Savings so far this year

Well as I sat down after my wonderful Target shopping, I figured I would add up and see how much I'd saved so far this year. I had a spreadsheet all done up on my laptop, but since its out of commission for the time being, I've taken to my calorie notebook and I'm sure there are some things missing, but from the ones that I have found I added them up. So far we've saved $91.76. Which I think is pretty awesome, but it's still not where I would like to be, but it's much better than it use to be. I'm still fairly new to the whole world of couponing as well as most are, but I'm hoping that I will get better and better this year and will see bigger savings. I just have to keep up with looking out for deals and matching what coupons I have to what's on sale. I'll hopefully have a better month in February, we'll see and I'll keep it updated at least once a month. Plus I'll post my great shopping trips that I have, like my Target one I did today. 50% was pretty awesome for me, here's to having more like it.

Great Deals today at Target

So this week I just found out that Target takes both their coupons and insert/mfr coupons too for their items. So we went today and stocked up on some diapers and wipes. They were having a sale buy 3 jumbo packs of huggies or pampers and get a $5 gift card so we bought 3 packs, had coupons for $1.50 off from target and $3 off from huggies mailers so that made them $4.49 a pack. Then we got 2 packs of 184 ct wipes that were on sale for $5.49 with $1.50 target coupon and .75 coupon from coupons.com and huggies mailers so we picked up 2 of them for $3.24. yay. so we saved half off our purchase today, since i got some books for D from the $1 bin and some hair color that was 2 for $2.99 with a $1 off coupon from Target and $1 off 2 from an insert. I was very proud of my savings today. Now if I just had my computer back so I could log all my savings in, but I'm going to write them in my calorie notebook until I get my computer back. So now we have a small stock of size 3 diapers when he gets up there, which will probably still be awhile, but it never hurts to have some.

down and out for a bit

Well since we were trying to clean up my computer and get it running better, it hasn't been working. We are in the process of trying to get an operating system to work on it, but he thinks the hard drive is done. So now i have to try and use his computers, which he has two, but its hard to use them at times so I'm not on as much. Hopefully Jake will be able to get the guy from work to get it fixed, that would be nice, but we'll see. So not sure how much I'll be around right now. Plus I'm in the process of re-organizing a few things around here again lol. Oh the joys of getting in a mood and having to clean and fix stuff. But I'm also working on new baking skills too, baking cookies and going to try my hand with using the bread maker that I picked up off freecycle. But all in all, I'm going to be spending time with my little man. He is so cute and curious now. Jake and I swear that he cried "MAMA" the other day when he was upset. LOL I think we are just hearing things, but he's done it 4 times now. If only he could change his own diaper and feed himself. But then again I don't want him to grow up to fast.

wow much props to single moms

I really admire single moms. Being a mom to a newborn and spending a great deal of time alone with my son since my hubs is gone all day and a couple of days he doesn't even get to come home from work (duty days) I can somewhat relate to what they go through, but by far would not want to call myself one. I'm just a mom, who happens to be married to someone in the Navy, who is gone all the time. Trying to find time for myself during the day is very daunting. My poor lil guy has good days and bad, with his horrible case of reflux, but I wouldn't trade my time with him for nothing. Now if I could just find time to do the other things I need to do lol like read and workout that would be great. Anyone have any great tips for time management that would well for you? Seems that as soon as I got pregnant and then had my lil guy, my brain has stopped functioning, which I hear will be a constant problem from now on. lol

BL Tuesday

Alright I'm not afraid to admit it, but I'm not a fan of reality tv. Never have been. I just never got into the American Idol craze, and the dancing shows and all the shows on MTV (MTV stands for Music TV, now I may be older, can't say old because that's not right, but still I remember when there was music......). But one day as I was watching the Biggest Loser results show (since I couldn't find the remote and I was feeding the baby), I got really into it. And as the new season started, I've been a faithful watcher. The show is very inspiring and gives me motivation. And even last night as I was watching it, I did 30 mins on the Wii Fit step (if ya dont know what that it, its like aerobic step, just up and down on the board and you can keep time through the wii remote). Boy did that make me feel great. And I remembered and realized, I can do this every night while I'm watching my tv, or anytime during the day when I'm watching TV. Doh, why didn't I think of this sooner. Now just to get more water into my daily life lol. But it made me feel accomplished to have been able to get my SparkPeople bootcamp video in, some cardio and keep up with my chores. YAY. Boo for the fact that today (Wednesday) is a duty day and hubs will not be home till Thursday night. LATE. Darn.

