High Five for Friday

1.  It has nearly been the best week ever this week in relation to school.  Last week was super stressful with exams, which flowed over to Monday, but then after that this is what the week looked like:  no labs, no quizzes or tests, lots of procrastination due to having some "free time," free time to catch up on a few episodes of Grey's Anatomy and clean a few things around the house; "free time" also lead to #2.

2.  Tuesday night we went to the dollar theater.  Do you guys know how cheap we are?  Maybe you've figured it out by now, but we are so cheap that we never, hardly ever get snacks at the movies. I realize that to some it's all part of the experience, but  I just can't bare the thought of paying $7 for popcorn!  Even as the rule-following kind of girl that I am, I'll be the first to sneak my own snack into the movies to prevent forking over enough to pay for 10 candy bars only to receive one.  (Confession time.)  But, the dollar theater is awesome.  Twelve bucks for 2 tickets, 2 drinks (I assume they are large...large enough for any one human to consume in a 2 hour period), and a large popcorn (again, large enough to stuff 2 adults).  We watch the movie Promised Land, which I would recommend as being worth your while.

3. The biggest highlight of the week is that Jesse came home Sunday!!! I know, you all didn't know he was gone. He was in Colorado all of last week snowboarding down exquisitely beautiful mountains with his brother and friends. He had SUCH a good time.  Who wouldn't just with that view, huh?

4.  While Jesse was gone, my parents came up over the weekend to keep me company.  It was their first time up since they helped move us!  I had to study while they were here, but I still thoroughly enjoyed their visit.  Of course, I had to take them to Steel City!

5.  Prepping for my upcoming spring break leisure reading.

Linked up with Lauren @ MyGreyDesk for H54F!

New Discovery

As I've told you before, I'm still learning this blog thing as I go.  I've always wanted you to be able to be notified of replying comments if you comment on a post.  This makes the blog more interactive and allows me (and others) to reply to you when you share something with us.  I've searched and searched for this feature at different times, and finally landed on it today. Maybe you already noticed and figured it out, because it's been right in front of our faces this whole time!

Whenever you comment on a post, beneath and to the right of the comment box are the words "Subscribe by email" (hello!!!).  Click on that, and then I'm not sure what happens from there (I assume you have to enter your email address if you are not already a follower of the blog), then you will be notified by email if I (or someone else) responds to your comment!  Ta-daaaa!

(This is what is should look like:

So comment back, and let me know if and how this works for you, since I've only partially figured it out. Thanks!

High Five For Friday

It's about time to celebrate Fridays again! (Except it's nearly midnight and you probably won't be reading this until Saturday... but at least I'm here tonight, right?)

Lots of things have been going on to keep us busy lately, but here are a few highlights from this week:

1.  Our most frequent visitors, Matt and Heidi, came up this past weekend.  Jesse and I got to help celebrate Kayla's (Heidi's sister) birthday at The Cheesecake Factory.  There was quite the wait, but we girls made the most of it by window shopping while the guys held down the buzzer in line. (Can you still call it window shopping if you walked through the entire store...?)  Our meal was delicious, and of course the cheesecakes were divine. (Photo taken after all the damage was done.)

(((Still wishing you a Happy (early) Birthday, Kayla!)))

2.  Okay, so I didn't just window shop (or whatever we are considering it), I picked up these darlings at Charming Charlie's.  Aren't they adorable?! In the spirit of Valentine's and all.

3.  Jesse had guys night at the movies to see the latest Bond, which he enjoyed a lot.  For those of you that realize this is "out of theaters" we have a dollar theater (really dollar-fifty theater) nearby that shows movies right after they are out of the "real" theater.  It's awesome - it beats paying a million dollars to see it as soon as it first comes out and makes for a great cheap date, which I am. :)

4.  I've had two great lunches this week:  one free lunch from Urban Cookhouse (yum!) during a club meeting - and let me tell you, free lunch (that's not pizza) is kind of a big deal for a room full of broke students; and one with my lovely friend Hannah who goes to school right across the street from me, yet we manage not to run into each other very much.  She's been doing cool things in school like suturing pig feet.  Oh, the things we experience in professional school! Speaking of which, let's throw in a 4 and a half:

4.5.  This is technically not related to only this week, but over the past 4 weeks we have been dissecting in the cadaver lab for our Gross Anatomy class.  As disturbing as it may be, I'd just like to point out that I know what all of your insides look like. It's gross and smelly (formaldehyde how I loathe thee) but I remind myself that it is a great learning experience and a privilege to learn from these donors, because they gave themselves to further our knowledge as health care professionals.

