Firsts! Cooking Edition

COOKING! We made something fast and easy- tacos (Monday night)!

That's the stove...

Tim making his tacos...

Taco Toast! or a toast of tacos!

Firsts!

So, you're probably going to get tired of these...but I'm going to try and remember some of our firsts in the new house. I want to start with...

Our first card :) From our sweet friend Amanda

Home Project #1: Sealing the Backsplash

I think I'm in love with Home Depot...Mel was right, the best time to go there is a Friday night instead of a Saturday morning haha!

Tim taped off the areas we wanted to keep dry :)

The guy at Home Depot convinced us to use the spray.

Tim is spraying and then rubbing the sealant in.

Finished! Though you really can't visually see a difference much :)

NO INTERNET!!!!

According to Tim, we have moved back to 1994. THERE IS NO INTERNET at our new home. NONE! AHHHHH. Your only option for high speed internet is satellite. And that can be quite pricey. We're hoping that it won't be too much longer before the cable companies come in the neighborhood.

So that is where I've been. I've been without internet. Though, we are making nightly visits with my parents to use their internet :)

Moving Day 2: Where are Kelly and her parents?

Looks like the roles were reversed tonight...around 4 p.m. on Day 2, my parents and I left to go pick up some items. We went to Target, Sam's, Rooms to Go, a furniture store in Phenix City that was closed, and back by my parent's house. We dropped my dad off in the middle of running errands because he was called in to work.

Mom and I decided to bring dinner home to Tim because at this point it was almost 8 and we were starving. We went to Jason's Deli (which was a HUGE mistake...they said 5-10 minutes wait for to-go orders and it ended up being a 30 minute wait for a simple sandwich and soup....yeah...#unhappy here).

So needless to say, we finally got back to Tim at the new house around 8:00. We had been gone 4 hours and he freaked out on us when we returned because he had no car, no keys, no cell phone, nothing. We thought he would be sleeping on the couch still, but turns out he was beside himself trying to figure out which new neighbor to borrow a phone from ha!

Guess it shows how technology dependent, or how plugged-in, we all need to feel.

In the end, it was all good.

Here are some photos from the day:

Living Room so far...these will need covering sadly. Cats + vinyl = disaster.

Kitchen eating :) I love that baker's rack.

Moving Day 1: Where is Tim?

Ah, yes. Where is Tim? Yesterday around 5:30 p.m. Tim's family arrived to meet me and my parents at the new house...but where was he? Hrmmmm. He decided to "cat nap" and in doing so he missed doing this:

This is about a 1/3 of what was in the U haul- load 1.

Between all of us, we unloaded lots of boxes, mattresses, TV, dresser mirror, and the small kitchen table- all in less than half an hour. Tim showed up AFTER we had finished :) Good timing.

The all star of the day was this champ:

Katie rocks!

She was hauling like no one's business. Total rock star! But, she won't be here today so Tim's going to pull his weight. Which he is doing right now while I'm blogging. He and his dad are loading up round two with the majority of our furniture. I can't wait to see what everything looks like once its inside. Unfortunately, everything is going to be slow because of the stormy weather. So wish us luck :)

We need a new name! We're homeowners!

We're homeowners!

Help us rename our blog! We'll always be Married with Parents and Pets, but we thought we might need a new name to celebrate the move!

The Art of Couponing: Score $10 in CVS cash EASY this week

I haven't fallen off my couponing wagon much at all. I've set the goal of using $500 in coupons this year and I think I'm on my way. Let me tell you about the deal at CVS I took advantage of this week.

Right now you can spend $30 in store on select items and get $10 back in CVS cash. Remember, that's $30 before coupons, and some of the items I bought had coupons and I bet if you take a minute you could find something for more.

I bought:

I bought 4 Coke 12 pks, 18 count of Cottonelle and 2 6 pks of Choose a Size Scott paper towels.

The Coke products are $2.50 per 12 pk.
The Cottonelle 18 pk is $10 (but there are coupons out there for .50 off and possibly others)
The Scott paper towel 6 pks are $5 each. (but there is a $1 off coupon out there)
(I also used my $2 CVS Extra Care Bucks that I needed to get rid of).

I spent $28.58, saving $16.64 and earning $10 to use next trip (so you could say I saved $26.64).

