Button Factory

For all those who have coveted my meal organizer thingy that hangs on my refrigerator - here's how to do it so simple yourself. I just updated mine and kicked myself for not having spiced it up before.
Supplies Needed:
Computer & Printer
Recipes you Like (w/ingredients if you want)
card stock paper
Plastic sheet filer/covers for buisness cards

Easy Breezy on your compy use the 'new project' in word and go to labels. Choose the buisness card size. This makes the perfect size template and you type in it. Don't for get to make the days of the week for along the top.
My original cards have all the ingredients listed on the back side, which you can do, but you have to be smart and make the second page a mirror that would print double sided- way to complicated for me AND I found out that I rarely pull the cards out to see anyway. So, this time I put the extra ingredients that I normally would not use just under the title of the meal. I also put the book and page of the recipe so I could find it. I am liking this new version. I kept a lot of the old meal ideas, but now have specific new recipes that I will try and then I can rotate them through.

Once you print off the cards, you slide them in whatever order you want in the plastic sleeves. You use 3 full sheets of the plastic sleeves and then cut one in half and add it on the end. You have to buy several of these sleeve things so it may be a good idea to buy the pack and make stellar christmas presents, or jut have alot of buisness card organizers for all those loose buisness cards (or you can use them for a coupon book and slide coupons in them to organize them, that was an idea I learned this week). I just taped the 3.5 sheets together with Scotch tape and WALLA! Put the days of the week across the top in order then fill in the foods and you have four weeks planned out. If you are like me, you have to have something easy and visual there to get you to make more than frozen pizza. This months family feeding goal: add good side dishes!

Here's the list of the standard meals that are in there:
Chicken Tetrazzini
Turkey Soup
Fish Sticks
Navajo Tacos
Manicotti (Stuffed Shells)
Meatballs & Gravy
Spiral Baked Ham
Pot Roast
Chicken Pot Pie
Polynesian Pork Chops
Tacos
Creamy Chicken Noodle Soup
Chicken Pop Overs
Barbequed Spareribs
Tater Tot Casserole
Chicken Nuggets
Left Overs or Go Out
Malibu Chicken
Pizza
Beef Stroganoff
Hamburgers
BLT Sandwich
Minestrone Soup
Chicken Hay Stacks
Taco Salad
Baked Chicken
Spaghetti
Chicken Club Sandwich
Stir Fry Veggies & Rice
Enchilada Casserole

p.s. This is NOT a Nancy Button original idea, I got it at a wonderful 5th Ward RS Enrichment 6 years ago. Sadly, this month was the first time I took the initiative to switch in some new ideas!

I love the dollar store for one great reason - STICKERS! They keep Faith entertained longer than coloring right now. Tuesday morning while I was running I set Faith at her desk with her stickers and notebook to create. As I looked over to check on what she was doing I noticed a perfectly placed star in the middle of her forehead. I laughed, which made it all the more enjoyable for Faith. I told her to go look in the mirror and see how funny she is. She then began a pilgrimage to the wonderful star removing machine, or bathroom, each time returning without 'one upon thars' to get another. I later had to gather stars from various places in the bathroom. But, Faith giggled each time she saw the stars on her face, sometimes adding more than one.



Little did I know how entertaining they would be for Danny too! Wednesday as I left Danny to his own devices in the walker while I did some finances, he found the crinkly star sticker paper and began to eat it , of course. He got a bit frustrated when he became a sneetch too!

The 27th brought family fun again this Friday. I was not as put together this month and didn't do so stellar of advertising. We had the Ricks family for a bit, then a lull, and then the Landen's came. It was fun both times. I had plastic eggs with slips of paper inside. Much to the boys' glee, some of the slips said that the eggs were worth money. Others were vouchers for horsey rides or kisses from mom. One had them ask what was in my pocket which varied from milk duds to tissue paper, to a 'high-five.' We had fun hiding the eggs for each other and finding them. Egg hunts are great for all ages because you can vary the ease of finding the egg. Faith and little Josh and fun finding the easily hid eggs together, and since they couldn't read, we ended up altering what the papers said. Everybody got at least one voucher for a 'nest.' Now that we have tried this once, I am better prepared to do it again with a whole slew of funnier inserts for the eggs.

