November 10: Today I am thankful for...

COOKIE DOUGH!!

Don't worry, some of it will turn into cookies to share at my Thirty One party tomorrow :-)

Novembr 8: Today I am thankful for...

Okay, so I know I skipped yesterday. Not because I didn't have anything I was thankful for, but purely cause I was super busy and too exhausted by the end of the day to type it out. So anyways, I promise I will double up one day to make up for it.

Anyways, we were driving home from runnng errands this morning and I realized something that I am thankful for all the time. Drives in the car, near or far, can be trying at times when you have little ones. As can being at the place that you are driving to (grocery store, mall, etc). However, in these moments it always makes me feel better to crank up my music and sing as loud as I can while I am driving from A to B. Therefore, today I am thankful for...

TAYLOR SWIFT!!

I know heartbreak as a girl is never fun, but I sure am grateful that so many boys broke her heart. If they hadn't then I wouldn't have so many great songs to belt while driving. So thanks Taylor for turning your heart ache into wonderful music for the rest of us girls :-)

And so it begins...

If you get a Sunday paper or have bought anything from Toysrus ever, then you most likely received a copy of the The Great Big Toy Book. I used to enjoy going through the book on my own just seeing what new toys pop up for the holiday season. That was until Greyson realized that a big book full of toys was laying around the house. To say he has flipped through this book a few times would be, well, a lie! He practically has it memorized at this point.

Oh and my bright idea to get him on Santa's lap last year is also coming back to bight me big time. Last year he was a tad timid around the big guy and mommy was desperate for a picture so I told him that if he didn't sit on Santa's lap and tell him what he wanted for Christmas then he wouldn't bring him any presents. Well apparently he saw that method worked well cause as he flips through this book he says "I am going to ask Santa for that, and that, and that!" I guess this year would be the year to have the "Santa can't afford to bring you everything on your list" talk.

November 6: Today I am thankful for...

I woke up on this cloudy, cold, drizzly morning and I could only think of one thing. Today I am thankful that...

I ALREADY VOTED!

Two weeks ago when the wait in line was about 5 minutes and it was still nice and warm outside. Now I get to wait around in my warm house for the results to start rolling in.

November 5: Today I am thankful for...

Well, we made it! Tomorrow is election day. In a mere 24 hours our regularly scheduled commercials will return to normal. Facebook will go back to posts about a bad day at work or cute pics of everyone's babies. The street corners will once again be bare with the exception of a few leftover yard sale signs. Life will return to normal. Therefore today I am thankful for...

CHANGE!!

It is the only thing constant in life so we might as well embrace it. I know I for one am not always the most welcome to it, but in this case I say bring it on! Oh and may the best man win ;-)

Day #4: Today I am thankful for...

DAYLIGHT SAVINGS TIME of course! Now it's off to bed to take advantage of that extra hour!

Day #3: Today I am thankful for...

Well it is the time of the year again that I like to torture my family by making them pose for a few pictures. My hopes are that I will get at least one that I can slap on a Christmas card and show off to all our family and friends. I am actually a little late in this process this year (by my standards that is), but we were lucky enough to have Mimi and Papa visiting from Texas this weekend so they could snap a few pics of all of us.

One thing you will learn as you have kids and more kids is that picture sessions such as this become increasingly more difficult. Especially when you have a busy 3 1/2 year old and an almost 2 year old who is determined to do everything his way. So needless to say these picture sessions can be quite taxing for everyone involved. Despite that, and thanks to the high quality cameras that Nikon has designed, we were able to capture a few special moments and smiles. Just enough in fact that I was able to create and order our Christmas cards this afternoon. Phew!

So, I would have to say after today's adventure that today I am thankful for...

PATIENCE!

Some days I have more of it than others. Luckily this morning it was very plentiful and the end result was some spectacular shots of my boys and I.

Day #2: Today I am thankful for....

The boys and I hit the Halloween clearance at Target today. Everything was 50% off with the exception of the candy which was 30% off. Any who, we found several cute things which included a sparkly picture frame, a pair of socks for mommy, and some cute divider plates for the boys. But my favorite find of all was the stuff I found for our dog Dexter. As it was we almost didn't even go down the costume aisle, but they deal hunter in me couldn't resist. My husband probably wishes I didn't cause once I spotted all the dog costumes I was a goner. I dug and dug for probably 30 minutes before I settled on a Super Dog costume and a "rufferee" T-shirt. I was so excited over my finds that I had to call my mom and see if she wanted any costumes for her dogs. As soon as we got home we tried them on and all we could do was laugh. It was the absolute cutest thing I had ever seen. Worth the whole $4 I paid for it for sure.

