Argh.... This woman drives me NUTS!!!!

Last night my mom and I went into my aunt's room to see if my shoes might have shown up in her room that I am needed for work. When my mom and I went into there she and I decided to look at her clothes hanging up in the closet because we were noticing that she has been wearing our clothes. When we looked in there we saw 5 to 10 of my shirts in there some of them I just bought a week or two ago. Then I also found that my brand new never been worn "when I lose 4 more inches jeans" were in her closet as well that she got out of my closet.
So this morning as I was exiting my bedroom and she was leaving the bathroom by my room she asked me if I happened to find her jeans in my room. I told her "no, but I found a lot of my clothes in your room". So we were argueing for about 5 minutes and she told me that we have a lot of the same clothes and they were hers. YA RIGHT!!! She later went to my mom and told her that I went into her room and took her clothes. My mom asked her "why would you have size 2x in your closet?".
Thankfully the woman hasn't talked to me all day. I couldn't be happier for that it has been a relatively quite day around the house with her not talking to me or really anyone for that matter. Maybe she will eventually move out and then I can really celebrate and through a party.
Excuse me for my unchristianly way of thinking but I don't appreciate someone taking my stuff and bold face lying to me and trying to turn the story around to make me seem like I am in the wrong.
Luckily, I will be away from the woman for a month and hopefully she will come to her senses and be moved out by the time I get back from Texas. It is a bittersweet trip to Texas, the good is I get away from her and the bad is that I will be away from my most wonderful son JJ. Talk to you all soon.

Fantastic News!

Jason and I have both found jobs! Yeah! Jason got a job that he started last week at one of the transmission/automotive shops that he seems to really enjoy thus far and is excited to be able to get to learn more in debt about transmissions.
I have found a job working for Quiznos as the Restaurant General Manager. It will require a lot of hours to be put in. However, I think that since I am the manager I will pretty much be able to dictate when I work and have a little bit more flexibility to be able to do stuff with my little family. The only part I am not really looking forward to that isn't really too bad is going to Texas for my training for three weeks. I am excited to go to Texas; however, I am nervous because I will be away from JJ for three weeks and I have never been away from him for more than a few hours.
After Jason and I get situated with our new jobs then we will hopefully be looking for a house to rent.
Other than that there is not a whole lot of other stuff going on except for way too much drama in the household mostly caused by one person in particular. This person does not think that they cause so much headaches for everyone and when this person is around it seems as though no one else can talk because this person never shuts their mouth.
Okay I am done with my little rant for now. :0)
I will definitely keep up with my blog and the progress of my training while I am in Texas.

Job outlook

So far Jason and I have not found jobs yet. I had an interview today that I thought went well for a General Manager position. I will hopefully find out this weekend or Monday. Jason still hasn't heard anything from any of the companies that he applied to. I know that if we put our trust in the Lord he will provide for us the perfect employement opportunity.
My interview today had a lot of difficult questions to answer that took a lot of thinking but I think that the interviewer and the owners were pleased with my answers. Please keep us in your prayers as we continue to find our perfect jobs.

Our Family 'mini' Vacation

Wednesday was Jason's 32nd birthday so we decided to take a little trip to Mesquite for two days with a coupon that we got in the Dixie Direct book for two free nights. When we first got there and I checked us in I asked the clerk if they had any specials for birthdays. They clerk told me they don't normally but to ask the other areas of the casino but he would give us a couple of things for us anyways. The clerk ended up giving us a bogo coupon for bowling and 100 tickets at the arcade. A few minutes later Jason went to the promotional counter and asked the same question and was able to get us each $5 on our cards.
The next morning when we got up we went to go get breakfast and got our meal for FREE, only paying the tip, by using our rewards card. In all we ended up spending around $100 for a family get away for two days mostly paying for food, bowling, the arcade and a little bit of gambling (only $40). It was a fun filled two days that I hope my husband will remember! I know JJ sure will because he got to go bowling for the first time.

