These things I know

1.  My mom drove this green booger for about 2 weeks.  She killed her first deer, so to celebrate she drove a rental.

2.  Sadie Rose is a pig for Halloween.  Isn't she cute?  My friend Stephanie brought this little piglet to work today.

3.  I love Dave Barnes.  His music is awesome.  I have seen him in concert a few times (go figure).  Don't know who he is - check him out - The Dave Barnes.  My fb status is a shout out to Mr Barnes.

4.  My husband took this picture of "us" - I think he was focusing in on his own face.  Maybe?

5.  On one of our many trips back from Ellaville, we saw this car/truck/suburban thing.

6.  I went to my first NASCAR race last month.  It was pretty ahhhmazing.

These are a few things that I know today - I will know more tomorrow.  I will fill you in as needed.

Goodlettsville

This past weekend I went to Goodlettsville, TN to celebrate Rachel's last days as a single woman.  It was pretty wonderful.  We rented an amazing house about 20 minutes outside of Nashville - it was the perfect location.  This is out the back door. 

There is a field on the right with horses and a field on the left with cows and miniature ponies.  Per the owner's house handbook, miniature ponies may kick or bite - approach with caution.  Insert miniature ponies. 

This is as close as I got; although, they did keep escaping and showing up right beside the house.  Luckily, no one has an battle wounds from the ponies - maybe from their high heels, but not the ponies.  I don't have any group pictures of the bachelorette crew on my camera but once I get some, I'll post.  We had tons o' fun. :)

While I was busy getting my bachelorette party on in Nashville, the husband went to visit our new baby.

Don't be jealous - of either - handsome hubby & cute puppy!

Have a FALLbulous week!

I finally put out my fall wreath - I love the colors - it makes me happy!!

This is Maggie admiring the wreath - I think she approves.

Hope everyone has a fabulous (or fallbulous) week!! :)

Hello Weekend!

Shout out to Mel D for our photography pow-wow session earlier today! :)  She helped me understand what aperture is - so, I've been practicing.  Maggie loves to pose.

Isn't she just the cutest thing?  We love this baby dog.  We do not love the fact that she has an anal gland infection.  Doesn't that sound lovely?  We noticed a stink coming from her back side a couple of weeks ago, but I thought that maybe she just got some "you know" stuck on her hair back there.  Being the good mother that I am, I got a washcloth and tried to take care of it (I won't go into details).  It didn't help.  I sprayed Febreeze on her butt.  It didn't help.  Luckily, it was time for her to go to the vet for her shots/physical.  While we were there, I asked Dr Brantley if he could check it out back there because it was not smelling pleasant.  Needless to say, he checked it out and found she had an infection.  He drained it and I thought I was going to pass out - hands down the worst smell ever.  Now, some of you may be thinking, why is she telling us this gross story??  There really is no good reason other than I want you to be as grossed out as I was - but you can't be really - because you weren't there.  $150.00 later, we were on our way home - antibiotic in hand, and a reschedule for the shots.  Sigh. 

On a not so stinky note,  I went to CVS tonight and "rolled" my ECBs.  I made 2 purchases & spent a total of $5.88 on 5 bottles of Dawn, 4 Colgate toothpastes, 2 bags of candy corn, & 2 itch cream products.  Not my best, but pretty successful.  I walked away with $22.96 ECBs for my next purchase. 

Here is the receipt from the first purchase:

For someone new to couponing, one of the easiest freebies is Dawn.  I have a stock of these.  Just go here and enter you information to receive the Home Made Simple booklet.  These links renew frequently so I usually get a couple books a month.  There is a $1 off coupon for Dawn - which means FREE Dawn when CVS, Walgreens or Rite Aid has them for $.97.  I purchased 5 bottles tonight.  All FREE. Sign up for your booklet and get you some Dawn.  Do it!

Meant to be white

I am slowly learning that I am meant to be white.  Not a nice golden brown color but white.  I have been tanning/beaching it up for awhile now.  Photo below - 1990, Best Western, PCB.

 (I was skinny at one point in my life.)

For the second year in a row, I've had a mole removed and both times the results have shown atypical cells.  I got the phone call today telling me they would like to do another 20 minute procedure to basically dig more skin up and get rid of the atypical cells.  Sigh.  I love the sun.  It's very therapeutic for me to lay out in the sun, cut grass in the sun, whatever IN THE SUN!!  I did try to wear more sunscreen this year but obviously I am doomed.  I even invested in several spray tans this year (one of which did not work so well. Orange much?).  I'm not sure how much it will be this year for the "minor procedure" but last years came in at roughly $425.  UGH.  I cannot afford this kind of tan every year. 

Dear Beach & Sun,  

I am still hoping to see you next year.  I will be the white one under the umbrella.  You probably will not see the girl below any more.  It has been fun.

Much love, 

Ashley

PS Can you send me some money to cover the dent you put in my wallet?

Please check out my wonderful friend Cristin's blog about getting your skin checked.  I know you all are dying to fork out a couple hun on some moles like me. :)

Skin Check Info by Cristin

We are having...

Rather, getting a baby puppy!  Isn't he cute??  I think he is very handsome.  He is the only male out of 9 puppies.  The family of some of our friends from Mercer has the puppies in Rockmart, GA.  We are planning to make a trip to see him in a couple of weeks to seal the deal.  We have been talking about getting another Golden for awhile and even tried breeding Maggie but that didn't work out.  We have also been trying to decide on a name - we picked out the name Gunner earlier this year but now it seems there are Gunner's everywhere.  Any suggestions??  We have a couple in mind but are up for any others!

