Quote by Harry S. Truman "No one in the world can take the place of your mother."
Friday Night In...........West Fork?
That's right ladies and gentlemen, a night out on the town.
My wonderful Mom has been staying with us for two weeks and tonight is her final Friday Night in Winslow before she goes home to Tulsa. We've had a great time hanging out, playing board games, and one day last week we even got all gussied-up and went to Fayetteville, Mom got her hair done and we had our pictures taken together, and then we went and had a nice lunch.
Anyway, we figured since it was Mom's last night visiting us, we'd take her into West Fork to this amazing pizza place we know, Jake's Pizza. Honest to goodness, the best damn pizza I've ever had. When we first went there a couple of years ago, we expected it to be just some hole in the wall place with just so-so food. We were so wrong!
Mom's been there before with us, but it's not like there's anywhere to eat in Winslow on a Friday night. It was a beautiful evening for a little road trip, and the pizza, as always, was to die for.
After dinner we came home and played some Yahtzee and Mom kicked both our asses, repeatedly!
Goodnight all!
Just for fun:
Weekly shopping trip: Bought $39.30 worth of stuff, but after coupons and sales: Spent $28.80 out of pocket!
Quote by Winston Churchill "Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But, it is perhaps, the end of the beginning."
It was Friday night, it's Winslow, my mom is on holiday (staying with us for two weeks), and what else you ask? The flippin' power goes out!
That's right, the power was out!
Damon and I of course immediately went into survival mode. Living out in Winslow, if the power is out for more than an hour, it usually means it's going to be a couple of days before we get it back.
Damon and I immediately began discussing using our little Coleman camp stove to make dinner for the night, on the front porch, because it was raining kittens and pups, or Damon offered the option of him cooking up a couple pounds of cheeseburgers and hot dogs in his rain coat, so we could eat for the next couple of days. Alternatively, Damon had the thought that we could just eat cold leftovers from the fridge until the power came back on. Mom and I weren't too excited about that prospect, after a quick review of what leftovers we had on hand. Cold Sweet and Sour Chicken over rice and cold Amish Stew.
Damon of course, was more in survival mode than us and was perfectly content to wing it for the night, until he could get the generator up and running to keep our deep freeze and fridge running. In the end, we each ended up cobbling something together on our own and at different times. Mom was smart, she ate a sandwich before it got dark. Only thing I did before dark was have a drink or two and gather up the candles and flashlights. We did get in a couple rounds of the board game "SORRY" before it got dark, and I am very sad to say that Damon won both games! I was sure if I didn't kick his ass, mom would, but no such luck!
After a drink or two, I started feeling a little hungry and it was dark but we had lots of candles going. I decided I just wanted to nibble on things throughout the night, so I got myself a dinner roll and stuck it on the end of the plastic knife and held it over a candle. That's right ladies and gentlemen, I heated a dinner roll and even melted some butter over a candle in my living room. I actually had two... and they tasted great!
Damon ended up waiting much later and braved the cold meatloaf. This is no big surprise, he doesn't have a problem with cold food. I on the other hand want to eat my food piping hot and often don't partake in leftovers unless of course I can nuke them!
Until next time......
Just for fun:
Weekly shopping trip: Bought $56.54 worth of stuff, but after coupons and sales: Spent $24.04 out of pocket!
Quote by Albert Einstein "A person who never made a mistake, never tried anything new."
So it is another Friday in the small town of Winslow, Arkansas and what do we have to do? Well we looked at our calendar and it appears as though the only thing we have scheduled is to pull up one of the red onions we planted awhile ago.
Party time in Winslow, right!
Seriously, we planted some veggies in big flower pots on our balcony about a month ago, and the tops of the onions have grown so much that, in my mind, there is no way that these onions need another month to grow like the package said, they have got to be full grown already!
So, fortunately my mom and sister are in town for a visit and we talked and talked about the veggies we're growing, showing off our green thumbs, that we took them out to the balcony after dinner, in our almost finished dining room, and we were so excited! I pulled up one of our onions and what to my surprise........
I seriously think the fucking thing is smaller than when we planted the damn bulb!
Oh well, we do have about three Roma tomatoes making great progress and at least five jalapeno peppers coming in! No red bell peppers yet, and apparently we've killed the onions or they really do need another month. Who knows... we are newbies at this!
Just for fun:
Weekly shopping trip: Bought $17.78 worth of stuff, but after coupons and sales: Spent $12.48 out of pocket!
Quote by Robert Frost "By working faithfully eight hours a day you may eventually get to be a boss and work twelve hours a day."
So this week has been the craziest!! I have spent the entire week planning for a graduation for my students at work. In addition to this, I've had to do my everyday work. It's been busy, stressful, and down right exhausting.
