Opposites

Xavier: Mom, what's the opposite of car?

Me: It doesn't have an opposite, sweetie.

Xavier: Yes, it does!

Dad: Yeah? What is it?

Xavier: (pause). Skateboard!

Halloween Pics

Xavier was a construction worker and Jack was an owl. We opted for daytime trick-or-treating at the Ames Main Street Trick-or-Treat on Friday. Tim took off work for the afternoon and the boys had a blast.

A Tale of Two Coats

Nearly six weeks ago Grandma and Grandpa McNicholl sent the boys their very first full-fledged winter coats via the fairies at Land's End. Jack loved his so much that he refused to take it off for about an hour after arrival. These coats are fantastic: lots of pockets for little boys, built in fingerless gloves, water and dirt resistant fabric, and even the ability to add two more inches to the sleeve legnth as the boys grow.

It has been an unseasonably warm autumn here in Iowa so up until now the coats haven't gotten much day-to-day use. Since we are such an outdoors-loving family the coats did come in handy for all the weekend camping trips where we were outside first thing in the morning and the temperatures were quite chilly.

Here are the coats at Grinnell college's homecoming weekend.


At Rock Creek State Park.

This morning it is finally a very chilly 24 degrees with an expected high of 45 degrees. Our first official Coat Day!

Why Is It...

Why is it that whenever I don't have a camera with me, we see the most unusual things? I suppose I should start from the beginning. I had the best intentions this morning of doing craft time at the library and then heading out for a few hours of play and picnic at one of the many local parks. I'm finally getting around to reading Last Child in the Woods by Richard Louv and am feeling even more inspired to make sure my kids get plenty of time with nature.

So we woke up, dressed, threw a load of laundry in downstairs, and had breakfast. We were all set to head off for our planned adventure when, as often happens, life had other plans for us. Tim had accidentally gone to work this morning with our car keys in his backpack.

Desperate not to give up so soon on my resolve to spend more time outdoors, I took the boys on a little walk around the office park that encircles our hotel. It is still Iowa you know and the development is surrounded by corn fields and woods. The funny thing about walking when you aren't going anywhere and don't have a set time frame--you start to see things. Sure enough we saw something...goose poop. And lots of it. Then we began to notice goose feathers too. Xavier spotted first the rarest of finds. A goose egg! I have no idea why it was there and I imagine the mama goose was long gone on her flight south for the winter. I just wish I had brought the camera but even then I'm not sure a photo would have captured the amount of awe and wonder we all had at the discovery. It was as if we had found a secret door into fairyland or a leprechaun.

The Great Lakes of Iowa

This past weekend we decided to out drive the rainy weather and headed north to the "Iowa Great Lakes" region. If the name is confusing, no, there hasn't been a great shift in geography--Iowa doesn't border on one of the Great Lakes (Superior, Eerie, etc.). These are the Iowa Great Lakes, folks. See, it's different.

Actually despite the name confusion, this area earns its moniker as "Iowa's number one resort." Frankly, it is probably the only resort but who's quibbling? It reminds me of a midwestern Highlands, NC or Seaside, FL. Lots of big houses, lots of resorts, lots of cabin rentals. It being September we were there in the "off season" so things were relatively quiet.

We enjoyed some quiet camping by one of the lakes. Temperatures got a bit chilly—it was about 45 degrees in the morning with the bonus wind coming off the lake. Some good coffee and cocoa warmed us up quickly though.

Here's our new 6-man tent that we got for the bargain price of $100 after triple markdown and end-of-season sale. (Frugal note: September is a great time to get camping equipment on sale!)

Here's a quick shot of Xavier helping daddy tote water back from the pump a few campsites away.

Our plan is to keep camping on the weekends until the weather just doesn't allow it anymore. We love being outside and enjoying Jiffy pop around the campfire at night and singing campfire songs. Good clean family fun.

