Welcome to my weekly post where we take a break from money-related posts and I give you a little peek into our life from the past week and also share things I'm pondering/learning.
I’m Falling Back in Love With Coupons
After being in Cincinnati last week with a few other frugal bloggers, including Katie from Kroger Krazy, I was so inspired to shop with coupons again — something that I haven't done much of in the last few years. (Read more about how we save on groceries without using coupons here.)
So, I went over to Kroger Krazy, made my grocery list, printed my coupons, and then promptly lost the coupons! For real.
Maybe this wasn't such a good idea??? 😉
I ended up finding out that my daughter had put the coupons under a stack of books, so all was not lost! But then when I got to the store, I realized how rusty I was at using coupons. I ended up having to consult Kroger Krazy multiple times on my phone AND I had to return a bottle of laundry detergent to customer service because I had bought the wrong size!!!!
Apparently, using coupons isn't quite like riding a bike. When you learn how to do it once, you can't necessarily just hop back on and do it again!
But, as I walked out of the store with my bags in tow and my receipt with all the savings listed, I remembered the rush I got from using coupons and getting deals and now I'm inspired to jump back into it again!
See all the details on my Kroger shopping trips from this past week here and here.
If You Had a Rough Day…
I wrote this on Monday and wanted to share it here, in case you needed the reminder…
Y’all. Today wasn’t one of our finer days. I think it may have been the whole re-entry back into “real life” after Fall Break and my trip to Cincy. But it just felt like everyone was off their game and Mama was on edge.
There were bad attitudes. There was complaining. There were kids who were taking five times as long as needed to finish their chores. There was arguing.
I was so tired of the attitudes and complaining and bickering, that I announced in a rather strong voice halfway through dinner that if any child talked or made another noise, I would be adding more vegetables to their plates.
Yup. Sometimes, you come up with crazy things like that because you’re just d-o-n-e.
I may not have been as gentle or patient as I would have liked to be today, but we made it through the day, I didn’t lose my temper, and there were many redeeming moments of today… like this hour where Kaitlynn made slime while I read to her.
If you had a rough day, too, know this: you’re not alone. And there is grace. Also? If you think back over your day, I’m sure you had some redeeming moments, too.
And tomorrow is a new day!
The Little Things Really Make a Difference
This centerpiece on our kitchen table might not look like much to you. But to me, it tells a story that makes me smile every time I look at it.
It tells the story of my 10-year-old, Kaitlynn, who loves to leave beauty wherever she goes.
You see, I asked her to set the table for dinner the other night. In typical Kaitlynn fashion, she didn’t just set the table, she also created a snowflake “doily” out of a napkin and gathered fall items around the house for a centerpiece.
She teaches me so much about taking a little time for the extra touches… the things that add a splash of beauty. The things my natural personality would usually think are just frivolous and a waste of time.
She shows me, by her example, that investing that time is worth it. That those seemingly little things really do make a difference.
And every time I see this centerpiece, I’m reminded to look for ways to add more splashes of beauty to my own life — and to others’ lives.
Why I Took Email Back Off My Phone Again
I took email back off my phone this week — and I can’t BELIEVE how much of an impact this makes for me!
I had taken it off my phone for a long time and thought that I had gotten disciplined enough to put it back on.
So I put it back on a few weeks ago thinking it might make things more efficient for me and my team and I felt like I’d learned enough from having it off my phone that it shouldn’t be a problem. I wasn’t going to need to check it all the time like I used to, right??
Um, apparently I’m not as disciplined as I thought! 😉
I quickly fell back into old patterns…
…Checking email on my phone first thing when I woke up (so then my day started with my brain swirling about business projects and issues needing to be resolved.)
…Checking email when I had a few minutes here and there while I was in the middle of family time (which meant I would then be distracted and would be unable to be fully present with my family.)
…Checking email as soon as I got into the car after I was with a friend or at a function (which meant that instead of having a peaceful drive home, I’d be thinking about work projects.)
…Checking email last thing before I went to bed (which meant that my brain would be cluttered with thoughts of projects and to-do’s as I tried to drift off to sleep.)
Basically, having email on my phone meant that the business tasks and to-do’s were constantly crowding out the peace of my real-life. And it started making me feel frantic and on edge.
So, I pulled my email off my phone again this week. And within a few HOURS I felt like I could breathe again!!
What’s a simple change you might need to make to help reclaim some margin and breathing room and peace in your life?
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