Dear Friends,

This past year or so of blogging has totally changed my life, having communicated with some of you whom I will never meet face to face and those of you whom it may be a possibility someday because you live nearby.  Wherever you live, you’ve continued to be a great source of inspiration and support for me during those times when you have no idea just how bad I needed it.  You really have kept me going.  That’s why it hurts me to say that at least for the next month, if not longer, I will be taking the blog offline so that it doesn’t appear abandoned and unfinished,  and does not leave me looking like someone who just up and quit.  Right now my focus has to be on my health, home and family. My home needs work that I can do, and I need to spend more time with family.  At night when the house is quiet, I will be working on the website so that I can relaunch it at a better time. 

I hope to have everything completed by the end of September.  My 31st birthday is September 26, and I’m hoping that (God willing I see that day) by then we’ll have a treatment plan in place and my pain management will also be regimented.  The pain management has been rough, as I just came off a 2 1/2 week flare up that was pure misery.  I am hoping we can get to the bottom of the reason for that pain, or if it is just 30 years of sitting and being too fat.  The weight loss surgery…I’ll have to figure that out and I’ll let you know if it’s going to happen.

To all of you who have sent e-mail, left comments, entered my contests or just had generally nice things to say, I thank you from the bottom of my heart.  You made me realize that there are still wonderful people in this world.

Please keep this website bookmarked, and I will e-mail some of you when I get the site back up and running.  I just don’t have the energy to get it caught up in such a hurry for it to be useful for you all so this makes more sense.

You may still hear from me, for those of you who have e-mailed me.  You may even get coupons or something in the mail someday   If I still, yes, still, owe you a prize, then I will someday get that to you if I sponsored the contest. 

To sum it all up, thank you.  I look forward to “seeing” you all again soon!

Kristin

I thought i’d let y’all know I’m still alive!  I’e been working out a lot of health problems that I’m still working out, but i’m finally at a point when I can occasionally leave the house and my pain medication making me act nutty!  Well, the Dr. had to adjust them again because I had some flare ups, so I’e had to take some time to get used to the side effects.

Anyway, I’m going to get the blog back up and going starting Sunday, God willing, because I’ve missed it andw y’all reallybad!

I’m really hoping you like the changes we make, and i hope you like the new site too!!

I’m far behind in my own home organizaion so I’m going to use the weekeendt o get caughtup if I feel like it )

Hae a wonderful weekend!!

Well, this just stinks.  I wrote not long ago, before I lost my main connetion to the outside world for so many days in a row, about how we were trying hard to combat high electricity bills throughout the Summer months.  I thought surely we’d done a much better job of managing our use of electricity, and that we’d see a reflection of that in our August 2010 eletricity bill.  We sweated, we used our ceiling fans, we used cold showers and wash cloths, short sleeves…you name it, we did it in hopes of slashing even twenty bucks off our gigantic eletricity bill.  You know where I’m going, don’t you?  It went UP.  Yes, folks, our efforts meant nothing to our power company.  We still cannot figure out how it happened.

We compared our lives now and our energy use now to last year, and we simply cannot come up with a reason that our bill would be $100 more now than it was a year ago other than the fact that utility compaanies realize the monopoly they have over the people in their service area.  We have no other choice of energy provider, yet electricity is something that we cannot live without.  I don’ mean as a convenience, although I don’t think I’d live happily without my TV or computer.  I mean that, due to health issues, I must have electricity as a means to live.  Millions of Americans are in this same situation, electric companies are aware of this and so they are able to charge whatever exhorbitant fees they wish.  This is an ugly, cutthroat world in which we live, when the elderly are reduced to being forced to pay for electricity yet their heart medication remains on the pharmacy shelf.  I don’t want to get started on that subject because it sickens me so badly.  All I can say is that I pray that some strong changes are made to our government by the time my younger brother is at retirement age or he may be working on his deathbed unless he’s independently wealthy.