5. On a different note, which may not be the best of transitions after that one:  Jesse and I had date night tonight and tried a new Chinese restaurant. We picked it off the urbanspoon.com top list of places to eat in Birmingham.  It is definitely a happening place. It's a small little hole in the wall, but it was packed the entire time.  So much so that an older couple asked if they could sit next to us, since we had been seated at a four-person table.  After they pulled up their chairs we told them it was our first time eating there, so they gave us a few menu tips for next time, then insisted we try their food choices as soon as they were served.  Apparently a hot item there is the sauteed snow pea leaves. Not the peas, just the leaves!  They were SO delicious - like eating cooked spinach that tastes like fresh, crisp snow peas! We were so glad they shared.

UPDATE:  I has seemed like such a long week I forgot to also mention that we watched the Superbowl game this year.  I know....I watched the Superbowl!  (Surprised, no?)  Our neighbor friends, Mike and Kelsey, prompted the get together, mostly to hang out and watch the commercials and not the actual game.  There were definitely some odd and some disgusting ones, but here was a favorite, in case I actually watched a football game that you didn't:

Good answer, dad.

I'm so glad to finally link up again with High Five for Friday.
What was a highlight of your week?

The Unknown Future

So we have somewhat of an issue occurring.
Jesse's job may be at risk.
This is a little hard to write. Mostly because it's opening up and telling you something not so great that is going on in our lives. I contemplated even sharing it, but then I thought:  you guys are our family and friends.  You're our support system. And the whole point of this blog is to keep you updated on what is going on - whether good or not-so-good.

What's going on: There is a huge "re-organization" going on within his company, and they are moving a lot of people around.  Around here at the corporate office. But mostly out of corporate and to the sites.  Where are these sites, you ask?  Dothan or Georgia. Equals, not Birmingham.

Now, as most of you know, half (or more) of the reason we are here is so that I can go to school at UAB - the only optometry school in the state (or in Georgia, for that matter).  It's a bit of an anchor that keeps us here for a few more years.

What this means:  Either he keeps a job at corporate, keeps a job at corporate for now which will eventually (hopefully around the same time I'm finishing school) move to a site, loses a job here and has the option to go (without me) to the site, or loses a job here and has to get a new one here.

How we feel:  There are lots of options, mostly unknown at this point, on the table.  We don't really know what is going to happen, which is the scariest part. We feel like the company will try to be as fair as possible, whether that works to our advantage or not. They are taking opinions from the workers, which is somewhat comforting.
As we were "planning our lives" around the time we got married, I had been excepted into optometry school and he needed a job in Birmingham.  He had co-oped during college with the company and it was common for them to hire on students upon graduation. The problem then was that he had co-oped at a site, not corporate.  But guess what God worked out?  A shift that allowed him to get on at corporate.
Now, instead of asking: why might God take away something He provided, I'm just going to remind myself that He knows what He is doing.  There is even a chance that it will work out "perfectly" in the end.  Since it is possible that I may practice near Dothan once I graduate, if Jesse were to get the option of keeping his job here for a few years then have it moved to the site the world would be a happy place.  I'm not saying the way I think it should go is the way it's gonna go, or even really should go.  While I do love a good plan, I realize I'm not really in control of the plan anyway.

What you can do:  We tell you this not so that you feel bad that we're getting into a sticky situation, but we just ask that you pray for us.  Pray that the head honchos' decision is whatever is best for us. And if it's not (aka- job loss) that a new job will be available.

