Ever since I got an iPod, having artwork for all my albums has been a pretty important thing for me. I’m pretty visual, so to have scores of albums stuck with no cover or with a yucky one was just annoying to me. One of the first things I did, after making the painful switch from Real Player to iTunes, was to get cover artwork for all my albums.

Sometimes, though, a particular album won’t come with a cover. Sometimes the cover is not easily available, or it looks horrible, or it never had one to begin with. Since I know my way around Photoshop a bit, the obvious choice was to, of course, make my own covers!

Roberta's Choir

My friend Roberta had been in a choir during high school, and she gave my sister and I two CD’s from two of the festivals they performed in.  This was one of the CD’s that never had a cover, obviously; it was a very home-made kind of CD. So, I made my own cover! I found some clip art on the web, and then colored it so it looked visually appealing. I really liked the way these covers came out.

Daddy Long-Legs - The Musical

I’m quite happy with the way these ones turned out; the second one in particular. The first was really a recreation of the actual CD cover, which wasn’t online. I knew what the real cover looked like, so I modified the musical logo, which WAS online, so it matched. That was pretty easy, and a no-brainer. The second one was harder though, because it was a cover for the test recording, which never had a cover to begin with. I picked a promotional image from the musical, and added the DLL logo onto the paper Jarvis is holding. I LOVE how it came out!

Emma - The Musical

These ones were both original creations, since the actual CD doesn’t have a cover as far as I know, and the test recording (second cover) obviously never had one. Again, I just picked promotional images that I liked, and added some text! Pretty easy, and they look great when I shuffle on my iPod.

Extended Narnia

I also like this cover. Way back in the day, a couple short soundtrack bits from the first Narnia movie was released online; these were clips that hadn’t made it into the soundtrack and were only available to listen to in the actual movie. I still have the clips, so naturally I wanted to make a cover for the teeny album. I picked this particular photo to use since one of the clips came from that part of the movie, when they’re practicing archery.

Glen Baker

This one is fun to me because it’s a recreation of the cover that had original come with the CD (made by a friend and home-produced), that had gotten lost quite a long time ago. I couldn’t remember any of the details of the cover except that it had had a sailboat on it with colored stripes like that, and I was lucky enough to stumble on an image that resembled it quite a bit. A new twist on an old cover, but I like it!

The rest of the covers below are just random ones I made for different albums I have. Sometimes when I have a bunch of miscelanious music clips, I’ll group them together by the type that they are. I.e., the “Trailer” album has a lot of clips that I collected for use in making a fan PC trailer YEARS ago, and the “Floor Exercise Music” album is for, you guessed it, a collection of floor exercise music!

US Historical Documents

TV Theme Songs

Trailer

The American Collection

Shelter Cove

Here and There

Floor Exercise Music

Von Trapp Children - Extras

Have you ever made any unique cover art for albums? I’d love to see them! Leave me a link. Hope you enjoyed the ones I posted!

P.S. If for some reason you want to use any of these covers, have at it! I don’t mind.

A while ago, I made a post about freebies that I’d been receiving and how cool they were, etc. Now it’s time for that blog post 2.0, but focusing on a different theme this time…coupons.

Let me preface this by saying that before October of last year, I never used coupons. My mom didn’t use coupons. No one I knew used coupons. I hadn’t seen one years. Coupons were something obsessed mommies did to save a few pennies; that’s all.

Then I started working as a cashier. And boy, were my eyes opened.

You just can’t ignore the massive amounts of money that people save just by printing off a few slips of paper or clipping a couple from their weekly newspaper. Every day I would come in and be amazed at just how many dollars that would come off. One thing that surprised was just how many people use coupons. I thought that was something not many people took advantage of, but apparently couponing is back in vogue thanks to the economy. I haven’t counted myself, but as a rough estimate, I want to say that out of every ten people I check out, at least two will use at least one coupon. On certain high-traffic days, the ratio is higher.

So anyway, after I noticed how much money that could be saved from coupons, I had to get in on the deal. At first, I started out with just printable coupons, since we didn’t get the paper and it was all I had available. Still, I was able to use a couple, and trust me, seeing three or five dollars come off your purchase total is the greatest feeling ever. Now I know why people are addicting to couponing; it’s a serious buzz!

