Not Me Monday: Not My Kitchen

Friday night while putting up the clean dishes, my daughter did not knock a 2 liter of soda on to the floor. The lid was not loose on this two liter causing it to spray all over the room.

My daughter did not take one for the team and jump down on the floor with it spraying her in the face while she tried to get the lid back on tight.

No not her. Not in my kitchen. Not all over my dishwasher full of clean dishes. Not all over the cabinets either. Definitely not inside of the cabinets. Do you have any idea how much water I mean Diet Dr. Pepper Pressure it would take for it to spray up and into a closed cabinet? I am pretty sure that did not happen because it would seemingly defy a few laws of physics.

It did not take several bath towels to wipe up the mess. I sure as heck did not say at least it was Diet Dr. Pepper instead of real Dr. Pepper so it could not get sticky and actually require mopping. That would have been lazy of me not to mop after such a huge mess.

My Son's In a Commercial!

Remember the discussion that Big Chocolate and C-Diddy had last month? Well he has his very own commercial now.

Super Saving Saturday - Holy Chicken Boobies

This week had the makings of a bad shopping week. Too much working, not enough shopping I tell you.

Target ($1.49)

• 2 dozen eggs
• box of tampons

Look around for Target coupons on the registers. I know some squeemish dude must have gotten the free tampon coupon and ditched it like a hot potato. Well, I found it and appreciate it.

What does it say about your life when you are excited about free tampons? I let an incredible opportunity for a pun slide by here. You should really thank me.

Market Street ($16)

• approx 26 pounds of chicken breast
• Simply Orange Juice (free coupon)
• 8 oz block of cheddar cheese (free coupon)
• 3 pounds of oranges and
• 5 pounds of baking potatoes
  

Target ($16)

• Mitchum Deodorant (Free),
• 2 Olay Body Washes (Free),
• 2 Venus Razors,
• Pork Tenderloin and
• Italian Sausage

The darned sausage was full price, but I wanted to make spaghetti for dinner, so a girls gotta do what a girls gotta do.

I have had a decent week on Swagbucks. I have about $15 in Amazon Gift Cards to cash out come March 1st. I am pretty sure that gets me to $85 this year so far. I also used $35 of them to buy Big Chocolate a very nice cigar cutter for his birthday. You better not tell, it will ruin the surprise.

Swagbucks turned 2 this week. They adjusted the scale to where you get 1o swagbucks for most searches, but everything costs 1o times as much too. They are going to be adding new ways to earn over the next couple of months. They have already added one new way to win everyday. Check out my Swagbucks help tab to learn how to maximize your freebies.

Here's a deal to get you started for next week:
Through Tuesday at Kroger you can buy 4 Kelloggs cereals for $10 and get 2 gallons of milk free. There is a $1 off 3 boxes of cereal coupon on redplum.com and you get a $3 Catalina back when you buy 4 boxes 10 oz or larger of

• frosted flakes
• fruit loops
• apple jacks
• corn pops
• cocoa krispies or
• honey smacks.

This works out to $6 for 2 gallons of milk and 4 boxes of cereal.


If you know of any great deals coming next week, feel free to link up your posts here.

Sibling Rivalry

I walked by Mar Dub's room the other day and saw this. C-Diddy likes to sit outside her door and make noise, drum, talk to himself or whatever else he can think of to bug the poo out of her. Is it bad that I want to put a similar sign up on my door that says the same thing and is directed at both of them?

Works For Me Wednesday - Cook Book

What's a girl to do with all of those recipes printed off the Internet and found in magazines? I use an old school photo album to keep mine.

The plastic covered pages are easy to wipe down when you spill or splash. The three ring binder aspect of the photo book makes it easy to remove pages from the book when you are ready to cook or rearrange pages. If a recipe sucks and you never want to make it again, you can just pull back the plastic, trash the recipe and replace with a new one. When you are all done cooking you can shelve your cook book with the rest of the REAL cook books.

I have visions of re-organizing mine so that it is put together like a real cook book. I don't want to have to dig for the recipe I'm looking for. For now though, my cook book like everything else in my life remains half-assed.

Help me out and link up to a great recipe that you have on your blog below.

Mafia Wars Words of Wisdom

According to Big Chocolate,

"The best member of your mafia is the one who's password you have."

Truer words have never been spoken.

Yes I am a mafia wars loser. How am I supposed to entertain myself between blog posts?

