Shopping Trip 3/17

Last night was very successful even with a few minor changes at Copps.  I had planned out to get a BUNCH of cake mixes since they were on sale for $1 and they had sticky coupons on them for $1 off of 2 (thus making it only $0.50 per cake mix).  I don’t use cake mix alone in my recipes but I add things to them to “enhance” the mix (if you were wondering).  Anyways, the people at Copps must’ve realized this and took away all the stickies before I got there!  They’re out to get me, I swear!  So I had to improvise a bit (good thing I brought some backup coupons) and I got some free salad dressing along with doing the cereal deal (not like we needed cereal but what the heck!)  So here’s my motherload:

 

Grand total of $15.68 for everything here.  It’s actually $139.34 worth of stuff.  The DiGiorno’s were all free thanks to the house party package I won.  I bought those at Walmart along with the deodorants, hungry hippo travel game and the McCormick mix.  My total came to $52 there and after coupons (the lady made a comment that the coupons were a PITA) it came out to $3.52.  Then she couldn’t believe how much I ended up paying for it all… lol. 

These were the best deals of the night:

Including the Redbox rental.  I got “Where the Wild Things Are” since D man has been asking for it for awhile now.  Grand total of just this stuff $6.79.

Every cashier commented on the total prices tonight which is great :)  It took me a little longer shopping since I had to improvise on a lot of items but in the end, it worked out.  It makes me feel like all my hard work is worth it when I get something like this to turn out.  I wish my mom was here to see these deals.

Double Double Daze 3-3-10

First things, I got everything in this picture:

and MADE $1.13 on it!

Total my shopping spree tonight ended up with me getting $244.21 worth of stuff for $97.40.  Considering it was my first trip back from my February when I really didn’t go shopping at all (my first time to Copps in over a month!) I think it was pretty successful.  I came home with 7 gallons of milk, 20 pizzas, 10 boxes of noodles and even some organic pasta sauce.  I had to take two trips into the store.  I’ve never had to “unload” my cart before, lol. 

Grand Total for February

 

$68.78!  Yes, it’s over $50 but it’s close and I’m happy with it!  I did splurge on a few things throughout the month that I really didn’t need.  I also would’ve hit my total goal if my rebate American Express debit card would have worked when I checked out at the store last Wednesday… it didn’t and I ended up paying cash for my groceries :(  Oh well…

This week is double DOUBLE coupon daze at Copps and I am super excited about it.  Jack’s pizzas are on sale so my husband is beyond thrilled with this.  I have coupons to use up for milk and I plan to come home with 8 gallons of milk… note to self: make room in the freezer. 

22nd, 23rd & 24th

Our grand total is now at $47.96.  I had to buy 2 gallons of milk last night :(  I know we are about to go over but it won’t be by much!  I’m going shopping tonight with a rebate gift card that I got in the mail so hopefully this trip will not cost a lot OOP.  I’ll be going to double coupons for the first time in over a month.  I’m only doing this because I have some free coupons to use up and this is the best way to do it to get my total up there so I can double more coupons and save more money (trust me, it makes sense).  As for meals, I made my lasagna and green bean casserole this week so far.  I’m planning on doing potato pancakes (something my mom had planned on making shortly before she passed away – one of her favorites) and beef stroganoff (sp?)  I’m excited for both dishes because it’ll be the first time I’m ever making them.  I love trying new stuff!

The Weekend

So Friday we paid off DH’s car loan.  We are car payment free (and I love that!)  I would love it if we could go the rest of our lives without ever having another car payment.  I’m hoping we can do this! 

The babies went off to grandma’s house today until tomorrow.  We took advantage of the time alone and made a visit to Red Lobster to use up some of our gift cards we received from Christmas.  The entire dinner (which includes 2 lobster tails, shrimp & other yummies) costed us $3.03. 

Tomorrow we will finally get off of the leftover bandwagon and I will be *trying* to make lasagna for the very first time.  I’m excited about this but I do think it broke the bank :(  I broke down and had to buy some ingredients for it.  We weren’t prepared enough so this added another $10.03 onto our grand total which makes it $44.06 for the month. 

Shopping Trip

Went to CVS tonight and got this:

and ended up making $4.81!!!  I had $11 previous ECB’s to use up so I used them and ended up paying $2.19 OOP but then I got $13 ECB’s back and a $5 off $15 purchase so it’s actually a money maker if I use that coupon next time as well!  Yay!!!