In January, I just couldn’t ignore the value of coupons from the paper anymore, and I bought my first paper just for the coupons inside. A few weeks later, we ended up getting a subscription. Dad’s only stipulation was that I save him at least as much money as the paper costs, which I would say has easily been an unqualified success. At only a dollar a paper, I only need to use one 1 off coupon a week to make it worth while, and trust me, I use much more than one coupon a week.

As time has gone on, I’ve found myself getting more and more into coupons. It’s like a hobby, but one that saves me money. Although my mindset is definitely a lot different than your average coupon-er, since I do not do the majority of grocery and household shopping and mom won’t use coupons unless I’m there with her, physically handing them to her.

For me, coupons is a way to save me a few  bucks on the expenses that I now have, but didn’t have before. Mainly, on food for work lunches and personal care items. I never had to buy those kind of things before, but now that I have a job, I’m responsible for all of my personal expenses. Things like cosmetics and shampoo can really add up!

For instance, lunches for work. Since I work 4-5 days a week, and most of those days I have to take a lunch or dinner, that’s a lot of food. I like Campbell’s Soup, and with coupons, I’m able to get those for about a dollar a can. Considering that the average co-worker of mine spends between 3-5 dollars a day on lunch, the fact that I only spent a dollar makes it a pretty good savings for me. Obviously I splurge on our in-store Pizza Hut every now and then, but on the general whole, my food generally costs me about a dollar a day. Lucky for me that I like that kind of food. I just stockpile the cans in my closet when I find them on sale, and I’m set!

Another reason why couponing works for me is because while sometimes it won’t necessarily save me money that I was already going to spend, it allows me to “upgrade” my choice of items for the same amount of money that I would have spent on the cheap stuff. For example, when mom bought my shampoo and conditioner, it was always the Suave stuff from the dollar store. But now I can get higher-end brands from Target for the same price, after using coupons. So I get the nice stuff for the same price as the cheap stuff. For me, that’s a worthwhile savings.

Sometimes, buying the “nicer” stuff can be much cheaper than buying the cheap stuff, if you have the coupons. This week Dove shampoo and conditioner was on sale, plus I had $3 worth in coupons per item. Since the shampoo was only$3.44 originally, after I used my coupons, it was only $.44 a bottle. Now that is an excellent deal for any kind of shampoo!

My little stockpile

Obviously, there’s a point where you have to draw the line and figure out, exactly how much of this do I really need? One only needs so much deodorant, even if it is only $.50 cents a stick. The same goes for printable coupons. Most sites only allow you two prints per computer, which is usually fine. But we have, um…seven or eight computers. Which means that theoretically I could print out as many coupons as my little heart desires. But I don’t like being greedy, and again, who NEEDS 10 copies of one coupon anyway? I usually stick to one computer, utilizing just one other in special circumstances. I’ve only felt the need to venture beyond two computers just once, but more on that later.

I try and use constraint and only buy what I need, even when it’s tempting. If something is a really killer deal, sometimes I’ll buy it anyway, with the intention of giving or selling it at cost back to the family. Either way, I’m saving the household money, which is always a great thing.

Anyway, now that I’ve hopefully explained why I coupon, I’m just dying to show you some of the deals I’ve scored recently! Half the fun of getting a great deal is sharing it.

I do the significant majority of my shopping at Target, because A.) I’m always there, B.) It’s supporting my employer and keeping me in a job!!! and C.) I get a 10% discount on everything in the store. Now, the latter alone is enough incentive to keep me from venturing off to other stores. To me, the discount pays for tax, with a couple of cents left over. That’s why I can’t really show you exactly how much I paid for some things and expect you to pay the same, because I got a discount off that most people can’t get.

For instance. How much do you think I paid for the items below, tax and everything?

March 18th shopping trip

The answer, my friends, would be .51 cents. Yes, $.51!!!

Now, if I hadn’t had my discount, I would have paid 1.86 after tax, possible a few cents more because tax is applied after discount and I’m guessing it would have gone up a wee bit without the discount. Still, it’s a great deal; nothing to sneeze at. But there’s something incredible at paying two quarters and a penny for a bag full of stuff.

Let’s see, what else did I get this week. Oh, I found some regular size bottles of Jergens lotion for only .82 cents..!!!

