The Rest of the Story

Remember a couple of weeks ago on tax day when I told you the story about the Dog Walker and his free french fries? Well, there's more...

Now Bossy loves to express her opinions, both good and bad. If she gets a charred burger, she will be the first to let you know, but if you provide excellent service, she will let your manager know too. So a couple of weeks ago, the Dog Walker accidentally took his free coupon for Arby's Curly Fries to Sonic. The awesome workers at Sonic simply honored his coupon even though they don't have that policy and gave him the free fries.

When Bossy heard the story, she immediately got on her computer and fired off an email with a gracious thank you attached. (I didn't even think to do that...I was too busy laughing...) Today we got a letter from Sonic in the mail. I want to share part of it.

     "Thank you so much for writing in to the Sonic Hotline with the experience you had with Sonic and the curly fries. It meant so much that you took the time to write and tell us what happened. It's nice to hear favorable comments about our employees who sometimes go unnoticed for their hard work."

     "We passed your letter around to all management and we can honestly say it touched so many."

And guess what!?

The letter was stuffed full of free coupons...
 

Some Awesome Fun at Classic

Curly

Monday was a special day for us. My elementary-aged kids are all off track, so they are home. And it was the end of term for the older kids so they all got the day off while teachers figured grades. That meant that other than my poor sweetie who had to work, we were all ready to play!

Scout

I had originally planned a trip to the zoo with my sister and my sister-in-law and their little ones, but the weather ruined that idea. So I pulled out my coupon envelope and started looking for an alternate activity.

Teach

That little guy in yellow is Curly.

When the Dog Walker made his personal appearance at the Spooka Palooza in October, we had been given stacks of coupons for food and fun. This seemed like an appropriate time to use some. As soon as Crafty got off work, we headed for Chick Fil A for lunch. I fed eleven of us full dinners including drinks for less than ten bucks!

Prima Donna

Sport

Then we piled back in the van and headed to the Classic Fun Center in Sandy. Three of our passes were for unlimited access so we put them on the kids most likely to use them...Crafty, Sport, and Scout. The others all had one free activity. After some discussion, we signed them up for an hour of bouncing in the bounce houses. And yes, adults are allowed and even encouraged to participate! (Sorry for all the pics, Teach insisted you had to have one of everybody!)

Drama Queen

Drama Queen

Teach

Because of my bad knee, I did not sign up to bounce (I know, I probably would have been fine...), but somebody had to take pictures so it all worked out. I loved watching my big kids act like the little ones. Curly could get up the big slides quicker than anyone else. Baby Doll had no fear! She just giggled and giggled as they sent her down slide after slide.

Princess Free Falling

Prima Donna and Crafty

When our hour was finally up, we cashed in all our free token coupons and headed to the arcade. Teach and Drama Queen earned a pile of tickets playing skee ball and the little kids rode on the rides. Then we discovered the Deal or No Deal game. I have seen that show a couple of times on TV and the game was basically the same. It cost 5 tokens to play, but if you were really good, you could win a hundred tickets for your investment.

Crafty, Baby Doll and Drama Queen

Dog Walker

We decided we were never going to make a deal and we played it all the way to the end four times. The first time we earned 20 tickets. Then the Drama Queen came over and after listening to her advice, we managed to get one ticket! The next game was the best. We won 40 tickets! The last time we played we pulled out 8.

By the time we were finished, we had a cup stuffed with tickets and we headed to the exchange counter. Baby Doll has recently learned the word "dog" and to her every animal is a dog. But she was very excited about a particular brown one that cost 400 tickets. Since we only had 325, the Drama Queen handed over $2.25 to make up the difference and Baby Doll got her dog!

By then Princess was getting nervous about being late for dance but our unlimited pass holders wanted to stay a little longer and skate. The Dog Walker agreed to stay with them and I handed him one more pass for free skating and $3 to rent all of their skates. Then we ran all the other kids home. An hour later I picked them up.

We had an awesome time as you can see from the pictures. And the entire day cost about 15 bucks including lunch...not bad!

Birthday Coupons

Working on mine

One of my good friends regularly visits a salon to have her nails done. And I have to confess that they look pretty amazing (although they aren’t very practical for basketball). I have never been to an actual nail salon because I have several mostly competent people who live right in my very own house that can take care of that rather tedious task.

