Saturday, March 27, 2010

A Giveaway


Over at Thrifty NW Moms they are hosting a giveaway from Baby Legs! You can enter to win 7 different times by doing various things listed. These would be perfect for my DD!
GOOD LUCK!

Monday, March 22, 2010

Can you help Sheena???

I saw this posted on Be Different...Act Normal and thought I should repost on my blog as well.


Ok friends.
I have a little story to tell. A story about me.
It's kind of a secret....unless you are in the family/friend category of my life.
I'm going to use visual aids....because I like those.
And at the end, they'll be a few questions--I'll need your help.......ok?
Here we go:
Hi. I'm Sheena.



This is me holding a lime.


Why am I holding a lime?



Wait! What is that on my arm?



Well, it's a PICC line, for antibiotics, of course.
*********************************
Let's start at the very beginning, story goes like this. (very, very, very short version.)

July 2008: legs go numb. then hands. then arms.
July 2008-Oct 2008: poked. prodded. tested. retested. scanned. pants dropped for strangers on multiple occasions.
Symptoms get worse. Neurological and joint pain.
Oct 2008: Diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis.
Oct 2008-Jan 2009. Begin, and continue treatment for MS.
Feb 2009 UNdiagnosed with MS (hooray!), diagnosed with Lyme disease. (oh, Lyme/lime, get it?) (to learn a little about Lyme, Click HERE, then to Lyme 101, then click the Lyme Disease Tab)
Feb 2009-Present day. Here I am, still battling Lyme Disease. I'm currently on month 4 of the antibiotics via PICC line.

My body is sooooooo over these crazy antibiotics. Not to mention my poor arm. We're pulling the line in a few weeks (hooray!!!)
But I'm still not better (not hooray).
Lyme Disease is a bacterial infection, carried by deer ticks. If caught early, it can usually be treated quickly with oral antibiotics, and there you have it. Unfortunately, we're coming up on two years for me....it's getting a bit trickier.
We need more options....and this is where YOU come in.
We love my doctor, and we are so thankful to finally find someone who is really trying to help us (we've bounced around alot) But.....big, stinky but......there aren't very many Lyme cases in Utah. While I know he is doing all he can, I sometimes wonder if there is someone else out there who has seen more people with Lyme, and knows some kind of magic trick to help me out.
I thought that maybe, just maybe, by posting a little something here for you all to read (all 20 of you), maybe YOU know someone with Lyme? Someone who's beat it? Do you? Can you help me? Spread the word?? I am quickly growing tired of this, and I'm pretty sure I'm ready to be done. Yep, I am.
So...please....if you or anyone you know is currently being treated for Lyme, or, ever better--CURED!!! YAY!! Please send them my way. I'd love to have a chat with them (no complainers please....I like to keep it positive around here, thanks:)
I have debated whether or not to post about this (it's going to be a struggle to hit "publish")....I like to keep it "happy fun" around here, and this is not so "happy fun", but I also know the powers of the www....and how happy AND fun would it be if we got these bugs out of my body! So I'm really crossing my fingers that this will work.
So there, now it's in YOUR hands. Good luck.
contact: sheenajibson(at)gmail(dot)com. thank you guys!!
and...if you really want to learn more about Lyme, be sure to check out the trailer for Under Our Skin, a documentary on Lyme Disease and the controversy of treatment.

Etching

First off, you gotta check out Emily's Not So Idle Hands blog and see where I got my inspiration! Here is the project she shared that I just had to give a try! I've never used etching cream before but thought it would be a fun project idea to use for gifts. Come to find out...I'm gonna need some more practice! LOL Here is my first try:



I bought a vase awhile back for this very type of thing. I wanted to etch a "C" on it for my mom-in-law and after I practiced on the frappucino glass, I thought I could handle the vase. The bummer is that I used chipboard and there was just enough space that some of the etching cream went underneath so it looks sloppier than I'm ok with. Turns out I'll be keeping this vase and using it to hold my glittery pens! :)



On another note, my baby girl's 2nd birthday is fast approaching. Ok, ok, it really isn't until July but as I learned last year, it sneaks up on me and catches me when I least expect it! :) This year I vowed to get a jump start so that I could do more of the handmade decorations that I've done in the past for my son. A friend of mine that I went to high school with has an older sister that makes AMAZING buttons. You HAVE to check out her blog
The Button Shop. Tessa is amazingly fabulous and I drool over her work on a regular basis. Well, she made a set of buttons that became the inspiration for Tatym's birthday party theme, which is Little Birdies. After I saw this set I asked her to make a set for me as well and she totally did! I am beyond in love with them! Check these out:



Aren't they fabulously amazing?!? The big buttons are the size of quarters and the small buttons are the size of dimes. I plan on using them when I make Tatym's birthday scrapbook page and maybe use them on a birthday tutu as well! Tonight I sat down to start making the birthday party invitations and this is what I came up with:



As Tatym's birthday gets closer and we settle on a party date and time then I'll fill in the rest of the information. I made 3 invites tonight and each one is a little bit different, that's the fun of handmaking them, no two are exactly alike!

