HELP BEAT BREAST CANCER SEPT 15TH W/ A $35 MASSAGE

Spend $35 for a 50 minute massage on September 15th, and $10 will go to Susan G. Koman.

detailsHERE

grocery shopping + helping a 5 yo w/ a brain tumor = win/win

ok... here goes. deep breath. I have this life.. this life of less than 6 degrees of separation. Somehow, in the strangest of circumstances I find other people who know each other and every time I tell these stories it seems that people think it's the funniest thing how these situations play out.. yesterday, while proving to be an interesting situation, it weighed heavy on my heart leaving me with this gut feeling that there may be a reason my day played out the way it did. A reason I became involved.

The day started out very normal. I got to work and had a short conversation with my boss asking each other about our weekends. She told me about a bunco game in her neighborhood that was being held in honor of a 5 yo boy who had a brain tumor. At the end of the night instead of splitting the pot so the winner could take the winnings and the other half given to the family of this little boy it was decided that all the money thrown it would go to this family. Her husband is a fireman and her family has roots in our community so it's not uncommon for her to be pitching in to help another family.

After work I got home and my neighbor next door rang my bell to BRING ME COUPONS! Okay how good do I have it that people BRING THEM TO ME! So we started talking and she started telling me how she's been spending her days. She was recently laid off so she was explaining to me that a friend of hers who I know has a son that is very ill. She started explaining that her 5 yo son has a brian tumor and that the family needed help and has a huge calendar on line where you can go on and sign up to help the family. She told me about a few fundraisers that were being planned and I couldn't believe I had missed all this considering I am a FACEBOOK friend with the mom of this little boy. At this point I had totally forgotten the conversation with my boss early the SAME MORNING.

So another neighbor comes over and we had a few errands we were running together, so my first neighbor left to go finish making dinner. I ran my errands, came home, and while out I saw a Porsche that was a few years younger than mine... so that reminded me IT HAD BEEN WEEKS since I had been on my European Car club website. I log on and immediately there are people talking about a meetup they are trying to plan. Along with them was a member I had never talked to before so we started talking and she informed me of a fundraiser she was trying combine in with a meetup for our club. As soon as she mentioned the name of the bar I knew this was the same little boy my neighbor had just talked about just 2 hours earlier to me. When I asked if it was "Cin's little boy" the girl was shocked (I've never met this girl from my car club before because she had left for awhile and I just joined).

So as things worked, we took over the entire conversation on the car club website so I asked if we could move over to a private area. So I asked if she had yahoo IM, AIM, Myspace IM, skype, or Facebook. Of course, she has FB. After she gave me her name and I sent her a friend request, I realized we had a little more in common. Facebook shows you in common friends.. well automatically I see "Cin" and then the girl across the street from me!!! What. Not the girl who brought me coupons but another girl! So I ask, "how do you know her?" winds up they work together! So I tell her the girl who lives next door is how I know Cin & her family so how is it that she is friends with the girl who lives across the street but not the girl next door. She doesn't know the girl next door at all because she went to high school with Cin! Weird huh?

Anyway.. because of the girl from my car club I wound up being able to get links to all the websites and calendars for this little man's battle plan.


CARTER KETTNER

Okay here is how you can help!!! If you are in the Chicago area and shop at Jewel, on his site are links to the coupons that can be used for Shop and Share days. These are days in which if you bring these little coupons Jewel will donate 5% of your purchase towards the family for medical expenses.

APRIL 6-8
MAY 18-20
JUNE 29, 30TH & JULY 1ST

So as you can see, for some reason throughout my day yesterday everyone was telling me about Carter. I very honestly believe that everything happens for a reason, and maybe I don't yet know what the reason is.. but I can start by passing the message about Carter and way that you can do something HUGE for him without really having to do much more than print out a piece of paper and hand it to the cashier when you pay for some groceries. Sounds like a win/win situation to me!

acts of kindness

Lindsay over at FRUGAL AND FABULOUS gave me this award!! I really love the comment she left about me and why she was giving me this award.

"Melissa @ I robbed that store legally! Melissa gets some really great deals week after week - and often goes to great lengths (and through many an awful cashier) to get them. But she's a trooper and never gives up! :)"

I really appreciate this comment because YES hounding/couponing is difficult, it's frustrating, it's not as easy as it looks, and it's addicting. I've made tons of mistakes and love to share them simply because I don't want other couponers out there (newbie or veteran) to think that I don't or that they can't make mistakes or that they are alone making mistakes.

