Amy J. Bennett

Extraordinary Faith for Everyday Life

CVS Savings week of 10/7

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OK, so I went to CVS and bought $18.23 worth of stuff for $13.76.  Not bad but then I got $15.56 worth of ECB.  So basically CVS paid me $1.80 to take home $18.23 worth of products.  Sweet.

What did I get? 

  • Two tubes of Crest Pro-Health Night toothpaste. 
  • One tube of Colgate Total Toothpaste. 
  • One Palmolive Dish Liquid.
  • Two Beano to-go – which, by the way, Scott says he won’t use.  At least I tried.

All except the Beano I needed or will need soon and didn’t buy anything I wouldn’t normally use.  You should have seen my grin walking out of CVS.

 

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P2P Payoff by PPP

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Ok, so I do like alliteration. 

I have yet to find any kind of plug-in to help me display our van payoff in my sidebar so I just created a good ‘ol spreadsheet and pasted it in the right sidebar as a table.  I decided to go ahead and show the actual dollar amount vs. some sort of percentage or hidden amount.  Nothing to be embarrassed about and it’s not like I’m showing how much savings we have…just the opposite.   I also included our monthly payment minus any interest they take out each month.  It’s not exact, but when we’re starting at 10 grand, who’s counting pennies? 

I figured it up and I’d have to make an extra $500 a month from PPP in order to pay the van off by end of next year which would be my ultimate goal.  However, I’m not sure if that’s doable or not.  If no extra funds are given to the van, we won’t pay it off until Spring 2010.

So far this month I’ve made $56, over twice as much as I made all last month.  If I continue with the same rate of posts as I have, that is about $200 extra a month and we will be down to around 3K by end of next year.  So thank you, thank you for putting up with the few extra posts so far.  I know I have a long way to go but at least this gives me a goal to shoot for.

I will update the amounts as I get approved for things and as I have time to update it.

40 Before 40

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Well, since I’m not even 30 yet, I’m guessing I should be able to come up with a decent list of things to do in the next 10 years and 9 months.  I would do 30 before 30 but then I’m guessing it would be really hard to come up with 30 things to do in the next 9 months.  So, the 40 things I would like to accomplish in 10 years and 9 months are:

  1. Successfully potty train both my children. Yes, they will be in middle and high school by the time I’m 40 and I’m really hoping we get that one down.
  2. Learn Flash.  Still looking for a copy of the software without paying so much.
  3. Finish the scrapbook I started for me and Scott.
  4. Memorize a whole chapter of Scripture.  Maybe more.  I knew a girl that memorized Romans in high school.
  5. Get a boob job.  If I get one, I should do it before I’m 40.
  6. Get my acne cleared up.  It’s gotten a lot better but still more to go.
  7. Learn to send out birthday cards to family members.
  8. Have a quiet time every single day.
  9. Get some or all of my blog printed.
  10. Get really good at couponing.
  11. Menu plan every week.
  12. Remember to pay my bills that require actual checks on time.
  13. Really understand CSS.
  14. Go on another cruise.
  15. Learn how to keep plants alive.
  16. Learn how to make Scott’s grandmother’s chicken and dumplings.
  17. Go to Europe.
  18. Learn to sew a patch on a shirt.
  19. Sing by myself in public.
  20. Possibly play the piano in public again.
  21. Find a ministry I’m really, really passionate about.
  22. See my children come to know Christ.
  23. Pay off our van.
  24. Buy a vehicle for myself other than a van.
  25. Buy Scott a truck.
  26. Write a book of some sort.
  27. Take my vitamins every day.
  28. Floss my teeth every day.
  29. Get my teeth whitened.
  30. Speak another language.
  31. Get another diamond ring.
  32. Get all my digital pictures printed.
  33. Organize all my digital pictures.
  34. Understand Reba’s "The night the lights went out in Georgia" enough to explain it to someone else.
  35. Hire someone else to clean my house weekly.
  36. Learn how to deal with confrontation.
  37. Be smarter about saving for retirement.
  38. Have our savings/retirement accounts well on their way to retirement.
  39. Have regular backups of my computer
  40. Learn to listen and obey to what God tells me to do.

The Bachelor October 9, 2007

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OK, so this season started out pretty slowly if you ask me.  No huge drama girls this year.  There’s some tension but nothing like previous seasons.   This week was interesting with the twin thing.  OMG, there are two of him.  Sorry, ladies, the other one is taken though.  I can’t believe some of the girls didn’t notice.  It was pretty obvious they didn’t look alike.  

A few of the girls have pulled out on top so it’s time to start making predictions.  Jenni or Sheena seem to be the frontrunners for now.  Steffie, DeDe and Kristy all come in close behind them.

