Food Drive Fun

Oh the stuff I do to indulge my children. Actually, I think I was itching to go shopping anyway...

G told me last night that she needed a bunch - preferably a hundred - individually packaged breakfast items for a food drive. The music students at her school were having a contest on which class brought in the most stuff and, apparently, as long as the item was sold at the store as an individual item it counted as one item  - like a box of 6 granola bars only counts as one since it's ONE box, but if you brought in 6 individually sold granola bars it counts as SIX items. Not sure about the fairness of this but, sure, I can play that game.

What I really wanted was free Suave body wash from Kroger. I'm down to my last bottle of body wash. Kroger has Suave body wash for $1.99. If you buy two bottles a Catalina coupon for $2 off your next order will print when you check out. I also have Suave body wash coupons for "Buy One, Get One Free." So... buy 2 Suave, pay $1.99 + tax, get a $2 coupon. Essentially the body wash is free, especially if you have a way to "roll" your coupon and buy something else that you need. The "need" for breakfast items solved that problem.

G had mentioned that one of the kids had brought in 20 Powerbars and it counted as 20 items. I looked at those. Kroger was having a Mega Sale where if you bought 10 Mega Sale items you'd get $5 off instantly at checkout. Powerbars were $0.50 a piece at the Mega Sale price... BUT! right next to them were the Odwalla bars. They ended up $0.17 a piece at the Mega Sale price (regular price is $1 a bar). DING DING DING!!! I found my breakfast item.

Ended up with 110 Odwalla Bars and 7 bottles of Suave body wash for $18.30. Actually ended up a bit money ahead on the Suave because one of the cashiers rang the free Suave coupon at it's maximum value of $3 instead of the actual $1.99 value, plus I'm getting $2 back from Savingstar for purchasing 2 bottles of Suave. I should have ended up with 8 bottles of body wash but the first time I tried to "roll" the $2 Catalina coupon I had two more bottles of Suave in my transaction and apparently the Catalina won't print out another $2 coupon if you buy Suave and use the Catalina you already have on that transaction. The cashier couldn't give me my coupon back and the transaction was already completed so she ended up giving me one bottle and refunding my money for the second bottle, so I didn't end up with any more money out of pocket but got shorted a bottle of body wash. Oh well... after that I bought the Odwalla 20 and 30 bars at a time and alternated using the $2 Catalina and buying Suave on the transactions where I didn't use the $2 coupon.

$18.30 out of pocket for everything.

Will get another $2 back from Savingstar

We're keeping 10 Odwalla Bars and donating the rest plus I'm stocked back up on (free) body wash. The Odwalla deal expires tonight (11/16/16). The Suave body wash Catalina will print through 11/23/16 so if you can find some Suave coupons get yourself some free body wash. Even without the coupon it's a pretty good deal as it ends up $1 a bottle.

Marathon Prep Week 2

So... Week 2 didn't go quite as smoothly as Week 1 but here it is...

Sunday 11/6 - Rest. Worked all day.

Monday 11/7 - 3 easy miles on the Monon. This is where I was glad I had a training schedule. Usually I feel like I should run at least 5-6 miles every time I go out. However, since the schedule said I ONLY had to do 3, I did 3 and felt good about it.

Tuesday 11/8 - 5 miles. Averaged 8:49 pace. It was Run Club night. Almost everyone else had run the Monumental Marathon on Saturday so it was basically a shake out run. I was happy to keep up with the fast kids on their "shake out" run. Their warm up pace is my marathon pace. We went out for beers afterwards. There I figured out I had 10-20 years on about all the girls in that group. Ok, now I don't feel quite that bad about not keeping up with them... but heck, I want to run with them someday anyway!

Wednesday 11/9 - 14 miles. I looked at my work schedule and was afraid I wasn't going to get a long run worked in this week unless I did it today. I decided to run it around my house on the county roads but didn't get out until after 4 pm. Overall, it was a great run. Everything was going smoothly except that with 6 miles to go, the sun sank over the horizon. With 3 miles to go, it was completely dark. The darkness wasn't a big deal because there was almost a full moon and I could see perfectly well in the moonlight. The problem was that I was out with no lights and absolutely no reflection on a county road with no lights and no shoulder. I knew for a fact that I couldn't be seen. That combo led to a hair-raising last couple miles... with me scrambling up embankments, diving into waist high brush, or climbing down ravines every time a car came by. At one point I was in waist high grass when I noticed that my next step seemed to be into some dark abyss, and stopped myself right before I fell 10 feet into a drainage ditch. Instead, I stood where I was and climbed back onto the roadway as soon as the oncoming car passed. I was ecstatic to get within a half mile of my house where I could run through people's yards if I had to. Got done at 6:22 pm. Who'd a thunk it would be so dark at 6 pm? With all that, I ended up averaging 10:03 pace. I had no idea how cut up my legs were until I got in the shower and the water hit me.

Thursday 11/10 - Rest. This was either going to be a rest day or a swim day. I woke up with an uncomfortable pressure in both my knees. This happens every now and then when I run longer than I'm used to. I decided my body needed some rest. That pressure sensation didn't leave my knees until evening. Then I went to work for 12 hours.

Friday 11/11 - Zero miles. I had two more runs left on my schedule - a 3 miler and a 7 miler. However, I did not recover well from my night shift. For a whole laundry list of reasons I only got 3 hours of sleep after I got home. Pretty much felt awful, then had to go back to work for another 12 hours.