To follow the puppies, check out this blog: Rhett & Scarletts Puppies

Scarlett looks so much like our Maggie and Rhett is very handsome.  We are sure our new puppy will be dashing!

I have been telling Maggie that she is getting a brother and that she will have to teach him how to act (minus the getting on the couch part).  She seemed okay with it.  What do you think?

 Looks like a happy girl to me!

What is an Alpaca?

I honestly had never heard of an alpaca until Linda (mother-in-law) said they wanted some.

The in-laws are so happy to be back out in the country and it is beautiful out there!  They have been working hard on getting the yard turned into a pasture and cleaning out all the brush.  Even though we live in the city & it is super convenient, we are not city people.  We constantly have 2 trailers parked in front of our house - a job trailer and the four-wheeler/lawn mower trailer.  We get stares from neighbors sometimes.  Especially when they cannot turn around in our rather large cul-de-sac due to all the parked objects and have to back up to get out.  Oops.  We are working on getting out of the city and back to our homeland.

Back to the alpaca's.

According to Wikipedia, an alpaca is a domesticated species of South American camelid. It resembles a small llama in appearance.  Alpacas are considerably smaller than llamas, and unlike llamas, alpacas were not bred to be beasts of burden but were bred and slaughtered specifically for their fiber. Alpaca fiber is used for making knitted and woven items, much as wool is. These items include blankets, sweaters, hats, gloves, scarves, a wide variety of textiles and ponchos in South America, and sweaters, socks, coats and bedding in other parts of the world. The fiber comes in more than 52 natural colors as classified in Peru, 12 as classified in Australia and 16 as classified in the United States.

I wonder if the Rolling Stones thought of alpacas when they wrote Beasts of Burden.

So, I learned that I have probably worn an alpaca at some point and now my in-laws are going to have them in their yard.  I'm not sure if they plan on raising them and then using the wool.  I'll check on that.  I mean, my husband has gone to the Albertson Farm, shot a cow, and then brought home the meat.  So we are those kind of people.  Sigh.  For now, I'll just look forward to meeting my first alpaca in Twiggs County. :)

Baby Mine

I told Alan I think we should adopt...an elephant. :)

Much to Alan's dismay, I watch Oprah.  I do.  I don't always agree with her opinions, etc. but she has some really great shows.  I was turned off for a while after meeting her - she was not very friendly.  We kind of look like best friends here - or is that look on her face saying please leave me alone?  Whatev.

Back to elephants.  I was watching her show last week about animals and learned that we can adopt an elephant in Africa!  I am all for it - Alan, not so much.  Maybe I will adopt him one for his birthday that is coming up.  I'm sure he will love it!  :)

ADOPT AN ELEPHANT!

You Saved...

So for my first post, I thought I would blog a little about my current hobby. Couponing.  Yes, it may be dorky but I am able to save a ton of money.  A lot of people have asked me if I find myself buying things I don't need just to use a coupon.  The answer is no - unless, I am getting paid to buy it - which has happened a few times.  My favorite deals are rebates where I get more money back from the mail-in rebate than I actually spent OOP (out of pocket).  

Let's focus on today.  Not my best purchase but I did get several good deals.  We (yay, the husband joined me!) headed to Target about 8:30pm this evening.  I have a rule that we have to go to the crazy busy stores either really early in the morning or very late at night.  And we all know that I'm not really a morning person so...this evening it was!  If you go during the busy hours, it can be really stressful when there is a long line behind you while you are carefully handing the cashier each coupon, not wanting to miss a penny.  We finally wrapped up getting everything right at 10:00pm and headed to check out.

Another important part of couponing is the cashier.  Some can have attitudes about the fact that you have a stack of coupons and you are taking up more of their time.  Tonight we had a good one.  He pushed every coupon thru that I handed him (which were all legit) even when the computer tried not too take it.  Waaahoo!  

Below is shot of everything from today's purchase.  And my favorite part - "YOU SAVED $70.89".  Isn't that great?  I came away with several laundry & cleaning supplies, a few kiddie Christmas presents, Beauty & the Beast Blu-Ray, and 2 pairs of shoes! (1 pair I actually bought a couple of months ago for $12.99 - but they are now on clearance for $6.48. So I will be taking them back (since I haven't worn them yet) and getting the original amount back.  That's $6.00 back!)

 I'd like to highlight a few of my favorite deals:

$11.99 Green Works Laundry Detergent (90 oz) -$3 Man Q, -$3 Target Q, and the cashier (w.out me asking) scanned the $2 Man Q that was on each jug - final cost - $3.99!

7.99 Swiffer 2in1 Starter Kit 

11.49 Swiffer Dry Cloths Refill (48 ct) - MQ buy starter kit, get refill FREE - so $11.49 off!

7.99 for a new swiffer & refills - I needed the new swiffer "mop" b/c mine is broken & electrical tape is holding it together!

And then, my favorite!

24.99 Beauty & the Beast Blu-Ray -$10 MQ - $14.99 

plus I plan to submit for the Campbell's rebate if not both 

Beauty & the Beast deal 

I am proud to say that I used a coupon on every item tonight except for two - I was pretty impressed!!  Happy couponing to everyone! Goodnight!