How I love thee, amazing deals...

Yes, I was shocked too. It wasn’t specially advertised or anything; that was just how much it was. I can only imagine that they were trying to get rid of stock because it was discontinued or something. Either way, I picked up two bottles. Score one for me! I actually had a $1 off coupon that I was able to bring back, and after tax, coupon and discount, I ended up paying only .58 for both of those. Now THAT is a good deal.

Free or mega-cheap stuff...

Pretty much everything pictured above I got for either free, or very cheap (and by cheap I mean a dollar or less).  The small sample things below were sent to me in the mail, the Excedrin was free…what else. The Covergirl was part of a Buy 1, Get 1 Free coupon I had, and while the Schick razors were over a dollar, razors are pretty expensive and I paid two dollars for them, so I figure it counts.

SoBe Lifewater...all for free! (Pretend there's 20 bottles here. I drank one. )

Now this SoBe deal was a fun one. It required a LOT of computers, though! Here’s how it worked.

The SoBe’s were on sale at Target for $1 each, with a promotion that if you bought 10 bottles, you got a $5 gift card. So basically, you would pay $5 for 10 bottles. Not a bad deal.

But! There was a Buy One, Get One Free coupon available from the manufacturer. You’re only allowed two prints per computer, so I had to utilize six different computers to get all the prints I needed. Now, we have nine computers in the house, but not all of them print, or were in working order at the time. So it took a while.

But anyway, if you could get your hands on five of those BoGo coupons (and I was able to get 10), you could use five of them on your transaction, meaning that you would only pay $5, plus you got a $5 gift card back. Which made the SoBe’s absolutely free!

The deal got even sweeter, though. There were some Target coupons available that you could stack with the manufacturer coupons, up to five coupons per transaction. You could take an additional .50 cents off of five of your bottles, meaning that not only did you get the SoBe’s for free, but you got more back on the gift card than you actually paid in cash. I wasn’t able to use the maximum amount of Target coupons because I failed to print enough in time, but I still did pretty well.

I did two transactions. The first one cost me $3.85 after taxes (and discount), and I got $5 back in the gift card, which means that I made $1.15. The second transaction I paid $4.33 after everything, and got another gift card, which means I made $.67. Not as much, but still, I MADE money, not spent it!!! That’s a pretty mind-boggling thing, really, to make money while you spend it.

I don’t really like SoBe’s personally, so I gifted my brother with them. Happy birthday!

Anyway, that’s the end of my little money-saving post. No doubt I’ll be back in a while, just itching to share the latest deal I scored!

I LOVE saving money!

A few weeks ago, I was at Target, shopping for a very specific product. Farouk System’s Biosilk hair serum, to be exact. That stuff is amazing on my hair and we were nearly out, so I was out to buy a replenishment. It’s a fairly pricey product though; usually only found in salons. The store next door sold a generic version of it for $8, but I didn’t want to spend my money on a knock-off if I didn’t have to.

I didn’t know that Target sold Biosilk until I stumbled across it accidentally. I got all excited, until I saw the price. I nearly fainted!

Yeouch!!!

(Note: The bottle is half-empty because it developed a leak after I bought it and I had to transfer it to a different container. )

Yeah, 41 freaking dollars! I knew the stuff was expensive, but not THAT expensive. I thought it would be around 20 dollars or so, not 40!

The generic version was looking more and more like it would be my fate, until I happened to glance over at the other products on the shelf.

!!!

I blinked. There was a gift set, containing the exact same bottle of Biosilk, WITH shampoo and conditioner. Surely they got the prices mixed up…

But they hadn’t! The bottle of Biosilk all by itself genuinely was $41, and the gift set, with the EXACT SAME BOTTLE plus more, was $27. It wasn’t on sale. They weren’t trying to get rid of it. That was just it’s normal price.

Guess which one I bought… :p

Anyway, that’s probably one of the more head-scratching of prices I’ve ever seen. Don’t ask me how it makes sense; it doesn’t. But you’d have to be a complete fool to buy the more expensive  bottle when you can get the exact same thing, plus shampoo and conditioner which is valued at about 10-15 bucks apiece, for almost half the price.

Yeah. I was “???” too!

Got any other product prices that are just bizarre? Drop me a comment!

