Its like drunk typing without the alcohol ....

It'll all make sense later. Until then, here is a little update on the last few days.

Jessica took the ACT again and upped her score to a 22. We were hoping for a little better score but it is a better score than the first time. I can't really say too much about the score, as I didn't get close to that number years ago.

Speaking of Jessica, we recently changed her from a standard diabetes management process to the new Omnipod Insulin management system. This is some pretty cool technology (which is also code for expensive). The good news is that the new system is having some very positive effects on her daily life and general well being. Hopefully, this will equate to a year without emergency room trips (that is the break even point financially) and a lot more food freedom for her.

No real update on the other two girls. No news can be good news sometimes.

I took yesterday and today off work. I maxed out my paid time off (PTO) and figured I probably should try using it rather than losing it. Since I had a couple of "easy" days I decided to get a couple of Stephen things done.

The first and most important thing to do was to fix this computer. I've had no more than two gig of available hard drive space now for several months. So I finally broke down and bought a new external hard drive (500 GB!!!). With the new drive, I spent a large portion of day one moving data (music and pictures) to the new hard drive. With the new found free space on the main drive, I finally got around to updating Windows to service pack 3 and defragging the hard drive. It is amazing how much better a computer will run when it gets a little basic maintenance.

Second, I took the time to complete one of my favorite computer games; Heroes of Might and Magic V. I've been playing the game for nearly a year (expansion packs, etc). It was cool to finally see the end of the story.

Third, I took the animals to visit the vet. Yogi got is bi-annual shaving (Elizabeth is too scarred to shave him herself). The vet said he required a double dose of anaesthesia due to his weight problem. If you ask me the cat doesn't have a problem with weight, at twenty pounds, I'd say he has mastered it. The vet actually suggested that we put him on diabetic cat food or that we change him to canned cat food to avoid the carbohydrates, "it would be like putting him on the Aitkens diet".

Rusty is getting over a couple of infections. At this point he is only taking 5 or 6 pills a day.

My main man BooBoo didn't have to go to the vet though. Mainly because I am too scarred to take him. A. The vet would freak to learn how long its been since he has been to a vet and B. It would be a traumatic moment for BooBoo and I don't think he has too many lives left.

All in all a great first day off.

Today, I played a little Tiger Woods Golf 2007 on the Playstation. Then I went and ate lunch with Big E and some of the guys from work. Finally, I had a pre-op exam.

Now, before some of your minds start to wander too much, I have been thinking about having a little surgery done for a while but I didn't want to say anything until all of the bases were covered. On the 15th of January, I am going to have iLasik surgery. This is the newest of the eye surgery's to fix vision. This version of eye surgery has been approved by both the Air force and NASA for their pilots because it does not require a manual incision to be made by the doctor (where the majority of the errors occur with microkeratome eye surgery).

Since I qualify for this version of the surgery and since we are already accustomed to having the money going into a medical flex accounts (we've bought braces for the last two years), we decided it was the best time for me to get this done.

Today, I had the pre-op exam to make sure that there wasn't anything obvious to prevent me from going forward. I needed to get it done now because I need to make the medical flex account decision (that is use it or lose it money) before next week. Part of the process today was to dilate my eyes to complete all of the measurements (to be done again in January right before the surgery). Now, two hours later, I still can not see worth a crap and the only thing I can relate it to is being typsy.

If you've ever had enough to drink that your vision was impaired, that is how I am seeing right now and I haven't even had a drop to drink.

I'll return soon with more information, until then get outside and collect those falling leaves to add to your compost pile.

The dutch oven effect ...

While it is completely within the realm of possibility that Big Elizabeth would cover our heads with the covers and pass gas, this post is not about that little ditty. It is about my beautiful brides recent kick for cooking in her new Rachel Ray dutch oven.

A few weeks ago, Big E came home with this new and not so cheap little item to "try" a new recipe. If you know our cooking skill level then you know that I was scared. In our five years of marriage, we have never thrown out a meal cooked by one of us for a quick pizze order, but we have eaten a few things that the dog refused to eat.

I don't know the official name of this little recipe but I know that it includes chicken, sausage, sausage, bread, chicken broth, celery, onions, and many other things that combine to create a wonderful, exciting and most delicious dinner, lunch the next day and a couple of additional meals to boot. Most importantly, the kids ate it.

So, we tried a second recipe to see if the first one was simply a fluke, and despite some ingredient challenges we had another good meal. This one consisted of chicken, parsnip, carrots, several other items I don't remember and white French Burgundy cooking wine (or Burgundy cooking wine since we were challenged finding the right stuff).

I don't like leftovers but this is one left over that gets better with time. Sort of like chilli!!!! Yuuuummmmm.