Main Street Music Night

Thursday night after dinner we all went down to Main Street for their annual Music Night. About 40 different shops and restaurants had small musical acts in or just outside their doors. Not only did the event encourage folks to take a closer look at some of the downtown businesses but to also get a sense of all the musical talent in the city.

Most of the acts were amateurs but obviously very talented. Some of the acts fit the store. For example the candy store had a series of recitals by the local Suzuki violin students. (Xavier wanted to "take a turn" on the violin after seeing a young boy play.) The genres ranged from bluegrass barn dance to xylophone jazz.

Jack had as much fun watching the people go by as dancing to the music.

This was Tim's favorite...a jug-band styled group.

Xavier enjoyed the acoustic guitars too.

TILAA--Sidewalks

This is the first in what I hope to be a short series of musings about Things I Love About Ames (TILAA). I reserve the right to extend my love to all of Iowa if the topic warrants it!

Pretty much all of Ames is connected by sidewalks. It is lovely. People use them. We use them. Walking is such a nice way to start and end the day. We regularly go on walks as a family now.

One thing that I've noticed about having lots of sidewalks, it makes drivers drive differently. Taking a left turn? You look for cars but also pedestrians. Theres a soft subtle shift in the brain when this happens, you no longer feel isolated in an impenetrable SUV-bubble.

Sidewalks. Love 'em.

Oh Happy Day!

We finally got an honest-to-goodness piece of forwarded mail here in Iowa. While it was nice to get the thank you note from my nephew, it was even better to be able to go to the Ames library and use the envelope to get our library card. The boys and I have been on a meager book diet over the past few months. While in Winston-Salem we did hit the Goodwill to stock up on a few new books at the bargain price of $0.50 a piece but there just wasn't enough room in the truck to get too many.

The Ames library has a single location downtown with a very active bookmobile program that goes all over the city. I don't know if the lack of branches accounts for it but this is the loveliest community library I've ever seen. They have all the whistles and bells of technology: self check out, online reservations, MP3 downloads, e-mail reminders when books are about to be due, extensive and current DVD collection...and I've only been on the first floor!

The children's section is equally impressive. They have a dedicated room for storytime, which occurs about 12 times a week. Some of you may have heard my complaints about our usual storytime in Beaumont. The folks who run this do a fantastic job of really engaging the kids while also giving the parents pre-reading tips. The rest of the children's section includes a fish tank, a puppet theatre, several play areas, rockers for mothers to read to their children in, picture books in kid-friendly bins rather than standard stacks, and so much more. The collection for kids includes toys, CDs, DVDs, musical instruments, puzzles and other toys. It is a godsend for us since we don't really want to fill our small apartment with new toys but do want the boys to have a variety of playthings to keep them interested.

I fully plan to make this library a stop several times a week while we are here.

A Tale of Two Gardens...

...and two cats.

On our way to Iowa we spent a few days in Winston-Salem with Grandma and Grandpa M. Each day we took the boys on a little outing to see some of the sites of Winston-Salem. Sometimes it was just a playground but we did get to see two lovely historic gardens while we were there.

The first was Reynolda Gardens on the campus of Wake Forest. The formal gardens and greenhouse host dozens upon dozens of vegetables, roses, and rare plants. These were the most manicured vegetable gardens that I've ever seen. The dirt in these gardens looks like brownie mix. I can't imagine that the suns sets on a weed in Reynolda gardens.

While looking around a little one-eared, white kitty took to being our tour guide. The boys were enchanted. I suppose I was too as all my photos are of the boys with the cat...none of the garden itself. I'm such a poor archivist! Anyway, here is a photo of Xavier taking an imaginary photo of the cat with his map.

The second garden we visited was a historical recreation of the garden at Historic Bethabara Park. It is a Williamstown-like recreation of the original Morovian settlement of Winston-Salem. It was a weekday so there were no reenactors other than in the gift shop. We had a fun time exploring the fort but my favorite part by far was the community garden. They rent out space with the two rules that you can't plant corn (as it was considered a field crop only in the past) and tomatoes (as they were considered poisonous!). We saw lots of okra, herbs, flowers, beans, peppers and these HUGE sunflowers. Down the middle was a grapevine-covered walk. At this garden we met a black cat/caretaker who was very interested in our turkey sandwiches!