All this got me thinking about how much joy our pets bring to us every day. Just like children they can drive you crazy at times, but, just like children, they also bring a smile to your face on a daily basis. My life definitely wouldn't be the same without them. And while that $4 I spent on that Super Dog costume might seem like a waste to some people, the moments we spent this afternoon with Dexter and his costume are priceless. Therefore, today I am thankful for....

MY PETS!

Today I am thankful for...

Over the past couple of years I have noticed the new trend on social networking sites every November to post a new thing every day that you are thankful for. Well I might be a little late, but I am finally jumping on the thankful bandwagon. It's not that I haven't been thankful for things in the past. I have just been too busy to post them every single day. Well I am still busy, but this year I am going to try and make a conscious effort to post a new thing every day. Why? Becaue I feel like I have a lot to be thankful for and I feel like typing it out in black and white will help me realize even more all the things that I have that I am thankful for. Some of them might be silly while others serious, but in the end as long as we are grateful and appreciative then it doesn't matter if it is big or small.

So, for November 1st, 2012 my thing that I am thankful for is...

COUPONS!

And if you seriously don't know why then you should refer to my previous post Take that Walmart! ;-)

Take that Walmart!

I know you have heard them on the radio and seen them on TV. Those pesky Walmart commercials advertising their everyday low prices and their oh so special price match policy. Personally I want to throw my TV out the window every time I hear it come on because there are more lies in those Walmart commercials than in all the political ads combined! Now I am not saying I never shop there. Unfortunately there are a few things they carry that I can't get anywhere else. But when I hear them say "bring in your receipt from your last trip to Harris Teeter and we'll show you how much you could have saved" all I can do is laugh.

Now if you are looking something that is full price (aka not on sale) and there is no coupon for it then yes they might be a few pennies cheaper than most other stores (that's where all those .78 and .88 endings come in). However, until they start doubling or tripling coupons they will never be able to truthfully call themselves the cheapest. The proof is in my grocery trip today. I saved $125 and only spent $34. That includes about $10 worth of clearance Halloween stuff that I snagged as well. So for $24 I got 6 bags of french fries, 6 Smart Ones entrees, 10 canned veggies, 6 bags of cat foot, 18 cans of wet cat food, 2 bags of chocolate chips, 1 bottle of bubble bath and 2 bottles of V8 Splash. My only disappointment is that my freezers are now full and I want to go back for more!

So in case you needed any more reasons not to shop at Walmart then I think this should do it for ya!

No tricks. Just treats!

Rice Krispie treats at that! They have to be the easiest treat ever to make and with just a bit of food coloring you can make them festive. Being that today is Halloween we went for the candy corn variety. In case you are wanting to copy my brilliant idea (that I stole from the Everyday Food magazine) here is how it goes:

Melt 3 tbsp of butter in a sauce pan. Add 4 cups of mini marshmallows. Stirs in 3 cups of Rice Krispie cereal and press into a 5x9 loaf pan. Repeat this process, but add orange food coloring to the melted marshmallows. Then repeat a third time with yellow. Let cool for a couple hours before removing from the loaf pan and slicing and shaping. After that the trick (pun intended) is to try and stop eating them!

Pleasantly Surprised

When it comes to department store shopping there is usually only one place I will go - Belk. One could argue that I am biased because I worked for Belk for 5 years, but the truth is I have been shopping there since I was very little with my mom. However, today I am not writing about Belk. Today I am actually writing about my experience I had in JCPenney.

