Education vs Coupons

Did I happen to mention that with my special education degree from a 4 year college, I get paid a whopping $8.92 per hour to work full-time in a special ed class over at the high school... and that the "head sweeper" gets paid $2 more per hour that me? Well, if I didn't happen to mention that, then I am mentioning it now.

As I was sitting here fuming over my hourly wage while trying to figure out all the great deals for my WSA (Weekend Shopping Extravaganza), I was realizing that I could possibly make more money shopping than I can working!!!!!!!!! Now there is really something wrong with that, isn't there? I mean, I can make some fairly good money this weekend by purchasing Poptarts, Rice Krispy Treats, Robitussin, and Crest Mouthwash. I can add to my stockpile of snack, self-care products, and my bank account all at the same time.

They say "Money can't buy happiness". That may be true for some people (myself NOT included! LOL), however I'm lovin' my new mantra: "Coupons can buy money"!!

The "don't"s of being me.

I was raised Mormon, in the heart of the Mormon capitol of the world... UTAH!

Just some basic info: we don't have horns, or more than one wife (and certainly not more than one husband!!! lol), and we all don't have 10 kids and one on the way!! We do get married in the temple, but there is nothing WEIRD that goes on in there... and don't ask me what DOES go on in there, cuz i can't tell you or I'd have to kill you... or baptize you. We don't think there are only a certain number of people who get in to heaven, and we don't think Joseph Smith is Jesus Christ! We don't have a bible that is any different from the King James version (which is the one we use), and we don't drink and don't smoke, but we do eventually have... well, you know... the "S" word but only after we are married. LOLOLOL

We do try to live by the Golden Rule, but it usually doesn't seem to work very well.
We do not drink coffee, but we do try to buy all the Diet Coke that we can possibly fit in our minivans using FACEBOOK coupons. (Well, ok, that part is just about me...)
We do send our 19yr old sons away for 2 years to be missionaries somewhere in the world... but I haven't.
We don't get divorced... but I did.
We don't want moms to work outside of the home... but I do.
We don't swear... but I do that too.
We don't gamble... but I only do that if I go through Vegas.

Gee... I'm not a very good Mormon, am I?

Tide watch and the Couponami of 2008

I have found that my mom and I have something in common. We like to watch Tide. There is a big difference though - I like to watch the price of the Tide that washes clothes and leaves them with a nice clean scent. She however, likes the kind that washes up and back on the beach each day, and tends to leave little particles of dead fish or sea life that stink when the sun comes out and evaporates the water.

My mom is (and I have only discovered this in the last 4 days) a beach FREAK!! She is obsessed with watching and getting info on tides - high tides, low tides, slack tides, etc. She knows way too much about "seaglass", and has all sorts of off-the-cuff information about driftwood and agates. The knowledge comes out in spurts at odd times - like when we are walking along the beach looking for shells, and she just happens to mention that the sun sets 30 seconds later everyday, while the moon's difference each day is 24 minutes - and that is what effects tides. OK then... ""Do you know the price of Hillshire Farms lunch meat when using a Facebook Coupon?" I ask. Or in keeping with the topic, "can you tell me perhaps where Tide WITH bleach is on sale this week, and where I can go to get my $.75 coupon doubled?"

Here is a favorite of mine: We are sitting quietly in the front room of the beach house early in the morning, peacefully looking out the picture windows, when she pipes up with "This area is an earthquake zone, which makes it ripe for a Tsunami." I chuckle as I realize I just experienced the likes of a Tsunami in my own little world of Freebieland. I'll aways remember the great Couponami of 2008 - aka Facebook Fiasco.

Making connections, or NOT!

Ok, I'm one of those people who used to listen to songs when I was younger and could sing along with all the words, but had no idea what the song was about. Know what I mean? The last few times I have heard some of those songs from my teenage years, I have finally realized what naughty lyrics were in there! Some of the songs from "Grease" for instance.

Anyway, I got a good deal on milk and the new Honey Bunches of Oats cereal the other day. So today I was sitting here eating my "good deal" for breakfast and thinking how nice it was to not have any flakes of cereal in my bowl, when it occurred to me that it is called "JUST BUNCHES" for a reason!

La La La... or is it Duh Duh Duh?!

The Coupon Addiction

I wanted to SHOOT myself last night. I had planned for about 5 hours yesterday (ya, it takes me that long cuz I am coupon-disabled) exactly what, where, and how to get some great deals at Rite Aid. I had those P&G coupons that expired on the 31st of July, so I wanted to use them.

After a late dinner at my parents' home, I hung around the kitchen and chatted with my mom for a little while, then at 8:50pm after the kids were settled, I left for my BIG trip. I peacefully (read: no kids in van) drove the 8 min it takes to get to "the corners" where Rite Aid is on one corner, and Walgreen's is the other. Convenient, to be sure! I pulled in to the Rite Aid parking lot with butterflies in my stomach at the thought of all the deals I was going to get, and was happily surprised to see that there were only two cars in the lot - "lucky me" I thought, "I'll have the whole place to myself!" It was then that I noticed the store lights were rather dim. A closer look at the big red sign on the door allowed me to see the hours of operation which included a closing time of 9:00pm. I looked at my digital clock - 9:00pm ARGH!!!

I gotta admit that the amount of time wasted getting everything together earlier in the day, and the amount of money wasted by being late (which made the now-expired coupons worthless), held no candle to the amount of self I wanted to get wasted for being so DUMB!