I just recognized a pattern in my life: when I am learning about new things and establishing better goals in different/new arenas of life/job/motherhood, I feel happier and more productive.
I also just recognized that it takes me about a week to feel like I am semi-savvy on almost any subject and then generally I get bored.
Thus, to maximize my happiness, productivity, and short attention span, I have made an official goal to become semi-savvy in a new subject each week. Within that time span I try to set a goal as to minimum acquired knowledge and a goal as to what I will DO with that knowledge.
The past few weeks have been: Emergency Preparedness, First Aid Kits, 72 Hour Kits, Gardening, and this week I chose Coupon shopping. I now have an Emeregency Preparedness binder that I am adding to almost daily with sections for 72hr, 3 mo supply, 1 year food supply, gardening, emergency, and finance (you can see some potential savvy topics to come). We do have First Aid kits in all our cars as well as our 72 hr kit. We have completed 72 hr kits hung in our garage (okay, they are not quite hung yet, that is Josh's job). We have planted the 1st part of our garden and have a great plan using intercropping and have transplants in our window sill. I have DONE something!! It feels good. And it feels even better that I am giving myself a pat on the back right now.

This week is coupons. It is now Thursday, and I already feel smarter! I am no coupon whiz, but just by asking everyone I talk with how they use coupons, or what are some good sites on the internet they use. I have found a wealth of knowledge. I put some links on this blog under "cheap" if you also want to use. And if you have good ideas and I haven't talked to you yet, please share!

I will try to post a weekly synopsis of what I Self Smarted Myself, and mabye I will back log a bit so I can share my mast lists for First Aid and 72hr Kits, if you are interested.

From "Come Unto Christ" by President Henry B Eyring

The words “come unto Christ” are an invitation. It is the most important invitation you could ever offer to another person. It is the most important invitation anyone could accept. From the beginning of the Restoration of the gospel in this dispensation it has been the charge given by Jesus Christ to His representatives. Their charge has been “to warn, expound, exhort, and teach, and invite all to come unto Christ.”

Every member of the Church, upon accepting the baptisimal covenant becomes a disciple who has promised to stand as a witness of Jesus Christ at all times in any place he or she may be in.The purpose of our witness is to invite people to come unto Him.

All of us should be intensely interested in learning how to issue that invitation effectively. We know from experience that some will not respond. Only a few responded when the Savior Himself offered this invitation during His mortal ministry. But great was His joy in those who recognized His voice. And great has been our joy when those we have invited have come unto Him....

Another wonderful thing will happen. When you give your heart to inviting people to come unto Christ, your heart will be changed. You will be doing His work for Him. You will find that He keeps His promise to be one with you in your service. You will come to know Him. And in time you will come to be like Him and “be perfected in him.”By helping others come unto Him, you will find that you have come unto Him yourself. If you want to be near Him, to feel His peace, you can do it best in His service.

As recorded by Nancy, in the time of the Restoration of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. As written to foretell the good of her days and the prophecies in the land. An account of a family as they journeyed through the blundering wilderness of the mortal world to return to their Savior, the Home, and fulfill the plan of their Heavenly Father.

And Nancy was a decendant of Ann, who was begat by Oda.

Yeah, it did come to pass in the days of Nancy that she did grow in the knowledge of the Gospel; and she did wax strong in the knowledge of her mother and the testimony of her heritage, even to the great understanding of the true doctrines of Jesus Christ.

And Nancy to marry to Josh, who had also been brought up in the ways of righteousness, having fulfilled a mission to the Lord in Colorado and returned with great rejoicing in the many souls he did see enter the waters of baptism.

And they did multiple and replenish the earth and help to subdue it.


As part of my scripture study today in the student guide for Lesson 13 "This Generation Shall Have My Word through You" I was reading the prophecies of old concerning our day. It occured to me that theses scriptures where compiled during times that there were prophets on the earth, containing great truths and teachings, including prophecies as well as accounts of what was happening. The scriptures are the great synopsis of civilizations that knew God.
So what about our civilization? Who shall be the great abridger of our time? And will our posterity read through the records and know of the teachings of prophets and the patterns of mortal wickedness as people do not heed the words of the prophets?

I took a few minutes to begin a search for an 'official' Church compilations/history that would hold all the wherefores, wos, and yeas - but I stopped. What if (and probably more probable than not) I am responsible for writing down the journeys, rejoicing, rebellion, and righteousness of me?! I must report on my branch. We understand that each group of people in the Book of Mormon kept records of their own, later they were compiled and abridged. I now am starting to believe that I must be more careful in my record keeping so that it will reflect, when all the other boring details are melted out (went to grocery store, ate dinner etc) that all I have been working for in my life is to heed the voice of prophets, live by their warnings and teachings, and do all I can to convince my people/children that Jesus Christ is the Living God, the Son of Man, the Creator of Heaven and Earth, and mostly, I know He lives and atoned for me.

