Shopping and Saving and Sunshine - February 27, 2011

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It is an absolutely gorgeous 71-degree day here in Georgia. We just got back from running a few errands, including picking up eggs from my friend and her backyard chickens (I'm spoiled - eggs from the grocery store, no matter how organic-free-range-happy-chickeny they claim to be, just don't taste as good now). The kid is napping so I figured I'd jot down some notes on the shopping trips of the day.

• I'm still not a fan of Kroger. Publix absolutely has lower everyday prices on the things I buy regularly - everything from Laughing Cow cheese and Vitatops to bread and milk. But as I'd noted earlier, I won a $20 Kroger gift card on Facebook and then my dad won another $20 Kroger gift card at a convention and gave it to me. I had spent part of the first card already to buy the Sunday paper, some white vinegar (I use it as fabric softener), and some other small things, leaving me with about $30 total between the two cards. So back we went today since our pantry and fridge were both kind of bare.
• I spent around $30 out of pocket in the end, after gift cards and coupons. Notable purchases included five packs of cat treats for completely free and two boxes of "garden" pasta for 29 cents each. Nothing amazing, though the cats do eat far more treats than they should so I'm always looking for cheap/free ones. Note: My cats turn their nose up at anything remotely healthy when it comes to treats. Their food is on the higher end, and I sometimes buy them Wellness or Nutro wet food. But treats have to be of the Doritos and Cheetos variety. Silly cats.
• We also went to Big Lots. I was there about a week ago and had seen but not purchased some boxes of Brew-Over-Ice K-cups. At the time, there were a few different varieties, and most were 16 cup boxes for $7, which is good but not amazing for soon-to-expire coffee. However, that day there also were a few that were very close to their expiration date marked down to $3.50. I didn't buy any and then was mad at myself for not grabbing some. So today I was disappointed to find only one variety was on the shelf - Nantucket Brew Over Ice (which is really double-strength coffee, and I like the Nantucket blend) - but it was marked down to $2 a box. I grabbed three boxes. They expire in about a week, but K-cups are individually sealed packets of coffee, and I adulterate my coffee with lots of (almond) milk and sugar, plus they'll be made over ice, so I really don't care. I've enjoyed K-cups that were expired before, and I couldn't turn down such a steal. I'll be keeping my eye out for more K-cups in the future. And I LOVE iced coffee.
• That was all I was supposed to buy at Big Lots, but I swung by the book pile as I was walking out. All books were marked down to $2 - that's cheaper than at Goodwill - so I bought a book about Neil Gaiman for a friend and A Lion Among Men by Gregory Maguire for me. And then we randomly walked down an aisle (chosen by the kid - smart cookie, she is) and found a Backyardigans potty seat for really cheap as well. She's obsessed with the Backyardigans and she's, as I mentioned before, potty training herself. Perfection. She even used it a bit later at egg-friend's house. YES.

So now I'm enjoying an iced coffee (with a splash of Torani caramel syrup in it), relaxing, and wondering what we'll do when she wakes up....

Memey Thursday - February 24, 2011

I have clothing and baby gear to tag for an upcoming consignment sale (consignment season in Metro Atlanta is upon us!) and I probably have other things I should be doing, but a friend of mine posted this meme and I thought I'd do it instead.

[It begins with talk of rules and tagging, but I think it will wind up being pretty self contained here.]


1. Make a list of 5 things that you can see without getting up:
My cat Mikko.
My husband.
A scarf I designed that has a hidden Boston Bruins logo in it. (Illusion design.)
The book I'm reading - American Idol: The Untold Story. (Don't hate! It's fascinating.)
The kid's high chair that I've been thinking she may be ready to transition out of.

2. How do you style your hair?
I pull it back in a big puffy ponytail just about every day. I really should get a haircut...

3. What are you wearing now?
Ooh baby. I'm wearing my comfiest jeans that aren't ripped, my clogs, green socks, and a long-sleeved black T-shirt that has shrunk in the sleeves but that still mostly fits. Ish.

4. What's your occupation?
Writer/editor (but lately it's been slow). Button/jewelry maker. Mom. Procrastinator Extraordinaire.

