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I *will* rock the coupons in Lucky ’13!

So as you may know if you’ve read this crap blog for awhile, I LOVE COUPONS! But since Jonah was born, and since the show Extreme Couponing ruined ALL THE DEALS for ALL THE COUPON LADIES, I haven’t been as excited about them, or doing my best to get the best prices I can on ev-er-y-thing. I’ve found other ways to save, like shopping at ALDI a lot, but I do miss the good old drugstore whorin’ I used to do on Sunday afternoons. Soooo I decided, it being a brand spankin’ new year and all, to get with the program, hit the drugstores as best I can, and work hard at saving every dollar! I got off to a good start at CVS last week, and this week I was quite pleased with my trip there.  I think it’s time to resurrect “See Jenny Shop“! So here ya go:

Today I purchased:

Nivea for Men aftershave $4.99

Nivea for Men shave gel $2.49 (because Nivea for Men was BOGO 50% off)

Listerine Total Care Zero $2.99

total = $10.47

Coupons I used:

-$2.49 – Buy one Nivea for Men product, get a free shave gel printable coupon from Facebook

-$2 Listerine coupon that printed from the CVS Coupon center when I scanned my Extra Care card

-$1 Listerine printable from coupons.com

-$2.87 in Extra Care Bucks (ECBs) I had from last week’s shopping trip

total =$2.41 + 79 cents tax = $3.20 and I got back 5 ECBs for buying the Nivea for Men aftershave. WHAT UP!?

But wait, it gets even better! You see, there’s this cool coupon app for iPhone and Android called ibotta that has really high value coupons on it. I also had an ibotta coupon for $1.25 on the Listerine so I actually profited $1.25 on that! All you do is take a pic of your receipt with your phone, scan the product bar code, and ibotta will deposit cash into your PayPal account when you get to $5 or more. It rules! In 3 weeks of using it, I’ve already gotten back over $13 from my shopping trips! I’ve gotten over $1 coupon on things I buy a ton like Capri Sun and Cheez-Its. ibotta coupons don’t conflict with manufacturer coupons – you get to redeem them in addition to using manufacturer’s coupons! Wheeee!!! You should totes sign up here, because if you do, I get $1 and you get $5 the first time you redeem an offer. $5!?!?!?! It’s true. Wish I had signed up through someone else’s link to get the $5 but I didn’t hear about it that way.

ANYHOO.

I am shopping AND saving this year!  I’m going to hold myself accountable to posting for you all so you can see how I’m doing.

What are your goals for Lucky ’13?

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Emily is scary when she’s sleep deprived

So on New Year’s Day, I sent Emily an innocent text message that was meant to crack her up, but instead sent her on an expletive filled-tirade.

It was pretty awesome. And I can’t wait to share it with you. But first, some background.

I briefly mentioned a few weeks ago that at the ripe old age of 35, I have developed a wheat allergy. All of a sudden wheat makes me feel a terrible pinprick sensation all over my body, like there are things crawling all over me. It’s unpleasant to say the least, so I’ve had to go gluten-free. Not exactly convenient – but totally do-able.  With the New Year and fresh starts and all, I’ve decided that since I already had to cut out gluten, I want to try and eat a little clean-ER and healthi-ER. I’m not going cray-cray or anything, but I am cutting out pop (soooooo SAD) and trying to eliminate sugar in areas  like my coffee creamer (I’ve mixed up my own batch of “clean” creamer and it’s good!)  I’ve also been looking for healthy gluten-free snacks and I’ve been cooking “clean” meals, too.

In my heart, I am still a Mountain Dew-swilling, Hershey bar-gulping sugar fanatic. But my gall bladder and my waistline (and who knows what else?) have taken quite a hit the last few months (I have gained back most of the 8 pounds I lost in the spring) and I just want to do better. I want to find a balance between super-clean and “all things in moderation”.

