Queen Mother Blog

Ok, so that's not a turkey, but I liked the picture! lol... All over the web right now, everyone is in a flurry about Thanksgiving and what to make/how to make it easier or more affordable. There is a good series on Money Saving Mom called "Thanksgiving on a Budget" which has ideas for decorating and food on the cheap.

I have to say, I have never cooked a turkey (even though I will need to learn, with my Acme free turkey in the freezer!) and my brother has cooked our Thanksgiving meals for years now. Since my bro and his wife host it at their home now, all I have to do is show up and bring a couple of things. So I'm not really an authority on preparing Thanksgivings, but there is one thing that I was requested to bring (aside from a vegetable), my deviled eggs. (or "angel eggs" if you grew up in my kind of family)

They seem to be either a 'love it or hate it' type thing. My sister is really finicky about deviled eggs and insists on no mustard (even though I think the filling is way better with mustard!). I do sneak relish into mine though. (Again, she doesn't read my blog, so she won't know! lol) So my filling is usually just mayonnaise, a little relish, salt and pepper and the paprika on top.

Then there is the question of to pastry bag the filling, or just spoon it on. I have to say the whole pastry tip thing is a HUGE waste of time, and no one really cares anyway. Also, then you have to really work the filling to be lump-free or your tip will get clogged every few seconds. So I say, do not use the pastry bag. Get real people! ;)

I saw Paula Deen one time make deviled eggs with bacon inside. Yum! Which made me wonder if I should try a new recipe this year. In searching, I found that there is a whole website devoted to Deviled Eggs. Check it out! The classic recipe is most like what I make.

And what to do with all the leftover eggs? Chop 'em up and you have egg salad for sandwiches. They actually are a very frugal little appetizer.

Love, Bay

What is up with freebies lately? It seems like they all dried up at one time. Here's what I can find this week:

Get a free pencil with a Digilake logo

This promotional compressed t-shirt expands in water

Mivodesign is offering a free utility knife

Score a free Nikon camera strap

Get a sample pack of Ty-Rap cable ties

Sign up here for a free Bertolli Premium pasta sauce sample...I have requested this before and nothing yet, but it is worth a try

Cutter & Buck is offering a free luggage tag

Sign up for Pillsbury's emails and get a coupon booklet with $10 in coupons. Betty Crocker is doing the same thing here.

Let's all hope for some good stuff to be added soon! Love, Bay

I can't say hooray enough! For quite a long time, I have been working on the above cross stitch. When my sister found out she was having a boy, I knew the name Noah was a top contender for the baby. I wanted to make something for him, and since I like cross-stitch, I researched options. Most patterns were too cartoony, pastel or just not my style. When I found this pattern ("Promises Kept" by Dimensions) I knew that it was perfect. What I didn't take into consideration was that it was way beyond my skill level at the time. I tried my best to have it done by the shower, and then by the time he was born, and then...FLASH FORWARD, he is now three!!! THREE!!

And yes, this is somewhat embarrassing! But last week while I was doing the "Making your home a haven" challenge, I knew that I wanted to work on this project until it was completed. I broke down the remaining pieces into little "doable" chunks, like 'complete eyes on outer left animals', etc. (The eyes, or the french knots, are what was out of my skill level. Stitching is stitching, but I can't do those knots for the life of me. I ended up substituting knots with small stitches for the eyes).

So now, it is done!!! I pressed it and found a framer nearby who will have it ready for me to present to the family on Thanksgiving. (Note to family, don't tell Jess! She doesn't read my blog anyway, lol)

So if my blogging fell by the wayside for a few days, now you know why!

And for my friend Yukline, here is a close-up of the berries on the tree that I was working on when we went to Las Vegas...2 years ago! ;)

I was thinking about what I was going to write in this WFMW post and I was stuck between two websites. Then I realized that hey, I have already mentioned Roboform & Paperback Swap…am I addicted to the internet? Is that all that works for me?

And then I thought, who cares of course I’m not. But there really are two cool things that are especially working for me at the moment:

Pandora- Pandora is an internet radio site, where you just quick type in your favorite song or band and it will play similar tunes. What has impressed me about Pandora is that, unlike other online radio gadgets, this one doesn’t play some really random, totally off-the-wall choices. It claims to use music genomes (?) to play appropriate tunes. So far, I love it. I have the Beatles station, the Fleetwood Mac station, the Joan Baez station…and I just realized that I sound thirty years older than I am.