After seeing the gleam in my eye at both these garden tours, my husband told me he thought we might need to get a house with a larger yard. I'll admit I'm inspired to begin planning the winter garden when we get home to Texas.

Summer Images

As we near the end of the summer (which I prefer to mark at the autumnal equinox) I thought I'd share a mish mash of things that were still on my camera as we headed up to Iowa.

A photo of the okra blossom. Our okra plants really produced this year--enough to make several pots of gumbo! I hated to pull them up before we left for our trip.

These beans were pretty but didn't really produce much before it was time to leave. I think I planted them too late or expected the harvest too early. Boys playing chase in the clothesline.

Playing with paper dolls on a rainy day. Jack liked to decapitate his while Xavier preferred to just separate and rejoin his with tape.

All the kids one Sunday before Mass.

Xavier in his "house" made of laundry baskets.

Xavier at swim lessons. Bless his heart, Xavier was the smallest and youngest one in his class. He seemed to enjoy the water but didn't understand most of the instructions. Needless to say, he will repeat this class next summer!

Hello from Ames

Hi gang,

Due to the personal nature of this blog, I'm putting on privacy settings for the months we are in Iowa while Tim is on sabbatical. Sorry for the extra time you'll need to spend signing it but it was either this or writing in "code" about our adventures here, or just not posting at all.

Viewership of this blog is now by invitation only.

Posts and photos to come soon about our vacation and our life here in Ames. The short version is that we are living in a 1BR extended stay hotel room for three months. It is a small but totally manageable space. We look forward to finding lots of things to do while we are here.

Xavier is napping in my room and the camera is in there too so no photos for now. Soon, I promise!

Photo Dump

The boys are obsessed with puzzles these days. Xavier actually puts his together while Jack likes to take the pieces out of the box, spread them out, and put them back in the box. Two puzzles and a table-length distance are required to keep the peace.

Check out the double rainbow we saw from our backyard the other afternoon. There's a pot of gold under my clothesline!

Xavier and Jack on the trike.

Jack and his buddy Keira on the trike.

Hot Lists and Price Books

Did you all enjoy your week and a half off? Sorry about the gap in classes, folks. With my stepdaughter here for the summer I've been so busy living life that I've had little to no time to blog about it. Couponing and bargain hunting has been making its effect on my family. The boys love to play with my discarded coupons when I'm culling out the expired ones. My stepdaughter is beginning to learn more about PPU (price per unit) and just realized yesterday that the popcorn that the movies sells for $4 costs us about $.06 to make at home.

Enough chit chat, let's get down to business. Today we are going to learn about the value and use of price books. If you only do ONE thing from this series of blog posts, this is it. Back in the dark ages before marriage and kids I worked as an editor of a small women's magazine. One of the parts of my job was to keep an eye on the costs of our supplies and vendors (printers, paper, delivery service, shipping service, etc.) and every so often to comparison shop. Money saved was money earned, quite literally for me as my compensation was based in part on the profitability of each and every issue. I had elaborate spreadsheets dedicated to analyzing various business expenses and how they could change our profitability.

When I shifted gears into homemaking, making a price book made perfect sense to me. I was new to Beaumont and I had no idea which stores had the best prices. Why wouldn't I make a list of what I bought and how much it cost? So using both my receipts and flyers from grocery stores I made a new spreadsheet with the following columns:

