Deals and Thanksgiving cookies

I had to go to town (the post office and stores are about 4 miles from my home) to mail a letter so I stopped at 2 stores for some stocking up good deals.

Walgreens has 1 ounce bottles of Mccormicks pure vanilla for $1.50. 

Sundays paper had coupons for this item $1.75/2

However when I went to Walgreens, they were out of it. 

I needed to go to Walmart anyway so I just price matched it there

The regular price at Walmart was $2.98 a bottle, with this deal, I got all 4 bottles for $2.50. 

Walgreens has Purex B1g2free. 

I used $1.50/2 coupons printed from the Swagbucks site. 

Thankfully Walgreens did have the detergent in stock as Walmart does not price match this kind of deal. 

If you miss this deal this week, I saw that CVS will have this same deal on Thanksgiving day- and I am not saying anyone should or should not shop on that day, but they are having the Purex B1g2free.

These 6 bottles were $8.54 after sales and coupons. The cashier and my receipt said I saved $23.96

Yippee!

Getting ready for Thanksgiving, I baked a double batch of plain oatmeal cookies. 

They will go in the freezer as soon as they cool- but I better keep some out for my husband and grandsons to have for dessert tonight.

We will have family here for several days around Thanksgiving and I know they will all be happy to have homemade oatmeal cookies. 

Planning for Thanksgiving

Good morning! Thanksgiving is 10 days from now and I have not done much planning as we have just been focused on husbands surgery. That seems to of been a big success, he even went back to work today on light duty.

So, yesterday I started a list of things to do for the Thanksgiving meal and to start getting ready for Christmas.

One thing that is easy to do ahead is pie crusts.

I used my favorite recipe and made 2 batches. So, there are 5 pie shells in pans and 3 discs of dough that can be rolled out for top crusts or if we need more bottom shells.

This is the recipe I have been using for about 20 years, complete with a few splatters. 

I use regular Crisco for pie crusts and that is about the only thing I use Crisco for except for my Aunt Bernice's brownie recipe. 

I know Crisco has a terrible reputation with the food police but it doesn't scare me much. My grandmother baked a pie or 2 every morning, even before she cooked breakfast. Grandpa loved homemade pie so that is what she cooked. 

Even eating all that pie, Grandpa was healthy all of his 89 years and Grandma enjoyed 99 years on this earth. I don't bake pies every day but we certainly enjoy them at holidays and pie always remind me of my sweet grandparents and all the special times we shared. 

My pie making and pie eating grandparents on their 33rd anniversary in 1949.
I am very thankful they were my grandparents.  

This is going to make kitchen cleanup for the Thanksgiving 2013 a lot easier!

A brand new dishwasher- it is so quiet and cleans dishes better than any dishwasher I have ever used. 

Crafting time with my favorite 4 year old

2 of my grandsons were here today. 4 year old Gavin brought 2 bags of pompoms that he got at his church, I think they must of been cleaning out some junk closets.

He wanted to do some crafts with his pompoms so we looked at Pinterest for some inspiration. 

Gavin found a train engine he liked so we tried to copy it.

We also made letter shapes covered with pompoms.

The inspiration train was made with pompoms in just 3 colors and with pompoms all the same size. 

Gavin wanted to use some of all his pompoms so his train is especially colorful and cheerful.  His train has soul. 

Children just like to do make things- it gives them a big sense of accomplishment, especially if we grown ups don't interfere with too much assistance, 

Coupon shopping at JCP and CVS

JCPenneys has a big sale going on and $10 off $25 coupons too. I got a coupon in the mail, 2 in the newspapers and more in an email. At the jcpenneys.com website, you can print off all you want but they do expire today.

I did 2 transactions and bought 4 long sleeved casual shirts for my husband. After the sale and coupons, each shirt was $7.99- plus sales tax.

Just a small purchase at CVS.

2 boxes of hair color were $5.99 each and I used a $5/2 coupon them.

Dawn was .88 and I used 50 cent coupons on both.

The pain relief medicine was free with a scanner coupon. 

And I used a $5 ECB from last week. 

I spent $3.95 cash and got a $2 ECB for later. 

Where are transfats?

Did you watch any news this week? I did and I saw so many stories about the banning of transfats, how nobody should be eating them ever, etc.

it was rather alarming listening to them.

So, I straightened up my pantry and went on a hunt there for the transfats.

  I think we eat more healthy food than unhealthy food, even so, our pantry had about 3 kinds of store bought cookies, chips, assorted crackers, assorted Helper mixes, Spam, Crisco shortening, microwave popcorn, stone canned soups, granola type bars, cereals.....

Guess what? I found ZERO products with transfats in our pantry. 

Do any of you know of any specific foods that still contain transfats? besides the transfats that naturally are in meats?  I am just wondering.  

When I straightened the pantry, I found a nice assortment of nuts. I set them out on the counter, a sort of snack station, for my husband to get some extra protein while he continues to heal. 

I did not make the patchwork placemat but I am fortunate to have 2 sets of them,

This set with the green borders belonged to my grandmother and I think she made them. I also have a set with red binding that was a wedding gift (33 years ago)  from a very sweet honorary Aunt. 

I have used both sets a lot and some of the bindings are getting worn though. But I am going to keep using them as I like them so much.