On a Coupon High (and a pretty flower)

These are photos of a beautiful lily - look at these amazing colors, shapes, and lines! I forgot just how much I enjoy macro photography. I think the last two shots are my favorites:

I just got home from shopping. Kmart was my first stop since they're doubling coupons this week, but all I bought was some diapers and yellow mustard. All the really great deals were pretty well picked over (apparently I'm not the only one reading those Krazy ladies' blog), so I spent plenty of time feeling sorry for myself. But THEN, I ended up in the same aisle as a woman who was juggling her coupon binder AND two little boys.

I promptly stopped feeling sorry for myself.

And I gotta say - Kmart's normal prices seem mighty high to me. Seriously? $6 for a bottle of conditioner? Even if I doubled my $2 coupons, I'd have been paying over $2! Uh uh. Not me...not when I have about 10 bottles of flat out FREE stuff in my closet right now. I guess I'm getting spoiled by my coupon deals :-)

After the Big K, I headed to Albertson's to pick up some more bargains. I was planning on buying some No Yolks and Crest....and ended up with a cart FULL of coffee creamer, cereal, tuna, milk, and Diet Pepsi. The only thing I paid full price for was the milk.

I wasn't planning on buying so much, but every time I turned a corner I saw a promotion for something that I was *sure* I had a coupon for. So I found a nice quiet spot next to a beer display, set my giganto 3" binder that's overflowing with coupons and paged through until I found what I was looking for.

Next time, I really must print up the coupon list before I head out. In fact, I always swore I'd NEVER be one of those lunatics who clips all the coupons every week and sorts by category. But after this trip, I'm tempted. If I hadn't just spent last month's savings on single page inserts, I'd do the baseball card insert thing. On second thought, I know I'd never stick to it.

The highlight of my shopping day was while checking out at Albertson's. She'd scanned about half my order, when she turned to me and asked for my member number. I gave it to her, she typed it in, and then she continued to scan. It was so awesomely bizarre to see her scanning my groceries while watching my total DECREASE as the computer tried to catch up with my savings! And that was before I handed her a giant stack of coupons! Wahooo!

My before savings total at Albies = $148.77

What I paid = $69.67

% off retail = 53%

Not bad! My running total is a savings of $558.56 and 43% off retail (since November 2009).

On my way out of the store, I was practically floating. And then, like my brain does, it promptly switched gears and started thinking about the dream I had last night about getting a new dog.

I was literally headed to the dog shelter to surprise my kids with a new dog (can you tell I'm missing my Bailey?). I was happily daydreaming about the reactions on my kids' faces as I presented them with our new family member....basking in the glow of being the best mama in all of daydream land...when my sweet husband walked into the daydream living room. His head promptly exploded with fury over the new dog, and I spent the night sleeping in the daydream dog house that is found in the very chilly daydream garage.

At least I had two warm pups to snuggle me warm.

I snapped out of it, and went to Fred Meyer instead.

As I walked through Fred Meyer to find a headlight to replace the burned out one on my car, I was giggling like a crazy woman. I seriously got looks.

But I couldn't HELP it. On the way to the store, the DJ on the radio said "I want to send you an your special someone on a special date!" I turned it up louder and grabbed my cell phone thinking maybe I'd try to win a date for us. And then the bombshell: "John Tesh is coming to town...be my 7th caller to enter to win concert tickets!"

That would be special alright. Especially considering my dear Luke would spend the evening trying to gouge his eyes and eardrums out with the nearest blunt object! Special.

The mere thought of surprising my husband with John Tesh tickets has tears of laughter streaming down my cheeks right now!

My husband is a wonderful man - not prone to fits of anger nor violence. He's just not a big fan of surprise pets...or John Tesh.

Well, I'm smelling the cranberry chicken that's cooking in the oven right now. That's my cue to go get the veggies steaming and the cous cous cooking.

Have a great evening :-)