My birthday was earlier this week, and as adult birthdays are prone to be, it was not terribly over-the-top exciting.  It was mostly just an average day, but I did manage to do a few out-of-the-ordinary and fun things.  It is amazing how many companies out there offer freebies for birthdays in exchange for your e-mail address and/or mailing address.  I've read of people who sign up for all of these offers and list their birthday as a different month on each one so that they freebies are spread throughout the year...I understand WHY they do it, but still seems dishonest to me.  Most of the coupons that I received were good for about a week, so I could spread them out, although some of them require you to show ID and are only good on your actual birthdate.  Colin over at Hip2Save (my fave coupon blogger!) posted a very extensive list back in 2010 of companies that offer birthday freebies.  Check it out when you have a few hours, or just browse and enter in for a couple of them.

Some of the ones that I enjoyed this week were...

While we're not officially done with summer yet, everyone else is getting ready to go or already started back to school.  And, while I've thoroughly enjoyed our relaxing summer (pool days in abundance!), I've found myself craving structure, organization, and yes, even a schedule.  While there are many days when I throw the schedule out the window and just "go with the flow," there are also a good many days that we do try to adhere to a schedule for the most part...at this stage of life it's a "loose" schedule, but it mostly keeps me focused and accountable for being a good steward of my time (or at least that's my intention...).  SO, over the course of a few evenings last week and a few hours on Saturday afternoon, I was able to put together a daily schedule for us and on it I have just about every hour from 6am-11pm assigned.  Yesterday was our first day "following" it and I have to say that we both seemed to be much happier campers.  

C is three...as she is quick to tell anyone who will listen. :)  She loves to learn.  She is a sponge.  I love watching her learn and I love the gift I've been given to be able to teach her about God's world.  At this age, she needs SO. MUCH. TIME to play, pretend, imagine, and explore, but she also enjoys more structured learning times too.  So, as part of our schedule, we are starting some pre-school type work, both in worksheet form and of course LOTS of hands on.  I hope to spend some time planning for each month and working around a theme.  I'm not sure who is more excited about this...me, or her.    :)

You know I have a love affair/addiction with Pinterest, but I'm happy to say that I have found so many helpful resources from that site and it really is helping me to improve in many of my responsibilities.  Time management NOT being one of them.  Ahem.  The point being -- I discovered some scheduling tools from pinterest that I wanted to share...




And I love this deep cleaning schedule,

I'm getting ready to work on writing a bunch of blog posts for the next two weeks or so (provided my energy holds out...), but wanted to let you know NOW, to hop on over to Olivia's blog, where she's hosting a giveaway and you can enter to win a $25 gift card to Publix. There's all kinds of ways to enter, so why not stop by?!? Thanks, Olivia, for the chance to win a great gift!

This is my 100th post since I started blogging faithfully (again). In celebration of that, I am giving away a $10 gift card to......