Target: using coupons on clearance items

Target's clothes are a beautiful thing.  Well, let me rephrase this.  Target's clearanced clothes are a beautiful thing.  Every time I go to Target, I scour the clearance rack for some great deals.   Over the last few weeks I've picked up a few things that I was pretty excited about.  Whether or not you are excited about them is another story.  : )  Yesterday I was especially excited because they had jeans on clearance, for $4.98, which is a good deal, but I had a coupon for $3 off, so they were only $1.98.  A steal--especially when they are dark denim (my favorite) and one of the pairs was skinny jeans.  I've never owned a pair of skinny jeans, and I was surprised that they were actually cute.  

Here are some of my recent finds...the most expensive item ringing in at $1.98.  The collared shirt with the flowers was a whole quarter.  Woot woot.

So if you want to get your hands on some cheap clothes, here's how.  Target has coupons on their website (scroll to the bottom of the page to find the link), and a lot of times there are coupons for say, $3 off denim, and it can be any denim.  Or $2 off any top, men's or women's.  The best one I've seen was $5 off denim, which is what I used for the lighter jeans earlier this year.  But pair those coupons with the clearance racks and you get some killer deals.  Men's clothes are a little harder since they are just so-so at Target.  I did find a t-shirt for 25 cents this week, but I think I'm going to make a skirt out of it like my cousin did.  

happy bastille day!

How do you celebrate Bastille day?  Did you even know it was Bastille day?

If not, shame on you.

Read this.  It's from Wikipedia.

Bastille Day is the French National Day, which is celebrated on 14 July of each year. In France, it is formally called La Fête Nationale (The National Celebration) and commonly le quatorze juillet (the fourteenth of July). It commemorates the 1790 Fête de la Fédération, held on the first anniversary of the storming of the Bastille on 14 July 1789; the anniversary of the storming of the Bastille fortress-prison was seen as a symbol of the uprising of the modern nation, and of the reconciliation of all the French inside the constitutional monarchy which preceded the First Republic, during the French Revolution. Festivities and official ceremonies are held all over France. The oldest and largest regular military parade in Europe is held on the morning of 14 July, on the Champs-Élysées avenue in Paris in front of the President of the Republic, French officials and foreign guests.^[1][2]

Okay, if you didn't know what Bastille day was, it's okay..  : )

When we told people what day we were getting married, we got quite a few responses like, "Oh, Bastille day!"  Or "Did you know that's the storming of the Bastille day?"

We had no idea.  But here's how we celebrated Bastille day 5 years ago today.

disneyland!

Matt had all last week off (the only week for a long time...) and it just so happened that my parents were going to be in California that same week!  It worked out just right for us to go there and meet them.  We had a lot of fun and Graham did great!  We spent a few days in Disneyland, a day at the beach, and saw a baseball game.  Warning: there are tons of pictures on this post, so click on "read more"  link at the end of these three pictures to see all of our pictures.

beach day

"Nooooo!  Not the water!"  He looks a little worried, doesn't he? 

After we were done at the beach, we went and got some ice cream.  The lady at the place gave Graham a frozen banana on a stick.  So cute.

baseball games

 It can't be summer vacation without going at least one baseball game.  While we were in California, we went to an Angels game!  We thought it was fun, Graham...not so much.  He wasn't too happy during the whole game.  He was tired and hungry, but we finally got him to sleep for a little bit, which helped a little.

After his nap he still wasn't too sure about all the noise, but all was well with the world when his daddy bought him this...

How cute is that?  Every little boy needs to have a daddy to watch baseball with, and Graham was extra lucky to get a prize at the game.  What a nice daddy.

how to keep your house cool in the summer

 Step #1:  Turn your AC to the desired temperature.  (When it's super hot outside, we set ours to a nice 81, [or not so nice, depending on your preference] or 83, depending on the time of day, and crank up the fans.)

Step #2:  Remove the faulty air filter from the AC vent.  (When I bought this filter I didn't realize that it was going to filter so well that even air wouldn't get through.)

Step #3:  Make sure the doors are closed.   Not open.

Last Sunday I nearly blew a gasket in my brain, and it was going to be ugly.  It was really hot outside, and was getting hotter.  It was also warm in our house.  85 degrees warm, and it kept getting warmer and our AC kept running, and running, and running.  After about two hours of the AC running and it not cooling our house down I decided there was a problem.  I couldn't figure out why our house wasn't getting cooler, and it was making me nuts.  I started to worry that our AC had gone out and we were going to bake to death in our house.   It didn't help that the power kept going out that day because of some silly wind gusts.  But I whipped out my gumshoe skills and set to work.

The first thing I did was realize that there wasn't much air coming out of the vents in the ceiling.  Bummer.  So I took the air filter out, realizing that it really wasn't letting any air through.  Once that was out, the air was flowing nicely.

I thought all was well, but it was still really warm in our house, especially in the kitchen, where the AC usually blows most of the cold air.  I may or may not have driven Matt nuts while I was pacing, probably rambling concerns and worst-case-scenarios of how we were going to have to get a whole new AC, because, after all, our neighbor next door just did.

But then I saw what may have been causing the problem.  The door was open.  The sliding glass door.  It was open about six inches, and the curtain was covering up the opening.  Hot air was pouring into our house, or the cold air was pouring out of our house, however you want to look at it.  So I closed the door.

One point for the gumshoe.

And, if you are wondering, our house is nice and cool right now.

stroller organizer

We have an umbrella stroller for Graham that's nice and compact, but it doesn't have a basket.  I saw some stroller organizers at Babies-r-us, but they weren't very colorful, so I decided to make one.  It doesn't hold a whole lot but it's been pretty handy so far.