Save $1569.50 in one year!

Today was a good day for us I only spent $4.55 and that was for some drinks. However, I think that I need to not buy drinks while we are out and instead bring the drinks with us. Think about how much money that is if I bought 5 dollars worth of drinks everyday for a year that would be $1,825! That is a lot of money! Instead I could drink water, koolaid, or some other drink that I could get cheap or even free with my coupons. Say koolade, which runs $.20 a pack on average plus the cost of sugar about $3.00 (I am not sure on cost just a guess) for a 5 lb. bag there are 10 servings in a 5 lb bag. Which equals out to $.50 per cup of sugar or .$70 for one 2 gallon of koolaid. If that pither of koolaid lasted my family of 3 one day we would spend $255.50 in one year. That would be a savings of $1569.50! That is without even thinking about using coupons to get a better deal on the koolaid.

"Dream" Home Sweet Home

Here is a picture of what our dream home looks like I have changed the layout a little from what the original plans had to better suite our needs. Jason and I would ended up doing majority of the work with lots of help from family and friends. I think that with time and a lot of patience (and of course money) we will be able to accomplish our goal. The house will probably be more then what our we have now for our goal but once we get into actually looking at the cost we can better accomidate that. Please be praying for us as we shoot toward this goal.

Our crazy life!

Hello everyone! A lot has been happening to us lately. Jason and I have finally gotten all of our stuff from North Carolina to Utah. Yay! Jason and I are both currently looking for jobs. I recently worked for Taco Time but left after getting offered another job elsewhere that ended up falling through, so I am once again actively looking. Jason has a few really good perspective jobs that we are crossing our fingers will work out for us.
I have decided that I am going to really work on Jason and I sticking to a strick budget so we can save up to build our dream home. We will start on little goals like paying off our current car loan allowing us to use that money to pay ourselves instead of someone else.
One of my other goals is to get back into couponing hardcore to help us get a really good stockpile of supplies and thus saving even more money.
I will try to update each week at least how our budget is going and our savings. The only bad thing is is that we are still trying to find a job so this will take a little bit to help us get going on the saving money part. However, I believe that God put this situation in front of us to try and help us better take care of our financial situation and to help us control our crazy spending.

The Latest Ross News

Wow! It has been a really long time since I have even visited my blog. There has been a lot of changes in our household since the last time I wrote anything. JJ is now 2 years and 5 months old and we have started the fun and ever so exciting task of potty training. I do think that we are progressing nicely with the whole potty training bit. He is saying several words now but his favorite seems to be truck and wheel. Do I see a future mechanic on my hands or what? If JJ finds any of daddys or Grandpa's tools laying around the house he will pick them up and will try to find something to use that tool with to either take something apart or put something together. We are now in the process of moving back to Utah from North Carolina to be closer to family. I started working again after not having worked for two years and I really do love my job. Jason is still in North Carolina waiting for our house to sale so that he can come join us here in Utah. We have been saying lots of prayers for a sale. I have included some new pictures of JJ so everyone can see how much he is growing.

JJ Models and New Pictures!

JJ had his first modeling gig last week you can check out the pictures at Chic it Baby. My mom and I also got new pictures of JJ taken last week at Sears they turned out sooooo cute! I just can't believe how big he is gettng it seems like I was just trying to get pregnant.

Jesus Loves You!

God showed his love for us when he sent his only Son into the world to give us life. Real love isn't our love for God, but his love for us. God sent his Son to be the sacrifice by which our sins are forgiven. 1 John 4:9-10

Free Money (I hope!)

I just signed up for this new thing that says you get paid to read your emails. I signed up for it today so I am not to sure if it is for real I will keep you updated though. For signing up I recieved $10 for free. If you sign up let me know how it goes.

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Harris Teeter Super Doubles!

I just heard yesterday that Harris Teeter will be doing super double coupons the week of June 24th. They will be doubling coupons up to 1.98 instead of the normal .99. That gives me about a week to start clipping and sorting my coupons out for the big event next week.