5. What do you hear right now?
The dryer chugging away.

6. Who was the last person you hugged?
My husband.

7. What is/was for dinner?
Last night: mashed potatoes, a Gardein chick'n breast, Trader Joe's roasted corn, Stonewall Kitchen  vidalia onion fig sauce. Tonight: I want to go out. We shouldn't go out. I want to go out. We shouldn't go out. etc.

8. What did you do today?
Got the kid off to school successfully (she is wearing UNDERPANTS! she is potty training HERSELF! that's a post for another day, but allow me to shout it one more time - my daughter has cerebral palsy, is 3.5 years old, and is potty training herself!). Walked around Decatur looking for CatLanta kitten magnets (they were gone by the time I got around, but I've been assured that there will be more soon). Backed up my hard drive and updated my GPS software. Reclaimed a laundry basket full of stuff (put the stuff into a bin that used to hold Lush - now the bin, the room, and the stuff all smell delicious) so that the basket could be used for the upcoming children's consignment sale at which I'm selling. Caught up on Tivo - Glee, American Idol, RuPaul's Drag Race Untucked. Still feel like I haven't done enough today.

9. Dog person or cat person?
Cat person.

10. If you had to change your name, what would you change it to?
I don't love my first name, but I can't think of what I'd rather it be. I went through a phase where I went by my middle name, but it was temporary and silly.

11. What was the last thing that you bought?
Yesterday I had a delightful shopping morning with a friend and her daughter. Among other things, I bought some K-cups, some socks, some Vitatops, an organizer for my button biz, and some Torani syrup. As an aside, I was sad that the selection of Torani at the store was mostly sugar-free. I don't do artificial sweeteners. Thus, my personal selection was limited more than I wanted it to be. I got vanilla and caramel though. I'll live.

12. If you could afford to go anywhere in the world, where would you go?
Japan and/or Australia.

13. Where do you see yourself in five years?
Back to some sort of job. Watching my amazing kid walk and talk. Probably still living where I'm living. Five years. So long and yet so short.

14. Where's your birthmark?
I don't have one.

15. What are you doing this weekend?
It's a rare planless Saturday, so I'm hoping we'll go enjoy a museum or just hang out in a park somewhere. Sundays are always speech therapy days but the weather widget also says it will be warm and sunny so hopefully, again, something outside and fun.

16. If you could play any musical instrument, which one would you play?
Piano. But I was terrible at it when I was forced to take lessons as a child.

17. How tired are you?
Is there anything but tired?

18. What is/was your favorite thing about today?

The cats following me around the quiet house. The brisk walk around town looking for tiny magnets. The sunshine.


If you want to copy this meme, go for it. Link back to me if you want to. Comment if you want to. Do whatever you like.

Book Review: The False Friend by Myla Goldberg

Years ago, I read and loved Bee Season by Myla Goldberg. I mean, who didn't, right? It was a gorgeous book - slow, dreamy, with what I recall as a gut-punch ending. Then Wickett's Remedy came out - and I just couldn't get interested in it, although I have no good reason for that, it's probably amazing and I should pick it up. But the False Friend hooked me back with its jacket blurb, its cover art, and the first few pages that I skimmed in the bookstore. I was so happy to find another lovely book from Goldberg, and now I really do need to go back and read Wickett's Remedy.

I always feel silly summarizing plots of books for people. I look back or think back a few days later and realize I forgot to mention some critical part of the story that would surely have sucked the person/people right in. So forgive me if you read the book after reading this review and think "She's so totally wrong." As I saw it, this book was about the way girls are mean to girls, it was about how we grow up and try desperately to leave our pasts behind but how things somehow manage to chase us and catch up, it's about whether memory can be trusted, and it's about relationships - boyfriend/girlfriend, husband/wife, sister/brother, mother/daughter. There's a plot - complete with a bit of a mystery - but there are also characters and interweaving stories. It's just...splendid.

I know authors often have Google alerts set up about themselves. So hey, Myla, if you see this - first, I know someone who was in your writing group when you were writing Bee Season. Nifty. Second, I'm fairly certain that this book was set in a reimagined Binghamton, NY, and I just loved that. The street names were the same (Beeth-oven!), and you mentioned Spiedies. And since that's where I went for undergrad, I was extra charmed by the setting. 

It took me weeks to get through this book - my life kept taking me places other than curled up in bed with time to read, and there was too much going on in the story for me not to give it my full attention. But it was so worth it. Go read it.

