Day 143::September 27, 2010

Ah.  Fresh, crisp, cool fall air.  I love it!  Today I opened up all the windows, put a fan in one of them, and cleaned to my heart's content.  There's just nothing like fresh air indoors.  Eventually yall will get to see pictures of our whole house, but until then, one room at a time.  :)

Doug and I also found a loaded gun in our closet tonight!  Doug knew the gun was there but neither one of us realized it was loaded!  I had no clue it was there until tonight.  Watch out bad guys!

Day 142::September 26, 2010

Church picnic day!  The Lord held off the rain for us but made the air crisp and cool.  It was a perfect day to spend the afternoon outside!

Props to Gail McWilliams for today's picture.  This is during (or maybe after) the lake baptism service!

Day 141::September 25, 2010

Another successful coupon trip!  This is only my third time out and I think I'm getting the hang of it!

I'll take all this for $27 any day!

Money saving tip- Don't look at your pantry, see what's missing and make a list from there.  See what kind of deals you can get this week and stock up!  Grocery stores run sales on a 6 week cycle.  When you buy, buy enough for 6 weeks.  Eventually your pantry will always be full of what you need and you'll only be buying items when they go on sale!

Day 140::September 24, 2010

Tonight Doug and I went to the 38th annual Greek Food Festival in downtown Birmingham.  The food and atmosphere was just wonderful.  There were hundreds of people enjoying the festivities.  We had dinner in a parking garage where we enjoyed the sights and sounds of Greek music, dancing and costumes. 

Minutes after this photo was taken, a girl at our table was proposed to!  Thankfully, in front of hundreds of people, she said yes.  :)

Day 139::September 23, 2010

Two years ago today, I said hello to an old friend.  By "old" I mean a friend that I hadn't seen in a while or talked to in a while.  Well, that hello turned into a conversation that has yet to stop.  That old friend turned out to be the love of my life and my husband, Robert Douglas Barnwell.  I'll never forget this day because it was three days after his birthday and I felt bad for not saying "happy birthday" over Facebook.  There's no excuse now with forgetting birthdays since they post it on your homepage.  :)

Tonight was the return of our NBC block of shows and we decided to make a date out of it.  I made dinner and we ate it smack dab in the middle of our couch with our eyes glued to the TV to see what kind of hilarity would ensue this season in Community, 30 Rock, The Office, and the new series, Outsourced.  Needless to say, while there were some funny moments, the majority of the shows were awkward and and not at their best.  While this is solely my opinion, I also wanted to say that the best line of the night came from Outsourced.  "I'm not talking about two days, or three days, or four days with a little phfllllll.  I'm talking five whole days."

Watch the show, if you must, to understand the reference.  :)

Day 138::September 22, 2010

I think she wants to play Farkle, don't you?  She went and pulled this out of the shelf twice.  After I put it back twice I decided that I'd try to get a picture if she went back for it.  Sure enough, she's gone back another two times.  I didn't know she was a fan!

Wanna play Farkle?

Please?  You know you want to.

Why'd you take it away?

Day 137::September 21, 2010

More savings today!  I got my printer to work so I can actually print online coupons and got so excited that I made another trip to Publix (it's at least a 20 minute drive away).  Today I spent $5.83 and saved a total of $19.53.  I know I'm starting out small, and it isn't all that impressive, but I was so excited to buy everything name brand and even some organic!  Not to mention I got two rain checks on Kraft Philadelphia cream cheese at .25 cents a box and OreIda Steam n' Mash (regular flavor) potatoes.  Oh I can tell this is going to be addictive!  And for those doing the math about how much I spent on gas, don't worry, I worked it into my errands. :)

 $5.83!!!!

Day 136::September 20, 2010

Happy birthday to the love of my life!  Doug, for your birthday I saved you $47... after coupons and mail in rebates. :)

Day 135::September 19, 2010

Today we celebrated Doug's birthday again, this time with his family, at the park that just opened up in Birmingham.  Railroad Park is a 19 acre park in the middle of downtown Birmingham.  Click the link for more information. 

I also spent a good amount of the afternoon learning how to use coupons.  Tomorrow I plan to head to Publix for the first time in months- hope things turn out well for me!

Day 134::September 18, 2010

Have you ever heard of a splatter paint war?  If not, check out the pics from tonight's party- they explain it all!

Day 133::September 17, 2010

I just love hosting, don't you?  Today we celebrated Doug's birthday (a few days early) with friends and family.  The day started out with me, Doug and my mom driving up to the Old Place for hiking, exploring and showing mom around.  She had never been there before and I think she really enjoyed seeing it, especially since I have talked so much about it in the past few weeks.

After lunch, we left and got ready for Doug's birthday cookout.  Here are a few pictures from the evening.

