The Pergola!!

Well, the pergola is FINALLY DONE!  It only took about 3 times longer than they said it would take, but through Greg's tantrums perseverance and my supervising hard work, it's complete.  Here's some pictures of the process:

Do you notice that Molly is waiting for someone to throw her the ball?  They're not busy or anything, obviously.

Stiiiillllll waiting...Notice she's moved the ball for them in case they didn't notice it.

Here's the finished product!

 (She's still waiting for someone to throw her the ball.)

Those are moonflower and morning glory seed sprouts next to the post.  I'm hoping they grow enough this summer.  We will be having people over soon to enjoy it!

Couponing

Have you heard?  It's the IN thing! :)  I have been watching that Extreme Couponing show, and those people are incredible.  Ignore the hoarding part, but you have to admit they have dedication and drive.  I have been inspired to try this on a teeny tiny scale of my own, and it's been pretty productive.  Granted, I overbought on toothpaste this week, but when it's $0.67 per tube instead of the regular $3.99 or $4.99, why not get a few extra??  Now I'm not talking 100 extra, but 4 extra is okay, I think.

My CVS shopping trip tonight included:
2 bottles of soft scrub (reg. price: $3.99 each, I paid $0.49 each)
2 tubes of mascara (reg. price: about $17 for both, I paid $5)
3 boxes of cereal (reg. price: $4.19 a box, I paid $1.67 per box)
3 tubes of toothpaste (reg. price: $4.99/$3.99 each, I paid $0.67 each for 2 and $1.67 for one)

Regular price would have been around $50, and I paid about $13.  Not too bad!! :)  It really does take just a little bit of looking to find the good deals, and there are websites GALORE to help you out.  The one Jessica recommended to me and that I've found the most helpful is thekrazycouponlady.com.  She tells you where to find the coupons, where the great deals are, etc.  It really does change the way you shop.  I am hoping overall we'll see some savings in our grocery bill this year.  Since Greg keeps tons of spreadsheets on such things, perhaps I'll be able to accurately determine how much we've saved this year.  Someone please stop me if I start hoarding! :)

Updated Office: Almost Complete!

So we I have been working on the office the past few weeks because it was a DUMP.  We put everything in there that we didn't know what to do with.  Let's take a look at the BEFORE, shall we?

Awful, cluttered BEFORE:

And now......for the GLORIOUS almost-AFTER!!! (can you hear singing??  I hear singing...)

 (Do you notice Emmett checking out Austin Powers?) :)

It's SO MUCH CLEANER!!  I love love love it!  Emmett was helping me take the pictures.  He has not put that yellow stick down in the last 4 days, by the way.  Anyway, what's left to do is hang my diploma.  That's going to be a while, though, because when I went to hang it today, I found SPOTS on the INSIDE of the glass.  And since Michael's is the place that framed it, they should be the ones to remove the spots, as they are sealed inside.

So there's the office, almost done.  There's really no good place in there to put the elliptical machine, so I tried to hide it behind the shelf.  We'll see if it actually is usable back there.

Damn you, hormones!

I know I should not complain, as it's not polite on so many levels, HOWEVER...

This is the first HUGE wave of hormones that's hit since little E's arrival.  Granted, there's the baby blues which cause you to cry at EVERYTHING,  but that's expected. I'm batting 1000 for the past three days.  I've cried everyday for some absolutely ridiculous reason.  If I had something to cry about, it wouldn't be a problem.  But this week it's been over something my student said to me (normally I'd just be really pissed off), commercials, a conversation about someone's son, a movie, and good lord, I'm doing it AGAIN.  What is wrong with me?!

**Epiphany while blogging** I think it's because I'm also very sleep-deprived this week.  I have overworked myself and have been going to bed super late.  I didn't think about it until now, but that tends to make a difference.  On that genius note, I'm going to bed before I cry at the ice cream program that's on.