Still doing CVS deals, reading and sewing

Hello 

I’m still shopping at CVS, usually once a week but sometimes I skip a week if I’m busy or the deals don’t work for me.

I went yesterday bought these on sale items using ExtraCareBucks, CVS coupons and newspaper coupons. 

It takes a bit of planning but I save so much, it’s worth it to me. 

I opted to get Email receipts so it’s easy to show them here. 

I spent $9.78 cash on all the products in the photo and got back $20 in ExtraCareBucks for my next transaction.  

I rarely buy food with coupon deals but I do get great deals on household and personal care items.

There are many coupon experts on YouTube and Facebook and instagram.  I usually view a few of their posts to see all the details on deals and then I plan my shopping around their advice.  

Reading

I just finished this series of books and I enjoyed them so much! 

I bought all my books used from ThriftBooks.com  

I’m happy with their quality, prices and rewards.  

Sewing- son Bobby got a super deal on an older camper for his family and he’s redoing the inside.  

He used some of this cork-looking vinyl fabric to change out inserts in the cabinets.  Then he asked me to sew some pillows with his leftover fabric. 

The 2 bolster shaped ones are for armrests on a bench seat and the oblong one is because that’s exactly how much fabric was left after I made the first 2.  

I like the way the fabric looks and it looks so nice in the camper.

My sewing machine sewed it all just fine.

The difficult part was handsewing the first 2 pillows closed.  I used a thimble and pliers to pull and push that needle. 

For the rectangle one,  I added a zipper closure and that was somewhat easier.  




I’m still fiddling, trying to get my posts to look like I want them to. 

I’m hoping this one publishes right..........

But whatever, I’m done today and need to go put the fresh sheets on the bed, vacuum and prepare a meal or too.  And maybe sew and continue reading the first book in another series.  

Have a great day everyone ❤️ 

Finally doing a new post

Hello friends

I’m fine,  just been busy over the summer and doing some relaxing over the summer.

I hope you all have had some relaxing time too.  

Last month we were in Lowe’s and my husband asked the garden center cashier what was on sale today.
The manager heard him and came over and said, kind of quiet, “anything with a clearance tag is .50 for you at the checkout”.
There were so much clearance and we bought lots!
It pays to be friendly to the workers at stores you frequent.

All the plants piled on this picnic table were .50 each!

I’m still meal prepping and I guess I was doing this way before it was so cool/ 

This is pretty typical food prep at our home _ a big salad, hard cooked eggs, orange juice made from frozen concentrate because it’s much cheaper that way and a frozen berry sorbet.  

Below is just a funny
And I’m afraid I’m guilty of saying this and meaning the same thing 😂

We have a Goodwill near our home.  We went there one morning looking for a water bottle  for my husband.  They didn’t have any bottles but I did buy this heavy duty Pampered Chef cookie sheet for $3.93 and a band new muffin pan for $1.

Below are just some flowers bought much earlier this summer - on sale but not .50.

The caladiums are growing from bulbs that I got for Mother’s Day.  They are much bigger now and have been so much fun to watch grow.
All the yellow plants were .50

I have a new device that so far, is making blogging much smoother.  

So, I hope to get back to regular posts.  

June Sewing - so far

This month’s sewing so far-
I made a top for myself with a pattern by LoveNotions.com

I finished off all the edges with single fold bias tape and I like how it looks.

I also sewed an apron but it was such a complicated pattern and I don’t like how it turned out so I’m not showing it.   I disliked both sewing it and the finished apron so I threw that pattern away.  I kept the apron and may wear it, but I doubt it.


Granddaughter Elizabeth has Girl Scout day camp this month and the leader chose these stools for all the campers.
folding camp stool

 My only part of the process was to sew the seats.  The leader bought this outdoor fabric at Joann.  She picked it because it was 90% off.

 I don’t think I’ve ever sewn with outdoor fabric but it was very nice.  It’s sturdy but not bulky.

