Ladies' Banquet

Here's a picture of two of my girls and me at our church's ladies' banquet this afternoon. It was an ark theme, with a beautiful lighted rainbow above the platform. I guess that makes me Joan of Ark.

Susanna made her dress, and it looked lovely. She is quite the seamstress. We were amongst friends and had a nice time. Two of my daughters are not home, and it did seem strange to only have 3 of us in the picture. They were sorely missed by me.

~Joan

Drugstore Drop-In

Walgreens has been having some tremendous register rewards items. Here is a total of what I purchased there for $43.08 (that's a lot more than I thought it would be, but the numbers don't lie). Oh--the above picture shows some of the $42.50 in register rewards in my coupon wallet. That means *in a sense* I only paid 58 cents for these items because they gave me back $42.50 to spend later...

Hershey bagged malted milk eggs x 3

Nestle Crunch eggs x 2

Edge shaving cream x 2

Chapstick lip butter x 4

Skintimate shave cream x 3

Visine x 4

Fiber choice 10 count x 1

Scunci elastic hair bands x 3

Vaseline lotion x 6

Breyers ice cream quarts x 2

Whoppers eggs x 3

Dove deoderant x 12

Beanie baby stuffed monkeys x 2

Reach toothbrush x 2

Colgate Total toothpaste x 1

Easter pencils x 2

Chex mix x 1

That's a lot of merchandise for just over 50 cents.

My husband and 3 of the kiddos are gone for a few days. I've been staying up way too late to ensure I go right to sleep (I don't sleep well with my hubby gone), and it has caught up to me tonight. Off to bed with me!

~Joan

Easter Finery

Here is a picture I took of my four girls after church tonight. Aren't they lovely? I love their smiles. All so pretty.

Hope your Easter Sunday was one of peace, worship, and rejoicing. God is so good.

~Joan

Wonderful Surprise!

God has given me a wonderful gift. It is not the above flower. It is the person who gave it to me. I have become friends with a woman who attends my church and lives just a few minutes away. She has been an encouragement to me in so many ways. I was in my car in the driveway having a difficult conversation on my phone when she pulled up behind me and brought this lovely flower over. What a blessing!!

Looking forward to Good Friday and all it means in my heart.

~Joan

Groceries Galore

Another big successful shopping day yesterday. The first picture is our sell box. That is a 22-gallon tote that was full and we had an additional box to sell. As Susanna unpacks our stuff, she separates it right away into sell and keep. We also had a full cooler of refrigerator/freezer items.

We used a new plan, and it worked swimmingly. For one thing, we left an hour earlier than usual. Several reasons, but it allowed us to finish up way earlier than usual. We printed 2 copies of each store's shopping list. Right before we went into the store, we divided up what Susanna and I would be looking for, then we met to divide and conquer (I mean check out!). Two of our stores were giving out catalinas (coupons good on your next trip) for free milk, and we scored 4 of those.

We love stocking up on items we use a lot (as opposed to buying things to resell). We got All laundry detergent, 2000 Flushes tablets, Softsoap Ensemble refills, men's shaving gel, Pringles (38 cents a can!), pasta galore, Skintimate shaving gel, Mentos gum, Emerald Isle trail mix, Hall's cough drops, and much more. Susanna unloaded all the bags onto our freezer, so I took a quick picture.

Speaking of pictures, I wish I could download pics from my phone. My DH and I drove up into the mountains of NC/TN to pick up my oldest daughter last night (yippee). I drove up, and DH drove back. We nearly didn't take coats!! We were tooling along in our car when this white stuff started swirling towards the windshield. I said, "Is that POLLEN?" Then it dawned on me that it was SNOW!! It was incredible. We had several times where the road was completely covered, and we had to slow down to 25 MPH. My hallucination of the snow became a reality when we saw a huge truck with a SNOW PLOW on the front. Wow!! We made it up there and back safely, arriving home very late, but glad to have Elisabeth home.

~Joan

Lettuce Give Thanks

It was so beautiful outside that I decided to go check on our square foot garden boxes. The lettuce plants are up! It was so bright outside that it was difficult to take a good picture. Do you see them in the picture below? Emily divided the squares with the white slats of wood. Imagine the square shown divided into 4 smaller squares. There is a baby (and I mean infant) lettuce plant in all but the top left. Need help?...



Here I am pointing to the bottom right plant. Just think--yesterday the square was bare!! How exciting is that?


This next picture is for those in areas where spring has not yet sprung. Here are some of my tulips that have been in blossom for over a week. I made a shadow (now there's something I am good at!) to get a picture that wasn't whited out by the sun. Our front yard is mostly natural areas and very little grass. I planted 6 or 7 tulip bulbs in 5 (or maybe 6) areas out there. The look so pretty, and the colors are mixed up. My personal favorites are where the bright yellow and reds are mixed together, but I like them all. Isn't God good to give us such beauty?




Have a great evening!

~Joan

Perm Post #3

For those with inquiring minds, I did call the company that manufactured the perm I used for Rachel's hair. The customer service rep said the reason it didn't work is that Rachel hadn't reached puberty yet. Evidently there are some hormones necessary for the chemical reaction of the perm. Go figure. Guess we'll wait a couple years.