Coupon Swap Night

If you listen to BX 93 here in London, you may have heard of Coupon Christine , a local saving guru. Her website is full of freebies, deals, and printable coupons as well as a listing of places you can contact to get coupons for products. She hosts a Facebook group page that swaps coupons and deal info. And she's super nice!

Once per month, the group meets for a coupon swap, and typically a local group becomes their 'charity' for the month, getting donations of whatever it is that group needs.

Tonight is the June 2012 swap (held in the food court of Galleria/Citiplaza mall) and Keeping Kids Warm is the recipient of the generosity of this wonderful group of people.

Here is a compilation of items that I personally am donating to help make up the survivor bags:

gum, razors, hair products, toothpaste, toothbrushes, deoderants, q-tips, combs, lady products, candy, healthy snack bar, shmpoo/conditioner samples.

Keeping Kids Warm is also gearing up to become a collector for Terracycle. We keep garbage out of the landfill, products are recycled or upcycled, and charities get cash! What a win-win-win situation!

I gotta run. Tons to do today. Have a great day everyone!





What We did for Father's Day

We decided to spend some time with the kids yesterday doing something fun.

African Lion Safari

This guy was just mowing the lawn while we watched, tee hee!

Hubby acting silly, yet again.  :)

This one was eyeballing Cub like he was a snack or something....

Another male showing off. When our family hears a peacock, we like to say it's a 'racoon', but that's a story for another day.

All the animals were moving the grass it seemed, even this gorgeous guy.

We had a fantastic day visiting the animals, going on both the train and boat cruises (about 5 - 10 minutes each), and walking around to see the other animals.

Today will be spent sitting around doing a whole lot of nothing. We're going to barbecue later, and I'm going to try my hand at a pudding pie.

Have a Happy Father's Day everyone!

This Post is Boring

This might sound a little weird, but things have never been so stable around here before now. Come to think of it, my life has never been so predictable and ordinary. I love it!

My day consists of waking up to Cub pestering me about something or other, making coffee, reading some blogs, and getting us out the door by 8:30 a.m. If I can, I try to plan/prep our evening meal by using a crock pot or taking meat out of the freezer or whatever. During the day, I let Facebook suck me into some mindless game playing and such until I get bored (some days this happens faster than others). Then there's laundry to do, groceries to buy, work to be done, a bit of cleaning here and there, some knitting or stitching gets done, and it's time to pick up kids again. Evenings are spent making and cleaning up after dinner, then parking my rear end on the couch for at least an hour. Kids are put to bed, and Hubby and I spend some time doing mindless tasks like computering or television watching.

I know when the paycheques are coming in, and how much to expect. The bills are split between the two (occasionally three) pay periods and are paid accordingly. The rent gets paid first, then savings is shuffled away to various areas, bills are paid and if there is any left, that's what I use for spending (groceries, gas, etc.). When there is extra income, like a mileage reimbursement cheque, it gets put toward accelerating debt repayment or stocking up on sale items. Boring, isn't it??

I'm not blogging as much as I would like to these days, but I have so many other things that need my attention that this habit has fallen by the wayside a bit. Never fear though, I am not quitting blogging, just slowing down the amount that I am here. I'm reading as many blogs as I can, just to try to keep up with what's going on in the lives of everyone else.

I hope everyone is doing well. Next up, some pictures I'd like to share.

My Wee Garden is Growing

We live in an apartment, so there is no backyard for us to grow things in. I would love to be able to have the room to plant a full vegetable garden, but that is not yet to be.

I love growing vegetables. Years ago, I would plant in my sisters humongous yard with her, and reap the harvest that we both took care of. Now, my garden is reduced to planting a few choices veggies in pots that live on my balcony.

In pot # 1, I planted some green onions that I sprouted from grocery bought ones. The end cuttings in water got the roots going, and into the dirt they went. The birds who like to hang out on my balcony railing have picked away at the tops of these,  so I am currently making a plastic canvas wind sock type thing to hang in the area to keep the birds away. After the onions took root in their new home, I sprinkled lettuce seeds around the plants to try to make the most of the limited space that I have available.

Pot # 2 is home to radishes. Before I planted the seeds, I 'planted' a home made irrigation system ( 2L pop bottle with well placed holes in it) to keep the little guys well watered. Cub and I then made a 'racetrack' in the dirt around the top of the bottle with his toy bulldozer. We sprinkled radish seeds in the racetrack and covered them with a dirt blanket. I'm happy to report that 4 days later, they have already sprouted and are beginning their journey to our table.

In # 3, I put a mixture of cherry tomato seeds and pepper seeds. In the past few years, I would sprout seeds indoors, and plant only the hardiest plants in the pot, only to have the birds eat the plants, leaving me next to nothing. this year, I've planted dozens of seeds in the same container, in the hopes that I may get one or two plants of each after the birds have their fill.

If I had a yard to plant a full garden in, I would plant tomatoes, cucumbers, potatoes, carrots, squash, pumpkin, onions, lettuce, radishes, garlic, beans and peas. Oh how I miss those days in the garden, getting dirt under my nails.

Do you grow your own veggies? Have you ever had space challenges with gardening?