When I finished sewing the very last one,  I took it off the machine along with the 4 inches of thread left on my bobbin- that was great! It’s no fun when the bobbin runs out before a job is finished.  

This reminded me of my Brownie and Girl Scout days.  We did outdoor camp at a lake not far from our town.  We didn’t have stools but made SitUpOns with woven newspaper strips.

I found a tutorial on Pinterest for retro Girl Scout Sit Up Ons and may try making them with my grandchildren.  

Retro SitUpon

Menus and turtles

On this week’s to do list was inventory the frozen food and make a June menu.  

First I hand wrote the inventory as I counted things in the freezer.  But that was messy so I printed it out and then I put it pretty paper because I have a bunch of paper.  

 Meals for June were planned minimally.  If I decide later to cook a new recipe, I can, but for now, I’ve planned either familiar recipes or meals that don’t need recipes.

 There are turtles everywhere in Oklahoma right now .
Below is the second big turtle we’ve seen in our backyard this week, and it’s only Tuesday.

This guy was muddy, and mossy, and had an injury to his rear right  shell.  

He hissed when my husband picked him up

And he’s been moved to field where he won’t drive our dog crazy or eat our strawberries.  

I don’t think our dog would hurt him but there would be no peace if both Mr. Turtle and Ducky were in our yard at the same time.  

This week’s to do list

As usual, I keep my to do list hanging by the pantry. 

Sometimes it all gets checked off but sometimes it doesn’t. 

Either way, this list does help keep me on track.  

Have you made your list yet?

Have a nice Monday everyone ❤️

Patio plants and CVS shopping

Hello everyone. 

Our backyard plants are just flourishing this year with all the rain fall. 

I grew a few from seed but most are plants bought from the Lowe’s markdown rack bought by my husband or son.  

Our pots are just an assortment, mostly from previous year’s yard sales.  

I looked for pots yesterday but didn’t see any.  

That big orange tub held some sort of an agriculture product and it’s from our son that has cattle.  

 This started out as 3  tiny succulents from Atwood’s.  They were in 2 inch pots when I bought them in April.  

I’ve heard succulents like hot, dry conditions but these have thrived this cool, damp Spring.  

This is a fairy garden I set up for my grandchildren.  They all like it and when they’re not here,  I rearrange it too.

My favorite piece is this little clothes line.  I found it at Dollar Tree.

On to CVS,  the deals are not great this week, but I had $28 in CVS ExtraCareBucks bucks and I like to spend them so I don’t neglect them and let them expire.

I got lots of toilet paper and paper towels.  Also, 1 bag of Tide pods and a makeup brush I wanted.  

After my newspaper coupons and $28 in ExtraCareBucks,  I spent $18.40 and got just $10 back for next week. 

But I’m happy with this deal as we were low on both paper products.

If you are a brand new CVS shopper, I would recommend waiting for better deals in a future week.  

Another money tip is return stuff that has problems and get a refund.  I bought a big bag of Caesar salad at Walmart on Wednesday, thinking it would be an easy side dish while my sister in law and brother in law were here.  

We didn’t eat it then but I got it out to have it with lunch today but it was so brown!  It was dated best by June 7, 

5 days away.  So I returned it this afternoon and got a refund of almost $5.  

Have a good Sunday everyone ❤️

I’m sorry, I had a crazy time doing this post using both the blog app and also trying it on Chrome.  And this is as good as I could get this short post to look and it took 90 minutes 🤷🏻‍♀️ 

Neighborhood yard sale day

Our neighborhood’s annual yard sale and a nearby neighborhood’s sale was this morning. 

I shopped with my son and sister in law.  

Kid things were very abundant.  

Among my treasures are this pile of super condition boys clothes- some were $1 each and some were $2.50 for a sack full.  

