Saving Green While Going Green

I just love days when I save money.

I love more days when I learn of a cool, new way to do it too!

(Or maybe I am the only one who gets excited about this stuff.)

I am convinced that I am allergic to plastic bags. Like I get all nervous and panicky if I see too many in my house. And there are too many in my house.

Two years ago, I bought two reusable bags at Meijer. I love those bags. Seriously they are the best ones I have. And they were only a buck! Everything else now is complete crap. Somehow, I always manage to get these for free...well except for a few, like the giant suitcase sized refrigerator bag from Trader Joe's.

That I bought willingly for $6.99.

*ahem*

I saw on one of the coupon sites that I frequent that CVS has rolled out an initiative that promotes the use of reusable bags in their store. You buy this tag for $0.99 and attach it to one of your reusable bags (don't worry, you can change bags at any time - and it doesn't have to be a CVS bag!) Everytime you go to CVS with this bag and buy something, they will scan your CVS card and your bag tag. After every 4 visits, you get $1 in Extra Bucks!

For people that frequent CVS, this is a great program! Since I am a big user of the reusable bags, this is like making a little money for doing what I already do!

I was at Target a few weeks ago and was in line paying for something. I had my reusable bag with me and right before I was about to pay, the cashier scanned a bar code on the computer that had a picture of a reusable bag. It took $0.05 off of my total.

I know...$0.05 is not going to get me anywhere, but it's something!

So make sure you grab your resuable bags...a little bit WILL go a long way!

Picture Source

Mine. All Mine.

So you remember how I needed the Andrea Bocelli Christmas CD?

I bought it.

Already.

I was at Target on Thursday night buying trash bags and sandwich bags. I told myself I was not going to wander aimlessly around Target because I really just wanted to go home. Well, the Christmas music pulled me into the Christmas section. I was starting to look at all of the Christmas stocking stuffer candies when it dawned on me that maybe Target would have the CD and I could buy it before the masses did.

Because I just know that everyone will also want it.

It took me a moment to find the Christmas music area because being right in front of the music/electonics section wasn't my first logical place to look. I walked around the display starting from the left side, going around the back, and finally made my way to the right side. No CD.

Seriously?

They have the Jonas Brothers Christmas but no Andrea Bocelli?

So I huffed and puffed until I saw it on the front of the display, right in the top left corner.

Where everyone else can see it.

Of course.

I smiled even more when I saw that it was on sale for $11 and change. The list price was $18.

Mine. All mine.

Books: The Secret Life of Marilyn Monroe

I was never into reading non-fiction.

Ever.

My dad loves reading biographies of old people...like Civil War old...and old, dead presidents.

A history buff if you will.

When I picked up Judy Garland's biography last spring, I found that I enjoyed reading about a real person, her life, and the time period that she lived it.

I tried another biography of sorts: Julie Andrews. I just couldn't get into it. By page 30 I was done.

I saw this book at a bookstore about six weeks ago when I went to check out read on my lunch break The Lost Symbol as a New Release. I put it on my mental list of things to read in the future.

When I finally went and got a library card at our new library, I immediately added myself to the waiting list. It wasn't long and I figured that it would come up at a time when I would need a new book to read.

I finally received it before I went to Florida back in September and was planning on reading it when I got home. Well, it was about two weeks later that I actually picked it up, and only had a few days to read the 500 page life story before I had to return it to the library.

And so I began this crazy journey of trying to get through this book in a weekend when my in-laws were visiting and we were throwing a house warming party for 30 people.

Impossible is right.

And so I had to return it.

I just got it back last week after being on the waiting list again and finished it on Monday.

A GREAT read. Seriously, fabulous.

I really liked this author and the way that he really didn't speculate about her life. He wrote facts. Sure, he included some misleading theories and rumors, but he also had a thorough analysis to disprove them.

Now, don't get me wrong...I'm not the one to believe everything I read. I don't know who did what or why, or what really happened to Ms. Monroe, nor do I feel like I need to dig deeper to find out, but I thought that this book had a good way of making her biography into a story.

I even rented one of her movies last weekend and saw it for the first time. She had a very minimal role in it (All About Eve), but I still enjoyed it and felt like I stepped out of my comfort zone a little bit.

I now have added a few more biographies to my growing list of books to read.

Somedays Christmas Just Doesn't Come Soon Enough

I love Christmas time. Love it.

It's just a joyous occasion. Everything just smells good and looks good...It's hard for me not to smile when I think about Christmas.

Today, when I actually opened my hourly daily email from Barnes & Noble because I bought something from them once and they won't stop stalking me, I saw a new Christmas CD that I absultely have to have. So I immediately squealed with delight at my desk this morning, probably alarming some of my coworkers when I saw this in my email.

What do you get when you have one of the greatest voices on Earth sing me Christmas carols?



You get the best collection of Christmas music there is. And I haven't even heard any of it yet. But I know if will be awesome.

I need this.

I don't say that I need something very often. Because I just don't need things. Really, I don't.

Want, though, is a totally different word.

This, I need.

And so I will buy it sometime in the next three weeks, but it will sit unopened in my car or on my computer at home because I don't believe in listening to Christmas music before Thanksgiving.

One holiday at a time, people.

Anyway, back to one of my loves: Andrea Bocelli.

