Bucket List

Shamlessly stolen from one of the various blogs I creep upon while working surfing the net.  100 Things I would like to do before I kick the bucket:
 (in no particular order)

1. Publish a children's book.
2. Go to the taping of a funny sitcom in NY or CA
3. Watch the launch of a spacecraft
4. Sing karaoke in a public place without a care
5. Canoe or Kayak somewhere (anywhere?)
6. Take a hot air balloon ride
7. Ride in a helicopter
8. Snorkle in the ocean
9. Tour New York City
10. Be a missionary in an underdeveloped country
11. Go parasailing in Hawaii
12. Run a 10K
13. Walk (or run?) a marathon
14. Learn American Sign Language
15. Go on a cruise
16. Teach Kindergarten
17. Pay off the house
18. Manage a healthy weight under xxx pounds. (nonofyourbusiness)
19. Try a new fruit or veggie every day for one month.
20. Start a non-profit organization for a good cause.
21. Have/Make a friend that will sit with me on the front porch when I'm really old and senile.
22. Swim with dolphins
23. Learn to draw
24. Finish a scrapbook
25. Print pictures of the kids/events/milestones/vacations and file them chronologically
26. Help the BBF raise a million dollars (or more!) to give away
27. Own a preschool business (in a commercial building, not in my home, hehe!)
28. Ride a ferry
29. See a blimp up close
30. See Stonehedge
31. Renew marriage vows in Tahoe (maybe for 50th?)
32. Sleep by campfire without a tent/shelter (maybe on a hammock!?)
33. Place first, second or even third in a 5K
34. Memorize the books of the bible in order
35. Attend a Jewish wedding
36. Be a guest at a traditional Jewish Hannukah dinner on Passover
37. Provide respite care for a cancer patient or family member
38. Volunteer at a high school consistently
39. Design a state of the art playpark in a low income neighborhood
40. Revisit the area of San Isabel National Forest, where we got lost in the woods in August 2000.
41. Visit Bishop's Castle with my dad
42. Go sledding with the family in a secluded, perfect area
43. Make a quilt
44. Make a better quilt
45. Archive the lyrics to all the children's songs I know
46. Perform in a skit for a church/cause
47. Go to an opera
48. Go to a broadway play on Broadway
49. See the bar from Cheers on display in Los Angeles.
50. Take the kids ice skating on a lake
51. Have a garden on my property
52. Grow all my own veggies (cucumbers, tomatoes, lettuce, etc.)
53. Hike up Pikes Peak
54. Ride a train to (or from?) a vacation destination
55. Leave a $100+ tip at a diner/restaurant
56. Pay someone eles's mortgage for a year
57. Help build a house for habitat for humanity
58. Provide Christmas for a family in need (dinner, presents, clothes, a ride to church)
59. Teach a parenting class
60. Volunteer in a hospital (oncology if needed)
61. Have coffee/lunch with Matthew West
62. Spend 24 hours in pajamas as an adult and not care :)
63. Write an inspirational song
64. Babysit for single moms free of charge 
65. Buy groceries for the person in line behind me at the grocery store
66. Buy lunch for the person behind me in a drive thru
67. Ride along with a police officer on a night shift
68. Visit ground zero in NY
69. Collect the 50 quarters from all 50 states
70. Live a simple life with very few possessions
71. Witness a medically necessary surgery
72. Make a really good bottle of wine
73. Try a ropes course with husby
74. Drive a golf cart for golfers I know (or famous people!)
75. Write a bucket list!
76. Go white water rafting in the Rockies (again)
77. See my children grow up to be well rounded, responsible, successful adults
78. Go on a women's spiritual retreat
79. Lead a bible study
80. Do a touristy zip line in a rainforest or somewhere
81. Learn to ski
82. Get a masters degree in something unconventional (underwater basket weaving?)
83. Learn to knit a scarf for someone
84. Have a clutter free home (even before number 70 is achieved)
85. Complete a big jigsaw puzzle
86. Learn how to change the oil in my own vehicle (and become good at it)
87. Get pedicures with both my daughters
88. Give all homemade presents for Christmas one year
89. Write down something I'm thankful for every single day and then put them in a time capsule to open in 10 years.
90. Go tubing down a stream in the mountains (again - haven't done that one since early 90's!)
91. Donate my hair to Locks of Love
92. Speak Pig Latin with my kids in public 
93. Make a snow igloo in the backyard.
94. Learn to cook meals for other people (Frozen Stouffers Lasagna just isn't very ....heartwarming anymore)
95. Save Princess Peach (again) :)  - can never do that too many times!
96. Write a book filled with word plays. (I like throwing knives! I like throwing - knives.) I'madork
97. Keep a prayer journal
98. Fly a really cool/big kite with my kids at a park
99. Come up with two more things for this bucket list
100.   
101. 
     

day two.. and other things

So yesterday, I armed myself with a very short list, two coupons, and the knowledge of a few things that were on sale at Price Chopper (I've lived here for 3 years and still giggle when I consider that our local grocery store is called Price Chopper!).