Fabric was $3

Puzzle was .50 and a like new pop up book was $1

Razor scooter was $2

These retail for around $50 

Plastic barn was $2 and is the prefect home for farm animals we already owned

And a Rae Dunn mug for .50 

It was not nearly as hot today as it usually is for our annual sale so it was enjoyable being out. 

We went to lots sales, I’d guess 30 and I’ll say I have my desire to yard sale satisfied with all these purchases.  

I’ve really been a slacker toward blogging and I miss it.  I have plans to get back to regular posting.  

We’ll see! 

Have a great June 1st everyone.  

May Doings - cookie baking, coupon shopping, one room schoolhouse, etc;

 Good morning everyone,  

My daughter asked for homemade cookies for a school reception and since I like to bake cookies,  I was happy to help.  She came over one morning and we somehow made 5 cookie recipes in less than 3 hours.  We both worked and my oven is a double oven but we were both surprised it went so fast.  

Recipes were chosen based on ingredients in my pantry I was wanting to used up. 

We made gluten free mini chocolate chip cookies,  spritz cookies all shaped like camels, oatmeal cookies with butterscotch chips and corn Chex stirred in, a brownie drop cookie with peanut butter chips and chocolate oatmeal no-bakes.  (This box is some of the “ugly” cookies, the ones that didn’t come out perfect.  I froze them and will add them to our lunch on Mother’s Day.  Even if they’re misshapened,  they will taste fine and my family won’t care.) 

Almost 4 year old Jackson wasn’t too sure about the no bake cookies.  As I was  dropping the scoops of the boiled cookies into wax paper.  He said “those don’t look good, they don’t look done” 

I told him to just wait a few minutes until they cool and set up and then to see what he thinks.  

They cooled and then set up just fine and he decided they were yummy.  

Shopping at CVS 

My trips there vary.  I look for bargains but I also buy what we like and need.  

This was a week ago and was an especially good shopping trip.  

What I bought this week- my total was higher because I only had $10 in CVS bucks,  my husband requested Dove bath soap stuff but it wasn’t on sale and I didn’t have a coupon,  and I picked up a large bag of jelly beans on clearance.  

I spent more than usual but I did get back lots of CVS bucks.  

And I need to keep our jelly bean dispenser full as all the grands like it. ❤️ 

That’s our youngest grand RJ getting his candy.  He will be 3 in July.  

His big sis Andie is finishing up 1st grade. 

One room school house

I thought y’all might like to see inside the school house Elizabeth visited.  It looks very much like schools did 100 years ago.  That’s her in the middle of the front row. 

She had lots of fun doing the school work and the old games.  

They ate their lunches from home outside on quilts.  

Doesn’t this look like a great school field trip? 


Hope you all have a great weekend ❤️

Sunbonnet and pantry

Elizabeth’s one room school house outfit  needed a sunbonnet and I finally found a simple online tutorial to sew one up. 

The tutorial was great and I recommend it if you need a sunbonnet for a girl age 7-11. 

I didn’t intend to use 2 different fabrics, but when I was cutting it out, I somehow used both fabrics.  But I guess it will be fine.  Pioneers truly had to use what they had and I’m sure sometimes clothes were made with whatever fabric the pioneer was fortunate enough to have.  

simple sunbonnet tutorial 

No before photos but I spent about an hour organizing and wiping down our pantry.  I used some extra storage containers we already had.  There wasn’t much thrown out except some mayo we dont like and a bag of salad dressing mix dated 2014 😵

All like items are sitting on the shelves together now. 

We have lots of spices and I opened up the adjustable steps they sit on so they are more spread out and easier to see what’s what.  

Nothing remarkable or Pinterest worthy but I’m happy with it.  

It’s been raining here most of the day and even had tornado warnings near by.  But don’t worry about me if you hear of Oklahoma tornado damage.  We have a very safe shelter to get it, if need be.  

Have a good Tuesday everyone ❤️ 

And if you have a to do list, I hope things on it are getting done ✅