Sad Day For a Couponer..

So last night while i was working on my nephew’s birthday cake i went to go put it in the freezer. And notice some meat that was defrosted and kind of looking not so good. Which we had just had some go bad in the fridge. So i thought maybe Nate had just forgotten and put it back in the freezer by accident. i come walking in holding this nasty meat asking Nate if he had just put it back  in the freezer and he gave me this look like why would i put that back in the freezer?? Right then it hit me OMG the freezer is unplugged!!! NOPE worse... it’s NOT WORKING! The light is showing it is on, and everything is plugged in….. it’s just not working. We bought the freezer in JULY!!  We have had the freezer for less than a year and it’s already broken?!! L We called a repair guy to come out and look at it. Hopefully he will have good news or a free new freezer for me! i am so upset i had to throw out 3 garbage bags full of food!! That was over 2 months worth of dinners!!! The really upsetting part is that i was not planning on going grocery shopping for a MONTH!!  LITERALLY A MONTH!! If i had not been so concerned about getting my cakes into a freezer i probably would have just broke down and cried!! Instead I made Nate play Tetris with our little freezer until the cakes fit. Remember those unexpected things that ALWAYS happen.. This is EXHIBIT A!!!

Budgeting

Occasionally budgeting and planning our bills out makes me want to pull my hair out!!! It keeps me up at night until i sit down and figure out how it is going to work out or close enough that i feel like we will make it. i do things like this..

This spreadsheet has PROVEN to be rather handy already though... Just saying..

I finish it i feel great about it and then i remember i forgot something..... it throws off the entire thing! Unexpected things always come up and always will it is part of life, and yet i still make charts knowing it probably wont happen like this.. But its the thought that counts right?

I guess sometimes for me its have some sort of structure or "guideline" that finally calms down my nerves. Or makes me feel a little less crazy...

New Car(s)

While Nate and I were dating his bought this, a whopping $650.00 purchase. It lasted us for about 2 years until it would no longer pass safety and emissions. At that point instead of spending money to fix it up we decide to sell it and upgrade to something a little more reliable. So in Oct that’s what we did…

**UPGRADE**

My Dad bought my Honda Civic about a week before we got married so he could have his 4Runner back. It was weird for me to be in such a little car. It has definitely been a good car, but the poor little guy has A LOT of miles! (We knew this in the beginning) Luckily Hondas take a good wear and tear. Since we don’t owe anything on it we plan on keeping it around for when we move to Springville, so that Nate won’t be driving his truck to Pleasant Grove every day for work.

Best picture i had on file.. :)

At the beginning of the year we had planned on paying off all of my credit card debt and then purchasing ME a new vehicle. We wanted something bigger with fewer miles than my current Honda. I didn’t want to have a loan bigger than 8k so I assumed we would need to decent down payment, because most of these style cars were around to 10k – 12k+ range OR had higher miles on them. Our plan was not to purchase until around JUNE after our Disneyland trip but we found this killer deal and could not resist!

 We love our new 2005 Chevy Equinox!!!

ITS HERE!!!

My Silhouette Cameo!! This is my new toy, i am so excited to start all the projects i have in mind. Don't you love tax return season, because i sure do! Last years return went mostly into some debt payoff and buying Nate his trailer. (The trailer is a whole nother can of worms that will be saved for later.)

Tax Goals for 2012
Buy a mate
Go to Disneyland
Buy a vinyl machine

It is now the middle of March and most of our tax goals have been completed. The only one that has not is our Disneyland Trip but that is mapped out and paid for and now just waiting for time to pass quicker.

Notice the Ticker Countdown Above?!!

Spring Tulip Wreath

My latest project...To welcome SPRING (so this new found snow from this morning needs to go away!)

 I found this lovely wreath on Pinterest hoping there would be a tutorial on it... unfortunately there was not. But i was determined not to spend $80 by buying this wreath...

Being that i am a blog stalker i have learned that there is always a way to figure out how to make it yourself, for less than buying already made. Wreaths scare me though, when we were making them for work around Christmas my wreaths had ISSUES! Anyways… so i just kind of jumped into this project blindly.

 
 I picked up my stems and trimmed them to the length that i wanted.  (i also hot glued the petal to the stem so i didn't have to worry about them falling off while in storage or anything like that) Then just kept adding, and adding, and adding.... The more flowers that were added the better it started to look.

A coworker today pointed out that my tulips were a lot bigger than the ones in the example i was going from. Which were the only ones my HOBLOB carried, they also didn't have the two pinks colors so i just went with the two. That difference and that my leaves were a lot bigger than the example as well which I’m sure is because of the fact that my tulips were bigger.

So this project took:
8 bundles of tulips @ 6.99 each - 50% off = 3.49 each
1 Foam Wreath @ 7.99 -40% Off Coupon = 4.79
1 Roll Ribbon @ 3.99 -50% off = 1.99
Hot Glue

TOTAL for this project = 34.70
Saved by making it myself = 45.30 + shipping & tax

Valentines 2012

Its Valentines weekend which means a mini vacation for us!!