So, anyway, I touched on a few ways that we’ve been trying to lower our electricity bill and be more energy efficient but our electrical company releases a publication each month (I guess that takes some of our big bucks?) in the form of a magazine that highlighted a few ways that we can become more energy efficient without spending a fortune.  Nice of them, huh?  I apologize for my sarcasm, but truly there’s no need for one’s energy bill to be so much higher from one year to the next.  I honestly don’t think we’re doing anything differently, and I surely know that we aren’t doing anything to use MORE electricity than last year.  Neither of us work out of our home, we don’t use lights often, and turn them off in the rooms we aren’t in, and our house is quite small.  It’s also insulated very well.  It’s simply a part of life and a terribly HOT Summer.  I’m not one to wish my life away but I do have to admit to being ready for the end of October to get here quickly!

I digress.  I mentioned that our electric company, Marshall Dekalb Electric Cooperative, mentioned quite a few ways in which we can become more energy efficient without going broke.  I guess they figure if they tell us these things it’ll free up more cash to pay them, right?   Here are the ways they suggest, and of course I’ll probably throw in my 2 cents…or 5!

• Set your water heater at 120 degrees.  It also protects anyone from getting scalded.  (I don’t have much to say about this except that nobody needs to mess with my hot showers!)
• If you have an energy-saver setting on any appliance, use it.  Doesn’t that go without saying?  Seriously.
• Replace incandescent bulbs with compact fluorescent bulbs, which use 1/4 of the energy of traditional light bulbs.
• Replace your heat pump and air conditioner filters. Also don’t forget your furnace filters.   I’d forgotten, by the time I moved back into a house with central air conditioning, how important it was to change the air conditioner filters.  Well, to better articulate that, I’ll say I’d forgotten the difference it made to replace the filter. 
• Check all your vents to make sure that the ones you need are open and the ones are closed to the rooms you don’t use.  There are certain rooms of our home we don’t often use, such as my grandmother’s bedroom, so we keep the door closed and the vent closed at all times. I’m not going to heat or cool a room nobody is going to use. 
• If you have a water bed (you’re lucky!), make it every day.  Making your water bed insulates it so much that it uses 1/3 less energy. 
• Crank up the thermostat 1 degree during warm weather.  The U.S. Department of Energy estimates that you can save up to 3% on your Summer energy bill for every degree you raise your thermostat for 24 hours.  OK.  I don’t buy that one.  I don’t fully understand it but I also don’t buy it because last week one day was so hot that no matter how high we put our thermostat it would not go off.  Our air was on 100% of the time, no matter what,  and our thermostat was set in the 80’s.  I feel like this is all nonsensical babbling but it is true.
• Wash your clothes in cold water.  Ninety percent (90%) of the cost associated with washing your clothes is the cost to heat the water.   There are a lot of great low-cost, cold-water detergents on the market, or if you’re super-thrifty you could find a recipe to make your own.  I wasn’t aware of this one, but you bet your bottom dollar I’ll be trying it.  For only 2 people who don’t work outside the home, we wash a LOT so this may be one real key for saving.
• Turn your computer and monitor to “sleep” mode when not in use rather than leaving them on.  They use 80% less energy that way.  Wowzer.  Mine automatically falls asleep, I thought they all did.
• Don’t use your stove.  Your microwave and toaster oven use far less energy.  Even better?  Go outside and use your grill so you don’t heat up your home at all.  Ours is a gas grill with a side burner so we’re lucky enough to be able to cook entire meals outside any day!  Luckily my grandfather grows many veggies he generously shares and there are fruit stands everywhere.  I’d much rather pay for produce knowing it comes straight from the farmer than the truck, which came from the conveyor belt.  

These are some small, common sense things our power company suggets in thei monthly (I think!) publication, and I grew up with my mom and grandmothers doing them so I”m sure they work.  So far I can’t tell a difference in anything I do but maybe if I do more of them they’ll have a greater impact.  I’ll keep you posted.  How about you?  How do you keep your cooling costs down in this impossibly hot weather?

Hurry up and get to your Facebook page to print a $1.50/1 Planter’s Flavor Grove Almonds!!   They’ll run you about $1 at Walmart and possibly Target after the coupon I think.  I really like the Sea Salt and Olive Oil, but they’re all very tasty! 