• Category Organize your price book into whatever categories make sense to you. Mine are Baking Goods, Beauty/Grooming, Beverages, Breads, Canned Goods, Cleaning Products, Condiments, Dairy, Frozen, Meat, Pasta, Produce and Seafood.
• Item, Here you specify the item name. If it is an item you are brand loyal about, put the exact product name (i.e. Sensodyne), otherwise just put the generic name (whitening toothpaste).
• Date, Slowly you'll begin to realize that certain products go on sale about every 12 weeks and others go on sale seasonally. Having the date also lets you monitor how overall prices are increasing over time.
• Store, I have abbreviations for each store I frequent
• Quantity, List the numeral for the size or amount of what was purchased (i.e. 24)
• Unit, List the unit of measurement such as ounces, gallons, pounds, etc. If it is produce sold by the piece just put the word unit there
• Price, List the price paid without including any coupons used.
• PPU, Here you will need to do a little spreadsheet operation to divide your column of price by your column of quantity. The result is the PPU. This is what will help you easily compare the price for a 28 oz can of tomatoes to a 14 oz can.

Now instead to making a massive price book for every single item you ever might think of buying, you are going to start out slow with a Hot List Price Book. To start out you need to write down about 20 items that are staples in your household. Hint: what are you always running out of? What fills up your cart? What do you spend the most on? If Armageddon were upon us, what would you stock up on? Some items on our household's hotlist are milk, apples, bananas, apple juice, eggs, coffee, raisins, bread, whole wheat pasta, and popcorn. If you are a meat eater don't forget to add a few meats to your list. Ours includes ground beef, whole chickens, and pork chops.

A word about brand loyalty. I've said before that you will save more in the long run if you can discard most brand loyalty in the supermarket. But undoubtedly there are a few things that you just would rather go without than buy a lesser brand. For me this is Sensodyne toothpaste and Glide dental floss. Put these items on your hotlist by the brand name.

When I put together my first price book I quickly learned that I could save at least $50 a month by buying milk, eggs, coffee and popcorn at Kroger and canned goods, some produce and most meats at Market Basket. I also learned that for our family, Sam's Club didn't make any difference at all from a PPU perspective and that while some products were less expensive at Wal-mart, most weren't. That's about $600 a year in savings without even clipping a coupon. Pretty cool, right?

Homework: Make your Hotlist Pricebook.
You can make a spread sheet or you can just use a notebook and a calculator. I'm sure somewhere someone has made an app for this as well but as a cell phone Luddite I'm no help to you there. Draw up a price book sheet in whatever way works best for you. Make about five blank spaces below each of your 20 hot list items. Over the next week or so (it may be a while before I post again) fill in your price book when you go to the stores you frequent. Don't forget to include club stores and drug stores as well as supermarkets.

Coupon College: Books, Blogs, & Buddies

Welcome back, class! Do you have your coupon holding devices? How about a newspaper subscription? Great. Now let's start filling those notebooks and wallets with coupons. If you did your homework, Sunday's coupons should already be in your notebook's plastic sleeves. I got two in my paper: Red Plum and SmartSource. Also wrapped around my whole paper was a sleeve containing three cereal samples and three $1 off coupons for those cereals.

In Tuesday's mail the fliers for the three major grocery chains arrived as well. Around here sales run from Wednesday to Tuesday. I try to do most of my major shopping on Monday or Tuesday then as I will have that Sunday's coupons to incorporate into my shopping. During the week I make small fill-in trips as well. More about this in the How to Shop lesson.

Web Coupons
Even with all those coupons from the paper, you can really benefit from couponing by the oodles and oodles of them available on the web. Here are a few of my favorite places to find coupons on the web:

1. Kroger Website This is pretty much the only place you will find coupons on Kroger brand items.
   
2. Coupons.com This is sort of the large clearing house for coupons. Most web coupons piggyback on their printing software.
   
3. Smartsource.com This is the online version of the same item in the paper. It is a great resource for duplicates when you find a really good coupon in the paper.
   
4. Redplum.com Same.
   
5. MamboSprouts.com Great resource for coupons for organic or health food store items.

In addition to these mainstays, many manufacturers have coupons right on their websites. If you have a certain brand that you are insanely loyal to, it is worth it to check out their website for coupons or sign up for their newsletters or e-mail alerts for sales. I have a separate email address that I use just for this purpose.