Simply, we are here to save our families money. That is the bottom line. Whether we technically could afford $1,000 worth of groceries or not, we chose to go this route and yes it's tough but we all must keep swimming! lol!

Now I have to tell you six things that I am thankful for, and then I have to nominate six people with this award!

I am thankful for:

1. I'm thankful for my healthy normal son. He was born very ill, has had 3 brain surgeries in his 14 years of life amongst other bumps, bruises, stitches, bone breaks, and the like.

2. I am thankful for both my nephews.. both of whom bring light into my world.

3. I am thankful for my parents.. they've been married almost 40 years and through it all taught me a lot about life. They had a tough first 20 years of marriage, but they stuck it out.

4. I am thankful for my sister.. she's amazing.. she was like a 2nd mother to me when I was little and my mom was in nursing school. Even though I know I was a pest to her as kids, I always knew she loved me.

5. He isn't blood.. but I'm thankful for my husband.. I know weird he is coming in close to last. He's a grounded stable man.

6. I am thankful for my grandma. Next Tuesday will mark her death, it's been 5 years. I can't believe it's been that long. I can always spend time with her when I'm in my kitchen. I learned more about her, about life, about love, about family, and really best of all about cooking. For 10 years I made dinner almost every night with her. Her hands were too weak and sore from rheumatoid arthritis to lift the heavy iron pans or peel the potatoes. So she stood over me, or sat next to me and told me how to do them. While we prepared meals, we talked about everything from her relationship with my grandfather, her family (she was one of 11), her life growing up on the farm and moving to the big city (Chicago), and even sex! She was and still is an amazing woman!! Go Grandma!

Okay now that I'm sobbing my fool heart out... I've decided not to tag anyone because as always it seems everyone has already been tagged for this.. Anyone of blogs I stalk deserve this award! everyone of them puts their heart and soul into their blogs and I appreciate each of them!

Rock on Ladies!!

In closing....

It's my birthday... ♪ dah dah dah dah dah dah ♪

sooo I awoke this morning and was super groggy.. I spent yesterday most of the day in bed, puking, and generally feeling cruddy. I had to cancel my birthday dinner with my family which I was pretty upset about because we were going to Texas De Brazil one of my favorite restaurants. anyway.. my phone was going bezerk with texts coming in since 6am (I woke up at 8am) and so I finally rolled over and started reading them. The last one was from my neighbor saying to call her ASAP because she had a huge favor to ask me.

I take my dog out and he's barking at what I didn't know. I bring him in, feed him and his sister the cat, go potty myself. I was super dehydrated and thirsty so I decided to make myself some orange juice. There was a rapping on the door like 2 sips into my OJ and my husband says "who could that be right now" so I told him it was probably my neighbor who had texted me only 15 minutes before. I answer the door in my robe and she was standing at the door sobbing and asked me to drive her to the dr. No problem, I'll get showered/dressed be over in a few minutes.

Off to the dr we go then the pharmacy and back home. Long story short, she's been ill for over 2 years now and now on top of what has been going on she got a super bad cold and hasn't slept in days because of her meds mixed with whatever cough medicine she's been taking. The dr gave her new cough medicine, some sleeping pills, and a new prescription for something else. So it was a good day for her, she's just exhausted so I'm hoping she's sleeping right now.

I came back and my husband had a gift for me!! THIIIISSS!


AND FOR ALL YOU FRUGAL FOLKS he got it FREE!! That's right, he saved up points and got it for free! So I like it DOUBLE! lol! It's one of those groovy digital picture frames but it also plays video and music! super cool!

After the dr/pharmacy I walked one of my neighbors dogs and then came home, printed out my Noodles & Co free birthday lunch coupon, put together a small CVS run (thank god for I heart cvs dot com), and off we went.

Had a really great FREE lunch (well we had to pay for my husbands meal, no biggie it was still nice) then walked across the parking lot to CVS! ohhh yeah! First time my husband has seen me in coupon action! lol!


♥2/$5 Colgate TP (one kid, one Total) used one $1.50 coupon from All You
♥Covergirl clean make up $5.49 used $1 coupon from last weekends paper
♥Gillette Fusion power $9.99 used $4 coupon from last weekends paper

$3/$15 and a $10 ECB, total OOP was $1.73 (I thought it would be 73 cents but I miscalculated, but still a great deal!). I earned $5.49 ECB for Covergirl, $5 for the Gillette, $2 for Colgate, $2 from Summer savings.. check out my receipt!