Thanks for caring about us and supporting us! We will keep you posted!

Things I [Almost] Never Pay For

I've had this post draft saved for a while and thought since I've been a little MIA around here, I would go ahead and share:

I haven't talked about couponing/saving in a while, but I've realized that there are a few everyday sort of things that I can always get for free or pay very little for.  So I thought I would pass along some tips.

(Here goes a list. I love lists.  I knew that before blogging. But I didn't realize most of my posts would wind up being lists. Maybe I should have named our blog Our Lists As We Know Them! Moving on....)

1.  Dental floss.  I am a Plain Jane sort of girl when it comes to floss (and many other things, actually).  It doesn't have to be fancy threads woven together to get the job done, so Johnson and Johnson's Reach Waxed Floss is what I've always bought.  But guess what? It is often priced at $0.97 (Walmart, sometimes Target), and quiet often there will be a printable manufacturer's coupon for $1.00.  When this happens, I print as many possible (2 can be printed per computer) and stock up, that way I never pay for floss!

2.  Cereal.  I love cereal. I don't believe cereal is a cop-out breakfast.  We eat it nearly every morning (not as much during the winter, but it still makes plenty of appearances).  At that rate, we go through lots of boxes!  Now, this one is not free but I do set a target price max of $2.00 per box (preferably less).  But have you seen cereal prices lately?! Four bucks or so a pop.  I realize this still works out to yield very cheap breakfasts, but I don't like paying that much when I can get it for way cheaper. Now, this takes a little more planning - watching grocery adds for BOGO or 2/$5 deals and combining these deals with coupons (usually printable ones).  But it's worth the little effort... and the strange glances when I roll up to the register with 6 boxes of cereal. :)

3.  Printer paper.  This deal is fairly new for me and I am so glad I've taken advantage of it a couple of times to stock up for school because I have to print a lot of class notes every day.  Staples frequently runs various deals on their multi-use paper where you pay for the paper up front and file a (seriously, Quick and Easy) rebate form online and just wait for your check to come in the mail for reimbursement!  I have purchased 4 (maybe 6) packs of printer paper and only paid maybe $3 total!  Definite score!  I think other office supply stores (Max, Depot) may run similar deals, just not as frequently as Staples lately.

4. Toothpaste. This deal is similar to that of the dental floss. I usually combine a BOGO sale with coupons to yield super cheap clean teeth!  These BOGO's are usually found at Publix or Winn-Dixie, and they often alternately between Crest and Colgate.  Again, I'm not picky.

5. Men's Deodorant. See, I keep Jesse in my deal-seeking thoughts, too.  RightGuard happens to be the brand that I ran across a couple of deals in a row for.  Which resulted in possibly a lifetime supply of deodorant for the hubs. I've gotten them as cheap as $1.25 each, which is pretty good considering regular price is around $4.00.  Again, this is a combination of store deals and coupons.

Do you set price points for items? Like meats or produce?  (Those are things I should really pay more attention to.)  Are there some things you're not willing to pay more for?

A new year

Hello 2013.

I know, I'm a little behind (as usual), but to my defense, we had quite the long Christmas celebration this year. We Christmased from Birmingham to Panama City Beach and enjoyed every moment (except the sick ones...).  Then there was New Years which we rang in with new Birmingham friends that we didn't even know a year ago, which we thought was neat. While waiting for the ball to drop we saw this commercial from Google which summed up the year of 2012.

It was so intriguing to watch as clips flashed by.  Then I though... I'm pretty sure I missed most of that during the year?  Where was I?
And if you didn't watch Felix jump from the stratosphere, you should watch it.  All 14 minutes of it. Yep. Do that now.

Now that you are blown away that someone has the guts to jump from 24 miles above the earth (and lived), I would like to say that overall we had a really great year this last year.  So much happened in 2012! It seems like so long ago that we were excited that Jesse was starting his last semester at Auburn, and our future (which is now our present) seemed like so far away.  Now we are settled into a new place, have made lots of new and wonderful friends, found an awesome church to be a part of, marked some things off of the Birmingham "to-do list", and I've just started my second semester of optometry school (I'll be outta here before we know it....maybe...).  Of course, our year hasn't been perfect.  There's been flat tires, ER visits (well, really that one is singular), tears of frustration over school work, and many more. But we enjoyed 2012, and I'm excited for the journey through 2013.

