THIS AND THAT

Feeling productive is a challenge some time. So much to do - where do I start. Just 'start', I guess.

SUNSHINE OPPORTUNITY

With rain heavily dominating the weather forecast the last few weeks and the projected days to come appear to be more of the same, I decided to "make hay" while the sunshined today (as they say - not literally, but...) and planted a couple of "mystery" bulbs I got at the Best of Sacramento party in December. I used a couple of pots that I had earlier slated to go to the Goodwill, but pulled them from the pile to see what my bulb experiment might unveil.

I picked up this pretty purple hyacinth at Trader Joe's yesterday for next to nothing. The "plus" was it had two blossoms to it rather than just one as the others did that were perched on the table for sale.

While in the planting mode I also planted the 4" primrose we got for FREE (yeah!) at Capital Nursery after we left Trader Joe's. We had coupons from the Best of Sacramento party for a free one. It's such a lovely white small flower primrose. It's planted at the entry to the house in the planter that once belonged to my grandparents.

DOMICILE ORGANIZATION

January brought on my plight to 'get organized' amongst many other 'resolutions' of sorts that many of us make at the beginning of a new year. I bought this book that basically has you "organize your life" in one year! I consider myself fairly organized already, but I always strive to "more and better". January was dedicated to the kitchen which I successfully cleared clutter (extra utencils and the like) and made some small changes to make my kitchen run more efficiently for me.

February has been dedicated to our bedroom where the closet has been the main attraction needing help. I've also jumped ahead and did some work on March's area of focus, paperwork, and also I've been working on my sewing area. Several months ago I got a 'steal' of a deal on a table (oak with tile top) at Naturewood when we bought our new leather couch. I put it in the closet area of the spare bedroom (aka sewing room) and it fit snug as a bug in a rug! Perfect. Well, up until lately, I haven't done much more in there than that. Today I was pleased with my productivity in getting my bulletins on the wall and other items organized and in their place.

LIVING LAVISHLY FOR LESS (Thanks, Anjie!)

Since the 1st of February I've had to kick up my 'frugal living' skills a tad. But it's been fun! Super Bowl weekend was spent with friends and as alot of people do, I like the commercials. I always look forward to see what they are going to come up with. This year, Docker's had a "Men With No Pants" ad and was offering a FREE pair of Dockers to the first 2010 people who went online and submitted an entry after the airing of their commercial. I entered Mike into the drawing and "whalah"! We won! Nice free pair of Dockers!

Other deals have included free bread from Boudin, free See's chocolate, free bags from Bebe, free perfume samples from Victoria's Secret, lunch at P.F. Chang's for a five spot and free breakfast at Denny's. Thursday past, I got a 2 entree meal at Panda Express and got a free entre of Firecracker Chicken. I got a small serving of plain white rice for $1.00 and all of it fed all three of us for a song! Mmmmm, we love Panda!

In '07 I redeemed Coke reward points for Kodak photo stickers and 8 x 10 collage. The codes had no expiration dates. I went to use them recently and I received a message saying they were invalid. I wrote a polite email to Kodak requesting that they reinstate my codes and they did! Nice.

Tomorrow will be free breakfast at Ihop and free lunch at Jack In The Box! Can't beat that!