Meals have been basically leftovers.  I bought milk, eggs & 3 boxes of mac & cheese tonight using coupons from the newspaper and it was all for $2.97 so our grand total is at $31.10.

Day 15 & 16

Yesterday was fairly simple.  We had french toast sticks for breakfast, grilled cheeses for lunch & sloppy joes for dinner.  I made some delicious homemade tortillas for the first time and I will never buy store bought again!  They were easy and CHEAP!!!  Today (the 16th), we had cereal for breakfast, hot dogs with waffles for lunch (yeah, I know, weird combo) & enchiladas for dinner.  They turned out very yummy using my homemade tortillas and I still have half of the batch left to use up the extra chicken for tacos one night this week.  DH is stopping for milk on his way home so that will be added to our monthly total bringing it to approx. $33.12.  We are past the halfway mark so we’ll see…

12, 13 & 14th

Friday my mother in law came to stay with us for the weekend.  She was kind enough to bring some yummy fish and we invited my dad over for a Friday night fish fry (yummy!)  Saturday we used our free coupon for a movie rental (rented Four Christmases) and had to pick up some stuff for DH’s car that he *almost* has fixed (yay!)  My MIL took us out to eat Saturday night… another yum.  This was a big treat after I had gone and bought Jillian’s 30 Day Shred (pure torture!)  lol… I woke up Sunday barely able to move… haha!  That means it’s working!  Sunday morning my dad took myself & my sister’s family out to eat for breakfast (super yummy) and then he made some chicken soup for dinner.  Awesome.  That brings me up to now.  There is no way I’ll make the $50 mark this month with the stockpiling I’ve been doing.  If I didn’t count what I’ve been spending on “extras”, I could make it but I’m counting that…  I’m going to extend my total to $100 which is still reasonable but gives me a little room to buy some extra ingredients.  We could by all means do this, I just don’t care to “suffer” through eating plain chicken, hamburgers or rice & beans… lol… sorry to disappoint everyone but hey, who can pass up a good sale, right? 

Day 11 & Shopping Trip

As for my shopping trip last night, I think I did pretty good.  I learned a few things (ahem, Walgreens not taking more coupons than items you’re checking out with – what? lol)  I went to Piggly Wiggly, CVS, Walgreens & Walmart and ended up with all of this (I didn’t include what I got from Pig in the picture):

for $9.72!  For a more detailed explanation, everything in the following picture only costed $1.67 :)

 

Everything in that picture was free except for the hotdogs ($0.33 each), rice ($0.30), joy dish soap ($0.69) and razors ($1 each)… I made $1 on the dove men’s body wash :)  GREAT deals!

Sooo now with my grand total added onto what I already spent, I’m at $30.43 which is kinda a lot more than I planned on getting… I really didn’t NEED the diapers in the photo but they were at such a great deal and they were out of DD’s size so I bought some for a baby shower I’ll be attending next month.  All of the excedrin’s & nyquils ended up being less than $0.50 a piece so you can’t go wrong with that!  Here’s our menu for today:

Breakfast: french toast sticks, fruit cups & pink milk (Big D’s favorite!)

Lunch: heart shaped salami & cheese sandwiches with carrot sticks

Dinner: sloppy joes

I’ll be going to Walgreens again tonight to pick up some photos I had made earlier in the week.  I got a free collage 8x10 to put up in Lil’ L’s room.  There is a 15% off coupon that you can print out for Walgreens today… I’m also thinking about purchasing Jillian’s 30 Day Shred… we’ll see how much it goes for there first :)

Day 10

I’m starting to doubt myself on making the goal… lol… we’re still pretty far off but I have quite the grocery trip worked out for tonight and I’m worried this might set us over the top.  Even if it does, we won’t be over by much (I don’t think!)  Anyways, yesterday this is what we had:

Breakfast: cereal

Lunch: ham & cheese sandwiches for the kids cut out in the shapes of flowers & I had a Healthy Choice

Dinner: kids had mac & cheese & I had leftover italian sausage with spaghetti sauce (yum)

For my grocery trip tonight I’m headed to CVS, Walgreens & Walmart.  I do have some pictures to pick up at Walgreens but I’m waiting for that until tomorrow when I can use my 15% off coupon (yay).  So just for this “little” grocery trip, I have 40 coupons cut out and ready to go… if it all works out, this could be the best trip yet.

Days 8 & 9

On day 8 (Monday) we bought a gallon of milk bringing our grand total for the month to $15.39. 