Saturday 11/12 - Zero miles. Got home from work in the morning and got a bit more sleep. Woke up around noon, ran some errands with my older daughter, then had to go back to sleep so, basically, spent the day recovering from the last two days sleep-wise and didn't get any running in. Glad I got my long run in earlier in the week, otherwise it would not have happened!

Week 2 Total Miles: 22

Memories on the Monon - Marathon Prep Week 1

For my long run today I ran the Monon south of Kessler Boulevard...

The Monon is the railroad tracks from my childhood. It is now a greenway trail. When I first started running on the Monon, I would access it where it ran next to my daughter's dance studio in Carmel. From there I could run it North until it ended in Quaker Park in Westfield, IN. If I ran it south, I never had to go south of Broadripple to get my miles in because I had started so far north. Lately though, I've been starting my runs at the Jordan YMCA on 86th Street which has me starting much further south on the trail.

Today I went south of the trestle bridge for the first time in 30 years...

This is the railroad trestle bridge over Kessler. My high school, Bishop Chatard, and my grade school across the street, Christ the King, is a few blocks down the street on Kessler.

I crossed the trestle bridge and suddenly I was running back into my childhood. My own Brigadoon. I could almost hear the bagpipes...

Around 56th Street I passed Canterbury Park. I always called it Carvel Park because Carvel is the name of the road that runs next to it. I sometimes stopped here when I walked home from school to read or do homework. I always thought it was like a secret park because it was around a bend in the road and you didn't expect a park to be there until you turned the corner.

My friend Jean Marie lived right around the bend from the park. Laura lived catty corner from her. Another block down 56th street was where my cousins lived, and catty corner from their house was where Jill used to live before she moved to Ohio.

54th Street

54th Street. Right down the street was Haverford Little League where I played softball. One of my most memorable events was the end of season mother-daughter game where the moms played the daughters in their daughter's positions. My mom is the most un-athletic person you will ever meet. She ended up on the pitcher's mound. On the very last play of the game, Mary Dury hit a line drive straight at her. In a defensive maneuver, my mom put out her bare hand to protect herself and caught the ball. The ball had been hit so hard it flattened the band on her platinum ring. I couldn't believe she caught it!

Today I found this cute fruit stand and collection of shops that had not been there before.

Crossing the street I found a wall that had not been there in the past, painted with a mural...

The wall ran from 54th Street to 52nd Street. It was beautiful, yet I felt like it was protecting the Monon from the world on the other side.

52nd Street

52nd Street. Right around the bend on the north side of the street was the apartment complex where Michelle lived. This was also the south boundary for Haverford Little League. I remember my coach taking me aside at the end of the season, telling me I could not play on their post-season All-Star team because I lived "out of district." Living south of 52nd Street made me an outsider. The neighborhood got a little scarier south of 52nd Street.

On 52nd Street. I'm certain this used to be a church.

There was a wall on the west side of the tracks between 52nd Street and 49th Street. The last time I saw this wall it was white and covered in gang graffiti. Not so today...





On the east side of the trail were the backyards of my childhood. These were the backyards we ran through... from the Starlin's to the Dunham's. Somedays we'd creep through the thick underbrush and get on the forbidden tracks themselves, putting pennies on the tracks for the train to crush and covering our ears as the train passed by. It was strange seeing the yards fenced in.

49th Street...

49th Street

My childhood home is two blocks down the street. On summer days I remember lemon twisting down the street with Lynn and Dawn to the Lindner's on 49th and College for ice cream. You could get a second scoop for a nickel there.

Two blocks is a world away from the present day beauty of the Monon. My old house still has bars on the windows. My father-in-law put them up for my parents after the final time our house was burglarized. After that they threw in the towel and moved into an apartment because it was too frightening to live there. Just this week a woman was shot to death in her home at 44th and Norwaldo, a stone's throw away. Time still has not changed this neighborhood. Maybe, someday...

46th Street

46th Street. Right around the bend are the homes and apartment complex where I used to deliver newspapers. Delivering the Indianapolis News, the evening newspaper, was my first after school job in grade school. I had 144 customers on my route and the paper had to be delivered by 5 pm. On Saturdays we were suppose to collect money from our customers and turn it in to our station master at a small building further down on 46th Street. If we had a difficult customer, we would report them to the station master so he could go deal with them. As I recall, I passed this route on to Michelle when I decided I was done delivering papers.

In the summer time we would go to the Indiana State Fair. We went by ourselves as kids. We could either walk or ride our bikes there. All you had to do was follow the railroad tracks.

Alleys between 46th Street and 42nd Street

There are alleys that run behind all the houses so you didn't have to get on the tracks themselves.

42nd Street

42nd Street. This is the north entrance to the Indiana State Fairgrounds. The Indiana School for the Deaf is across the street.

Indiana State Fairgrounds

38th Street

38th Street. A couple blocks down at 38th and Washington Boulevard used to be a Roselyn Bakery. My mom would stop there to get her favorite pastry, custard puffs. My parents owned a wig shop at 38th and Illinois while I was in grade school. They never talked about it much because they felt like it was below their social stature to run a business like that but it paid the bills. They later sold it to my aunt and uncle's family and my uncle opened up his own store two doors down from my parents' original store so he ran that store and his wife ran the wig shop. My uncle was later murdered in his store. A personal vendetta. His cash register was untouched; his Rolex was left on his wrist. It's still an unsolved crime. Those stores are no longer there. It's a parking lot.

At 38th Street I turned around, relived it all, then crossed the trestle bridge back into the present. Long run for the day done. 13 miles.

So here's the Week One summary...

Sunday - Rest

Monday - 3 miles easy on the Monon.