Most of you probably remember the commercial last winter of the women screaming over sale signs and expiration dates. If you didn't turn off your TV then you eventually learned that JCPenney was the one behind the screaming at that they were doing a big overhaul on the way they were operating their stores. The gist of it is that they were no longer going to have "sales." All the merchandise was going to marked to an everyday low value price. I, myself, am driven by sales and coupons and only go to stores based on that, so when I first heard this I thought to myself "boy are they doomed for failure!" Well earlier this month the CEO sent out coupons to all their email subscribers for $10 off a $10 purchase. This happens to be my favorite kind of coupon cause it means free stuff! So the boys and I ventured to a mall with a JCPenny this morning. The first thing I noticed was how clean and neat the store looked. Everything was in it's place. Everything was organized and east to find. And there was not a sale sign in site. I actually didn't know what to do with myself. I started glancing at the price tags and was pleasantly surprised by the prices I saw. Even further, despite the fact that the store was fairly quiet, there were quite a few sales people working and they were so genuinely friendly and constantly making sure we were finding everything we needed while shopping. In the end we managed to walk out of there with 2 pairs of winter pjs for Greyson and only spent $4. That's the kind of deal I like. Oh, and if that wasn't good enough, as we were checking out the cashier asked me if I wanted to round up my total to the nearest whole dollar. The change goes straight to a charity. This month was the Breast Cancer Foundation of course, but they feature a new charity every month. I think that is pretty awesome if you ask me.

Now I can't speak for how they are doing as a company since I have no idea what their sales have been since the change, but I can say that from a consumer stand point I was highly impressed in the changes I saw. They won't dethrone Belk as my number store I don't think, but after today I will definitely be considering them more often when I go shopping.

A Penny for Your Thoughts

Actually I might even pay a little more if someone had a solution to my problem. It is now October. We are two months out from Rylan's birthday and I have no clue what theme I am going to do for his party. Some of you might be rolling your eyes thinking 2 months is plenty of time, but when you are making Halloween costumes, buying Christmas presents, and still finishing a kitchen remodel then 2 months is not nearly the time I need to plan his party.

Greyson's 2nd birthday was a piece of cake (pun intended). He love Sesame Street so that is what I did. Rylan on the other hand doesn't have one thing that he is crazy about like that so I am at a total loss at to what I should do. Therefore I am employing those of you who read my blog to help me. Do any of you have any suggestions for me? It can be something you have already done or just something you have read about. Just as long as it is something easy to pull of with a lot of homemade decorations (aka costs very little to put together). Thanks in advance :-)

The bat mobile!

Buh nuh nuh nuh nuh nuh nuh nuh, Batman! Okay so that's not the bat mobile I am referring to, but it's such a catchy tune. The bat mobile I am talking about is the one that Greyson and I made today as our first official Halloween craft.

Better Homes and Gardens had the coolest article in their October issue. It showed a porch on a house similar to ours decorated completely out of homemade decorations. I was slightly intrigued to say the least, and also humored cause I had just seen similar versions of several of the items for sale in the Pottery Barn catalog. So today we went to Walmart with a long list of supplies and our fingers crossed that they would have what we needed. We managed to find all but a couple items, so with the track record that Walmart has I considered that a success. The bats just happened to be the project we chose to try first. While it was a tad more difficult than the article lets on, I was pretty pleased with the result. Our super spooky porch is well on its way. If you are curious how to make one for yourself, you can go to the Better Homes and Gardens website and check it out.

Backseat driver!

We all give our spouses and parents a hard time about being a critic while you are driving, but I have got one better. A three year old! Yup Greyson has become the world's worst backseat driver. He is not old enough to be criticizing how I am driving, but he definitely has comments on what I should or shouldn't be doing. Some of my favorites are "mommy, catch up to that truck so we can win the race!" - "Woah mommy you are going really fast like Queen!" - "mommy, red light!" - and my personal favorite "mommy, there's a Po Po." While it never hurts to have an extra set of eyes on the road, it is a tad distracting to have someone yelling RED LIGHT from the backseat. I am sure even the most confident drivers would have to double check themselves when anyone barks such a command. At least thats what I tell myself...

Let the costumes begin!

When I was asking for costume suggestions on Facebook a couple months ago, people were responding with "why are you thinking about Halloween in July?" Well because I am not your typical mom. First off, I put a lot of thought into what my boys are going to dress up as. Second, I don't just walk into a store and buy a costume. They are either way over priced and/or made very cheaply. I prefer to put it together myself   (hence beginning my research in the summer months).

