Me Time

Yesterday morning, as I drove myself to the local mall with the music turned up loud I began singing along loudly (and shamelessly off-key) to a pop song with less-than-child-friendly lyrics. That's when the sense of giddiness really hit me.  You see, I was on my way to the mall ALONE, no children in tow.  To shop for stuff for ME.  No groceries, no home decor, no children's birthday gifts, just new clothes for ME. 

It felt strange to just park and walk into the mall.  No stroller to unfold, no child carrier to strap on, no children to herd.  Amazing.  I had a spring in my step.

Then my day got even better.  The clearance sale rack of my favourite clothing store was heavily populated with items in my size.  The regular racks also contained many markdowns.  The sales staff were friendly, but let me do my own thing.  For once, my dilemma lay not in finding something that fit, but in the fact that my "yes" pile grew so quickly that I began to become concerned my credit card might go into shock if I brought all of them home.  In all, after weeding down my selections a bit, I still came home with 13 new items.  THIRTEEN.  How will my friends recognize me if I'm not wearing the same rotation of 2 pairs of capris, 2 skorts, and 6 t-shirts that have become my mommy uniform?

And then, just to top off my morning, I made a quick side trip to Food Basics to pick up some milk and 18 bags of frozen berries (on sale this week for $2.49).  I drove home contentedly, once again singing off-key.

I probably need to get out more.

Helping

I was tired and slightly grumpy late this afternoon after a good but very busy day so far. Maya asked for hot chocolate, and I told her she could have some, but I was going to make it for her.  She normally helps, which makes it so much more work, as we have to pull a chair over to the counter, wipe up spilt powder, be extra careful with the hot water, and try not to spill the milk we add after the water to make it the right drinking temperature. 

She asked why she couldn't help, and I sighed that I just wanted to do it myself. 

There was a slight pause, and then her sweet voice said "Mommy, helping is a way we show our love."

Yeah, my heart melted.  She got to help.

I'm Back

A busy life derailed by blog posting waaaaaay back ... and then I was behind and didn't want to write anything until I caught up ... and then I had a big writing block ... and then .... well, then I just procrastinated. 

But I'm back.

HADA 2012: Week 2 recap

I am participating in Hour-A-Day-April (HADA). For the month of April I commit to spending an hour every week day doing something that I otherwise have a hard time finding time for. The idea being that an hour a day of targeted effort can make a big difference towards accomplishing an intimidating To Do List. Here's a summary of my second week:

Day 9:  Took a long afternoon nap.  It was delightful!
Time: 2 hours

Day 10:  Got down on my hands and knees to clean the hardwood floors in the living and dining room.  I had planned to do the hallway too, but apparently I'm not as young as I used to be and my knees were done by the time I finished those rooms!  Also spent 2 hours clipping and organising coupons, and tonight I rounded out the day with a short but relaxing bath in the soaker tub. 
Time: 3 hours

Day 11:  Washed the hardwood floors in the front hall.  Started emptying and sorting the miscellaneous junk items in the office cabinet.
Time: 1 hour

Day 12: Lacking motivation, I barely scraped together maaayybe one hour doing miscellaneous tidying of stuff.
Time: 1 hour

Day 13: Emptied the hall closet and the mudroom of all shoes, coats, shoe rack, etc.  Maya helped me vacuum and wash the mudroom and closet.  Looked great by the end of the day ... except for the piles of shoes still in the front hall, waiting to be sorted.  If only they would jump back into their places on their own!
Time: 1 hour

Maya vacuums the mudroom

Day 14:  Was supposed to be one of my two days off this week, but we ended up accomplishing a lot. We took a morning trip to Home Depot with the whole family to pick up a bunch of materials for various projects around the house, including a new shelving unit for the basement. In the afternoon, Jeff stripped the deck of old stain in preparation for re-staining it in a few weeks, while Maya helped me assemble the new shelving unit in the basement.  I also swept out half the garage while the kids were playing outside.
Time: I'm counting 2 hours.

Total Hours of HADA tasks this week: 10 hours

Total so far this month:  17 hours

Wordless Wednesday

Relaxing on the neighbour's porch

Chloe has to join her big sister

Examining a dead leaf

They were ever so gently removing dead leaves from the neighbour's bed of tulips.

