Clearance and sales and coupons-Oh my! Target 11/05/2011

My Coupon Breakdown-Yeah

Halloween Candy (5.74)                                                  $2.09 (75% off) / 1.50 MQ            $0.59
Ritz Crackers (3.34)                                                         $2.33 (sale) / .50 Peelie                   $1.83
Wheat thins(tom & basil) (3.54)                                 $2.54 (sale)/ $1.00/2 Peelie          $1.54
Emerald Nut Breakfast on the go(4)(4.29)             $2.12 (clearance)/1.00MQ (4)      $4.48    
Peter Pan Peanut butter                                                 $2.09/ $0.50 MQ                               $ 1.59  
Stove Top Stuffing(5)(?)                                                  $0.89 / $1.00/2(x2)& B4G1 free $1.56  
MP tortillas (2.79)                                                            FREE/Target coupon                        $0.00
MP Eggs ($1.69)                                                                $0.99 /Target coupon                       $0.99
MP Lentils 9$0.79)                                                                                                                              $0.79 
Nestle Butterscotch chips (?)                                            $2.34 (sale)/$1.00 MQ                $1.34
Argo cornstarch ($1.34)                                                    $1.34/$0.30 MQ                             $1.04
MP Crackers (?) (2)                                                           $1.48 (clearance)                                $2.96
MP Alfredo sauce ($1.34) (2)                   $ 1.00/ $0.50/2 MP pasta sauce Cat             $1.50
Quaker Granola bars ($2.39)                                           $1.79(sale)                                         $3.59
                                                                                                                                                               ________
                                                                                                                                                                 $  22.76  
Used $3.00/$30.00 or more grocery Cat                                                                            $    3.00
                                                                                                                                                               ________
                                                                                                                                                                   $  19.76    


MQ= Manufacturer's Coupon  
Cat=Catalina-coupon that prints with the receipt                 
                                                                             

I have a dream...

all joking aside, anyone who knows me know I love to cook & bake.  I am running out of storage and the garage doesn't work well for many things because of the temperature fluctuations.  I have always wanted a pantry and I have a formulated an idea for a "dream" pantry.  Here is my inspiration taken from the the blog called Honey & Fritz.

  (wipes up drool) Can you imagine?  Awesome right? I'm thinking lime-ish green walls, carpet tiles on floor, shelving similar to one above, replace slider with nice french door, and a simple chandelier (Yes- I said chandelier-why the heck not) so cute! Now here is my plan: take ugly unused space, build wall, drywall interior, paint, put up shelve, and organize.  Simple right?  Actually not bad except for the pesky thing called money! At least I'll have a plan, so when we do have the $ I can get right on it.  Here is my space.

OK.  So the cats will be slightly relocated to the side of the house, but since they don't help pay bills, they can get over it.  The space will make a good sized pantry.  The dimensions are about 6.5' W 7'D 8'H.  A few things I'm pondering are: 1. Will there be enough light in the living room when I loose the slider and 1 large window?  2. How much it costs to move the window to the back wall? Any input (Rose?) would be great.
This is the interior wall of the side patio.

  And here is the back wall.  Don't get me started on the fact every thing is monochromatic.  That will change.

So what do you guys think?  Any input grateful.  I'll post more detailed plans for the interior after a bit. 

The Oldham family garden.

So I decided I wanted to plant a small garden because let's face it nothing beats a vine ripened tomatoes! The possibilities are endless, and surplus can be preserved to enjoy in the dead of winter when you can't find a decent tomato to save your life-lol.  First I had to clear space-I got lucky in that out side yard gets full sun for about 6-7 hours a day and it had sprinkler heads already there.  OK- so have my spot picked, but an ugly useless shrub is taking up valuable space.  Let me say here that bush was a pain in the you know what to get out.  Thanks Cynde for all your help-we did not have to enlist the help of the husbands-Yeah!

The above mentioned bush gone! OK-it took us two days and a few curse words to get that sucker out.

I've never been so happy to see bare dirt in all my life! Next to make rows and plant.

 Aren't they cute! They did not stay that way long.  Note the irrigation lines I ran from the sprinkler heads.  They work much better here as if you water from the top your plants will burn.  And it uses less water. So this is what they looked like about two weeks later.