This thing was so good that it inspired me to try the cook all day and eat for a week theory. If you haven't tried this theory, there are several websites devoted to it. Anyway, I got up Saturday morning and put together a list of six or seven awesome sounding recipes including the previous mentioned two.

I arrived home with forty dollars of fresh vegetables and a new appreciation for the knowledge of vegetables of the lady at Fresh Market. In addition, I had another sixty dollars of goodies from Publix. I added this to a pile of BOGO (remember this one? Buy one get one free) chicken and sausage that I picked up last weekend at Winn Dixie.

NOTE: Winn Dixie still hasn't responded to my email. No surprise there.

We started cooking around 9:30 AM. Maybe I should say that Elizabeth started cooking. We had friends coming over for the Alabama game so I was really just in the way of the cooking with such a tight time frame. I really underestimated the time frame for cooking such a large portion of food, but we pulled it off. Basically, I cleaned while she cooked. Occasionally, we took a break to rest and see key plays from the various games leading up to the main event OR simply a cool refreshing drink. Around 2:30 our company arrived as we were putting the final touches on the final pot. With the exception of the Chicken, Corn, and Black bean stoup everything tasted great. I will take full credit for the screwed up stoup (a palm full of cumin and corriander is way too much).

We allowed everyone to sample the goodies before allowing it to cool off and find its way into the freezer. I am so proud of my awesome wife. We will actually be able to eat off our labor for the next couple of weeks (mind you we will only have to reheat one dish every three or four days).

So to conclude, here comes the winter weight. It looks like I will have to be a little more diligent with walking and running come February if I am going to run that 5K again.

Halloween Pumpkins

For Halloween, we decided to all carve pumpkins this year. I thought I would do a quick post of some of the cool pumpkins that we carved. So its post Halloween before I finally create the post.

This first set of photos is a quick look at the steps to carve a pumpkin. Now, it is important to remember that we are not professional pumpkin carvers, so if you are looking for money winning creations go somewhere else.

Step One: Cut the top of the pumpkin and remove the gooey insides. Of course, I had to do this for all of my girls.

Step Two: Draw your design on the pumpkin.

Step Three: Carve the pumpkin. Sounds simple huh? Actually step three took me nearly two hours on this pumpkin. Before you carve, you need to outline your design with a toothpick. This will ease the saw blade through and help reduce the number of goofy cuts. For fun you can also try shading your design by removing layers of skin around the design to create shadow effects, etc.

Once you have completed the carving, coat all cuts with vaseline to prevent the loss of moisture from the cuts to help extend the life of the pumpkin. Here is the end result of my pumpkin.

Here are the other four pumpkins from the girls....

The coolest pumpkin of the year was by Jessica. It is a vampire biting is lady victim.

Little E went with a neat little flying bat for the season.

My lovely bride was a little more ambitious with her witch.

And last but definitely not least is the child friendly smiley face from Brooke. I really like the way the nose turned out with the shadow effect she carved.


I hope you enjoyed this cool little series of pictures. I hope that one day we get better about using the eight or ten cameras that we collectively own so I can do this type of post more often.

Grocery Shopping

In our household, Elizabeth and I generally share the grocery shopping and the cooking responsibility. In the past, we had a tendency to eat out more than in. However, we started really changing that habit about six or eight months ago. It is really easy to become accustomed to eating "take-aways" every night but eventually there are two big reasons for why this is bad:

1. Financially - This one is easy to understand.
2. Health - Round is a shape just not the shape that either of us desired.

I recently added a couple of other blogs to the list of regularly read blogs. The Jane4girls blog and Wylie Mom blog have become two of my favorite blogs to read. Each of these ladies (I don't know them but I do admire their frugality) are providing for their families (at least food wise) on very limited budgets. For example, the author of Jane4girls blog budgeted a mere $800 dollars to feed her family of four this year and she still has over $200 dollars left to spend this year.

Now, I will never be as organized and willing to save to the extent of those ladies but I can learn from them. With that being said, today was my first day to get out and really try to put coupons to work. Now, I am not going to be going all gung-ho and driving from store to store buying only what is on sale but I am going to review the advertisements, the items needed, the coupon stash and make an informed decision about what store is best for the list in hand. In addition, I am willing to sign up for a store's "bonus card" or whatever.

For todays shopping experience, Winn-Dixie was the lucky winner of our hard earned dollars. The list was approximately 50% meat (we are proud carnivores), a couple of other food items and 50% non-food items (toiletries, cat items, etc). I got all of the meat BOGO (buy one get one free) and managed to use another $21.75 in coupons. The total savings between BOGO and coupons was just short of $64 dollars on a $148 dollar bill. NOT TOO BAD for my first try.