My mamavation monday post a day late

So as I was reading through my tweets last night I came across the #mamavation tag appearing throughout lots of posts and decided to check it out. I know that I want to have a healthier lifestyle, it's important to me to be around for my son and my husband and I just need some support to get to that goal. I want to include fitness in my daily life at least 10 mins a day or more and to eat better. The eating better is not too hard, most of the time, my husband and I like low fat since he is working towards staying within his weight goals also. But the fitness part is some times challenging with a newborn who is demanding lol. But my goals for this week are to do wii fit and your shape each day plus my spark people bootcamp videos, and continue with my healthy eating, cooking healthy meals for me and my husband.

Another week

Well hubs had the day off yesterday so that was nice, seeing as he had duty (aka work all day and have to stay on the ship) on Saturday. We actually got to spend some alone time together and we had a nice lunch yesterday. Minus the fact that now I'm not feeling well due to what I had for lunch (I think). We went to Olive Garden, one of my fave places to eat, and I tried a new dish. Jake loved it but he also got his with shrimp and seeing as I dont eat things that swim, I got mine with chicken. It was wonderful, minus the fact that half way through my meal I had to stop for one of those unpleasant visit to the restroom. Not having a gallbladder is not always a good thing. I guess their cheese was too rich for me and I'm still feeling it lol. Oh well. Hoping that this week turns out to be a much better week all around. Need to get back on track, with reading and my fitness plan. Last week, due to some unfortunate circumstances, things just snowballed for me and I wasn't able to recover well. But I'm looking forward to another week and another chance to improve my life. Well I'm going back to bed now, since D has finally fallen back asleep. 4 am comes early, and even though I'm not driving hubs to work, since I can save about 2 to 3 hrs of time in my day if I dont drive him, I should be able to have a great day and get things caught up.

What a week

Well on Tuesday, if you saw my twitter or facebook status, you will have seen that someone was 'nice' enough to break out the window on the back door of the driver's side. They didn't take anything, but broke out the window, which we had to get replaced. And seeing as everyone just has $200 bucks to drop on a window because we all have money (LOL), this week has been somewhat pinched. Thank goodness for Safelite who came out to the house and replaced the window for us. I really didn't feel like driving with the baby in the back seat and no window. Just goes to show you that there are some people who don't care about anyone but themselves and will just mess up your day. I think I'm more upset with the fact that they didn't take anything than with having the window busted out.

On a very good note, our lil guy is 3 months old today. He has survived his daddy and me for the last 3 months. He's a whopping 13lbs. He smiles and he even rolled over a couple of times, but hasn't done it again. Oh well. I'm just so blessed to have such a wonderful baby boy in my life. And hoping that the rest of the things in my life get on track soon as well. I'm working out the kinks, made some calls today and being proactive to fix some problems.

As in my previous blog, the reading of the Bible in 90 days isn't going so well. Trying to finally finish my school work, which in order to complete the program by my end date, I should do 30 hrs of work a week. So yea I'll be filing an extension on that one. My SparkPeople bootcamp is still trucking along, some days are harder to get the work in since the baby gets really fussy and it's hard to tune him out. But I'm still working on getting it completed and increasing my physical fitness. Weight has stayed about the same with a small change. Hoping to see more loss coming instead of gain (thanks to my horrible emotional eating habit), but as soon as more things fall in a good place I'm sure it will only improve.

Alrighty, I think that's it for a mid month update for now. Gonna hopefully spend some much need time with the hubs tonite, since he has duty tomorrow (boo) and then going to get a few hours of sleep. We are working on getting him to sleep through the night, but it's not working so well yet..

a small change of plans for my bible reading

Well as one of my goals this year I really wanted to participate in reading the Bible in 90 days. Well as I've been trying to play catch up since the beginning and since I even started late and trying to listen to the reading on my Ipod (which right now even though its only $2.95 a wk, it's a small luxury that I dont need and on the #b90days website you can listen to reading), I'm still falling behind. I have too much other things going on, plus a 3 month old who needs my attention as I'm the only one home most of the time with him. Maybe once I finally complete my school program I can do this and read the bible in 90 days, but so that I'm not totally giving up on reading the bible this year, I'm going to switch to reading the bible in a year. I think at this point it is much more adaptable to my crazy schedule that I really dont have with the newborn. But who knows, maybe I'll be able to come back to the readings, we'll see.

