The Painters are Coming! The Painters are Coming!

The Painters are coming tomorrow to prime our ceilings and walls! Thank you Jesus!

They are going to be here at 8:00 am and we've got to get this place ready for them. We are moving most of our stuff into the garage and then just covering up the larger pieces of furniture and electronics. I find it totally ironic that my husband insisted on having a cleaned out spotless garage and now I'm going to junk it up again!

I've been very lax with housework this summer because I have a mental block. Or I'm just bone lazy. Or both. With the kitchen a wreck from the fire and the walls and ceilings a striped gray and black mess, I've not really cared to keep everything looking good. But hopefully all of that is behind us and in about a week I will have everything back to normal. Then I can just be my normal lazy self without the mental block and without any good excuses anymore!

Can anyone guess what those color boxes are at the top?

Yep, those are the colors dear hubby picked out and since I'm eating crow because I started the fire, I will have to live with them! What do you think?

Works for Me: What to do with soap slivers and hotel soap

Now that I've returned from vacation with about 6 small bars of Hotel soap, which smell fabulous I might add, I need to do something with them plus a few slivers of soap I've saved from around the house for the past few months. I found this recipe for oatmeal soap balls at one of my favorite frugal forums- Frugal Families.com.

Oatmeal Soap/Body Scrub

You'll need..... 1/2 cup oatmeal or cornmeal

1/2 cup soap pieces (small pieces or hotel size bars)

1 to 2 tbsp. vegetable oil

1 to 2 tbsp. water

Place the oatmeal (or cornmeal) and soap in a blender. First blend, then pulse. Pulse until the mixture is fine. Transfer the mixture to a large, deep bowl and add the oil and water. Form the mixture into a ball. Let dry for 24 hours before using. Note: Using oatmeal will make an oatmeal soap and using cornmeal will make a body polisher/scrub type soap.

I let the kids roll these into small balls and then we place on wax paper to dry. They smell great, work great, and are nice for gift giving tucked into small tins or baskets.

A great way to reuse and recycle soap!

Check out more "Works for Me" ideas at Rocks in My Dryer.

Upcoming deal at CVS: Free/cheap Intuition Razors

During the sale week of July 27 CVS will have the Schick Intuition Razors on sale for $4 each. They are normally $9.99 each. My daughter and I both love these razors! In my Florida coupon inserts there was recently a coupon for $3.00 off each one, making them only $1 each. But some places got a coupon for $4 off each one, making them free with coupon.

If you love these razors or you could use them as a great addition to gift bag for moms or sisters you might want to try to "buy" some coupons from a clipping service. Cassie at Homeschooling Four had a great post yesterday about how she is enjoying buying coupons online instead of purchasing multiple newspapers each week. Check out her post to see where she orders. I use

or the Coupon Master usually to purchase my coupons. Currently, Coupon Master does not have any Intuition coupons and the Coupon Clippers has many of the $3 off coupons. There are also multiple auctions on Ebay for these $4 off coupons but the prices for those are going pretty high.

I ordered 10 of the $3 off coupons and hope that when I combine the coupon with Extra Bucks from this week I can still get them close to free. These 10 plus the 2 coupons I already had should last us through at least the end of 2008.

Hope this helps you get some cheap or free razors too!

Winn-Dixie Good deals today only

Since I was on vacation last week I didn't get a chance to look over the Winn-Dixie sales until last night. I found a few good deals but they most likely end today. So if you have the coupons and the chance to run by you can do pretty well.

Powerade is on sale for $.79 each and with the $1 off coupons from this past week you can get it free plus overage.

Cheerios $.99 per 8.9 ounce box. Use a $1 off 2 coupon from previous inserts and get them for $.50 per box.

Deli Creation sandwiches on sale for $2 use the $1 off from recent inserts for $1 each.

***My store was out of Lemon-Lime flavor of Powerade so I got a raincheck in that flavor. I then went to the Coupon Clippers and ordered more of the $1 off coupons so when I get those I will use my raincheck to get more free.***

Menu planning: Not always a success!

