American by birth, Southern by the grace of God.
Louis Grizzard, a great American
~~~~~~~~~~~~
It's choice ~ not chance ~ that determines your destiny.
Jean Nidetch

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Thursday, November 5, 2009

We moved to another site on Wednesday

Here we are set up on the Campground Host site. Internet service is much better up here.


Here's a view of the lake and beach from one of the picnic areas. Nice and quiet in the fall.

This little dog is the spittin' image of our 'Elvis.' I couldn't believe it when I saw them get out of their truck! They are from Carrollton and said they found him on their front porch 12 years ago. Wow...Elvis was 14 and we found him the same way. They camp here often so we'll see them again.

Monday, November 2, 2009

Tuesday, October 27, 2009

Rain, rain......

go away!!
Lots of rain today. Only about 6 campers in the park but we are supposed to be full this weekend. Talladega race is Sunday and we're just about an hour away so this makes a pretty good spot for race fans to camp.

We had fun over the weekend with three of the grandkids who live nearby. It was cold but they didn't care....fall festival was going on at the park and they had a blast.

I was going to stay inside all day and be lazy but we decided to go to Captain D's for dinner (free, of course) and I quickly came up with a few deals to hit the stores near the restaurant. I found a brand new Food Lion and CVS out of town on the "bypass." I've never shopped in Food Lion so it will be another store to find deals. They have a lot of online coupons that I will get a look at when time allows. Anyway, tonight I got:

At Food Lion - 2 boxes cereal - banana nut cheeris (free) and Cokes were 4 for $10 to that was pretty cheap and I grabbed them. Total cost was $10.34 for Cokes and tax.

At CVS - 8 cans of Campbell's soup (free). Total cost was $.12 tax on gift card.

At Target - 4 boxes of cereal - fruit loops and apple jacks (free), 6 packs Keebler Deluxe Chip Cookies (free), and 5 Johnson Buddy bath soaps (free). Total cost was $.38 plus $.42 tax = $.80 total. Target is such fun to shop at IF the cashier's are not jerks! So far, so good. They price matched the CVS sale on the cereal and I had Target coupons and manufacturer's coupons to make the cereal and cookies free.

At Kroger - just ran in to get free bread but they were all gone. Price and coupons are good for a while so I'll be back.

And Captain D's was free because we joined the D Club and got free Fish & Fries dinners. Yummie.

Saturday, October 17, 2009

At "home" in Georgia

Kyle's birthday #6 at John Tanner State Park


We've been at John Tanner State Park in Carrollton, Georgia, since Oct. 1st. We are currently the extra (3rd) set of campground hosts. All we do is work the paddle boat concession on the weekends from 11:00 to 6:00, weather permitting. This weekend is COLD (30's tonight) so no boaters today and probably not tomorrow! There are about 20 sites taken by a group from the YMCA and they are mostly in tents.....brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.



On November 1st, we'll move to the official Host site and do more general duties during the week like taking $$ for late arriving campers, selling firewood/ice, clean up sites, etc. Hopefully the internet service will be better since that site is up the hill, on higher ground.



Next weekend is the Fall Festival here in the park so we are hoping for nice weather. There will be hayrides, bonfire with hot chocolate, s'mores, ghost stories and spooky night hikes; Trick-or-treating at designated campsites and a movie under the stars. Smoky the Bear will be here to help out, too. Lots of fun stuff.........anyone in the Carrollton area, come on out 5:30 to 9:30 pm.



Carrollton is a great little city with every store, restaurant and fast food joint you can thing of. Lots of shopping opportunities with plenty of deals for couponers! Best of all, we're close to family and have already had numerous visits to and from kids and grandkids. Looking forward to holidays with them all nearby!

Sunday, August 30, 2009

I hit the mother-load at Walmart and Kmart today....

Walmart take today....$96.98 total before coupons....paid $8.98!

Now, read the fine print.....I had 17 coupons for $3.00 off flea collars which sell for $.97 each. This equals an overage of $34.51. Other overages were 4 x $3.00 coupons on $1.97 disposable razors = $4.12 overage on razors. And 2 x $5.00 coupons on $3.97 Zantac = $2.06 overage on zantac. This equals total overage of $40.69. Now Walmart is not gonna hand over $40 in cash for buying their stuff....BUT....if you buy enough stuff so that the $40 is absorbed and you end up paying something then it works. So I chose to buy over $40 in groceries that I don't usually have coupons for such as meat, bread, produce.