For our menu Monday we had:

Breakfast: french toast sticks & kiwi

Lunch: PB&J sandwiches

Dinner: Leftovers (chicken, rice & green beans)

For day 9 we had:

Breakfast: cereal

Lunch: bagel, hot dog & fruit

Dinner: Breakfast for Dinner (pancakes, sausage & eggs)

I’ve been going off of my menu plan for a few days now due to the snow we got (I haven’t gone shopping like I planned to). 

Tomorrow we have an appointment to check out a church kitchen so that I can possibly make wedding cakes this summer :) 

Day 6 & 7

Yesterday here was our menu:

Breakfast: French Toast Sticks & Pancakes

Lunch: we had a bday party for my nephew so pizza lunch was on them :)

Dinner: Homemade Pizza

Today this is what we had:

Breakfast: Cereal & Scrambled Eggs

Lunch: Hot Dogs, Kiwi, Carrots & Blueberry Bagels for the kids and then we ordered out to “Shooter Malone’s” for lunch (using a coupon I bought off of Cub Radio's Shopping Show).  We got an 8 piece bucket of chicken (normally priced at $7.25 and I only paid $4 for the coupon a few weeks ago).  My in-laws chipped in and we had a great meal for very cheap (and I didn’t have to cook!)

Dinner: Leftovers

I also went shopping tonight.  I took Lil’ L out with me and we bought this:

We ended up paying $3.19… it should have been cheaper but I was unable to use a coupon.  Still this was a great deal (especially for diapers).  I try to use a lot more cloth diapers but this was a great deal and anytime we go out we use the ‘sposies :)

Then we get home and we’re enjoying the  Superbowl.  Dominic & Lucy finished their first game of Candyland and get to pick something out of the prize box and then Dominic learned how to change Lucy’s diaper:

How great is this?  lol…

Day 5 with Shopping & Cupcake Pops!

Breakfast: french toast sticks & kiwi

Lunch: Pizza Rolls for the kiddies & Smart One for me :P

Dinner: Slow Cooker Italian Sausage in Spaghetti Sauce over Rice

Went shopping tonight… did EXCELLENT with coupons!  Got all of this and made $0.75:

So then I scored some other goodies (like hotdogs for $0.33 each, deodorant for $0.24 & John Frieda products for $1 each)… all of this for $5.20.  I also ended up buying 2 gallons of milk (not in the picture below) for $2.49 each.

A lot of the stuff was at Walmart so I didn’t have to spend any cash because I still have gift cards from Christmas.  My total OOP for groceries today was $7.73.  Sooo for the month, I’m at $9.71. 

After I got home, I wanted to make something for my GREAT neighbors who give me all of their coupon inserts every Sunday.  I saw the idea online and loved it so I thought I’d give it a try and they turned out pretty good:

They’re cake on a stick covered in yummy chocolate, sprinkles and topped off with red hots :)  Super delish and cute to boot. 

So now it’s time for bed.  G’night!

Day 4

Breakfast – French Toast Sticks & Bananas

Lunch – Grilled Cheese Sandwiches & Pickles

Dinner – leftover Taco Bake

I’m planning a shopping trip for Friday night.  I’ll be purchasing some things to make a treat for my neighbors (for giving me all of their coupon inserts!) so I’m not going to count those ingredients towards my grocery bill.  I will be buying groceries for ourselves though and I will count all of that!  Can’t wait to report on that!

Day 3

Breakfast: Cereal & Bananas

Lunch: PB&J Sandwiches

Dinner: Taco Bake (very yummy and it made SO much that we’ll have enough for leftovers tomorrow plus enough to freeze for another meal!)

I also got in the mail a book full of great, high valued coupons with recipes, my envelope full from the coupon train, a Food Network magazine (apparently my husband’s grandma ordered these for us for Christmas – yay!) and a box of 50 sweetener packets for free :)  I’m going to give those to my dad for his coffee in the morning.  My wonderful neighbors brought me the coupon inserts from the newspapers and all in all, I ended up with 239 NEW coupons yesterday – whew!  That took awhile to clip, sort & put away! 

Free Glade Plugin Scented Oil Gift Pack

 

The first 10,000 to sign up here: http://www.rightathome.com/offers/201002-rah/ will get a free Glade® PlugIns® Scented Oil Gift Pack!  Hurry over there and sign up! 

Thanks to The Freebie Blogger for this one!

Basic Couponing

 

So many people want to know how to get started so I’m going to let you in on the secrets!