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Back home and back to work

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Yesterday was the longest trip ever from Maryland to South Carolina.  We didn’t leave until almost 11 and didn’t get home until almost 9.  I think we stopped every 2 hours and even one at a pumpkin patch. 

And one stop almost ended in a hospital visit.

We’d been on the road for about 2 1/2 hours straight and Lexi started crying and trying to rub her stomach under her car seat strap.  She seemed to be itching or in pain.  I told Heather to undo part of her strap so she could get to it to see if she calmed down but she didn’t and even got worse.  I pulled over to a gas station right away and she seemed in pain. I asked her if her stomach hurt and she said yes.  I look at her tummy and saw that it looked bloated like on the right side and was hard as a rock.  She screamed in pain when I touched her.  I thought maybe she was constipated really bad and needed to get a laxative.  We got directions to a hospital and I strapped in with her in the back seat while Heather drove.  Lexi was calm as long as I was holding her and she was asleep within a minute on the road.  I decided if she was in that much pain she wouldn’t have been able to sleep so calmly so we decided to try to get home.  We were a good four or five hours away but Lexi takes really long naps and if she slept that long, I figured even if she was still in pain, at least we’d be closer to home.  Right after she went to sleep, she peed a lot.  Like the whole diaper front to back.  I felt on her belly and whatever hardness was there, it seemed to be gone.  We had stopped at that pumpkin patch and Lexi had fresh apple cider and an apple there and we’ve been curious in the past if she was allergic to apple juice.  My theory is she had to pee and then may have had gas on top of that causing the pain.  Anyway, she woke up 2 hours later or so and was perfectly fine.

In other news from yesterday we found out my grandmother’s cancer is not gone.  She had it in more places in her breasts so she has to have another surgery now and it was also in her lymphnodes so she has to have chemo as well.  We’re all disappointed. 

I came home last night to an extremely clean house and a newly built shelf hung above my tv that I had “ordered” from Scott and was made as a surprise.  I had all these plans to blog and watch my TIVO’d shows but it was so nice at home all I could do is just relax in my bed where I quickly went to sleep.  I hadn’t done that all weekend.  I guess the best vacation really is just being comfortable and relaxed at home.

Plug-in help

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OK, because I’m feeling pretty crappy about all these paid posts (not that there are a lot on here yet — and none in my feed) I’d like to at least give myself and my lovely readers a common goal to make it all worth it.  My goal is for us to pay off our van earlier than we had planned.  What I’d like to do is put some type of countdown bar or ticker thingy on my sidebar to either count down how much we owe on the van until it’s paid off or either count up what I’ve made so far in paid posts/advertising.  At least I could feel a little better that I’m helping my family and you might not hate me so much when you start reading a post and say, “Heeyyy, this is a sponsored post!  She tricked me!”

So if you can point me to a ticker thingy I’d greatly appreciate it.

Rock of Love Reunion – October 7 2007

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Wow.  That was a reunion show like no other.  Heather and Bret appear to want to make out on stage right before Jess comes out to see “her man” she hasn’t seen in 6 months.  Jess barely looks at Bret and says he picked the wrong one and Heather and Bret really belong together. 

I think I’m speechless.

Filed Under: tv

Vacation?

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So yesterday we went to my mom’s school homecoming.  It was the whole parade/craft table/hot dog stand/pony ride thing.  It was nice but the girls got tired out pretty quickly.  So we headed to my grandfather’s to visit and then to my grandmother’s.   She seemed quite well after her surgery this week and really wouldn’t have been able to tell anything was wrong.

After that, Heather and I went to Ruby Tuesday for dinner while Mom and Dad stayed home and got ready for her reunion dinner.  Heather and I spent the rest of the evening home.  I actually spent the evening painting Mom’s bathroom and then started priming the kitchen.  Mom and Dad were pretty shocked we were working hard on it when they got home around 11.

Today we all got up late and went to eat lunch with my Mom’s sister and family.  We’ve been home ever since.  I spent the entire day painting the kitchen.  I’m not really sure why I wanted to paint, but I was definitely in the mood.  They weren’t even planning to paint it this weekend and just picked out the color yesterday.

So somehow this made me realize that I’m not sure if my vacation is really lay-in-bed-all day-doing-nothing.  I’ve felt really good that I’ve accomplished something.  When I get home I can look back and say look what I did.  I think part of it is I don’t get so much done I want to get done at home and on vacation, I can choose to paint a room if I want to and get it all completed.  So somehow even though my muscles are sore, I’m tired and I have paint all over my hands, hair and clothese, it feels like vacation.  Make sense to anyone?