Have I mentioned it's free, mindless entertainment that I can share with my husband. I play Mafia Wars to strengthen my marriage. Yeah, that's it!

Not Me Monday

C-Diddy did NOT come downstairs and announce that he was the strongest person in the house. Big Chocolate did NOT "toss" him a 12 pound medicine ball in response. C-Diddy did NOT catch said medicine ball with his face. Mar-Dub did NOT run straight to my room to tattle on her Daddy.

I did NOT yell at the kids for tracking mud all over the house. I did NOT later find out that the suspect mud was on the bottom of my shoes. At least I did NOT make Mar-Dub clean it up anyway.

My children did NOT have beignets for breakfast Saturday followed by Ramen Noodles and Sugar cookies for lunch. They did NOT proceed to go to a birthday party and eat more cake and ice cream .

I did NOT eat over a dozen cookies this weekend. When Big Chocolate saw me eating the last one, I did NOT inform him that he was giving himself cancer by smoking a cigar so getting fat wasn't so bad.

What did you NOT do this week?

This Weeks Deals

I had a pretty good week shopping this week. I used $35 of my Amazon Gift Cards that I got for FREE through SwagBucks to get a Water Filter for the Fridge for Free. I know a water filter isn't exactly sexy, but I needed it and didn't have to spend any cash on it, so I am happy.

I also hit the lotto at the library and got 4 books that I have been patiently waiting for.

As far as shopping goes, here's the skinny:

CVS - 2 Crest Pro-enamel Mouthwashes, Starburst Candy, Gallon of Milk = Overage of $2.57 back in ECB's

Market Street - Bacon, Eggs, Double Stuffed Oreos, organic strawberies, and a lobster tail for $6.96

Kroger - 6 cans of Pillsbury Biscuits, Non-Stick Foil, Peanut Butter, Jelly, 5 Kraft Mac and Cheese, Cheese slices, 10 Ramen Noodles, Rice = $10.29 paid with gift card from RX transfer

Walgreens - Dove Mens Body Wash, 3 John Frieda Shampoos, Ear Drops, 8x10 photo collage, 8x10 frame, ear drops = $4.21

The photo collage and frame were for Big Chocolate's Valentines day gift. The photo was free and the frame was $4.99, so I got all of the other stuff for free and had a few cents of overage to apply to the frame purchase.

Tom Thumb - I bought one Super King Kong Mega Mega Pack of Bounty and one of Charmin. The paper towels were for the office, so I am writing that $13 off as a business expense. I got a $10 Catalina back, so I basically got our ginourmous package (48 rolls) of toilet paper for $3. I also got 2 pounds of butter for $3.

Target - I got lucky and found some chuck steaks marked down and got 3 pounds for about $4. I am going to cut these down into stew meat and make Paula Deen's Beef Stew Recipe. I have every thing else I need in the fridge and it is super easy - even I have yet to destroy it.

Love Notes Gone Wrong

I thought it would be cute to leave the kids a note on the bathroom mirror. I wrote
"You're My Favorite!" in purple dry erase marker on the mirror. This way whoever looked in the mirror would know they were my favorite.

I was impressed with my creativity and the irony of anyone looking in the mirror being my favorite. That is until I went in the bathroom and saw scrawled at the bottom of the mirror, "Not you C-Diddy" with a smiley face with buck teeth.

Around our house the buck teeth are the nuclear bomb of insults. Let's just say that C-Diddy's braces have worked a miracle.

Things I Love Thursday: Bible on CD

As I may have mentioned before, I am reading the Bible in 90 Days. I should adjust that and say covering the whole Bible in 90 Days. I have started supplementing my reading with the Bible on CD.

It has been a great tool to catch up when I am behind. I feel like I get more out of "reading" it this way, but I am a very auditory learner. The added bonus is that you can listen while you drive.

I will say that it does take longer to listen than it does to read though again the fact that I can drive or fold laundry while listening more than makes up for this.

Hopefully this doesn't mean I'm reading the Bible Half-Assed.

Post Office

I'm not real sure why the man in line next to me at the post office laughed when I told C-Diddy and Mar Dub not to call me back unless the house was on FIRE or someone was BLEEDING to death.

It was only the 389th time they had called while I was in line. They were on one of their giggling tirades where they think of something funny to call and tell on the other one. You can barely understand them because they are both laughing so hard. I'm pretty sure it's a conspiracy just to drive me insane(r).

