Simple Pleasures in April

It's that time again! Time for a post about happy things. Things that have made me happy this month. Isn't the word happy such a great word, by the way??

Anyways, let's start with this book.
A Book About Saving Money


I just picked this up at the library last week, cuz I found it under the search for "couponing". I'd never heard of it or the author, Teri Gault, before. But I have learned quite a bit from this little bundle of pages! It's written by this lady who grew up in a poor family and was in charge of getting groceries for them with $20 each week, so she learned how to make the money go farther by clipping coupons and buying things only when they were on sale. Then she grew up, made it big as an actress and married a rich actor and life was good until they both ran out of work and were dirt poor. She started something she calls "The Grocery Game", which is basically the game of seeing how much you can buy for as little as possible! She talks about couponing, stockpiling (buying more than you need when it's on sale and you have coupons), the basic sale rotations in grocery stores, how long you can freeze different foods, recipes on a budget, etc. Practically every page I read, I'm like "oooh, I need to write that down!" So yes, I'd recommend this book is you want to learn a thing or two about saving. The author has a website called TheGroceryGame.com if you want to pay a little fee to have grocery lists made out for you at your preferred store with sales & coupon items, but I always shy away from things with fee's! Why is that, even if it could save hundreds of dollars a month, I'm too cheap to pay the fee. :)

Finishing Our Basement

That's right! We moved into our house 2 years ago with the basement unfinished, except for one finished bedroom down there. It hasn't bothered me...there's nice storage space down there, and it's just us so it's not like we needed a whole lot of room. I figured we'd get around to finishing within the next couple years. But Jake is a GO TO person, and he's gettin' her dun!! It's quite a blessing that he's a handiman, and has experience with tiling and building and helping his brothers finish their houses. He just started last week, and has been drilling and pounding away down there almost every night after work. The biggest project was detaching the bottom half of the stairs, because they made a U shape, making it virtually impossible to get any furniture down there. So now the bottom half is attached in the other direction, making the stairs an L shape, with half of the wall gone so that we can put up a removable railing so it's easy to get stuff down there. Whew! Whoever designed this house wasn't thinking straight. Anyways, we're going to have a family room with a gas fireplace, a full bathroom and another bedroom down there when this is all over. And Jake's goal is to have it done in about 3 months! We'll see how it goes. But I'm excited.

This Picture
I just love that she sat still and looked at the camera long enough for a picture. And I love that her hair flips out on the sides. That's how my mom's hair was when she was little, and also how mine was. So that's cute.


Free Pier 49 Pizza

Yuuuuummm....look at that plate of goodness. And yes, it was completely free! If you go to this link: http://visitor.constantcontact.com/manage/optin/ea?v=001hAbSJWFaoM5jTyCUSIR56Q%3D%3D

you can sign up for Pier 49 Pizza's email club, and they'll send you a confirmation email good for a free personal pizza of your choice! So I signed up for me, and Jake signed up for himself, and we had a free dinner date night! There's no shame in getting something for free, I'm tellin ya. Although, I will tell you about the first experience we had when we tried to use these precious coupons.

It was a Wednesday night and I didn't feel like cooking, so I said hey let's go get our personal pizzas! We headed on over to the Pier 49 in Murray, and I noticed a sign on the door that said "Kids eat free on Wednesdays", good for a slice of pizza. So I said, perfect! Cami can get her own little slice too! (She eats whatever we eat usually). At the counter, I hand the girl my coupon and tell her what kind I want, and then Jake gives his and says what kind he wants. Then I ask if Cami gets a free slice of pizza, to the checkout girl. She gives me a dumb glazed over look, and then chuckles and continues ringing us up. So I replied, "cuz it says kids eat free on wednesdays, and she's a kid, right." The girl just plays dumb and says "uhh, I don't think we can do that." So I say, ok fine. Jake orders some cheese bread for 2.99 so that we're not just taking freebies, and I drop some quarters into the tip jar. Then finally the girl says, "Ok that'll be $14.50." And we're like whaaaat?? We have these coupons for free personal pizzas. And she says "Oh, it's just one per person". It says that on the coupon, yes. And I say, "Yes well, we're 2 people though. If it said 1 per party, then that would make sense." I have no shame. I continued "If you want me to go outside and walk in by myself and order, I'll do that." At this point, the clueless girl said uhhhh let me call my manager. So she gets on her cell phone and starts rattling off Spanish for like 8 minutes, and when she finally gets off she says "Sorry, we don't take these coupons." UGGHH. So we just left.

But this is a happy post, so let's get to the happy part. That weekend, we went to the Pier 49 in Sugarhouse while we were in the area, and they took our coupons without even blinking, and we enjoyed a lovely dinner. And I love their pizza, it's deelicious!

90% off Sale

Who doesn't love a good sale? Well, I was excited to see a 90% off sale at Target the other week on their Easter stuff. That's pretty much freeeee! So I got Cami one of those stuffed Elmo face Easter baskets for next year, cuz I figure she'll enjoy it, for only 99 cents. And other little goodies to put in it, plus an egg dye kit for a dime and grass for 2 cents.

Baby Signing Time

Baby, baby, baby signing time! I've checked a couple of these out of the library, and have enjoyed them more than Cami! I've learned all kinds of new signs, and sung and danced to catchy little songs. Who knew that signing "cracker" meant to just knock on your elbow? haha.

Hot Prints

I love this company! You can go to their website and sign up, and they'll let you make a FREE little photo book (more like a magazine) every month! I made one for Cam to look at during sacrament meeting, cuz it's thin and flimsy and easy to slip in my church stuff. It's 8 x 11 size, and about 10 pages, so definitely worth it! It's even free shipping. Fun to make for a different event each month, or to give away to grandparents or whatever. Try it. :)

Springtime Flowers

I do love this time of year, mostly for the flowers! First we had little purple flowers popping up, then yellow and white daffodils, now yellow and red tulips and popcorn on the tree! It's like a different surprise every day to look out the window. And I love noticing all the different yards and seeing what wildflowers they have growing. Good thing the owner before us had a green thumb, cuz otherwise there wouldn't be anything growing! Although, Jake is good in the yard and keeps it looking pretty. I need to be better about that! Anyways, springtime is lovely.

Well, those are just a few of the things that have made me smile recently! Yay for happy things.