over or under

So Cottonelle wants to know if you are an over or under kinda person lol.I'm an over lol. Stop by their site here and cast your vote. Plus by leaving a comment on this post you will be entered to win 1 of 10 Cottonelle gift baskets randomly chosen on January 29, 2010 from all entries as seen here  . And you're helping me in the Cottonelle contest to win a month supply as a member of the Mom's Blogger club,  as well by checking out my blog and leaving me a comment. Hope you are having a great day.

my mind a workin lol

Wow well it's already almost the middle of the month and I'm trying to figure out where the heck the time went. I swear I don't know what is going on sometimes. I am just thankful every day that I have my baby and my husband in my life. I've seem to have fallen into the trap, you know the one, when you become a new mom and you don't leave the house hardly. Well if you don't know the trap, let me fill you in on my version at least. I use to go out and do things. I would go have lunch with the few people I knew here, go hang out and what not, but seems as though as soon as the baby came along I stopped. At first it was because he was somewhat sick all the time, which turned out to be really bad reflux, but we've gotten that fixed over the last few weeks thank goodness. Now I'm just not sure what it is, but I guess it might be postpartum starting to rear it's ugly head at last. I miss seeing people and doing things. Another reason I don't go out as much as I use to is that we are trying to cut back on our expenses. Sure we have some money, but we are trying to build back a savings and get all of our debt paid off. It sucks, but we are getting closer to being debt free which is really important to us. We spent a lot of our savings when we went home for the holidays, but that was important to us as well since we had the new baby and we hadn't see our families in awhile, at least 9 months or so. But luckily with our tax refund this year we can build up our savings, pay off some more debt and get a few new things for each of us. I knew having a kid was expensive, but wow, it is a lot of money to buy all the things you want them to have. Thank goodness for Craigslist. If anyone has some suggestions/insight/advice, please comment. I would love to hear from other mom's on how they are doing it. I know one thing I really need to work on is time management for sure. I really want to complete the bible in 90 days, but I think with the fact that I have school work that I need to complete and my workout schedule on top of my duties here at home, I'm not sure it will be totally doable. But luckily the #b90days website has audio so I will probably continue to listen to it, so that I can keep up with the other bloggers who are participating. I don't know how I use to function when I worked full time, went to school full time and had a life lol.

Day 12 #b90days

Well since I'm still trying to play catch up, I figured I would go ahead and get on the same page as everyone else and finish catching up as I can. I received the daily email for the Bible in 90 Days and figured I would use it as a guide for today.

-Something to Ponder-Have any donkeys spoken to you lately? (Num. 22:28, 30).  It was amazing to read that a donkey had spoke to her owner and her question was "Why did you hit me three times?" I am in awe that the donkey did not do anything other than say that. But since she was trying to take her master away from the Angel of the Lord, it seems fitting. How awesome would it be to have an animal speak to you? 


Key Verse for today-Moses said to the heads of the tribes of Israel: "This is what the LORD commands:  When a man makes a vow to the LORD or takes an oath to obligate himself by a pledge, he must not break his word but must do everything he said. Nu 30:1-2

I really think this is important. Promises should not be made only to be broken. The rules that apply to women are important to regard to, such as that if a father hears his daughter's promise then she must keep it if he agrees with it, but if he does not then she doesn't have to keep it. Same way with the wife's promise if her husband hears it. 


If you are interesting in the Bible in 90 days, check out the website. It is a great site with a ton of information and assistance in completing your journey through the bible.

I <3 craigslist/freecycle

So I was reading through one of my many magazines about how to get rid of stuff and find stuff and was turned on to freecycle. This site is just wonderful. I never really started using it until recently when I would notice people posting things for babies, and since we have a newborn I was able to pick up a few things for my lil man. And craigslist, which I had used before looking to buy things had a free section that I only found recently and we found a desk and a bookshelf and other things that we have needed but didn't have the money to purchase. I've also been able to use both of these sites to get rid of things, like food that we weren't going to eat, baby clothes that we didn't need, and a few other things as well. So if you haven't checked the sites out, stop by and look and see if you can find any great finds, or even get rid of some of the stuff that you don't need anymore.