Remember how in my last blog post, I said I didn’t want to say who I was rooting for in the men’s figure skating competition because I’m nerotic like that?

Ok, so you don’t. But let’s pretend like you were reading my blog last night, and you thought, “Oh, I’m really curious to see who Gymfan is rooting for!”

But anyway, back to last night…

…. that was the skater I was rooting for.

Congratulations, Evan Lysacek! You’re the new Olympic champion!

Ok, so maybe the Olympics have already been going on for about a week now. And maybe I didn’t write at all last week, breaking my goal of writing once a week for three months. *shrug* It was a busy week; oh well.

The Olympics have been pretty fun to watch; this is probably the first time I’ve done the whole full TV experience thing. Although I probably spent as much time, if not more, online watching events during Beijing, simply because there’s just so many more events to chose from. The Winter Olympics are a bit slim in that regard.

Shen and Zhou react to winning the gold medal

So far, the Pairs event has finished, and the Men’s gold medal will be decided tonight. Pairs finished exactly as I hoped; with Shen and Zhou, the married couple from China finally taking the gold medal at their fourth Olympic appearance. Talk about dedication! They announced their well-deserved retirement just days after their gold medal, and plan to go home, enjoy their success and each other, and hopefully start a family. They gave so much to the sport and I’m so happy their career ended on such a high. I wish them all the best of success in their new life!

The Men’s free skate is tonight, and it’s going to be a bloodbath out there; I just know it. The top three men are virtually tied, and each one of them are quite capable of either imploding or winning the gold medal. Not to mention the other skaters ranked 4th-6th, whom I’m sure will be giving it everything they’ve got in order to get on the podium. It’s going to be a nail-biter of a final; I’m sure. I just hope that everyone skates their very best, and let the chips fall where they may.

You may have noticed that I’m not really mentioning who I’m rooting for tonight or in future skating events. It’s kind of a superstition I have, almost, even though I know it really means nothing and there’s no such thing as jinxing or anything of the sort. I’ve just found that when I’m really vocal about a certain team or individual, they tend not to win. Although I’m wondering if this “power” I have only applies to team sports, because come to think about it, when I look back, my favorite athletes have tended to actually do really well. But it doen’t really matter. Either way, you’ll just have to wait until tomorrow to find out who I was/am rooting for.

On a completely different subject, my training and preparation for the marathon relay in May has been going pretty well; far and beyond my wildest expectations. When I first starting running I seriously doubted if I could do this, but it’s amazing what a little training can do. I started out doing short intervals of running and walking, and believe me, the first two runs were MURDER, and I was only running for a minute at a time! But as I’ve kept at it, I’ve noticed that my stamina and endurance has improved and I’m able to go longer without my heart feeling like it’s about to jump right out of my chest (a very obvious sign of being really out of shape!). I can really feel a difference in my heart rate, and how I’m able to run longer, but not be as tired.

I also changed my mentality a bit; not getting too focused on the aches and pains and instead viewing them as a positive thing; knowing that you HAVE to stretch and tear down muscle and hurt if you want your muscles to get stronger. All with reason, of course. But instead of wimping out at the littlest twinge, I just push through it and I can really feel a difference in that now.

My iPod! (Well, generally speaking. )

Also, one thing that REALLY helped my running (even though it sounds so silly when I’m typing it now!) was an iPod. Yes, an iPod! I finally caved in and bought one, and the difference in my running has been like night and day. I now have some music to help keep my mind occupied and off the discomfort of running, and time also passes by so much quicker. Music can also help you set a pace and stick to it, and not run too fast or shuffle too slow. Also, I’ve been able to time my runs, which is a HUGE encouragement. The first time I went out with my iPod, I ran for four minutes straight. The next run, my longest run was seven minutes. Yesterday when I went out, I was able to go for 18 minutes without stopping; roughly a mile. I was SO excited! Next time I go out, I want to run 20 minutes; I know I can do it now. If I keep increasing my runs by just a few minutes each time, suddenly running seven miles all at once in two and a half months doesn’t sound so impossible anymore.