Tuesday - 6 miles. Run Club day. Coach Matt told me when I started that all I needed to do was push myself a little faster every practice since I was just starting back. Most of the runners were running a race on Saturday so it was more a shake out pace run. I am still trying to figure out how fast to run. Quite frankly, I didn't feel like running all that fast but found someone to run with. Ended up averaging 9:25 miles so thank you Margo for running with me and keeping me honest in my efforts!

Wednesday - Swam 1600 meters.

Thursday - 3 miles easy on the Monon. Plus, had the best massage of my life that morning. I think Craig rubbed out my calves with hot rocks or something...

Friday - 6 miles at marathon pace on the Monon

Didn't know how this was going to go. I wasn't even sure what my "marathon pace" should be. All I can say is - Thank You Jesus for muscle memory!! Plus, I think I'm mentally tougher and more confident in my ability than I was two years ago when I crashed and burned two miles into this same run.

Saturday - 13 miles

Week 1 Total Miles: 31 Miles

The Next Level

Last year I was listening to a series of webinars by Lewis Howes when he posed a question - What are you avoiding to get you to the next level?

To me, in terms of my running, the answer was obvious. I needed more structured speed work. I needed to run with a group and run regularly with runners that were faster than me. The answer was obvious. The question was whether I really wanted that next level.

For well over a year I didn't want it. I was tired of hurting every day. I was tired of running when I didn't feel like running. I felt guilty for all the family and kid stuff that I felt I should have been attending to rather than trying to squeeze in a run or a race. My goal had been Boston. I did it. I laid all my ghosts of what I could have been in the past to rest. I didn't need anything else.

Now it's time for that next level. I'm rested. I'm content. For once in my life I feel like I'm caught up. I'm ready to challenge myself again.

I took most of the summer off running. I got better at swimming. I can finally say I feel like I really know how to swim now. My heart no longer beats out of my chest after a lap and I don't feel like I'm thrashing around like a dying whale. I can swim a mile without stopping. It takes me almost an hour. But hey, that means I can swim for an hour. That must mean that I know how to swim!

I started back running about a month ago. The first 10 days were pretty ugly, then suddenly it all clicked again. Then I took a big breath and took that next step. I signed up for a running club to do speed sessions on Tuesday nights. I signed up to run with all the fast kids in Indy. Gulp.

Boston is in the back of my brain. I think I want to do it again. Concentrate on just Boston this time. Run it for time. I had the experience to take it all in. I'd have to say there is nothing in the road racing world like turning that corner onto Boylston, seeing and hearing the thunder of the crowd as you finish. I'm not sure when it's going to happen but I want to do it again.

Right now I have no races on the schedule. Saturday mornings are filled with driving my younger daughter to dance. My older daughter is a senior in high school. I don't want to miss her activities either. My training plan is this... be marathon ready. If there is a spring marathon that will work into my schedule, I want to be ready for it. Problem is I won't know what will work until maybe 4 weeks out until my work schedule gets published. I've already used my days off requests to accommodate my kids' activities rather than my race plans. That's not to say I've looked at various spring marathons...

Napa is March 5th. Carmel is April 22nd. Derby is April 29th. Maybe, possibly, one of those will work into my schedule. So this is Week One. I've started a training schedule again. I'm using the one I made up for Napa 2015...

I'm changing it up slightly as I'll be doing speed sessions on Tuesdays and swim days on Wednesdays as long as my work schedule allows. Last time I did this plan I was actually "marathon ready" by the time I ran the Charleston Marathon in January as a training run so it should get me where I need to be. After that, it will be a matter of maintaining fitness without injury until the right race comes along.

This evening will be my marathon pace run. I'm going to play it by ear to see what kind of pace I can maintain. Happy to be running again!

Maximizing My Shutterfly Deals - Opinions and Advice

Shutterfly. Do you use it? Deal seekers seem to have a love hate relationship with that site. I, personally, love the site. The hardcore Slickdealers (they live at slickdeals.net, and they are brutal) think the site is a rip off.

I love it because everything is always "free." "Free" but you have to pay for shipping. This is where the Slickdealers tear it apart. I do admit, the shipping does seem a bit exorbitant. Since opening my Etsy shop, I've learned quite a bit about shipping. You can send stuff USPS First Class if it weighs under 16 oz. If it's anything bigger than a legal size envelope it costs a minimum of $2.62 to send it anywhere, even if it's to your neighbor. Insurance is a minimum of $0.75. Then there's the cost of the packaging itself to make sure the item arrives at it's final destination in good condition. Still... I agree... Shutterfly shipping is overpriced. The Slickdealers feel like they sell junk for free and profit on the shipping.

Here's why I love the site. Yes, I almost always get everything for "free." That's because almost every other site or rewards program I belong to sends me free Shutterfly codes or offer Shutterfly rewards. I've received free emailed codes from Best Buy, JoAnn, Panera, P&G, Kellogg's Family Rewards, and My Coke Rewards, just to name a couple off the top of my head. I also have a bajillion points at My Coke Rewards that I can redeem for stuff. Plus, here lately, it seems Shutterfly itself offers a choice of "free" items every weekend. It used to be free calendars around the end of the year and 101 free prints about every other month but here lately the free stuff has been flowing, well, freely. I've tried out lots of items and, quite frankly, am pleased with the quality of what I've received. I'd hardly call it "junk."

I think their items make great unique gifts. Last year I tried out their photo playing cards...

Seriously adorable playing cards for the person who has everything!