Well, it's after 1am and I should be getting to bed. My aunt and 2 younger cousins are coming to town for the week and we have lots of fun things planned, a picnic at the park, a day at the beach, a tour of an old style merchant ship and maybe a trip to a farm to watch the birth of lambs...fun fun fun!!! Have a great spring break!!

Friday, March 19, 2010

Wanna know how nerdy I am???

Yep, I'm THIS nerdy:


This is my handy dandy way of organizing my coupons! LOL I previously just had a regular 3-ring binder but several bloggers said it's pretty inevitable that you'll drop your binder and things will go flyin here, there and everywhere so I broke down and bought a zip-up binder! NERD NERD NERD!! It is almost impossible to find a cute zip-up binder but I think this one isn't too bad. Found it at Fred Meyers this morning.

This first zipper section has files which I'm labelling with the stores around town that I shop at. I keep their weekly ads in their labelled area and this makes it easy for me to cross-reference sales and what not!

This is the pocket on the inside where I keep my pens, shopping list, special coupons that I want to make sure I don't miss (the $10 KMart coupon that I'm so excited about) and my catalinas.

This pocket insert is where I keep my scissors and doubler coupons. You can also see that I have dividers labelled with different areas in the stores like beverages, snacks, baking, health & body, household, canned goods, etc.

I bought baseball card pockets to organize my coupons. I can easily see what I have coupons for and try to fold them (if they need folded) in a way that I can easily see the expiration date but that isn't always possible). In the very back I have page protectors where I put my JoAnns ads, various stores coupon policies and misc. stuff.


So there ya have it, if there were ever any question as to how big of a nerd I am, these pictures prove it!! LOL I'm going to be "that lady" and the shame my poor kids will have to endure! I'm sure I'm going to scar them for life! Hee hee Oh that reminds me, I need to put a calculator in there...well, I'm off to find my pink calculator, have a happy Friday! :)

Wednesday, March 17, 2010

Cereal comin out the WAZOO! :)

Like I said earlier, I'm totally hooked on this whole world of couponing! I was given a heads up that Albertsons was going to be having a big sale on Post cereal and that I should get on ebay and order up a bunch of coupons for $1 off 2 boxes. Then there was rumor that the Albertson's ads would have their doubler coupons making it $2 off 2 boxes. Team that with a deal that for every 5 boxes you buy, you get a $4 catalina (an in-store coupon to be used with your next purchase). So, yes, I paid $2 for 40 coupons. People may scoff at the idea of paying for coupons (we're actually not paying for the coupons themselves, it's for the time the seller put in by getting the coupons and clipping them and mailing them out to the buyer) but you know what??? At the end of this sale I will have gotten 100 boxes of name brand cereal and the only money I will have spent in the end is the $2 I paid for the coupons!!! $2 for 100 boxes of Post cereals...who's scoffin now??? LOL Seriously though, so far today I've been able to get 30 boxes of cereal which is now piling up in my garage:

Well, actually that is only 23 boxes because I gave 2 to my neighbor and I've got 5 sitting by my couch to be taken to a friend's house before I go to church tonight. I also was able to have a friend meet me at the store and I gave her enough coupons to get 15 boxes for her family as well. So far today, that's 45 boxes of free cereal! I'll be heading back to Albertson's before church and again after church! :)
I plan on donating some to our church for food baskets and giving some to other friends and family members...there's no way my family could eat that many boxes of cereal in even a years time but there's no way I'm going to pass up free cereal! LOL

I've also been signing up for a lot of freebie stuff, including the offer from Shutterfly that you get 3 free picture cards and all you pay is the $0.99 for shipping!


I opted to get thank you cards which always come in handy! A few weeks ago I got 280 address labels from Vistaprint and all I had to pay was the $4.60 for shipping! If you're interested in keeping up with all the hot deals, freebies and fun, check out these sites (click on the name to be taken to their site):
Money Saving Mom
Fabulessly Frugal
The Frugal Girls
Give Me Neither
Thrifty NW Mom

Saturday, March 13, 2010

I'm totally hooked!