'Course since I'm a good non-drinkin', non-smokin', church goin' gal, my only vice in the "wasting" catagory was to head home and take an Ambien from my stash of pills - the one thing I can seem to keep in stock! (That would be a big to my parents who spent time enough in India to get a year's supply for me for $40. Now THAT is a deal!! Didn't even have to use a coupon! )

While I may be shopping-challenged and seem to have a difficult time when it comes to figuring out what is a good deal and what is a great deal, by golly I DO know what time Rite Aid closes, and I'll never forget it!

...I'm off to take another Ambien... just for good measure!

I Feel Pretty...

You thought this was going to be about a musical, right? "I Feel Pretty" from West Side Story. Yep, I knew it. Well, I'm sorry to say that this is not about a musical - unless there is some musical about my life out there. No, this is about how dumb I feel after getting up in church today and RAMBLING on about stuff I was thinking about.

According to the unwritten rules of The Church, I was supposed to get up there and say the things that I was thinking/feeling that would make everyone feel good and spiritual. Well, I somehow missed reading those unwritten rules this morning before going to church, and well, I just kinda went round in circles about things that DIDN'T make everyone feel good and spiritual. In fact, I think they kinda made people feel guilty - which I did NOT want to do! (Maybe guilty is not the right word, but maybe I don't want anyone to feel sorry for me, so guilty is the next worst alternative that they could feel.)

What did I say? Well, I'm not exactly sure. See, there was a little girl in our ward who had a tumor on her brain that they just found last Monday. She ended up having surgery and all is well, so her parents got up and thanked everyone for their prayers & fasting & thoughts & food & etc. While thinking about that story, I started relating the physical problems she had to the spiritual problems that someone very close to me is having. (I won't mention names, because the person I am thinking of has a name that starts with a Z, and that is at the end of the alphabet... and it will take too long to... um... do something, blah, blah, blah!) Perhaps I took my Adderall too late this morning, or it could be that I am on some manic high at the moment, but whatever the reason, I just starting thinking too deeply or too widely and decided that I wished that there were a way for me to take my baby to the doctor and to get some surgery to remove the spiritual tumor that has been growing as of late. So... THAT is what I got up and said. Amid tears, mind you. I said that I wished someone could bring me dinner, or that I could send out an e-mail asking for help in his behalf, but that I didn't feel like I could. (Then I quickly said "please, don't bring me dinner!" - which was even dumber of me to say! lol) All in all, I suppose the thing that came across was that there are spiritual needs (not just mine) that are actually much worse in the long run than a brain tumor (which is NOT what I feel really - because a tumor in a child is pretty much HORRIBLE!), and we don't seem to give those problems nearly the same amount of attention or thought or action as a ward or as a group of friends.

I guess that is what came across, because I have already had three people talk to me about what I said. Two gave me hugs, and one called me to thank me for saying what I said. Please, not PITY! I hope it is not out of PITY! I don't want to take away attention from anyone! I just have a problem that I don't know how to handle. I want some help - and I don't know how to ask for it, and I don't know what to ask for. I don't know how to fix this problem.

Somehow I think I may have said things that will offend people - especially the parents of the little girl. Oh how I wish I would have said NOTHING.

My cup runneth over... or leaketh

Ok, so one of my BFFs (yes, I have more than one, but don't tell THEM!) sent this little cutsie story to me about hot chocolate and the cup, blah blah blah. I really don't like those things cluttering my inbox, but I actually liked this one! So, here it is (a little chopped up to make it shorter) for all (me) to read:

A group of graduates decided to go visit their old university professor. The conversation soon turned to complaints about stress in their work and lives. The professor went into his kitchen and returned with a large pot of hot chocolate and an assortment of cups - porcelain, glass, crystal, some plain looking, some expensive, some exquisite - telling his former students to help themselves to the hot chocolate.

When they all had a cup of hot chocolate in hand, the professor said, "Notice that all the nice looking, expensive cups were taken, leaving behind the plain and cheap ones. While it is normal for you to want only the best for yourselves, that is the source of your problems and stress. The cup that you're drinking from adds nothing to the quality of the hot chocolate. In most cases it is just more expensive and in some cases even hides what we drink. What all of you really wanted was hot chocolate, not the cup; but you went for the best cups... and then you began eyeing each other's cups.

Here is the lesson: Life is the hot chocolate; your job, money and position in society are the cups. They are just tools to hold and contain life. The cup you have does not define, nor change the quality of life you have.


See, I want to have a nicer cup - one with four big wheels, and a Toyota or Lexus insignia on the back, but the reality is that I don't have the ability to buy anything nicer than a plastic cup from IKEA, or a paper cup from Walmart. The important thing to remember is that any cup (as long as it is clean) is ok for me to use to savor my hot choco. Let's see if I can take this further... um, ya, I can savor my hot cho-co-lah-tay in a paper cup on the beach if I want to, right? I can take my cup anywhere! I mean, imagine the small paper cup with the hot stuff in it (wax melting on the outside) cruising on a Disney cruise ship out in the Caribbean. Ya ya, that's it!

Wait... I think I have gone overboard (no pun intended). I guess the whole idea of this story is that we are supposed to look INSIDE of the cup, right? We all have the same good stuff on the inside, we just "get" to enjoy it from different holders. Ok, so I need to enjoy it no matter what the cup looks like. But, I can still want to take the cup somewhere fun, right?

Is sarcasm always negative? Is negative always bad? Isn't it funny sometimes?

Eeek, now the "cup half full" scenario comes to mind, which means that the hot chocolate story can be taken even further. BUT... I am going to stop. I have to continue to figure out how to use a database (see previous post).