I got a $25 switch your presciption coupon (I don't have any prescriptions right now though..) and a $10/$50 coupon that expires on 10/16. I have $27 in ECBS so I'm going to have to sit down and figure out a deal where I can get at least $25 or more ECBS back. I'm excited. I'll have to work on that next week because I still haven't hit K-Mart to DOUBLE COUPON, no time! lol! Also my neighborhood grocery store is having great 10/$10 deal but also every time you spend $10 you get $3 off! So I gotta work those deals before next week as well!

Okay, next we went to Target to fix my fiasco from last week
I talked about here and they refunded my $9.44!! So I had remembered to use my $5 GC (which I used for cereal anyway) and gotten the correct prices that trip would have been like $25. Wow big difference from $40!

After that my husband wanted to go look at new phones because he hasn't gotten a new phone in over 5 YEARS! yes, no kidding. His work paid for them so he used to get hand me downs from the engineers! lol! I stopped at Caribou Coffee because I'm PMSing and it's my birthday and I wanted dessert! lol!

We got home and I got my mail and more surprises awaited me!! lookie lookie!

♥astroglide sample
♥free carthart hat
♥mints from shoppers but had an advertisement for the Ford Flex
♥mineral make up I ordered paid $3.13 for shipping
again it seems like I got more but I can't remember what else I got! lol!

Okay so all in all, combined with all this, and cyber birthday wishes along with snail mail cards I've had a pretty great birthday!!

acts of couponing kindness..

ANOTHER LABEL TO ADD! LOL!! I had another act of couponing kindness come my way today... this one wasn't unexpected but the little note that came with it really was so sweet I just have to share.

I'll give you a little background here.. My husbands grandmother found out that I started using coupons for everything so she figured she would start clipping what coupons she got and mailing them to me. It was really nice because she is in her 90's, she and my husbands grandfather live together in their home. He still drives, they still do their shopping once a week on Tuesday I believe.. bowling, lunches, church, friends, and of course family keep them busy all the time. They live about 45 minutes to an hour drive from us so we don't see them as often as we could.

Okay so today I woke up and my sister called me like 3 seconds after I opened my eyes.. okay the only thing she could be calling me for is to go see my grandmothers grave.. sure enough, get your butt out of bed, take a shower, today is the day... we are going to see grandma (she died a few years ago, but we call going to see her grave just going to see grandma). We had planned to do this for grandparents day but my sister and mom are both nurses and scheduling conflicts are nothing new in my family. So my sister wound up having her days switched and she had off today so she figured she better get us all up and going otherwise the day would waste away and we wouldn't go.

As it happened, my mom & dad came as well and we had a great time being just our family.. the 4 of us. We went to both of my grandparents cemetary plots which happen to be a few miles apart and my fathers parents are buried right across from our favorite polish restuarant. So we had a wonderful day, the sun was bright, the breeze was cool and both the cemetary offices were open so we had access to bathrooms, people to help us hunt down other family members/friends plots, and other people to ask to remove some bushes from one plot that are over grown. It was a great day..

Better yet, I get home to find this FAT envelope in my mail box and I see Tim's (my husband) grandmothers handwriting with my name spelled out perfectly (I didn't take my husbands last name and have an impossible last name to boot). Sure enough the inside contained all the coupons that came 9/7 so I think we got 4 sets that weekend?

Here is what she said:

Dear Melissa,

First of all THANK YOU for the Grandparents day card. A few years ago it was always celebrated the last Sunday in September. next I was in the hospital from last Monday til next Thursday with ppnemonia. I'm home now and doing ok. Nexxt coupons were all from last Sunday, I never had so many in one day. Let me know if you have had enough.

Are you all ready for the wedding - really getting close! (side note Tim's oldest brother is getting married Oct 5th) Wish I could write like you do. The mailman always has a big smile when he delivers it. You will be getting the magazine Family Circle. They sent me a coupon that I could give one to someone so I thought of you. I enjoy it and hope you will too.

Good luck going thru 194 coupons (yes she counted them). See you on the 5th of Oct.

Love
Grandma

I guess today is actually grandparents day today in my family anway! lol!

*almost* in tears over a really great unexpected gift from a fellow blogger

I had a fellow blogger send me a note just simply asking if I wanted any pet supply coupons. She said she didn't have any pets and knew I did and was willing to forward them to me so I could use them. Today I got a Pirority mail 8x11 envelope STUFFED with coupons... just totally unbelieveable. I don't know if she wants me to broadcast/advertise but I just want to make it known that this grocery gaming community has helped me in ways that I had never expected. So I just wanted to thank her and every fellow gamer for making this possible for me... I seriously could not do this all alone!! You are all 100% amazing!