Sweet, sweet irony - February 20, 2011

I post that I'm committed to going on a diet on Friday.
On Friday night/Saturday morning, I wake up with a stomach bug.
I'm unable to eat for about 24 hours.
That is NOT what I meant!

Friday Random Roundup - February 18, 2011

• I have the new Radiohead. YAY.
• I also am liking the new Adele (what I've heard of it) and the new PJ Harvey (ditto). I cannot WAIT for the new Lamb.
• I've decided to keep track of what I get with the $20 Kroger gift card I won on Facebook - thus far, I got one double Sunday paper (coupons!), 1 jug of white vinegar (I use it for laundry, and it was on sale), and 2 containers of shelf-stable unsweetened vanilla Almond Breeze (on sale + coupon - and I use it daily). Meanwhile, my dad just won and then gave me another $20 gift card. Yay.
• However, I had a terrible experience at my local Kroger (this is not unusual, sadly). They change their minds about their coupon policy from day to day, person to person. On Wednesday, the new rule was no Internet coupons at all. Except if they're printed from the Kroger.com website. Except never. Depended on the person. All I wanted to do was use one coupon for 50 cents off a bottle of "Honest Tea." Not even something I needed; I was going to buy it as a treat with my packed lunch. You would've thought I had a coupon that said "Give this lady $5,000 worth of free groceries" the way the manager treated me and the way he read EVERY WORD on the coupon, all while ignoring my questions. I called corporate and was told the policy changes from store to store. I not only think this is ridiculous but also wonder why a mere few months ago I was emailed the CORPORATE COUPON POLICY for my region. Figure it out, Kroger. 
• Yesterday I had an epic outing with my daughter, a friend, and my friend's daughter. We not only had a great time at the Atlanta children's museum, but we also had a picnic, went to Ikea AND went to Trader Joe's. The meltdowns were few and minor. It was grand. 
• And thanks to that pleasant Ikea trip, I now I own Produkt, which is a $2.99 milk frother. It may change my life. (It was $1.99 a few months ago, I swear. But $3 for a milk frother is still amazing.) I also got an ice cube tray that makes little flowers (for my iced coffee), a laundry basket (since we tend to just toss my daughter's dirty clothes in a corner), and a tiny stuffed moose. 
• Also thanks to yesterday...I'm going on a diet. For real. Committed. Yes. I saw a picture of myself and was very unhappy. I'm thinking of joining Weight Watchers - there are a few meetings nearby. Sparkpeople, which I love, isn't doing enough for me. I need accountability.
• Another new favorite thing - roasted wasabi-flavored seaweed in little single-serve packs. It's about 40 cents a pack at YDFM and I plan on stocking up for the summer.
• The summer. It's almost the summer. It's 70 degrees here and looks like that will hold for a few more weeks. I expect one more cold snap and then 90 degrees for months.
• We survived a week without preschool. 
• I'm still reading The False Friend by Myla Goldberg. I need to take more time out of my day to read read read because I have a giant "to read" pile going on right now. I think I'll probably write out a review of The False Friend though - because it's fascinating and good.
• I'm looking for paid writing gigs. But who isn't, these days? 
• I have an Etsy store - check it out in my sidebar, and then go buy things. I also love doing custom work. 1" pinback buttons make great giveaways for indie businesses - they get your name and logo out there and customers love freebies.
• I am sure I had more to say on this lovely Friday but I've run out of steam for now.

Why I Think You Should Sign Up for Deal Site Offermatic - February 12, 2011

I just signed up for a new deal site called Offermatic, and I think I'm going to like it. The site links up with your credit and debit cards to give you deals deposited right back on those cards - so yes, it does ask for sensitive information - but it uses what looks to me like the same platform as Mint.com, and therefore it only reads your info and doesn't have access to moving anything anywhere. Plus your personal login information isn't posted anywhere on the site. But then the beauty is that you use Offermatic by...not doing anything, really, as far as I can tell. You accept the offers you are given and then you just shop. Within 30 days you get a refund right back on your card.