Darn Walmart

So I ordered my copy of The Spark from walmart.com last Tuesday. I was really excited to read it (well ya know when I had time in my crazy day) and well it was supposed to be here by yesterday. Well nope. So I thought maybe it will come today. I had the same problem last month when I pre-ordered Harry Potter, and it didn't arrive until 2 days after the due date. So I contacted customer service, I meant to last time, but I was really looking forward to starting the book this weekend. Well guess my book got lost in transit. WTH. So now I get to wait for them to mail me another copy. blah. Hopefully this one doesn't get lost in transit and I'll get it before the end of SparkPeople bootcamp. Which if you are on SparkPeople and aren't participating, you should totally check it out. It's never too late to get in on the action. Yea, I'll do a plug for SP, but I totally love the site, it has helped me with my weight loss goals, (as well did the personal training sessions with the awesome Laura). Well I'm off to take hubs some dinner on the boat since he has duty, then need to finish my laundry, do my SP BC workout, catch up on some board reading and do my B90Days reading assignment too, all the while making sure my beautiful son is having a good time and getting his tummy time in.

2 hour delay

Wow, sounds like something I use to hear when I was in school. The bases here are going to be on a two hour delay because we are 'supposed' to get an inch of snow. But that really doesn't apply to my hubs since he has duty tomorrow. Boo, it sucks but that is ok. Maybe I'll get stuff down. I said that about today when he drove himself to work lmao. But no really, I need to do laundry and clean and make sure I get I get my workout in and my daily Bible reading.

Free Biggest Loser Workout Mix

Got this from She Saved

There is a download of workout music from The Biggest Loser and Subway. 12 songs to get you up and moving. I downloaded it since I need some new music to add to my Ipod for my workouts. Check it out. Hopefully those of us that have the new years goal/resolution to lose weight will find this handy.

Biggest Loser Workout Mix

B90Days Day 6, caught up

Wow, well with starting the Bible in 90 days challenge on the 5th, I was able to catch up to the current day along with the other #B90Days bloggers with the help of the Itunes download I did. Listening to His Word has been so wonderful. And remembering the story of Moses and his people and his attempts at getting them free, that I had some what became cloudy on has been great. I don't think I ever really knew much about the story of Jacob, but since that is my husband's name, I found it quite interesting to hear that story, even if it was for the first time. It is making me feel close to my Grams again, but that also might be because her birthday is coming up at the end of the month, and the holidays just past and she was the glue that held the family together. I loved going to church with her on Sundays, in the church that I grew up in. I went back a few years ago, and it was amazing to still see some of the same people there. Of course it had been years since I had been there due to the fact that I had moved away, but there were still so many that had remembered who I was, because of my grandmother. I'm looking forward to completing my journey through the Bible with the 90 day challenge. I know that 'challenge' is a good for it, with the competing weight loss goals, completing school goals, and the daily needs of my son come into play, but I think that I may continue to purchase the Itunes version of the book, for days that I dont have the hands to actually read my Bible so that I can still get His Word in my life.

Wii myself healthy

I love my wii. We saved up and bought one in 2008 the day after thanksgiving, and then for Christmas that year we saved up and bought the Wii Fit. I was so excited, I knew that I really wanted to get in shape and lose weight and I had hoped that this would give me a little extra umph. It did, I used the Wii Fit daily, and enjoyed playing the games on it and learning some yoga poses. After the first of the year (2009) I signed up and participated in the New You Bootcamp, and used my wii to help me get my cardio in. I also started going to the gym and had some personal training sessions to learn some other exercises to do. But then I got pregnant, which was one of the main reasons for my desire to lose weight, and I thought that I would keep up with some sort of workout routine, but complications and fear of something going wrong with my pregnancy hindered that. So luckily with my pregnancy, I only gained about 26 lbs, which I've now lost all of that but 1 lb to date. Now it's almost 3 months post baby and a new year so I'm back at it. It seems that last year was the year of fitness games for the Wii. There was Wii EA Sports Active, which we just purchased yesterday, a few other games like Jillian Micheal's games (which I had trouble getting the game to register my movements), the personal fitness coach (which seemed a lot like the Wii Fit and my husband and I didn't purchase), Wii Fit Plus, which I am enjoying the set up your own routine part so that I don't have to go back out and pick my next yoga pose, Your Shape, which came out toward the end of the year, and I was lucky enough to be chosen to host a house party through houseparty.com to receive a copy of the game to share with friends and family and have a party to try out. A party game called Just Dance also came out last year, and while it doesn't have a workout label, it does make you work up a sweat. I'm hoping that with the help of Wii EA Sports Active, Wii Fit Plus, Your Shape and Just Dance, it will assist me in my weight loss and fitness goals. I'm participating once again in the Bootcamp and love the videos that SparkPeople has online, plus I have a few other workout videos to do at home too. (Bollywood Booty videos are really fun and they also work up a sweat, and I'm hoping to do 30 Day Shred).