If it were left up to me all I would do is give them a quick trim every few weeks. The Drama Queen used to keep my nails in the height of fashion when she was younger, but then she moved out and passed the torch to Prima Donna. Every year the Prima Donna gives me coupons for my birthday detailing the beauty treatments I’m about to receive…hair-brushing (although since last spring I worry a little about that), back-scratching, manicures, pedicures…sometimes even an entire makeover!

Curly was the camera man

My favorite is when she changes my toenail color to match the current holiday. Since November I’ve had alternating red and green toenails. So yesterday was the day for a change. The hardest part of a pedicure at my house is finding the nail-polish remover. Last time it was lost it showed up in the Dog Walker’s room. I assumed it was because he was using it to strip paint from a model car or something. Nope! He had actually painted his toenails pink just to see if I would put a picture of them on the blog! Sorry, Dog Walker, not this time.

Teach's Cute Toes

Once the tools are assembled, I can just sit back and relax…sort of…depending on the procedure. If the Prima Donna is feeling exceptionally benevolent, she washes, massages, and files my tired feet. Sometimes she even tries trimming the nails, but that part isn’t at all relaxing since every once in a while she slips and takes a chunk out of my toe…red isn’t usually my color. So in honor of winter, we are going blue with white snowflakes. Just like a salon, only better. I get to hang out with my kids and it’s free.

PS...Turns out our cute little camera man took about 30 pictures of his fingers over the lens!  Oh well, his services were free too.

Happy Anniversary, Sweetie

Life isn't a piece of cake...

Today is my 28th wedding anniversary! (To read our Falling in Love story, click here.) We celebrated a little last night by going out to dinner and spending a little time together. My sweetie took Thursday off just for me, so we have a 4-day weekend. We tried a new place called Wing Nutz. It probably wasn’t the best choice for us since my sweetie doesn’t like extra spicy, but I had a coupon…
We left the house about 9:00, and by the time we got there, it was pretty quiet. Those that were still watching the football game on the big screen were on their second or third pitcher of beer, so they weren’t paying any attention to us. We had lots of time to reminisce about anniversaries from the past while we picked at our food.

We have never been big on anniversary gifts, but even during the lean times we have managed to spend the day together and go out for dinner. You all know how cheap I am, so we almost always use a buy one get one free meal coupon. We bought our first Happenings book when we had been married for about 5 years. That's when my sweetie found a BOGO coupon in there for the Red Lion Hotel eating establishment. We were still so young. I was 23 and he was barely 25. We had never been to such a nice (or expensive) place. We wore our finest clothes and he even remembered to open the door for me. We ate Pork Medallions…they were so tasty! And then they cooked some kind of fancy dessert with flames right at our table. I about choked when I saw the bill. Even at half price, it was our entertainment budget for about three months!


Other anniversaries came and went, but few were as memorable as that one. For a while we got involved in the Dine-o-Round. That was even better than a coupon because we could choose any of the restaurants that were participating and get a meal for a set price. We ate at one beautiful roof-top place downtown. That’s when I learned that true Key Lime Pie is not actually green.

A few years ago we discovered a Japanese place tucked away in a strip mall that makes the best tempura vegetables! It’s still one of our favorite places.

When we had our 24th anniversary we decided that we wanted to something big and exciting for our 25th. We started planning for a trip together…maybe Hawaii. It never happened. Curly was due September 7 and even though he was born almost a month early, we couldn’t really leave our tiny babe with someone else.

Life doesn’t always turn out the way we expect. Sometimes we get Wing Nutz and sometimes we get the Red Lion. It’s our job to make the best of wherever we end up. And that’s what we’ve tried to do. Together. Happy 28th Sweetie, looking forward to at least 28 more. I love you.

Casualties of War

 You ever have one of those days when no matter what you try, everything just seems to go wrong? I’ve had one of those…ok, I’ve had half of one of those. It started out pretty good. My sweetie doesn’t usually work on Fridays, so he was home. When the kids got home from school we decided to take them all on a short adventure (since we had football practice to worry about). We piled them in the van and headed to the athletic store to pick up the Dog Walker’s brand new letterman’s jacket.