BUT ..........

I was NOT allowed to use my Internet coupons!!! I was told that too many people were saving too much money! Isn't that the whole purpose of coupons? I told the cashier and bag boy that they could take all of the food items where my coupons were being rejected and return them. Imagine the look on the poor people behind me!!!!

The more I thought about the situation, the madder I became, so here is the email that I sent to Winn-Dixie ...

I was told that I could not use Internet coupons at the Sturbridge store today. The reasoning, as I was told by Jyazmin, is that too many people were using Internet coupons and saving "too much money".

I live a bicycle ride from Winn-Dixie, Brunos, and Publix. I wonder if the other two chains are doing the same thing? I prefer to shop at a single store (and truthfully Winn-Dixie's BOGO free specials often determine the store I shop) but I cant justify shopping anywhere that would discriminate against those of us trying to be frugal with our family budget particularly with the current economic state.

I can't really believe that this is the official Winn-Dixie stand on Internet coupons. I've checked your website and did not see anything to indicate that this is the official stance (though I could have overlooked it). Is this the official stance of Winn-Dixie? If it is the official stance of Winn-Dixie, why do you provide download and print coupons on your website?

I look forward and appreciate hearing back from you.

Stephen Lee

Mom, notice that I was a good little boy in the email. Of course, Winn-Dixie probably gets a hundred plus emails complaining everyday, so my expectations for a response are minimal. If that happens, then I will go directly to the store to request an answer. I'll update everyone on this situation soon.

I think the grand total of coupons rejected was $1.65 with a total sales loss of around $10.00 (all were frozen vegetables). They didn't even complain about the free ($7.00 dollar value) cat litter coupon that was mailed to me but looked like an Internet coupon.

Funny enough, it could have been a $0.10 coupon and I would have been equally angered. Either you accept coupons or you don't!!! They let me use multiple coupons for some items (the receipt even acknowledges it).

Well, while we wait for an official Winn-Dixie response, send me your tricks and tips for saving money. Last weekend, I spent a couple of hours surfing to various websites (Proctor and Gamble, Betty Crocker, etc) and signing up for their emails, newsletters, etc. I did this while drinking beer and watching football so I didn't really lose any of my "valuable" time doing it, but I did manage to get myself some really nice recipes and coupons out of it.

Its really simple to take this approach, simply look in the pantry and go to the websites of the companies you see. WARNING: Setup a special email before you go signing up for every one's emails and newsletters. I use my Gmail (from Google) for these types of sign up offers. It is amazing the crap (oh, I mean special offers and discounts) that you will receive once you sign up for this stuff.

As a quick update, the recipe that I referenced in the previous blog was truly awesome AND it was even better as a left over. I dont usually like left overs but that stuff was better on day two and three. If you have a weak stomach though, avoid it.

Back for another week...

I've been timing the weekly blog with The Amazing Race lately, but tonight I am a little behind and for a good reason.

First, lets update the show. For the first time, the married couple didn't win. We didn't see the whole show, so I don't have much of a recap but I don't want anyone to think I've giving up on the show. Last week, I received an email requesting a Google map of the trip. I thought this was a really good idea. Instead of trying to create the map myself, I found the following website.

The reason for missing part of the show is really simple, we ate some seriously awesome dinner tonight. Elizabeth and I watch a diverse series of television. One night last week, we found a good sounding recipe while watching Rachel Ray. You can find the recipe here. Tonight, Elizabeth threw this little ditty together and it was awesome. We have plenty of left overs, so this dinner is probably going to be good for at least two dinners this week.

Have you been watching the World Series? I don't think I've watched more than ten games of baseball all year. I will admit that some of the reason is the poor performance of the Braves for the past year, but with the series starting this past week, I am a little excited. The Montgomery Biscuits are a Double A team for the Tampa Rays, so we have enjoyed watching some of the kids playing ball. We try to catch at least 5 or 6 games a year and this past year was no different. We've been lucky enough to see many of the guys playing in the minors.

Halloween is on the horizon. Does everyone have there customes ready? Elizabeth and I have a party this Friday but I dont think we have customes, yet. I am interested in your ideas for a cool costume. The cost of the costume needs to be minimal, so the idea of some store bought costume is out. I am open to all ideas though. One that I have seriously considered and simply dont have a good idea for is ............. a fart. I really dont know how to pulll this idea off, but it sounds fun. Send me your ideas.

Green tip of the post: For a simple multi-purpose house cleaner, try combining a little warm water, a little salt (the abrasive), and a little lemon juice. The combination is very effective for most of your cleaning needs and it costs a fraction of the cost for your everyday cleaners.

Overtime?