Works For Me Wednesday - Coupon Organizing

You might have noticed that I'm a Coupon Whore! When making multiple stops throughout the week I use a colored paper clip to keep coupons together for each store. Target coupons are bundled with a red paper clip. Tom Thumb with a Blue, etc. If you want to go wild, you can even paper clip a small shopping list with your coupons so you don't forget the other stuff you need from that store. I keep all of this in my SMALL plastic coupon organizer. In my obscenely expensive purse. Sorry had to point out the irony.

I like doing it this way because I always used to hand the cashier at least one coupon from the wrong store and then they think your an idiot (or worse - like your stealing). It also allows me to sit down with the ads on Wednesday and Sunday and plan my trips for the week. That way when I find myself near the stores I need to go to I can just pop in and have everything ready to go.

Check Out The Gun Show

It took this picture after the following conversation:

Big Chocolate: Check out the Guns. You know you like them.

HAH: They are pretty impressive.

C-Diddy: Not as impressive as mine.

Incidentally I was able to crop out all of the crap on the living room floor, but could not make the Christmas tree disappear. What's a girl to do. I can undecorate it, but I need the Big Guns to take it down and put it out in the garage again.

I wonder if it will make it to Easter again this year.

Shameless Plugs

I got 700 hits on my blog yesterday! That is the most I have ever had by far. In honor of this momentous (is that a word?) occasion, I invite you to post a shameless plug for your blog in the comments section. Please visit at least a couple of the bloggers who plug away and let them know that you found them on Half Assed Housewife.

ETA: Next time I will host a McLinkey. What can I say it was late last night when I decided to do this.

Not Me Monday - The Big Foot Edition

My10 year old daughter did not have to wear my shoes most of the weekend because hers were soaked from the snow.

My 10 year old daughter does not wear size 8 1/2 shoes. She also does not only own one pair of shoes at a time because her feet grow so darn fast we never know if they will last 2 days or 2 months.

My daughter did not once throw a fit at school because her shoes didn't fit. She didn't take her shoes off and throw them at her best friend to make the point that they didn't fit. Big Chocolate did not bring her home from school just so he could ahem "discipline her".

After being "disciplined" she did not keep jumping up and down over and over yelling "I'm not wearing shoes that don't fit!" I did not have to bail and have her wear a pair of her big brother's shoes so she could go to school and not be "disciplined" all day long.

I did not promptly go buy her a new pair of shoes and have it delivered to her classroom in the middle of the day. I am not a bad mom!

This Weeks Deals

This week was another good week for me. I cashed out another $25 in Amazon Gift Cards from SwagBucks. This brings my total collected to $60 in 2010. I also received my first 2 free books from Paperback Swap.

Here is a list of my runs for the week:

Target Run 1: 2 Fusion Razors + bag of chopped pecans = $1.87 after gift cards earned

Target Run 2: 2 Fusion Razors, 3 bottles of Listerine, 5 boxes of oatmeal, cold medicine, ziplocs = $10.26 after gift cards earned

I may never have to buy razors again. I ordered coupons off of ebay a couple of years ago when I found a deal to get them for free. I have about 50 (each with a refill cartridge) under my sink in the bathroom. Now when I can get them for free or for pennies, I pick up a few to replace what we have depleted from our stockpile.

Tom Thumb: 2 Fruit Roll ups, 2 Trix Cereal, 2 Grands Biscuits, 2 Pizza Crusts, 2 Crescent Rolls, tortillas, hot dogs, hot dog buns & miracle whip = $11.14 This was more than I had wanted to spend on this, but some of my loadable coupons didn't come off and some of the things like the pizza crusts were more expensive than other options, but I just wanted them for quick, fun meals.

Market Street: Pound of marinated Chicken Breasts, Pound of Deli Turkey, Pound of Deli Cheese, Cranberry Sauce, Can of Vegetables, Can of Cream of Chicken Soup, 2 Rolls Paper Towels = $12.08

I would have been able to do more, but I lost a couple of prime shopping days to laziness and bad weather.

Be sure to check out my Value Whore tab for coupon resources and websites I use to locate great deals. If you are interested in trying SwagBucks and want some tips to help you earn, "there's a tab for that". Hey, I feel like an iPhone commercial.

Happy Shopping Next Week!

Snowpocalpse - Day 2 - An Update

Why did a male child of mine who shall remain nameless take the mail out to the mailbox in a pair of pajama bottoms and nothing else? Not even shoes. I swear he's going to earn a Darwin Award one day.

