Oh the mall...

So I am definitely not a huge fan of the mall, but hubby and I had a few coupons to stores we dont have here, so we headed over to the portland mall on Sat. for an afternoon. We were trampled by droves of 16 year old girls, giggling and texting. I got a little overwhelmed with the prices of some of the clothing.

I had to laugh, my favorite parts of the day were:

• Enjoying our free hamburger at Ruby Tuesday (a coupon sent to your email during the month of your birthday when you sign up on their website).
• Spending my $10 gift certificate from Victoria Secret on their super soft t-shirts. When you have an angels credit card(which I never use!) they send you a $10 gift certificate on your birthay. I love that they wrap everything in ridiculous amounts of pink tissue paper. Immediately when I leave the store I take it out and fold all of it, and reuse it in gifts. I haven't bought tissue paper in a few years because I do that with every store that uses it.
• AND... Purusing pottery barn for decorating ideas, and scooping up their free magazines to look through.

Sad when I can even make the mall look thrifty :)

Back to Nature and Dump Finds

This was going to be a relaxing weekend for the hubby and I. We had no definite plans and we were excited to just spend time together. Our friends were out of town so we babysat their dog Abbey. We figured why not take the dogs around Pudding Pond. Pudding Pond is approx. a two mile nature walk around a pond, and is a great trail to let the dogs loose and enjoy the scenery.This is how the crew looked before our walk.
Our walk was going quite well, the dogs were running, and enjoying each other and hubby and I were chatting away... WELL.... the dogs found ran ahead of us and ran right through a ground nest of hornets, all of a sudden hundreds of hornets were swarming hubby and I. The dogs had at least 20-30 on them. We all started running, I was screaming for the dogs to go in the river, hubby was yelling at me to not exert myself and hurt the baby. WHAT A MESS. I've never been a nature girl and now I know why, I think hubby and I will stick to walking our poochies in the neighborhood from now on. I got stung once on the stomach and hubby a couple of times on the hand and neck.The poor dogs were covered. So being an emotional pregnant woman i started bawling about the dogs and hornets and hubby. I bawled the whole 1omin drive home from the trail.

Thankfully my Saturday started off with some great thrifty dump finds.
(Don't mind the messy house in the background)

Here is my loot:

Graco booster seat in great condition. Looks brand new and retails for $24.99 at Toys R. US

Wreath

Black plastic cauldron-great for halloween decorating

2 glass snowmen with tea light holders. One of them is broken so it is
headed back to the dump.

Plastic green tub-great to put my drinks in for our summer bbqs.

Not pictured-new baby book never used.

This is my favorite piece and it deserves a picture of its own

Isn't it so cute?? It is a shutter with a metal star hanging on it. It's from foreside company store, which is a store out of Gorham, Maine. It still has its' $28.00 price tag on it.

Craft Project From Hell

So I was reading my free Women's Day Magazine this weekend and saw some adorable halloween decorations to make. They were super cute so I ran out bought 2 styrafoam balls, and some candy corn. I thought this will be a breeze. WELLLL it was not a breeze, here is the finished project of ONE of them on my mantel. One ball took me an hour and a half.

After I had hot glued the candy corn on they started to randomly fall off. So after some crisis control I made it work. Now hubby and I are sitting in the living room and every few hours one will bounce off onto the rug. Bailey is sitting under it he thinks it's the greatest thing ever almost like it's raining candy corn. So when I find another hour and a half of my life to waste i'll make another one! I guess Martha Stewart will never have to worry about me taking her job! Sorry for the bad angle of my picture I was too lazy to get off the couch. A picture of my fallish theme mantel.

Dump Finds

Wahoo hubby and I made it to the dump today and let me tell you the dump store was packed with leftovers from the yardsale I had stopped at the day before. I was sorta excited, I haven't had some good dump finds in a while.

• A basket which im going to spray paint white and put in my little girl's room
• Children's Place purple sandals that look like they've never been worn
• Christmas material (at least 2 yards of it)
• Maroon sparkley beaded placemat for my table for the holidays
• Brand new cloth Old Navy bag with tags still on it
• Latern for candles
• Aeropostale tank top
• White metal candle holder which will be spray painted another color.

Oh the dump how i've missed you so!

Yard Sale Season Is Winding Down

So here in NH yard sale season is winding down. The air is getting crisp and no one really has any motivation to do anymore yardsales here.

Hubby spotted a huge yardsale today on the way to the thrift store and even turned around without me begging (dont you just love him). We found the deal of the day there! A lupine harness for Bailey that matches his leash exactly! Wahoo, i've wanted a harness but am not willing to shell out $25.99 for one. Lupine is an amazing brand that is made right here in N. Conway. If any of their stuff breaks or is chewed through they have a lifetime guarantee, you dont even need the receipt they will just replace it with a brand new one for free! So I thought $2.00 was a steal! It is in the bottom left hand corner of the picture.

We also hit up the thrift store today, and low and behold it was $1.oo bag day. This sale had been going on for a few days so there was not alot left to pick through but I did find some good stuff.

• Nine West High Heels Size 10-- definitely going on ebay
• 2 XL Greg Norman Golf Shirts that have never been worn-Also ebay
• A flat sheet for my mom's king size bed with a pretty lace detail
• A brand new white t-shirt --who doesn't use white tee shirts???
• Brand new button sandals still in the packaging
  A pair of capris pants and a skirt for post-pregnancy
• Pregnancy shorts--good for my pregancy clothes lot going on ebay after January :)
• A cute blue and white top that hopefully fits my pregnant belly!
• A cute cotton black dress a little short but it would like cute over leggings

That averages .10 cents an item. Wahoo

The leaves are starting to to turn beautiful shades of red and orange. I just love fall!

