Weekly Movie Reviews

Since hubby was out of town all week last week, I took the opportunity to watch a few movies to pass the time. There were a couple of good ones and a few that were not so good :-o) I'm finding that it's hard to find a well made movie these days.

My favorites were:

Things We Lost In The Fire ~ Synopsis: A recent widow invites her husband's troubled best friend to live with her and her two children. As he gradually turns his life around, he helps the family cope and confront their loss.

**I really liked this movie although it started kind of slow. The story was sad, tragic, troubled, and in the end, healing. I really liked Jerry. It was nice to see him rise from the ashes and start dealing with his drug addiction. Halle Berry's character got on my nerves and I felt like this was some of her worst acting. However, someone else in this role could have made the movie even better. Apart from that, a good movie.

The Kite Runner ~ Synopsis: After spending years in California, Amir returns to his homeland in Afghanistan to help his old friend Hassan, whose son is in trouble.

**This was another movie I really enjoyed. I haven't had the opportunity to read the book so I was excited to get to see the movie. Again, great story and a well made movie.

The others I watched and did not care for where:

• Georgia Rule - language and content was the biggest reason I didn't like this one.
• In the Land of Women - The leading male actor was funny but this was just an "I don't get it" movie for me.
• Jack & Jill (Freddie Prinze Jr.) - The leading actress in this one was terrible. It could have been a good movie. The story line was good and Freddie Prinze Jr. did a good job. Everything else was terrible.
• Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium - I took the girls to see this one mid-week since the local theater has the summer movie thing going on. Admission was only $1 per person and that was great. The movie wasn't bad. I just don't care for most fantasies. Not terrible, not great either. Just mediocre for me.
• Blonde Ambition - Don't waste your time. Jessica Simpson plus movies......well, I should have known how that would go. Her acting killed the movie.

Keep in mind that I was trying to watch movies that I thought hubby wouldn't like since he was gone all week. Basically, almost all of the movies I watched while he was gone bombed. The only one that was even worth mentioning was Things We Lost In The Fire. He did watch The Kite Runner with me and he liked it pretty well. Overall, not a good movie week :-o) Maybe next week will be better.

What did you see this week?

Seven Things Meme

I was tagged by Shawna to do this meme about my children. I never pass up an opportunity to talk about them so this should be fun! Here are the rules:

1. Link your tagger and list the rules on the blog.
2. Share 7 facts about your kiddos on your blog…random, weird, funny…whatever you want!
3. Tag 7 people at the end of your post
4. Don’t forget to let the tagged people know!

Since my daughters are polar opposites, I will list seven facts about each of them.

Logan

• Loves, loves, loves to read.
• Is currently fascinated with candles and unique candle holders. Her room is full of them :-o)
• Loves, loves, loves animals. Mostly cats, which she is wildly allergic to. LOL!
• Eats ketchup on everything, and I do mean everything. It's gross :-o)
• Loves to embroider.
• Would rather chat online with church friends than eat.
• Has the thickest hair I've ever seen in my life

Caroline

• Loves, loves, loves WebKinz.
• Is a very good speller.
• Has more freckles than I've ever seen on any human.
• Could live off of mac'n'cheese, sour cream, and cottage cheese.
• Loves pink, just like her mommy :-o)
• Loves to write letters to her church friends.
• Is very hard to wake up in the mornings.

I can't think of seven people to tag so if you want to play along, consider yourself tagged. Let me know if you join in so I can come read about your children.

When Hubby's Away.....

The girls will play........Well, not exactly.

While hubby is away this week, the girls and I have a top secret project planned. Last year, we painted the shutters and front door and didn't tell him what color we'd picked. He had no idea until he returned home at the end of the week. We had a blast surprising him. This year is no exception. We didn't even tell him we were doing a secret project. In case he reads this post, I can't share the details. Just know that it's a big project and we are having a blast doing it. I think we have so much fun because we know he'll be extra happy about this one. It's so much fun to plan how we'll reveal it to him too!