They are normally $19.99 (which I'd never pay) but I got them with a free code and paid $7.99 in shipping. I thought they were worth $7.99. I've also gotten their photo magnets as gifts for the kids. They work really well for lockers. They run normally $5.99 to $8.99 but with the free code it's $3.99 for shipping. I also always get my parents and my in-laws a calendar for Christmas with all our photos from the past year. Normal price is $24.99 but there's always a free code out over the holidays. The shipping is $6.99.


Yes, you have to pay shipping. Even with the shipping though, it comes to a "fair" price for the product. For instance, the 101 free prints...

Get 101 prints, pay $7.99 shipping. That comes to about $0.08 a print. That's still much less expensive than what you can get at your local store.

However, get 99 prints (you don't HAVE to use all 101 of them) and the shipping drops to $5.99. That's $0.06 a print. Definitely less than what you pay at the store. That's how I buy my 4x6 prints.

I've been working on quite a few photo projects lately. I also decided that since taking the Christmas Pledge last year worked so well I'm doing it again and decided to order my Christmas cards early. I've ordered cards from several different places in the past but I like the quality, look, and options available at Shutterfly the best. Of course, they are also the most expensive if you pay regular rip retail.

So... I found myself with a confluence of great Shutterfly deals this weekend. Currently, Shutterfly has a code out (WICKED, good til 11/2) which gives you 50% off photo books, 40% off cards, and 30% off everything else. 40% off on cards is about as good as it gets. Sometimes they'll go 50% off but I had some other codes that were expiring.

Here was my plan. Pay for the Christmas cards I wanted and get to $39. At $39 free shipping for your whole order kicks in (with code SHIP39). You have to buy your cards in multiples of 5 but there is also a free card code (CARD4U) that gets you one for free. So, got 20 trifold cards, one was free and it was $45.02 ($42.07 + $2.95 tax) for the rest with the 40% off. That's as close to $39 as I could get.

Now I'm not paying $45 for just 20 cards. I loaded my cart up with all my other freebies. Code 101TREATS (expired yesterday) got me 101 4x6 prints. My Coke Rewards had given me another 101 free print code that expires on 11/30 so I used that. I redeemed 370 My Coke Rewards points for another 20 free cards. Kellogg's Family Rewards had sent me a code for two 8x10 prints that expires on 11/6 so I used that. Code GIVETHANKS (expires 11/16) gave me 12 free mix and match stationary set cards.

So... for $45.02 I got:

40 Christmas cards
202 4x6 photos
2 8x10 photos
12 mix and match stationary cards (they are the size of Thank You notes)

I'm thinking that's probably worth $45. The site says I saved $34.95 in free shipping. Really? Do you really think it costs $35 to ship all that? I'm thinking not... Site also says I saved $148.80 for all my freebies and discounts, meaning full rip retail for my order with tax but before shipping would have been $204.23. Now is all that stuff really worth $204? No freakin" way!

Locally, I probably could have got the prints for $0.10 a piece... so about $20. The 8x10's are $3.99 at Walgreens but they often have 40-50% off... so about $4 for 2. 40 personalized photo Christmas cards can easily run $2 a piece but most stores will run 50% off... that's still $40. The stationary cards I just threw in because they were free. Even without the stationary cards though, I'm looking at a local store price of at least $64 + tax, so I think I did pretty well. Plus, I got the exact cards I wanted for Christmas.

It pays to be prepared. If I had had my wall calendars done, I would have used some My Coke Rewards points and gotten them for free too... but I've been too busy to make them yet so I'll end up paying the shipping when the free codes come out. I generally back all my photos up on the site so I did have all my photos up to date this weekend to make my cards and print out what I wanted.

So there you have it. Love it or hate it. If you can stomach the shipping you can get some fair deals. My latest strategy though has been to actually buy the minimum to get free shipping when I can stack a bunch of deals at once. Granted, the timing has to be right to do this. It pays to be prepared!

Goals For Today

Goals for today...

1. Sleep
2. Run
3. Plant daffodils

Sounds so simple when it's written out, right? Let's see what I can accomplish.

I worked the night shift last night and I have to go back tonight so that's why sleep is first on the list. I took the summer off running but I'm back at it. Today is one of those days where I will blow it off unless I consciously schedule it. And the daffodils... well, they jumped into my shopping cart at Meijer this week. I've wanted some Spring daffodils for a couple years now. I spent several days last week getting my yard cleaned up so it seemed serendipitous when I saw the bulbs on the clearance table this week and I snagged them. It's the end of October and it's suppose to get up to 70 degrees today. I think I was meant to have daffodils.

Yes, I'm back to blogging. Seems like I get more done when my thoughts are spelled out.

There are two efficiency "tools" if you can call them that I have learned this year. The first is more like a mantra.

Finish what you started.

Finish what you started, all at once. It is far more efficient to start one task and finish it before starting another. Focus and finish, whether it's a patient's chart or putting away laundry.

Going kind of hand in hand with this - make a list of the 5 most important things that you want to accomplish in a day, then do those 5 things. Do not start anything else until you get those 5 things done. Today I have the luxury of only 3 things. Let's see what I can do. Eight hours left before I have to go back to work. G'night !

Playing the Grocery Game This Week - A Few Deals and Steals

Fair season is over so what's a girl to do? Work on the stockpile of course! I'm thankful for what I had stocked up cause I really didn't have time to hunt down any deals on pantry or household supplies the last couple months but I didn't have to run out and buy any necessities either. Last week though, I was down to my last roll of paper towels, last bottle of laundry detergent, and two bottles of shampoo so I knew it was time to seriously get back in the game again.