Therefore rejoice, and know that He lives and does watch over His people, yea, even the people of Boise Idaho that do heed His voice and do know Him through their patience and hope in that day in which all shall rejoice and be again with Him.

Last night Josh and I planted the hardy vegetables in our little plot and then finished planting a few starts indoors. We certainly have a lot of fun working together - as Josh mentioned last night, working together was 90% of our courtship and how we got to know each other so well so fast.
Here are some true colors that shone through last night:

Since we did not have any suitable rake to cover over the lettuce seeds which need a very shallow covering, I decided to use my hands. As I moved up the row I couldn't help but notice "I am tickling the dirt!"

Once we had mixed some sand with a bit of potting dirt, Josh was wandering into the pantry with the open bag of potting soil. When I asked him what he was doing, he looked at me puzzled. "You don't need to keep dirt in the pantry you know," I teased. "No, I know that!" rebuttled Josh "I was just looking for one of those clips to keep the bag sealed." Uh......for freshness? It is dirt! We laughed together then Josh said "What would the pioneers think of us! They would probably say 'give me a nickle and I will empty out my boot for you, may even scrap the manure off the bottom for free.'"

Before St Patrick's day slips off my background and into the catalogue of forgotten holidays this year, I must report the leprechaun damage. Minimal this year. The tricky little one only managed to unravel a whole roll of crochette thread around the house. However, he was careless enough in his meanderings to drop some of his golden coins which we found as we followed the string.
f


He did not tangle up Danny in the string, Danny did that himself. Faith claims that the leprechaun ripped the stem off of her shamrock pancake, again, I think she did that herself. It was fun green morning to start a few fun family traditions.

note: reports are in from others in Boise that the leprechaun did such damage as tying doors shut, restricting access to oatmeal, turning milk green, tipping over stools and letting the air out of car tires. we were lucky just to get string.

Virtue is a word we don’t hear often in today’s society, but the Latin root word virtus means strength. Virtuous women and men possess a quiet dignity and inner strength. They are confident because they are worthy to receive and be guided by the Holy Ghost. President Monson has counseled: “You be the one to make a stand for right, even if you stand alone. Have the moral courage to be a light for others to follow. There is no friendship more valuable than your own clear conscience, your own moral cleanliness—and what a glorious feeling it is to know that you stand in your appointed place clean and with the confidence that you are worthy to do so.”

Elaine S Dalton "A Return to Virtue"

Tis the season to start the garden. Already?! I just love Boise, it gets warm and I can start thinking about my garden. This year I have been thinking a lot about my garden, which is a really good thing. I feel as though I know twice as much about plants, seeds, gardens, and the like this year than I did last. All that I had to do was read a little. I am grateful for the heritage I have of gardening, but it only just occured to me that my parents have learned what works in South-East Idaho. I live on the complete opposite side of the state and was calmly using the knowledge I had gleaned from them. Not as effective, although it did prove worth while last year - better something than nothing. It all stems back to a personality flaw of wishing that everyone else would just tell me how to do things and then surprisingly I would turn out to be a wiz at following directions have have excellent results. Yet, people are helpful but usually not willing to spoonfeed a capable person. Teach them how to catch a fish they say.

This year I have taken gardening into my own dirty little hands! Better late than never. True to form, the more you know, the more you know you don't know. I have had to limit myself; constantly reminding myself that I will learn what I can this year about such-a-thing and then next year I will add to my base. This year's subjects: intercropping and transplants. For learning about both of those, I have gathered a better base about the plants that I am putting in my garden in order to put then in the best location. We have a small garden, but it is said that a well tended small garden can produce twice as a large unkempt garden. Here's for trying. It is nice (in a sad sort of way) knowing that this is probably the last year we will plant in this garden, so it is a great experiment ground.

I was swirling some loose statistics around in my head last night after plotting out my garden;
*This year I spent half the amount $ on seeds as last year, but got even more (thanks to Freddies 50% sale)
*This year I will spend NO $ on transplants because we are starting our own indoors, which only cost aprox $5 for the starter mix and trays, which we could have done without the trays because we are doing more than half of the transplants now in egg cartons! That is a saving of over $35 if we were to buy all the transplants we are growing.
*This year we will be planting 3 times as much in our garden as we did last year (note; we have not changed the square footage at all).
*If all grows to plan with my TLC, we will have enough food for our freezer for a year as well as salsa, homemade spaghetti sauce, canned tomatoes, canned beans, and fresh watermellon and canteloupe!