VBS this week

JJ and I have been attending VBS all this week. The kids are so cute. I am helping with the first graders and JJ gets to go play in the nursery with the other little ones. The theme this year for VBS is boomerang express- it all comes back to Jesus. I think that it is awesome being able to see the children learn about Jesus. I remember when I was in elementary school and got to attend VBS how much fun it was. I just hope that the children will learn a lot about Jesus and how much Jesus and God loves us.

My little boy is getting so BIG!

JJ is getting so big and his personallity is really coming out. First thing in the morning after I take him out of his crib he will run around the house and into mommy and daddy's bedroom and look to see if daddy might still be in bed. He will stand by the edge of the bed and will look and yell dadda. Several times I have gone into his room in the morning or after nap time to find JJ without a diaper on and he will be in the crib smiling and laughing.
JJ loves animals and when he see's an animal he will bark at the animal no matter what kind of animal it is. I am going to take JJ to the Lazy 5 Ranch in Mooresville (North Carolina) probably in two weeks. For those that don't live around here and now what the Lazy 5 Ranch is it is a place where the animals (zebras, pigs, peacocks, deer, ostriches, etc...) run around the park freely while you drive in your car or you can choose to do a hay ride and you can pet the animals and also feed the animals. My mom and I went a few days before JJ was born and had lots of fun. JJ and I will have to be careful not to feed the zebras because the get greedy and will try to steal the feed bucket out of your hands.
I am very happy that JJ is not a picky eater like his mom. JJ will eat anything that you put in front of his face. He will eat collard greens, beets, brussel sprouts, spinach, tomatoes, asparagas and lots of other stuff. The only thing he does not like that we have gave him is pickles and cantalope. I will keep trying with those though and we don't use the words "you don't like that".

I love couponing!

Harris Teeter has become one of my favorite grocery stores to shop at. It has been confirmed that they will be doing triple coupons again starting on the 27th of May. The only bad thing about them doing triples is that I have yet to get all of my coupons organized.
I buy 4 to 6 newspapers every week and it is hard to keep up with them all. The way that I do my coupons consume a lot of time to organize but it makes it easy when it comes time to go shopping. My coupons that I have cut are in a binder with baseball card holders as organizers then I have the coupons placed in the binder by location in the store so I have one section for beverages, medicines, refrigerated, frozen and misc. My refrigerated, frozen and misc are broken down even further. I have mini sections for each of those breads, cereals, cheese, meats, gum, etc. For the coupons that I haven't clipped yet I have a file folder system in place so I can still find my coupons easily.
On a positive note coupons save me and my family a lot of money. We went from spending 600 at the grocery store every two weeks plus more on going out to eat and extra stuff that we ran out of to spending 150 every two weeks for everything that is a shopping expense (cvs, wags, harris teeter, bilo, target, etc...). For example last night I went to bilo I purchased 10 bags of Knorr sides they were on sale 10 for 10 then bought 6 packages of bar s hot dogs. Total before hand would have been 16 dollars plus three dollars back to spend on your next trip (from the knorr/unilever deal) I had 5 coupons for the knorr that was .75 off of two knorr sides but bilo doubles coupons so that was 1.50 off of two bags of knorr. So I spent .25 cents on each bag of knorr sides then the hot dogs were 1.00 each and I had a coupon for 1.00 off of 2 packages making them .50 cents each.
After I get done with this next round of triples at Harris Teeter I will post a picture with price breakdown of my shopping trips and will also post a picture of my stockpile.
Yay for free or very cheap food.

