New Adventures

I feel like the past few days have been filled with new things for me.  Like I mentioned in a previous post, Billy and I are looking at getting new carpet and vinyl for our house.  Anyone who's done any home renovating knows how stressful it can be (especially for those do-it-yourselfers out there...).  Working with a carpet store has been SO easy.  Well, once we found the right store, it's been easy.  We got our first estimate from Carpet Land, which wasn't so bad.  They were marginally helpful, but we tried to set up a measurement appointment and the girl never called me.  I'm not about to call her to remind her to do her job!  We also got an estimate from Home Depot...NEVER AGAIN.  They weren't helpful one bit, and they didn't even seem to care whether they got our business or not.  The place we are going with is Michael's Carpet World...they have been so helpful from the beginning and I feel like they really try to answer all of my questions and meet my needs.  They came out Monday to measure our house, and that evening we picked a few samples to try to decide what carpet we want (vinyl was a piece of cake).  We have our estimate, which isn't nearly as bad as we initially thought it would be, and they'll fix the floor in the kitchen where Shelley decided that vinyl and sub-flooring looked super tasty.  We've already got our appointments set up, so by mid-March all of the flooring will be done....YAY!!!  So that's been adventure #1.

Adventure #2 has been tutoring for Tutor.com.  I started pursuing this back in December, and the application process is really long so it took a few weeks before I could finally have my interview.  After they accepted me as a tutor, my life has been a little busy with various things going on, and so I didn't start tutoring until this week.  I'm one of those people who likes a schedule, but since I'm a probationary tutor, most of the hours are already taken up by the time I'm able to access the schedule.  I was finally able to pick up a few hours this week from people dropping the time slots they've already scheduled.  The first time I tutored was Monday morning from 12 AM - 1 AM.....I was soooo sleepy, but I spent 80% of the hour tutoring, so that kept me awake.  I also tutored Monday morning from 5-6 AM, which was very early for me, but I'm motivated to earn some money.  I tutored last night from 11-12:45 AM, and I tutor again tonight from 7-8 PM. I tutor in English and Essay Writing for elementary through college age students.  I thought I wouldn't like it, since it's like chatting online, but so far it's gone really well and I'm so happy about it.  The only thing that's a bit annoying is that since I can't schedule many hours, I have to "float" in order to move up to the next tutoring status.  Basically, I just sit in front of the computer until someone needs tutoring, but I don't get paid for the waiting time if I'm floating.  Anyway, I'm kinda excited that this is working out so far, because I'm using my teaching skills, earning money, and I don't have to leave my house to do it!

I also tried disc golf yesterday with Billy...I thought I was going to hate it, but it wasn't too bad.  I guess it's a good way for me to get out of the house, and Billy really likes it, so it gives us something to do together.  I had to wear Ellie in the carrier, and after 18 disc golf holes, I was dying to get her off!  Even though she's little, she kills my back when I wear her in that thing...I think she had fun though.  She likes to be able to see what's going on, and she didn't fuss at all the whole time.  She did get sleepy toward the end because she kept drooping forward and falling asleep, but then every time I threw the disc she would wake up again.

I guess another new thing this week is that I tried asparagus for the first time....totally tastes like steamed green beans.  I wasn't sure how to make asparagus, so I used the Cake Boss' recipe for Roasted Asparagus, which was pretty good.  


I did my grocery shopping on Sunday so that Billy could watch Ellie for me, and it took forever, but at least I got it out of the way.

At Target, I got a three-pack of Suave for Men shampoo for $3.75 ($1.25 per bottle, typically $1.90 ish, I think).


At CVS, I got two tubes of Colgate Sensitive toothpaste for $2.79 each or $5.96 total (originally $3.79, used 2 $1 off coupons), and got $7.58 back in CVS Extra Care Bucks (so I got more back than what I actually paid)!


At Walmart, I got an 80 count pack of Gain dryer sheets for 28 cents!  I used the $3 off coupon in Sunday's paper.  


At Kroger, a few of my good deals were two free Colgate toothpastes (so now we're REALLY stocked up on toothpaste...if anyone needs some, we've got about 6 tubes in the linen closet!), 5 bottles of Gatorade for 49 cents each (bought as part of the Daytona Event, then used $1 off 5 coupon), 3 jars of Ragu for $1.45 each, and a sirloin tip roast on sale.  At checkout, I got a $3 off coupon for my next trip to Kroger as part of the Daytona Event.


For the whole week, including all the toiletries and household items, my grocery bill totaled $48.06!  My savings were $20.93, plus I got the $3 coupon toward Kroger and $7.58 in ECBs to CVS.  I'm so excited that I stayed under $50 including toiletries and household items...it's been a secret goal of mine the past couple of weeks to start lowering my grocery bill goal.  Initially, I set our goal for $50 a week only on groceries and didn't include any other items in that goal.  I think it's realistic for me to lower our food grocery goal to $40 a week and set the $10 aside from the initial goal to go toward toiletries or other things like baby food, diapers, whatever.


I think that's all from me, so now I'm going to go finish prepping for dinner (Farfalle Festival tonight!) and then read Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban until Ellie wakes up!