Saturday Rambles..

*This last week was crazy! Alot of my legal things are coming to a end and I feel like a 1000lb weight has been lifted off my shoulders.

* Yesterday Greg and I celebrated 1 year of dating. I came home to roses and a card. We went to dinner at longhorn, then headed to the towncenter to walk around, then we to the meet the Campbells for the first time. They are just a lovely couple. We had a great time talking about everything under the moon, even talked about blogging that we were talking about blogging. Make sense? Eh, we didnt think so. We had a great night :)

*Were headed off to GA for the day today to get my parents to sign these guardianship papers. Ya, please say a prayer for us.

*My house is a mess, which is very unusual for this Gallardo/Chaney/Powell household. Were usually pretty anal about keeping the house tidy, but I guess since we know that we will be packing it all up in about 2 weeks to move none really wants to do anything about it. Sigh, life stinks that way sometimes.

*Tuesday I go to court, to get the divorce final.

*Im so excited about fall coming up. I really just love the fall season, theres nothing like it in the world.

*My sister made us a cute card for our 1yr. Its so nice to have her here. We love every stinkin minute of it.

*Alyssa told us the other day that she wants to be the little mermaid for halloween, and when she grows up. She also told us that she wants kala to be a hashbrown, yes the ones you eat. Why? I guess thats a 3 year old mind for ya.

Alright folks, I gotta go get this family's butt in gear so we can get down there and come back.

Have a great weekend :)

Im a fan!

Ok, so others in my family might say its more of a obsession, but I LOVE Pinterest.

Have you ever been? Its amazinggg!

This all started from the lovely Sherry @ YHL, and Katie @ BPB. Together and with a few others they are doing a awesome Piterest challenge. You can read all about it here.

I'm in are you??

Whats Pinterest?

Its where you can go and gather so much inspiration, about any room your trying to decorate, DIY projects. Anything really?

If you are pinning add me here, I would love to start looking at your boards :)

Mad House....

Or aka Garden Ridge.

(when there going outta business)

Yup u read right Garden Ridge here in Jacksonville, FL, is going out of business. It is such a sad story, as I really liked to go in there and get fun/cheap stuff.

Heres the story folks..

Sunday morning we were waiting on HHGreg, and Best Buy to open so we could get a real life peek of sammy and all his awesome ness. (you can catch a glimpse of him here ) As we were driving by, TONS of people were pullin into the store. We had a hour to blow so we had to pop in and see what was going on.

Well everyone and there brother was out to get some of the 50% off sales. We grabbed a few things, but before we knew it the line to check out was all the way in the back of the store. Since we knew that we didnt want anything big we put our things back and left. Snapping pics of this mess as we left.

 

We vowed to give the lady behind us that were waiting 3 1/2 HOURS, HOURS people to buy her 4 sets of scrubs, our spot in line, I didnt love that end table THAT much.

If anyone went ant waited in line, lemme know how it went for you. I know you had to have some sort of interesting story to tell.

DIY: Curtains

So finally after living in the apartment a year FINALLY settling into the apt, I finally decided to go look at the fabric store for some fabric for curtains.

It was so hard to find something that seemed to match casue the wall was a "living green" color. Dont get me wrong I loved the color, but I just didnt know what to do with it.

So with the family in tow, off to JoAnns we went.

And this is what we come home with. :) I wasnt sold right away but I knew it would go with the color of the wall. I didnt want something to look too "teen-ish".

I had decided that I wanted to try curtains YHL style, ya know not because im too lazy, it just seems easier.

So kala, you know the "very teenage, teenager" thats living with us now whiped out the iron and got to working.

Little time passed, and before we knew it we ran outta Heat Bond, and as much as I hated to stop not only was it too late but frankly I didnt feel like going out to get more.

So we went to bed like this... One panel pretty much done. "Excuse the netflix on the tv"

The next day we got the ball rolling to fix the curtains..

So this is before

(notice the green wall)

..and this is after

 

This is after!

 I like it, now to just find fun pillows and maybe a run.

P.S See anything different from the top pics to the bottom, yes thats a new tv. His name is Sammy, hes my new love. Well talk about him and all his glory lata.

And yes.. im currently looking for a new tv stand. If u have any ideas there more than welcome!!

Thanks for joining us in this journey we call life.

#61 on my 101

#61 Play with my lyssa in the rain

...

DONE

 :) Well more like 5 mins of dancing.



Couponing, Where to begin?

Im gonna start with saying,

WE not a professionals!

This is a hobby for greg and I, and a few of my family and friends asked me to do this so...here it goes.

First I wanna give a biggole thanks to my boy toy. I couldnt do this without him, were a team ;p.

Basic 5 steps to couponing:

1. Get the coupons from the sunday papers.

2. Do you price matching/research on items to purchase that week.

3.Get your coupons together.

4.Make a shopping list.

5.Go shopping.

Looks simple.. eh?

My first piece of advice is to collect coupons and decide your choice of organization. Collecting coupons is easy, you get them all over the place. You get the from the newspaper, internet, magazines, store ads. You can litterly get them from anywhere.Organization is the key. We all know I do the binder, BUT its not for everyone. Some people choose the accordian file method, and hey if that works for you to then go for it!

Here is a few tid bits of info and ideas on that here. 