My first two Offermatic deals were $10 off a $20 purchase at Target - and let me assure you, I had no trouble hitting that $20 threshold today at Target - and $15 off a $30 purchase at Shell gas. Gas! With my own credit card, nothing new! I like that! And then you earn points for referring friends, adding accounts, following on Facebook and Twitter, and writing reviews - points that you can cash in for further discounts or to go up in "levels" so you get even better deals from the site. Nice.

So check out Offermatic if you're looking for another way to save a bit of money at stores you actually go to rather than obscure restaurants and salons. (I saw that there are sometimes deals for places like Kroger, Toys R Us, PetSmart, and Whole Foods available as well. Places I actually GO TO ALL THE TIME.) And let me know what kinds of deals they offer to you when you sign up! Plus, if you sign up using my link, which is all over this post, you should get a special bonus offer! Tadaaaaaah!

UPDATE JUNE 2012: Offermatic went under. I do not endorse this company anymore.

Random Roundup - February 10, 2011

• I won a $20 Kroger gift card on Facebook. Hooray! Money is a bit tight right now (as it usually is in January/February) so the timing of this win was excellent.
• My daughter is amazing me with her progress toward potty training. Look, I am not one of those "I make Facebook status updates about potty training every 5 minutes" parents. I'm not even someone who wants to talk about this type of thing. But at the same time, my kid has CP and although I was constantly assured that she would be able to potty train, I still wasn't entirely sure she physically could. And yet, she's training herself with little help from me. I suspect once she can walk she will just...do it. We're going to buy her underwear this weekend, I think (we cloth diaper most of the time so pull-ups would, to me, be regressing), and give it a shot. She signs "potty," and she says a form of "potty," and at school she's been so consistent with going that she got a shout-out in her regular classroom's newsletter for her progress. So yay for potty training.
• She also has started doing downward-facing dog all the time. This is the precursor to standing up. I don't know if she's doing it because she does yoga at preschool (once a week!) or if she just wants to stand, but she's doing it. If I hold her by the hips, she can continue the process and stand. We're on our way!
• I applied for my blog to be a part of a "Natural Parenting" blogroll. I think that parents of special-needs kids are underrepresented in that universe and I hope I'm accepted. 
• I find more and more that I bristle when someone expresses a concern about his/her child's development on a message board or forum and the chorus loudly shouts "late bloomer!" "don't worry!" It implies that it's a terrible, awful, unredeemable thing to have a child who may need a bit of therapy (or more than a bit). It's not as supportive as it sounds on the surface - because while sometimes, yes, someone's cousin's hairdresser's best friend's neighbor's kid didn't walk until he turned three and then stood up and ran a marathon or didn't talk until she was two and then opened her mouth and said "Mother, I would like biscuits instead of pancakes this morning, if that is acceptable to you," that just doesn't always happen. It feels like it means if the questioner's kid doesn't do such things, there's a failure somewhere in there. I remember reaching out in the early days and asking in general parenting communities for others with children doing PT. I got a few good answers and then a few "just wait it out, she'll do it!" and even "I think you're overreacting! I would never start PT/OT/Speech that early!" If I had waited, I believe that we absolutely would have lost time and progress. And I did think for those first few months before she got her diagnosis that maybe she would simply start doing everything on a later timeline. And when that didn't happen, when we got confirmation that my daughter had cerebral palsy and that there was an actual underlying reason why she wasn't meeting her milestones, it hurt until I shook myself off and accepted that she just needed some help and it would be OK. All of those "she's totally fine, it's early days yet" responses just weren't helpful to me. I don't know if any of that makes any sort of sense, but I wanted to get it out of my system. And as always, do note that not everyone is me - shocker, I know! - and that others may feel that comments like that are helpful. 
• That got long. I think I'm going to drive out to the farmer's market today and buy some veggies and clear my head.

Return to Kroger to save 60% - February 5, 2011

Today's shopping trip was...interesting. I decided that a dollar for Goldfish crackers was definitely a good stockup price, and 50 cents for cat treats wasn't bad either (wish I'd planned ahead and just bought some coupons to get more for...well, free plus the cost of buying coupons, which would be less than 50 cents for sure). I added a few other things from the 10/$5 sale to my list and off we went.