Some of you might remember last year's costume extravaganza that involved me making a Lightning McQueen and Tow Mater costumes out of cardboard boxes. Very time consuming, but I think I spent a whopping $5 on both costumes. Luckily I don't think this year's costumes will be quite as time consuming. In fact I already have a pretty good head start on Greyson's. After much consideration I decided a pirate is what he shall be. And after about 5 minutes on Google I realized there are a million and one ways to dress like a pirate. Since I am designing for a 3 year I figured simple was the best route to go. So this morning we went up the road to Goodwill to see what treasures we could find and boy did I luck out on the first try! I found a pair of black pants, a white dress shirt and a red scarf that cost me a whopping $7! I will have to make a few snips here or there to make them more "piratey," but I am definitely pleased with my findings. The hardest decision really has been trying to figure out what to put on his feet. For some reason all the pirate costumes online have the kid modeling barefoot. Cute as it may look it's obviously not realistic. Now you can spend a small fortune on child size pirate boots, but being the mom I am that just wasn't going to cut it. Lucky for me I came across pirate rain boots. They are decorated to look like a pirate boot, but being that they are rain boots that means Greyson will get to wear them for more than just Halloween. Mission accomplished.

Now since Greyson is a pirate of course that means Rylan has to be something that coordinates. At first I really couldn't decide. A parrot seemed like the obvious choice although I had no creative ideas on how to pull it off. Then I fell upon this site. One look and it was decided - Rylan will be Peter Pan! Now I could imagine my husband's reaction when sharing my idea, but we are not talking about green tights here. Actually instead of making the pants like suggested, I purchased a pair of green leggings a few sizes to big. Now I just need to arrange a solo trip to the fabric store and I will be on my way. Again the shoes are a little bit of a dilemma. I am thinking of trying to find a brown boot that he could wear this winter, but that might change once I get working on the rest of the costume.

So for those of you that were questioning me before, I think you see why this is such a lengthy process. And all that was just the prepping and planning!

The age of questions...

...is apparently 3! Greyson has always been a talkative child, but since his 3rd birthday more and more of his ramblings have turned into the form of a question. It truly dawned on me a couple weeks ago when we loaded in the car to head to Mimi's house. We had just merged onto the highway to begin our 3 hour drive when out of the backseat I hear "mommy, are we there yet!?" One half of me wanted to laugh and the other half wanted to cry. Luckily the laughing side won over. The good news is he is only 3, so his questions aren't very complex. The bad news is he is 3, so he asks the same questions over and over and over and over....well you get the point. For those of you already wondering, no he has not asked the most dreaded question known to parent-kind. However, I am already prepared for when that day comes. I devised a plan of attack a long time, so I already know exactly what I will say when I am faced with those 5 little words - where do babies come from?

Blast from the Past

Everyone has things that they hold onto even if they aren't sure why. I am definitely guilty of this on many accounts. The other day I was reacquainted with one of those items. If you are over the age of 25 then you have probably heard of a little thing called the Topsy Tail. It was a simple little device that merely helped you flip your pony tail into a fancy knot. I couldn't tell you exactly how old thing is, but when I was in elementary and middle school it was all the rage. So you can imagine my surprise when I was flipping through a magazine one day and I came across an article that was teaching you how to do this. I have to admit that I was a little giddy knowing that upstairs under my bathroom cabinet I had a much simpler solution than their step-by-step instructions. I immediately had to bust it out and see if my hair was long enough and luckily it was! The only bummer was that the girl in the magazine was doing it with and fish tail braid (looked super cute) and mine is only long enough to do just the plain pony tail. Still it was nice for something different. A mom needs all the easy hair ideas she can get!

Christmas in July

Yesterday the boys and I were privileged enough to catch a glimpse of the Hallmark Ornament premiere while we were making our rounds at the mall. The older I get the more obsessed I have become with collecting ornaments each year. The fact that I have a slightly addictive personality doesn't help (hence the 2 bins full of beanie babies in our shed). I have quickly learned that the business of collecting Hallmark ornaments can be a tricky one. Last year I was lucky enough to snag the Partridge in a Pear Tree which is the 1st in the series for the 12 Days of Christmas. Apparently a 1st in series is a big deal and sell out quickly which I almost learned the hard way. So this year as soon as I had a copy of the infamous Dream Book I was circling and planning which ones I wanted this year.