 Now thanks to my neighbor Paul for the free turkey poop mulch they are growing fast.  This is a month later (that's a 6 foot fence) and fruit is setting nicely.  We had a weird two week cold spell that slowed the fruit down a bit, but they are doing well.

And this is the full garden.  I decided midway through the project to expand all the way down the side yard.  But most of that is the pumpkin & watermelons which love all the space. 

 Here are some of the fruits of my labor (literally-lol) beautiful strawberries! They were great on spinach salad with walnuts and balsamic vinaigrette, but even better in yummy jam!

Nice and chunky-Yum! I also have very nice crook neck squash and cucumbers. so far so good.  We'll see how the melons do. Oddly the only plants that are struggling are my peas???? Go figure? I think I got a bad packet of seeds.  I have never seen peas not grow? You would think that if kindergarteners can do it with paper towels and Dixie cups that a well irrigated richly mulch garden would be fail proof.  We'll see, not holding my breath on those. At least frozen peas are cheap-lol.

The pegboard project.

The next thing I tackled was the garage workspace.  It's all MINE! Yes, I love that while my hubby is great with computers/electronics-he leaves the tinkering to me.  I call him in when i need retard strong (OK-don't get all offended-it's an inside joke) IE: pick up that heavy object and put it there..no wait over there) you get the idea.  So I wanted my pegboard to be a little prettier.  First finished painting the garage wall which for some reason (ran out of paint?) they only painted half of.  Next I primered:

 Next a nice bright pretty color (left over from Alex's old bedroom) I do like green.

And now everything has a home.  I have to have a designated home for everything or else clutter will overtake me.  Below the bench are the bigger hand tools like my router & jigsaw.  Drawers are for craft stuff and seasonal items as well as surplus birthday party decorations.  I LOVE having a sink out here for messy clean-ups.  It does still look kinda messy, but I can tweak it as I need to.  I still plan on painting a black picture frame border on it at some point.  But overall, i'm happy with how it turned out.

Catching up...

OK- Enough with the sickness already.  Feeling better and ready to play catch with the ideas in my head (wait...that will never happen) oh well.  I have got a few new projects finished over the past few months.  First one was an easy cheap fix to VERY (cannot stress this enough) ugly exterior fixtures.  While they did not phase my husband in the least (if it ain't broke...) it looked very out of date and tired.  Enter Rustoleum Oiled Rubbed Bronze (I totally LOVE this stuff) and a small hand driver and Viola!

Looks much better and $6 for paint that did 6 lights.  We also added the screw in motion/light sensors to the sockets.  Now they go on at dusk and off at dawn.  I'm very pleased. 

Sidelined...

Getting over strep throat & ear infection. I promise to get some more pictures posted.  Still moving slow, but feeling better.  Will get new post up soon (hopefully tomorrow).

Life is busy!

I have a few more before & after pictures to post.  We have been very busy with work, family and paperwork.  I about a gazillion calls to return.  Flood insurance is a pain in the neck!  We technically live in a flood zone--but it has never flooded here???  And this insurance isn't cheap.  Oh well-not a lot you can do.  I only have a few more minutes before I have to feed Alex and get out the door.  I will post the pics and updates after work tonight.  

Contouring more clutter!

Today's task was cleaning out & organizing under the master bathroom sinks.  It was total chaos and pretty gross when I started.  I containerized everything and labeled (my new addiction) everything.  I sorted into First Aid, Splints/Wraps, Surplus, vitamins, and cleaning supplies.  I did not get a picture of before, but I threw away a 1/3 of a kitchen garbage bag full of out of date, dried up, and generally yucky things that were no longer usable.  Here is what it looks like now...

  I am planning on putting down some nice contact paper in the new house and I might even paint under there.  But for now I just vacuumed out all the dust bunnies (RIP) and gave it a good scrub.  I figure if I clean as I go there will be less to do after we move out.  Hubby already said he will not be doing any cleaning afterwards, so any deposit we get back will go to the decorating fund.  I already have my eye on some really nice fabric at JoAnn's that would make lovely curtains.  I seriously can't believe how much they charge for hemmed rectangles!    Now to tackle my side.  Gotta go scrounge up some more containers from the garage.