At one point Walgreens had smaller packages of them, single serve or so they say, and I tried them all then but I think I paid more per package than if I’d waited on a coupon.  I rarely splurge on snacks that way but sometimes you need an on the go snack and it beats eating a candy bar.

Hey everyone!

I just wanted you to know that we’re still alive but we haven’t had any internet or phone in about a week for more than an hour or so.  You know I do the majority of my blogging at night, but for some reason Charter Communications phone and internet lines are going out about 9 PM at night and don’t come back on til sometime the next day, if we’re lucky!  We’ve had technicians at our home every single day but they haven’t been able to fix anything and the people that can haven’t been willing to show up.

If we don’t havev internet and phone service that’s reliable by tomorrow we’ll be looking at other providers.  Our entire road is having these problems, so I’m not sure why they don’t seem to care.  The last few days we’ve experienced problems throughout the day as well, and we’ve been given excuses about it being heat related but still not fixed.  I guess it’ll be fixed when they decide how important to them our road is to their profit.  I’ve never seen a company with this terrible service before. 

Other than that, I’ve been experiencing the worst pain of my life so during the day I spend it sitting really still and trying not to move     I hope this too shall pass soon.

I will be back to start posting deals and grocery matches as soon as my pain subsides and we have internet service.  At this point, we’ll be better off with a landline phone and with dial-up internet than Charter Communications.  If you live in a rural area, I cannot recommend them to you because they don’t seem to put your area as a priority.  Look for all other options before you choose Charter!

Hopefully we’ll talk again soon, fiends!

I will admit to having the biggest sweet tooth of anyone I know.  I bet I have a bigger sweet tooth than anyone YOU know, which explains all this extra weight I carry around.  I was making a true, honest effort to lose all thisi weight, too, and although it wasn’t just falling off I was feeling better and could really tell a difference in my health.  That was about the time I discovered something I’d seen before but I’d been able to muster up the willpower to avoid, knowing that if I gave in that I’d probably never look back.  But I’d had a bad week, very depressed, and there they set in their bright blue bag, beckoning to me.  It was as if they were saying, “Kristin, we were made for you!  We need YOU! You need US!” And I did.  I needed those Pretel  M&Ms about like I needed another hole in my head for more air to escape.  Never the less, I couldn’t resist temptation so I grabbed the one lone single size on the impulse shelf.  Yes, kids, that’s why they call that the “Impulse” section.

I thought to myself, “OK, maybe these will ust be your average, generic chocolate covered pretzels without anything special.”  You know the kind, right?  No real brand name, a sort of off-taste that’s stale and old-tasting.  Oh how I wanted these to taste bad!  No such luck.  I shouldn’t have expected anything but the best from M&Ms, considering I’ve never had anything less than the best when it comes to my M&Ms!

So anyway, they were nice enough to send me a few extra packs for my amazing readers.  There is only one way you can enter, and that’s by subscribing to my e-mail newsletter.

I’ll choose 10 winners from the number of subsribers at the end of the giveaway on August 16, and within a few weeks if you win you’ll get a sweet surprise in your mailbox.  I do want to wait until the hottest part of Summer is over and they aren’t melted, so you’ll get them at the end of September/early October.

I will e-mail you for your mailing info if you’re chosen as a winner.

One thing I want to mention is that these have only 6g fat per single serving.  The average candy bar has 10g-12g.   I don’t know about you but it makes me feel better to hea that when I eat candy!

Good luck!

Who knows more about grilling…and beer…. than Homer Simpson?  Parade magazine recently asked Homer for his top tips for a tasty Summer BBQ, and he was more than willing dish up some hot tips.  For some reason, I do not recommend trying these at your next BBQ…or at all.

