Best Cajillion Dollars I Ever Spent...

Our annual passes to the Happiest Place on Earth are about to expire. We have been cramming every single last bit of happiness we can. We have been to Disneyland over 60 times in the last year, which has been awesome. I've learned some tips and tricks over the last year, and thanks to our pal Auntie Laura who is like the Head of Disney Inc. or something close to it... we've had a first class experience.

I was named after Wendy Darling from Peter Pan. My brothers loved the story, and decided if I was a girl I should be called Wendy. I'm grateful, it saved me from my mothers first choice of Candy Kay, which means I would have had to grow up to become a stripper. *sorry mom, but really.. it sounds like a stripper name* (Also, my brother's threw me off the bunk bed when I was 1, to see if I could fly just like in Peter Pan after sprinkling me with dirt...aka fairy dust. Just in case you are curious... I can't fly. I landed with a thud that made my mother's heart stop beating. I was fine, but if you've ever wondered why I'm a little bit off... that's probably why. I blame my brothers. )

Yesterday, while standing in line to see the fairies, I told the children, I really hoped Tinkerbell wasn't there since she tried to shoot me out of the sky. I quickly relayed the story of Peter Pan, telling the children, that *I* was the real Wendy. They stared at me incredulously, and I told them that Tinkerbell and I have had a long feud for Peter's attention. However, I decided to grow up and become a mom, and Peter stayed in Never Never Land. It was time to make nice with Tinkerbell. One of the Disney people overheard me tell this story, and must have relayed it Tinkerbell. Because when she saw me she let out a shriek and said, "Wendy.. what are you doing here?" Mr. Boy nearly fell over from shock, because that solidified the fact that I wasn't making this up. Tink & I chatted reminiscing about old times and I let her know I was there to make peace. She apologized profusely for trying to shoot me out of the sky. A truce has been met. Then it was off to watch the parade. We got VIP treatment for the parade and put in the reserved section for the sole purpose....

so that our little Alice in Wonderland wannabe could be in the parade and dance with the cast. She danced the whole time with the cast trying to mimic their every move.


Mr. Boy, who is still terrified of the characters just watched and drummed along from the sidelines.

Best Cajillion dollars I ever spent... we have tons of memories to last a lifetime

Houston, we have a problem...

While attending some nuptials in Phoenix this weekend... I caught AK and this dude... In some serious liplocking action. This makes me terrified for her teenage years.... TERRIFIED. I may have to resort to Plan B, which involves moving to a remote island until she is 27, and then marrying her off in an arranged marriage.

Times are lean... let's clip coupons.

Years ago, before we lived in this lovely chateau, we loved in a lovely, lovely, lovely home in LA. It was "freeway close", which roughly translated to "directly across the street from the 134 Freeway". Being young and newly married, we did not care if the house was in the median of the freeway, it was perfect. It was 600 square feet, and we deemed it the "dollhouse on the highway". We couldn't open the fridge and the oven at the same time, because their simply wasn't enough room to do both. The kitchen was really more like one cabinet with a sink. Times were lean in the "dollhouse" however, it was a good time where we learned how to stretch a dollar really far. I started to use coupons, and never gave it up, even now... with my glamourous life... I still will pull out a coupon if it's available.

My mama always taught me to save where you could, so you could splurge on things that mattered. Like you could splurge on these babies.... oh hello gorgeous, I must have you... can I take you home?

Now, my spare time is lean, so I use a deal hunter site to scour for deals. I check it once a day, and often enough something pops up that I say, "Oh, hey.. that's a good deal." For example, I got Planet Earth on Blu Ray, for 20 bucks shipped. And 15 reams of Printing paper... for 15 bucks, And I haven't paid for toothpaste or shampoo in years. They have list prepared each week for different retailers. The other ladies on this site, are... well... they are hard core. Shhh.. some might call them the crazy coupon ladies. For many of them, they consider this a job. Which is great, because I don't have time to make it my job, so I reap the benefits of their hard work!

So why am I coming forward with this publicly after keeping this to myself for years? Lots of people are talking about coupons, more people are using them than ever before, and let's be real... times are tough, everyone is looking to save a buck. So when my deal seeker site announced some open access days, I decided it's time to share the wealth. So for $1 trillion dollars paid via Paypal, I will give you the name of the site. Ok.. because I'm nice, I'll share it with you even if you accidentally forget to Paypal me.

It's called Refund Cents and they are having open access days today (Thursday) and Friday. The access codes for May 7 - 8 will be:

Username: clipping

Password: coupons

Enjoy, Happy Clipping.

Adult Time

So last week Mr. Man arranged for us to go away. Just US for a little amore and R&R. This pretty much sums up the trip. Lots of lounging, a little bit of shopping, and a whole lot of time to rediscover why we love being together.

Pandemic...

First Mr. Boy seemed abnormally whiney, then a fever started. Then AK started to get whiney and feverish. For the first two hours, I was convinced it was swine flu, and was already zipping up the Hazmat suit and setting up the Purell filled swimming pool in the living room. But Mr. Man reminded me, there are 7 million other types of virus's out there. Turns out this one is just a run of the mill illness called... "sick".