Wow! What an AMAZING weekend. It’s not often that I have a weekend FULL of activities. I knew that Natalie and I were going to go to the Sock Summit on Friday. So before the summit I decided to sew up a  couple bags for us. I wanted to make something that was HUGE, could hold a lot, looked cute, and used fun patterns. I made a cool green striped bag for myself and a nice retro blue/green/brown bag for Natalie. I love making bags, sewing!

The Marketplace.. just one of the MANY vendors

My weekend really started on Friday. I took the day off to go to the Sock Summit with my best friend Natalie. She and I have known each other for many years. We met when we both worked at Intel in the training department for IT. Natalie is one of my very best friends. She’s an instructional designer too and a VERY avid knitter. She’s into technology too. She’s actually got a great podcast that she’s doing, Cloudy with a chance of fibers. If you haven’t listened to it, you should. She and I went to the Sock Summit on Friday. Who would have known that there were SO many people interested in socks. It was so crazy to see all the booths with yarn!

Results of my shopping binge!

I loved looking at all the beautiful hand dyed yarns and the combinations of bamboo, wool, alpaca, etc. There were so many booths, many more than I think I’ve ever seen for the scrapbook convention. The vendors came from all over the place too! I found so many yarns that I fell in love with. I did a little bit of damage while Natalie and I were there. It was sort of funny when we went because we’d start out walking the marketplace together, one of us would stop, the other would keep going and before you knew it we would loose each other. I don’t know how many times that happened. Ordinarily I would have just texted Natalie on my computer but we were both having a heck of a time with getting our phones working there. I guess most people were having issues. It did make things frustrating. Natalie organized a yarn crawl for those that listen to her podcast, or know her on twitter for the afternoon. We all met at the bell and then took the yellow line Max and headed to The Naked Sheep in North Portland (NoPo). I love that place. They’ve got great seating for people to just hang out and knit. They’ve also got a great collection of yarns and other knitting paraphernalia. So we hung out there for a while and then got pizza and Ruby Jewel ice cream at Atomic Pizza just two doors down. After that it was a walking trip back to the Max and then to Mississippi Avenue to walk the street and have some great dinner. It was such a long day but so AMAZING! I had a great time.

Saturday started out as a lazy day for me. Eric planned to go to the Beer Fest. I’m not a beer drinker so I really had no interest in going. I did want to go downtown though and enjoy the beautiful day. Eric and I hopped on the Max and headed downtown. After eating at the food carts we headed down to the waterfront. Eric headed to the Beer Fest and I headed to Pioneer Mall to get a new shirt because it was so hot.. I needed a new shirt. After hitting the mall I walked down to the waterfront and walked the esplanade. It was so nice to be out in the sunshine and just enjoy being warm. After walking around for a while I decided to head back up toward the Pearl District. I went to Cool Moon Ice Cream. It’s on 11th and Johnson, a bit of a walk but on a nice day, nothing big. I love Cool Moon. They make some of the most amazing custom ice creams. I ended up having the very best Salty Carmel ice cream I’ve ever had.

After grabbing my ice cream I headed across the street to the park to people watch, sit on a park bench in the shade, and knit my sock. It was so nice and cool, I loved it. I could do that every day. Maybe not the ice cream but just being outside on a nice day… that’s amazing. Once I’d been there for a while, and finished my ice cream I decided to head to Powell’s Books. I love that place and it seems that every time. So I went and checked out some books, but nothing spoke to me so I headed off to Stumptown coffee and the Ace Hotel lobby to hang out for a while until Eric, his cousin Brian, and Brian’s wife Diana finished at the Beer Fest. I ended up meeting them down in Old Town at Ground Kontrol. I hadn’t seen Brian in ages and I’d never met his wife until Saturday. Diana is so awesome. She and I chatted for a long time while the guys relived their childhood and played video games. It’s so funny to see Eric get excited about old video games he used to play. At one point I found Eric and Brian playing Joust. After everyone ran out of quarter we headed to dinner at Kin in the Pearl. It’s one of Eric favorite places to go. We sat there and chatted about everything from law, to politics, to family, to wine, and I can’t remember what else. I couldn’t help thinking the whole time that it was nice to see Brian again and nice to meet Diana. She and I would often break off in our own conversation and talk about socks, knitting, sewing, or our jobs. We were there for hours just chatting about everything. Once we were done eating we were off to Clyde Common for a drink. Diana has worked as a bartender so we wanted to take her there to give her the experience of unique drinks. We got there only to find out that junior had just clocked out so we headed to Tear Drop for great drinks. We sat and hung out together enjoying good drinks and just chatting. Junior ended up coming over for a while too which made it just that much more fun. It was such a great night. I loved meeting Diana and seeing Brian again.

Today I got up and well, the weather was terrible. The forecast said it was going to be nice this weekend but with the rain last night I didn’t think it would be and BIG surprise it was. The question of the day was, “what to do”? Eric and I thought about it (Note: Some big golf game was on TV) and decided that we’d just call it a lazy day of “do much of nothing”. For Eric that meant watching golf. For me it meant studio time which I LOVE.