Then we drove up to Cookies by Design to get our free sugar cookies on a stick that we earned because we read some books this summer…like they have to reward us for reading…we love to read! Those eleven cookies retail for something like $75. Then we drove back to Chick Fil A and fed the entire family for $3.99. I know, I’m cool like that…I can show you the receipt. Six kids meals, two chicken salads, two large drinks, two 8-piece nuggets and two large fries. So up to that point all was going well, fantastic, really.

But things went downhill fast. I have an embroidery machine and occasionally I take on some small jobs that bring in a few extra dollars. My sweetie spent half of last weekend digitizing a custom pattern and I had 8 shirts that needed this logo. So my sweetie and the kids all waved goodbye as they headed downstairs to watch a movie so I could work in peace. They even brought me a little bag of tootsie rolls as a consolation prize for my good responsible behavior.

Things were rolling along just fine. Each shirt takes about 20 minutes to embroider, so sometimes if I’m not too paranoid I can multi-task a little. I had just gotten my serger back from the repair shop after five weeks and $120.00, so I decided to check it out to make sure it worked. I hemmed a few pairs of pajama pants for Sport while randomly watching the logos appear on the embroidery machine. I enjoyed a couple of tootsie rolls and then re-hooped the machine for the next shirt.

I stitched all of Sport’s scout patches on his vest. This was pretty frustrating because the thread kept breaking and I started over at least a dozen times. The embroidery pattern completed, so I re-hooped the next shirt and turned back to the sewing machine. Suddenly the needle broke! I pulled it from the patch and tossed it in the garbage. Then I put in a new needle and proceeded to rethread. After about a dozen stitches, the entire post holding the sewing foot detached itself from the machine! I’ve sewed for many years and never had a calamity like that. I helplessly studied the pieces. I guess that meant another trip to the repair shop.

That’s about when the embroidery machine decided it was tired and wanted to quit for the night. It stopped right in the middle of the pattern and refused to go further! (I guess I know how it feels…) I gave it a breather for about 20 minutes and then got it to sew a few stitches before I ran out of bobbin thread. I pulled off the hoop, re-threaded the bobbin, then the machine, and got a few more stitches.

Forty-five minutes later, I finally coaxed the machine to finish the design. Sadly, I’ll get to miss the fun tomorrow too because I still have two shirts to finish. See what all this frustration can cause? Besides that, I pretty much ate the entire bag of little tootsie rolls. Casualties of war, I guess.

What's the Big Deal?

I’ve told you before that I LOVE a bargain! The only way to raise a big family nowadays is to be independently wealthy, be part of a reality TV show, or hunt down bargains. Since I missed out on the independently wealthy thing and no one is pounding down my door to see if I want to be on TV, my only option has been the bargain thing.

When we were first married, nearly every grocery chain on the planet offered double and sometimes even triple coupons. That made the slick coupon ads that come in the newspaper even more valuable. This was in the early ‘80s, before the days of open access to the Internet and online sales. I was pregnant with Bossy and we moved back to my hometown. We were dirt poor and since our parents were all still raising young children, they were not able to help us. Grandma was always careful with money (still is even at 93!) and she agreed to help us collect coupons to help cut our food bill. She made several trips to the post office each day and pulled coupons from the garbage.

Not our actual dump and not my grandma

Our town also had an open dump then about 3 miles outside of town. The idea was that you drove the dump road with all your stinky, yucky garbage in the trunk of your car. When you got to the dump, you drove to the edge, stopped your car, plugged your nose and flung your bags into the pile. Someone came along periodically and threw matches in there to burn everything back. So Grandma and I haunted the dump. We mostly stuck to the edges and pulled bundles of newspaper before the flames could devour them. We ripped open garbage bags and we also hunted for soda pop bottles (5 cents, please!). In later years Grandma gathered aluminum cans, then brought them home and ran over them with her car. About 20 years ago they shut down the dump and brought in a garbage service. My grandma was so sad that day…My 28th anniversary is in a couple of weeks and Grandma still sends up little bags full of coupons she collects and saves just for me.

