Monday, January 17, 2011

As You Wish.....

On Saturday Jon took me on a fun date to As You Wish! That fun place where you paint the ceramic stuff and they put it in a kiln and make it all shiny and fancy. We went there for my birthday with my family, and we had a blast, so Jon wanted to go back.

Jon is always so fancy, so while I just painted some big letters on my plate - he drew his design out on a piece of paper, and then he drew it on his bowl with a straight edge and then he traced around it with paint, and then he filled it in.......he is just such an artist!

We had a blast! I love going there! It is so nice to get out of the house, sit together at a table, and just talk while we work on a fun project.
Jon is picking them up on Tuesday - I will post a picture of the finished products when we get them home!

In other news, Jon got a giant Nerf gun for Christmas from my Grams (along with all of the other boys in the family). When I say giant - I mean GIANT!! This thing is huge and it uses 4 D-batteries to power it because it works like a machine gun! You just have to hold the trigger down and it unloads a clip of darts! It is some serious Nerf-power!

Now I need to go get me a Nerf gun so I can protect myself from sneak attacks! Imagine coming around a corner and seeing that face and that giant Nerf gun!! Eeeeeeeek!!
(Note:: The darts don't hurt one bit, and Jon let me shoot him first so he could see if they hurt before he would even dream of shooting me....isn't he a gentleman)

So,I saw the craziest show ever the other night! I flipped on TLC around 11pm (yup, way to late to be awake on a Saturday night....that might explain why were late to church the next day....oops) and there was a show called "Extreme Couponing" and, while I thought it would be a show about a bunch of eccentric people and their crazy coupon habits, I ended up being inspired!! There was a 24 year old lady who clipped coupons and researched store sales and stuff - she had a huge binder filled with coupons, and they were all organized by sections of the store (ie; health and beauty, refrigerated, frozen...etc.). Well, she took her binder and a "battle plan" (she had a list of what she was getting and how many of each product) and headed to Safeway. She loaded up her cart with Barilla pasta, Ragu sauce, deodorant, shampoo, conditioner, A&W Root Beer, 7Up, Sprite, and tons of other name brand things. Her total came to over $600.00. Then she handed the cashier her coupons, and as he rang them up you could literally watch the total roll down...and down...and down...until she reached $2.64. Can you believe that???? She left the store with over $600 worth of merchandise (all brand name, not off-brand) and she only paid $2!!!!! I was amazed!!
There were similar stories of other people who did the same things.
The thing that amazed me the most were the year-supplies these people had! Each one of them had enough storage for their families to live, comfortably, for at least 2-3 years! One guy had so much deodorant, he and his wife wouldn't have to buy any for 150 years! Another lady hadn't bought toothpaste or toothbrushes in over 30 years, and she had enough to last her for another 5 years!
One man had a food storage containing about $80,000 worth of merchandise ranging from non-perishable food, to frozen food, to hygiene stuff and he said that he had paid maybe $1,000 for the entire thing.
Now, I have never been one to clip coupons. I have never wanted to be the "Coupon Lady" and I almost have a fear of using them...but when I saw how much money these people were saving on things that I buy on a regular basis for full price, I was inspired to try it out!
So, I am going to start couponing. I don't think I will get as crazy as these people were (one lady dug through the recycling bins to find discarded coupons), but I think I am going to actively pay attention and strategize before I go to the grocery store. It will take me some time to build my coupon stash, but when I do, I think it will pay off.
I am going to document my coupon journey here on my blog.

Which brings me to my last topic. As you know I have a few different "segments" of my blog (reviews, Just Sayin', Tasty Club, The Good In the World...and now my Coupon Journey) and I would like to get them a little bit more organized. I have seen these fancy tabs at the tops of my friends' blogs and I think that is exactly what I need....but I can't figure out how to get them....
So my blogging-genius sister-in-law is going to help me figure it out, and hopefully I will be able to get this blog mess under control. Just another step toward my "Getting Organized" goal!

4 comments:

Kay and Krystal said...

Haha that nerf gun would definitely be entertaining! And painting ceramics sounds like so much fun...but I don't think I would be to good at it..i'm not creative at all! And the coupon thing honestly makes me start to freak out. I have always wanted to try it out..but as soon as I start I feel like I'm in over my head or something..haha it's just silly! Glad you guys are doing good though

Shellee said...

We love As You Wish but I've always wanted someone there who was better at painting than I was... you're lucky!

A warning, couponing can be addictive. I love that feeling of walking out of the store knowing that your money is still safe in your bank account. There are a ton of sites out there that you don't have to pay for. Couponmom.com is one of them. Slickdeals.net has links to coupons too! Good luck!

Whitney and Michael said...

That As you wish store sounds like so much fun! And good luck with the coupons, they always make me nervous, plus we don't go shopping enough for me to notice them ;)

laneybug said...

I never heard that story...or many stories of when you were dating. It was fun to read that. I want to go back to as you wish again! Looks like you had a good time. You guys are very talented!!