Grocery Shopping

aka...the greatest grocery store ever (according to Philip)

Phil was able to come over this afternoon and help me get back into my apartment after the flea incident last week. We had to bring all of my clean clothes back in, wash my sheets and comforter, make the bed up with clean sheets, and run to the grocery store.

I decided to take Phil to Aldi's since he loves saving money and groceries get expensive. Aldi's can be significantly less expensive and their food is pretty good. The one downside...it's way smaller than most grocery stores so it doesn't offer everything at a larger store, but it does carry most of the things we need.

Let's just say that I've never seen Phil so happy and excited in a grocery store EVER. Usually, when we go grocery shopping, he's groaning at the cost of the ever growing list, but this time he was shocked when he saw the prices! He had no problem picking out what we needed and was scouring the aisles for great deals. When we left, he even said that we would have to do this again because he loves saving money and he loves that I picked Aldi's to go to and he loves when I save money! It was pretty awesome.

Sensational Saturday!

I must admit that today was such a great day! Phil and I took the two youngest kids I watch to a pancake breakfast to support the church's youth group and afterwards we took them to Toys R Us and let them each pick out a little toy. It was great to be able to spend some time with them and not be in "nanny mode."

We followed that by going to the mall where we hung out and shopped for a couple of hours. Since the mall in town is small and doesn't have any good stores, I love it when we venture the 40 (or so) minutes to the bigger mall with all of the great stores. I may or may not have been a little discouraged by not finding anything that currently fits me well and I may or may not have splurged at Victoria's Secret. I also found that if the clothes would fit I would totally shop at J. Crew. It reminds me a lot of American Eagle, but for adults. This just might have to be one of my new goals.

After the mall we headed on over for an early dinner date at The Melting Pot. If you have not been there, seriously go...like now. It is a little expensive, but the four course fondue meal is fantastic. Our two favorites were the cheese and chocolate.

We finished the evening by having a family game night that his parents hosted. It was great to see his aunts, uncles, and one cousin for a few hours of playing games and just spending time together. I love his mom's side of the family and really look forward to seeing them every chance we get.

Tomorrow will probably be more of a relaxing day seeing as we've been so busy today, but it was great to have a whole day with him and know that we still have tomorrow together before the work week starts up again.

I think I need a plan....

starting NOW.

I have spent entirely too much money in September and October. It's because there have been things that I saw on sale and wanted and some things where I have convinced myself that I have needed.

There may or may not have been many times where I wanted to shop so badly I bought things for Phil just so that the shopping could be justified.

My bank account is not too happy right now.

Phil and I are going to sit down and make a plan....tonight!

Great Weekend

This weekend was a lot of fun minus Friday night. Every Friday evening Phil's family has a family dinner. It is something I totally look forward to every week. Unfortunately I was unable to attend this Friday because instead I was busy waiting for my tub to be looked at since it was filled with water and would not drain. Even though it was necessary to wait around it ended up being fixed to drain, but they need to do something else so that it can plug up for baths.

Saturday was possibly my favorite! My legs were super sore from the leg work out my trainer had me do the day before, but at least I know the working out is working, right? We started off the day by going to lunch and meeting up with a friend at Bob Evans...I love Bob Evans. After that we went to the outlets and went shopping for 4 hours...ahhhh! I ended up getting a super cute pink coat with a faux fur hood. It's super comfy and cute and I really, really needed at coat for the winter. I also got some thermals and a zip-pull over fleece from the Gap outlet.

Today we went to church this morning and we went to the church that we were attending when we first started dating. It was a church that Phil had been going to for years and we left because of some drama between me and the youth pastor. Long story short...I was trying to get involved in youth ministries and the youth pastor was a little busy. He thought he was responding to me and I never got the emails. I thought I was being ignored and got really hurt and upset so we left that church for most of this year. He ended up seeing us in Panera Bread this past week, said hi and I no longer felt ignored. We went back this morning to try it out again.

After church to clear the air I went up to talk to him and explain what happened. We concurred it was a big misunderstanding and we both apologized. He extended another offer to volunteer with the youth ministry program and all is better. I figure we will continue to go there and hopefully we will make that our home church again.

Other than that we had lunch at home and ran some errands. It is so wonderful to have the whole weekend to do whatever we wanted and not worry about what time Phil has work.

It was a fantabulous weekend!

What I thought was a "wasted trip"

Yesterday was a great day. On Friday I found out I unexpectedly got it off and it just so happened to coincide with Phil's day off! Nevertheless, I was super excited. We started our day by heading down to Rockville. It's about an hour drive to get there, but I really wanted to check out World Market and see if I could find the throw pillows that were on their website there. It was a fantastic store, but we couldn't find the pillows for the couch and the utensils looked a little funny so we decided to trek on over to Ikea.

