January Blah

So far the New Year hasn't been great. Everyone has been sick at our house. First Alyssa came home from her Grandparents with it and than gave it to me, followed by Knox, and Cory. She also spread it to our house guests! Sorry guys. For the last two weeks we have been pretty much cooped up! I can not wait to get back out.

This has given me an opportunity to work on some of my resolutions. One is reading at least twenty-four books this year. I'm already on book two so I would say I have a good start. The one I'm reading right now is so good. It's called The Glass Castle. A woman wrote it about her childhood growing up pretty much homeless and how her parents raised her and the siblings. It's so far unbelievable.

My other big goal is saving money. Who doesn't want to do that? My biggest area where I want to save is grocery's. I have been becoming obsessed about it too. If I go to the store I normally haven't been buying something unless I have a coupon for it and I usually use two. I'm also lucky that I have three grocery stores right by each other so I don't have to stray. For those of you who think couponing takes time or that "they" never have what you want on sale. It really doesn't take too much time and you just have to be kind of smart about when you use the coupons and where to go. For me it's turned into a game and it gets fun seeing how much money you have saved and if you can beat it! If anyone is interested in finding out more send me a message and I can email you links of websites that I use.

One thing that I'm very happy about is a year round farmers market is going to be opening up near us soon. They are going to have everything, meat from local butchers, dairy, and vegetables. I can't wait! I'm sure I will be there frequently!! We are also continuing on our diets which hasn't been fun when your sick but we have hung in there. With the saving money and eating better I'm back on track to planning menus. You wouldn't think that something as easy as this would help but it truly does. I've also stopped doing my shopping for the month at once and instead I'm doing it about every three days. This also helps with sales and such.

I've started planning the kids' birthdays. I have Knox's all figured out but still not sure what to do for Alyssa's. She keeps saying she wants to go to hockey but there are now games. I also keep debating if I should have a kids party or just family. Decisions, decisions. We have had snow pretty much since the beginning of January and although I'm not one who gets sick of the weather around here, I continue to do things, I'm actually looking forward to spring!