- Start collecting!  Seriously, collect every coupon you see.  Keep them in an envelope, box, filing cabinet, binder, folder, pile on your kitchen table, whatever works for you!  You will not believe where you can find coupons!!!  The most common places are newspapers, magazines & internet BUT you can also find them in stores (tear pads), when you check out sometimes you get coupons printed out (these are Catalina coupons – we’ll get into that more later), check food packages – lots of companies will print coupons on the insides or backs of packages.  In order to get a good collection, it’ll take about a month or so.  Once you get a lot of coupons, you can take part in a coupon train.  These are fantastic if you can easily spare 35 or more coupons every 2 weeks or so.  You’ll get different coupons this way and it’s a good way to switch up your collection every few weeks.

- Follow blogs!  Start by following mine (of course!) and then you’ll slowly find more and more as you get into this little couponing world.  Sign up to receive emails.  Yes, you will receive LOTS of emails but this is a small price to pay in order to save lots of money, right?  Lots of websites will require you to sign up to receive newsletters in order to give you access to their coupons so be prepared for lots of junk mail!

- TIME!  You will need lots of time in order to master this technique.  It’s not going to come to you easily and it’s not going to do it itself.  You need to spend time clipping coupons, organizing, discarding expired coupons, matching deals, writing grocery lists, menu planning… even the shopping takes a long time and SO does checking out.  Remember getting angry at those people who take FOREVER to check out?  That’s going to be YOU!  But it’s so worth it.  Also, be prepared to visit several different stores for one shopping trip.  In order to take advantage of all the different deals and coupon matchups, you’ll need to go to a few stores instead of doing all your shopping at one place.  It takes time but it saves money! (ETA (Edited to Add): Today I spent 35 minutes alone on clipping coupons and I had 239 when I was all said and done to add to my collection – that’s only from ONE day so yeah, be prepared if you really want to get into this!) 

Basically these are it.  If you’re prepared to do all of the above, you are ready to coupon!  Exciting, I know.  Here are some abbreviations that you might see on my and other blogs:

BOGO = Buy One Get One

CAT = Catalina Coupon (these print off with your receipt at the register after you checkout – some are for certain products & some are good for $$$ off of your next shopping trip)

ECB = Extra Care Buck (CVS Money)

FAR = Free After Rebate

IP = Internet Printable (coupons)

MIR = Mail In Rebate

OOP = Out Of Pocket

OYNO = On Your Next Order

P&G = Proctor & Gamble (newspaper insert)

RP = Red Plum (newspaper insert)

SS = Smart Source (newspaper insert)

WYB = When You Buy

Best way to organize coupons?

There really is no “best way”.  It depends on you and how you go about finding deals.  Many blogs will list the newspaper insert & date that they were in the paper so it may be easier to keep all of the inserts together and categorize them by dates so you can find that insert to clip the coupons.  Some people use a filing cabinet.  Some people alphabetize.  Some people organize by categories.  I chose the last option as I find it easier to put all of my coupons in categories.  I use a zip up binder and bought baseball card insert sheets at Walmart (I think they were around $3.50 for a big pack).  I then bought dividers and labeled them all the different categories like dairy, snacks, frozen, meats, hygiene, cleaning, paper products, baby, dogs, condiments, etc.  Find which way works best for you!

Where can I print coupons from on the internet?

There are so many places… just do a search for online coupons and you’ll come up with a lot.  Many manufacturer’s will offer coupons right on their sites (and usually high value ones!)  Here are a few to get you started:

www.coupons.com

www.coupons.smartsource.com

www.couponmom.com

www.retailmenot.com (these are more codes for shopping online)

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Day 2

 

Breakfast – scrambled eggs, fruit cups & toast w/ jelly

Lunch – chicken salad sandwiches & wraps

Dinner – Bernatello’s 1/2 lb. bacon cheeseburger pizza

I did grocery shopping tonight and ended up getting this:

for only $3.22.  My out of pocket was only $1.98 since I had a Walmart gift card for the 2 card games :)  I just like to buy gifts in advance… these will make good stocking stuffer/basket gifts someday and I might as well snag them when they’re only a few cents, right?  I had a $4 off coupon for Piggly Wiggly so that saved on the $0.99 milk & juice/carrots plus $0.50 off each juice coupons that I printed out today.  We will probably need more milk near the end of the week but not bad to start out with.