At first we were thinking we'd get him a cool gift, like a Luminox Navy SEAL Watch. He loves cool gadgets like that. However, we realized there was really no way we could order something without him knowing. Plus, what would happen if it didn't arrive in time? We finally resolved to doing this project for him instead.

He comes home on Friday evening so I'll share our project on Saturday. We're working hard today to finish it so that we can take off tomorrow and see a movie. Some local movie theaters show cheap or free movies for children in the summer. We'll be going to see Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium and admission is only $1 per person! Can't beat that with a stick so we jumped on it. Christian Spotlight gave it 5 stars for quality and a better than average rating for content. Sounds good to me. I'll review it for you on Sunday.

I hope you're have a great Tuesday!

Rite Aid Deals 6-23

I'm pretty happy with my RA haul today. I'll be requesting my monthly rebate check this weekend and I'm amazed by how easy this has been. There's nothing like getting free or nearly free items! Especially when those items are things a family always needs.

Here's the breakdown for today's trip:

Charles Worthington Big Hair Sea Salt Spray: $4.99 with $4.99 scr (free after rebate) *Limit 1 rebate*

Finessee shampoo and hairspray: 2/$6 with $5 scr ($1 for both products after rebate) *Limit 1 rebate*

Freeman Sea Kelp shampoo and conditioner: $2.99 each with $2 scr on each item ($1.98 for both items after rebate) *This had a limit of 2 rebates*

Crest Pro-Health Night toothpaste: $2.99 with $2.99 scr (free after rebate) *Limit 1 rebate*

So, after rebate, all of these items cost me $2.98. Because most Rite Aid stores are not internet coupon friendly, I try to only shop there for the items that are free after rebate or very cheap after rebate. This works well because usually those items are things we can really use so I stockpile them. I can't believe I'm only now learning all of these things. If I had started this several years ago, we would have saved a lot of money. Oh well, better late than never, I suppose.

Food City has a pretty good sale going on right now also. There are several BOGO deals and a handful of good BOG2 offers. I stocked up on these items:

Fischer bologna ($2.28 each on sale BOGO). Used 2 - 40c coupons so I ended up paying 74c per pack

Food City diced tomatoes (select varieties) $1.29 each on sale BOG2. OOP was 39c per can

Dole pineapples (crushed, rings, tidbits, etc.) $1.29 each on sale BOG2. OOP was 43c per can

Food Club soda $1.49 each on sale BOG2. OOP was 49c each

Sweet Baby Ray's BBQ sauce $2.79 on sale BOG2. OOP was 93c each

Chex Mix $2.49 on sale BOGO. I used $1 printable Qs. OOP was 74c each. More than I wanted to pay but a good deal to use up my extra Qs that expire soon.

While I shopped, Caroline collected these:

We were gone most of the evening and starved around 6pm. We made turkey bacon, scrambled eggs, and biscuits for supper. Caroline treated us and made some yummy brownies for dessert.

It was the perfect end to a nice day.

 

CVS June 22

Hubby left today for Valle Crucis, NC to attend NAAPD. He'll be gone until Friday so the girls and I will be trying to keep ourselves busy until then. We're usually bored when he's gone. He left shortly after coming in from church so I took to clipping my coupons from today's paper. I clipped some good ones and can't wait to work up some deals on those items. I went ahead and made a CVS run since it's less than a mile from our house. I didn't find a lot of deals but here's what I came home with:

Transaction #1

CVS Mens Aftershave $2.59

Used $2 CVS coupon

Paid 64c OOP

Earned $1 ECB

Basically, CVS paid me 34c to buy this. I love it when that happens!

