Labor Day... a week early?

I got up this morning anticipating a nice, relaxing day... a little grading, a movie, and a good book. After my morning coffee and the Sunday paper, I headed back to the office to set up my laptop, and Josh suggested moving the desk. Moving the desk turned in to rearranging the office, but before we even got started we decided to move one of the bookshelves into our bedroom. That turned into a plan to rearrange the bedroom... fast forward a few hours, and the bedroom is rearranged, but the office is torn apart and we haven't tackled our walk-in closet.

SO - my relaxing day turned into a "labor" day after all... I called off the work for the afternoon, and scheduled it for next weekend. We can finish when it's really a weekend for laboring.

For now, I'm trying to recapture the relaxation I had in mind...

Annual Hike up Table Rock

Last year during my "stay-cation" we hiked up Table Rock. This summer we decided we needed to do so again, at least once.

Today was the day.

Once again, I made it to the top! I didn't have moments of thinking I was going to die, or throw up (which I did last year, more than once)... but, I still had to rest a few times on the way up. It's really only about a mile-and-a-half up to the top, but I'm kind of a wimp.

My friend Crystal, who spent the weekend with us and was brave enough to join our hike this morning.

So - I feel a sense of accomplishment... and, no desire to hike this particular hill again until next summer.

Coupons

Using coupons is a craze, and I recently decided to bite. I have been attempting to save money through coupons for a couple of months now. Some of the things I've discovered:

1. Cutting out and using coupons requires a significant amount of time.
2. The food that I purchase more of rarely goes on sale with a coupon - fresh fruits and vegetables and meat are not often on sale with a coupon... which means that in order to try and eat a little healthier, and fresher, coupons are not much help.
3. I can, however, get great deals on household items and toiletries using coupons.

So, I do use coupons... but I do it my way. I still make my meal plan as usual, and my grocery list... then I go through my coupons and pull out the ones I can use based on my list. Then I head to the store! My last two trips I have saved about 10% of my total bill by using coupons.

I feel proud of 10% - although I'd like it to be more. And then I remember discoveries 1 and 2, and think 10% may be my magic number. :)