Trying New Things

Left: Ugli fruit Right: Cara Cara orange

Last time I went grocery shopping Super One had some "exotic" fruit on sale, so I bought an Ugli fruit and a Cara Cara orange for us to try.
An ugli fruit is a hybrid of a grapefruit, tangerine and orange. The one we had was very juicy, but had a thicker membrane that was hard to chew. It would probably be easier to eat like grapefruit, cut in half and with a spoon. It was okay, but not our favorite.
The Cara Cara orange has pinkish fruit and is sweeter and less acidic than other naval oranges. We really liked this, and will look for it in the grocery stores again.

Left: Cara Cara orange Right: Ugli fruit

Latest Grocery Trip

A new year of savings ahead! My latest grocery trip I saved 40% (haven't seen that number in awhile!), or $97.70, by shopping sales and using coupons. Here are some of the highlights:

Organic celery and carrots: $1.19 each-$1/2 coupon=$0.69 each

Vitamin D (gotta combat the lack of winter sun exposure!): $4.19-50% off store coupon=$2.10 each-$1 coupon on each=$1.10 each

Used store catalina to get these Breathe Right strips for free!

Blue Diamond Almond Breeze: $1.99-$0.55 coupon=$1.44. I plan to use this in smoothies.

Birdseye frozen veggies: $0.99-$0.50/2 coupon=$0.74 each

Reese's and Kit Kat: 2/$1-buy one get one free coupons=$0.25 each

CoffeeMate creamer: $1 each, used a combination of coupons worth $2.30=$0.54 each

Honey Nut Cheerios: $2.49-$1/2 coupon=$1.99-$0.50 store coupon when you buy 5 GM products ($3 off 5, I bought 6 items)=$1.49 each
Pillsbury Grands biscuits: $1.59-$0.30/2 coupon=$1.29-$0.50 store coupon wyb 5 GM products=$0.79 each
Green Giant veggies: $1.29-$0.50/2 coupon=$1.04--$0.50 store coupon when you buy 5 GM products=$0.54 each

I also checked out Pamida's holiday clearance, where they were marking items down to 70% off. I found a wet/dry hand vac for $5.99, a red cloth tablecloth for $3.90, white LED lights for $2.99 and two snowman platters for $0.59 each.

2011 Goals

The start of a new year feels like a fresh start in many ways—time to recommit to better ways of living, to being intentional about how we live our life rather than just letting things happen. I sat down and made a list of some of my goals for the coming year.

Spiritual:
*Read/study the Bible more. I was terribly lax about this in 2010.

*Do family devotions with the kids.

Marriage:

*Plan a getaway weekend for just the two of us.

Family:

*Have more family game nights

Personal:

*Work on my 40 by 40 list (more on this later)

Financial:

*Save more. One way I'm doing this is by setting aside the amount of money I save by using coupons at the grocery store. I'll save up this money to use towards adding more healthy eating options, like gardening supplies and money for the Farmer's Market.

Health and fitness:

*Lose 24 pounds. A mere two pounds per month seems like an attainable goal if I--

Exercise regularly, a minimum of three times per week

Eat less sweets (my downfall!)

Eat more whole foods

Cleaning/organization:

*I do a pretty good job keeping up with daily tasks like laundry and dishes, but with four kids in a small house it's easily overrun by toys and other clutter. I printed out a cleaning task calendar from Just Mommies to give me specific daily and monthly cleaning jobs to do.

Happy New Year!

From our family to yours:

We had a rather uneventful 2010—no new babies, no moves, no major illnesses or injury. That's not to say we haven't been busy. With four kids and a husband who travels frequently, that's a given. Here are some highlights of our year--

Barry is still working in the dirt track racing industry. He's done a lot of video taping and editing and produced his first DVD of the Como Modified Racing Series.

Jenny holds down the fort when Barry's gone. I deal in all things domestic, from laundry, dishes, and cooking, to getting kids off to school and keeping Remy and Ollie occupied during the day.

Jackson is in sixth grade and has started to be more involved in activities. He played baseball during the summer, started playing trumpet, is on the School Patrol, and is now playing basketball.

Raina is in first grade and is reading a lot of books. She's also been visited by the tooth fairy eight times this year.

Remy is 3 ½ and has seemed to grow up a lot this year. His latest obsession is with all things Super Hero.

Ollie turned two on Christmas Eve. He's starting to talk a lot and repeat what we say. He always makes us laugh.

We're thankful for a healthy, growing family, and hope this finds you to be happy and healthy as well.