What does it all boil down to:
3x the produce at 1/3 the cost from last years planting

If I were to compare that to what it would be if I had to buy all the produce: WOWZERS! I can maybe payoff our student loans a year sooner.

Happy Birthday Ted. We are so proud of you Lieutenant. We are so grateful you are HOME!! Faith prayed for you every day one of those 368 days.

I have often imagined in my mind the crisp and clean nurses of days of old. The triangle hat and white stockings often bobbing from one bed to the next, usually with some sort of netting about it, adminstering aid with a candy red lipstick smile. That image generally morphs into the more conservatively dressed and lipstick-less matrons, or nuns, of the packed and poor orphanages of yester-year. As I was up last night in our convalescence ward, I wondered how it was that despite the endless rows of ailing children, the room always appears noiseless in my mind except the slight rustle of long black skirts, a distant ching of metal spoon on glass bottle-neck, and a slight whimper from under neatly covered beds. And what was that magic medicine that made the children silent? or did it just make the comotose? The 'epicac' must have been akin to witches brew, or magicians elixir. As it stands; either my imagination has been seriously misleading or Tylenol is a severe let-down.
Nonetheless, after a long night with the wee sick ones, I don't think my gliding images of those who care for the sick will change. There is a great peace in serving those that truly need you. A calm when the angelic one has been comforted and slumbers. A love magnified in the hour of need.

Faith has been sick the last couple of days, really sick, which has actually slowed things down quite a bit. To adjust to her needs to be comforted, I have 'called in sick' for several of my other jobs including "Maid in a Minute," "Kitchen Cuisine (or Poor Man's Chef)," "P90X Half-marathoner," "Quasi-Seamstress," "Home Project Manager," "Instant Laundry,""Bear Den Leader (I actually cancelled den mtg, a bit step for me)," and "Sweet and Sexy Wife (no shower and no sleep make for a sore wife)." Faith has just needed 'Mommy.' So I decided to accept that (thanks to my loving husband's suggestion to just let the other things go and focus on what was important) and do my best at being "Mommy."

While sitting and holding her little body, and often Danny with us, my mind has been wandering a lot. In efforts to shut out the other jobs of mine, I have been trying to figure out what IS most important. Several meandering thoughts have been meshing themselves over the past few days. In hopes that I can preserve these tender personal revelations before going back to all the other stuff (who knows how soon that could be, Danny is now phlegmy and who knows if he will get the fever, oh I hope not!), here are some of the most important points that keep crossing paths:

In our Sunday School lesson on Sunday we were discussing lesson 10 (see earlier post) which I had really liked studying personally. I am glad I went to Church and did not just leave it at personal study because there was one question that the teacher asked while talking about pride. "How does pride affect relationships?"
Good question. The answer that kept coming to my mind, that wasn't suggested by anyone else, was; it either destroys the relationship, or makes the people in it (one or both) stronger. How? It is how you react, or rather choose to act (see Bednar "Offend"). As I interact with people, whether I be the proud one in the relationship, or not, or maybe both of us are, I can either let that destroy it, or learn to be humble and become closer to God. In each instance I will have the opportunity to Love as Christ loves, or not. Make it or break it. I look back at my life and realize that the most treasured relationships I have are with some very proud people, not because I am better than they (being any less proud) but because I have learned to love them on the Lord's terms. President Benson was not in error when he taught us 'Beware of Pride,' it is written throughout the Lord's words through all time. I should remember that.

The pride thing kept crossing paths while I was reading through the upcoming Joseph Smith lesson 29 "Living with Others in Peace and Harmony." That lesson seemed to be the flip side of the pride topic, for isn't the peace that comes from love the exact opposite of pride? So many good thoughts there from a man that suffered under the hand of persecution so gracefully and loved men at all times. Here's a gem:
"If you will put away from your midst all evil speaking, backbiting, and ungenerous thoughts and feelings: humble yourselves, and cultivate every principle of virtue and love, then will the blessings of Jehovah rest upon you, and you will yet see good and glorious days; peace will be within your gates, and prosperity in your borders"
Furthermore, he expresses the virtues that we should have/cultivate to become a peacemaker; animation, virtue, love, contentment, philanthropy, benevolence, compassion, humanity and friendship.

That was a crossroads to the upcoming Sunday School lesson focusing on missionary work. I was reading in Doctrine and Covenants 4:6 "Remember faith, virtue, knowledge, temperance, patience, brotherly kindness, godliness, charity, humility, diligence." My snide thought was that those are the qualities that were required of missionaries just to survive their companions! But then as I was pondering while sitting with Faith, I remembered them again weaving in and out of pride, peacemaker and, oddly enough, food storage.