Surveying the results of their work

HADA 2012: Week 1 recap

I am participating in Hour-A-Day-April (HADA). For the month of April I commit to spending an hour every week day doing something that I otherwise have a hard time finding time for. The idea being that an hour a day of targeted effort can make a big difference towards accomplishing an intimidating To Do List. Here's a summary of my first week:



Day 1:  A day off, since it was Sunday and I've decided that Sunday is my day off every week, plus one other floating day per week.

Day 2: miscellaneous sorting, cleaning and picking up odds and ends. Most significantly, emptied the whole top drawer of my bathroom vanity, threw out a bunch of stuff, and put the useful items back in.
Time: 1 hour


Day 3:  Cleaned out my half of the bathroom vanity and de-junked two bedside table drawers. One medium-ish bag of garbage is ready to leave the house on garbage day. Then I headed to the basement to tidy my workbench (didn't even start on Jeff's!) and survey stuff in the basement to plan what else needs doing down there.
Time: 1 hour 15 minutes


Day 4: Sped through my closet pulling out clothes to get rid of, then dropped them off in the goodwill bin on our way home from shopping this morning. After lunch I headed to the basement and half-filled a box with books to take to the used book store before I got interrupted by Maya. Then I washed out the cabinet under the kitchen sink where we keep the garbage can and green bin -- also investigated the faucet leak I discovered while I was under there.
Time: 1hour 15 minutes.

Day 5:   Time out for myself at a coupon group meet-up. Met some great women, got some good coupons for myself, and a bunch to pass forward to a friend in need. We met at the new Ottawa IKEA, to which I had never been, and I got there early enough for a swift browse through (awesome!).  I also enjoyed an oh-so-yummy dessert and amazing decaf coffee (free refills!) all for the low price of just over $3. It was so nice to get out (after a SUPER gruelling day with the kids!) and then to come home to a quiet house, with children already in bed asleep.

Total: 1 hour  (I'm only counting the first hour, because once I'm out enjoying myself it's  not really HADA.  It's making the time to get out in the first place that's the issue!)

Day 6: Two and a half hours spent folding and putting away laundry, purging more items from the closet, untangling a basket of necklaces and deciding what to keep and what to get rid of, and dusting the bedroom dressers. Who knew that our bedroom furniture does not, in fact, have a grey felt cover, but is actually wood underneath all that dust?

Total: 2.5 hours

Days 7 and 8:  Days off!

Total hours of HADA tasks at the end of week 1:  7 hours!

Another teachable moment

 I left my 17 month old at the lunch table happily chewing on her slice of bread and cream cheese while I attended to various other tasks today. She got bored. It turns out partly dried out cream cheese is REALLY hard to scrub off of a wiggly toddler.  Lesson learned:  clean up cream cheese without delay!

Next task ... dealing with the globs of cream cheese on the table, chair, floor ...

Hour-A-Day-April 2012

My friend Jule Ann has re-issued her Hour a Day April challenge in order to provide herself and others with some motivation to get to those tasks around the house that we never seem to get around to. I really enjoyed the HADA challenge last year, and accomplished a lot. 

So again this year for the month of April I commit to spending an hour every day doing something that I otherwise have a hard time finding time for. The idea being that an hour a day of targeted effort can make a big difference towards accomplishing an intimidating To Do List. It doesn't have to be one consecutive hour. Set a timer when you start and if you get interrupted by kids, your husband, a neighbour dropping by or whatever then just stop the clock and resume your hour later on in the day.