Today I decided I’d sew. I had a couple projects left to finish for my friend Natalie so I got those done. I also got a couple of things done for myself and for some friends. I have to say it was really nice to take a break today and just spend time doing what I wanted. Sometimes we all need those days where you do much of nothing but the things you enjoy by yourself.

Knit dress with simple elastic waist. (For Natalie)

50's inspired skirt made of hemp fabric. (For Natalie)

Summer sleeveless blouse made of batik fabric. (For me)

Felt bags with fabric lining. (For ?)

Ok, I admit it. Early this year I was hooked on the TLC show “Extreme Couponing”. I found it utterly amazing that people could save that much money, but more than that I was SHOCKED at the organized hoarding some people do. I mean who really needs enough toothpaste for 180 years? Or how about 150 bottles of medicine that will expire LONG before you’d ever finish it. But……. it got me thinking. I remember when I used to coupon a little, back in the day and I’d save a little here and there but nothing shocking. I have to say the “Extreme Couponing” show inspired me to start couponing again. I mean, it’s like a game of found money and getting the most for the lowest price.

In the last couple weeks I’ve been saving what I consider a lot of money. I mean 50-70% savings on my grocery bill. I have to say that it’s really nice to save that much and enables the hubby and I to go dine out more with friends and family. As I’ve been saving people have been asking me things like, “how do you do it?”, “what sites do you go to”, etc. So this post is going to be about just that.

1. Between Eric and I we’ve created quite a shopping price book. We list the items we like to buy and how much they cost at each store. We then figure out the unit price cost and determine where that item is the cheapest at it’s regular price.
2. When the sales curriculars come we sit down and look at them and determine if there’s anything on sale that we need. We also compare the sale price to the lowest retail price. You’d be surprised how many “sales” aren’t really sales.
3. Next step is to compare our shopping list, sales items and all with our coupons. I get coupons from several places, the newspaper,coupons.com, redplum.com, smartsource.com and I always go to thekrazycouponlady.com. I’m a BIG fan of the printed coupons.
4. Then we create a list for each store identifying the items we’ll purchase, the coupons we’ll use and the final price we expect to pay. It’s nice because then we know, before we leave, how much we’ll expect to spend.

So you might be thinking that this takes A LOT of time. I won’t lie and say it only takes a few minutes. I does take a while but with a little determination you can make things quicker and save a lot of money. I actually took all of our data and put it in a database to make things easier and quicker for us. Now all we do is put the things we think we might get in a form, push a button and instantly we know if we’ve got coupons for that item, how many coupons and the value. Then I just have to export it to Excel, make a few formula calculations and instantly we know what the price of the item is with the coupon and how much we’ll be saving. If we’re not saving more that 50% of the lowest retail price for the item, it comes off the list.

OK, so lots of work.. what does it mean? Well, here’s an example:

In the photo are the following:

4 boxes of Morning Star Veggie Burgers
6 bottles of Tonic Water
2 bottles of Ginger Ale
3 bottles of Ranch Dressing
4 boxes of toothpaste,
1 box of tea
2 pounds of Tillamook cheese
2 Cantaloupe
3 Onions
5 bananas
5 tomatoes
3 bags of frozen vegetables
2 bottles of mustard
1 tub of plain yogurt
4 buns

So what so you think you might pay for that? Well, I can tell you, you’d spend about $106.00 retail for that. Me, I got all that for $50.00. Yup, $50 using coupons and store rewards. Pretty exciting if you ask me.

Here’s another one. This cost me only $6.00. I bought this all at Walgreen’s and only spent $6.00 out of pocket.

Here’s how I did it:

$24.00    Walgreen’s price for all items (4 shampoos and 4 hair products)
- $12.00 using 4 coupons from the Sunday paper that gave $3.00 off when you bought an Aussie hair product.
- $6.00 Walgreen’s register rewards from purchases made the previous week.
$6.00 out of pocket!

It’s pretty amazing when you start looking at things and think just putting in a few hours a week can get you such great rewards. This last weekend I bought a TON of stuff that we use and only spent $70.00. If we would not have used coupons and rewards it would have cost us $186.00. We SAVED $115.78, that’s 62.19% …. AMAZING!

I have to say I’ve drunk the juice and I like it. I like the challenge of figuring things out and getting the lowest price. An additional perk is that Eric and I now do the couponing and shopping together We’re doing a great job of keeping each other honest and making sure we’re not stock piling more than a couple months worth of anything, unless of course when we can get the item for free.

Happy couponing! Oh, if you have any questions I’m happy to share just post them here and I’ll answer them.

Well, today I did it. I ran the Portland Shamrock run. I chose the 8K race to run, that’s 5 miles for us US folks.  I honestly wasn’t sure I wanted to really run the race since I haven’t been training for it. I also didn’t want to embarrass myself either by being the last person to cross the finish line. But I’m not one to quit something once I’ve committed to it so I had no choice but to do it.