Last week I was asked to review a coupon site called www.couponchief.com and give an honest opinion. I eagerly logged on and set up an account. That part was easy. I also asked some of my grown up kids, Bossy, Gym Rat, Drama Queen, and Teach to check out the site. Since it is all about online sales, they are way more techno-savvy than me. This site is huge! They have coupon codes for about 15,000 stores all arranged in alphabetical order. I chose several to look at that were places where I might actually place an online order.



I started with Amazon.com. Whenever I need to buy some strange item and I don’t know where to look, I try Amazon first. Coupon codes there would actually be very handy. Sadly, after trying three different codes, they all came back as expired. So I switched to Wal-Mart, but their coupons were for very specific things and I didn’t want to take the time to find whatever they were trying to get me to buy. The last coupon codes I tried were for Lowes and Home Depot. There were also expired or invalid.

So I called the kids to get their input (since obviously I must be doing something wrong). The Gym Rat tried Barnes and Noble and all three codes worked great for him. The Drama Queen was also able to get it to work, but she reminded me that she rarely shops on line. Boss and Teach spent a little time too but got stuck in the same trap as me.

I think this site is a wonderful idea! Sharing coupon codes with other shoppers can save us all a little money and that makes it easier for us to buy more and stimulate the economy. This site actually pays you for your codes as long as you are the first one to make a submission. What I didn’t like was that the codes didn’t automatically delete after they were expired. That means any bozo could get on and make up a code and publish it and then it would never work for anyone! They do have a nice rating system so you can see which coupons worked and which ones didn’t. I would love to have been able to print off some of these coupons so that I could take them to the actual stores. I’m looking forward to using this site in the future since one of my favorite stores, Discount Dance Supply is on their list. I can’t tell you how many pairs of tights I’ve bought for my dancers…even if I only save a buck or two it will definitely be worth looking.

Since www.couponchief.com paid me a small sum for this review, I want you to know that the opinions I've expressed here are solely my own and represent my honest viewpoint. Like Shell at Things I Can't Say, I promote Blog With Integrity.

My Grandmother

 If you’ve been reading my blog for very long, you’ve heard me talk about my grandparents before. I grew up three blocks down the street from them and I spent lots of time there. My grandma was born in a tiny town (Serious! This town is so small the Post Office is a Tough Shed!) in central Utah in 1918 during the flu epidemic. She was in her early teens during the Great Depression and I remember listening to her tell a story about having to cut up a temple dress to make a white blouse for a program at school. 

She met and married her husband and they had my mom. When my grandma was in her early 20s, her husband had a stroke while he was swimming and he drowned. My mom was about 18 months old and my grandma was pregnant with her second child. She buried her husband and then the stress was too much for her and she lost the unborn child as well. It was just before the war and there weren’t many options for her. She started looking for a husband and that’s when she met my grandpa. Grandpa had a 7-year-old daughter and a 9-month-old son. His wife had died from complications of childbirth and he was forced to quit his job with the railroad so that he could take care of his kids. It was a good match for both of them. 

Grandma holding Bossy.

Grandma was always a very strong woman both physically and emotionally. She could out-walk me even in her 80s. She worked hard all of her life, mostly as a sales-clerk in a furniture store. (After she retired she offered to watch baby Bossy while I finished the school year.) Grandma taught me to work! My mom didn’t really like to make us work at home; she wanted to do most of the household chores herself, so I learned to clean a bathroom, wash dishes, and sweep a floor at Grandma’s house. She would pay us for our time, but only when we did the job exactly the way she wanted it done. She insisted that her floors be vacuumed three times in each spot, and very s-l-o-w-ly…

On Wednesday afternoons we had Primary after school. It was so fun to stop at Grandma’s store and visit with her for a few minutes before we headed across the street to the church. Sometimes she would take her break and walk next door with us to get a pop or an ice cream bar from Melba’s grocery store. Grandma always loved soda pop! She would buy it by the case and we were always welcome to help ourselves. 

Drama Queen, Sport, Grandma, and Taco, 2008

About once a month Grandma and mom would pull one or two of us out of school and take a trip to Provo for groceries and supplies. We loved going with Grandma because she always took us out for lunch and sometimes she bought us shoes or some other necessary clothing item. She was careful with her money because she was a child of the Depression, but she always had it to share if we had a need. 