Want to participate with me? Here's an abridged version of the guidelines (see the link above for Jule Ann's original)

1. Think of something that you normally have a hard time finding time for. Sewing, cleaning, painting, organising, playing basketball, crossing things off your honey-do list, it's up to you! It can be one big project, or a bunch of little projects.
2. Spend an hour every day working on your chosen project(s). Set a timer and stick to it. You have all day to squeeze in that hour, even five or ten minutes at a time. But by the end of the day, make sure you've clocked that hour. If the best way for you to get in your hour is to get up early, get up early. If you clean best after everyone else goes to bed, skip CSI. It's only for a month.
3. Take one day off a week.
4. Keep others updated on your progress. Comment on this blog. Blog about it yourself, and send me the link. Tweet about it on Twitter and use the hash tag #HADA (Hour-A-Day April). Take pictures and post them to your blog. Phone up your mom. Put a gold star on a chart.
5. Don't give up. Missed a day? Keep going. Even if you only do half the days, that's still 15 hours more productivity than your April would have otherwise had.
6. Celebrate when it's all over!

Adapt the rules as you see fit. I'm including on my list things that I would enjoy doing too but never get around to -- I'll be using up some old rolls of 35mm film (that I found during HADA last year and, um, never did anything with) and also working on my girls' baby books in addition to tackling mountains of unfolded laundry and organising junk in the basement.

I'm also planning to do only 5 days a week this year, instead of 6.  I plan to take Saturdays and Sundays off , but if I miss a day earlier in the week, I'll have to make it up on Saturday.

I'll be blogging my progress here, and also chatting about it on Facebook. I hope you'll join me, or follow along with my progress.

Call me Coupon Crazy

I mentioned briefly last month that in the new year a friend and I decided to take up couponing to save a few dollars on our grocery bills.  It all started innocently enough, as we had visions of saving a couple of bucks here and there and maybe stretching our grocery budgets to a few more cartons of ice cream, or choice cuts of meat. 

Then we got sucked in. 

 My girlfriend and I are now avid couponers.  We prowl the Internet for reports of coupons to print or request by mail, and scour local flyers for great sale prices to match up with our coupons.  We take our coupon binders (coupons placed in baseball card holders, and organised into a few categories) with us anytime we shop.  We have also branched out into price matching in order to get even greater savings. (Some stores in the area will match any competitor's advertised sales price ... this means you don't have to hop around to multiple stores to get the best sales in a week ... plus the product is usually in stock at the store that doesn't have it on sale!) Finding a good deal that can save me money has become ridiculously addictive.  It's like a weekly scavenger hunt through grocery store flyers and clearance sections, and the rewards are the savings you find on your grocery receipts.

A page from my coupon binder.

On average, I'm saving between $30 and $40 per week in coupons alone.  Paired with the price matched sale prices, I'm paying about 1/3 what someone would if they were to pay full price for most items on my shopping list.  My overall expenditure per month hasn't yet gone down, as I've been stocking up on products we will use in future.  But over the past 2 months I've stayed within our regular monthly grocery budgets but bought a lot of extra food and household items now stored in our pantry. For instance, I have enough paper towels to last a year or two, and about 2 or 3 months worth of breakfast cereal.  I expect my monthly bills to begin dropping by next month, as I now have several categories of items which we don't need to buy for a few months to a year. 

Some of my best deals so far have included:

• free 2L tubs of President's Choice ice cream
• Free scrubbing bubbles shower cleaner
• family-sized boxes of Raisin Bran and Rice Krispies cereal for 99 cents each
• Fibre Plus cereal for $1.99  ... and there were $5 worth of coupons printed inside the box
• 2 free yoga mats from Kellogg's

My receipt from a recent shopping trip.
In blue, the total I paid for my shop:  $65.07
In red, the total savings from coupons:  $40.04
Many items were price matched, for further savings
not reflected on the savings calculated on the recipt.

Couponing in Canada is not quite as extreme as it can be in the US (you may have seen the TLC show Extreme Couponing), but a little bit of effort can still get you some free products, and great deals on many grocery items by matching up coupons and sale prices.

If you're interested in knowing more about couponing and price matching,  I recommend you visit SaveaLoonie.com and check out the "How to coupon" button or MrsJanuary.com and look for the "start here" tab.  These sites explain all the basics of couponing in Canada, post links to new coupons and deals daily, and also offer weekly lists of the best sale prices and coupon match ups for the major Canadian grocery chains, saving you a lot of work.

If you want to see a serious couponer in action, keep your eyes open next time you're at Walmart or the grocery store:  you'll recognise us by the binders perched in our carts and the sale flyers clutched in our fists.