Tide Pods: Return of the Coupons

After my 5-month coupon hiatus, I have returned with a vengeance. Well... not really, it's not that extreme, but I did get a crazy good deal on Tide Pods this past week. Oh, and I snagged up some Listerine mouthwash for good measure... they were free with ExtraBucks. So here's last week's deal at my beloved CVS:

Day One, Store 1: [I went to 2 stores so I wouldn't clear shelves]

• 2 Listerine Mouthwash
• $4.99 sale price
• Used $5 off $10 Mouthwash CVS coupon
•  CVS promo: Spend $10, get $5 ExtraBucks
• 4 Tide Pods, 14ct
• $3.94 sale price
• used 4 $2/1 Tide Pods MC from 11/16 newspapers
• used CVS email coupon "$5 off $15 in-store purchase" 
• Total OOP for Day 1 was $8
• And gained $5 in ExtraBucks

Day 2, Store 2:

• 4 [more] Tide Pods, 14ct
• $3.94 sale price
• used another 4 $2/1 MC from 11/16 newspaper
• Total OOP for Day 2 was $8.00
• And gained a $10 CVS gift card: Spend $30 get $10 GC on select PG products

SavingStar: 

• SavingStar is an awesome website for couponers! There is currently a Spend $30, get $10 refund on select PG products.
• Make sure you connect your CVS account first! 
• Received $10 Payout from SavingStar

In Review:

• Spent $16 OOP
• Received $5 ExtraBucks for Mouthwash
• Received $10 CVS Gift Card for spending $30 on Tide Pods
• Received $10 SavingStar Refund for spending $30 on PG products
• TOTAL: $9.00 MONEY MAKER! 

Note to Self: You're Adultier Than You Know

Right at this instant I am having a ridiculous realization: I'm officially a grown up. You know how I figured it out? I was sitting at my desk visiting random websites out of boredom and I happened upon Best Buy's 47-page Black Friday Ad.
I clicked through the first 40 pages with a disgusted, kind of bitchy voice in my head going "why do people waste money on all this crap?" and "think of all the useful things you can do with $999 instead of getting a TV" and "I wouldn't want that in my house even if it was free!" and "People give up their Thanksgiving dinner to fight each other in the store for thiiis??" 

I was completely and utterly unimpressed and unexcited until I reached page 41. And then my mind went "Oh my gosh, appliances! $1,700 is such a good price for that fridge!" [Of course, there's no way I'm getting a fridge; I live in a tiny apartment and would have a nearly-impossible time getting something that big through my front door, let alone store it somewhere.]
And then, I clicked to page 45 and did a happy dance because "Oh my gosh, vacuums! I've been looking for a good deal on vacuums for so long!!" 
[Seriously y'all, any (and I mean ANY) Dyson under $300 is a steal.]

And so then I took a step outside my body and looked at myself for a second. What I saw was this: I have totally moved past the "I need expensive consumer electronics to feel good about myself" stage and am now living the "I must make my nest clean and beautiful because I'm a grown-up and a plastic tote is NOT a laundry hamper" stage. So yeah, go Me!

Phil VS Sleep

Since P has been out in NJ for the past few months, the chances I get to hear him talking in his sleep have diminished to almost nothing. However, I recently saw something funny happen. On his first night back home, he had not slept in about a day and a half, but we had so much to talk about that he insisted on staying up so we could finish our conversation. Here's how that went:

(after closing a conversational subject)
Me: (sitting by him on the bed) Ok, you should go to sleep now.
P: (laying in bed) But I'm not tired anymore, I'm going to watch TV in the living room.
Me: Just go to sleep, I want to read a book in the living room.
P: But I'm not tired.
Me: Stay still for 5 minutes and I promise you'll fall asleep.
P: I'm not sleepy. 

I decided I was too sleepy for book reading, so I got off his side of the bed, walked to my side, took my glasses off, and laid down.
Time elapsed: 10 seconds.

By the time I fluffed my pillows and turned off the light, I looked over and P was 110% asleep. Mr-I'm-Not-Tired took all of 10 seconds to slip into a coma. He asked me the next morning how long I had been out reading in the living room because he hadn't felt me "come back to bed".

Above The Water

These days I'm really struggling to keep my head above the water. Or maybe my nose, because my neck is at times very much submerged.

