Caturday Saturday: Elliot's at it again...

Caught with her paw in the snack dish...

*sniff sniff* what is this?

Yeah...pretzels aren't for me..too salty! How do I get this taste out of my mouth?

The Art of Couponing: Free Advil at Publix this week!

Take me home! I'm free!

You read that correctly. FREE Advil at Publix. 

Before going to Publix print two of these manufacturer's coupons from Advil. 

Go to the customer service counter and pick up the GREEN coupon flyer. There is a Public store coupon for $5 off TWO boxes of Advil. 

Right now, a 50 ct. box is on sale for $4.49. 

4.49x2 = $8.98

minus $5 from Publix Q

minus $4 total from the 2 Manufacturer's Qs

That's negative $9 total!

You actually get paid.02 towards the taxes you pay on the items :) (Actually, I don't know if that is true or not...but come on FREE Advil)!

And just so you know...a 100 ct box is on sale for $10.29!

NO EXCUSES FOLKS! You need to get in on this.

Again, my all time favorite is Southern Savers, but there are tons you can check out online!

Trip Tease: Part 1- Jet Set to NYC and Jersey!

Wow! What a weekend. I know I should be in bed because the bags under my eyes are heavier than my unpacked luggage right now, but I'm excited to share with everyone about our weekend trip. It had its highs, and it certainly had a few unpleasant lows.

The purpose of this trip: congratulating my husband's sweet cousin on her upcoming nuptials. Teresa and Todd are getting married in SPAIN! Though I had only met her once before, Teresa means a lot to me. Tim and I got married and she and her fiance made the long journey "Down South" for our wedding. (PS- they also bought us our favorite dishes for entertaining- which unfortunately we haven't been able to use since moving back in Columbus). In fact, we were just overjoyed with the large turnout from his entire family. So we made a promise to ourselves that we would try and travel more to see his family and celebrate special occasions with them when we could afford to. So when we got this adorable handmade card, we decided yes! We would make this work.

And here is how it all went down...

Thursday
Tim and I packed up and headed out to Atlanta around 3. Our flight was supposed to leave at 7:45ish. Well...it ended up finally getting there around 9:40. I think we sat on the plane a bit and took around closer to 10. We landed around 12:40, waited in line for a transit to get to the rental car place, and waited in line there til close til 1:30. I think we finally got in the car and on the road by 2, and somehow I'm looking at my phone and I went to bed after calling my parents at 3:23 a.m.

Lessons learned- 1) NEVER FLY UNITED/CONTINENTAL... 2) Never fly into Newark 3) Never rent a rental to drive into NYC. This was the creepiest experience of my life. On the plus, we got a super upgrade to a nice Ford SUV. I think it was the Ford Edge. Pretty spacious. 4) Garmin cannot be trusted up North, especially on the Jersey turnpike. She gets disoriented very easily, cranky, and takes you through the smelliest, worst parts of Jersey City. 5) If you do rent a car to drive into NYC always get a hotel with valet. It was worth the $70!

We stayed at the Wellington Hotel.

Wellington Hotel- NY, NY

It was overall a decent hotel. Very pretty on the inside lobby and outside. Old and classic looking I suppose. Our room was tiny tiny tiny. But, of course who needs a big room when all you do is sleep in the room. It was unfortunate that when we first arrived our room was "unclean and used," but our bellman quickly took us back to the counter to get a new room.

Wellington Hotel - Standard Queen Room (yes the bed took up 85% of the room).

The best part of the hotel is that it really is centrally located for a lot of good tourism spots. They have this great list on their website that sort of sold me.

Friday
Believe it or not we were up and out the door by about 8:15 a.m. We wanted to take full advantage of our 24 hours in Manhattan! We walked and walked and walked and walked. Here are just a few of the things we saw on our long walk in the city:

Times Square

More Times Square

M+M store in Times Square

Central Park

Timmy at Central Park

Time took a photo of me looking at the buildings next to Central Park.

Pretty flowers!

Me at Central Park!

Madison Avenue!

For Mel and Chris... <3

I really thought Tim owed it to me to buy a piece of Tiffany jewelry... *sigh*

Yummy cakes in a bakery window near out hotel. I'll have to look up the name.

I'm a bad tourist...I have no idea which church this was...but it was pretty!

I love this!

Curses! It hadn't opened yet. It's still under construction.

Grand Central Station

The REAL DEAL for Mel and Chris <3

My hot hubby chilling in Bryant Park!

Me in Bryant Park!

Naked Cowboy!

 

Home of AVENUE Q! I finally got to see it!

We ate dinner here after the show.

And late night dessert!

The best butter-creme icing ever!

Friday was the most exhausting day!

Saturday

On Saturday morning we woke up early, packed, and headed out to find our way to Newton, NJ. That's where out hotel was. Its a very scenic, green and quite part of New Jersey. We liked it. We checked in and got ready to go to the reception for Teresa and Todd. It was amazing! So much fun. I love catching up with people. It felt really natural and it was good to see everyone enjoying one another. My only regret...Tim didn't request our song...and he refused to dance :( I bet if they played our song we would have started shufflin :) I thought the location was sweet and beautiful! I love seeing people in love!

