3 years ago today

...at 9:36pm I was in St. Joseph's hospital going on my 25th hour of labor (that was IN the hospital, not counting the time at home). 3 hours from now, 3 years ago, my beautiful daughter was delivered via c-section.

Nora was beautiful, quiet and absolutely amazing. She is still 2 of those things....  ;)

To my beautiful and absolutely amazing daughter Nora, I love you with all my heart and soul. I cannot imagine my life without your laugh and your smile. God blessed me 100 times over when you arrived. Thank you for the joy and blessings you have given me. Even those many sleepless nights (including last night) are worth it when you give me kisses and ask for my hugs.

I love you Nora, Happy 3rd Birthday!

Don't just throw out your pennies

Because here is what you can get for 8 cents!!

I'm going to go back to King Soopers tomorrow (a different location) in hopes of snagging a few more freebies that my local store was sold out of (Crest toothpaste, Dawn soap and cheap Oral B toothbrushes), but I couldn't wait to share this one. Here's how it broke down..

Hungry man dinners - a part of the Buy 10 get $5 off sale this week. Making them $1.78 a piece. I had 2 coupons printed out from the internet for $2 off. The cashier gave me the full $2 off so I made .44 for both of them.

Dial soap - on sale for $1 this week and I had a .35 coupon which doubled. Total = .30

Athenos hummus - on sale for $1 and I had two $1 off coupons = FREE!

Candy bars - on sale for 2/$1 this week. I had 2 BOGO coupons which the cashier gave me full price on (.89). Total for those 4 was .22

You add that up and that's a grand total of .08!!

I also got some other really great deals on Tide detergent ($1.99 after sale and coupons), diapers for $2.99 (thanks Ann for that coupon!) and some honey I found in the markdown bin (only .99 for jars of local honey!!).

Did you score some good deals this week?

Big Props to Vistaprint

No, they aren't paying me anything to write this (I'm not that high profile of a blogger, lol) but I just have to say that if you haven't gone to Vistaprint you should! Even if you don't have a business, they do address labels and such too.

I placed an order on Oct 7th, payed for the slower speed of shipping (cuz I'm cheap like that) and got it today! They said it would take 21 days but, obviously, it arrived in 11!!!! That is AWESOME! They get huge props in my book just for that. And then the price! If you don't know, they do a lot of items for FREE! Here's what I picked up...

I made my own mousepad, a clicky pen, sticky notepad, labels (that I will be using on the front of old campaign brochures) and business cards. I got all of that for FREE except the business cards, which I paid $3.99 for 250! My grand total with shipping was $12.61! And now I feel super fancy with my custom mousepad and pen.

Anyway, I love them. I know I'll be ordering from them again and again and again. Just had to give them a shout out. :)

Now I know

I've been trying to figure out why I'd so scattered lately. It seems like everything is in disarray, including my brain. I used to think I was so organized. Now I feel like I'm a complete mess!!

I had an epiphany today on why this could be. It's sad that it was an epiphany moment because it seems rather obvious but I actually almost said, out loud, "a HA!"

Whenever I want to get something done I don't have large blocks of time to work on projects. I have 10 minutes here, 20 minutes there....maybe an hour or so if the kids are napping at the same time (which they haven't been doing too much of lately). I'm constantly interupted with a crying child, a potty break (Nora's, not mine), a snack request or other randomness. I start a project and rarely ever get a chance to finish it...or even get halfway through it.

Do you see why I'm saying that this should have been completely obvious to me? I have a 1 year old and an almost 3 year old. Of COURSE I don't have large blocks of time. My to-do list is growing and growing, and the piles of projects are growing and growing. The messes are growing and growing. My brain is shrinking and shrinking.

I am SOOOO envious of those moms who have 20 things on their plate and they juggle them all with grace. I thought I could be one of those people but obviously I have a difficult time with it.

As I mentioned in a previous post, I was told a couple years ago that I could possibly have ADHD. I looked at that woman like she had been just taken out of her own straight jacket. I thought there was no WAY I had anything of the sort. A few weeks ago, in one of the Sunday paper inserts, there was an article on adult ADHD. I went down the check list and could mark off most every symptom. It got me to reconsider that maybe I do have some sort of issue that I need to deal with.
It's baffling to me why I can't get myself together some times. Why I can't focus on a conversation very well. Why background noise bothers me so much when I'm watching TV or reading a book. Why I feel so scattered half the time.

As I type this, I have dishes that need to be cleaned up and supper to make. I have Halloween decorations that I need finish putting up and random clutter all over, but I needed to sit here and write this out. Writing some of this helps clear my head a little and then I can move on. Otherwise the words muddle through my brain until I do something with them. So off I go to get supper ready...we'll see what the night brings.