Kmart doing doubles again....total before coupons $78.81....paid $3.79!

More fine print.....
I had overages at Kmart because I had a couple of Kmart coupons for $3 off total purchase. I had two of these so I broke the order into two orders to use both. That's why I purchased the bacon....no coupons for them but I had overage to use up. I ended up with two $5 off coupons to use on your next order. I'll probably use these at Publix 'cause they honor all competitor coupons.

Tuesday, August 25, 2009

What 'cha want for dinner tonight??

Been workin' the deals' in August. Here's a couple of pics from a trip to Kmart and Publix. Kmart was doubling up to $2.00, so 2.00 coupon was doubled to $4.00. They're doing it again next week. Kmart total was $105.42 and I paid $14.80. Publix trip was today to get some buy one/get one frees before the weekly sale ended. Publix's ads run Wednesday thru Tuesday. This trip was $93.74 and after B1G1's, in-store specials, $3.03 left on gift card...I paid $15.08. Also went to Wally World Sunday. Total was $60.33 and I paid $15.20. Plus short trip to Winn Dixie to pick up a couple of B1G1 was $12.14 and paid $2.10
Totals for 4 stores was $271.63 and I paid $47.18. That's 82.6% savings. Not too bad. I didn't have to buy any meat in these trips, just the 2 boxes of fish sticks which will make 4 or 5 meals. I already had pork chops (B1G1 at WD last week) and ground beef. Publix has chicken and ground beef on sale this week so I'll do that before next Tuesday.
I'm always on the lookout for fast food/restaurant coupons. We eat out once or twice a week. Monday night we had Burger King - 2 whoppers, 2 fries, and 2 sr. diet cokes = $3.20 after free whoppers (on back of every receipt!). We ate a MacDonald's twice this month 'cause we had coupons for their new big burger; just buy burgers and get medium fry and drink free. And those burgers were surprisingly good but I'd never pay full price ($3.99) without coupon of some kind! Then there is Subway's footlongs for $5. Very good deal to bring home and add chips and diet coke. And I still have a few Sonic coupons for B1B1 burgers, footlong dogs, etc. There is also a new place in town called Chow Time. It's similar to Golden Corral but only $5.49 before 4:00. They have good peel'n eat shrimp.


Kmart/Publix

Sunday, August 23, 2009

Monday, July 27, 2009

Highlights of 2 weeks with Kyle and Logan

Extremely cool springs...........68 degrees.............



Go fly a kite...............



Lunch at Tom's Famous Hot Dogs........






The most gorgeous beach in Fla........






A great time was had by all!

Tuesday, July 21, 2009

Last photo from Texas

Here's the last of the cacti.....taken on our trip from Texas to Florida July 3rd.



We've been very busy since returning. We got back to Florida on July 4, taking just 2 days to travel over 1000 miles from Del Rio, TX (we weren't in a hurry or anything, lol!) Just glad to be back.
We stayed at cousin Marilyn's place from Saturday until Friday, July 10, when we moved on down to St. Andrews State Park at Panama City Beach, Fla. to begin our volunteer duties. We have the same site as last year, #103, looking out on the bay. Samantha and Nathan and the 3 boys came that night and stayed til Monday. Two boys, Kyle and Logan, stayed with us. We've been busy with them and trying to keep them entertained!







And lots of beach fun, too!!

Thursday, June 25, 2009

Lazy Days of Summer.....

Now I know why they are called the lazy days of summer. It's too dang hot to even move around. Sit very still, in front of a big fan, with the air on high. That's all you can do when the temp is in the 100's. The past several days the sun comes up before 7:00 a.m. and there are no clouds to block it. Gets hot early. We spend the afternoons at the pool to stay cool. Actually, the only bad part of the day is from about 2:00 until 7:30 or 8:00. After 8:00 it gets cool again (inside). Today was probably the worst. Sam said he drank four bottles of water after lunch. They were weed-eating!! Luckily, he gets off at 3:30 when the very hottest part of the day begins.

Here's some pics of Scott & Angelia's trip to Myrtle Beach. Beautiful family!!