Southern Savers and weekly ongoings

Hi all...trying to get back on track with posting at least weekly!
A month or two ago I went to a coupon saving seminar we sponsored at church. I went away with coupons swirling in my head and even dreamed about clipping coupons ALL night long. Well, things got busy and my coupons got put aside. This past weekend I sat down to do my Southern Savers "homework". I chose Walgreen's to be my first store to really work on. I went shopping twice this weekend at WGs and when I tallied my totals of what I SHOULD have spent and look at my checkbook of what I really spent....let me tell you ~ SHOULD have spent $80, what I DID spend $17.81!! Wahhhhooooo!!! I am now on a couponing roll and so excited that I wanted to share with everyone. On my page is a link for you to go to her site and learn all you need to know about smart couponing. Let me tell you at first it may seem kind of daunting, but stick with it and you will be saving a ton of money. I am stocking up on all the toiletries we will ever need and be able to send Taylor off with everything she will possibly need for school.
Speaking of school and Taylor...Saturday her best friend; Becca, Taylor and myself jumped in the Ford to head to Georgia. It was time to registar for classes, get her parking permit and college ID. My baby hasn't even graduated from high school yet and has her college ID!! Her schedule is in place and of course she's not too please about Total Fitness at 8am on MWF and Freshman Seminar on T&T same time...LOL. Told her they were classes she could roll out in her sweats and walk next door to the gym! Her day is pretty spread out, but time for downtime between classes. She's waiting to see what type of work study job she gets, her first choice was an aid in the Psych. dept. She seems pretty excited and seeing a few girls she went to Belize with years ago reg. helped too. I was surprised when I asked her what she was worried about the most and she replied, "Making friends." Those of you who truly know Taylor probably find that surprising also.

The road to Foster Care has come to an end for us...for now. At our first parenting class we were informed of 2 pieces of information that stopped it. One, windows in most houses are fine and dandy for you and our children to live in, but NOT large enough for a foster child! Yep, you heard me...the window or outdoor door in the child's bedroom has to be 5 sq. feet. Ours are not...missed it by an inch. Can't afford to take out the windows, cut a bigger hole in the house and replace the windows right now. Told me couldn't do it we wouldn't pass the Fire Marshall Inspection. Two, at first we were told we could most likely get a boy who's parental rights had been terminated....where the parent could not come back in and take him home...ours for adoption down the road if we wanted.  First thing we hear when we get to class ~ "Foster Care=TEMPORARY". We heard many horror and scary stories about kids being taken from foster parents and back to bio. parents...even after 3 yrs.! We went to our caseworker and she told us she could not gaurentee us a perm. child. We understand that DSSs main concern is the child and trying to keep the family togetehr, but.... So we talked and Eddie said he just could not sit back and watch my heart torn out when they came to take "our little boy".  The hardest part for me was sitting Megan down and explaining to her, she SO wanted a little brother. As the alligator tears were rolling down her sweet precious face I had her think about how upset she was right now and we hadn't even had a boy in our house yet, how would she feel if he came to live with us, she fell in love with him and then he had to leave.  To a 13 yr. old it didn't matter..she was just very mad and upset, can't blame her, I was too!
Well, time to end for right now...go cut your coupons!!
Have a blessed week.

Daily or monthly??

Oh my goodness!! I cannot believe it has been almost 2 months since I've posted anything...can you tell it is softball season??  Well, for a quick run down of what is going on with us right now here goes~hold on!!
1. Megan made the Byrnes High Sschool softball C-Team (middle school). We had a great season with only 3 losses. Unfortunatley Meg didn't see a whole lot of playing time, but as a 7th grader sometimes that's what happens...we saw this with Taylor too. We had a few tears, but a whole lot more laughs with friendships that developed while on the team.  Their season is over right now and she is waiting for D5 softball to start where she has played since she was 4 yrs. old.
2. But right at the moment Megan is on her way to Ground Zero in NY! The 7th graders left Tues. morning at 11:25am to head for NJ. They were to arrive at 1am...at 3am I received a text saying, "We JUST got here, bus broke down!" When I spoke to her this morning she said she got to bed about 4am and they were up at 7am heading to breakfast and Ground Zero. Today they will tour Manhattan, eat dinner in Central Park and go to the top of the Empire State Building tonight. Thurs. they get to sightsee downtown NY and then go to Madison Square Garden to see 101 Dalmations play. Friday head to Liberty Park, Statue of Liberty, Ellis Island, head for Washington DC and tour the mounuments and leave for Virginia. Sat. they spend the day at Kings Dominion Theme Park and get home about midnight.  I'm sure you know who will be sleeping ALL day Sunday!!
3. Taylor is busy finishing up her SENIOR year...can you believe it? I can go into that one too much or else I will be in tears, again. It's been a year filled with those. Most have received their announcement...it took me days to get them out (hopefully w/o tear drops on them!) She just started her THIRD job!! She is still working the afterschool program at the YMCA, trying to finish out her 2 week notice at Rainbow, a store at the mall and now working at Theo's Greek and Italian Resturant which we frequent quite a bit during softball season. She is loving Theo's! Next Sat. she, Megan and her BF are heading down to Emmanuel College (first time w/o mom in tow) to register for her fall classes!!
4. This Saturday Eddie and I will be attending our first Foster Parenting Class...yes, after raising kids for the past 18 years we get to go and see what all we've done wrong!! LOL About 1 1/2 months ago we decided to go ahead with Foster Parenting. We are wanting to get a little boy (hey, we do live in School District 5 ....gotta have a boy to play Rebel football!!) between the ages of 4-7 yrs. old. It has amazed us the paperwork alone that we have had to fill out. I think the two of us together have gone through a forest. The girls are as excited, if not more, than we are about having a new addition. Will keep everyone updated on that.
5. School is coming to a close soon...7 more Mondays!! This year my class hasn't been to the extremes that it has been in the past. All boys still, but not so aggressive. I'm still trying to decide if I want to go back and work at the Y this summer or try to pick up a few kids to watch at the house.  Eddie is still doing construction, trying to stay close to home till Taylor graduates. Still going back and forth on going back on the road or not.
Well, there is about 2 months update and hopefully it won't be that long again before I get back on here. Have a blessed week!