Eric and I dragged ourselves out of bed this morning at something like 6:15am (really 5:15 w/o daylight savings) to go. Eric is such a trooper, he didn’t even have to go but being the best husband ever he went to support me. We got down to the race and I think that’s when it finally hit me.. as I was standing there ready for the 8K in the 10 minute mile or more group. I was honestly excited and terrified at the same time. I had my doubts if I could do this but I figured if I didn’t try, I’d never know.

So off I went at a nice little jog and feeling pretty good. It seemed like it took forever for the 1 mile sign to come up but I made it that far and kept going. I found a group of girls that were walking and jogging and decided then that I wouldn’t let them finish in front of me. I mean there had to be someone that finished behind me, I couldn’t be the last person. As I rounded Burnside and headed up Broadway that’s when it hit me. I really wondered if I would make it to the finish. Broadway is a slow incline for a LONG ways. Oh, FYI, it was about this time that the lead guy running the 15K that left the start link after us blew by all of use running the 8K. Oh, to have only a bit of that guys energy. I was battling with myself at that time too, super concerned about being last. I had to just keep reminding myself that my goals were to finish and to do so under two hours.

I did a lot of jogging and walking fast and jogging and walking fast. It was difficult with the drizzle of rain, the cold air, and my asthma but I was determined to do it. I finally got to the end of Broadway and headed down Hall back toward Naito, where the race started. I was feeling good, got some water and was thinking, “We’re headed down the hill, we’re almost done.” That’s when the 3 mile sign came up and I realized I was just a bit over half way. I think at that time I was like OMG! I’m going to dye right here… and yet at the same time my head was just telling me, “keep moving, don’t quit now, you’re not a quitter.” So I kept running hit 4th and kept running/walking all the way out to Barber Blvd and Naito Parkway. I can’t tell you how good it felt to turn that corner and know that it was downhill, and a straight shot to the finish line. I got a little more energy about that time. I don’t know if it was because I knew I was coming to the end, or what but I decided I was going to finish strong. I was going to jog until I couldn’t anymore… so I did. I jogged and walked and jogged and walked right past the finish line. While I was exhausted I also felt great because I did something I wasn’t sure I could do. As I was giving the guy my racing chip I asked him the time, “9:30am” he said. I just stood there amazed. My race started at about 8:05, there were a lot of people ahead of me that crossed the start line before me so I’m guessing I didn’t start until 8:15 or so.. and then to finish at 9:30.. WOW! Imagine what I can do with some training. I’m motivated now. I think I like this running stuff.

I want to say a BIG thanks to everyone that texted me, called me, sent me Facebook comments, etc. offering their support. It’s great to know and feel the support of family and friends.

Update: My official time is 01:07:44

Today my friend Natalie and I hit the Portland Yarn Crawl. Since I had to be out the door and to her place in northeast Portland early this morning there was no time to make a good breakfast and so.. there’s not recipe to share this week. Maybe I’ll make something mid-week. I’ve been considering making my own version of the Garlic Romano bread you can find at New Seasons. I love it because it has whole garlic cloves.. but there never seem to be enough. So fingers crossed there might be that recipe later this week.

So today Natalie and I went to about seven different yarn shops. I have to say that I am not much of a knitter. I’m more the seamstress/quilter but since I’ve figured out that I can make homemade socks using a sock knitting loom and it doesn’t hurt my wrists (I have carpal tunnel.) I’ve become a bit of a knitter. In any case I have to say today was super fun. What made it fun? Well, being with my great friend Natalie, but being with someone that knows a TON about knitting.

Typically I go into a knit shop, find the sock yarn, pick something, and leave. Going with Natalie was great because I learned so much. I learned how to reinforce the heel and toe of my socks so they last longer. I also learned which types of yarn are best, and most durable when it comes to making socks. I was just blown away by all that Natalie knows and freely shares. It’s obvious she loves knitting (Note: everything but the jeans she wore today she’d knitted.). She has a podcast that’s great, Cloud with a Chance of Fiber and she blogs about her knitting adventures at I am addicted. She’s all over the place on the web sharing what she knows and knitting like crazy.

Thanks Natalie for a great day!

Just a short post to tell you how awesome this little scanner is. For Christmas Eric’s parents gave me a gift certificate to Amazon. With it, and a little of my own money, I bought the Pandigital Photolink 8.5-Inch x11-Inch Photo Scanner. I bought it because it scans in 300 dpi and 600dpi either straight to your computer or to a memory card. For some I suppose that this wouldn’t ge too interesting or exciting, for me.. IT ROCKS! I have all of my grandmother’s photos, memorabilia, etc. that it’s not even funny. I’ve long wanted to scan all her pictures and burn them on to DVD for each of my cousins. I got over 3K of my grandmother’s pictures scanned with this thing in two days. I had been using my flatbed scanner and while it scans, it takes longer. This little thing is so little I can sit at the dinning table, watching tv and just sling my pictures through the scanner every few seconds. AMAZING! I’m just about done with all my grandmother’s photos and things, next stop.. all my mom’s pictures. Thanks to Bob and Julie for a great Christmas gift!