The trip went well enough. My daughter has decided that checking out of any store is a terrifying thing that must be avoided at all costs. The second the shopping cart pauses near a register or line, she starts thrashing around, crying, and making lots of word approximations that I don't understand. It's a situation where I really wish she could just...talk. Or at least use some of the few words she does have. I haven't the slightest clue what part of this upsets her, and usually the result - including this time - is to have my husband take her out of the cart and walk around with her while I check out. It's an extra added bonus of stress and I hate it. Shopping on a weekend also sucks and neither my husband nor I deal well with that.

Please note that I am not asking for suggestions as to what might be upsetting her or how to handle this. I am just venting for a minute. Thanks!

And finally, I find something about this whole excursion very amusing. When you see the list of purchases below, you'll see that I didn't really get...food. I got snacks, treats, and condiments (and laundry detergent) on sale. Things we use and enjoy, but not necessities this time around. Sometimes I get great deals on those too, but I wanted to acknowledge that I didn't get great and important deals.

All prices are after coupons and 10/$5 savings:
7 bags of Goldfish crackers for 99 cents each.
2 bottles of Ken's salad dressing for $1.19 each.
2 bottles of All Free & Clear laundry detergent (our preferred brand) - 32 loads - $1.99 each.
2 bottles of French's spicy brown mustard - 19 cents each (basically filler - how many bags of Goldfish do we really need?)
2 bottles of Frank's hot sauce (buffalo wing and sweet chili) - 49 cents each.
2 Reach toothbrushes - free (more filler!)
3 packs of Whisker Lickins cat treats - 49 cents each. I'd rather have gotten more of these than the toothbrushes, but someone else had already been by and cleaned the store out. My husband found these three bags in the wayyyyyy back of the top shelf.
So I could have just gotten the crackers and cat treats and stopped at that, but we did really want the salad dressing and I wanted the Frank's sauces (they're great on tofu). Thus the filler items. We'll use and enjoy the mustard, but I didn't absolutely need it.
I also got a bottle of Kroger salad dressing for free and a pack of baby carrots for free thanks to coupons I got in the mail directly from Kroger. And then we also bought tofu, salad, bananas, and a few vegetables (and a scouring pad for a pan with burnt rice on the bottom). Some of that was on sale too.

I spent $28.77 and saved $41.30 - a savings of 59%.  Not bad.

Money is going to be tight for the next few weeks, so I'm hoping there will be sales/coupons on actual food items, heh.

I saved 79% at Kroger! - February 3, 2011

I haven't done a good savings post in a while, and I've gotten far too serious around these parts. Let us lighten the mood with tales of coupons and groceries, shall we? Bonus - as I write up this post, these deals are still available (until February 5, 2011) so maybe I'll help someone...?

I'm a Publix girl. I prefer to not have to hand over a shoppers card (though I still do because I have a UPromise card...oops) and I like that things are simply on sale and I don't have to jump through hoops to figure it all out. Kroger is different. Overall I find their everyday prices to be higher than Publix and their sales usually do have a gimmick attached. BUT when their sales are good, their sales are REALLY good. (Also I love their store-brand slow-churned ice creams, but I'm supposed to be on a diet so I don't buy ice cream much. DIGRESSION! YAY!)

This week Kroger is doing one of their Buy-10-get-$5 sales. So you have to buy ten things that are on sale and then you get $5 off your total at the end, or 50 cents off each thing. You can mix and match though. I'm always worried when I do this that somehow the computer isn't going to count properly or something will be left off. Today everything went beautifully though.

So here's what I got:
4 packages of Goldfish crackers (my kid loooooves these and I got the whole grain kind so they're....healthyishsorta?) - they're normally $2.19. They are on sale this week for $1.49. After the special sale, they're 99 cents a pack. That's my stock-up price, and I think I need to go back and just buy 10 more. I was on foot or I'd probably have done that.
2 cans of Rotel (yum) - usually 10/$10, on "sale" for 99 cents (silly). After the special sale, 49 cents a can. I had coupons for 25 cents off each can, and each coupon doubled. So each can was free and I did get that whole giant penny in overage from each one too.
4 packages of Whisker Lickins cat treats (for my spoiled cats - we had some health scares earlier in the week so now they are even MORE spoiled) - usually $1.49, on sale for $99 cents, 49 cents after the sale. I had two coupons for $1 off two, so these were also all free and I wish I had more coupons because my cats LOVE treats. Luckily there's a deal at Publix that can net me some more free treats for the next month.