I got 6 little things of Dannon yogurt, which were on sale for .29 each, but I used a coupon from the Sunday paper to get .60 off of 6 of them, so really, I only paid .19 each. That's a steal, if ever I found one. (Ahem, nevermind the raincheck that I also obtained while I was there... that's another story in itself, but the raincheck will come in handy for the next time a .60 off 6 of them comes along!) I also got some visine eye drops (the kind that are supposed to be good for allergy season, which is nice since I have really bad itchy eyes during the spring (Hello trees!) for an unbeatable price of .49. The eye drops were on sale for 3.49 but I had a coupon (thank you, Sunday paper) for $3 off.

I also walked away with some canned veggies - 6 cans of green beans and 6 cans of corn (I knew there was a limit of 6, but had NO IDEA that meant 6 total - that the variety doesn't matter... but 6 cans of veggies at that price was the limit... derrr, I felt kinda silly at the checkout when I learned of my misunderstanding). I had to buy the veggies in two separate transactions, but I didn't really care, and the cashier recommended that I do it that way anyway.

So, I guess day two was a WIN for this whole shopping-the-ads-AND-using-coupons thing. But, I can tell that I'm going to get burned out pretty quick.

I read somewhere that it takes 21 days to form a habit. If after 3-4 weeks, I'm not feeling the whole coupon extravaganzaa, then I'm gonna give up. How's that for determination and stick-to-it-iveness?

.... Anyway, there are other things going on in my life. I just don't take the time to blog about them. There's so much to say, and so little time to sit down and say it all. Basically, I can just let you know that I love my job, I love running, I love my friends, I love my family, I love my girls, I love my dog even when she's sick, I love my budget, I love my new spiritual discoveries, I love to advocate for cancer patients, I love to catch up with old friends, I'm loving my life.

And how are you lately?

A whole nother kinda committed

So, I know you really care about how my quest to be frugal is going. Hold on to your panties, here's your exciting update.

If you haven't caught on, I'm really quite slow. I don't "get" things right away - it often takes a few slow presentations, a written book with step-by-step directions, a coach, and a deadline with $$ motivation to get me to understand a simple concept. So, this whole business about saving moolah with coupons and sales ads... is really quite a feat for me to take on.

But, I did spend all day Monday looking over the Sunday paper (which, incidentally, they still had at my local grocery store... who knew you could get a day old paper? not me!) ... I had every single ad, and despite my distractability with the comics and bright shiny things, I managed to find a few things in the ads that I would could maybe actually use someday. So, I tried to remember them and I tried really hard to remember where each thing was on sale....

Where was I? (See, the distractability thing gets me every time)... Right, so I went to work on Monday night cutting every single stupid coupon out of the Sunday paper. I'm gonna have to get good at remembering that I don't need nor WANT nor give a rat about 80% of the items that were featured in the coupons... Instead, I ended up cutting all those silly things and throwing most of them away.

Hey, don't laugh at me. There was no book to follow. There was no coach. I did not have step-by-step directions... Oh, and I have two small kids that pester me 24/7. I got to clipping and I wasn't paying attention to what I was doing. Got all those stupid things clipped and piled up... then threw almost all of them away.

Which, funny how that works, still leaves me with a massive stack of junky papers that I consider to be worthy of my efforts, even though they need organizing somehow. Yes, despite all the crap coupons I threw out, I still have a hefty stack of coupons for ThingsWeMightSomedayWishWeHadACouponFor type things. Ahh... now I need some kinda thingy to organize them in.

Okay, so here's your big update:
Today, I decided what I wanted to do. I was gonna tackle this whole new world head-on and go for the drugstore deal... I was working towards a big money-saving victory at my local CVS pharmacy.

The plan of action was to get a new razor for $7. But, I had my Sunday paper coupon for $2 off! So, I was gonna pay $5 for the razor, and then I was gonna get $3 in "extra care bucks" back... which - if you're like me and don't know diddly squat - "extra care bucks" (or ecb) is really just a receipt that says you've earned this much money that is good in our store for next time you buy something... I was then gonna use my $3 in ecb and buy me some toothpaste, cuz the ad says that if you buy this toothpaste, for $3, then you get $3 back in ecb. So, my plan was to spend $10 and come home with $3 in ecb, a new razor and a new tube of toothpaste.

There's two big problems with my plan:

1. I cannot get my "extra care bucks" for the stupid toothpaste because it was a three-days-only sale item. Which isn't really indicated very well on their ad, if you ask me. But anyway, that toothpaste had to be bought before today to get the ecbs. and
2. Apparently, I'm the last one in the Kansas City Metro that isn't quite clued in yet on this whole coupon-sale shopping thing at CVS. But, really - I knew that already... it was just confirmed for me when we went to the CVS store and they were sold out of both the toothpaste and the razor I wanted.

Interestingly enough (okay, just humor me ... pretend like you care), there is another CVS on our way home - so we decided to try that store to see if the items were in stock. They had one of the razors left, but were sold out of the toothpaste... which really doesn't matter anyway since I had to be on the ball with this crap two days ago, right?

So, the big exciting conclusion to this lame story is that today at CVS, I spent $5 on a razor that I wouldn't have normally bought (cuz it's name brand and not disposable, haha!), and came home without toothpaste (something we probably would have actually used, haha!) and now have $3 in extra care bux that need to be spent within the next month.

I'm not giving up. I'm determined to find a really great deal. But, as for day one of my frugal-quest? Fail!