Shopping for FREE!

As I said earlier, I had to make a return trip to CVS because they were out of what I was looking for. Well, here it is, my super duper, great deal from CVS.

I paid $10 and some change for this, got back 5ECB and submitted a $5 rebate for the Windex and Pledge. Now, I admit I'm not great at math, but it looks like to me that this stuff is ultimately FREE. Awesome!

Jason keeps asking if I'm going to rent a booth at the jockey lot to sell some of this stuff that I'm getting because that's the first thing I noticed when we were there last week - much of the stuff, retail-wise, that people were hocking was the stuff that I get for free at CVS. Isn't that funny!

I Get It Honest

When I was a little girl, my mom had a "refunding room". This was a hot, windowless room off of our garage that smelled of must and old paper. She kept old diaper boxes full of receipts, UPCs, and labels in there. She also subscribed to a magazine called "Refunding Makes Cents", and would regularly soak the labels off of orange juice bottles so that she could send them in for refunds.

Well, I have to admit, my name is Alicia, and I'm addicted to refunding and couponing. I thought when I was little that my mom was kind of weird for doing all these things, but in the past six months, I've found that I too cut the UPCs off of items and mail them in for refunds. To be honest, the refunds these days are a bit sweeter than they were when my mom was doing it, and it's kind of a high to walk out of a store knowing that you saved more than you spent.

Here's a picture of how I did today. CVS - my favorite store!- was out of a few things that I wanted, so I've got to go back, but I did okay.



This stuff is from both Walgreens and CVS. I spent $40.61, saved $53.16, still have 2ECB to spend when I go back, and the Aveeno stuff will be sent in for a $10 rebate. That shakes out to $28.61 for this stuff. I also bought 4 Sunday papers and 1 20oz coke. Not too bad, huh?

Oh, and as a side note, for those of you who steal the inserts out of the Sunday paper without buying it, you're breaking the 9th commandment. I'm just saying. That really irritates me. 3 of the 4 papers didn't have the RedPlum insert, which is the one I needed. UGH!

Okay, how do you save?

That Paula Deen

We've had a busy two days around the Looper house. Jason's on vacation this week, and since we didn't go anywhere for a formal vacation, we've been finding "adventures" to go on locally. I'll post pictures later, but so far we've been to the Greenville Zoo, the flea market/sale barn (whatever you'd like to call it), to Clemson to visit Aunt Heidi and we're going to informally celebrate birthdays with some of our very best friends tonight. To put this into perspective, I laid down with Jake on our bed last night around 8:30 just to calm him down and get him to go to sleep and Jason woke me up at midnight to tell me to go to bed. It's just too hot to be running around like this, but Abby's had a blast, so it's all good.

Anyway, the real reason for this post is to tell you about a fantastic lemonade recipe I stumbled upon. I kind of altered it, but that's what cooking is, right, a great big experiment in the kitchen?

I don't go to the flea market often, mainly because it's hot and dusty and smoky, and well you get the point, but we went this morning because it had been years since Jason or I had been. Jason said that you could have driven him out there this morning and told him he'd been transported to 1989, and he wouldn't have known the difference, and I would agree. People were still hocking junk, food, chickens, rabbits, dogs, Atari's, you get the picture.

BUT, they do sell amazing produce at the flea market, and that's where I got suckered in. We bought lemons, key limes, peppers, squash and zucchini. Tomorrow night we're feasting on roasted veggies and maybe pork chops (or chicken, whatever is on sale).

Once I got the lemons home, I had to make lemonade; that's what you do with lemons, right? Unless you're Kelly on The Real Housewives of New York then you might make lemons out of lemonade, but I digress.

I found a recipe by Paula Deen, cut it in half and added a few key limes, and let me say, it was wonderful.

Here it is. Let me know if you like it as much as we do.

1 cup sugar
1/2 cup hot water
1 cup lemon juice (I used 5 lemons and 2 key limes - be sure to strain it)
1/2 gallon water (I mixed water and ice cubes to cool it down quicker)

Direction: Dissolve sugar in hot water in a half gallon pitcher. Add lemon juice. Stir until mixed. Add cold water and ice. Serve. (Yields 1/2 gallon)

Super yummy!

Father's Day Weekend and Twins?

Ahhhh...has that title intrigued you?

No, we're not having twins (or any other baby right now), but we did make a trip to Hagood Mill on Saturday with a friend of ours and his two kids. Ed's little boy was born at the beginning of March (you'll remember Jake was born the end of December), and we had them both in the double stroller. We had no less than 4 people come up to us saying how sweet our twins were. I guess the real problem was that Ed's wife was working, so I was the only mom there.



Now, look at this picture and tell me that these two boys look like twins. I know they're about the same side, but Jonathan is part Navajo, and Jake is as lily-white as they come (a trait he got from me).



Abby's BEST FRIEND EVER (at that moment) Nathanael was there. They gorged on funnel cake and pig petting.

On Father's Day we had the whole family over for lunch because Jake was dedicated. I'm waiting on pictures from that because my camera didn't do a good job getting pictures.


Here's Jason's family


And this is my family.


Finally, Abby wrote her first word on my dad's Father's Day card, and it couldn't have been more appropriate.

A few pictures

Now I'm a realist, and I realize that most of you don't read this blog to hear about my spiritual breakthroughs and listen to my ramblings. Instead, many of you use this as a way of keeping up with the two precious children who live in my house.

That's why for the rest of this blog, I'm not going to say anything; instead, I'm going to post some pictures of the angels and let you enjoy them.