Frugal February – Day 1

 

Yesterday we went to the store and “cheated” a bit on this month.  We loaded up on anything we thought we might need (but of course using coupons)… our total came to around $40 with beverages (sodas & juices). Today is Day 1 and we’ll be having leftovers from last night.  I made a chicken for the first time ever (lol) and I was so proud of how it turned out.  We have lots of meat leftover and I made a bunch of chicken stock for chicken soup later this winter (I’ll be freezing that).  We made my husband’s favorite chicken gravy that his mom makes and creamed corn.  Tonight we’ll be having green beans with the meal since the creamed corn was gobbled up.  This morning for breakfast we had homemade french toast sticks and kiwis.  For lunch we’re going to have hot dogs & bananas. 

Frugal February!

 

 

I am very excited for Monday to come (sounds weird!)  All next month I am planning to only spend $50 for groceries.  Groceries include all foods, paper products & milk.  I’m not including diapers in it BUT I don’t think I will be needing any since I’m back into using cloth again (we just use the sposies when we go somewhere or for overnight).  I have been stocking up on meats & snacks plus my very picky husband’s frozen cheese pizzas… here are pics of my stockpile ready to go for the big month challenge:

and then our extra freezer in the basement… we also have the upstairs freezer which is loaded with all kinds of goodies.  I just baked a huge batch of french toast sticks that I normally would buy at Sam’s Club but found a great recipe for them online and it was so much cheaper!  They were easy to make and the kids LOVE them.  Big D keeps asking for them over and over again.  Anyways, here is the extra freezer (note the pizza pile!):

I did a freezer inventory using my new “home notebook” and this way I’ll be able to see everything we have and plan meals around it all.  It also has a place for a daily to do list, my diet tracker (lol) and menus plus a pantry inventory list (which I haven’t even begun yet). 

Sooo… please join me as I embark on this crazy adventure to only spend $50 next month to feed my family of 4 (plus 3 dogs!)  Subscribe to this blog to follow me :)

Something for Nothing?

 

If you don’t know, I decorate cakes.  I started doing this about 3 years ago and have baked, decorated & delivered over 100 cakes.  Most are for friends & family or just practice.  Since mom passed, I’ve taken a break from it but am starting up again this week.  I’m excited to get back into it.  I eventually want this to be my career.  We are in the early planning stages of that happening but in the meantime, I take the practice that I can get.  I get a lot of people coming to me looking for the “Ace of Cakes” type stuff.  Television shows like this have ruined it for many bakers.  People want the crazy, 3D, explosion type masterpieces that they create on these shows but they want to pay the Walmart prices.  The amount of time that I put into a cake is absurd.  You wouldn’t believe how long it takes to carve or mold a 3D figure and make it look decent.  There’s the ingredient cost then there’s the cost of all the tools, the extras (such as dowels, toothpicks, food colorings, cake boards, freezer paper/foil, ribbon, gumpaste, fondant, etc.) that nobody realizes.  So once these prices are taken off of the grand total, I end up making less than minimum wage for the amount of hours I work on a cake.  I’m done with doing that.  No more.  Not even for friends or family.  If you want an “Ace of Cakes” cake, check out their website!  They require a MINIMUM of $1,000 per cake order.  So before you go asking me for something crazy, please consider that.  Please consider the amount of time and energy and thought put into each cake.  I love creating but if I’m not getting compensated enough, I’d rather be spending the time with my family. 

Shopping Trip Saturday 1/16

 

My kids are spending the weekend at grandma’s house so my husband and I took advantage of the weekend to do some shopping and spend very little money :)  Our trip consisted of:

-returning a teddy bear to the hospital (my mom was given a bear when she had a surgery from the staff and we thought it could be given to a child again)

-Inman Jewelers - my husband got a beautiful new watch ($100 value) for free since we had won WCUB’s Holiday Decorations Contest. 

-St. Vincent De Paul – we donated a bunch of my mom’s clothes & ended up finding a new dresser for Dominic’s room for only $15!!!  It’s low enough that he’ll be able to reach everything on his own & we splurged on 2 new movies for him (Pocahontas & Peter Pan)

-Talk to the Paw – bought $20 worth of homemade dog treats for our mutts.. the cookies are the CUTEST things ever!  Check some of them out:

I highly recommend this store.  Besides this we got a pound of other treats (pizza wheels, fresh breath treats, bagels that can be microwaved, pretzels and other stuff) plus a huge bag of dried beef treats.  Great prices especially if you have that spoiled pooch!  Luckily we had a gift certificate so that made this stop – FREE!