I was raised by parents who placed a big importance on education. They were not the "tiger parents" who constantly pushed for better than my absolute best, but they did keep a close watch every report card and questioned me for anything lower than a 90. When High School came along, they melted into the background and pretty much let me handle my school work because I expected a lot better from myself than they did.
In HS, every point made a difference. All that mattered to me was how high my GPA could get, because graduating in the top 5% of my class was the driving force and ultimate motivation.
[There are unresolved psychological issues at play here, all I cared about was "walking the line" first during graduation and avoiding the alphabetical order issue which had plagued me my entire life because my last name started with the letter Z. Anyway, it did the trick. I was #16 in a class of 500.]

So I just wanted to mention and let it be clear that I am of slightly above-average intelligence, and that the "ok" grades have and always will be A's.
Given this information, please digest the following:
At this point in my educational career, I would be happy with C's. 
Learning is pretty tough at the moment. I am struggling to keep my head above the water. I have a persistent, internal, disapproving frown directed at myself because I can't seem to do better, and combined with other "life" factors [aka P being gone all the time] I have caught myself thinking pretty depressive thoughts.
One random day not very long ago, during one of my "sad because life+school=sucks" moments, I received a phone call from my dad.
[Priesthood power and revelation is a seriously wonderful thing]
We talked for a maximum of 3 minutes, but he sure knew what to say. He doesn't know that I am having my "moments", all I said was "school? well... school is a lot harder than I thought it would be". His response? "Keep your spirits up. Not anyone achieves this."  (Animo hija, esto no cualquiera lo logra)

Thanks, dad. I have been repeating those words on a daily basis, and they truly are helping.
I am nowhere near close to a Master's degree yet... but I know that day will come with enough persistence and determination. And it's true, not everyone achieves it.

The First Night Of The Rest Of My Life

Once upon a time there was a girl who was in love with romance. She read book after book by Nicolas Sparks, daydreamed about finding Prince Charming, planned intricate details of her wedding, made lists of must-have qualities of the perfect guy, and always cried during the movie Pearl Harbor. Never having been truly "in love", her biggest fear was that life would pass by too quickly and not give her the opportunity to meet The One, and that one day she would look back, lonely and wishful, and wonder what had happened.

That girl... Was me. I am literally rolling my eyes at past-tense me. What was I thinking? And how on earth did I come to own eighteen books by Sparks? Did I realize they're all kind of the same story, in the same state, with a slight character modification here and there? And also, what exactly made Edward Cullen so desirable? And how could I so happily hear the words "As you wish" out of Wesley's mouth and not cringe at the sappiness? 

You want to know what caused the 180? It was the night of October 23, 2011.
My friend T and I decided to randomly throw a get-together for no good reason but to celebrate the serendipitous fact that we both ended up living in the same apartment complex and had no idea we would meet each other 2 months prior.We spent ridiculous amounts of money on all flavors of junk food and then invited basically all the church friends we knew, and most of them showed up.
After some grilled burgers we all settled down to watch a movie and had a pretty good time just hanging out. One by one, guests trickled slowly out the door until only 2 remained. These guys:

One of them (far right) lived over an hour away and decided he didn't feel like driving. He wandered into my bedroom and quietly fell asleep without alerting anyone. 

The other took ownership of my couch and no matter how much I asked, prodded, whined, and shoved, refused to move. At the time I didn't really know much about him, so I didn't know he worked oil field and was probably too tired to get up and to lazy to care that this was a girls apartment and he needed to get out of here soon. 

He didn't get out. All I succeeded in doing was pushing him off the couch and somehow toppling over onto him in the process. And there we stayed, laying side by side, and spent the entire night talking. Just talking. Sometime around 4AM, G wandered out of my bedroom dazed and confused, took one look at us laying on the floor, and went back to bed. 

They both left next morning and I groggily took back my bed and drifted off to sleep. 

Somehow, for some inexpiable reason, that was the night that brought us together 3 years ago, and together we have been ever since. 

You know the quote by Winnie the Poo that says "Ever since I met you, I knew and adventure was going to happen." ? That could not be closer to the truth. 

The time that I really, truly met Philip Wyeth, I had no idea that I'd just spent the night talking with the most important person of my life. I just knew that he was one of the most cunning, daring, frustrating, devious person I'd met, and that we needed to spend some more time together. I felt suspicious, curious, hesitant, and a little unsure of where I wanted this to go, but I was too intrigued to just ignore him. 