Making hot pads.

 She still collects aluminum and she was super excited when the clerk handed her $80.00 last week for her cans. Because she doesn’t have the strength to crush them with her hands or her feet, she throws them on her driveway and runs over them with her car.

Grandpa died in 1989, three weeks after the Drama Queen was born. He spent his last couple of years in a nursing home about 35 miles away. Grandma drove over every day and helped care for him. She was always generous with her time and talents. She made hundreds of quilts and gave them away to those in need and to places like Primary Children’s Medical Center. She has done the same thing with hot pads and dishcloths. She recently celebrated her 93^rd birthday and though she has slowed down some, she can still tell some amazing stories and play a mean game of Pinochle. Happy Mothers’ Day, Grandma…I love you.

Good Deed

One thing I’ve definitely learned after having all these kids is that it’s much easier to go to the grocery store by myself. It’s not that the kids beg for things…they learn early on that if they ask there is NO WAY I will buy that particular item. It’s simply that trying to get everyone inside the store and then into a cart, and then contained while I figure out what I need to buy can be incredibly difficult. 

Cars from '08 Sport is asleep and I can't find one to show.  Bailed out by this fun blog.

Unfortunately, sometimes I have to take my entourage with me. Today was one of those days. Smith’s had an amazing deal on Cheerios and I had 23 coupons! (Not that it’s important to the story, but I got 4 boxes of 14 oz Cheerios for $3.30! That’s less than a dollar a box and each box also had a free pull-back racer in it…you can’t go wrong with a free car.) So I drag Scout, Curly, and Baby Doll all to the store. 

 The minute we enter the doors they are both running for the Car Cart. That suits me fine since I can at least keep them somewhat contained inside the car without a leash. I snap Baby Doll’s car seat in and we head to the huge cereal display. I proceed to load 36 boxes of Cheerios into my cart. Car Carts are great except that they have smaller baskets so I can’t get as much in there as I’d like, but I manage. 

Soon we are rolling slowly toward the bakery for our free cookies. (After all the Easter candy, I managed to shake my head when the bakery girl offered me one.) I toss in 4 loaves of bread, a couple of bags of bagels and some rolls for supper. We bypass the produce since we are already stopping every few feet to pick up a box of cereal or loaf of bread that kamikazed to the floor. Somehow I squeeze in a couple of gallons of milk and we head to the checkout.

I open my purse to pull out my coupons and necessaries. That’s when I realize my sweetie has the Fresh Values card in his wallet. I know, you are thinking, "No problem, just type in your phone number." But it’s not that easy. Teach works at Smiths so I have an amazing employee card that gives me an extra 10% off the Kroger products. That’s when I remember that Teach is out in the Fuel Center. I fire off a text, hoping that she has left her wallet in the Customer Service area and I can get her card and use it. 

Somebody pulls into the lane behind me and I look up to suggest that they move ahead since I’m not really ready yet. I’m pleasantly surprised to see Sterling, a friend of Teach’s who worked with her until only recently when he transferred to another store. I smile, "Hey, how are you doing?" I notice he is buying cereal and since I’m not using all my coupons I offer him some. He gladly takes them and I move aside my overstuffed cart to let him go first. We chat for a minute and then a new text comes in from Teach. Yes, she has her purse, but it is with her across the parking lot in the Fuel Center. That means I have to park my cart and drag all three kids across the parking lot to get her card before I can check out, and Curly has fallen asleep. 

As I’m contemplating my fate, I notice that Sterling is nearly finished with his transaction. He thanks me again for the coupons then he turns to leave. My desperation made me bold, "Hey Sterling," I call. He turns back to me, all smiles. "Could you do me a favor?" I beg. "Sure," he responds. "Could you run over to fuel and get Teach’s Fresh Values card for me?" He pushes his cart to the side. "No problem," he says and sprints out of the store. I barely had time to send Teach a text before she responded with one saying that he had the card and was on his way back. It only took him about 3 minutes tops, but Sterling, I just want you to know that you saved my day! Thanks for being such a great guy! You can have my coupons anytime.