My 2014 Vision Board

OK it's Saturday and I have time so here comes another blog post for today! I have a feeling most of my posts will happen on the weekends when I have time to catch up!

So I read this fab blog called Peak 313 Fitness and this year she talked about making a vision board to visualize your goals for the year. Her post is HERE if you want to take a moment to read it and get an idea what I'm talking about.

Taking my word INTENTIONAL and running with it, I had SUCH a fun time putting this board together! I already had the large bulletin board in my bedroom, it had photos of hubby and I through the years on it - I moved those photos to another place and used the bulletin board for this project. I used things I found in magazines, some free printables from the Peak 313 blog, and also printed out some things from my Pinterest Boards that I found especially inspirational.

The board is set up in four sections with four major areas of life I'd like to be intentional in this year. 

Relationships, Finances, Health and Faith. 

I know a few friends who are making similar goals this year and I'm excited to have people who will help keep me accountable and cheer me on. I hope to do likewise for them as well and pray that I can be an encouragement in their lives as well.

Clare's vision board idea stems from the concept of 'dream it, do it' ... so you dream of the progress you'd like to make in certain areas of your life, then you make a plan of action so you can DO IT! 
I also LOVE how on Clare's posts she uses this verse as a guideline, after all, if you pray that the Lord will help you, He will never fail to show up and give you the strength to accomplish great things! 

                                    “Commit to the Lord whatever you do,
                   and he will establish your plans.” Proverbs 16:3

OK, here is the whole picture of my board: 

Here is the HEALTH section

And my health section DREAM IT / DO IT goals:

Here is my FAITH section

And my faith section goals:

Here is my FINANCES section

And the finances section goals:

My RELATIONSHIP section

And the relationship goals:

I put this photo of my family over the photo of NO FB ... not because I am 

going to stop using FB altogether, but I want to be intentional about limiting

my time on there and specifically limiting the time while my family is home

and awake. If the girls aren't home or are already in bed for the night I don't

mind spending a little time on it. But if it's the evening time and everyone is home

and awake I want to spend that time WITH THEM, not with FB. 

At the top of the board is my word for the year as a little reminder. 

And in the center I printed out Clare's Dream it ---> Do it graphic. 

Here is the whole thing hanging on my wall. I get so inspired each time I walk past it!

How about you? Do you have big dreams, plans or goals for the year? 

Swap with friends

My friend Mary started this group on Facebook a couple years ago ... it's called Another Person's Treasure. So basically you post things you want to get rid of and your local friends can take them off your hands. One man's junk is another man's treasure! So this past week she organized a Swap event. It was held in the gym at our church and everyone brought all their unwanted items and laid them out - then you could go around and 'shop' for FREE among the items the other ladies had brought. It was AWESOME! Not only did I get rid of about 5 bins FULL of my unwanted stuff ... but I came home with some really nice items too! 

Here is all my stuff ready to go into my car ... 

And here are some of my treasures - a food processor! Something I have wanted for a LONG time!
A towel holder for my downstairs bathroom, and a toothbrush holder. 

I picked up 4 of these flip-flop jewelry boxes that I figured the girls would enjoy painting one day with friends. 

My daughter LOVES cupcakes, I got her this to put on her dresser to hold jewelry or treasures. 

{She LOVED it!} 

3 picture frames, I always need more frames!

This beautiful clock ... this is my Mom's life verse so I am going to see if she wants this, if not I will keep it - it needs a new clock function but that is easy enough to replace! 

BRAND NEW candles, never even used! I can always use more of those. 

I use these little bins all the time for office supplies or craft supplies. They fit perfectly into drawers for easy organization. 

 A hot pink suitcase for my daughter, she was super excited about this!

A new game for the family and a brand new 1000 pc puzzle - would be great for a snow day! 

Brand new box of Biscotti, these will be great for coffee with friends!

At first I passed these by, but finally came back to them ... they will hold candles and go on the wall in my bedroom - romantic, huh? ;) 

This is a covered chip/dip holder ... I have another one of these and use it ALL the time when going to parties with friends. They also hold muffins, cupcakes or cookies really well. 

A whole stack of new-to-me books ... I LOVE to read and there were SO many books to pick through at this swap. 

These are hard to see but they are green envelopes with a slightly sparkly finish to them, I can use these when I make cards. 

Wedding table place cards ... got these for my Mom, not sure if she'll need them but they were free so hopefully she can use them!

A beautiful LOFT coat for me ... 

A long comfy sweater for me ... or maybe even my girls. 

This sweater is for me, I love short sleeve sweaters. 

Two sort of fancy shirts for my daughter. 

And a little sweater for my daughter to wear over a dress. 

And SIX beautiful summery dresses that I am hoping will fit one or both of my girls. It's SO hard to afford to keep up with buying them clothes and at this age we never get 'hand-me'downs' anymore ... so I was SO happy that this Mom from church who has 3 college age daughters was giving away some of their clothes!

I think that's all ... so many wonderful treasures, I am SO thankful! If you have a place to do this I would highly recommend getting together with friends and doing one of these swaps! {Side note, they did another one in the fall OUTDOORS at a local park - so you don't need a large gym to do this, just load up your cars and have a tailgate swap in the warmer weather!} Thanks Mary for all your hard work!!! 

Yard Salin'

Today the girls and I went to a couple really neat tag sales. One was held at this big high school and one was at this Baptist Church. Both sales started yesterday {I think} and they were offering an additional 50% off EVERYTHING today. Woohoo!

Here is some of the fun loot I got ... 4 woven placemats {brand new with tags on}, 13 wooden quilt hoops and this little yellow wallet {for my daughter} and she only charged me $1.50!!!!! total!