Thanks to some deals at CVS, I got my paper towels, shampoo and laundry detergent. Phew, that was close.

Now, onto this week's deals...

Crazy deal at Meijer if you like peanut butter.

Need I say more? Spend $2.55, get $2.50 back. Peanut butter for $0.05.
You can only buy one at a time and you cannot buy another jar of this peanut butter with the coupon if you want another coupon to print so best bet is to buy them separately. I got three earlier this week but I couldn't find any today so I'm kind of kicking myself for not getting more when I had the chance.

On to Walgreens...

Two really great deals this week. First, Oxiclean HD liquid laundry detergent is on sale for $3.99 and there is a $3 coupon out both in Sunday's inserts as well as an online printable, making it $0.99.

Next, all Almay is on sale Buy One, Get One 50% off. There is an online manufacturer's printable coupon for $5 off any 2 Almay as well as a Walgreens coupon (in their monthly coupon book) for $4 off any 2 Almay. Make up remover wipes are $5.99. Both my kids use these. If you buy 2 packages, the first rings up $5.99 and the second rings up $2.99. Use the $5 manufacturer's coupon FIRST and the register will take $5 off your total. Use the Walgreens coupon next and it will take $2 off every Almay product in your transaction... I say it this way because with the Walgreens coupons you only need one coupon and it will apply to your whole transaction. If you had 4 Almay products, it would still take $2 off every product. As long as you have a multiple of 2, it will take $2 off every product.

You have to get the manufacturer's coupon scanned FIRST. If the Walgreens coupon gets scanned first it will take the total value of the two items below $5 and the manufacturer's coupon may not work, or at least that's the way it used to be... there's been many register upgrades at Walgreens but I've always had my coupons work this way so I'm not deviating from what I know!

Anyhoos... if you've done the math by now, you've realized that it's now -$0.02 for 2 packages of make up remover wipes that are normally $5.99 each.

If you follow the blog, you also know that I normally only buy Arm & Hammer liquid laundry detergent because everything else makes my husband's skin fall off. However, I've found that my kids' skin isn't that sensitive and mine certainly isn't, so I decided to buy the Oxiclean with the Almay - that way my overall subtotal won't go negative - cause sometimes cash registers or cashiers freak out when that happens, and heck, if we hate the Oxiclean, it's such a stupid deal anyway I'm sure some food pantry would love the donation.

Finding the Almay and Oxiclean was hit or miss. There is only shelf space for 4 packages of Almay wipes in any store. In the stores that had 3, I bought 2. One store had 4 so I bought all 4. I'm thinking they surely have more in their stockroom but it was too much trouble to ask. The Oxiclean was easier to find and the store in Carmel actually had a whole endcap stocked.

I had a couple other Walgreens Balance Rewards deals loaded onto my account - Get 2000 points when you spend $10 and Get 7000 points when you spend $20. 1000 points is worth $1. The total amount spent is calculated before manufacturer's coupons but after Walgreens coupons... so 2 Almay would count as $4.98 spent.

At one store I got 4 Almay and one Oxiclean. That netted me the 2000 point reward. At another store I struck out on the Almay (all gone) but I got 2 Oxiclean, a Venus Swirl razor for $9.99, and 2 bags of Crunchmaster Crackers for 2/$4. I had a coupon for a free Venus razor (get on their mailing list and they will send you a free coupon a couple times a year), two $3 Oxiclean coupons, and a $1 Crunchmaster coupon so that netted me the 7000 point reward, plus I got $1.50 back from Checkout 51 for the Crunchmaster Crackers and $2 back for the Venus razor.

Walgreens Haul

Total Spent $12.49

(Total at regular prices was an insane $108.36!)

Earned 9500 Balance Rewards Points ($9.50)

Earned $3.50 back from Checkout 51

...which means I actually came out $0.51 ahead :)

...and it's only Wednesday. I'll be looking for more peanut butter until the promotion ends and I'll keep an eye out for more Almay since I still have more coupons. It was such a great deal I actually dug out my old laptop that I use solely as a coupon printer so I could get more prints.

All this Almay now brings me to another "issue." The "problem" with couponing is that often times I end up with a large amount of whatever the sale item of the week is, be it make up wipes, shampoo, or cereal, and kids feel like it's a free for all. What used to happen is that I'd find 5 different boxes of cereal opened up or 5 different kinds of shampoo lining the tub. It made me crazy. I finally "hid" the stockpile, bringing stuff out only when we needed a new box or bottle. The kids knew this but as long as it wasn't easily accessible (like stored up in MY bathroom rather than THEIRS) this kept them from opening too many new things at once.

The kids also have allowances and are supposed to buy the "non-essential" items on their own. Stuff like candy, extra clothes, and I put make up in that category. I got tired of them wanting me to drive them to the store for an overpriced candy bar or pack of gum - cause heck, there's ALWAYS a deal on junk food - so I started buying it when it was on sale and then they could buy it from me cheaper than getting it at the store, like $0.50 for a pack of gum and such. I still provide their essential hygiene items and, if they give me enough notice (of when they're going to run out), I'll even get their favorite brands. What I've noticed though, or maybe lots of kids are like this and I'm being overly sensitive, is that since they know the stuff is probably free or close to nothing, they don't respect it or think it's worth anything. I find half-full tubes of toothpaste with the caps gone and dried up thrown in the trash, packages of make up wipes, again half-full, not sealed back up so dried out and in the trash or... currently on the bathroom floor...

So... what do you think I ought to charge them for make up wipes?

Happy hunting!