This is an easy one to replicate, and if you don't like soda just check out my favorite blog- Southern Savers to find out more ways to work the $30 deal.

It's not every day you wake up to know your friend's mom is a hero

If you are my facebook friend I know you've seen me blowing up my facebook feed with news clips. If you aren't my facebook friend, here is what I'm talking about:

Local man receives kidney donation from nurse - WTVM-TV: News, Weather and Sports for Columbus, GA

The nurse in the story happens to be our friend's mom. The young man is someone local. It was just a touching story- something that you'd almost expect to find in a Grey's Anatomy episode. Except this is real. It's real life. It's a real human being, caring about another human being.

It really has me thinking, what more can I do to help those around me?

Good morning!

Seriously, I was awake this morning before 9 a.m. If you know me, you know on a Saturday I can be a pretty lazy bum. But, I've found that more and more I'm no longer able to power-sleep-in anymore. Normal for me used to be at minimum noon and often between that and 1 p.m. Not now. Now, it seems as if 10 a.m. is the latest I've been able to sleep on a Saturday.

Hopefully this is just one more way I'm growing up. :)

Farewell College Football 2011

Tonight's BCS title game marks the end of the 2011 season. As an alum/avid fan of Auburn football it's a little bittersweet. Tonight our reign as champions ends, but luckily we come from a dominate conference :) I can't say I'm dying to watch tonight's game between LSU and Alabama- but I am going to watch.

And yes, if I cheer at all (not like I'll be bouncing off the wall in my typical fashion), but if I'd the chance to pick the winner, I'd pick *gasp* Alabama. Why? Not that I have to defend why but I'll give you a few reasons.

1- Keep it in the state. How cool would it be to say the state of AL had the past three national champions? I think it's good for the state and while I don't live in AL, I work there :)
2- I have way more Bama friends than LSU friends. No offense to the LSU friends, but there are maybe 4-5 of you I think. So if I'm going by the greater good the greater number of happy facebook statuses tonight would be a Bama win.
3- I will always invoke the nasty fight I witnessed at an LSU/Bama game where I saw an LSU fan pick a fight with an AU man holding his newborn. Super uncool.
4- Auburn/Bama have had a rough year with some unfortunate events/disasters and both schools really showed that this year they could rise above the sports rivalry and demonstrate some serious goodwill to their fellow Alabamian. This impressed me as a human being.

There you have it. For tonight, and just this once, I'll type Roll Tide, yall!

Happy New Year: Twelve Goals for 2012

Woohoo! Some of you may remember my blog posts regarding goals for the new year, or Eleven in 11. Well I'm at it again. Some are similar, some are a little more private, some are easy and some are not. We'll see how it goes!

1. Track our entire budget- Now, that sounds like I don't now, but I do, I just want to get down to the details more.
2. Use at least $500 in coupons- Pretty high goal, but not once you start using those Extra Care Bucks from CVS. We'll see how it goes. I've got a little Excel sheet and I'm excited to find out exactly how much cutting coupons saves me from just the coupons.
3. Lose X and keep it off- So last year I did well losing what I planned to lose, I just gained 10 of it back. So now I'm going to get that 10 back off and hopefully just a little bit more with it and hope that come December I haven't gained back.
4. Get a library card, use it once a month- This one is in honor of my favorite librarian couple. I want to start going to the library to get books because I want to...
5. Read 26 books- Last year I tried for 52- HA! That was one a week, but this one I might be able to pull off. One book every two weeks. I am LOVING the Hunger Games books right now.
6. Shop local once a month- Tim and I like to support small business when we can, so I thought I'd make it a goal to continue to do it at least once a month.
7. Knit a scarf- this one is easy...right? I've already got one started...I just need to finish it!
8. Consistent Gym Use- if we're going to keep it as an expense I've got to go more. I'm pledging to go at least four times a week to make it worth our while.
9. BLOG three times a week- I don't want to abandon you. I did so well at the beginning of the year, and then fell off. I want to keep it going all year long!
10. Finish our wedding scrapbook- We've been married almost 4 years, it's just time to do this already!
11. Put $X in savings- gotta build it back up since we're hoping to buy that house :)
12. Run a 5k- It's time to stop saying I'm going to do it and just do it!

So there it is. The List. What do you want to accomplish in 2012?