So yeah, this week’s traning has been REALLY encouraging to me. I know it won’t always feel this good, and it’s going to hurt a LOT more before this is done. My knee was complaining a bit yesterday every time I went up an incline, because I think I pushed it too far a few days ago when I did a long run (for me) straight out of my warm-up walk, with only a little stretching before. Not very good. So now I know that I need to ease into the running gently. Lots of stretching, then a warm-up walk, then a short run, and then I can run as long as I want. It really makes a difference.

Well, that’s all for now. I will try my very best to update tomorrow after I get back from work! I’m sure you’ll all be dying to find out who I’m rooting for tonight. As if anyone actually reads this.

So I signed up to run this marathon relay. And now I’m beginning to wonder if I’ve lost my mind.

I guess I should probably explain how this all came about. Last year, two gals/ladies/whatever from the Gospel Hall (my church) trained for, and successfully ran, a whole marathon. Crystal is the mother of three and Sarah is seventeen and loads of fun, and together they ran together and accomplished that pretty incredible feat. It was pretty inspiring and yes, I’ll admit that I said to myself, “Well, if Crystal and Sarah can do it, I’m sure that if I tried hard, I could to.”

Fast forward a few months, when Crystal starts batting around the idea of getting a few folks together to run a marathon relay, basically a marathon divided up among four people. What a perfect way to jump-start my career as a champion runner, I thought, and enthusiastically signed up.

Stuff puttered around all winter, and finally got put together and finalized a few weeks ago. I filled out my form and paid my fees, and thought to myself, well, I suppose that now would probably be a good time to start training.

Let me make this clear, very, very clear. I am not a runner. I’m not even an athletic person of any kind. I’m probably the least athletically-inclined person alive, and I say that not out of humility, but out of honest truth.

I signed up to do this run because I thought that A.) it would be fun, and B.) it would be a good way to get more in shape and physically active, and C.) prove to myself that I’m not a fat lazy slob that sits in front of the computer all day. 6.7 miles? Yeah, it would be hard, but I could do it, right?

Right?

Um, got a little too big for my britches, did I.

Last week, figuring that now was as good of a time as any to start my training, I decided to go out running. I could handle a little jog, couldn’t I?

Apparently not!

That first run was an epic disaster, and I say that in ever literal, realistic sense. I did so many things wrong it’s not even funny. For a person who had never really ran before, I probably couldn’t have picked the worst set of circumstances. I didn’t know it at the time, but my course of choice was up an incline. Never, ever, EVER underestimate the power of incline. It’s brutal. The weather was cold, which made breathing hard. I was wearing boots. Yes, boots!

As I trudged along, struggling to run even a few yards, I couldn’t help but scream at myself inside. Who on earth did I think I was?! I couldn’t even handle this little thing! There was no way I could ever run six miles than I could fly!

It was so discouraging. I really didn’t know if I could go through with this. Maybe I just wasn’t cut out to be a runner. Maybe there was something wrong with me. Maybe I really was a lazy pathetic loser.

Hey, enough with the lies! Let’s move on from that depressing first run.

I’m happy to say that it has gotten better. I got advice and encouragement from my fellow runners. I found a training plan that, while it won’t get me to six miles by May 1st, the day of the relay, it should get me to three miles by April, with a goal of improving my stamina and distance so I can run at least half of the relay all at once, and then walk/run the rest of the way. That, to me, is a realistic goal.

I invested in a really nice pair of running shoes, which are working out SO well so far. I bought some proper clothes. I educated myself on proper training technique, including stretching which I cannot stress enough: It really does make a difference!

So far, my very early training has been going well. I know I’m only two runs in and there’s still dozens more to go, with a LOT more difficulty coming, but we all have to start somewhere. My goal right now is to run/walk three miles every other day, doing interval training and gradually increasing my run ratio until I’m running the whole way. Then I’ll move onto six mile walks/runs, hopefully shortening the walk portions as much as I can until the actual relay.

I know actually running the whole thing is a bit of a realistic stretch for me at the moment. But that’s okay. I’m going to try my very best, and if I can’t do it, it won’t be for lack of effort.

I know it’s going to be painful and tiring, but I really am looking forward to getting more in shape and doing a really fun event with a bunch of really great people.

Now, I’d really appreciate if the weather would up and cooperate and start being nice. I had to run in the snow today and it was not. fun. at. all. Sunny California, I think I might finally miss thee!