At the top of my list is of course the Two Turtle Doves (2nd in the series). Others that caught my eye were the Snowflake Fairy and Guardian Angel (neither are part of a series). Of course, without fail, every year Hallmark also has way too many Barbie ornaments that I drool over, but never buy. This year is no different. I have never bought any of the Barbie ornaments because as an adult I tend to buy more stuff for my boys and boys just don't like Barbie. However, the girly girl in me really wants to try and start collecting them. I have this vision in my head of one day having a tree filled with nothing but Barbie ornaments. Not the main Christmas tree in my living room, but my own special tree in my bedroom or something. And then of course if I ever have a little girl one day then I will have a head start on a collection for her. Haha! I did notice a couple of them this year say "final in series," so I am hoping that means next year they will start a new series that I can get hooked on cause after about 2 minutes of googling I have learned that if you don't start collecting at the beginning of the series then you'd better hope you win the lottery cause past year ornaments are pretty pricey to purchase.

Anyways, of course there are several I have already picked out for the boys as well. They include a mixture of Mater, Mickey Mouse and Chuggington. Between all the grandparents and myself I usually have to have several picked out for them, so that everyone can buy them something special. Needless to say when they are older they will have to have quite a few Christmas trees in their houses too if they want to display all their ornaments!

Oh say can you see...

...how excited my bunch is to have their picture take? Ha!

Every holiday I have to snap some pictures (whether they like it or not) and about 4 o'clock yesterday I heard a rumble of thunder, so I rushed everyone outside to get some just in case our 4th of July plans got rained out. Luckily/unfortunately (not sure which of those I should use there) it didn't rain and we were able to go see fireworks as planned later that night. I must say though - I love it staying daylight so late in the summer, but it would be nice if the 4th of July was an exception. When you have 2 little ones who normally go to bed between 7:30 and 8:00, keeping them up till after 9:30 to see fireworks is torture for everyone involved!

How patriotic am I!?

I am definitely getting a lot bolder in my nail polish choices these days. I can give most (ok all) of the credit to my coupons and the regular sales on nail polish at CVS. I haven't had a chance to count how many are in my collection now, but it has to be near 100 at this point (insert eye roll from hubs).

I have always wanted to do a holiday mani/pedi, but there are very few holidays that you can get away with it, but apparently the 4th of July just happens to be one of them. I kind of had an idea already in my head of what I wanted to do, but I definitely did some google research as well to decide what kind of look I wanted to go for. Being 30 and a mom I had to make sure I stayed in the fun/cute range and not look well, for lack of a better word, trashy. I found some way cool stuff people had done that, honestly, makes me think they have way to much time on their hands. I on the other hand don't.

For my finger nails I decided to keep it simple. I had seen a pic where someone had done red fingernails and then somehow painted fireworks on each nail. I would really love to know how they did it, but since I am extremely right-handed I knew there was no way I could do it myself. Therefore I kept it simple - I used a red polish as the base color and then used a multicolored sparkle polish on top. I think they actually ended up looking like fireworks after all and I bet my method took a fraction of the time than the over achiever's did.

For my toes I got a little more adventurous. I knew stripes would be impossible to do well, so I decided to just alternate my red and white polish on each of the smaller toes to get a stripe look. Then I painted each big toe blue and drew a single star to complete the flag concept. I also finished these off with some sparkly top coats (one of my new favorite things if you can't tell).

Now I know my ideas aren't super fancy or anything, but there is nothing I hate worse than a beauty blog that doesn't list what items they used to create their look. So just in case there is someone out there dying to try my techniques here is what I used:

Red : Revlon Matte Suede - Fire Fox 507; Confetti - Tazmanian Devil 004
White: Revlon - Pure Pearl 020; Wet 'n Wild - Kaleidoscope 460D
Blue: Revlon Color Stay - Indigo Night 180; Confetti - Party Palace Blue 083
Star: Sally Hansen nail art pen - white

Hope everyone has a Happy 4th of July!

Workin' at the car wash!

Haha now you'll have that song stuck in your head the rest of the day thank to me ;-)

We weren't actually "working" at a car wash this weekend, but the men in my life did work hard washing both our cars Saturday morning. It turned out to be another fun cool idea for this hot weather we are having. Hubs is a little weird when it comes to washing the cars, so it surprised me that he would allow his handy helpers to even hold a sponge. Needless to say they didn't follow his orders to a tee, but everyone survived. As chief photographer I did not participate in the actually washing, yet instead sat back in a beach chair and enjoyed the show. I figured hubs had enough "helpers" to worry about.