Coupon Blogs/Websites

More than likely though you don't have the time or the inclination to visit every possible corporate website that you might possibly benefit from. That's where the coupon blogs and websites come in handy. There are thousands of these out there--baby coupons, regional sites, organic, you name it. The trick is to find two or three that are a good fit for your household.

My favorites are:

1. Coupon Mom In particular there are two tools on the site that I use each week: the coupon database and the deals by state. Go ahead and set up an account with this site (using your coupon e-mail address) because it is very useful. Look at those two tools in particular and just poke around this site. We'll get to specifics in a few lessons.
   
2. Money Saving Mom The lady who writes this blog is a SAHM who homeschools and follows a Dave Ramsey style of money management. She also spends a great deal of time collecting sales information. I have a feed to her blog and scan it once a day.
   
3. Frugal Coupon Living This is the newest feed I've added to my collection. I like that it includes sales to places like hardware stores and other retail chains.

Other Coupons/Information

Once you start looking for coupons you'll be amazed at all the places you'll find them. On the packages of food, in the grocery store aisles, in Parade or other glossy magazines. Some of the best coupons you'll get are spit out of the cash register when you check out of the grocery store. I've had coupons for $5 of free produce and $3 off eggs before.

Choosing Coupons

Now obviously you aren't going to need every single coupon you come across. When you get serious about saving money on grocery shopping one of the first things to go out the window is brand loyalty. (A few things you'll never pay for again once you start couponing and give up brand loyalty is toothpaste, deodorant, and toothbrushes.) But even then there will be coupons you just KNOW you will never use. I use the following rule of thumb when evaluating whether or not to clip/save/print a coupon:

Would I get this if it were free or nearly free? Would I keep it for myself or could I give it away to a food bank or friend?

So I'll save the Activia coupons (even though I prefer my own yogurt!) but pass on dog food items. Sometimes I'll find a coupon that I'm fairly sure I won't use but I know it is an item a friend uses regularly. I'll clip it anyway and give it to them. I strongly believe in the be nice and pay it forward principle when it comes to home economics.

Homework
Okay, so your homework for this week is to make a favorites folder on your web browser and add links to all the sites above. Subscribe to the blogs and review a few pages worth of entries. Try your hand at printing out a few coupons just to see what its like. Don't feel obligated to DO anything with these coupons just yet. You're just beginning to build your collection.

Coupon College Intro

Good morning class. You are in Coupon College 101. If this wasn't the course you signed up for feel free to stay a while--you may learn something! Now, unlike my mathematician husband, I didn't prepare my syllabus a few weeks ahead of time. I'm tempted to blame the kiddos or come up with some other excuse but the fact of the matter is that I'm just not as organized as he is. Aren't you glad I don't teach you calculus?

Okay so here's the syllabus that I jotted down on the back of a pamphlet while in the waiting room of my doctors office this morning.

Week1: Introduction and Supply List

Week 2: Books, Blogs and Buddies -- You don't have to do it alone!

Week 3: Hotlists and Pricebooks

Week 4: How to Shop -- it's more than just spending money

Week 5: Coupons, Part I -- find, store and tote

Week 6: Coupons, Part II -- what to use when and where

Week 7: Weekly Sales and Fliers

Week 8: Your Weekly Routine

Week 9: Advanced Couponing: catalinas, ECB and more

Week 10: Other Ways to Streeeeetch that Grocery Budget

Week 11: Long Term Shopping Habits

Week 12: People Skills Can Save You Money

Week 13: Final Exam!

In addition to each lesson, I'll be posting "extra credit" posts listing particular deals I've found each week.

Any questions? Okay, moving right along let's talk about supplies.

A Coupon Carrier
This is the small accordion-file that you will use to organize your coupons. It will need to be easily carried to the store and used while you shop. You can find them in Target, Walmart, dollar stores, and drug stores--usually in the office supply section. I've had several of these over the years and I much prefer the kind you can zip closed. I'm a bit of a klutz so the zipper saves me from playing "coupon pickup" in the middle of the canned goods isle. I also like the zippered pouch in the front. I use it to hold my grocery money and any coupons that I know I am going to use on a particular trip.