CBS needs to get their priorities straight. Its only 49 minutes late getting started but it looks like we have a little bad blood to kick thins off. While we wait to see how the bickering ends, lets review the weekend.

This overtime stuff is making it impossible for me to catch all of my shows. I guess that I will have to pass on "True blood" this week and catch a reply sometime during the week.

Friday night was the final home football game for the Alabama Christan Academy Eagles. The day was a little chilly with slight rain throughout the day making for perfect football weather. We won a tight one with only minutes to spare. For Jessica, this was her final home football game.

We finished the night by watching Saw II. We are re-watching all of the Saw movies in preparation for the upcoming release of Saw V. If you are not familiar with the Saw series, it is a series of movies that are part gruesome, part suspense, and completely twisted. These movies are not for the average person.

Game break ... the frat boys are charming little fellows and Little Elizabeth's team just got a flat tire.

Saturday we had a little family fun. To begin with, we purchased a few pumpkins for carving (I'll post pictures next time). We visited with my mom and dad for a couple of hours, and we concluded the day with a little grill action.

For entertainment, we had two alternatives. The first was little Gabe. Gabe is a funny little fellow, Jessica and Brooke's cousin, who comes to spend the night with us every now and then. Gabe provides a lot of laughs through his continual harassment of Rusty and his ability to forego sleep. As the old saying goes .... out of the mouth of babes!!

The second half of our entertainment was Saw III. This was not my favorite of the Saw movies but it did explain a lot about the relationship between the two main characters and the reasoning behind the gruesome trials.

Today, Little Elizabeth and I visited my grandmother for lunch. We had a neighborhood grill and block party this afternoon. This was our neighborhoods first block party. I hope that everyone had a good time, I know our family had a good time.

Game break ... the fast track was insane. If Elizabeth and I were the first to arrive for that task, we would have had to turn around and go back to the normal tasks. Elizabeth is terrified of heights so climbing that tower would have never happened.

And the winner is ... for the third week in a row, the struggling married couple. I cant believe that they are playing so strong. And the loser is ... the Carolina girls and Phil's dad for volunteering to give them a big hug!

A good show ...

So its Sunday and tonight is the Amazing Race .... Tonight is the last night to select a team (Heather you better pick one soon!), so I hope you get in on the fun soon.

We had a pretty solid week. Elizabeth, Jessica and I spent Thursday in Birmingham learning about the new blood meter / injection system. I love technology to an extent, but I am not a fan of technology for the sake of technology. This thing is not technology for the sake of technology though. Its an all-in-one device that checks the blood sugar level, determines the best amount of insulin to inject, and injects the insulin in a timely manner, etc.

Next Saturday is the birthday party for our friends little one. We won't be able to make the party (its in Memphis), but wish Maddox a happy birthday. We haven't been able to see Maddox since they moved. I bet he is really getting big. I hope that we can make a trip up to Memphis sometime soon.

We had a great day Friday. To conclude a recent project at work, we had a little party for everyone that helped. For the party, we had a shrimp and crab boil. As you can imagine, the food turned out VERY good. In addition to food, we also had a little entertainment including the Wii, poker and pool. Elizabeth and I won two pairs of movie tickets!!! She thinks that she won the tickets, but actually I did.

OMG!!! Wrestling!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! See a trainer and learn a routine, that is awesome!!! I could have owned that task.

Did you notice the "Day of the Dead" skeleton hanging in the taxi cab? The Day of the Dead is a holiday, generally observed in Mexico or by those of Mexican decent. The general concept of the Day of the Dead is a celebration of the those that have passed. I love the art associated with this holiday. I bought a cool t-shirt related to this holiday a few years ago. I hope that I can find a few characters related to this holiday in the coming years.

Ok, so the geeks can't wrestle. Third team in to the wrestling arena and who knows which team out.

Arghh, the ex-football player and his estranged wife won the round again for a second time. No worries though, I dont't think they can keep it up. Big E is safe for another week .....

I hope that these teams tip the taxi cabs very well.

And now they figure it out .... a time delay! Arrrrrrrrrggggggggggghhhhhhhhh! It looks like I am going down tonight. Obscenities are being spoken under my breath. It looks like both Pop and I are out of the race. We have been eliminated from the race! I still think they could have won the race, but I was wrong.

Little Elizabeth called me already!!!!! She could not remember if she or I chose the geeks. Well, Pop and I are out. To keep it fun, I am choosing another team but it will not count at the end (unless I change my mind). I think I will go with the ex wife and husband.

Another fun Sunday show. I hope that everyone enjoyed it with us.

No green tip this post. Have a great week.

PS - Roll Tide at number 2!!!! Can I get a heck yes???????