Which leads me to the text I sent Emily on New Year’s Day. I did something that was very out-of-character for me. I made a snack out of broccoli. Thinking this was a weird thing for me to do, I decided to make Em’s New Year by giving her the chance to make fun of me. Because I’m generous like that. So I sent this:

I knew from a previous text that Em had been up too late the night before (as had I) and was grumpy, but I wasn’t prepared for the wrath that my text unleashed! To communicate her response, I’m going to have to substitute some harmless words for some expletives. How about I use the words fish(ing) and shark and you use your imagination? Deal? Deal! Here goes:

Emily: What the flying fish are green pancakes? And I liked you better when you lived on mt. dew and Hershey bars.  There was less pressure. You were still skinny and all that shark but at least you didn’t have good nutrition. You need to give this shark up and concentrate on golf. (A favorite Happy Gilmore quote of ours.) Please tell me your other New Years resolution is to keep your car clean. (My car is notoriously a rolling trash bin.)

Me: I love you. So much. Blame Pinterest and the 7 of 8 lbs I’ve gained back since I lost them and my uncomfortable pants.

Emily: Pinterest can fish itself. People will be back to pinning their red dye #7 marshmallow and lucky charms valentine’s day concoction before you can say no high fructose corn syrup three times fast. And yes you can quote me on that. In fact make it a pinnable fishing graphic. (Well, ok if you insist…)


Me: HA ha ha HA HA! You are on fire! But you have to agree to stop drinking meals. No green smoothies! (Seriously, drinking vegetables?? GROSS!!)

Emily: Hmm well I LIKE green smoothies. But from here on out I am going to drink them from a UDF milkshake cup to make a fishing point.

Me: Doooo it. Seriously though this shark is delicious.

Emily: That is not a fishing pancake.

Me: They’re friend and delicious though. Kind of like a hash brown made with broccoli dipped in marinara sauce.

Emily: At least you’re still dipping fried shark in marinara sauce. I still know you a little.

———-

So remember kids, unless you want to swim with the sharks and fishes, don’t text Emily about your out-of-character behavior when she needs a nap.

 And go make some green pancakes! They really are deeeeelicious. Especially if you wash them down with a cold can of Mountain Dew {weeps a little}.

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Rise & Shine

I have resolved to be resolution-less in this new year, but there are definitely things in my life that I want to work on in the coming months. Most of them revolve around the fact that I want to feel better – and a big part of that is getting good sleep. Getting good sleep so that I can actually get up out of bed in the morning, which would lead to all kinds of fabulous things like not screaming at my kids to hurry the crap up, not wearing a ponytail to work, and arriving at work on time.

Waking up in the morning has always been a huge issue for me, and a few months ago I started researching things that might make it easier. One of the things I came up with was the Rise and Shine Natural Wake-Up Light from Verilux. I had worked with them before, so I reached out to see if I might review this product as well and they were kind enough to send me one to try out.

It functions as an alarm clock, but there’s much more to it than that. First of all, there’s a sleep cycle. I just discovered this a few nights ago and I really like it. You can set it for 5, 15, 30 or 60 minutes, and the light starts out bright and progressively gets darker. I set mine for 60 minutes a few nights ago and read until I couldn’t see anymore, and by that time I was super relaxed and ready to go to sleep. (Now if I could only get my husband not to come in and turn on the television and disrupt my peace!). The wake up cycle works similarly – the light progressively brightens as your set wake up time nears. Also, you can set it so that it plays “spa sounds” as you wake as well.

The idea is that the light helps realign your body’s circadian rhythms so that you fall asleep naturally and wake up refreshed.

I really like this light. It is a much different experience than waking up to a blaring alarm clock – and when you think about it, jolting awake can’t be good for your body! That said, it’s taken some getting used to, but I’d say that’s to be expected when going from alarm clock shock therapy to an easy, gentle wakening. A word of warning, though – if you hit snooze three times, it gives up on you and doesn’t try again! I learned that one the hard way. I am trying to wean myself off the snooze button, though, and the Rise & Shine is the way to do that.

In my opinion, there’s not much that’s more important than a good night’s sleep. I looooove to sleep. I love drifting off to sleep as the Rise & Shine dims! I don’t so much love to get up, but I do love getting a paycheck so I must… and the Rise & Shine makes that process much more pleasant.

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