A funny thing happened while trying to menu plan today. Notice I said trying. I wasn't too successful. I happen to have a lot of meat stockpiled but not much of anything else, except plain rice and pasta. So I decided to use one of my favorite tools; ingredients search at allrecipes.com. I know there are other sites but I usually go straight there because I've had great success with it. Well, my friends, that success ended today. I typed in that I wanted to use ground beef, rice, and broccoli. I thought I might find a great casserole or Asian-inspired recipe. But nope, I found that these ingredients only led to . . . . drumroll please . . . .

Buddy's and Bubba's Homemade Dog Food
"This is a healthy addition to, or replacement for, your dog's daily meals that he will happily devour."

I laughed really hard because what came to my warped mind was senior citizens eating dog food!! So, I refined my search and found a recipe for Broccoli-Hamburger Casserole and made it. I happily placed a big heaping amount of it on a plate for my dear husband (who usually makes his own plate but was running late for UPS!) and he asked what in the world it was. I just smiled and said, "Be happy it isn't dog food. NO really be happy it isn't!"

Tomorrow we are having shrimp. Perhaps I can find a great cat food recipe.

Have you ever had a menu-planning nightmare? I'd love to hear about it!

Finally, Some Progress with the Insurance Company

When we returned from vacation and there was still no email, no voice mail, no snail mail, nothing from our insurance company regarding the kitchen fire, I sent off a very firm email to the company and let them know that I was highly dissatisfied with their lack of customer service and that I would be seeking another company for our property insurance and other policies that we carry with them. This morning I checked their website and I saw that our case was now closed and a check was being processed.

I then received a phone call from the person in charge of our claim asking me if I had any more questions or concerns and his apologies for lack of clear communication. He then said he deducted our $1000 deductible from the estimated contractor charges. I asked him to look again, because we have a $500 deductible. "Oh, well, then we will cut you an additional check for $500 for the difference. And last, I now need you to itemize every, single item of food and any food related supplies that was damaged and inedible due to fire." Before they just told us to list "food" as a general category.

Looks like I will be going to the grocery store tomorrow, not to shop but to list current prices of everything I threw out. Thankfully, I took pictures of everything! I'm sure 10 Heinz ketchups and 14 boxes of Duncan Hines cake mix at full price will look very foreign to me! Oh well, I have to list "replacement" costs.

With news of our pending check, our contractor ordered our paint and supplies tonight and he will get that rolling on Wednesday. The cabinet guy is coming Friday. Yippee! Maybe, just maybe things will be done before I return to school on August 11th.

Free box of Cheerios begins July 28th-Cheerios Challenge

On July 28th everyone is invited to the Cheerios Challenge. You can sign up for a free box to help lower your cholesterol and improve your health. It says limit one per person, not one per household. Here's where you can go to get an email reminder. Cheerios Challenge

Great Deal on TI-83 at Office Depot

For those with kids who have a need for the Texas Instruments TI-83 or TI-84, you can snag at great deal at Office Depot. I haven't seen my daughter's 6th grade supply list yet but many other moms at Fishing For Deals have said that their kids began using these in middle school. I'm gonna have to jump on this, even if she doesn't need it for a year or so!

The TI-83 is item # 905739

And is $99.99

Use coupon code 88440125 for $25 off $75

and then send in for both $25 rebates here and here.

Go thru Ebates and get an additional 3% back! If you are new to Ebates you will get a $10 bonus for your first purchase thru them! If you are already an Ebates users then you know that when you combine sales, coupon codes, rebates, and Ebates Cash back you have gotten a Home Run deal!

So here's how it breaks down:
originally $99.99
minus $25.00 coupon code
Total out of pocket $75
Get 3% back from ebates brings it down to $72.75
Get back $50 in rebates
Total cost= $22.75 for a $100 calculator that will last for many, many years!

We had a Fabulous Time on Vacation

We're home! We had a great week at the beach and ate too much, played all day, and spent every minute possible at the pool or beach. Now I have lots of laundry to do and the kids are putting away the shells and souvenirs they collected. Here are a few photos from our trip.

And we're off

After a super busy weekend, we are headed out the door for our week long beach vacation. I will miss you but I promise lots of pictures of the trip. Hope all of you have a great week as well. See you Sunday!