Boy can I pick 'em!

So I am sure  you all read my post Love at First Sight. If not the short version is basically I fell in love with a granite that is about twice as much as I can afford, or want, to spend on my kitchen. I joked that I hoped it wasn't an $85/square foot granite. The good news - it's not. The bad news - it is $70/square foot.

As if that wasn't enough heartache for me, I have now done it again with the back splash. While looking for granite ideas online I cam across this picture of the Bianco Antico granite which was recommended as a less expensive option for those who can't afford the Delicatus White. Well not just the granite caught my eye in this picture. What you are looking at is called beveled arabesque tile and of course it can only be purchased from one retailer online - Mosaic Tile Stone. I rush over to the website and couldn't help but laugh when I saw the price $22.95/square foot. Now I am thinking luckily I need very little tile to fill the void between upper and lower cabinets. I can give thanks to all the windows in the bay window for that. Despite that, to do the kitchen the way I would like I would need about 20 square feet of tile which, for those of you who aren't good with numbers, comes to about $450! Again my heart sinks till I catch this on their website:

"Interested in buying Beveled Arabesque Backsplash Tile for $12.95/sf? We are running a competition on Facebook. With 5000 likes, we will place this popular tile on sale for the incredible price of $12.95 for 10 days! 'LIKE' us on Facebook and tell your friends!"

So that is what I am doing - I am telling the whole word to go to the Mosaic Tile Stone Facebook page and LIKE them so that I have a chance to get this tile at almost half off! For now they are only at 2,000 likes so tell everyone you know to go like them. And don't worry about being bombarded by their posts on your news feed cause Facebook took care of that weeks ago!

You can't put a price on fun!

Or can you!? Apparently the going rate on a 105 degree day is a whopping $2!

When I hit the end of summer clearance at Target last year I scored 2 slip and slides for less than $2 each. I knew the boys were too young for them last year, so I put then away for a rainy day - or a super hot sunny one that is. Well today seemed like the perfect day to pull them out and as expected they were a hit. It took us a few minutes to explain the concept to Greyson. Hubs even went for a slide to help him out. I know what you are thinking and unfortunately I did not get it on camera nor could I convince him of an encore. But it was fun watching the boys big and little play in the water. Hopefully for them I will find some more awesome deals at the end of this year!

CHA- CHING!

That's the noise my phone made 6 times yesterday morning because I sold 6 more things on eBay. My grand total in sales for the month is about $385! How did I do it? Well I am here to share some of my tips.

EBay is definitely a tricky business so it is important to develop a strategy based on what you are selling. Right now my strategy is just to get rid of stuff. I have a ton of baby clothes the boys have outgrown and a ton of dressy clothes I don't need any more being a SAHM. So I am listing some of the nicer items for slightly more than I might get at a yard sale to see if I get any bites. Now keep in mind eBay has fees that come with you listing and selling items on their site. There is a charge for the initial listing and then a charge if the item sells. However, each user is allowed 50 free auction style listings per month meaning they waive their listing fee (not the selling fee). They also have a couple times per month where they will send out an email telling you that you can list as many items as you want that day only for free. This is pretty much how I have been running my business. Since I am not selling my items for much I obviously want to incur as few fees as possible so I only list when it is free.

Now these fees I am talking about are not huge. The basic auction style listing is about $.30. This goes up depending on how many pictures you include, whether you add the buy it now option, etc. If your item sells eBay then charges you about 9% depending on the price it sold for. The new bummer that they added not too long ago is that they also take 9% on the shipping fee you charge too. I personally think this is a little sketchy, but regardless they are doing it so you want to keep this in mind as well. My advice - list your item for a few dollars more and offer free economy shipping which is basically the slowest and cheapest shipping method out there. It is a win win though cause auctions with free shipping are more attractive to buyers and you avoid that nasty shipping fee by eBay.