2016 Indiana State Fair Wrap Up

The season is done. Quite honestly I'm relieved it's over. I'm ready to move on and be, well, healthy again. I've been too busy to exercise in almost two months and I've been eating like crap. I feel like I'm literally bursting out of my clothes and it's just not a good feeling. My new diet starts tomorrow. So here's how the last few days went...

Friday August 19th

Today was the Indiana Grown Contest. As I wrote earlier, the requirements of the contest were to use at least two items off the list of Indiana Grown products provided and make any dish. Judging criteria were: 40% Taste and Flavor, 25% Creativity and Originality, 25% Texture and Consistency, and 10% Appearance and Presentation. I decided I would try to use as many of the products as possible to make a palatable dish. I settled on making an appetizer.

Here was the vision... use Indiana Kitchen Bacon, Risin' Creek Creamery goat cheese, and Charlie's Premium Pita chips to make a mini-tart size crust. I'd throw everything in a food processor and grind it up. Surely there would be enough moisture and fat in the bacon and goat cheese to hold the crumbled pita chips together to form a "dough" that I could press into a mini muffin pan to make a "crust." Problem was, I couldn't find the pita chips. I finally ended up contacting the company and found that they didn't make them anymore. Well phooey! I spent several days on a wild goose chase looking all over central Indiana for those pita chips. At least I wasn't crazy. They didn't exist. Needless to say I was a bit irked at the contest sponsors for listing something that no longer existed. Charlie's Premium wasn't even aware their product was featured in a State Fair contest.

Back to the drawing board. I ended up substituting corn meal for the pita chips. Next I made a baked chicken breast, diced it in little pieces, and covered it in Jen's Original BBQ sauce. I bought the BBQ sauce out at the fairgrounds and didn't have a chance to taste it before I bought it. I'm glad I bought the Original instead of the Sassy cause the Original had quite a spicy kick to it. I really liked it.

I couldn't find the Risin' Creek Creamery goat cheese at the fairgrounds or at the grocery store either so I went to their website to find that it was only sold at a couple local farmer's markets on Saturday mornings and at a grocery store in Bloomington, IN. I ended up sending a friend to the Franklin Farmer's Market to pick up the goat cheese for me since I was at the fairground for Pie Day on Saturday before the contest.

I mixed some Eisele's Honey that I had purchased at the fairgrounds with the goat cheese, then I cooked more Indiana Kitchen bacon. I put 2 pieces of arugula (yes, it was back in the stores this week), a dollop of honey goat cheese, a dollop of BBQ chicken, a couple kernels of sweet corn, a couple pieces of bacon, and a couple pieces of chopped red onion into the cornmeal bacon shell and called my little appetizer "A Taste of Indiana."

I presented it on an Indiana state shaped cutting board surrounded by a blue background (it was a cut down disposable tablecloth) and gold stars scattered about, reminiscent of the Indiana flag.

We had three judges - a food specialist from Ivy Tech, a nutritionist with a food science degree from Purdue University, and the current Indiana State Fair queen. The "open judging" wasn't really what I'd call an open judging. Each judge filled out score sheets as they tried the food. However, none of the judges made any comments and the food items weren't even introduced. Instead, while the judges were sampling food on stage a spokesperson from Indiana Grown first talked about the companies that were represented in the contest and then had each of the contestants come up on stage and answer some questions about themselves - their background, fair experience, why they were doing the contest, etc. By the time this was over the judges had tried all the food. The judges never left the stage or even talked to each other. They just each filled out their individual scorecard on each item. When they were done, someone tabulated all the scorecards and the winners were announced.

My name was the first one announced. I got Honorable Mention. Another woman got the other Honorable Mention but I don't know what she made. Christine Reinecker got Third for, I think, a cheese cake. Phyllis Hine got Second for an Apple Yogurt Tart. I don't know the person that got First but she made a pound cake.

I got my judging sheets back and saw that I got scores of 75, 85, and 98... so at least one of those judges liked my dish. Personally, I wasn't crazy about how the little crust turned out but it is what it is. It was creative and it was pretty... and that finished out my contests.

I went back on Saturday night with my daughters and my older daughter's boyfriend. We literally ate our way around the Fair - fried pickles, ribbon fries with cheese, strawberry shortcake, kebabs, um... G insisted on having a fruit cup..., then deep fried s'mores (totally over rated - it was a deep fried marshmallow sprinkled with graham cracker crumbs and a squirt of chocolate syrup), a deep fried Snickers, cinnamon roasted pecans, and to finish it off, milkshakes and grilled cheese sandwiches. Amazing how much food teenagers can eat. Admittedly, I ate a bite of everything too.

Like I said - diet starts tomorrow!

And then it was over. We got home at 11 pm and the kids passed out in the car, presumably from a food coma.

Yesterday I picked up my ribbons.

The end.

2016 Indiana State Fair - Redemption

After all the excitement over my cakes the weekend before the Fair officially started, the first week of the Fair was a real let down.

As you recall, the first sponsored contest I was in - Domino Sugar's Bicentennial Cupcake Bakeoff - I withdrew because I was too tired. I simply did not have the energy to be creative. That was Sunday August 7th.

The next sponsored contest was the Little Red Door Cancer Agency's Eat Well, Live Well Contest. This was one that I had won last year. Again, I was too tired to be creative. I didn't expect to do well and thus, I didn't place. That was Wednesday August 10th.