Ikea was only 10.5 more miles or so down the road (because when you live where I do all of the ridiculously great stores seem to be an hour away) and we headed there. Phil had never been to Ikea *i know, right?*and we went up the the restaurant/cafeteria there and had lunch. He was shocked that we could both have penne pasta for lunch for under $10 and that it tasted that good! Of course, I was super excited to be at Ikea--they have so many cool things at great prices. We finally found the throw pillows and couldn't find one to go with the couch, again so we went to look at new slip covers for the couch. When we got there we found out that most of the slip covers were $49 unless you wanted a super rough white one for $19.

I have been talking about getting a new couch for a while now, but it was more of a "distant" reality so to speak, but when I thought about how much the slip cover and two throw pillows would cost the though of investing close to $100 in a couch I wanted to replace seemed like a horrible idea when I could use the money for a new couch. At first, Phil was not on board with the new couch idea. After driving back home I asked if we could look at one of the furniture stores in town and we discussed the couch thing again.

It's not like the couch I have now is horrible, it's just that I really am finding my own style, am 25 years old, and really want to have things that feel like they "fit." The couch I have now is a basic one from Ikea with a dark blue slipcover. One of my best friends gave it to me when they got a new one and I gladly accepted it. I just thought it was time for a new couch and my reasons were definitely valid.

Off to three different furniture stores we went. The first one had an ugly green one that was comfy, but ugly and it kind of looked funny. The price tag: $399. I really didn't want to spend that much and especially not on something that was not our style at all. We went to Gardiner's next and saw a bunch of things we liked for a heck of a lot more money. It was a little discouraging. On the way out and to our third store, Phil made me promise that we wouldn't get anything today. He wanted to really look around and make an informed decision. I told him I had no intention of buying today and want to look all over to find the perfect couch at a perfect price. To me, this price was $300 or less. I knew it would take some searching and was up for it, but I made him pinky promise that if we found something super fantastic that we could not pass up then that's a different story. He agreed.

On to Gardiner's we went. The first thing that the lady in the store told us was that they had two sofas on sale and that today was the last day. The first was a cream color one that was on sale for $299 and is in the back. The second was a green one for $399 in the front. We looked around and headed straight for the back. The couch we wanted was cream or light beige in color, soft, plush pillows, and super comfy. On the way back, Phil even said that he didn't expect much and wanted to see what was wrong with this couch that they put it on sale for $299.



Much to our surprise we went back and saw this:

Needless to say it is perfect! We pick it up on Saturday and may have difficulty rearranging the living room and getting it in the door, but we're determined to make it work. We both love it and finding something that we both love is...well...super difficult. I am seriously thanking God for the wonderful couch that we found on a total whim! Now, for making it fit...

An accidental three day weekend!

Ok, so it might not have been that great to start off with, but it happened none the less. I had gotten used to working full days Monday-Thursdays 8am-6pm with the kids for two weeks after we got back from California. It's hard work, but I love having Fridays off to spend with Phil since he works on Saturdays. It gives us some extra "do whatever we want" time and I truly love it!

I did have a week or maybe two with my Monday-Friday schedule and volunteering at a school on the days I go in late since then, but apparently this week was destined to be Monday-Thursday with Friday being off.

It started on Monday. I was called in an hour early to come and get M. She was staying home from school with strep and she had a stomach virus over the weekend. When I went to pick up D from school, I found out he had the stomach virus and while we were picking up Morgan's Rx from the grocery store, he got sick :( After his parents took him to the dr.'s office that night we found out that he too had strep.Luckily the oldest hasn't come down with anything as of yet and neither has the mom.

This brings me to how I got yesterday off. I woke up at 4:30am feeling really sick. I waited until 5:45am before I called off per Phil's suggestion. Yes, indeed, I have the stomach virus. Luckily it is a 24 hour bug and I am much better today! Yesterday was awful and Phil took me to the dr.'s to make sure I didn't have strep. It was surprisingly cheap for not having insurance. It only cost $55! My Rx was free...thank you Giant for your free antibiotic offer, as I happily obliged.

Also, since my sister was diagnosed about two years ago with type 2 diabetes, I have been a little paranoid seeing as I am about 30 pounds heavier than she is. The doctor found no sugar in the test and said I am not diabetic! They weren't even supposed to check that, but God loves to do little things like that to let you know he cares. I'm super estatic I don't have diabetes.

As for today, I have some grocery shopping to do, maybe some vaccuuming, moping, or light cleaning. I don't want to over do it with how I was yesterday. I am excited to be picking up some fruit and salad at the market and am loving that soooo many things are 10 for $10!