You will usually have 12-13 slots in each carrier. If you can, get the kind that doesn't have preprinted categories. You'll want to be able to customize it. I make tabs that correspond to the order in which the aisles are in my most often used grocery store: Kroger. So my carrier categories are:

Produce
Bread
Dairy
Beverages
Canned Goods
Condiments
Pasta & Sauces
Baking
Paper Goods/Household
Baby/Cereal
Personal Care
Meats/Frozen

The nice thing about basing the carrier organization on a particular store is that if I have an item that doesn't clearly fit into a category (popcorn for example), I can put it in the slot that is closest to where it is in the store--in this case in bread.

cheapo option: A bunch of old envelopes with a rubber band around them. I don't recommend it but if you're reluctant to spend money to save money just yet, this is a suitable make-do option.

A Loose-leaf Binder
A 1 and 1/2 inch binder should be just fine for now. Make dividers with whatever is handy: stick on tabs, print-out tabs, or even scotch tape and a Sharpie will do in a pinch.

Throw some loose leaf in the front. On the top page write: Shopping List. Throughout the week, write down anything that you know you will need to buy in the next week.

The first tab should be labelled menu. Later on when we discuss your planning day, this will be where you jot down your menu for the week.

The next tab should be labelled price book. We'll learn more about this in a few weeks.

The third tab is seasonal. This will be where you put a list of seasonal sales (turkeys in November for example) and a list of in season produce. This will be a big help when it comes to meal planning around what is going to be inexpensive.

The fourth tab is labelled Meal Plans. Some folks like to have a few set meal plans for those weeks when things get hectic. For example, I have a one chicken-one roast weekly plan that covers about 6 dinners. Each meal plan has basic menus and a shopping list.

The last tab should be for coupons. Behind this tab put about ten plastic sleeves. This will be where you put each week's coupons out of the newspaper. Just whip them out of the paper, date the top of each and put an entire week's worth in one sleeve. I go from back to front, meaning my most recent coupons are in the front sleeve and older ones are behind it.

Finally in the pockets of your binder is where you will slip the weekly circulars from the grocery stores. These can be found in the newspaper, in your mailbox, or even at the front of the grocery store. Here in Beaumont the circulars list sales from Wednesday to Tuesday so from now on when I talk about "weeks" this is usually what I mean.

Now I like to have a pretty cover on my binder because it spends so much time out in the open where anybody can see it. Your fussiness level may vary.

Newspaper Subscription

This is the most costly part of couponing. If you already get a paper--good for you! Newspapers are a dying breed but still a fairly necessary tool to be an active member of one's local democracy in my opinion. Fortunately, the Beaumont Enterprise offers a Sunday only option with access to their daily e-edition online for less than $10 per month. So you can be frugal and green all at the same time. In a budget crunch? Ask your neighbors/family members who don't coupon for their coupon sections. Then when you save enough money to justify it, go ahead and get your own subscription.

Now newspapers aren't the only thing you'll use to cultivate coupons but it is the most reliable. Next week we'll look for all the best places to find coupons online, in the mail, in the store, and beyond.

Okay, your homework this week is to get your three tools: your coupon carrier, your binder, and your newspaper subscription. Make your dividers and tabs. Have fun making it pretty or use stickers on them to keep you from taking all this too seriously.

Next week: Books, Blogs, & Buddies

Now Enrolling: Coupon College

Over the past few years I've had several people express interest in learning some of the ways I save money on our family's grocery bill. Several others are skeptical that we can use coupons and shop sales without resorting to a high-fat diet of Chefboyardee and fruit punch for dinner each night. So in an effort to help the would-be-frugal (and I admit, squelch the naysayers) I've decided to design a step-by-step course called Coupon College.