So I’m sitting here at the computer, quite blank as to what I should write about this week. After griping to myself mentally for months about how I always had so much I wanted to share but never had the time to write, once I actually start blogging regularly, I exhaust my list of “good” ideas in less than three weeks.

Pathetic, no?

Plus, today has just been one of “those” days. Not that it was bad, just…one of those days. I didn’t have to work, so I’m sitting here at home with noting really to do. And yet I feel oddly bereft and…off today.

Maybe it has to do with the fact that it’s 22 degrees outside and snowing. Color me shivering.

Maybe it has to do with the fact that I wasn’t able to successfully complete the Journey Challenge because I’m a hopeless procrastinator and lazy to boot. (I’m still going to finish before January is over, mind you…I HATE failure. )

Maybe it has to do with the fact that January seemed like such a busy month and I hardly got any of the things done this month that I wanted to. My new forum is supposed to open in two months and I didn’t do a single. bit. of . work. on it. all. stinkin’. month. *headdesk*

Maybe it has to do with the fact that I signed up for a marathon relay in May that really isn’t such a difficult task when you think about it (only seven miles! ), but when you couple in the fact that I’m probably the most un-athletic person on the planet and I think I might stink at running and I’m quite possibly going to have my butt whipped by kids half my age there, yeah, it’s a little daunting!

But maybe the reason why it’s been “one of those days” is because I’ve just had too much time on my hands today and not enough work. ) I get moody and introspective when I have days like that.

Anyway, since I couldn’t really come up with anything better to talk about at the moment, and the frigid winter weather outside is being at least a little inspiring if not exactly desirable, I thought I’d share some photos I took about two weeks ago.

We had what I believe was a freezing fog, or some kind of frost. Either way, I’d never seen it before. Every tree for miles and miles was coated in frost, very light and delicate and spiky.

It was one of the most beautiful things I’d ever seen. God’s creation is so amazing; it just took my breath away.

That’s one thing that I really love about living in Illinois…you really get to see some very incredible variances in weather that you don’t usually get to see in California. Snow, frost, freezing rain…some of it is just awe-inspiring and amazing.

Every time I see a snowflake, I can’t help but think about how God made them so that no two snowflakes are exactly alike. Just like He made each one of us unique; with no two human beings being exactly the same. When you think about how many snowflakes there are, has been, and will be…that our God could be so powerful and amazing to make each one different…

… I guess that if He cares that much about snowflakes, how could I ever doubt how much He cares about me?

Recently, I’ve been on a bit of a free stuff kick. And I’m beating myself up for not getting on it sooner.

I’m trying to figure out how exactly we got started on it. I think it was on Facebook, when someone posted a huge list of restaurants and establishments that offer freebies on your birthday. I signed up for nearly all of them, and got the rest of the family hooked on it as  well. I haven’t had my birthday yet since signing up, but the other kids have and some of them made out like bandits. Did you know Benihana’s offers a VERY nice birthday perk where you get a free meal up to $30? That’s by far one of the best birthday freebies out there. Other really nice ones are offered by Cold Stone, Dairy Queen, Starbucks, and more. You can find all the information for signing up for these freebies here.

But anyway, back to free stuff. The big list of birthday freebies I just linked you to came from a site called Hey, It’s Free!, a site dedicated to finding out all the offers for free stuff over the net and compiling it in once place.

Around October or November, we (Ruth and I) really started keeping track of the stuff on HIF and signing up for various freebies and deals that came by. Since most things come in the mail 1-2 months after you sign up for it, there was quite a long period between when we started oping in for things and when we started receiving them. Ruth signed up for things a while before I did, so she started getting mail in December. Everything from granola bar samples to eyeshadow. But I never got anything, because I didn’t really start signing up for things until she started getting mail.

Anyway, this week marked the end of my “waiting period” and I got quite a few freebies in the mail! It was very exciting, you see.

The first freebie I got didn’t actually come from HIF, but from a General Mills market research group called Pssst. I’d heard some good things about the group (how they were pretty generous with samples and didn’t expect too much in return), so I signed up last month and received my first product from them a week ago. It was for their YoPlait Frozen Smoothies, and they sent me a coupon for a free bag, plus a bunch of coupons to use and hand out to others.

*squee!* My first freebie!