Like these kiddos! (That's my husband's parents showing everyone they still have the "passion" hehe)

Aren't they sweet? :)

Tim and I at the reception!

Pretty girls! Sarah, Me, Katie and the Bride to Be Teresa!

Sunday

This was the nightmare. And it wasn't because of the Sangria  from the night before...it was like the weekend finally caught up with us. We probably walked over 12 miles, slept a handful of hours, laughed and had a good time for hours on end. But, Sunday morning turned ugly quick. I woke up feeling pretty bleh, but I snapped into a sobering reality when the call came at 10 a.m. our flight to Atlanta had been cancelled. We packed in a rush and skipped going to an apple orchard Tim had picked out. All we could think about was getting to Newark International to try and catch a flight home. After a gruesome 12 hours in the airport waiting we boarded a plane, only to arrive in Atlanta after midnight, wait on our luggage to arrive at 3 a.m. and finally hit the pillow at home around 5 a.m.

Whirl wind overview of a whirl wind weekend I know! But, I've got a few other plans for entries, so you'll just have to check back later. I hope the photos didn't explode your browser! I'll be posting more plus these on facebook soon.

Quick and Quirky Conversation Snippets: Oreo!

Tim and I are in the kitchen. I'm pouring lemonade and he is getting milk for Oreos.

Me: NOOOOO! Don't eat all the Oreos!
Tim: Kelly, look at this, you ate all the Oreos.
Me: No way...you're full it it!
Tim: No..you're full of the Oreos...

Bwahahaha. This blog post was brought to you by Oreos...and chhhhheeeeese haha.

The Art of Couponing: Good Sale @ The Limited!

If you are in your late 20s like me, you may struggle in Columbus to find "age appropriate" clothing. It's like stores here cater to the extremes and my age group is left out. I generally have to drive to Atlanta to find things that suit my needs and taste. I love TheLimited. And right now they have pretty good deals going on. All of their pants and jeans are 40% off. And all of their shirts and shirtdresses are on sale 40% off as well. Plus, I had a coupon in the mail so I got $30 off $100 (it is also good for $50 off $150). I chose the following:

My final total was $86. That was a savings of over 50%. And, the great thing is that I know these pants last (so long as you stop losing weight...I bought several last fall that I can no longer wear from losing my weight).

Caturday Saturday: Eh, just a little later than normal...

Apologies for the slow blog. Things are hectic this month. But, here are a few photos of Jackson chasing the birds outside.

Caturday Saturday: Another Day Late

I meant to post these yesterday, but here are a few of Elliot trying to eat dinner with us. She sat at the head of the table. It was too cute.

Eleven in 11: Evaluating July

Uhhhhhhhhh! I am such a slacker this summer. I'm honestly just so exhausted from the four-day work week. I enjoy the Fridays off, but I've mostly been using it to recover from the four-day work week! Class has gotten a little crazy, and I'm very excited that tomorrow is the FINAL! Woohoo! I love my students, but the 12.5 hours on Tue/Thur are brutal.

The breakdown:
1. Volunteer opportunity- Still volunteering for SASC. Also, had a debate meeting with my CHS ladies. Hopefully we can get these kids into shape so they can debate at state this year!
2. The weight loss one- Stuck in a rut. Not gaining, but not losing. If I could just get back to tracking the WW pts again and hitting the gym more. We did start doing Pilates at home and I can feel a difference!
3. Plan and take honeymoon- We went to Amelia Island. Collectively, Tim and I decided that we simply didn't ever have a honeymoon. While the trip was a FABULOUS trip, it just wan't a honeymoon. We missed the boat 3 years ago, and it isn't something you can just have 3 years late. It's ok though, we still loved vacationing! You can see our recent trip photos from here and here.
4. Trying four new recipes- Slacker again. But, I did make Ricotta Cheese Chocolate Chip Muffins. VERY YUM!

5. Blog three times a week- Still kind of slow.

6. Student loan- Check!

7. Savings!- Check! I think I've actually exceeded my goal :) But, we're thinking about venturing into home-buying, so I need to keep it up.

8. Read 52 books- I'm awful.

9. Facebook birthdays- I have done very well with this I think!

10. Visit 12 new restaurants- We went to Mandarin Cafe, and I decided NOT to blog about it...because it was soooo awful...

11. Etsy- Consider this one failed too.

I'm going to come out of this goal-achieving slump and do it up BIG in August!

The Art of Couponing: 4 for $4.50

Did you use your $5 off $30 coupon at Publix this week? I did!

You can't see it all. I honestly didn't want to spend too much time on the display because well, there is ice cream out there and other cold goodies. But, all of that was under $35. I saved right at 50% on the whole bill. Tomorrow night we're going to have tacos and when you do the math, it's basically dinner for four people for four dollars and some change. The taco kits were .59 each after sale+doubled coupons. The lean ground beef is on sale for 3.99/lb and I got a little less than a full pound. You can use coupons.com (or if you are on inbox dollars or swagbucks you can print the coupons there) to find a .50/1 El Paso product coupon. If you can't find it try zip code 30185. And if you want more deals, check out SouthernSavers for all the lists! Happy Couponing!