2013 In Review

It's the end of a really awesome year.  Below is a recap of my year based on the photos in my phone and my status message updates on Facebook.  It truly has been a great year and it was over very quickly!  Seems like it was just New Years Eve last week....

January

I turned 30!  Matt threw me a party and we went out on a night on the town.  But since I’m old that means we had a few drinks and were home by 11:30.  We closed on our first home.  I don't have hardly any photos or status updates in January so here's a special collage of me, Gracie Boo and Love Muffin.

February

We moved in to our first home, bought some new furniture, unpacked and settled in and I began decorating one room at a time.

March

I continued by couponing and deal searching on the weekends.  I'm not sure what I did this month as my Facebook status updates for March were minimal.  I know I have quite a few random pictures taken on my lunch hour at work on my iphones.  They make me laugh.  I'm a dork.

April

My awesome sister Ericka, our Mom, and Matt’s mom threw us a Housewarming Party, Matt turned 30 and I planned him a surprise party – he really had no clue!  We also got our Kitchenaid Mixer!  This was also the month I was featured on the WRAL Smartshopper Blog aka my 5 seconds of local fame.

May

This was the month I went on my business trip only accidentally left my suitcase in my driveway….aka the epic traveling failure of 2013!  My little cousin Kala graduated from high school, and Mom, Ericka and I had a girls weekend and went to see Chonda Pierce.

June

My awesome little brother Tyler graduated from middle school, I ate at Cosmic Cantina for the first time, I wrote inappropriate sayings on Matt’s Mom’s birthday cup from Starbucks, but it’s dry erase so no worries ha ha, we had that one random night of a power outage.

July

Went on a week long vacation to the beach for the first time I can ever remember.  It was a great time with a few temper tantrums, a couple of games of monopoly in which I can not confirm nor deny that I was taking money from the “banker” when she wasn’t looking.  This trip also resulted in a few late night trips to Krispy Kreme and allowed me to spend some quality time with my BFFL Megan.

August

Katie left for college, I had a four week long obsession with the “humpday” commercial phenomena, and we celebrated Gracie’s first birthday by having a watermelon theme party at the park with water ballons, tie dye t-shirt making, bubbles, and watermelon pops!  What watermelon theme birthday weekend would be complete, without a trip to the Watermelon Festival Parade!

September

We celebrated our two year anniversary by having dinner at The Little Dipper Durham and followed that with a short but awesome 2 day beach trip in which we took a historic horse drawn carriage ride tour.  We went to Southern Lee for my little brother’s first high school marching band performance, and I had eye surgery to have my lazy eye straightened.  The is also the month my Dexter addiction started and I watched the entire first season in a 48 hour time period.  I also refurbished a desk we had although I've yet to finish the blog post I started about it.  A friend sent me a beautiful plant while I was recovering from my surgery although I still have no clue what type of plant this was.  I don't do plants.  I can't seem to keep them alive.  In an effort to keep it alive I finally watered it and when I did, it died.  It's so pretty it deserves a spot on the year end highlight blog.

 October

We went to the state fair, ate some cheese, got a bootleg Curious George monkey for playing the balloon popping games and had some deep fried oreos.  I continued my couponing/deal searching and posted pictures along the way on Facebook and sometimes blogged about it.  Me, Sam & Tim had our annual pumpkin carving contest, unfortunately I lost.  We also celebrated Boo Bear's aka Gabe's third birthday with a wheels theme at a bike park and he got his first bike!

November

Matt got me a subscription to the paper so I would get coupons delivered to me every Sunday.  Oh, wait, something else also awesome happened this month...what was it?  Oh, yeah, Love Muffin also proposed to me on 11/5/13! This was also the month that my beloved crock pot with the fancy digital timer died so I bought a new less technologically advanced one at a great discounted price of course, I got my hair cut in a new “style” which resulted in my wearing my hair straight 5 out of 7 days a week which made Love Muffin very happy, and I counted down the days until Thanksgiving so I could get out my tree and decorate for Christmas.  I also began wedding planning hardcore and even created a wedding planning notebook to assist me.

December

We celebrated our first Christmas in our new house, I became addicted to glittery Christmas items, Matt got his backpack blower that he has been drooling over for months, I continued couponing and wedding planning and went crazy over day after Christmas sales and bought even more ornaments...and my Starbucks addiction was in full overload with all the giftcards I received for being a good girl this year.

Well, that pretty much sums up 2013.  It was full of laughter, tears, tantrums, stress, happiness, family, friends and blessings.  I can't wait for 2014.  It's got a lot to live up to after this last year!

Harris Teeter Deals 11-15-13

I'm very excited that a new Harris Teeter has opened near our house.  I was even more excited when I received coupons in the mail to save $10.00 a week for the next four weeks off a grocery purchase of $50.00 or more.  So naturally after work today I decided to head on over.