There are tons of resources on the internet and in the public library to help you started with saving money and couponing. Why should I reinvent the wheel? I think to jumpstart the process it helps to have someone point out the good deals to you while you are also setting up your own shopping and couponing system. While you work on learning how to coupon, I'll help you right now by pointing out good local sales to you. If it took three months before you started to see any improvement at all, you'd probably give up before you got started. The fact of the matter is that this is somewhat a local proposition. Deals in Texas don't automatically appear in New Hampshire. For that matter the deals in Houston may be completely different from the deals in Beaumont. So while my friends across the country are welcome to join in (and will certainly benefit) the biggest winners in Coupon College are likely to be folks in and around Beaumont, TX. Those of you in other locales will need to use common sense to take what is useful and disregard the rest. I will be providing helpful links to articles, blogs, and databases that will help you customize your own system.

So, let's get a few of the FAQs out of the way, shall we?

Q: How much will Coupon College cost?

A: This is a personal blog--it isn't monetized in any way. I do not accept payment or products from any company and do not intend to in the future. I post for my own edification and enjoyment of helping and connecting with others. Accordingly, Coupon College is a completely free and voluntary program. There is no monetary tuition. I would ask that once you get the hang of couponing that you "pay it forward." This could mean donating extra food to a food bank, teaching your neighbor how to coupon, or just forwarding someone else the link to this series. It's up to you.

Q: Does that mean I won't need to spend any money at all do participate in Coupon College?

A: Not exactly. One of our first lessons will be on "school supplies" which will contain a list of optional but recommended tools you'll need. It is made up of really hard-to-find and expensive items like a loose leaf binder, a coupon carrier, a pair of scissors, etc. You may also wish to subscribe to the Sunday paper, which in Beaumont is just $9 per month. If you are really strapped for cash, you can always make do with some old used envelopes and your neighbor's recycled newspapers.

Q: Will there be homework?

A: Yes! You can't expect yourself to learn anything new if you aren't willing to do a little work on your own. I'm not going to wave a magic wand and automatically reduce your grocery bill by 20% each week. You should expect to spend about two hours each week on Coupon College. Some weeks it may be more, some weeks it may be less. Look at it this way: can you think of two television shows you watched last week that in retrospect you could have done without? That wasted time could have been spend being productive in Coupon College. Once you get the hang of it, couponing and shopping sales will feel like second nature like brushing your teeth before you go to bed.

Q: Will there be tests or exams?

A: Yes! From time to time you will need to "test" yourself to make sure you really do know how to implement what you are learning. You can choose to share your test results with the rest of us via the comments boxes or not. Either way, you really ought to at least keep track of your progress to keep you going. I'll be posting my progress as well by giving you our weekly budget and a report on how we did.

Q: How long is Coupon College?

A: Three months. I'll post at least once a week about a new topic and an assignment. I suggest doing things "my way" for this period. Just subscribe to this blog and you're in. Once you are done, you can decide how best to tweak your shopping system to best fit your family's needs.

Q: I'm not a SAHM, a healthfood freak, in need of saving money, etc. Why should I even consider doing this?

A: Quite simply: freedom. Even if you can spare the extra $200 each month for groceries that you would save by couponing, would you turn down $200 if someone offered it to you? Everytime you save a dollar from your household budget you buy a little bit of your freedom back. Perhaps you can use it to go on vacation, or splurge on a fancy date night once a month, or afford to eat more organic/sustainable food. Why spend money that you don't need to? And if for some unforseen reason you do find yourself tight on money one day, you will be glad to know these skills.

Okay, that's the pitch. Are you in or are you out? Leave a message in the comments or send me an e-mail if you'd like to join us. Oh, and feel free to pass a link along to a friend!

It's Official

It's official...I'm overweight. I'm not whining, it's not just bad body perception, it's just the plain truth. Plug my wieght into the BMI calculator on the NIH website and I'm on the low end of overweight. It doesn't get more clinical than that.