Transaction #2

Aussie Leave In Conditioner Spray $2.99

Used $2.99 ECB

Paid 0 oop

Earned $2 in ECB

Transaction #3

4 Soy Joy Bars 4/$4

Used $1/3 man Q

Used BOGO man Q

Used $2 ECB from transaction #2

Paid 16c OOP

Earned $4 ECB

Transaction #4

2 Colgate Total Advance toothpastes $5.98

1 Colgate Spongebob toothbrush $2.99

Used 2 - $1.50/1 Colgate Qs

Used $5 ECBs earned from transactions 1 & 3

Paid $1.34 OOP

Earned $6 ECBs

Trip Breakdown

Spent $2.14 OOP for $18.60 worth of items

Used $9.99 in ECBs

Earned $13 ECBs

For anyone who can answer, my receipt says that July is Extra Bucks month and that my 2% earnings will starting printing at the register July 1st. I had no idea this happened. Seems I read it somewhere before. If I understand correctly, it means I'm going to receive free CVS money. Can someone fill me in? How does this work?

Tip: I purchased some Rainbow Twizzlers (my fav) from Kroger last week while they were on sale. On the back of the package, I noticed that there was a Mega Movie Bonus proof of purchase. As I read on, I found that when you collect 15 mega movie bonus points, you can send them in and receive a free movie admission. On these bags, the bonus was 3 pts but you can buy other Hershey's , Reese's, and York products that have 5 points on them. If you get the Twizzlers on sale for $1 a bag, you'd need to buy 5 bags to earn 15 points. So, you'll spend $5, send it in, and get a movie admission certificate. Around here, movie tickets are $7.50 - $8 so you're still saving a little bit of money. In my book, any money saved is a good thing.

Saving and Recycling

The coupon clipping is going well. I've collected quite a few so far and look forward to adding lots more to my binder. Our local Sunday paper usually carries a small selection and I've called my relatives to ask them to save theirs for me, provided they don't use them. I've been able to get some pretty nice deals recently so I definitely see the benefits that come from using them strategically. Last night at Walmart, I got an 8pk of Zantac, two Buddy Bars of soap, a can of shaving cream, a box of Honey Nut Cheerios, and a pack of notebook dividers all free. In order to get them free, I simply had to print out online coupons and clip a few from the paper. A small sacrifice for what I got. Jeff was with me and was impressed. He would be more impressed if our food stockpile would grow and I'm working on that.

I've also started working on ways to recycle more and not waste so much. About a month ago, I joined our local online FreeCycle group. If you haven't heard about FreeCycle, I urge you to read more about it. I'm starting to really see the benefits of joining the group, as I have been able to bless others with things I could no longer use or no longer wanted. These are things I would have otherwise either thrown away or taken to a local charity where they would have resold the item. Yes they would have resold it at a cheaper price but by placing it on the FreeCycle chain, I was able to give away a perfectly good medicine cabinet this week. Anything goes really. I even gave away a brand new bottle of self-tanner. I was just too lazy to put it on everyday and it would have gone in the trash had it not been for FreeCycle. A few other things I've freecycled are an old shower curtain,construction paper, clothing, and toys. I'm really enjoying this because all of the people I've given things to have really been eager to put those things to use. It's nice to know it's in someone's home rather than in some landfill somewhere.

I'm hoping to set up recycling bins in our garage next week. We have a recycling drop off point within two minutes of our house. They take paper, plastic and cardboard and we go through a lot of that. I've also vowed to save the return envelopes you get when you receive your bills. For example, when I get my electricity bill, they always include a return envelope. I used to just throw it out because I pay most bills online so I had no use for the envelopes. This week, I realized we were running low on regular envelopes and that I needed to buy some. It just so happened that I got bills in the mail and they all had return envelopes (the ones with the clear windows in front). So, I'll be saving those from now on and utilizing them when I need to mail something. I'm not sure why I didn't do this before.

I've also been seeing a lot of news reports on Freegans lately. While I can't imagine myself doing this, it's amazing to watch online videos to see what these people recover from dumpsters. What's even more fascinating is that many of the people who do this are well-educated adults with good paying jobs. They are just disgusted by what we waste and chose to dumpster dive for it. It seems the biggest waste is by restaurants. I can't understand why they don't donate things to local food banks. I think it's probably mostly because these companies are afraid of lawsuits and since our government has made it so easy to file suit against anyone for anything, the restaurants have to be careful. I do know that our local Atlanta Bread Company will donate their leftovers at the end of the day because they've been gracious enough to donate it to our homeschool co-op group on several occasions.