Snowpocalypse - Day 2

Wow is all I can see. We are into Day 2 of the Dallas version of the Snowpocalypse. Over a foot of snow in 24 hours.

The kids don't have school today and I am so happy. We are WAY behind on a couple of projects. I love 5th grade. I swear they don't think about how long this stuff will take when they come up with their "cute" ideas. How is it that one Challenge work sheet that took 2 minutes to print can take hours to complete? I can't decide if it's a good thing that they actually grade the thing or not. Our normal level of half-assing (AKA what the child can do by them self) is apparently unacceptable.

Needless to say I am thrilled by the opportunity to catch up. We will be creating a memory game, fraction manipulatives and a PowerPoint lesson on Fractions. We've already made a fractions worksheet and a cross word puzzle. Notice the royal "We". She has done 95% of the work, but at this point it has to be cleaned up and run through the computer so it "looks" like she worked harder on it than she actually did.

I think that we are going to make pizzas with some cheap pizza crusts I got this week for lunch and I'll probably pull out the last of the Rubber Chicken Noodle Soup that I have in the Freezer for dinner if I don't have enough miscellaneous leftovers for the day.

The Half-Assed Snowpocalypse

My inner-meteorologist tells me that we have a couple of inches of snow on the ground here with more to come. So I may be over reaching with the whole Snowpocalypse thing, but this is the third time that we have had snow this winter already. Have I mentioned we live in TEXAS???

At first the kids were disappointed that they still had school today, but they quickly decided to make the best of it and have a snowball fight with their friends at the bus stop. It's amazing how Mar-Dub did not present me with some affliction that should keep her from going to school today.

I usually pity middle school teachers, but today they don't have a chance!

We have had turkey and dressing this week with one of my many turkeys in the freezer. I'm thinking I'll make a quick turkey pot pie with the rest of it tonight.

As luck would have it I stumbled across some free pie crusts last week. I didn't need them, but then I thought, "Who am I to question God's miraculous provision?" And , what do you know? Turkey pot pie sounds perfect right about now. I even think I have everything that I need already in the pantry.

Works For Me Wednesday - The School Supply Drawer

Tired of the kids always asking you where the X is for their homework? Tired of digging through a mess of pencils, pens and crayons in your junk drawer?

Might I suggest a plastic silverware tray? We have one drawer devoted to this kind of crap. (I have 2 other junk drawers, but that'll be our little secret.) Pencils, pens, sharpies/highlighters, and crayons/map pencils have their own divider. There is room for scissors and a stapler where the serving utensils go. Tape and post it notes etc. go where the dessert forks would go. Put it in the drawer with the the tape and post it notes closest to the drawer front and viola you can get to every thing you need.

Hey Somebody stole my stapler! And you can see my tingers! They are toes that look like fingers for those of you without exceptionally long toes. Have I mentioned I can plug my iron in with my toes. I'm a walking freak show I tell you.

Adventures Of A One Car Family

If you are a family with only one car, I have to take my hat off to you. (Well I would if I wore one.) We've been down to one car since Friday. Big Chocolate gets his baby back tomorrow, and I am so happy. At this point I am not even that upset about the $900 repair bill. Yikes!

This has been harder than I imagined. We survived but with a few minor crisises. Or is it crisi?Monday morning we had a minor disaster when Big Chocolate's secretary called in sick and he showed up at the office without his keys and thus no way to get the file he needed for court. Of course I was stuck at the house and couldn't help him.

He came home and picked me up and took me back to the office at lunch so he could go meet a client. About 3:30 I get a call from Mar Dub saying she was locked out of the house (in the rain). Of course I have NO CAR again. I had to send her to the neighbors house and get a ride home from my friend Blinderman.

I'm thankful that we usually have 2 cars to help us all get where we need and want to go. I'm thankful for great friends and neighbors that take in our stray children from the cold and rain and give us emergency rides when we need them.

Not Me Monday - The Bad Parenting Edition

I may have mentioned before aka yesterday that I struggle with concentration at times. Well that has NOT been giving me lots of trouble lately. For example, I did NOT forget to pick up Hip Hop who was supposed to be spending the night with us Friday.

After being extorted to make Popcorn Balls Saturday morning, I did NOT say F-it and let the kids eat them all at once because I got tired of them asking me if they could have one over and over again.

My little princess did NOT go to band try-outs and come home having signed up to play the TUBA of all things. Oh how I do NOT dread the afternoons of one kid practicing percussion and the other practicing the TUBA.