Next up was Gold Medal Flour's Cookie Contest. Make your best original cookie recipe. I really tried with this one. I was dreaming up cookie recipes even before the Fair started. Originally I was going to do some type of pistachio cardamom shortbread cookie with either a chocolate filling or coating. I tried multiple variations and the chocolate wouldn't work. Then I tried coconut shortbread. Then I went off on a tangent and tried a couple different butter pecan cookies. Nothing quite had that oh-so-good mouth-feel of a cookie. They were all either too flour-y or cake-y or just too plain.

No

No

All no!

It finally came down to the night before the contest and I decided to go with a pistachio coconut shortbread type cookie. I personally liked the cookie but had reservations about how well it would compete. Was it too plain? I dressed it up by sprinkling chopped pistachios and coconut on top of the cookie. Would it stay crisp? In order to get a crunchy cookie, no matter what oven temperature or length of time I baked it, the cookie always came out rather brown on the edges. Depending on how picky the judge was, generally you get docked for having too brown of a cookie. With the butter, sugar, and nut content of the cookie, this was going to turn out brown no matter what. The other issue was that it was a rather thin cookie and I didn't know how long it would stay crisp sitting out on a plate on a rainy or humid day waiting to get judged. In the end, I even left the word "shortbread" out of my cookie description because I didn't want to categorize my cookie as such in case it didn't stay crisp. Pistachio Coconut Medallions is what I called my cookie. I made my cookies on Thursday night and put them in an airtight container.

Unlike all the thought and experimentation that went on with the cookies, I made up my recipe for the Gold Medal Pie Contest on Thursday night. I seized the fact that this pie didn't have to abide by the usual food safety rules at the Fair, meaning I could make a cream or custard pie. Basically anything goes as long as it uses a cup of Gold Medal Flour. I brainstormed and came up with a Tiramisu Pie. My favorite tiramisu recipe in a pie crust. How could you go wrong with Tiramisu?

I had the filling down. I just had to figure out a pie crust as that is where the requisite cup of Gold Medal Flour would be. It's no secret by now. I can't roll a pie crust. Every year I tell myself THIS will be the year! I will master pie crusts. Then, every year I get too busy and go with my stand by press-in oil crust. Quite honestly, this crust has served me well. However, the crust will only work for a single crust filled pie...

Since the Tiramisu Pie was a cream pie, I needed a pre-baked pie crust. First I tried making an oil crust and baking it by itself. Even with using foil and pie weights, the crust came out doughy and poofy and altogether plain BAD. I wasn't even going to TRY to master a rolled crust at this juncture so I brainstormed some more. Ah ha! A shortbread crust. That would go perfectly with the filling too. However, I had tried using shortbread cookie dough to make little tart-like pies in muffin pans before and I knew from prior experience that the dough on the sides of the pan tended to slide down into the bottom of the pan so you always ended up with a thick bottom and little misshapen sides. But... I found a shortbread pie crust recipe on line and the photo of the finished product looked perfect...

So... against my better judgement, I made the shortbread crust as directed...and, as I suspected, all the dough on the sides shrank to the bottom of the pan. ARGHHH. Out of frustration I flipped the failed pie crust out on a cookie sheet so at least the thick bottom would bake all the way through...

,,, and then I had another brainstorm. I have made graham cracker crust pies before where I'd crushed graham cracker crumbs and the mixed them with butter to press into a pan. Why not shortbread crumbs? I took out my frustrations on the failed shortbread crust  and crushed them into crumbs.

Now for some moisture to hold it all together. Butter? Naw... half the shortbread was already butter. Liquor? I put in a tablespoon of Kahlua but  realized I'd need a heck more than a tablespoon and the liquor wasn't going to cook off. Chocolate? Of course! I melted some chocolate chips. Physics tells me the chocolate would have to regain its solid form as it cools and it should hold the shortbread crumbs together.

Chocolate Shortbread Cookie Crust

Then I filled the pie. It turned out lovely. We tried it with dinner Thursday night. By now my family was burned out on trying sweet things every day but they loved the pie and ate the whole thing. I was incredibly pleased with myself for this brainstorm. My husband's only suggestion was to punch up

the coffee flavor a little bit more.

filling the pie

The Gold Medal Cookie Contest was Friday August 12th. Judging started at 3 pm. All my pies as well as the pie for the Gold Medal Pie Contest were due in by 11:30 am the next morning. Friday morning I started making pies as soon as the kids left for school.

First up was my blueberry, pineapple, and coconut pie. I called it Blueberries in Paradise and entered it in the "other" pie category. This was the same pie I had won with in the Johnson County Fair this year. By now I had made this one several times so I was just throwing ingredients together in a casual fashion. The pie takes a can of drained crushed pineapple. It was 7 am. I hadn't had my coffee yet. I was slugging ingredients around. I opened what I thought was a can of crushed pineapple and set it to drain in a large mesh strainer. Then I picked it up to dump in with the rest of my fruit. As the strainer passed by face, I caught a whiff of the contents... Oh crap, it was creamed corn!

Luckily, I caught myself before I dumped all the creamed corn into my blueberry filling. Just sayin'... creamed corn and crushed pineapple look pretty much alike when you're not awake! I threw out the corn and opened a can of crushed pineapple. The pie was then made without incident.

Blueberries in Paradise

Next up was the Tiramisu Pie. I recreated the pie I had made the night before without any problems. The only thing I did different was add another teaspoon of instant coffee to the filling.

Tiramisu Pie

After that, it was off to the Fair for the Cookie Contest.