I seriously tear up whenever I listen to him.

The song my dad and I danced to at my wedding was sung by him...with all of my Italian family swaying in the background. He is happiness wrapped up in a voice. I smile whenever I think about listening to him.

And in the darkness that is a chilly Black Friday morning, I will be listening to Andrea Bocelli.

Goin' To The Gym

This weekend we finally joined our new gym. We have only been official residents of our new community for three months already.

I think the motivation behind it was that the promotional rate and no joiners fee was ending on 10/31.

Actually that was the motivation.

We separately went to the gym to find out more about it and each got a nice tour and about a stack of guest passes that we could use to "make sure the gym was a good fit for us".

Does it have a treadmill and a TV?

Yes?

Sounds good to me.

So...I went and used my guest passes twice. My neighbor actually works the front desk there and gave me my guest pass back so I could use it again.

So in the 1+ month that we had our free pass to the gym, I only went twice.

I don't know if Justin even went at all.

Might I add that it is across the street?

Though that is farther than our last gym was...which was out the side door of our building and about 100 feet away.

Anyway, I am really excited to get back into the work out grind. With our new gym, classes are included with the membership! I have never taken a class before, I am am looking to try a few.

One on my list: Yoga.

I have only done Yoga a few times in my life (ie - a unit in gym class junior year of high school). Back in my cheerleading days, I was really flexible and could position my body in about a million different ways.

So, not only do I want the flexibility to be back, I also think it will be benificial to reducing my stress level. And my husband's. He used to take a yoga class at our old gym once in awhile to help with stress, but he wasn't vey consistant about it. And he really needs to be for some medicinal reasons. If I go, then I will pull him with me and hopefully he will actually go too.


One of my other goals is to get back into the pool again.

I love to swim. Love it.

It doesn't feel like working out when I am going back and forth in the lap pool. It's actually calming, relaxing, and giving me a full body workout in probably half the time.

I used to swim competitively when I was younger and am so glad that I did it. I only did it in the summers, but it still made me workout for at least an hour everyday in the pool. And I wonder how I had such skinny legs and arms when I was 13.

On the non-swimming an yoga days, I will be on the elliptical or treadmill...working out in the most boring way possible.

A Case of the Mondays

It has already been a day.

And it's only 10:29 A.M...on a Tuesday.

I am at the point of my day where nothing is going right and I feel like I need to argue with every dumb person that comes in my path.

And there have already been a few of those people.

It all started when I was on my way to work. I hear the traffic report on the radio that some power lines were struck by a construction crane. Those wonderful power lines fell onto the expressway blocking all lanes North and South. This same construction that I have to go through everyday to get to and from work. Damn construction!!!!

That didn't really matter to me since I wasn't taking the expressway. I was taking the road that the power lines proceeded to fall onto.

Nice.

So they closed that road. Since I was close enough to the scene, but could bypass it when the annoucement came over the radio, I flew down another road to cut east another way.

Bad idea.

That road was under contruction and was only allowing traffic going both ways on one lane. So it took more than a half hour to go two miles.

By the time I got to work, my world was blowing up.

Dumb people emailing me.

Dumb people calling me.

Dumb people IMing me.

I feel like no one is doing their appointed job today. I send something to someone, and they immediately call me because they think it is not something they are supposed to work on and then immediately send it back to me.

Um, wrong. You are an idiot. This is your job. You are supposed to be doing what I send to you to process. If you can't tell a letter from a legal contract then you are in the wrong position.

Annoying.

Then I have someong sending me instant messages because they won't process something else without another document that is completely irrelevant.

Come ON! What is going on today?

So now I am doing the work of other people when I could be doing my own instead of blogging or when I could be helping my teammates and coworkers on other big projects they have today.

I don't have bad days.

Really, I don't.

But this one is taking the cake.

Trick-or-Treat Fail

This was our first Halloween where we decided to give out candy. In our old apartment, you had to sign up to participate, and usually it was only 5 grandkids that would show up at the door (I lived with the elderly, remember...or that's how it felt).

Anyway, since we have a house now, and live in a residental neighborhood, I had been scouting out candy prices and how many pieces came in each bag since September.

Read: Bargain shopper to the max. I actually learned it from my mother.

We both grew up in neighborhoods where there would be TONS of kids showing up at our parents' houses on Halloween. I think my mom would budget for about 200 kids...and we actually ran out of candy a few times.

So, since we live in a similar neighborhood now where the houses are all close together, we figured we would have a lot too.

Wrong.

Way wrong.

I think we went through 40 pieces...and that includes helping myself to about 5 Snickers and giving one of my friend's kids a bunch.

Not to mention that our official Trick-or-Treat hours were from 2-7 P.M.

Right on cue, at 7 P.M. our doorbell rang and I expected to see some teenagers who were coming out after dark...trying to be cool.

Nope.

A pack of 8 year old girls.

They were so stinking cute. And since I had a ton of candy left, I practically gave them all handfuls of Snickers bars to the "oooohs" and "ahhhhhs" that were standing on my stoop.

Better them than me eating it anyway.

So when the night was over, I promptly picked up the still half ful bowl and put it by the door so I could bring it to work today.

And I have been sitting here, at my desk, eating Kit Kats.

Only three more full bags to go.