Bible in 90 Days - The Update

Well I am trucking along through the Bible. I got behind for about a week, but I am FINALLY caught up - Except for a couple of chapters from today, but I have all day and that's how I roll.

I have had a couple of people ask about how it works. Basically you have 2 grace days out of the 90 which have I mentioned that I haven't used yet. The other 88 days you read between 12 - 15 pages depending on the size of the print and the amount of other stuff such as devotionals your bible works in.

My bible has been MIA, so I have been dragging Big Chocolate's Mens Devotional Bible with me to read in spare minutes. I get a few crazy looks. I wonder if it's because it's the Bible or because it's the men's version.

My ADDness has been kicking my but lately and I must admit that I had to switch over to the NIRV which is basically the kids version for a couple of days. I'm not proud, but the whole Charlie Brown waa, waa, waa started kicking in and that is obviously not the point of this exercise.

If you are a prayer, please keep me in mind as I keep plugging along to reach my goal.

It's Been a Good Week

For saving money, that is. Which is a good thing since Big Chocolate's Car decided to die on us. Hopefully it will be revived later this week and it will be a reasonable (read cheap) fix.

Anywho, I signed up for Paperback Swap this week. It's pretty cool. You list books you have that you are done with and promise to mail them to whomever requests them. You pay for the postage (think media mail) when you ship. When you receive you pay nothing. When you list your first 10 books, you get 2 credits which lets you request 2 books. When you send a book and it is received you get to request another book.

It's been a great week for Swagbucks. I have earned 75 this week. That is about &$7.50 in Amazon Gift Cards. Woo Hoo!

Here is a rundown of my grocery deals this week:

Kroger: There's a goldfish coupon out there that got me bags of goldfish for 13 cents each with the buy 10 deal they have going on. I went in with a friend and we got 5 bags of gold fish, 5 bags of rice cakes, toothpaste and cake frosting for $3.

Market Street: I got a free gallon of milk, free bag of parmesan cheese, 1 pound of turkey, 1 pound of cheese, bananas, bread and 1 1/2 pounds of flank steak for under $10. I got some other stuff in there for my $10, but let's face it that was Tuesday and I already forgot!

I used the free parm with some heavy cream that was about to expire and made my own alfredo sauce for the first time ever. It actually worked!

Target: Had a good run Sunday. Came out with 4 jars of pasta sauce, bananas, deodorant, Johnsonville Italian Sausage and a couple of other things which escape my feeble mind for about $6.

For the most part we cooked out of the freezer and pantry again this week. I carpe diemed (ha that sounds really bad) when I found the flank steak in the "old meat bin"though.

Count To 1000

So the other night we were out kind of late and the kids were tired and otherwise bitchy. In the car on the way home, we would have paid a million dollars for some peace and quiet. Big Chocolate finally tells the kids to close their eyes and count to 1000.

It gets quiet. We start talking. About 10 minutes later Mar Dub shouts "DONE" from the back seat. OK Mar Dub, count backwards from 4000.

Half-Assed Rolodex

Big Chocolate meets lots of people.

Big Chocolate collects lots of business cards.

Big Chocolate leaves lots of business cards all over the house.

Big Chocolate waits 3 years to make inquiry of random business card.

Half-Assed Housewife is fed up with being accused of "losing" "important" business card.

Half-Assed Rolodex is born.

Not Me Monday - The I'm NOT An Ass Edition

It has not been a bad weekend for making crass remarks about the handicapped. Last night watching the Grammy's I did not fix my lips to say that it looked like Andrea Bocelli was looking down Mary J. Blige's dress. I not kind of miss the memo that he was blind I promise. Big Chocolate did not almost fall out of the bed laughing at me.

While watching the Winter X-Games, I did not accuse the participants of the mono-ski competition of being freaking insane. It did not take me to the end of the race to realize that the dude's were paralyzed or amputees.

And now as promised a SwagBucks update. Insert anticipatory drumming sound here.

After being inspired by fellow bloggers tales of paying for Christmas with Swagbucks. I have been seriously Swaggin and have earned $35 worth of Amazon Gift cards in January. About $5 came from referrals. $10 came from completing a free trial and the rest came from searches or freebie swag codes that they make available from time to time.

I have installed their swidget on the right so that you can check for swag for Swag Codes. You can also search from there too. If you decide to become a swaggernaut like me I do reccomend that you install the toolbar and make swagbucks your default search engine. It makes a BIG difference.