1. To make great food taste fantastic, Homer recommends adding beer.  Drink 72 ounces, then start grilling!  He also says that adding half a pound of real meat really makes a veggie burger much tastier.
2. To keep the bugs from  biting, and so Homer can be a good dad who watches his children nap, he brings his grilling indoors.
3. He keeps kebbob skewers handy for guests like Ned  Flanders.  He gives them out as “special party favors” for his most annoying guests.
4. Make sure you have some veggies to grill for the no-meat eaters in your family like his kid, Lisa, but Homer says no matter what you do that veggies taste bad.  i wonder how he knows after that 72 ounces of beer?
5. Give your party a fun theme.  Some of Homer’s most fun get-togethers have been his “Quadruple Bypass Anniversary Party”  and his “Great Flanders’ Smoke Out”!
6. He’s heard about other people’s struggles with leftovers, but Homer still isn’t sure what a leftover is so he can’t help you there.  He says if you cook, you don’t have to worry about it. 

i couldn’t really resist posting this one when I saw it as I was cleaning off my kitchen table.  Yep, that came out awhile ago and I’m just now getting to it but life gets hectic around here:)

I don’t think I”d take Homer’s advice at Face value but if you think about ithe does have some pretty sharp  tips!   We use our grill 5 out of 7 days a week probably, whether we’re just using the side burner for some mac and cheese and grilling some hot dogs, or cooking up my favorite turkey burgers.  The house doesn’t get any hotter, the food is leaner because we don’t use any oil or grease of any kind when we grill even though the pros do, and I have yet to find a food that can’t be grilled. 

One of my favorite things to do is take a yellow squash, cut it in half lengthwise, sprinkle a little parmesan and a little garlic on it and grill it.  OMG it is soooooo good!  I think  that’s kid-speak for you should try it ) Have a great week.

I’m not sure about the rest of the country, but I think those of us living in the South can honestly say this is the hottest Summer we have had in many, many years.  Considering the fact that it is only the end of July, the heat and humidity we’re facing in August is frightening.  What is even more frightening is the electricity bill we’ll be paying that month.  Our Summer bills are always higher than the rest of the year, of course,  because my husband and I tend to tolerate cold weather better but our July bill was, ahem, more than I ever anticipated.  Luckily I left enough wiggle room in our budget to handle it, because we would have been in quite the bad situation otherwise.  But we discussed it nd even though we can (barely) pay a bill that large, we’re going to have to start doing other things rather than keeping our A?C at full blast all the time.  We’ve done them before, but I think it was a casae of us taking for granted having a true central A/C for the first time that causaed us to do this.  I thought I’d share with you some of the things we’e doing to beat the heat- and the sky-high electric bills that come with Summer:

•  
  • Usae ceiling fans.  When we moved in, we installed new, nice ceiling fans in every room (that made sense) which cool the house off without using so much energy.  Sit right under one with a cool drink and you’e set!  At the end of the season, which is probably considered right now you can get them at very reasonable prices for very nice fans to fit any budget!  We got smaller fans for smaller rooms of our home, and they were nowhere near as nice as the ones we got in the rooms that are seen by visitors.  Keep in mind the size of your home when you buy them.  You don’t want massive ceiling fans for a tiny room but you want everyone in the room to be cool.  If you have a lage room, such as my parents’ living room, it may call for 2 fans.
  • Use boxed fans and oscillating, stand fans for extra cooling.  Our home is a small, brick house that gets H-O-T in the daytime, and our bedroom soaks up that heat, so the ceiling fan just is not enough.  We had to start using those fans plus a few other measures to keep the room cool.  I also use an oxygen machine and a CPAP at night which dries the room out, which calls for the extra air.
  • Drink double the amount of ice cold water you’re supposed to.  I do not like water.  Flavor the stuff with those mixups from Walmart or use Cystal Light.  Whatever you have to do, drink it ice cold and drink as much of it as you can.  Lime water tastes great, believe it or not, and if you can use lemon and lime it’s a lot better than the chemicals in the other things.  I’m not a Dr, I choose flavor over chemcicals
  • I try to overshoot each of my bills, at least the household ones, by $10-$20 each month so that if one of them is high one month it won’t break the budget.  I then try to figure out why it ws high and what we can do to keep it from happening again. 

These are just small things we’ve done to make sue we rely on ways to stay cool other than our A/C.  Of course, we’ve put it in a reasonable temperature and ome days it still won’t go off which should give you some indication of how hot our house is! A programmable thermostat is next on our list, although I have yet to price those and price what goes into installing one.  Does anybody have any ideas?