We both were off work by about 2 on Friday, so since we had PLENTY of time to kill before we needed to leave. We took my car over to the Oceanside car wash. I was so excited I love OCEAN anything! Sadly I was disappointed it was not as great and magical as I thought it would be they need to add some wall paintings to that place!! ANYWAYS…..

The beautiful flowers that were delivered to me at work!

We packed our bags and headed up to SLC! (You would think with how many bags we had we were staying for the week and not just the night.) Makes me worried how many bags we will REALLY have when we ARE gone for a week!

Once we finally got checked in we still had some time to kill. So Nate brought up his FAVORITE topic, (of the moment) RENOVATING a home. Don’t get me wrong I love thinking about all the great things we can do to an older home, BUT when you start talking about to finances of it all, it can be quite overwhelming. It starts to really stress me out and puts me in a weird mood. I start to feel guilty about the not so little things we have planned for this year. For instance our Disneyland trip, buying me a new car, and maybe hopefully a baby, all things we DON’T have to do. It made me start to worry about our trip, THE biggest reason I love our weekend getaways is because I feel like we always come back feeling much closer to each other, its time for us to reconnect. 

I had made us reservations at the Market Street Grill about a month ago just to be safe. When I checked in and the hostess informed me that they were running about 20 minutes behind…..Not a big deal… Well 40+ minutes later we had still not been seated. (Why did I make a reservation again?)  Once we were finally seated and got wonderful food in our bellies everything was just fine! 

We saw “The Vow” on Saturday, Nate said he will never watch it again… He felt that Channing Tatum’s character was way too relatable and he didn’t like feeling that way. In other words the chick-flick did its job J I loved it and can’t wait to add it to our movie collection! AND… after seeing the movie I finally got the reconnected feeling I was waiting for. Right before the movie started Nate realized he was not wearing his wedding ring but he had in fact left it at the hotel, which we had just checked out of. Luckily we were able to call and someone ran up to our room and found his ring, which was SUCH A RELIEF! But it also meant we needed to hurry so we wouldn’t be late to our couples massage. Massage Envy did a great job Nate and I were both very impressed.

We ended our weekend with a quick trip to HOBLOB (Hobby Lobby) and some Café Rio.

Grace enjoyed our cafe rio too..

Valentines Day:
You would think i would learn after two years that even though he says he ISN'T doing anything for Valentines he IS! He kept telling me that NO i am not doing anything we already had ours... HE LIED. He had ROSES and a Red Velvet cake sent to me at work. I was in complete shock when my co worker walked in with these two boxes for me! We made a yummy steak and shrimp dinner together.

Nate turned 24!!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY! Only thing missing was a banner!

Nate had his 24th birthday yesterday! Right after I got off work I was supposed to head straight to Costco to pick of some Ice Cream, BUT I really wanted to get Nate some Balloons for his birthday so…. I went to Pioneer Gift and Copy. They have the cutest balloons there. I would recommend them for ANY of your balloon / party needs! I’m sure the people that were driving past me as I was trying to get this BIG bundle of balloons in my car were getting great entertainment. When I finally got home I quickly started to finish the cake so I could attempt to get the kitchen back in order BEFORE Nate got home… Well that DIDN’T happen. Nate got home and helped me put the kitchen back together. We were planning on having Tomato Macaroni for dinner and when I say WE I mean HE. (I do NOT like Tomato Macaroni I always joke with him that it would be the same if he just thickened some Tomato Soup and poured it over Noodles) Since we had just cleaned the kitchen we didn’t want to mess to up before his family came over for cake. So we went to Buffalo Wild Wings for dinner and stopped at Costco to get the Ice Cream that I had forgotten. I didn’t completely avoid Tomato Macaroni night though he asked if he could have it later this week….. 

I will FOREVER go there for my BALLOONS!

I like to have a theme that I can work with, so that I can coordinate the cake, gifts, and decorations. The theme for his birthday this year was FISHING! He got a FISH balloon... Some new shoes he can wear with pants... (Not sure what that means but that's what he asked for)  I was going to pick out a new hat for him but I struggled, so I took him to pick out a hat and his shoes. And I also got him a Fishing Wii game that he is HOOKED on! (No pun intended) 

He was excited to open his MASS present

Fake Surprise ( he picked it out)

Fake surprise take 2

Hey a REAL surprise face!!

 His cake was another story… I tried making my own fondant this time around and FAILED. It also didn’t help that I was a little short on the amount I had rolled out and I didn’t want to dye more so I had to pull it weird which made it NOT SMOOTH :( I am definitely learning through trial and error what works for me. It did taste AMAZING though. The top tier was White Cake with buttercream frosting with a fresh strawberry filling. The bottom was Chocolate Cake with Oreo buttercream and an Oreo filling. 

I was trying to get an angle that you could see the little fishing pole and wire you can kinda see it

HAPPY 24^th BIRTHDAY Nate!!!