I easily can see many causes for this. I joined the new gym after the Beaumont YMCA decided to cut free childcare in an effort to cut costs. There was a month lag time in between. Now I didn't instantly become overweight in those few weeks but it didn't help. I'm afraid it has been something that's been building over time and was simply exacerbated by a second pregnancy and the go go go lifestyle of trying to keep kids active during the day. I also did a few months of Once A Month Mom cooking with the unfortunate consequence of eating less healthy meals. Lots of cheese and pasta dishes. But most of all I just let a more sedentary lifestyle and a few more junk food snacks creep in until, bam, I found myself overweight.

There was a great article in Atlantic Monthly about how obesity happens in America and why it so difficult to reign in. In particular I found this quote illuminating:

Obesity belongs in a different category of social illness. You can’t become a
smoker until you decide to start smoking. For all the peer pressure and
advertising that helped turn many 20th-century Americans into walking
chimneys, you don’t have to smoke to live. “But if you go with the flow in
America today, you will end up overweight or obese,” Thomas Frieden, the
director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, told me when I
met him at an obesity conference in Washington last summer.

I suppose I thought I was immune to this. We hike and walk all the time. We try to eat a whole foods diet as much as possible. But I have to admit that I fell out of pushing myself and I made one too many trips through the drive-thru when the boys and I are out running errands. Most of all, while I ate breakfast, it wasn't very large and by the boys' naptime I was ravenous and too often "treated" myself to high calorie, low nutrition foods.

For the first time, my efforts to get fit aren't about losing weight per se (although I'd like to get firmly back in the normal BMI range for sure), or looking a certain way, or fitting into a pair of jeans or a swimsuit. No, I'm doing this for the long haul. When we're ready to go for long backpacking trips again I want to be ready. I've listened to enough Dr. Oz on XM radio to know that I don't just want to have a long life, I want a long vital life. I don't want to casually slip my way into type-II diabetes (not a far-fetched proposition given my family history). I may be an older mom in my community but I don't want to feel like an older mom. I know that if I just continute to go with the flow, even with our relatively healthy lifestyle, I will end up very overweight or even obese by the time the boys are grown and Tim and I are ready to retire. Yikes! I'm also facing the fact that as I age it gets more and more difficult to jump start a fitness program.

So I've started counting calories, working out at the gym, and contiously being more active when out and about with the boys. We've nixed the drive-thru. I' m avoiding carbs after dinner so that huge bowl of popcorn on the couch with my husband is being replaced sometimes with a bowl of apple slices. I've found the Virtual Trainer software on Shape.com very helpful. I'll keep trying to post about this and let you know my progress by percentage (I don't want to trigger anyone out there in cyberspace by posting my pounds...each person is different).

It's been two weeks since my epiphany. I've managed to lose a little weight (I'm now on the cusp of BMI overweight) but more importantly, I feel soooooo much better. Brighter actually. It's a nice feeling.

Sick Day

Unfortunately all my guys seem to have come down with a bit of a stomach virus. No fever, nothing too serious. But we're sticking close to home today and watching a little more television than usual. In an effort to prevent their little minds from turning completely to mush, we did do a kitchen activity today.

A week ago my mother sent us a popsicle maker. So I broke open the "in case of emergency" Pedialyte left over from my frantic swine flu stock up last fall and together we made PediaPops. The boys loved it and immediately fell asleep afterwards: Jack in the crib and Xavier on the couch after reading Petook with me.

I'm taking advantage of today's quiet time to catch up on laundry, prayer and reading. So far I'm the only one in this house unscathed by the virus and I hope to stay that way by staying quiet too.

Tot School--February Round Up

Well February was a bit crazy around here. The boys and I passed around colds for the first few weeks. Then once the weather warmed up we've been on the go a lot. I did manage to take some photos here and there to share with you!

Here's the Mardi Gras king cake we made with a recipe from Ruby Slippers. It was more breadlike than donutish but the boys loved it.

Making homemade valentines.

Making valentine pizza.

And of course a little Montessori to balance things out.