I have to admit I am not one to sweat.  It may come down to ice cubes and wash cloths, which I’ve relied on in past years to stay cool, but I am not a happy girl when I am a sweaty girl.  Since I happen to love and adore my husband, I prefer to stay cool so I can stay (semi) nice.  I’m hard enough to live with already, aren’t  I Sweetie?

Those of you with larger incomes than ours may not need to cut back on their electricity use, and some of you may cut back during other months of the year specifically to deal with this one.  Winter may be the rough season for some of you.  Whichever your situation, look for alternate ways of keeping warm or cool rather than so much energy usage.  Even if you don’t HAVE to save money, why wouldn’t you want to?  I wish I had all of the money I’d foolishly spent during my lifetime.  I’m only 30 but I could honestly probably have much, much more than I do now.

I started writing here because I hope that young people who are starting out, or their parents, will see the mistakes i made when I graduated from high school throughout my college years and hopefully not mke those same mistakes.  It’s one of those “Do as I say, not as I did” situations that although highly hypocritically sounding is truly a message I try to send out of love. 

 There really should be a course given to high school seniors to prepare them for life in the real world, because they’re sent so many mixed signals.  They aren’t old enough for alcohol yet they can die in a war.   They cannot smoke but they can vote for the leader of our country; I wonder how m any even know the names of all of the people running or anything about them?

That was completely OT and I apologize.  My final say is just that you can find ways of cooling off without using your central A/C.  I know because I went almost 5 years without one.  Granted they weren’t fun,   but I’m still sitting here.  Popsicles were dinner fo many meals when the weather became too hot to bare, but the kid in me never minded!

Enjoy your summer, all!

We’ve all been there.  Out from early morning til late afternoon running errands, being Mom Taxi Service,  or working late.  By the end of the day, you’re so tired you think the very sight of your stove will be the proverbial straw.  When that happens, most of us turn to take out.  Take out is one thing that the average American family spends way too much on but if you plan in advance you can really stretch your take-out dollars so that even if you’re stuck feeding extra kids you won’t hear your wallet groan! 

I jokingly call them “glove box coupons” (I’m bored, OK?) but what I refer to is any coupon that saves you money on fast food, restaurant food, or services you may get while you run errands like hair cuts or oil changes.  I don ‘t know about you but I get some of these in my Sunday newspaper and in my mailbox each week it seems.  Don’t throw them away!  Unless your family knows you will absolutely never, ever eat fast food or in a restaurant, keep those.  Even if so, ask your family or neighbors if they need them because they are money.  Why throw away money?

Anyway, get one of those accordion coupon holders like in the picture from Target or Walmart, or wherever you can get a decent quality one the cheapest.  Target used to sell some plastic ones in their Dollar Spot I really liked, and Walmart sells a few but they’re a bit pricier for $2-$4 depending on the size.  You don’t need fancy, you need functional with probably 6-8  pockets.  Label them in a way that will be easy for you.  I actually have 2 for my car, one for restaurants and fast food and another one for services and stores like the 20% Bed, Bath and Beyond coupons.  I find that I forget those at home so I like to have them with me at home just in case.  Now, I’m a bit picky and make things more difficult than need be.  One is just fine- I recommend at least labelling one “car”, one “personal serv.” for hair cuts and stuff, one  for fine dining, one for casual dining, and then fast food.  Those are just suggestions, and sometimes my thinking makes people’s heads spin so just do what makes sense to you.

Most of the time, my tip of the day won’t be so long!! I promise.  I started looking at the amount of food coupons I have when I was going through my stash of coupons and I was just in shock.  I had Subway, Shoney’s, and so much more.  Some of the coupons I had were for free items, too, and they were expired!!!  How awful is that?

Of course you’re not going to change hair stylists or your favorite “whatever” just because you have a coupon but if it’s something that you just want a good price and you need it in a hurry that day, why not have these coupons with you so you’ll et extra savings?  They still don’t always provide the best prices, though, so call around just to make sure because some places will match the coupon price and beat it!! 

I am way behind on gathering my goovebox coupons, so that will be how I spend my evening tonight.  Luckily my years of couponing leave me with an abundance of accordion file organizers!

Have a fun evening!!