All in all, for me it's about not being wasteful. I want to be a good steward of what God has given us. These are just a few of the things I'm trying, apart from dumpster diving. I just don't have the stomach for that!

Looking For "Green" Ideas

Today I realized that I'm not a spring chicken anymore. I don't feel like I'm almost in my mid-30s but I have noticed that I look like I am. For example, I noticed today that when I laugh, I have major lines around my eyes. Where did those come from? I'll take any and all suggestions for the best wrinkle cream you know of! It's funny how I had never noticed those lines before.

I also realized that I'm not near as handy as I should be. I've come to depend on electronics so much that to be without them seems rather strange. I've wanted to learn to sew clothing for several years and have tried to rope my mom into teaching me. She never has the time so I just pushed that aside. I want to scrapbook more but we all know that's more fun when you've got someone to do it with. I want to exercise daily but just don't have the motivation. Recently, I've decided that I want to live more "green." I want to recycle more than I do. I want to find ways to cut water usage. I want to make a compost pile.

All of these are things that I can do. I need to invest a little bit of time to get them all going but after that, these things will become as easy as getting up in the morning. As I find neat ideas, I'll share them. If you have any, I'd love to hear about them.

Who Ya Gonna Call? Not Roto-Rooter!

Ok, so the new plumber came last Wednesday. Remember the name Roto Rooter. I know you've heard it before. They sent two guys to our house to look things over. They told hubby that he needed to do some work before they could get started. That work amounted to pulling out the bathroom vanity, sink, medicine cabinet, light fixture, and cutting through the drywall. They wouldn't do any of this because of the liability. I do not understand that to save my life but whatever. I've never known a plumbing company that made you do all of the work for them. LOL! Anyway, we got all of that done and one of the guys came back Thursday. He worked all day long and accomplished nothing. When he left for the day, he left us without a way to access the water at all. Friday he came back and worked all day but again, he accomplished nothing. He told us he'd be back at 9am on Saturday and would bring his boss with him. Again, he left and did not hook anything back up so that we could use the water. We got up early on Saturday and waited patiently for him to arrive. At 11am, some guy we had never seen before came to the door. He took the faucet and said he would return in an hour. At 4pm, we were still sitting here waiting for him to come back. Hubby finally called into the main office and explained the situation. They tried to locate the guys who were working for us and eventually about an hour later, one of the men called us. He was upset because his boss had called and got onto him because of this whole mess. He kept asking hubby what he could do to get our problem fixed so that his boss would get off his back. Hubby told him they were fired and not welcome back to our home. It was a nightmare. The problem still isn't fixed but we did manage to cap off the problem lines so that we could turn our main water back on. We went for ten days without water. It was not a fun experience and I do not wish to try it again. Thank goodness our in-laws live close so we were able to take showers there.

All of the stress from this caused me to hop off the wagon. I ate terribly because I was so frustrated and bored. It's amazing how limited you are without water. Things are finally settling down again and since diet pills aren't an option, it's back to WW recipes. I'm looking forward to it, especially since we were forced to eat out so much while we were without water.

I guess all of this is to say that I'm still in shock over the way these men behaved. The young man who worked on the problem for two days just had no clue of what he was doing. He was not prepared when he came to the house and apparently they don't stock their trucks with tools or parts. The guy used hubby's tools the entire time! We have never had a good experience with plumbers. We probably will never call another one. We'll probably learn to fix things ourselves and deal with the problems as they come. I'm not through with Roto Rooter either. I will be calling the corporate office tomorrow and I'm also reporting them to the Better Business Bureau. I needed a few days to gather their names and phone numbers before turning it over to these places. I honestly don't like to get anyone in trouble but their behavior was totally unprofessional and unacceptable. I would hate for anyone to endure what we had to endure with these guys. We knew we were in trouble when they started asking to use our tools. LOL!

Lesson learned: DO NOT USE ROTO ROOTER!