-BP Gas Station – we filled up on gas (from being on “E”) at regular price $2.79/gal. but we got it for $1.92/gal. thanks to our Copps Fuelperks Rewards Card :)  Yay!!!

-Hobby Lobby – returned a posterboard unused for a refund

-WalMart – 2 boxes of animal crackers with a coupon for a total amount of $0.  The cashier just smiled… lol

-Office Max – wireless laser mouse for the laptop ($30), 3 boxes of envelopes & a hole puncher for $45 but it was all FREE since we had MaxPerks… we even have a few dollars left & we’ll be getting $12 more thanks to the envelopes we bought basically for FREE

-Luigi’s – lol… we needed lunch!  Even though this was a lunch stop, we had a coupon!!!  We saved $4 on our total bill from previously purchasing a $10 gift certificate for $6 on WCUB’s Shopping Show.

-Festival Foods – we had to pick up pizzas for Nick (Orv’s 5/$10), I also got a few of the things they had coupons from flyers and I took advantage of their 6/$10 on the Smart Ones deal… I had a coupon where you buy 3 and get a free Flatbread (value $3.19)… I also used a few other coupons to save us $7 on our complete order of $30.

So yes, that was it :)  Now to reorganize my son’s room tonight to surprise him when he returns on Monday from grandma’s. 

1/4 Shopping Trip

 

Final Cost = $2.95

Walgreens has a fantastic deal going on right now with Chips Ahoy.  Buy 2 at .99 each and get $2 Register Rewards.  The Neosporin was on sale for 2/$8.  I had 2 coupons that I printed off of the internet that were worth $3 off each so that took my total down to $2 and then the register printed out $1 coupon off of Neosporin and the clerk tried it and it worked so I got both for $1 but then it printed out $3 in RR as well so really, I made money on those.  As for the Hunt’s tomato sauce… they had those on sale for $0.36 each (with a coupon out of their ad) and I printed off a $1 coupon off of 3 from the internet so that brought it to $0.06 a can :)

I got all of my week’s shopping done tonight for under $20 so I’m happy with that.

When I returned I reread what I wrote before about my mom and it triggered something else in me.  Mom LOVED deals.  She was the one who would stock up on something if it were on sale.  At one time, she had 39 12 packs of soda stacked up… lol… she bought toasters for everyone’s Christmas one year because they were on sale for $5.  As we’ve started going through her belongings, we’re finding more and more surprises.

Mom was always telling me how proud of me she was.  She LOVED my cakes and was always so excited about them… she showed them to everyone she could.  I’m really going to pursue the cake decorating career because of her.  She took the classes with me in the beginning and got me started.  She would always come over as soon as I would finish a cake to see it and take pictures.  I miss her.

So Happy I don’t work with the public!

I do enough selling on Craigslist to get my fair share of deadbeats.  You would think “come on, how bad can it be REALLY?”  Really, it’s THAT bad.  In the last 2 weeks, I’ve had someone pick up half of their stuff and not return for the rest (or to pay me), I’ve had someone trying to find my street in SHEBOYGAN, I’ve had 3 people who never showed up when they said they would and two of them took a few more days than what they had originally said.  I just don’t get it.  Some of the stuff I was giving away was free as well and people STILL don’t show up for it.  What is wrong with you!?  I just don’t get it. 

I feel like I’m super irritable lately as well… most likely due to my mom passing.  It’s been hitting me hard in the last few days and I’m not really sure what to think.  One minute I’m fine, the next I can’t even see because I’m crying so hard.  I can’t believe how hard this is.  I always knew my mom wouldn’t live to be very old but at the same time, I didn’t think this was her time, not yet.  In my mind, I blame people for what happened to her.  I blame them for putting stress onto her and I blame them for her death.  I’m not getting into it online or publicly but if I ever see these people again, I will let them know how I feel about what they did to my mom in the years prior to her passing on.  It angers me so much.  She didn’t deserve anything that was done to her.  If only people really knew the truth but so many have been told lie after lie about what happened.  I hate being right, especially over this.

Thank God for my husband & kids.  It’s been almost 8 years for us and I can’t imagine being anywhere else.  We have hit rough patches but somehow we’re pulling through them (even at the hardest time in our lives).  My kids keep me going.  DJ catches me with a tear in my eye and says “It’s okay momma, we’ll see grandma again when we go to heaven” which only makes me cry more but yet makes me smile.