Tonight I went out on another coupon adventure with my friend Alisha. I blame her for newest obsession/addiction with coupons and sale hunting but I love her for it! :) I was able to get all of this for only $14.85!


Out of all of that, this stuff was completely FREE...well, actually I got paid $0.12 because the Buddies soap was only $0.97 and I had $1 off each of them! I really should have been paid another $1 because the Monopoly card game was now marked down to $4 and I had a $5 off coupon but the store manager at the time just let me get it for free. Can't complain too much about that! LOL


So, go to coupons.com and print off their coupon for $1 off any Johnson's baby product and go to walmart and let THEM pay YOU $0.03 to buy a bar of Buddies soap. Better yet, print off two coupons and let them pay you $0.06 and get 2 bars! :) Then head over to playsaver.com and print off their coupon for $5 off a Monopoly game and head to Walmart and buy the Monopoly Deal card game and either get it for free or let them give you $1 for buying it (depending on how the sales manager handles it). I also printed off the coupons for $4 off Hungry Hippos and Connect 4 and paid $1.24 for each travel size game! Oh and they have a coupon for buy one, get one free of the My Little Pony toys (only the single assortment) so I bought 2 of them and only paid $5! I am totally loving this! :) It's such a great way to restock my gift box (I have 2 rubbermaid bins that I stock up with various things I find on sale throughout the year and when someone's birthday comes up I just look through my bins and put together a present).

Friday, March 12, 2010

My newest adventure...COUPONS!!


I've always been intrigued by the people that use coupons. Hearing about the CouponMom and how she can buy hundreds of dollars worth of groceries for next to nothing seemed like a fairytale! I've tried clipping coupons before and never quite got the hang of it to really make it worthwhile. I bought the CouponMom book but haven't quite found the time to really read it. My awesome friend, Alisha, informed me that she is a couponer (yes, that's the word I'm going to use LOL). I begged for her to bestow her vast wisdom upon little ol' me and she happily accepted the challenge! :) Last night she told me which coupons to be sure to print out and off we went to Safeway. To make a long story short, I was able to buy 5 boxes of brand name cereal, 10 boxes of a variety of fruit roll-ups and fruit gushers, 2 sandwich lunchables, a bag of salad, 2 bags of mixed veggies, 2 bottles of salad dressing, a bottle of flavored water and 2 little bags of chocolate coins all for around $6.50!!!! Isn't that just magical??? I'm totally hooked!!! So be prepared to see posts about my wonderful finds and all the things I'm learning! THANK YOU ALISHA!!!

Thursday, March 11, 2010

Oobleck



If you've never made Oobleck, you are sadly missing out on some FUN! :) To celebrate Dr. Seuss' birthday (March 2nd) I decided to make some Oobleck (read the book Bartholemew and the Oobleck) with my Prek/K homeschool co-op kiddos. They not only liked it...they LOVED it! All the squeals and ohhhhs and aaahhhhs and eewwwwws were priceless! Since it's a gray, wet and dreary day here on the Oregon Coast, my son, Keegan and I decided to make a batch.

All you need is 2 cups of Cornstarch (you can get a Walmart brand for $0.88), around 1 cup of water (you don't want it too watery so add it slowly because you might not need the whole cup) and some food coloring to make it look more interesting!


This stuff is awesome! When you apply pressure it acts as a solid. Try punching it, poking it, etc. It gets hard. Now try gently pushing your hand into it or letting it slide off your hand...it's like liquid! FUN, huh?! Keegan and I played in it for a LONG time and plan on playing with it when my hubby gets home! Keegan asked if we could make it with our Tiger Cubs at the next den meeting! Oh, and this stuff is SUPER easy to clean up! If it dries on your hand or on the counter, it flakes right off or just use water and it rinses right off! Can't beat that! HAVE FUN!


Tuesday, March 2, 2010

Blogaversary!!

Well, it's been almost a year since I started blogging. My other blog Sassy Scrapper was started on March 14th, 2009! I had recently signed up to be a Close To My Heart consultant and started dabbling in cardmaking and became completely hooked on crafting. I started this blog to separate my paper crafting from my other crafts and recipes and family stuff. In order to celebrate my 1 year blogaversary I'm going to be giving some blog candy away. I'm going to get a stash of stuff together, take a picture and post it all on here for everyone to have a chance to win! Stay tuned this week for the post! :)