Speaking of shipping, my favorite way to ship is priority mail. Why? If you go down to your local post office you should find a display of priority mail envelopes and boxes all free! Grab as many as you need and take them home. Now you have just cut out any cost for shipping supplies. Another reason they are my favorite is that they have the fastest shipping time for the lowest price. Delivery time is 2-3 days anywhere in the US and the small flat rate envelopes and boxes ship for only $5. And believe me, they may look small but you will be surprised how much you can cram in them. For any shipping method you can pay for and print the shipping labels right from your computer and stick them in the mailbox. This is a lot easier to do with the priority mail flat rate cause you don't have to know how much your item weighs. Not to mention the online shipping rates are about $.20 cheaper than taking it to the post office.

Another one of my favorite features eBay added a while back is the "best offer" option. This is a great tool especially for higher ticket items. The best strategy for this is to list your item for more than you expect to get for it and select the "buy it now or best offer" auction type. If you are lucky someone might come along and "buy it now" which is awesome. The more likely scenario is that they will make you an offer less than your listed price. This is great cause now you have a serious buyer and you have a chance to accept or counter their offer. I have sold a lot of designer jeans and handbags this way. However, keep in mind that the "best offer" option is not included in the free listing offers, so that is why I suggest it for higher ticket items and not the $.99 items you are trying to get rid of.

My last bit of advice - take good pictures and be as honest as possible in your listing. This not only helps sell your item, but it keeps you from dealing with unhappy buyers. It only takes one unhappy buyer to ruin your selling record. The easiest way to avoid this is to give them as much information up front as possible. Now there are still those people out there that don't read thoroughly and eBay is there to help mediate those situations. I have had to deal with a few crazies in my years of selling and so far I have survived them all.

Hopefully now you are motivated to go clean through your closets and make a few extra dollars. Good luck and happy selling!

My Little Beckham

Given hubs sports history, it was only a matter of time before Greyson ended up on the soccer field. I am actually just thrilled for him to finally be able to play any sport. Little girls can put on a tutu at the age of 2 1/2, but little boys can barely play soccer at 4 or 5. Well after a lot of research I finally found a soccer camp that allowed 3 years olds, so we signed Greyson up for British Soccer Camp through Challenger Sports.

Other than the brief description online, I really had no idea what to expect. We showed up at the field bright and early last Monday morning and were greeted by an actual British soccer player. I was already impressed. Before he can even finish introducing himself, Greyson has grabbed his free soccer ball, provided by the camp, and run out onto the field with the other little boys. This doesn't surprise me really cause he has always been a pretty outgoing little boy. I just push Rylan in the stroller over to the side of the field so I can feed him some breakfast while we wait for things to begin. Not 2 minutes later I look up and see Greyson slowly walking off the field with his head down. I ask him what is wrong and he says "I don't want to play soccer." I know for a fact this isn't true cause he has been bouncing off the walls for a week about doing this. I do start to worry though cause Greyson is going through a new phase where if he gets a little scared about something he will say he doesn't want to do it anymore. After much negotiation on my part, he still refuses to go back out on the field and eventually begins to cry. To my luck, we just happened to mention the soccer camp to a friend of ours and they signed up their little boy who is about 6 months older than Greyson. Even better, they pulled up right about the time Greyson started crying. I knew that if he couldn't get him out on the field then I just might be out $76! The two of them started kicking the ball around and from that moment on everything was just peachy. (Big phew for mommy!)

Despite the large number of kids that were on the soccer field when we got there, only 3 including Greyson were actually in the 3 and 4 year old class. His coach was a female British soccer player which I also liked. She started the boys off with some simple games that helped them practice dribbling and stopping the ball. It was so cute to watch them try and stop the ball. Greyson went down a couple times before he figured out that you can't lean on the stopped ball. He seemed to really enjoy the games he was learning to cause he was playing them around the house every day when we came home. After a couple sessions their coach then set up some cones on the field and the boys had to knock the cones over by kicking the ball. I know I am biased, but I was amazed at how well Greyson was kicking the ball. His coach even commented several times about how good a kicker he was. He certainly doesn't get it from his mommy which was evident when I was invited to join in on a game or two. I knocked over one cone - I'm a ballerina what can I say!?

All in all everyone had a really good time, including me. I enjoyed snapping some pics of my little Beckham that I am sure will one day show up in his senior year book (he he). I know Greyson had a good time cause every single morning he wakes up asking if he can go back to soccer camp. Luckily we were able to find a rec league that all the boys can register for in August. In the mean time we bought him a set of his own orange cones to practice with in the backyard so he can show up all those 4 year olds in the fall!

