So this weekend and weekend Dave and I are getting ready to host BOTH my parents who are coming out next week.  They’ll be here Monday through Friday to help us out with a few household projects that we want to accomplish before the baby arrives.  So I’m probably not going to be online much for the next week or so.  My parents won’t be staying here at our house due to a space issue now that the former office/guest room is in transition phase to office/baby room.

We are going to surprise them with a day trip to Maine for a view of the coast and a lobster dinner.  They’ve helped us out so much already and will be doing tons for us next week too.  Neither one of them have been to Maine before so this should be fun for them.

I still need to come up with a menu for next week since I’ll be feeding them most meals for at least three days.

So I won’t be online, probably, for maybe a week or so.  I might bug Dave to add some pictures from last month’s trip out to IL, the baby shower and a few other things though.

I had 10 places on my list of places to go today and made it to 8.  I missed Bible Study and didn’t drop off my already late library books.  But I made it to Walgreens, CVS, the butcher, Shop n Shop (grocery store), Big Y (another grocery store), Target, Family Dollar and lunch with my dear hubbie.  I had this long list of stuff I needed so I scoured the ads and found everything we needed, but it just required some running.  Thankfully, everything was kind of centrally located so the gas expense of hitting up 8 different places wasn’t too bad.

You know what really burns me is fine print in advertising.  Today there was a sale on cat litter at one of the above listed places…a really good sale.  And it said that if I purchased cat littler I could earn a $5 gift card too.  Well, AFTER I was completely rung up at the cashier, I asked about the card and found out you have to buy TWO boxes of cat litter at one time in order to qualify for the $5 gift card.  Good grief, did they really have to put that in fine print?  I totally would have purchased 2 boxes.  The deal was good and who doesn’t like getting free money to spend.  So instead of the sign saying in big print that you can get $5 gift card if you buy this $11 35lb box of name brand cat litter, why couldn’t it have said earn a $5 gift card if you purchase 2 boxes for $22?  Easy peasy…but NO they have to put the detail in fine print.  GRRR!  I was too tired to return the box I had, go get 2 more boxes and go through the line again so the fine print won.

I’m working on a “price book” for myself.  I’m tracking the unit price of items we commonly purchase so that I can tell if a sale is actually good or if I’m just being suckered.  For example, today I purchased a big bottle of Pantene shampoo and a conditioner for $5.49 each and had a $3 coupon.  I’ll work out the cost per ounce so that from now on I can figure out if a Pantene sale is good or not using the price I got on it this time.  I’m just doing this with commonly purchased items for our household.  It will be interesting if I can eventually track sale cycles and know when to stock up on items.  I’m not overly anal-retentive or anything, I just sometimes really wonder if certain sales like “buy one get one” are legitimately a good deal or an advertising scam.

Well, she’s got her plane ticket so I think it is official.  My Mom is coming out March 30-April 2.  I’m very excited because this will be my first family member visit since I moved out here over 2.5 years ago!  Mind you, folks back in IL have been in bad health or dying for the last two years thus keeping my parents from visiting, but hopefully all that is past and visits can be some what more frequent.

And it is Wednesday of my spring cleaning week and where am I on the list of completion…not done, yet.  I’m making headway though and put a big dent in it today and will hopefully finish things up tomorrow.  Friday-Sunday is taken up with maple syrup business and then Mom arrives Monday.

In other visitor news, later in April, God & employers willing, my brother might even be in New England on business, but close enough to visit!  What would really make that even more awesome is if his wife and the girls could come too, but I’ll take what I can get.

And it is a really nice day today.  The sun is shining and the temp is supposed to be nearly 50.