I also forgot that I had a Cellfire coupon loaded onto my card for 50 cents off my entire purchase. If you go to Kroger, sign up at Cellfire.com. They offer e-coupons but they also occasionally do these special bonus deals where you just "win" a bit off your total.

Grand total after sale, coupons, e-coupon, and 10-$5? $3.40 plus 22 cents tax. RAH. Love it! And then on my way out I noticed the clearance bins had packages of 100 bendy straws marked down to 50 cents, so I ran back in for them (my kid can't drink out of an open cup yet, so straws are our BFFs and I always carry a bunch of them in a toothbrush holder in my purse or diaper bag).

As I mentioned, though, I think I want to go back for more Goldfish. Also I could get free Dove deodorant (which I'd probably donate) and cheap mustard, All laundry detergent, and salad dressing. I don't know if I can buy, say, 20 things and get $10 off - if you do know, leave me a comment!

Tadah!

I Don't Fit In (Special Needs Mom post) - February 1, 2011

There are lots and lots of support groups for parents of children with special needs. There are groups online and there are groups offline. There are blogs and there are message boards. There are get togethers and there are share groups. Some are general groups, some have a focus (in my case, a focus on parents of kids with cerebral palsy). Lots and lots of options.

And I don't feel like I fit in with most of them. Or, well, I should be less pessimistic - I haven't found my tribe yet. Here's how I've felt after participating in certain groups on or offline. (For the record, it is rarely all of these at once, and I don't feel this way within every single group/gathering I've joined. I just wanted to collect this all in one big obnoxious post)...

1. I'm too loudmouthy. Uh...yeah. I'm always the one raising my hand or saying something or talking about research or something. And as a corollary to this, I don't take it well when someone starts telling me why I should or shouldn't do something, what I should or shouldn't try, why my choices are invalid, or why they wouldn't make those same choices because mine are wrong. See #2...
2. I'm too crunchy. I had a natural birth, I breastfed my daughter (I still do...), I never supplemented, I waited until 6 months to start solids, we co-sleep, I carried her in a mei tai or an ErgoBaby carrier until she simply refused to be in one (and I still hate the stroller but since she can't walk, it's a necessity). Many times children with special needs simply cannot do these things for medical reasons, and I get that. It's not a judgment on anyone else that I did or do these things - I do what I do, you do what you do, and I respect that, particularly inside the boundaries of this community we share. But sometimes it feels that when it comes up that I do these things, it's taken as a judgment when it's not, so I have to keep quiet about what I do and just smile and nod a lot. And sometimes I want to talk about the challenges and struggles within these choices but have a hard time finding someone who understands.
3. My kid isn't disabled enough. She's not hospitalized, she's not on medication, she can walk with assistance, she has some words and signs, her prognosis is that she'll walk and talk and do all sorts of things. She's also hypotonic (many children with CP are hypertonic), she wasn't a preemie, she didn't have complications at birth, we didn't know she had any issues until she was 6 months old, she didn't get a diagnosis until she was over a year old. I rarely find people who can identify with my story - a story I still am baffled by and a story I really do want to share. 
4. My kid isn't on the autism spectrum (at least as far as I know!). Some of the general support groups I've found are made up mostly of parents with kids on the autism spectrum. That's fine, and we have many things to learn from one another and many things that overlap, but the issues we face can also be very different. 
5. I'm not the right flavor of religion. I encounter a lot of religious people in the special needs universe. That is fine, I have friends who believe a wide range of things from agnostic to very faithful (or whatever you call it). I'm Jewish (though not as observant right now as I would like to be), but I also have issues with my faith and my child. I'm just not looking for answers within my religion right now.

I know my tribe is out there. I've read essays by parents with whom I identify, I've met people on occasion on and offline, and I keep trying and trying. I have friends who are nothing like me and who I still like and share with. But I want to find where I fit in within this community. I'm sure someday I will.

The usual disclaimers apply. This is just about me and my experiences. I reserve the right to change my mind about any of the above at the drop of a hat. I'm just getting a few things out of my system. You don't have to like me or agree with me. Sometimes I don't fit in because I'm being stubborn or I'm a brat. Sometimes I find someone who clashes with all five of the above things and we still find common ground and work well together. I reserve the right to not approve your comment for whatever reason. I like chocolate cake.