But, tonight was the big night. We had our graduation and everything went really well. This was only the second year of the program but this year's graduation went so much smoother. I'm glad it's over though, now I can focus on getting ready for next year, but not tonight.
It's 8PM and I am finally done with work for the week! Damon helped with graduation, taking pictures and filming the event so when we got back home to Winslow, we poured a glass of wine and planted ourselves on the couch and got comfy. We looked through the pictures and reveled in the fact that everything went so well. We stayed up relatively late just chatting and sipping wine. The perfect end to an entirely too stressful week!
Just for fun:
Weekly shopping trip: Bought $68.39 worth of stuff, but after coupons and sales: Spent $44.39 out of pocket!
Quote by Charles Darwin "A man who dares to waste one hour of time has not discovered the value of life."
Yet another Friday Night in little old Winslow. We decided to spend the night getting caught up on some movies that we had rented and have yet to watch.
First, "Lawless". I don't know why we even rented this movie. I tend to just pick movies to rent based on who is in them, and most of the time I don't even bother watching a preview or reading the description. Of course, I pick movies with actors I've seen before and know of, assuming that if they are a halfway descent actor, then the movie will be worth watching. "Lawless" had a couple of known actors, but when I picked it the only person I knew of was Shia LaBeouf. I'm not saying that it was the best movie ever, but it was definitely worth watching! It was much better than I thought it would be, especially after such a slow start. Overall, if you haven't seen it and are looking for something to rent, I say give it a try.
The second movie we watched was "Battleship". I know, I know.... Hollywood has absolutely no original ideas left in their strung out heads BUT, I actually kinda got into it. I didn't want to like it, Damon and I were in no hurry whatsoever to watch it, but we actually didn't mind it as much as we thought we would. Sure it was just another action flick, but it had some pretty good scenes. Again, I rented this because of Liam Neeson was in it, I was sad that he was hardly even in the movie, but I didn't walk away feeling like I had just gave away two hours of my life that I would never get back. I have definitely had that feeling about movies before.
All in all, a simple evening at home, just hanging out and watching movies!
Just for fun:
Weekly shopping trip: Bought $18.90 worth of stuff, but after coupons and sales: Spent $10.90 out of pocket!
Quote by William Shakespeare "Nothing is so common as the wish to be remarkable."
Yet again, a Friday night getting ready for a Saturday! Damon has something in store for me for my birthday and hasn't even given me any hints!
It's something local I'm sure, but that's totally awesome to me. We've been living in Arkansas for almost three years now and we've yet to explore much of anything! I'm looking forward to whatever it is, a day of not working, volunteering, or remodeling the house is always a good day! Plus it's for my birthday and everyone needs a day to be about them every once in awhile.
I've been truly blessed to have had more than one day of celebrating my birthday. I've already had a birthday out of town with friends, one in Tulsa with family, and one when Damon pampered me on my actual birthday date (Monday the 29th) by making me breakfast in bed, letting me lay around all day watching Jimmy Stewart movies, and making me an awesome steak dinner, and now I get to look forward to this weekend that Damon has cooked up to celebrate my birthday yet again!
I'm thankful for everything I have, including my great family and friends.
Just for fun:
Weekly shopping trip: Bought $40.07 worth of stuff, but after coupons and sales: Spent $28.42 out of pocket!
Quote by Mark Twain "Age is an issue of mind over matter. If you don't mind, it doesn't matter."
So it's Friday night and we've got a trip to Tulsa to get ready for. We're going to have a picnic in Tulsa with my family for my birthday and are going to do a winery tour in a nearby town.
We're doing a picnic so Damon is busy making fresh bread and I'm running around the house trying to get everything packed. Once we finish, we'll make a quick dinner and settled in on the couch to finally watch Django Unchained!
Just for fun:
Here is a comparison of just how much difference couponing can make. This is a comparison of all food and household items we purchased over 2011 and 2012 (when I started couponing):
|
2011 |
2012 |
Actual Savings: |
Percetage: |
| January |
$405.00 |
$335.00 |
$70.00 |
17.3% |
| February |
$450.00 |
$309.00 |
$141.00 |
31.3% |
| March |
$338.00 |
$332.00 |
$6.00 |
1.8% |
| April |
$270.00 |
$327.00 |
-$57.00 |
-21.1% |
| May |
$411.00 |
$226.70 |
$184.30 |
44.8% |
| June |
$274.00 |
$242.00 |
$32.00 |
11.7% |
| July |
$446.00 |
$193.00 |
$253.00 |
56.7% |
| August |
$335.00 |
$218.00 |
$117.00 |
34.9% |
| September |
$338.00 |
$232.00 |
$106.00 |
31.4% |
| October |
$516.00 |
$175.00 |
$341.00 |
66.1% |
| November |
$341.00 |
$259.00 |
$82.00 |
24.0% |
| December |
$436.00 |
$292.00 |
$144.00 |
33.0% |