I have no idea what has spurned my almost frustratingly urgent desire to make sure we are prepared for an emergency. I just keep hearing in my head "If ye are prepared ye shall not fear." Perhaps reading a bit of Hugh Nibley, the ultimate advocate of the 'last days,' has set some foliage to the fire, but it is more than that. It really has to be part of this tapestry of thoughts that are keeping the inner tinkerings of my head a-whirr.

Moral: I am not absolutely sure yet. It has to do with progression. It has to do with priorities. It has to do with becoming. It all has to do with this time of mortal probation. Be a peacemaker, aware of pride, but who is nonetheless prepared for all things.

I am glad to be just a Mommy today, and yesterday, and the day before. Perhaps my at home message today is to do what will make me the best that day. It has obviously been good for someone just focus a few minutes longer on what really IS important.

When I was expecting Faith, I created a crib set. I finished the quilt and nearly finished the bumper. We did not know Faith's gender so I made the crib set gender neutral, which really means more boyish. I didn't use the quilt much with Faith because we were given really nice pink ones from other gifted people. We didn't really use the crib because we were moving around so much. It wasn't until Faith was nearly one that she finally was sleeping in the crib, no need for a bumper.
Then as we set up the crib while expecting Danny I kept saying that I needed to finish the bumper. I kept saying it, and saying it, and well.....Danny is nearly 9 months old and was getting his chubby little legs stuck in the slats. So after nearly 2 years, I finished the bumper!!!
I am actually surprised at how well it turned out considering I never use patterns and eyeball everything and really do a shotty job of sewing things together. I am not a patient seamstress. I send a great shout out to my mother for patiently teaching each of her daughters how to sew. Some actually caught on, some (me) pretended, and others just let the ones who caught on do the sewing for them.
Which brings me to another sewing shout out -- my sister Annmarie is an amazing seamstress!! I always knew she was good, but I didn't realize exactly how skilled she is until this week. I have been unpicking a dress that she made for me in high school. I will be making matching Easter outfits for Faith, Danny, and I out of the material, doing gifts on a budget. It has been an eye opener to see the amazing detail that Annmarie put into making this dress that honestly I did not really appreciate because it didn't turn out exactly how my dreamy 17 year old brain wanted it to. I have seen store bought clothing that is made poorer than this one dress that she made for me! Annmarie was the go to girl. She made me at least 2 prom dresses, and when you think about that, she wasn't more than a teenager herself making professional dresses for her younger sister. Wow! It was quite the contrast to my bumper fiasco.

ps Ain't Danny cute! He is my sunshine boy.

In the Disney version of "Alice in Wonderland," whilst lost in the woods, Alice sits down to pout. Her song begins with a sigh and the words "I give myself very good advice, but very seldom follow it." She realizes for her lack of attention to even her own good sense, not to mention the disregard of others' advice, she is lost. She takes whatever path she can, only to find them erased from in front and behind her by a sweeping dog. She finally encounters the Cheshire cat and when she asks him which way she should go, he replies "That depends on where you are going."

Here is a directional decision I have been pondering lately:
My sister asked a few days back what Josh and I's position was regarding R rated movies. My initial, and easy, response was 'NO RATED R.' Base reasoning; that was how I was raised, that was how Josh was raised and how we choose to continue living.
As I have been pondering why that is such an easy decision for me, I started to unearth some of the deeper reasons why I choose not to go down that road.
In the end, this is one of those Mormon culture questions that gets batted around along with caffinated drinks and dating before you are 16. I am not certain if or what doctrine has been given from the pulpit by General Authorities, but we do know what we have been taught as guiding principles. Without doing a specific search to support my reasons from other sources, I have found that I have substantial enough internal evidence to stand my ground.


Movies are rated on a scale based on content. Generally, the worse the content, the more severe the rating. Content guides come in categories of violence, language, and sexually explicit images. When I review those categories I know they are things that I do not want to have negatively impacting my home or my spirit. I am too empathetic to watch violence, it makes me physically ache. I do not need the 'ready in time of emotional distress' vulgar catch phrases anywhere stored in my brain, and let's be honest, if you hear them, the get input. And the sexual stuff, let's leave that behind doors folks! It is pornographic to say the least, not romantic. Ergo, if I do not want any of those three influences in my life, home, or head then I should not see movies that have them in it. For that reason also, I think that most if not all PG-13 movies are off my 'see that' list.