How many papers to buy? Thats a question everyone ask. I have heard the rule of thumb is 1 per person in your house. Persoanlly we get 2 min, 4 if the inserts are good. You should never get a odd number though. Reason being is for B1G1 sales ( which you will see is a very effective way to stock up.)

Buy price list, this is a list u need to print and put in your binder, or beside your toilet. Where ever so you see it all the time. If u are spending more than what that list says you are paying too much. Say NOOO! Get comfortable with it, make it your best friend.

Once you are all set and ready to start getting the sales, there are a few ways you can do it.

Personally I am lazy, I want other people to do the hard work for me. AKA Internet :)

Greg likes to do it the old fashin way. AKA Reading the ads.

I go to my favorite wedsite Southern Savers. There she does all the hard work for you.

Click the store you wanna go to and she tells you whats on sale. If theres a coupon out there for it, and if there is where it is or how to get it.

She actually is amazing, and goes WAY more into detail, ( I mean it is her job). I have really learned everything I know from her. (Im a little obsessed) YES! I actually went to her class wednesday (Stalkerish?? NAHH)

Truth be told theres alot to it. Its a lot of work. Being a full time workin mom, I know! I will say though if you are commited you can do it, just like me and the thousands of others out there.

There were many times that I started couponing, and I just couldnt get it. This time was different for me casuse I had someone to push me to kep going.

I will go more into the sales and stuff next time. So keep an eye out :)

Thanks for joining us in this journey we call life.

... a glimpse of hope!!

Ever since my girl was a wee tiny thing she has never really looked anything like me. Them gallardo gene's must be potent. I mean its serious!

The only thing alyssa ever "had" and believe me it was very momentarially was some red hair when she first came out..

Yup, that was it! That was all I had, and it was only for a few weeks too.

See attached happily married photo pic:

She looks just like him, always has...

Well looks like those days are over folks!

My girl now has a piece of me..

who cares if its a SMALL piece



Yup, you guess it!

its FRECKLES!!!

Have a great day, I sure am!

Thanks for joining us in this journey we call life.

Hello July!

I can NOT believe, OK maybe I can  that half of 2011 is gone already.

This woman has got to get down to business on her 101. I have lots of slacking to catch up on.

Slacker RIGHT here!

(Raises her had a waves vigorously)

Life's not slowing down at all really, Seems to be only growing and growing. (that's what she said)! HA OK anyways. So lemme give u a down low on whats been going on with me and my little life.

My girl is now 3 1/2, and boy is she such of a sassy little girl. This parenting this is a beautiful mess isn't it? I just love it to pieces. Evey morning she wakes up and comes and cuddles with me for about 5-10 mins, and its like "our" time for the day. She now tells me what she wants to wear and dresses her self. She writes her name, and loves to learn and write more and more every day.

We have had to extend bedtime. We never had a problem with the time change until this summer. Since she wakes up at ya know, the ass crack of dawn 6:45, we decided that it wont hurt her to go to bed at nine, when shes good and tired. I tried 8:30 but she was still tossing and turning and finding excuses to come out her room. So nine has been working great. She loves to go swimming and going to the beach this year.

My darling "very teenage" sister had come to send the summer with us like usual, and for that we were soo very excited about. Come to find out she wanted to make this situations a little more PERMANENT. EKK

HECK YES??

Getting to have a real relationship with her again, I think so!

Getting to watch her and help her grow into a beautiful, and amazing young lady, I think so!

Getting to help her get a first job and help her through her senior year, I think so!

(this could go on and on)

Needless to say we are all so excited. Not only for our family to grow bigger, but for us to all be together. I can have my sister again FINALLY! Alyssa can have her aunt ( cause she just adores her aunt Kala not really sure why, ha ha JK), and Greg looks to her like his little sister. Its all just lovely.

Greg and I, we are doing just lovely! We have had our ups and down, but quickly realized that we are good for each other. I don't know if we have ever been better.

So that's that, were going to be moving soon to accommodate that very teenager darling sister of mine. Bigger place, means another room to decorate. Maybe this time I will actually blog about that decorating process. Only if I was as good as the lovely YHL, or BPB. They are amazing and rock my socks.

Hope everyone is having a lovely day, thanks for joining us in

this journey we call life.

.... thats it, I am admit it!

I am a Couponer!

and I LOVE IT!

I have found a new hobby, and its couponing. I have tried it several times before and didnt really understand. I finally get it now. It a hobby that takes patience, dedication, research, and def lots of orgainzation and time.

Its awesome, Greg and I do it as a team we do it together. We both have very strong points, and doing it this way makes it much easier on the both of us. We have gotten pretty dern handy with it too. I remember our first trip, we probley spend a hour in walgreens trying our hardest to get eveeything together and figure it out. Now we make our list get everything together and were in and out in a flash.

Its still a learning process. We still often sometimes make mistakes, but for the most part we have almost messed up all you can mess up. lol

A few people have asked me to blog a little about it, so I will often write a few post here on my blog, maybe about how I got started, or whatever I feel like writing that day. And we will see how it goes.

Im gonna attach a few pics of my couponing lately.

this is my binder :) This is manly my baby, I take good care of her and although it takes a little less time to cut and stuff them, it makes a world of a difference at the stores.

Our first trip

$32.00

$1.68

$9.50

$1.23

 $13.39

$5.71 

$6.84

 

This isnt everything, but its some of my best.

 

Keep in toon for some more saweet deals :)

 

Thanks for joining us in this journey we call life.