Kmart Doubles First Trip

Kmart has been offering double coupons up to and including $2. I got some pretty good deals but could of gotten more if I was able to start out my shopping trips on Sunday when the deal started instead of Wednesday which is when I got home from my vacation to Utah. I have made two trips to Kmart thus far but I only have the one receipt with me because the other is in the car and my husband drove the car to work today. My first trip my total before coupons was 111.55 I spent 35.40 and saved 76.15!
Here is what I got:

• Soft Scrub Scrubby Pads - 4
• Can of Lysol Disinfectant - 1
• Lysol 2-in-1 Toilet Cling - 2
• Cascade Action Pacs (20) - 1
• Dawn Plus Hand Renew 19floz - 1
• Renuzit Renew - 5
• Lysol Bath Cleaner 4-in-1 - 1
• Lysol Toilet Bowl Cleaner - 4
• Pearl Scents Renuzit - 2
• Wet One's -5
• Febreze Air Effects - 5
• Air Wick Air Refresher -1
• Lysol Disinfecting Wipes -3
• Sparkle 3 pack Paper Towels -1

Now I guess I have no excuse not to clean my house

My trip to Utah

I just got back from my month long vacation in St. George, Utah. It was nice to be able to visit with my family and friends but I am happy to be home sleeping in my own bed. My trip didn't start off to well. I flew into Las Vegas from Charlotte and had a layover in Dallas/Ft. Worth, TX on American Airlines. The people in Dallas somehow lost my stroller when I gate checked it and left it at the location that they told me to leave it at. Then when I arrive in Las Vegas and they told me that my stroller was lost they asked me if I would like a wheelchair to use to haul around my carryon luggage and a 16 month old baby. Are you kidding me? How are they expecting me to manuever a wheelchair and a 16 month old at the same time. I flew into Vegas on the 17th of February and I still haven't seen my stroller or any compensation as of yet. Then while I was there JJ and I both got sick. We both had the flu and JJ got an ear infection and after I finally got rid of the flu I went to the ER with a bladder infection that moved into my kidneys and now I have the cold. What a month. Besides all the being sick and such I did have fun but am happy to be home.

My Grocery Savings This Week

I spent 15.73 on this transaction and saved 51.87

I paid 17.02 for all of this and saved 47.02 on this transaction

This was not actually 38.54 I didn't get credit for my coupons as

double or triples. The store refunded me 21.90 so I paid 16.64 for all of this

food and saved 44.21 on this order.

Harris Teeter offered triple coupons this weekend for up to 99¢ face value. I went to Harris Teeter a total of seven times I spent 200.74 but I saved 314.34 without my coupons and vic card I would have spent 515.08! The price that I actually paid also includes 6 gallons of milk (for one week- JJ and Jason drink a lot of milk), butter, 2 packages of bacon, sour cream, cheese and eggs which I did not have coupons for any of that. I am going to go to wal-mart and CVS tomorrow and see what kind of deals that I can find. I didn't take pictures of all the food that I bought but I have a few pictures that I took.

I am wore out!

In my attempt to get healthy Jason and I decided to buy a wii along with a wii fit. Let me tell you that thing is awesome! I worked out on that thing for an hour today and it was actually fun. My favorite exercise on the game is the step aerobics that is so much fun. After you unlock a couple of the activities you are able to do the step aerobics while you watch your regular tv shows. I think Nintendo was very smart on making the wii system to help people like me finally get off of our butts to get a daily workout in and making it a fun experience. I have found that the only downfalls to the wii are that some of the games that would interest my husband (Nascar 09 and World Series of Poker) are not available for the wii. However the system is for me to workout so that is not a big deal. Now if my husband would only buy me my exercise equipment that I am wanting (a nice treadmill, elliptical machine and exercise bike).

Nascar

I can not wait for Nascar season to start again. My husband has been working from 7am to 5pm Monday thru Friday and working Saturdays. He called me today to tell me that next week they will be working until 6pm and probably Saturday and Sunday. I don't mind him working that long but it takes him 45 minutes to an hour to get to work and then by the time he gets home he is grumpy and tired. His schedule will probably continue on like this until they go to Daytona. After he gets back to his regular schedule then he can get working on my honey-do list and maybe we can go on a weekend family getaway. Wouldn't that be nice!