It took me a bit to redeem my coupon for the actual product because my Target doesn’t carry them, and every time I went to Walmart they were either out, or they didn’t have the one I wanted. Finally I was able to get my hands on it, and I made the smoothie that night.

It was pretty good! I’m not a huge smoothie fan, but I loved the berries and the yogurt nuggets gave it a very nice “ice cream-y” taste. The smoothie mix itself is a bit pricey and I’m not sure I’d pay full price for it myself, not being a smoothie lover, but it was definitely very nice to try it and if you like fresh smoothies, you’ll like this.

The next set of freebies came all at yesterday, and was quite a surprise because it had been so long since I’d requested them that I’d forgotten all about them. One was from Stacy’s Pita Chips, with a coupon for a free bag, and the other one was from the makers of International Delight, a coffee creamer company, with a coupon for a free pint. Ruth had signed up for that freebie too, so we were able to get two pints.

Note that I already had dug into the chips by the time I took this photo. YUM.

I don’t drink coffee, so I can’t comment on the creamer. I only got them because I know Dad would like them. And I have to say, if the creamer tastes as good as the packaging looks, it probably is delicious.

The Stacy’s Pita Chips…oh my goodness, where do I start? They were AMAZING! I have to say, giving out those free bags was such a smart idea, because now I’m hooked and I’ll probably have to go back and buy the full priced bags soon. I got the cheddar flavored kind, and it was SO good. They had other kinds too…plain, cinnamon, garlic parmesan herb, and more. They ALL looked good. PW, my favorite blogger, was sponsored by Stacy’s a while ago and talked about them quite a bit, but i never bought the hype. Now I will gladly rescind my previous scoffer’s attitude. These chips are AMAZING.

Oh, and I believe all of these freebies were gotten via Facebook. I think companies are just starting to realize the power of social networking, and are offering more freebies and incentives directly on sites like Facebook and Twitter. Nestles Crunch is running a HUGE promotion on Facebook right now where if you play a little quiz game around noon every day and rack up 1000 points, you can win a free Nestles Crunch bar, via a coupon sent to you in the mail. Ruth and I have been doing this deal for the last two weeks and should be starting to get our coupons any day now.  Considering that this promotion lasts until sometime in March, I have a feeling we’re going to have a LOT of chocolate.

But back to the present, that was all the straight-out freebies I got yesterday. I also got a coupon book from Nestles Inc., but most of the coupons expired at the end of December. Oh well. There were still some that are good this year that I can use. I’ve also got a cleaning supply-themed coupon book that has some pretty nice discounts in it.

Speaking of coupons, I have officially started becoming a bit of a coupon geek. I never, ever used them until I started working at Target, and couldn’t ignore the great deals you can get just by printing out a piece of paper from your computer. I don’t do the housekeeping (i.e do the spending) and I don’t get the newspaper coupon inserts, but I’ve been able to save quite a bit of money just from Internet coupons. Most of them were for quick and easy lunches for me to take to work. Almost every day I work I have to take a meal, and I’ve stocked up on quite a bit of soup and frozen meals. Thanks to coupons, I’ve only had to spend a fraction on food than what I might have had to normally.

Like I said, I don’t do as much coupons as others. I don’t get inserts, I really only buy for myself, and I do most of my shopping at Target and occasionally Walmart…I haven’t even touched stores like CVS or Walgreens. I’m sure that if I were housekeeping, I would go all out and I would make a KILLING just by using coupons.

Anyway, I can’t wait to see what other freebies I get in the mail soon. I signed up for quite a bit so hopefully it will start arriving soon. I can’t remember half of what I requested, but I know there was some lip gloss and Uni-Ball pens involved. :p

Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to go and see if there’s any crumbs left of my fabulous Stacy’s Pita Chips. Man, that stuff was GOOD!

So I started a job back in October. My first real job, to be exact. Six months ago, if you’d asked me if I ever saw myself working outside the home in this situation, I’d have said absolutely no way. But things sort of worked themselves out, and both my parents and I felt like it was what God wanted me to do at the time. It’s not the most ideal job, but right now it’s fulfilling a need; a need for me to be busy and supporting myself while I wait on the Lord and see what the next step is.