Love at first sight.

Hubs and I have been talking about remodeling our kitchen ever since we moved in over 5 years ago now, but it wasn't until just about a year ago that we started getting serious about actually getting it done. Now for all of you who have ever watched an episode of Spice Up My Kitchen on HGTV and think that is what we are about to then I would just laugh. If I had $40,000 to spend on a new kitchen it would not be in what is considered a "starter house." If our kitchen remodel were to be televised it would be more appropriately called Design on a Dime because I don't pay full price for anything! Not to mention, like I said before, this is a starter home. No one expects a high profile kitchen to be in here, nor will anyone pay for it when it comes time to sell. All a buyer is going to be looking for is that it has been upgraded - period.

Our kitchen remodel discussion began last summer when we made a random trip to Ikea. I spotted one of their "rooms" they had set up with pretty white cabinets, stainless steel appliances, and butcher block counter tops. As soon as I saw it I thought to myself 'this is the perfect look for our kitchen.' As if I wasn't sold already, when I saw the price of the butcher block counters (about $88 for an 8 foot section) I was even more giddy. Here was a nice looking upgrade from the ugly laminate that we have now and it would probably cost less than the laminate did when the house was built. So this has been my dream now for almost a year - well, till about 3 weeks ago.

We made a more serious trip over to Ikea. Hubs was nervous about installing the counter tops himself, so we decided to see how much Ikea would charge to install it. The man there put us in touch with their install team. Everything was going smoothly till we mentioned the odd shape that is our kitchen. If you have never seen it before, just picture a U-shaped kitchen set in a bay window. While it looks really cool, I have learned this is also a pain in the rear for designing a kitchen. And it is also why we can't have my oh so inexpensive counter top idea. Apparently butcher block has to be cut perpendicular which just can't be done in our kitchen, so back to the drawing board we go.

We have been given lots of other inexpensive ideas by family and friends, but hubs really has his heart set on granite. I figure since we are skimping on everything else, maybe we can spend a little more on the counter top. So we have gone to warehouse after warehouse full of granite to try and find something in our price range. Okay, so we haven't been to so many because of our price range, but more so because I just haven't found anything that I felt was worth spending the money on. My problem is I saw a picture in a magazine of a kitchen with white cabinets and white marble counter tops. I immediately was in love, till I was informed that marble is really not suitable for a kitchen. Then, even worse, learned that there really is no such thing as a white granite. I even googled white granite and sifted through page after page of endless pictures. Then suddenly, last Friday night I stumbled upon this blog post: White-ish Granite Options. Let me tell you, for someone who has spent as much time looking at granite as I have, finding this blog post was like finding the north star because that was where I spotted IT - Delicatus White granite. I drooled over the pictures of it for hours. While you would think this would put an end to my misery, I still had the task of locating a granite dealer in our vicinity that carried it. Another few hours later I had it - OHM International. Unfortunately all these granite places don't have the most convenient hours, I had to wait a whole week and make an appointment just to be able to go see my beloved in person. Finally, at 9:30 am this morning it was my time. This place wouldn't allow children into the warehouse, so I went back by myself and the guy took me straight to the Delicatus. I immediately felt my heart begin to flutter. It was the feeling I had been waiting for. Then I hear the guy say "Hmm a lot of these slabs have hold tags on them." After a few discussions between sales people I was informed that there was one slab left that wasn't claimed yet, so they dug it out for me with their forklift, so that I could see it in person. I came armed with my cabinet door and floor tile, but I really didn't even need it cause I knew this was the one that I wanted. Though setting them down next to it really solidified that I had picked the perfect combination for our kitchen. The bad news, cause there is always bad news, we still don't know how much it costs yet. OHM is just a granite dealer. You go there and pick out what you want and they send the info to your fabricator. Which is what they did for us this morning. Now we have to wait till we get a call from our fabricator some time Monday to find out what the damage is. Apparently granite prices are pretty secretive cause I have again googled till I am blue in the face and cannot find anything that will even give me an idea of the price per square foot. So for now I just cross every finger and toe that I haven't just fallen in love with the $80/sq ft granite.

I leave you with the few pics that I snapped with my phone. While they do it no justice, I am just happy that, hopefully, my granite search is finally over!!!