preview in the theater. I recall feeling embarrassed for Michael Caine that he would be working with Dwayne Johnson on any movie. This summer that preview played back in my mind. This time I saw it through the eyes of my kids. A treasure hunt, a volcano, a submarine....hmmmm they might like this movie! And for $1 a person (Cinemark Summer Movie Clubhouse totally rocks) we could always walk out if it was too horrible. 

Not to worry! They were enthralled. Everett got SO excited about the volcano and the submarine I'm actually surprised we haven't watched it again already. And here is the real surprise- I really enjoyed it myself! Dwayne is actually not hard to watch. He's comedic, not bad at the serious stuff, believable as the dad. I was sorry I hadn't believed in him. And Peeta (Josh Hutcherson) was in it! I actually think he did better in this movie (and as a brunette) than Hunger Games but that's another post!

What old movies are new again for you? Let me know....we may have missed those too!

Photos from here, here, and here

Summer Doldrums

So, I am a VERY rigid person. I think I may have loosened up some over the years (a little? No? *sigh*). The truth is I like structure, organization and rhythm. I struggle with summer. Every week is different. I can't stand it.

Now, partly I have brought this on myself. There are plenty of places I could send the kids that would provide both of us with a more scheduled summer. But, I'm cheap and it works out better cost-wise to take advantage of the many low cost programs in our area (VBS, Art Camps, YMCA). It gives me usually a half day kid free and doesn't completely wear them out (limiting the dreaded fatigue melt downs).

However, I DO pay for it. With my sanity. I find it stressful to have a different schedule every week. Sometimes each kid also has a different schedule since Everett has not yet completed Kinder and isn't eligible for every activity. I find myself addicted to my Google Calendar. I am paranoid of getting the pickup time wrong. I find myself compulsively checking my phone to make sure I have not forgotten something.

The benefit is that it enables us to plan a few bigger trips. This year that would be a quick weekend to San Antonio and a week-long trip to Disney (We even got free airfare cause Eric is a totally awesome deal freak like that!!).

Should I just go back to work and put myself out of my misery? Am I saving money at too high a cost? Is there a middle ground? (and if there is WHAT IS IT??) I guess I have officially made it halfway through the summer but am I in danger of a breakdown before it's over? (update: It may be too late on the breakdown- oops) These are the questions that repeat in my mind. 


How do you organize your summer? Do your kids bicker, fight, beg, and generally annoy you whenever you aren't letting them play an electronic game, watch a video or otherwise entertaining them? Hahahahahha.

Photo from here