Pistachio Coconut Medallions

There were two judges for the cookie contest. Two judges none of us were familiar with. Both were 4H judges with a long fair history. In fact, one of the judges got introduced as being a judge for 72 years! I thought I mis-heard but then everyone around concurred that that was what was said! Anyhoos... they were THE pickiest judges I have ever encountered. They studied every entry for 5-10 minutes. NOT kidding! They looked at all the bottoms, every edge, and every nut. They made comments that so-and-so's nuts were chopped unevenly, that one cookie edge was too dark, too much flavor, not enough flavor, too much icing, not enough icing, and on and on and on... They spent so much time on each cookie that one of my friends had time to leave the building, get a corn dog and drink, finish her corn dog, and come back inside and while they judged one cookie.

I really appreciate the fact that they studied each entry so closely. However, they took so much time we all got bored... and antsy... and then a bit catty. Towards the end they started commenting about taking a "small deduction" for this and a "small deduction" for that and we all mumbled that we felt like this was the all-around Olympic gymnastic competition with the "small deductions" and all.

The judging took two and a half hours! I lost track of how many cookies but I think there were around 20. They liked the flavor of my cookies but thought they were too brown - suggested I check my oven temperature - and I had a nut that looked too dark. Comments like that are a bit frustrating when you know you've tried baking these cookies at four different oven temperatures from everything from 10 to15 to 20 minutes at a time and they STILL turned out the same color but I suppose that's the nature of the game. I knew they were too dark. I just hoped they wouldn't care but these judges did care. It was like that for pretty much everyone... hence we got catty.

Needless to say, I didn't place.

I got home around 7 pm and felt exhausted. One more pie to bake. I know some of my competitors had 5 or 6 pies to do yet tonight so I was thankful I only had one. It was my Dutch Apple Pie. I went back to my traditional oil crust and apple pie filling. Added oats to my usual topping, then drizzled caramel and tossed chopped pecans over the baked pie. I was very happy with the result.

Caramel Pecan Dutch Apple Pie

Saturday morning I dropped off the Blueberry and Apple pies for the regular pie competition then sat through about an hour of the Gold Medal Pie judging. They did all the cream pies first so mine was the third pie judged. Not sure if this was a good thing or not as the two judges were giving all the pies a numerical score as they were judging them so they could go back and just pick the highest scoring pies in the end. I felt mine was original in that it didn't have a traditional crust. I didn't know how that was going to go over with the judges though.

So... comments were that the cookie crust complimented the pie well but it might be a bit too thick, and, the coffee flavor was too strong. Oh well. I knew I didn't place at that point. I had to leave to go to a wedding before the pie judging was over. My friend Rebecca stayed all afternoon and sent me photos of my other Fair pies after they had been judged.

The Blueberries in Paradise did not place. I thought the pie was overfilled when it came out of the oven as the fruit didn't cook down quite as much as I expected but I didn't feel like remaking the pie so I turned it in that way. I haven't seen the judging sheet yet so I don't know if that was a factor or not.

Blueberries in Paradise

The Caramel Pecan Dutch Apple placed Second. I was pretty happy with that. It's the highest I have ever placed with a Dutch Apple Pie so I guess switching up the topping this year helped me out. Truthfully though I was disappointed I didn't win as I felt like this was the best pie I've made in a long time.

Caramel Pecan Dutch Apple

All in all, the whole first week of competition was a bit of a let down. I had told myself before that I had already won Best of Show with my layer cake and that I should be happy no matter how my other items did...but still... I'm too competitive. I was feeling a bit down.

Next up on Monday August 15th was Burton's Maple Syrup. I won this contest last year with perhaps my most creative endeavor EVER. Maple Bacon S'mores. Maple syrup marshmallows, toasted and rolled in bacon bits, then sandwiched between two maple shortbread cookies.

Maple Bacon S'mores

I don't know how I'm EVER going to top that! This year I found a Maple Pear Cake recipe that I really liked. I trialed it with my family about a week ago and they like it too so that was what I went with. I didn't think that it was terribly original, but it was tasty and pretty. I topped it with a maple syrup frosting, decorated it with maple syrup coated toasted pecans, then drizzled more maple syrup over the pecans and called it Magnificent Maple Cake. I used Burton's Bourbon Maple Syrup in all of it's components. This is my favorite maple syrup. If King Arthur Flour was the most expensive recipe contest I'd ever won, this has got to be a close second - expensive in that, in both contests, I ended up hooked on their products.

Magnificent Maple Cake

It ended up being the last item judged in the contest. I was dying by then. I was worried the extra maple syrup I had poured over the cake was pooling and running off the serving board or had made the cake soggy. I think it looked good but was it good enough? Could I possibly repeat?

My competitors thought my cake looked like a winner. Patrick Burton wanted a picture of it while he was judging it. Did he really like it or was it because it was the last item and the contest was finally over?

Yes!!! I won!

Redemption! It's amazing how you can feel so low when you feel like you're not doing well and then suddenly everything feels great and fine again because you've won.

My friend Robin took Second with her Maple Apple Cake. We finished 1-2 last year too.

Rita made a Brussel sprout dish that placed Third. Other than two spreads, hers was the only non-dessert dish in the contest. It looked and smelled like something from heaven. I thought it was going to win. Jennifer got an Honorable Mention with her pie and someone else got the other Honorable Mention with baklava. I made baklava three years ago when this contest first started and got an Honorable Mention with it too. The tough part about this contest is to make the maple flavor really come through without making the dish too sweet. I remember with my baklava that I had even poured maple syrup over the top of everything but you still couldn't taste the maple flavor very well.

So... my bipolar self is back to being happy and content with the world again. I have one more Fair contest left - Indiana Grown on Friday August 19th. I'll be happy no matter what... really!