wednesday

I decided to get out and go shopping across town this morning. It was later than I would normally want to leave, so approaching E's nap time, but she had slept a little bit late and hadn't been acting sleepy at all, plus, she had a really late nap yesterday. So we get in the car and I get a third of the way there and the little dorko had fallen asleep. So I whipped onto a back road and headed home, and though she woke up just before we got to the house, a little snuggle time with Mommy (ha! she'd freak if she knew I was claiming nursing as snuggles. She is SO unsnuggly, sadly.) she was taking her nap, and I have now eaten lunch and am enjoying a few quiet moments. Yay quiet moments! I should go sew or something but I bet I won't. I'm so lazy.

Don't you just love it when you buy someone a gift that you know they'll like? I bought my dad a belated Father's Day/early birthday present last night. A laser printer! Yay me! I bought him a printer two years ago and it completely does not work and hasn't in a long time. I feel a bit guilty because I bought the thing but then again, how was I supposed to know it would suck? He has commented several times on our laser and how fast it is and how he needs one like that. By the way, everyone should have a laser printer at home. Sure, it's black and white, but it's fast and cheap (we have abused ours for five years now and only replaced the cartridge once. And when I say that we have abused it, I mean that we have printed several, several books on it, and all the coupons I've been printing lately, and a gazillion tatting patterns and the like. We do have another printer with the scanner/copy function that will print in color, but we always have our pictures printed by someone else so we rarely really need color anyway. The one I bought Dad is $55 after rebate. I am looking forward to giving it to him once it arrives.

Also last night, M and I were insanely domestic and sat down to break beans together after the munchkin went to bed. I feel charming and quaint. I don't even like beans. Not green, not brown, not baked, not even refried, and frying is generally considered a tasty thing in this house. Well, I take that back. I do like pork and beans, straight out of the can. ;) (Do those even count as food?) And kidney beans in chili. But other than that, not so much. I think my tastebuds are further changing because green beans are growing on me a LITTLE. I will put about six beans on my plate now. In a few more years I might even eat a full spoonful or more!

Did your tastes change when you grew up? I was always a picky eater and it drove me crazy because my family would always say that I would "grow out of it" or "mature" or whatnot. I am simultaneously sad and happy to report that they were right. There are a few things that I absolutely love now that I would not have touched with a ten foot pole when I was a teenager. Chicken and dumplings is at the very top of that list. I LOVE them, can't get enough of them. M hates them still (which is ironic considering he is always teasing me about being a picky eater) and so I haven't really learned how to make them for myself and so I am at my mommy's mercy. ;) I might give it a try, though. I've been feeling a little more 'country' in my food tastes lately. I think that happens in the fall, what with the fresh produce that we're given. (Which is, of course, why we were breaking beans at eleven o'clock last night. M's co-workers are generous and have lovely gardens.)

Anyway, I should clean up my desk a little and then go try to sew some diapers. E is in need.. I'm doing laundry too often.

ETA: Sorry, fixed the formatting. Don't know what happened there. And also, no, I did not sew, of course. ;)

More Drugstore Fun!

After Evelyn woke up from her nap, we headed out for the shopping trip we had been planning on taking prior to her falling asleep on me. It worked out really well this way, though, because we could go to the other Walgreens as well as CVS. "My" Walgreens thwarted me big-time on Sunday so I had to try my luck with the one on the other side of town. It worked there fabulously and so I am happy to present to you today's fun and games with drugstore shopping, with captions:

See there on the Walgreens side, there are two bottles of Robitussin and one of Dimetapp? They were on sale, with 2 $3 and 1 $2 coupons, and when you buy three, you get $10 back in Register Rewards (good on future purchases.) Sooo... $4 * 3 = $12. $12 - $8 in internet-printable coupons = $4. $10 register reward - $4 out of pocket = $6 profit. Yay! The mouthwash hiding beside the shower cleaner was $4.50 and free after $4.50 register rewards. The shower cleaner was $20 with $10 register rewards, plus I had a $5 coupon. {Incidentally, that's how the other Walgreens thwarted me--they claimed that if I used coupons, I couldn't get the RRs. Oh, that reminds me. The free mouthwash, I used a $0.75 coupon so I made a profit on it, too. Forgot about that one. Two deodorants and a bottle of body wash free after coupons. See how the cough syrup overage paid for most of the other stuff? PLUS, I get the items! .....

On the CVS side, there's a bunch of stuff from their 75% and 90% clearance aisle and a profitable blood glucose meter. I made $5 on that and I think the box says there's a $10 mail-in-rebate, but I'm not sure I'll be able to use it since I paid nothing for it. ;) See the Hawaiian Punch juice boxes there for a quarter? Bet you think I bought those for Evelyn. Well, HA. Are you kidding? I don't let her drink HFCS crap like that! Those are for ME. ;) The green box is an immunity-enhancing thing. M likes those sorts of things when he's getting sick. The floam will go to a young cousin for part of her birthday present. I won't tell her that I spent less than a dollar on them but then, she's four so she won't care anyway. We were actually at CVS yesterday (my mom and I) and we bought a bunch of stuff on clearance then, too. I was heading back there today for a computer chair. I don't know why I didn't buy it yesterday but it was $10. I don't need one so it didn't occur to me at the time, but we're playing the yankee swap type game for Christmas this year, and wouldn't that be a fun gift to throw into the mix? Furniture? I would fight over it if I saw it, even if I didn't need it. But alas, it was gone (of course). I really can't imagine who would normally be buying chairs at CVS anyway for them to have for the clearance aisle.

Oh, and right there in the middle, of course, is my little shopping buddy. I like her so much I think I'd even pay retail prices for her. Now that's love!

In Kentucky, you have to pay tax on pre-coupon prices, by the way. Just in case my numbers look off. ;) I also had a $2/10 coupon at CVS, which brought it down a little more. And I just noticed that they overcharged me $2 at Walgreens, so really, it should have just cost me $1.94 for that stuff. I was really happy with my total price until I noticed that and now I am fretting over the difference. I should probably learn to let it go but then again, if I did that, this hobby would probably disintegrate right away.

So! That was great fun but I think I'm taking the rest of the week off. Sheesh.