Another Year Older

Happy Birthday To Me

Today I turn the ripe old age of 27. For some reason this birthday has not been as exciting to me as other birthdays. Maybe because im pregnant or maybe I just feel old.. who knows.

I love taking time on my birthday to look back to the year, I had.

My parents came up yesterday to celebrate with hubbster and I. It was a rainy nasty day, but we had a great time sitting around drinking tea and hot chocolate and chatting. We had a delicious lunch complete with homemade mac and cheese, hot dogs, and teriyaki chicken AND my mom made a delicious red velvet cake for me. yummmmm.

My parents surprised me with a WONDERFUL birthday gift.

I absoultely love it! They took an old dresser painted it black, put wheels on it and made the top of it a cutting board! I can wheel it around my kitchen and use it as a butcher's block, and have storage for all my linens and holiday plates. I absolutely love it, and the black goes perfectly with our kitchen.

What's in My Mailbox Today

So usually my mail is very boring. Bills, junk mail, and more bills. I occasionally get the free magazine, but this week my mail was very exciting.

This is what my mail consisted of (not including the junk mail and the bills)

• $200 gift card to Lowes. Remember all those shingles we bought well if you bought so many shingles you got a $200 gift card, and yes we qualified for the $200 gift card


• $20 check for Chase Rewards. Hubby doesn't really use his Chase card but he is enrolled in the rewards program so every once in a while one of these babies shows up.


• A $23.00 check from the consignment store in North Conway. I buy 99% of my clothes at second hand shops, and when im sick of them, or they dont fit due to pregnancy I sometimes (when I dont donate them) sell them to the consignment store in North Conway. The woman that runs the store is extremely sweet, and I usually get back 100% (sometimes more) for what I paid for the clothes.

It's a nice change to see all this money taking up space in my mailbox rather than bills :)

Retail Shopping

So Fairview Ave. is located 10 minutes from some great outlet shopping. I try to stay away from there as much as possible because it is very dangerous! I did stop by Stonewall Kitchen last weekend and scored some great deals! They were having 25% off all of their already clearenced items.

I picked up some Mocha Expresso Sauce that sounds extremely yummy on ice cream, two boxes of peanut butter cookie mix, and a champagne mustard all for $6.69 what a deal!

Oh I almost forgot here are the items I bought the other day from the doggie store, my mom finally coughed them up :)

ebay power sellers book .50 Coach baby changing pad 2.00

The Cat From Hell Finally Gets It

As you all know I am a step mom to The 15lb.Cat From Hell (T.C.F.H.), unfortunately this little beast came with my husband and I really liked him so the cat had to stay too. Well, Bailey and the cat have a decent relationship, they snuggle and are civil (I think Baily just puts up with him). Well the cat finally showed Bailey his true colors and Bailey showed him who was boss.


I had already left for work one morning and the hubby noticed the animals acting strange, he pulled out the video camera and got this on tape. (Don't worry nobody was hurt, you can even hear hubby yelling at them to stop in the background).

Well T.C.F.H. hid his fat behind under the bed all day. I think that taught him not to be a jerk, to the dog. (I love the look on the Cat's face before he jumps Bailey, and afterwards how Bailey just wags his tail and walks off.)

Small Town Girl Yard Sale Finds

Happy Labor Day To All!
I hope you had a wonderful weekend and was able to enjoy it with friends and family. Hubby and I spent the day in Boston on Saturday with his family. We did alot of eating, shopping, and chatting. Hubby and his sister had bought his dad tickets to the Red Sox for his dad's last birthday, so the men enjoyed the game while the women shopped and went out to dinner. It was fun, but it reminded me why I only like to visit the city and not live there. Here is a picture of me and my sister in law out to eat in Boston!

I did get to hit up some yard sales on Sunday and Monday. There were not a ton of them around Fairview Ave. but I managed to get some good loot.

11 Do It Yourself Magazines from Better Homes and Gardens. My mother at http://acornhollow.blogspot.com/ is obsessed with books, I got that obsession but for some reason it went towards magazines not to books. $1.00. (approx. 9 cents a magazines)

White V-Neck T-shirt, the teenage girl at the sale said she bought it and never wore it $1.25.

3 smencils- these will be great for school, these are smelly pencils and the kids love them, Apple, Rootbeer, and bananas. $.25 a piece

Decorative latern with a candle inside $1.00

Cute decorative christmasy plate $1.00

1 pair of mittens $1.00- I was so excited when I found these gloves they are brand new never worn and very snuggly. I got them home and was showing them to hubby and realized one is quite a bit larger than the other. Jeez.... well they'll still be good for recess duty.

Monday was less productive.

Two pictures that are going in my hall way for a $1.00 a piece

Brand new scented drawer paper $3.00

Total Yard Sale Finds: $11.00

Where The Wild Things Are

So sleeping when you are pregnant is difficult but sleeping when you hear weird noises just doesn't happen!


Here is the story: 2:30am hubby and I wake out of a dead sleep to screaming. It sounded like a woman or a small child screaming bloody murder. We do have some weird neighbors so I thought one of them had committed a murder. Hubby and I crept to a window and look, no lights on anywhere in the neighborhood. The screeching goes on for another 2 minutes and then completely stops.


By this point im army crawling around the house looking for the "killer" outside and wanting to call the cops, but hubby isn't convinced we are having a murder on Fairview Ave. He convinces me it was an animal.


Now i've lived in NH my whole life and never heard an animal like this. It was a fox, and we found this on Youtube.com. Sounds just like what we heard. If we had heard this camping I would have been convinced that the Blair Witch Project was out in the woods!


I couldn't get the video on my blog but go to Youtube.com and type in fox screaming and you'll see what I mean!