I got some great deals.  However, it took me twice as long because I was not familiar with the layout of their new store footprint so I had no idea where I was going.  I can say that the open floor plan is great, and the motion detected LED cooler lights are also pretty cool too.  The fixtures in the restrooms are modern which was also impressive and they have a Starbucks inside as well.  So all in all I think this location will become my new "home store" but it will just take me some time to get used to it.

Below are the best deals I got today and breakdown of my savings.

Sargento Shredded Cheese: $3.75 each on sale BOGO = $3.75 for 2 - .80 cents off 2 = $1.47 each
Betty Crocker Cake Mix: $1.69 each - .75 cents off 2 x 2 = $ .94 cents each
Classico Family Favorites Past Sauce: $2.90 on sale 2/$5 - $2.00 off 2 = $1.50 each
Wheat Thins & Triscuits: $3.25 each on sale BOGO = $1.63 each - 2 $1.00 off 3 coupons = $1.29 each
V8 Splash Juice: $3.39 on sale 2/$5 - .50 cents off 2 coupon x 2 = $2.00 each
Prego Alfedo Sauce: $2.35 - $ .75 cents/1 = $ .85 cents
Heluva Good Greek Yogurt Dip: $2.99 on sale 2/$4 - .75 cents off 1 x 2 = $ .50 cents

So had I not have shopped the VIC deals and paired them with coupons I would have spent $147.36.

However, I received a special promo of 10% off my entire order today, I then used a $10 off $50.00 or more purchase coupon that I received in the mail, and then I used $20.30 worth of manufacturers coupons.

So I paid $65.08 for $147.36 worth of groceries which is savings of 44% which isn't too bad considering I had to get dog food and a few other items that were necessities that believe it or not I did not have a coupon for and obviously are not pictured above.

I love savin' money honey!

Until Next Time...

Cilantro Lime Chicken Tacos

I've been desperate to find new, easy, and delicious recipes that aren't too expensive and honestly that are very effortless to create due to our hectic schedules and the fact that I was growing tired of all my easy go-to fallback recipes.

The other day I decided to go through all of my pins on Pinterest to attempt to find some inspiration to make something new and exciting with the crockpot. Luckily I found a pin on how to easily make these chicken tacos however as always I modified the recipe to make it more my own and spice it up some. 

I also made prepackaged spanish flavored rice and canned seasoned black beans to go with our tacos.  I know that that was not the best choice due to the high sodium levels but when you are recovering from eye surgery trust me when I tell you that you won't give two craps about eating processed high sodium foods.  You'll put on the table whatever can be made the quickest.  

Below is what I did. It is super easy and the results are fantastic.

 Ps - you don't have to over do it with the cilantro lime sauce like I did.  I'm just obsessed with it because its so good so I seriously put it on everything on my plate.  Oh, and the leftovers are also great on salad for lunch the next day.

Ingredients:
1 lb of frozen boneless skinless chicken breast
1 packet of hot/spicy low sodium taco seasoning
The juice of 2 fresh limes or 1/4 cup bottled of lime juice
1/2 cup freshly chopped cilantro
1/4 cup of water
Crushed Cayenne pepper to taste (optional)

Directions:

Put all ingredients in the crockpot. 

Stir and cook on high for four hours or on low for eight hours. 

If you are able to,  stir it at least once halfway through. 

When done the chicken should shred easily.  

You will have to use a fork to shred the chicken and stir in the excess liquid for flavor.

Serve hot with hard or soft shell taco shells and all your *usual fixin's. 

You could also put on top of tortilla chips to make nachos if you desire.

*Instead of using sour cream we made a Cilantro Lime Dressing to go on top. 

See below for that recipe. 

1 cup fresh cilantro, stems removed and finely chopped
1/2 cup plain Greek yogurt (store brand is fine)
2 tablespoons fresh lime juice (about 1/2 lime)
1 tablespoon of minced garlic

 1/4 cup olive oil
1 1/2 teaspoons white vinegar
1/8 teaspoon salt

Honey or sugar to taste (optional)

Directions: 

Puree all ingredients food processor until smooth.  We have a Ninja so that is what I used.  Use of a Vitamix or regular blender would be ok too. 

Taste and adjust flavor as necessary - I say this because the plain greek yogurt gives it a tart/tangy taste when coupled with the lime juice so you may want to add some honey or sugar to alleviate that if that is an issue for you.

 That's it.  A very simple, no work dinner that was something new and a keeper for the recipe lists

Hope you try it out and don't be afraid to experiment and enjoy!   

I may or may not get around to posting about the eye surgery.  We shall see.

XOXO

Jess