Beyond the logical, I don't feel right when around bad things. I do humbly hope that such sensitivity is because of a personal relationship that I have with the Holy Ghost. If He has to leave, I would prefer to also. I have never watched an R rated movie. I was in the room a couple of times when a few were playing, but I left the room, often before I even knew the rating.

One final rebuttal, for those that insist that there are some 'educational' movie out there that have been harshly rated for their 'real' depictions of history, or even present day life, to that I say I can read the history or the news and get the report with out the heads rolling or dirty language. The cinema almost always interprets things as they see reality, or the harshness of the past, I choose to interpret it as it suits me, or edit it as I choose. Even in begnin flims, things are blow out of the original proportion - that was my observation lately with the film version of 'Prince Caspian.' CS Lewis does not describe any of the battles in the book, but you still get the feel for how horrible it was without the gory images. Even the Disney version played out the battles on screen (much to Josh's delight), to a PG audience. I still prefer the book.

As I was using the Doctrine and Covenants study guide preparing for the Chapter 10 lesson, appropriately named "This Is My Voice unto All," I felt as though so many answers to my prayers were written right before me. I wanted to recognize that the Lord answers my prayers, even the one from this morning! Now that is humbling.

My Calling in Life (for now):
and the office of they calling shall be for a comfort unto thy husband, in his afflictions, with consoling words, in the spirit of meekness (work on that part).

Covenants, remember those?:
Wherefore, lift up thy heart and rejoice (I love rejoice scriptures!), and cleave unto the covenants which thou hast made. Continue in the spirit of meekness (there is that word again), and beware of pride (heard that before, Pres Benson was it?). Let thy soul delight in thy husband (how can I not with such an amazing man, hey, this marriage thing is part of the covenants...oh I see) and the glory which shall come upon him (gotcha. go to temple and it is all so clear).

Princess for a day, or even better ETERNITY!
Keep my commandments continually, and a crown of righteousness thou shalt receive (that should be very pretty).

Financial Advise; reprioritize:
And if ye seek the riches which it is the will of the Father to give unto you, ye shall be the richest of all people, for ye shall have the riches of eternity: and it must needs be that the riches of the earth are mine to give (I really need to remember that); beware of pride (heard that before, hear it again)

Glad I cleaned the toilets:
Set in order your houses; keep slothfulness and uncleanness far from you. (it really does feel better when I am organized and productive, wow, it is more than just a hygiene thing)

In Addition:
I was listening to this talk while running on the treadmill this morning, I just can't get enough of it. So perfect.
Celestial Marriage

We did some shopping at the dollar store this past week. Wish I had been savy enough to know that everything was $.88 on Tuesdays and saved myself the big buck. None the less, the dollar store is one of the last remaining stores on the planet where you go the check out stand with a cart full, and when they tell you how much the total is, you happily say ‘Really?” It is nice to be able to get stuff for what it is worth and not the ridiculously jacked prices.
Speaking of ridiculous economy busting tactics while: Josh took me out running shoe shopping yesterday. We went to a couple of great shops that pay you very kind attention and fit you with the ‘perfect’ shoe. We took down the name and price of the shoe to compare at each store –and online. I politely told the sales people that I had to wait an hour before making any purchase over $50 dollars upon my husband’s request. Josh gave me a cocked look. I always feel guilty after being served kindly not buying what they so attentively helped me with, so I lied to a degree. Josh wishes that I lived by this rule, but I don't, I just didn’t want to seem like the bad guy.

We came home with the names of the two shoes I liked best. Both were priced at $99. What?! That is nearly $100 for shoes, I don’t care if they knock off a penny or two so it looks like it is not as expensive as they are. Our goal was to find the shoe for $60. Josh said I could spend $100 of our tax return on my running gear, and I need some additional supportive gear.

So, we set out with the money saving task at hand. On the official site for the Adidas shoe it was priced at $70, your first idea that it does not cost $100 for a store to get and sell a shoe to you. Then we found the Nike shoe for $70 at Roadrunner.com. The table was even. Which do you get? I waited and bought $30 equivelant of bras before making a decision. Then Josh found my Adidas shoe on Amazon.com for $50! That is half the price as the shoe stores! I am joyous and appalled all at once. I am mostly happy that Josh and I have learned to find an alternative way to get everything cheaper. Josh believes that anything over $100 is negotiable, and now we find that even something at $99.94 is negotiable as well.



I'll spare you the photo of my underwear purchase.