To begin the year, Jesse gave me this book for Christmas:

It poses a question for you to answer everyday.  Sometimes funny, sometimes serious, but it makes you stop and think through your day and how it went to reveal your answer to whatever random question is asked. And the best part is that each page allows you to answer each question 5 times - once for five years.  So next year when I start the book over, I will get to read through the past years answers!  It's a fun way to journal when you don't have time to journal. Of course the first question was related to the new year: "what is your mission?" So here are my thoughts on my mission this year:

1. more God. (more daily focusing on Him and his Word. for some reason my mind cued the song "i just can't get enough" by depeche mode...just those words repeated..not the whole song.)

2. more husband. (quality time really lacks when one is in professional school)

3. more enjoying the moment.  (i began to realize more and more this last semester.  time is of the very essence in my world, so making the most of each moment is important.  and I haven't always (and still don't always) known how to do that. because I am usually focused on what needs to be done in the future, what I haven't finished, etc., when I really just need to be productive in these moments and enjoy those moments while they are happening.)

I hope your year is already off to a great start!

Tis the Season

Hello there.

Remember me?

The girl who used to write nice things for you to read.

School really had the best of my time for the past several weeks as my first semester of optometry school came to a close.  Let me just say that you should probably appreciate all of your doctors a little more than you may, because professional school is intense....like no other schooling we've been through before; like no amount of studying we've ever studied before; like no amount of late-nighters we've pulled before.  Intense.  But my classmates and I made it through one semester with about 10 more to go!

Enough about that, you guys, it's Christmas time!  I admit I had a Scrooge-like moment due to putting Christmas shopping off until after finals then having to rush gift-finding.  I'm not the best gift-giver ever, but I do like to really put thought into gifts in hopes that who I'm gifting will love and appreciate it.  But the rush made me think what we do with Christmas is a little ridiculous - when it's focused around stuff and making sure everyone gets a lot of it.  Please remember Jesus this time of year and focus on Him for a while in the midst of it all.  Our church presented perhaps the best Christmas play I've ever seen, called Fruitcake.  It summed up Christmas just right, and how Jesus just gets thrown in the fruitcake mix of Christmas.  But of course, (not to sound cliched) He is the reason for the season - the ultimate gift that we should continue to be joyous over.  A little baby with the most enormous impact on the world - to save us.  This we should not forget. Any day of the year really, but let's take the time at Christmas to focus on Him with our families.
(If you want more conviction in your heart about what Christmas has become read the wonderful words of Jamie Nato, who I've referenced before: here.)

We tried to stay simple this year with our Christmas decorations.  One because we don't already own that much, two because we're too cheap to buy a lot at one time, and three because I was just too darn busy to pull it all together!  But, nonetheless we had a tree (however nontraditional) and I spruced up the mantle (oh, yes the mantel - I haven't even taken the time to express my excitement of the mantel that is now hanging on our wall!)

How to cheaply decorate you mantel: borrow garland from your mother-in-law; find cute trees at a yard sale; pick up some tealight candle holders from the Dollar Tree (for real!); and reuse ornaments from last years tree as accent toppers. 

How to make a cheap Christmas tree:  make your husband get out of the car at 10:00 at night to quickly snag branches from a neighbors stick pile and throw them into your trunk as you direct him as to which branches will be the best branches to make your "perfect" shabby tree; make circles with a circle punch and tape back to back around some string; lights optional 

Then we did a little bit of present opening between the two of us. Rather, I did some present opening. A couple of weeks before Christmas, Jesse ordered himself a new phone, which became his big gift.

Maggie helped.

Two person hammock.

Some of my digs.

Oh, and did I mention it was all done by fireside?

MERRY CHRISTMAS, everyone!