50% off Papa Johns

Now through 12/02/12, you can get 50% off any regular price pizza order on papajohns.com by using the code "Pepsi50" or "50pizza"

Great for when you don't want to cook hehe. Too bad we did this last weekend.
-Kristen

A Lesson

A saw a Little Blue Heron this morning.

I was driving in to work and suddenly to my right, a creature appears- the color of dark, winter storm clouds- ponderously clawing its way vertically into the air.  It labored for several moments as I turned into the parking lot of my job.  When I turned back to look, it suddenly shot forward, gliding effortlessly along. 

If I hadn't seen it struggle, I would have never known how hard it was to take to the air for the Little Blue Heron.  If I hadn't continued to watch, I wouldn't have seen everything suddenly turn beautiful.

The Little Blue Heron was amazing to watch fly.  Even when things got difficult, he never gave up- a few more strokes and he knew he'd be soaring.  That's just what happened.

It is easy to see someone flying and think "They have it so easy."  It's easy to look at our struggles and think "I'll never claw my way out of this mess, this trouble."  You never know what they went through, only to finally have their moment to ride the wind.

This winter, when I see the storm clouds, I'll remember the Little Blue Heron.

-Kristen

Controlled Shrinkage

I went shopping with my sister-in-law this past weekend.  We were just messing around before we went out for her birthday dinner, so she suggested we stop in to Cato and see what they had that might interest us.

I found a black shirt I really liked for only $6.99, but it was a Large.  I've lost over 30 pounds at this point, so Larges aren't really in my range anymore.  Still, she convinced me to try it on and ultimately convinced me to buy it, saying it didn't look "bad", even though I thought it looked entirely too big.

I get home, get ready to put it on and it's even bigger than I remembered.

I have two choices at this point- donate it, or try something a little risky.

I went with risky.

Tim is the King of shrinking clothing. I can not tell you how many shirts I've lost to his washing "skills" over the years- far too many, believe me.   I was trying to tap those powers of evil for a greater purpose this time.

I tossed the shirt to him and asked him to shrink it for me.  He looked completely confused, obviously trying to figure out if it was a trick.

"What if I shrink it too much?"
"Doesn't matter, I can't wear it now anyway, just go for it."
"Ok, well that won't be hard. You can't get mad at me."

So away I went to work and away he went to do the oh-so-possible...shrink my new shirt.

With trepidation, I tried the shirt on today.  I could tell it had shrunk right around an inch in length (it's black with a lacy front on it over an attached black shirt).  I put it on, he waits, breath held-

It fits!
Tim did the perfect job in his attempt at "controlled shrinkage".  It fits beautifully (well, it still could have gone down a little more and that would have been fine).  I wish you could have seen his face- he beamed and then began telling me his "method" for shrinking the shirt.

Whatever, I'm just happy it fits!

Note to self: Don't believe the sister in law when she says things look fine.  She is lying.

-Kristen

Free Sample of Beneful Tuscan Style Medley

Go to Beneful's Facebook page, like it, and then get your free sample of their new Beneful Tuscan Style Medley food!  Available to the first 100,000 that request it.

I use little special samples like this as "stocking stuffers" for my dogs at Christmas.  Since this one will take 4-6 weeks, it may be their New Years treat.

Decorating for Christmas

It's after Thanksgiving now and a lot of folks are thinking about decorating for Christmas.

Shoot, scratch that- a lot of people have already decorated.  I saw tons of houses that had all their outdoor decorations up before Thanksgiving Day.

I typically wait until December 1st to put up our tree and allow Tim to put his beloved inflatables in the front yard.  It serves a two-fold purpose: 1.) We continue to use less power until all those lights end up getting plugged in and 2.) I can procrastinate.

Maybe I am crazy, I just prefer to wait until December gets here to start worrying about Christmas- the Most Stressful Time of the Year.

My goal this year is to curb any impulse to buy new decorations.  Every year we end up with more and more crap to put out! Perhaps it is time to retire some of the old decorations anyway.

-Kristen

ETA: I came home from work, guess what was greeting me from the front yard?  All three of Tim's inflatables.  "Well it was warm, I thought it would be easier to get them up now."  Bah humbug.

Great Deals!

I wrote this post before the Black Friday sales, but it never ended up getting published:

I'm so excited- I've had some great deals this past weekend (besides the clothing).

We got a $10 "Shop Your Way" Rewards credit (Kmart/Sears) because Hurricane Sandy affected NC a little bit.  Don't ask me why, they emailed it to me, I didn't go looking for it.   I took that $10, combined it with $0.07 I had already earned (heyyy big spender....) and purchased 2 jars of spaghetti sauce and 4 heat-and-eat quick meals, plus a tub of frosting for $1.71 out of pocket! Yay.

This pads our panty a little bit, though believe me when I say it was super tempting to blow it on something fun.

Today, we ran to Target.  I picked up 4 cans of Campbell's Cream of Chicken Soup (on sale for $0.75 each), 2 boxes of Betty Crocker's Au Gratin Potatoes ($1.00 each) and a Glade Smelly Good something or other start kit ($5.99), for which I had a free product coupon.   At first, the cashier didn't actually ring up the Glade, so my free product coupon made the whole order free! Yes, I corrected him, because he looked terribly confused.

It ended up, after my $1/4 soup coupon and $0.50/2 potatoes coupon that I paid $1.00 for everything I bought.  Wait what?

We got to the car and I checked the receipt- when he scanned the free Glade coupon, it gave me the "up to $8.99" value, not the cost, which was $5.99. Thank you very much Target, I appreciate the overage!

I also purchased a tube of Colgate MaxFresh toothpaste from CVS and used a $1 ECB.  That means I paid $1.87 and I got a $2 ECB back! Yay for free/money maker toothpaste.

------

-Kristen

Appliances for $1 at Kohls!

Go to your ebates account (or sign up, if you haven't!)
Use their search tool to find "Kohls", and click the shop now button.

Once you are at Kohls, search for 3 of these 4 appliances (you can't get duplicates to do this deal because of the rebates- 1 rebate, per item, per household)

• Bella Rotating Waffle Maker — $19.99
• Presto Cool Touch 20-in Electric Griddle — $19.99
• Crock-Pot 4qt Programmable Slowcooker — $19.99
• Black and Decker 10-Speed Blender — $19.99

Add 3 of the appliances to your cart.

Use the coupon code "BlackFri" when you go to check out- you'll save 15%!  This will put your total at $50.97 before tax.  Shipping is free!

You get $15 Kohls cash for spending over $50.

Fill out 3 rebates found here for $30 back.

You will receive $3.05 back from ebates for shopping through their link.

This means your total is approximately $2.92 for all 3 appliances!

-Kristen




Thanks Couponing to Disney!