Today finds me enjoying the peace and quiet; youngest son is playing a video game, middle son left for work, husband’s at work. It’s just the cat and I and he’s ‘eyeing’ my huge ball of yarn while I attempt to make it into a hand-wound manageable ball or two. He pounced, once…just once, before I let out a yell. It seems his pounce was more than just a pounce…a little later on I discovered a wet ‘end’ where he not only pounced, but bit! Oh well…such is the excitement of a bored house kitty.
Outside it’s cold (in the 20’s) but sunny; almost all of our snow has melted. I noticed that we’ve lost the huge mounds of snow/ice that seemed to be at the entrance/exits of all driveways, be they your own house driveway or somewhere at a store. The down side of that is: we’re under another “Winter Snow Warning” and they’re predicting 5-7 inches between 7 a.m. and 7 p.m. tomorrow…oh, joy (sigh). You’d think I’d be more than used to this, having lived in glorious Michigan all my life. How I’m longing for my favorite time of year: Spring!
What’s new around here, you ask? I’m winding the yarn to begin another baby afghan. We’re in the planning stages of putting together a fund raiser for my special needs group. Our idea is a “Baked Potato Dinner & Silent Auction”. In years past we’ve done donated ‘baskets’ and raffled them off. This time we thought a silent auction might be fun, all items being donated. I’m thinking of doing a “Baby Shower” basket: knit afghan and several baby hats, teething ring, perhaps a beginning baby care book, baby wipes…you know – all the stuff you’d stick in a baby shower gift, except in a basket! In years past we’ve had some really cute ones: “Movie Night” with popcorn, candy, big bottles of pop, several movies; “Tea Time” with various teas, tea biscuits, a china cup (or 2), some nice candy (also “Coffee Time”, same idea); “Italian Dinner” with pastas, sauces, bread sticks, red checked dinner napkins, pasta ‘fork’, all sorts of things to go with that theme. You get the idea: baskets made on a theme. It’s fun trying to think up ideas; we’ve done a “Mexican Fiesta” basket, “Games”, “Gone Fishing”, “Bath Time”…the list goes on and on. I thought the idea of the Baked Potato Dinner was an interesting one; a friend in my knit group said her church had that along with a movie. In our case it would be the baked potatoes and all the things you could put on top, for instance: shredded cheese, chili, sour cream, shredded bacon bits, chopped onion, chopped green pepper, etc. I remember back in the early 70’s there were small places in malls around here that only featured baked potatoes and all the ‘works’ – it was a kitschy idea and worked, for awhile.
Last night was our Ladie’s Fellowship at church and the theme was “Frugality in the 21 st Century”. You asked if I would pass on any tips I learned: mostly it revolved around cutting coupons and doubling their worth by combining them with a ‘in store’ special, thus more than doubling the total savings. Also, making use of a particular drug store’s savings program (like CVS, Rite-Aid, or WalGreen’s) along with using coupons in conjunction with those deals. One area I hadn’t really investigated much was ON LINE coupon companies. There are several available which are FREE to join and will help you organize your savings:
(I am not endorsing these, as I’ve really not checked them out, but they came recommended.)
The one site which was recommended which does have a cost for membership, was:
This site ‘is great for quickly matching up store sales and coupons in your area”. They have a 4 week trial package for $1, after that the cost is $10 for 8 weeks (per store you list) and $5 for each additional store.
I’m really into trying to save money, but sometimes all this ‘effort’ seems more of an EFFORT than it’s worth. I might check out a few of the sites, but in general, I’m probably just going to stay doing what I already do: match up coupons with stores and their featured savings for the week. I already shop 3 grocery stores in my local area, plus one drug store for cleaning & drug store products, so I don’t foresee me doing much more. Perhaps YOU will find a savings in the above sites that will help you!
That’s about all that’s going on around here at the moment. I’m just glad that my week is finally winding down; it was nice to be able to go and do all the events I mentioned in an earlier post, but today I’m just glad to stay home and knit, read and catch up. Dinner is leftovers (homemade beef pot pie) , so even THAT is easy! .
Enjoy your day!
Hugs;
Pammie
Pammie's Place 
I hope your quiet day was fruitful. The baked potato thing sounds really interesting. It should to be a very popular activity for your organization. A picture would be great to give us an idea of how it came out. Also I hope all is back to normal with the off springs.