And so there went the romantic side of me. I spent the next few days subconsciously organizing my mind so that there would be room for him along with the million other things I was responsible for, like not forgetting to buy bathroom tissue and drinking 64 ounces of water a day. I stopped wanting romance because I had more. I had this strange relationship with this guy who drove me crazy with ever other sentence, and who somehow made me believe it was a great idea to dye our hair blue (and we did... before we knew each other's names). Looking back on it I really wish I had recorded every detail of our beginnings, How I Met Your Mother style, so that I could have enough of a story to put into a book of some kind. Unfortunately, these blog posts will have to do. 

Wow, 3 years went by fast! 

It sucks sometimes

I need to sit and complain at something.

I need to complain about how I don't own a device that allows me to travel across large distances in a second. And about how my life is on pause for 22 days out of the month. And about how everyone thinks it's just fabulous that I'm married, yet I live on my own. How great! they say. That way you don't fight and you can do whatever you want! That's how marriages last so long, just stay away from each other!

I need to complain about the other half of the population that is constantly asking "so how's Phil?" And then they nod appreciatively when I say "he's good". Like they just did something noteworthy. Like they made me feel better by reminding me that my husband is 1800 miles away. And then they follow up with "is he liking it over there?" And then follow that up with an "oh that's good" after I say "yeah, he likes to travel." But there's really no other answer I could give them. Most of my answers are reflex responses because I can't really find it in myself to over-analyze just what I think of this separation due to job nonsense. And Then, they follow everything up with a joke about how I get to spend all the money he's making. Like if he's instantly a millionaire. Like I'm some gold digger that's in it for the cash. Like I don't spend my days carefully itemizing expenditures and debts and savings. Like if having a little extra cash in my pocket makes up for going to bed alone every night.

I need to complain because damn, are people nosy. When are you having a baby? they ask. It's time already, don't you think? I love my family, but geesh if you want a baby so bad make one yourself. They expect me to have a perfect answer to their probing questions, like if I were on some sort of talk show. Yes I have plans for children. NO you can't know them. NO you can't know if I'm on birth control. NO you don't know when the "right time" is, and besides, nobody asked you! I don't need your opinion.

I need to complain because it just sucks sometimes. It sucks not seeing your next step. It sucks not knowing. Move or stay? Where to live? What to study? I've never hated school before, why do I hate it now? What should I want? What should I like? How should I live? Am I supposed to like living alone? Am I supposed to hate it? Where should I work? Where will I end up?

I need to complain because life doesn't get easier, and that's fine. That's expected. But it gets so confusing! Should I be careful about the future? Should I act like I'm invincible? Live like I was dying? Plan for tomorrow? Be the ant or be the grasshopper? Want a simple life? Dream of a grandiose one? If I aim low, I'm settling. If I aim high, then I'm worldly. Where's the middle?

I need to complain because I've gotten used to living alone. And I kind of like it. I like stretching out on the bed. I like staying up until 3AM doing homework. I like not bothering to cook when I'm not hungry. I like a clean, orderly house. I like having the TV off and reading in silence. I like talking to my dog and watching his confused expressions trying to figure out if we are going for a walk or not.
But I also kind of hate it. I dislike how I moved to a new city because of the people, but then the people left and I'm still here. I dislike how it takes me so long to say things properly in Spanish. I dislike how my husband has no interest in my culture. I dislike how I feel like I'm supposed to be doing more and yet I feel myself doing less with life.

Alright I think I'm done. A lot of the things I just said make little sense to me but at least I sort of cleared my mind a little. Tomorrow I may be too embarrassed by this post to leave it up, so we'll see. 

It's Like Muffins

When I was in High School I took a class called Nutrition and Food Science where we learned about cooking healthily. The first time we ever made anything we baked banana nut muffins following a simple recipe, and to this day I remember an important phrase my teacher kept on repeating: "with muffins, it's all about the quality, not the quantity." She meant for us to avoid making multiple batches of tiny, lifeless muffins and instead focus on making around 6 very good, fluffy, large muffins.

I have never forgotten those words and I constantly apply them to multiple aspects of my life... focus on the quality of it, not how much of it you can have.

So... to the point... I decided to apply that to blogging too. Remember that 30-day blogging challenge? I just got rid of it. Most if not all of those posts were incredibly boring and pointless and they took no skill in writing. Instead of overcrowding my page with nonsense I am going to go back to the mostly thoughtful, long-winded posts. Writing makes more sense that way :)