Day3 Bootcamp and Day 1 of B90days

Well I did my 3rd day of SP bootcamp. I can say that my abs really hurt lol. But I'm so excited to keep up with. Today is Day 4, an ab workout. I am not a big fan of ab workout since I hurt for a few days afterwards, but I'll keep at it. I got the Wii EA Active game today. It seems like a lot of fun to work with. Now that makes 4 games to work out with... Wii Fit Plus, Your Shape, Wii EA Active, and Just Dance. Plus my Sparkpeople bootcamp and my Bollywood Videos. Those are a lot of fun to work out to.

I had decided last year that I wanted to participate in reading the bible in 90 days. I dont have the specific bible, but I downloaded the list of chapters to read and to get caught up I downloaded the first week on Itunes and have been getting caught up while in the car or while doing my work. I'm very excited to hopefully get through the Bible finally. I've always wanted to read more of the Bible than I have, and to have this challenge to complete is hopefully going to help me along. It's so exciting to re-read the stories that I grew up hearing in church. It makes me miss my Grams more and more.

New Year Again

Well yea, I'm a lil late with this, seeing as its the 4th almost 5th of January now. Life is crazy when you have a newborn, and a husband. I'm trying to figure out how to get some sort of schedule/routine in my life, which is hard with my almost 3 month old, who is just the best thing in the world. We had a wonderful Christmas, we were able to go home and visit with our families and show off our lil man and he had a good time. Now as it's the start of a new year, I'm sure the big thing that comes to mind are those pesky New Year's Resolutions. I hate the term, because I always seem to get let down when I make 'resolutions'. So last year I resolved to not have resolutions, but to make goals for what I would like to get done during the year. I usually go over my ones that I made for the previous year, but for some reason I can't find last years. Hmm Oh well, guess I'll just go ahead and make my list for this year.

My Goals for 2010

1. Get back in shape and improve my health. I enjoyed last year when I was working out, dropping the weight and feeling better overall, and I hope that this year once I get started will have the same results. I learned last year that I like working out, it gives me some energy and I will most certainly need it when D starts to get mobile. Plus fitting in 10 to 15 mins a day is not too terribly hard. I have enough stuff at home to keep with a program, and when D gets a lil bigger and I can take him to a daycare at a gym, I'll get back on the elliptical, a friend I've not seen in a year.

2. Become better with coupons. Having only one income is at times challenging, but we are still afloat. I would like to become one of those people who can have a bill of $100 and spend only $10 or something like that.

3. Finish my medical transcription program and find a job with it. With having the baby, I really want to stay at home with him, but I also miss having a job and I hope with completion of this program (thanks to MyCAA funds) I can find something that will bring in some additional income.

4. Read the bible in 90 days. This is from another blog (Mom's Toolbox). She has posted this challenge, and while I'm a few days late, I plan on trying to catch up and complete it on time. Just need to schedule my day some, around the baby's non schedule of course.

5. To be the best mom that I can be. I know this probably wont be too hard, but it's important to me that I do the best that I can for my son, we had waited so long for him to arrive, that I worry that I wont live up to everything that he needs. Plus being a 'single' mom at times, I'm sure will prove to be challenging, I just plan to give it my all.

6. De-clutter our home. I have stuff in boxes, in the shed, that have not seen the light of day in a few years. A big goal is to go through it, and use it or pitch it. Craigslist and freecycle and amazon are great places to get rid of things. Plus we have to make room for all the baby's things now.

7. Finish some craft projects. I have a box full of stuff to learn how to knit and it is sitting at the top of my closet. I have tons of stuff to do scrapbooks too and they sit in a box. I would like to finish a few projects this year.

8. Learn to manage my time better. This should really be number one but it's still on my list. I don't understand how it seems I have less time now than when I was working full time and going to school. Shows you that not having some structure in my life makes it hard for me to focus on the things that I need to do.

Ok, with the last goal being said, I need to get myself to bed since the baby is asleep, and get some of that much needed sleep in. If I feel the need to update these or change/add them, I will. But these are the foremost important goals that I have for myself. I hope that this year is wonderful for everyone.