 Delia and her brother, Bandit (Bandit has the same parents but is from a different litter)

Megan and Soco, the sugar glider.

Happy Birthday to the love of my life!

Day 132::September 16, 2010

I've been looking forward to going to the Southern Savers Workshop for a few weeks now.  Tonight the workshop was not far from home, so I met Doug and my mom there for an evening of intense couponing 101.  We learned all sorts of neat stuff, like how to cut your grocery bill by 70%, when to buy certain items at their rock bottom price, and how to use/understand coupons in a way that will actually save you tons of money.  The most fun fact I learned is that CVS is actually ALL FREE...if you know how the system works.  I love CVS so I'm planning on learning this system quickly. :)

Thank you Southern Savers!

Day 131::September 15, 2010

Today I worked on a project for this weekend's cookout.  Mason jar lanterns!  I found 198 jars in our shed and knew it was too good to pass up doing something (besides using them to can our green beans, ha!)

Day 130::September 14, 2010

We got more green beans today!  I am pretty nervous about canning... gotta try it though!

Day 129::September 13, 2010

Graded Doug's Greek homework today..... yep, you guessed it, it's all Greek to me!  Haha!  It is very interesting though....

(Picture to come)

Day 128::September 12, 2010

Today I got to meet Jarrod and Susie Beth's baby daughter, Julia.  Isn't she just adorable? 

Day 127::September 11, 2010

Today I watched my first Alabama football game- and they won!  Megan and Wesley had people over so I headed over there and enjoyed the company of some sweet friends.

Doug also bought me two cannolis from Whole Foods.  What did I do to deserve such royal treatment?  YUM!!

Day 126::September 10, 2010

As most of you already know, Doug started seminary at Beeson this fall.  One thing we really like about Beeson is that it is really big on community.  Tonight we had the opportunity to hang out with some sweet people who are also new students.  The couple is new to the area so we just enjoyed getting to know each other and telling them about what there is to do in Birmingham.  We also welcomed them to the south with a gallon of Milo's Sweet Tea.  :)

Day 125::September 9, 2010

Today we finally got to eat green beans, freshly picked, from our garden.  TALK ABOUT A REASON TO CELEBRATE!  Haha, Doug planted these soooo long ago and they've been blooming for weeks now.  I had pretty much given up on them, but checked on them recently to find that beans were in fact growing!  I cooked some tonight and they were just delicious.

After dinner, Doug and I decided to go for a walk.  It's not as hot now which is nice and we have a great neighborhood for walking around.  Delia loves walking as well.  Whenever she sees the leash she gets super hyper and excited.  I'm looking forward to walks when the air gets just a tad cooler and smells like fall.  :)

Day 124::September 8, 2010

Now that summer has ended, the job search is ON and in full swing!  If any of you Birmingham readers know of any available positions, let me know!!  On the other hand, this blog is yet another shout out to my all time favorite grocery store, ALDI.  Now I know what many of you may be thinking- Isn't ALDI all off brand stuff that doesn't taste like the real thing?  WRONG!  ALDI is a brand in and of itself, kinda.  Everything that we've purchased is easily comparable to the mainstream brands but at a significantly reduced price.

One of my favorite meals is red beans and rice.  I typically stick to buying Zatarain's because of the flavor, however; today I tried ALDI brand, and guess what?  It tasted exactly the same!!!!  Talk about one happy camper.  :)

Day 123::September 7, 2010

Cheese fondue with granny smith apples were on the menu today for lunch.  I'll tell you for sure that that was a good decision.  So was making banana bread later this afternoon.  Just call me Rachel Ray. 

I also took Patty to get a haircut.  She is sooooo cute!

I think she likes it!

Day 122::September 6, 2010

Has it really been six months since the wedding?  My how time flies.  The Labor Day celebration continued this morning so I'll let the pictures (and their captions) do the talking...

Delia and Patty did great in the tent.  When they woke up and realized how cold they were, they came and snuggled under the blankets with us.  It was like they knew how to stay warm!

Lots of energy before everyone else wakes up = play time!!

Sisters having fun in the early morning.

I intended to take a picture of the well (left) but Delia ran by and the picture turned out really cool!

Little Patty!  This picture reminds me of when Delia got all dirty in the garden- dirt is a sign of having fun!

Delia was trying to wake Doug up, Doug on the other hand wanted a few more minutes of sleep.

The cabin!  What's left standing is only half of what it was originally.  There were two rooms, but now there's only one.  Part of the porch (opposite side of the house) was the dog trot through the center of the two rooms.

Breakfast time!

The outhouse...

I spy a hornet's nest...

Relaxing by the huge fire...

See what I mean?

Happy six months to the love of my life!