Tag: Alicia Daniel

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Saving on groceries

groceries (free clip art)
groceries (free clip art)
I read an article on MSN Money central about feeding a family on $100 a week.  If I spent that much a week on food, I wouldn’t be able to pay all the other bills before now so I’m used to being tight with groceries.

There are better way to save money on food than they talk about.  I buy a lot of chicken and hamburger but we still eat well.  We have a little garden and Grandpa has a big garden so we home can and freeze a lot of vegetables so we don’t have to buy that many vegetables.  Mom is great at making different things with the same old meats.  You just have to find recipes that everyone likes and use your imagination a little.  I’ve learned to be a pretty good cook from trial and error mostly, and a lot of help from Mom.

Using coupons helps a lot, too. I have a “coupon-swapping” friend, Joann, and we try to get together at least twice a month to trade coupons. I enjoy catching up with her, and we always find we save a lot of money by swapping off the coupons that we clip from the papers.

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Happy Mother’s Day

I miss my mom. She is so far away I rarely get to see her. She is happy and healthy and doing well in her retirement. But I do wish I could see her more often.

Happy Mother’s Day, Mom

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Visiting my grandparents

I used to love to visit my grandparents house when I was a child. They had the most beautiful old grandfather clock I had ever seen. I loved to hear it chime. In fact, as a child, I would run into the sitting room where the grandfather clock was when it would start chiming just so I could hear it better. I loved that clock. My parents now have it and it will be mine to keep in my home when they are gone which I hope will be many years from now.

 

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My sister loves the stars

I have a sister that is an astronomer. She loves nothing more than to spend hours looking at the stars. She loves the Catadioptric Telescopes because of their quality. I don’t know that much about things like that so I had to do a little research to find out which one to buy her for her birthday. I found all kinds of information and all kinds of telescopes at opticsplanet.net.

The good thing is that she has now gotten into bird watching too. She is an outdoor girl anyway and by accident, she was playing with her old telescope one day and found an eagles next across the water from her house. There was even a couple of babies in the nest too. She was absolutely thrilled and that’s what got her into bird watching too. The eagles return every year too.

 

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Fashion models walking the runways

It’s that time of year when the fashion models are walking the runways and showing off the newest lines from our favorite designers. It is also the time of year when we have that urge to shop till we drop and freshen up our own wardrobes. This is not at all surprising as the advertisements have boosted to catch our interest.

Before you go shopping there is an absolute must that you should do. Clean out your closet! Get rid of clothing that no longer fits or that is worse for the wear from being constantly worn. I know that it is your favorite blouse, but it is threadbare and should be pitched in the garbage. You will find a new one to take its place I assure you.

Find your local discount store that have the same fashions at cheaper prices that the high dollar stores do. There are a lot to choose from like, Marshalls, TJ Maxx and Ross just to name a few. Outlet stores are a great place to shop for good deals on clothing as well and they have a lot to choose from. Look up your local sales as well, especially towards the holidays. Everyone is having a sale during the holiday shopping season.

One of the best shopping tools is of course the internet. You can find lots of online coupon codes and such to help you save money as you buy those have to have items. You would be smart to shop at online stores that offer free shipping too. This saves you more money than you can imagine when it comes to shopping online. You can go for that Beyonce’ look, but make sure it fits your body style as well. You really want to shop for what looks good on you, not just for what you see the celebrities wear.

Take your time when shopping. You can’t find that perfect outfit, if you are constantly in a rush. Pick your day to shop, make sure that you have nothing else to do and nowhere else to be so that you can be totally relaxed and enjoy the experience. If you are rushing through it, you might not try on that dress only to get home and find out it doesn’t look as good as you thought it might. The changing rooms are in the stores for a reason so USE THEM! It also helps to take a friend with you who is totally honest when you ask how something looks. This will prevent you from buying something completely wrong that you will only have to return later.

Have fun and don’t forget to accessorize ! Belt’s, scarves, faux jewelry, shoes and bags are all part of the ensemble, and will really make that outfit pop even if you are buying clothes for work. You can still look amazing and be thrifty, while rocking really good outfits that are suitable for an office job. Never think that work clothes have to be dull and boring.

 

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Clamps

I just had to order some c clamps online for the shop. He needs them for welding and two of his old ones broke. They were all really old and rusted and in dire need of replacing. So I am replacing all of them. I know that it will make things much easier on honey to be working with better tools.

c clamp
This is a c clamp
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Jokes and Pranks

April 1 is always going to be a date that makes me paranoid. My family is always loving jokes and pranks, and April Fool’s Day is like the Super Bowl of practical jokes to them. Every year they try to out do each other on April Fool’s Day. The only restriction is that a person or animal cannot be physically hurt during or as a result of the prank.

Sometimes my brothers go to incredible lengths to plan out complicated pranks. I know one year my youngest brother plotted his prank for over a month and was able to get cooperation from several people outside of the family to help him pull it off.

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Gifts for loved ones

When it comes to buying gifts for my loved ones, I am always looking for sales on good gifts. Sure you can rely on online Black Friday deals, but they are only once a year. I much prefer finding my sales on a daily or weekly basis. I have a budget and I do my best to stay on it. Sales are the best way to save money when you have a family. My family budget is not static, but I do try to keep it within certain limits. The kids helps as much as children can, by conserving on that kiddie stuff, but it doesn’t always do the job.

As frustrating as it can be to create a budget and stick to it, we do our best. It always helps to have the children involved in the budgeting and saving. There are many ways to achieve this. Coupons are one of the best ways to save money. You can find coupons for just about any product out there. Weather you are buying diapers or formula, it doesn’t matter. If you work together on your budget you can actually have a better marriage. Money is the one thing that every couple argues over. It is actually the easiest thing to overcome.

Once you have decided on what kind of lifestyle you want to have, you can agree on how to save your money. There are green lifestyles, as well as the I am not involved kind of lifestyles. No matter what you are into, you can save money.

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Ball with the kids

We had a great day today. We decided to get out of the house while we can before winter gets here, and go to the park. There is a couple of baseball diamonds there and we played ball with the kids for hours. The little guy got to go play for a little while on the playground as well. We did lose one ball over the back fence. As we were in the back field that butted up to the woods, we had to go search for it and found a ton of baseballs as well as a couple of softballs. Some had apparently been there for a long time and were about ruined, but the kids were happy to find them anyway. They will play with them with the dog and that way he won’t get their good baseballs and tear them up. It was a great day.

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Community Service Clubs VA

My good friend has become involved in a community service club va recently, and she has been on an emotional roller-coaster ride ever since. It would seem that even though the club she joined told her that they needed certain types of help, and said that they knew that they needed to change, and asked her for help, when she provided that help, and produced what they needed, they quickly realized how inept they must look and became quite jealous over the success of my friend’s efforts!

So they started to treat her very badly, and she went and complained to one of the “higher muckity-mucks” of the club, who quickly made arrangements to try to get her promoted to a position out of that club, so she could help MORE clubs with her efforts than just that one club.

She has been promoted to a better position, and although she still has to deal with the original club, and their disagreeable antics, the other clubs in the Community Service VA organization have been quite complimentary about all of the hard work and efforts that she has been doing to help the clubs with their goals.

She even recently learned how to convert a power-point presentation and turn it into a video and upload it to YouTube, all to promote the Community Service Club VA!

Everyone in the organization that saw the video commented on how much they liked it, although the actual club it is promoting didn’t do so much as to grunt an acknowledgement!

So much for Goodwill!

But most of the rest of the 24 clubs in her District seem to like her, so most of the time she is feeling appreciated, and that is a good thing.