Looking Up!

Yesterday we were hit with some wicked thunderstorms in Pickens, and as I type this I hear thunder rolling again outside. I'm not a huge fan of thunderstorms. Jason and I got married in March and at the beginning of April that year we had a horrible thunderstorm/tornado come through town. I was in my car headed home after having lunch with a friend, and I've never been so scared in my life. Add to that that Jason and I lived in an old, old farmhouse when we first married, and said house was right across the street from some railroad tracks. Everytime it stormed, lightening would pop off the railroad tracks and make our whole house shake. That was the end of my love affair with thunderstorms.

I remember being a teenager and sitting, watching the lightening dance in the distance and the thunder roll through the sky. Not anymore. Now I curl up and pray for it to pass.

That being said, we were at Pizza Inn when this monster came through. My sister-in-law said that on the doppler it was purple over Pickens, and for those of you unfamiliar with WYFF4's radar system, that means we were in the midst of quite the storm. Think of poor Dorothy and Toto as their house went flying through the air. My dad said the hail was the size of softballs.

Anyway, after it was over, Jason and I had to head to the hospital to visit a family member, and as we drove, we saw trees across the roads and debris everywhere, but up in the sky was a double rainbow, almost a full arc. It was amazing. These pictures are ones that Jason took.

And you know what I realized, if I was looking up at the rainbow, I couldn't look at all the debris and trash on the roads. I wonder if that is why God placed that rainbow up so high when he put it there for Noah. Maybe Noah was overwhelmed with all the destruction that the flood had caused. Can you imagine, bodies everywhere, mud, everything that you knew gone? But when he looked up there was that beautiful, arching rainbow - God's promise.

We asked Abby what a rainbow meant, and she couldn't tell us, so I said, "A rainbow means that God will take care of us." And it's true, isn't it? God promised to never flood the earth again, and that ultimately means that he's going to care for us. He's going to bring some pretty hefty storms, but in the end there's an unfailing promise that He's going to take care of us. He'll never destroy that way again.

Praise him! Praise him.

Borrowed

Well, I didn't find my camera cord, but luckily my mom had a Kodak camera that went kaput so she let me borrow her cord so that I could get my pictures onto the computer.

I'm going to start with the kitchen remodel pictures since they are the ones that are first on the camera.

The remodel took us approximately 3 weekends. It was a complete success. We're still lacking a finished pantry, but we are surviving with a gray, metal shelf and a few boxes in the floor. Hopefully Jason will finish that phase while he's on vacation next week.


A bold color, don't you think?


No cabinet doors. It's amazing what a fresh coat of paint will do.


Much better.


This sink is cast iron and weighs approximately 500,000 lbs. Jason told me that it's not going ANYWHERE! I love it, so he may have to take it out when we leave this house, but shhhh don't tell him yet.


I was most worried about the tile, but Jason really did a great job with it.

We did this on a shoestring budget, but I am so very pleased with the end result.

Hmmm....

That cord has to be around here somewhere.

If you see it, please let me know.

I'd hate to have to buy a new one because we cleaned the desk off.

Oh well - summer school finishes next week. Oh happy day! Not that I haven't enjoyed my students; they have in fact been an absolute joy.

No, I'll be happy to not have to constantly check BlackBoard and reply to emails and look at discussion boards. You get the picture.

I'm just looking forward to sleeping past 6:00 a.m. and playing with my sweet babies.

Speaking of, Abby's asking that I come paint with her. She got one of those fantastic paint books that you use water to make the colors bleed together. She loves it, and I love it because it's only water.

Well, I'm off to paint!

Some Recommendations

Well, the elusive camera cord is still missing, so I thought that I would post what I've been reading lately. I suppose I could blame my lengthy absences in Bloggerville on the fact that I've been reading, but that just sounds a little weak. Regardless, since I've gotten my Nook, I've found it much easier to read.



I have to say that LOVE, LOVE, LOVE my Nook. I didn't think that I would get as much use out of it as I have, but it is easy to use and best of all, I can use it while I'm feeding Jake, which isn't true for a traditional book.

Anyway, since I've gotten it, I've been reading, reading, reading, which isn't always a good thing since I'm trying to teach two summer school classes, but the distraction is blissful sometimes.

Here's what I've read - all of them good. Let me know if you've read them and what you think.

Some Girls by Jillian Lauren


I saw this author on The View one morning. She writes her memoir about the time she spent in a harem for the prince of Brunei. It is a troubling account, but well worth the read. I have to warn you that she is a secular writer so the language is often vulgar.

The Help by Katheryn Stockett



This is Stockett's first book, and it is FANTASTIC! She chronicles three women living in the South - two black maids and one white middle-class woman. She talks about the struggles of African Americans during the time. I couldn't help but think about To Kill A Mockingbird while I was reading this book. I highly recommend it.

Son of Hamas by Mosab Hassan Yousef


This is not a typical read for me, but I noticed it on the top 100, and I couldn't resist. It is insightful and truly helpful for understanding what is going on in the Middle East.

Last - Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell



I am now addicted to this guy's writings. This particular book is about how epidemics begin. He discusses things like Sesame Street and Blues Clues and how those children's shows became so popular. He talks about why some things take off and why something flop. I think about Silly Bands every time I open the book. I fully intend to read his book Outliers next, which is about why some people are successful and others aren't. As a teacher, I've found this book most interesting.

Those are my suggestions so far. I'll let you know if I come across any other great reads.

Happy Summer!