But anyway. I’m a cashier at Target, a familiar establishment to my family since my brother Nathan worked there as an overnight stocker several years ago. Well, he worked for Target; not at this same store, obviously.

I like my job a lot. It’s quite interesting, and it’s never dull or boring unless there’s guests to assist, in which case time just drags. Fortunately, we’re rarely in that situation, so the shifts go by fairly quickly.

It’s not really hard work. At first I was a bit apprehensive, because I’m not really a people person and I wasn’t sure how complicated cashiering would be. The good news is that cashiering here is mostly dummy proof, and the parts that aren’t dummy proof are fairly simple to learn. And the best thing is, there’s always other people around to which whom you can “pass the buck” if a situation is beyond your knowledge.

I’ve been at Target for about three months now, and here are  some random observations I’ve made over time.

• Contrary to popular opinion, people talking on their cell phones during check-out doesn’t really bother me that much. There are far, far worse things a person could be doing, trust me. :p As long they are aware of what they are doing, and acknowledge any questions I may have for them, it’s fine. It’s when they’re completely oblivious to their surroundings and stand there yakking while I’m waiting patiently for them to finish putting their items on the belt, or pay, that really aggravates me.
• Black Friday wasn’t that awful, for me anyway. Granted, I stayed put in one place the whole morning and my job was fairly focused and organized. I know that for others, who had to run here and there, Black Friday was a nightmare. But apart from getting up at 4am, it wasn’t really so bad. I’ve worked worse shifts. :p
• I don’t like bagging big, bulky toys. Which is why I can’t wait until this big inventory sale is OVER. I also don’t really like bagging groceries.  I usually try to keep frozen and refrigerated items separated and sorted while I’m bagging, but if a guest is just chucking their items pell-mell on the belt, there’s usually too much for me to process to keep things completely separated. But I do try.
• I much prefer for it to be not too busy, not too quiet, but just steady. There is NOTHING more mind-numbingly boring than standing around waiting for guests. I try and keep busy by putting re-shop away, keeping the area clean, etc., but there’s only so much you can do.
• People stick their re-shop in the ODDEST places. Re-shop is, by the way, items that people pick up in the store, and then discard later when they decide they don’t want it. It’s particularly bad up by the check-lanes, because people will stat going through their stuff and start picking out the things they don’t want. At Target, we have boxes under the register to put re-shop items in, and we very MUCH prefer for guests to hand us their unwanted items, rather than chuck them on the nearest end-cap or display. It’s very annoying, but also a little interesting to go through the check-lanes during a quiet moment and see all the junk that people have thrown each and every way. Some people are worse than others. One group of families were shopping together, and before going to check out, they starting ging through their items and throwing tons of unwanted things on an end-cap. Even as I was there, right next to them, silently removing the items and putting them in my re-shop cart, they kept doing it. *headdesk*
• When I first started working, my back KILLED me and I wanted to sit down all the time. Now, I’ve adjusted a bit and it’s not so bad, really. Everyone says that their feet and legs always hurt them in a job like this, but mine have always been fine; it’s just my back and neck that kills me. You learn very quickly not to slouch because it is horrible for your posture and general well-being. :p
• I’ve worked up at Guest Service a few times, and it’s a LOT harder than cashiering, simply because there are so many more variables and situations.

Well, that’s all I can think of at the moment. I’m sure there’s more, a LOT more, but time is waning and I’m actually due at work in 45 minutes. So with that, I shall bid you adieu, and give you a word of advice: Always, always, give your unwanted items to the cashier. He or she will be deeply grateful.

On this day, four years ago, Spareoom.net opened to the public. Normally I wouldn’t really be making much fuss about this, but lil’ Spareoom.net has been on my mind a lot recently, thanks to some big, big updates/changes coming within the next few months. Four years in, and now Spareoom.net is about to get a new purpose, and I’m excited and terrified all at the same time!

The last four years have been so much fun. Sure, there were parts that nearly made me throw in the towel, like the infamous Site Meltdown of ‘08. But the fantastic parts more than made up for it, like seeing the site take off and grow beyond my wildest imaginings.

It’s been real, it’s been fun, it’s been real fun. Sure, 4 years is pretty special…but, Lord willing, I hope that by the 5th anniversary, we’ll have something extra special to look back on.

Further up and further in!