Uh...after a cup of coffee.  I'll post pictures when I'm done. Maybe I'll watch a little tennis first too.  I have to say it sucks doing this, but I already feel a sense of relief that the house is getting in order.

I have to find a good system for tackling mail.  If any of you have one that works-let me know.  I always seem to end up with piles on my desk that make me cringe every time I walk by them.  I found a coupon organizer while cleaning out the boxes in the garage.  I'll have to clean it up and put it to use.  

The Missing Hippo

Alex has had his blue & white polka dot hippo his whole life.  I got it from one of my co-workers for my shower. His bedroom is jungled themed and of all the cute stuffed animals he chose hippo.  He could not say hippo so he called him peepo.  The name stuck and that brings me to the story.  While at preschool the kids walked to a little park right behind the preschool.  He got distracted while collecting pine cones for their nature lesson and peepo was left behind. They came back ate snack and laid down for "quiet time" at which point Alex noticed peepo missing and melted down.  I'm talking full on defcom 4.  Miss Helen sent her assistant to the park but peepo was no where to be found.  When I came to pick him up he was very upset so we went to the park again and still no peepo.  We went home and Alex remembered on one episode of Caillou that he made a sign when he lost his kitty and it was returned.  So I made up a reward/lost poster to put up in the park.  I walked about a half a mile on each direction from the park (it's on a nice bike path) and no sign of peepo.  I put up the signed and went home.  The next day right when I got home from work I got a call from a very nice high school student who noticed the sign while visiting the park with her friend.  She said that someone had pinned the hippo to the sign.  I rushed down and she was still there and so was peepo.  I offered her money and she refused stating it was the right thing to do.  Perhaps there is some hope for our future generation-lol. We got to the park to find this...

The button he was pinned to the sign with said God is Love.  Alex (and me) were both relieved and after a good washing he was back to normal.  I saved the reward sign for prosperity. Now peepo sits in the Elmo chair in his room (of course he plays & reads books while Alex is in school) and hopefully this won't happen again.

OK. Here is my first blog.

We are moving into our first house soon.  I have set out on a mission to finely get organized and purge.  We have too much "stuff" and it is cluttering our home.  Besides the less we have the less we have to move.  I'm hoping that an organized house will lead to a little less stress in our day to day lives.  It sure can't hurt.  I was inspired by a friend who is doing the same thing via the 21 day challenge on the blog A Bowl Full of Lemons. http://abowlfulloflemons.blogspot.com/  I like that she post inexpensive ideas-this is one of my favorite! http://abowlfulloflemons.blogspot.com/2010/12/how-to-make-magazine-storage-boxes.html  I have completed day one: the junk drawer and it was a hit with the hubby who is a bit OCD and like everything to have a permanent "home".  Check it out.

The new organized junk drawer.  

Teh best part of this transformation was finding very cheap and cute baskets.  Big Lots has the long narrow ones 3/$1.00 and the bigger ones 2/$1.00 I figure I can get about a hundred baskets for the price of one hour of therapy needed to deal with the stress of clutter. LOL

My next step was my desk.  This project got interrupted twice.  Once to deal with the missing Hippo crisis and the second was a mild concussion I gave myself.  I was getting something out of the crisper and stood up and hit the top of my head on the corner of the freezer handle.  @#%$#@ yes it hurt bad, I got dizzy, and still have a headache.  I know enough to follow the precautions for a concussion without spending 4+ hours in the ER only to pick up some kind of  secondary infection. LOL  So I had to break this into two parts Here is day one progress.  

The "before" can you say embarrassing.

OK-here is half way through.  I will finish tonight provided there is no "fire" to put out. LOL

Half way-need to sort through the stuff on bottom left.

I really like how it's going so far.  I love the "new" lamp (found in the garage with the black plastic drawer thing) free is always good.  I'm going to make a cover for the plastic drawer thing and the big bookcase will be moving to a new location.  I think I'll get a large plant for the corner as well.  Now that the cats are living outside I can put plants on the floor again and not have them used as a litter box.

Check out the labels! Hopefully this will eliminates a few of the "honey where is the..." questions.

Gotta get off to work.  Will fill you all in on the "Case of the Missing Pee-Po" later.