The quilt hoops were marked 25 cents each and the placemats were marked $2 so this was a steal! I am so excited to turn those quilt hoops into something beautiful! {and I kid you not, quilt hoops were one of the things I was most hoping to find when we headed out this morning ... ppl just don't use them anymore and I usually find them at yard sales, but I LOVE them and can't wait to make pretty things with them!}

Wire basket {that I LOVE!} $1 When I saw it, I knew exactly what I wanted to use it for ... see picture below ...

See?? Doesn't it look great in my bathroom with the washcloths all rolled up in it?

The next great bargain was this salad bowl set. A HUGE glass salad bowl with 6 small bowls for ... wait for it .... $1.50!! I can picture making trifle in the summer in this bowl and serving it in the glass bowls on the deck to company! haha!

My youngest scored some roller skates for $2.50 ...

not perfect but great for playing in the driveway ....

I got a wreath for 25 cents! Already picturing a pretty summer wreath I can make with this!

And another item that I had a vision for ... Bamboo shades, one natural colored and one is a fun, bright orange. I seriously was looking for this exact thing recently but not wanting to pay full price for them. I have this vision of using these to decorate on my deck for the summer, hard to explain until I figure it out myself. But rest assured I WILL post pics when I figure it out. Oh and I only paid 50 cents for each one!

My girlies also got some silly little things with their own money. I try to give guidance about what to buy or not bother buying but also like to let them make their own choices with their own money. Oh well, I'm sure my Mom felt the same way when we were kids! LOL

Hey Jessica, aren't ya proud of me?!

Work your Wallet Wednesday

Today I'm linking up with a great blog, from a great friend of mine named Jessica. Each week she holds a blog party called Work your Wallet Wednesday in which you share some great bargain you found that week.

This week I was on the hunt for inexpensive fillers for the girls Easter baskets. I did not want ANY candy or ANY stuffed animals. And no little junk either as they already have SO much of that. I wanted cute, quality items that were not too costly ... I'm not asking too much, am I?!

A few things I found were sunglasses, flip flops and sidewalk chalk --- all great things for the spring and summer.

Anyway, my girls love the outdoors and love to catch bugs and frogs. My oldest specifically is in love with ANYTHING frog related right now. Her room is filled with frog stuff!

So I happened to stop in the Rainforest Cafe the other day and was looking for frog items. I did pick up a snowglobe for each daughter {another thing they collect!} ... and was at the check out paying. Then I saw these super cute Bindi the Jungle girl adventure play sets. Little characters with a boat or an animal or a surf board or whatever. They seems like something that would be fun to play with in the bathtub, pool or just outside with a bucket of water.

What stood out to me was the price! $1.25 each! I said something to my Mom who was standing next to me and she said, 'no, they must be 11.25 ...' but then the check out guy said no in fact they WERE a DOLLAR, TWENTY-FIVE!! WOW! I got one for each girl ... I could not believe they were so cheap! I should have bought them all and saved them for b-day gifts but wasn't thinking too clearly at the time!

I had to google them to find an image, because I forgot to take pics of course. And found that on Amazon they go for $8-10 per set. So $1.25 was a great bargain in my mind!

If you've got a great bargain to brag about, go over to Jess's blog to share!

From sickness to SWEEEEETTTT deals ...

OK, I'm just getting over a nasty 24 hour stomach bug. ICK, hate those things! I won't even go into ANY details as I'm sure you do NOT want to know them!

So, today I was still a bit groggy, achy and sore all over so I went to see the Chiropractor. Just getting all those kinks worked out seems to help me feel a lot better.

On our way home we stopped at this discount store - it's like one of those overstock places (I think in other states they are called BIG LOTS?). Anyway, the girls and I found this awesomely sweet deal on a Hooked on Phonics spanish program! It typically retails for $250, but since HOP has a sale going they've marked it to $99 ... but at this store I got the whole kit for $19.99!!!!!!!!!!!! woohoooooo!

I also saw some really cool gifts for the girls but since they were with my I'll have to go back another day. Gotta love those bargains!
.

FREE!

Here are the deals I got today ...

At Rite Aid:
Herbal Essences shampoo and conditioner (2 for $6)
10 soyjoy bars (10 for $5)

Had a $3 off coupon for the HE stuff and a $2 off when you buy 10 on the soyjoy bars.

Paid -- $5 out of pocket total - but the SoyJoys have a $5 rebate reward that I will get back - so basically I got all of this for FREE!

At CVS:
I know I should break it all down for you, but I'm being really lazy right now ... so basically I'll just tell you that I paid only $2.35 out of pocket for all of this -- and I got a bunch of extra care bucks and CVS coupons in return (about $20 worth!)
If you aren't clipping coupons yet ladies you need to! It's SOOO worth it! It takes some time and some planning - but you get so much for so little! Couldn't we all use ways to save more money in this crazy economy??

PLUS, if you are looking at the products and saying, "I'll never use that!" ... you're right, you might not use everything you buy - but Christmas is coming soon ... start thinking of stocking stuffers!! We always give stuff like toothpastes and toothbrushes and body washes and lotions and stuff like that in our stockings. I have already started putting away some razors, chapsticks and other stuff for stockings. OR, just use your extra care bucks to buy the items you really want!

I've also kind of learned through this that I need to be a little less picky about my brands. Who cares if I use crest or colgate? If they both taste minty I might as well buy the one that's on sale or gives me ECB's ... or shampoo - I always wanted to buy the same one and it was very pricey. But guess what? My hair is fine with other brands - it doesn't fall out any more or less (it falls out plenty but has nothing to do with shampoo!)

So anyway ... start clipping those coupons girls! (and if you don't want them - send them MY way because you know I'll use them!)