Go watch this video....

Sluggy posted the funniest video! This pretty much like it is in Houston. LOL! Although, we DID get some ice last week.

Where is the weekend?

This week has seemed SO long already! Maybe it is because we had a 3 day weekend last weekend. And maybe it is because I will have a 3 day weekend next weekend. I am taking Valentine's Day off just because. Hubby and I will spend the day together. It is not like we don't spend every day that I am off together. LOL!

We don't have any plans yet. We NEVER go out to eat dinner on Valentine's Day, but we might go out for lunch. We get gifts for each other, but they are always small tokens. Like I will get him some Valentine's Day boxer shorts. It is a tradition. One of us will always buy flowers, but they are for both of us. We will probably go get them together. And no, we don't get expensive bouquets. We will spend no more than $20 for flowers at Kroger.

We are expecting a hard freeze tonight and since it has been drizzling all day we will probably have icy roads again tomorrow morning. I don't think our office will be closed for the whole day like last week, but I am hoping we can come in late. I sure don't want to be sliding around on ice tomorrow.

Hope everyone is having a lovely day.

The winner of the $30 CSN giveaway is......

Me! Seriously, I used Random.org and it picked my comment. How funny is that?

So, I had Random.org choose another number and this time got the real winner...

Marilyn's Money commented, "Blogged entry #3, its kinda a little like a daily entry if I kepp splitting up my tasks! "

Congratulations Marilyn!! Looks ilke splitting up your entries was a good strategy!

I will email you your gift certificate information when I get home from work this evening.

My Ice-cation

This is why I didn't have to work on Friday. I know a lot of my bloggy friends have lots of snow and ice but we just don't get this in Houston. All week, we heard the weather forecasts of snow and ice for Thursday night and Friday. My boss, of course, thought that everyone was making a big deal out of nothing. He often thinks that. LOL! But Thursday evening, our company made the decision to close on Friday due to predicted icy conditions. I am so glad it did! All morning the news showed scenes like the one above. All the road were covered in ice and even though the highway department had put down something to prevent the ice, it didn't work. There were hundreds of accidents as people got out on the roads.

I stayed nice and cozy at home and just experienced those accidents by television. The safest way to do it.

You have to put it into perspective

I decided to track our grocery spending in January. Not my savings, just my spending. I like to keep our spending  below $300 a month for no other reason than that is just a number I picked. That amount covers food, cleaning supplies, paper products, pet supplies, HBA, otc meds and makeup. So it is everything spent at the grocery store, drug stores and dollar stores. I only exclude prescription meds from the total.

So, I totalled up our spending at the end of the month and almost had a heart attack!! My total was $449.98. What??!! How the heck did we spend that much money??!! Don't worry, spending that money did not cause us any problems. We have the money to spend, I just don't want to. I guess that makes me cheap...I don't care.

Anyway, for a couple of days, I have been really bummed about spending that amount. Then I started looking at it. Well, first off, $102.82 was spent by Hubby on extra trips to the store for food he needed for a couple of camping trips and a couple of times he just wanted something  we didn't have. So, shoot me for not having stockpile boudin. LOL! So, that made me feel a little better, since I only spent $347.16. I spent about $30 on makeup last month, which is out of the norm, but I was running low on some items and caught a good price and had coupons. So, that made me fell a little better

I also had to buy some Osteo Biflex. That stuff is expensive!!! I did buy it at CVS when it was on sale B1G1 and I used up all the ECBs I had been saving as well as a couple of high dollar coupons, but I still paid $23.99 out of pocket for 2 big bottles. It is 4 months worth, so I won't have to buy it again for a while.

I also did a little stocking up. When hamburger was a good price, I got 15 lbs of it. And most of MY groceries and other stuff I buy go right into the stockpile. Oh, and I have been buying goodies to put in Chance's care packages and I certainly don't begrudge that money at all.

So, after looking at more than just the total, I decided that we did just fine. Hubby and I talked and I think this month, we will only be buying needs and not doing much stockpiling. That would cut down on the spending. We will see how that goes.

CSN Stores $30 Giveaway!

CSN has some great modern furniture with prices to fit any budget. Personally, I don’t need any furniture right now, but they have some dinnerware by Thomas Paul that is just GORGEOUS! I may have to put that in the budget on down the road. But I know that some of you may be thinking of doing some redecorating and CSN would be a great place to start.

CSN Stores has graciously offered to host a $30 giveaway for one of my readers. How cool is that?

For your chance to win just go to CSN and find something that strikes your fancy, and come back and leave a comment telling me what it is. Please leave an email address if it is not publicly available on your blog.

If you are a follower, you get a second entry. Be sure to leave a second comment.

And just for fun, if you blog about this giveaway you can get 3 EXTRA entries. Be sure and leave 3 comments letting me know you did.

You can enter through midnight February 6, 2011. On Monday, I will pick a random winner and announce the winner. This giveaway is open to US and Canada residents only.

NOTE: $30 gift certificate (does not cover any shipping costs but you can use it on ANY product from ANY one of CSN’s stores.)

It brought tears to my eyes.

I just read the most beautiful tribute to a daddy and I still have tears in my eyes. I wanted to share with all my friends, so go see Judy at We may be poor, but we are happy and read this beautiful post. Judy visited my blog today and I am so glad she did!

Happy Tuesday everyone!