Etsy- This one probably isn’t new to you. I have been suggesting Etsy to crafty people for a while. “Oh wow, your homemade widgets are awesome! No, don’t sell on eBay, sell on Etsy.” Things like that. This Christmas season, however, I plan on doing much more shopping from the comfort of my couch, and I checked Etsy out for some unique gift ideas. I’m hooked! I love the homemade shirts, bags cuter than you could ever find in stores, earrings that real people make. You might think that cool, homemade stuff is going to be more expensive that what you’d find at the mall. Instead, the prices I’ve found at Etsy are way better than at the stores which I would be shopping. Another cool thing about buying straight from a real person is that if you want something in a different color, just ask, and the artist might be able to make it special for you/your gift.

So those are two quick sites that work for me. I hope you like them, too. To see what works for other people, check out WFMW at Rocks in my Dryer.

While you are here, check out my new Tastefully Simple giveaway!

Ok, I did a pretty big shopping trip last night ($60, that is a lot for me!), but I was able to score my free turkey! It was 17 lbs! Of course I have no idea what to do with a giant turkey, but it is here and in my chest freezer. There were lots of frozen-y items, so I didn't get a picture this time--we had to quick put things away.

One good deal that was a surprise was a clearance rack that had my usual vitamin, Viactiv flavor-glides, on sale for $2.99! A 100-pack bottle! I know that Viactiv usually has coupons on their site, so I thought about just coming back, when I decided to just check my coupon stash. What do you know? A $2 off coupon! So 100 vitamins for $0.99!! Hooray! The kicker here was the expiration date is 12/31/08, so they are looking to move these. But you know that some things have bogus expiration dates right? I'm not talking milk here, but something like vitamins and supplements usually last a year since they are opened. I will definitely be using these up before one year. I come from a mom that doesn't put too much stock in expiration dates...sometimes they are just there to make you run out and buy more.

Also, I did the Pillsbury deal, buy 5 items, get the Land O Lakes butter for 50 cents....WELL...I had a $0.55 cents off LoL butter coupon I got in the mail, so it doubled to $1.10, giving me $0.60 overage. I love when little things like that happen.

Finally, I was super stoked with my baggy of $40.76 in change, and what? The Coinstar machine was having problems with gift cards (after it took my money of course!) and printed out a ticket to get cash for "no fee." Um, I could do that anywhere! I wanted my $10 g/c! Oh well. I could always try it again later. :)

You know those Coinstar machines that sit at the front of your grocery store? The ones that you never use because they charge you a little fee to count your coins when most banks now do this for free? Yeah, those!

Well, Coinstar is running a little incentive to make you cash your coins in for gift cards or e-certificates (to Amazon, for example). Not only are they going to waive the fee if you cash them in for certs instead of money, but if you pony up $40 in change, they will give you a $10 bonus!

Now, you don't get the $10 right away, but here's how it works. Before December 7th, get your $40 in change (if you need a bit more change you could always get some from your bank, hehe) - I actually had $40 in my coffee can, woohoo! Now, go to the Coinstar machine and opt for a gift card or e-cert (see the participating stores here). At the bottom of your receipt will be a claim form, to fill out and mail in. Coinstar will then send you a $10 gift card for the same store that you originally had picked. So for $40, you will get a total of $50. Not bad!

I just have to decide which store to pick...I think Amazon would actually be the most practical for me, but of course Old Navy is always good for clothes ;)

First, if you are new to working deals at Acme, please read the background info on one of my earlier deals posts. This will explain how the coupons double & how to print two copies of the printable coupons.

Normally the deals are pretty obvious, but for some reason this took me forever this week! lol. Here is what I see:

This is the last week to earn credit towards your free turkey!

These deals right below end Sunday, November 17th, so if you need them, hurry!
Nestle Morsels, 10-12 oz. bags on sale $2.33
Domino sugar, 5-lb. bags (limit 2) are $1.99 (there is a $0.50 off two coupon in this Sunday's paper. After the coupon doubling, 2 5-lb. bags would be only $2.98 total).
Acme vegetable oil 128 fl. oz bottle is $5.99
Acme cooking spray is buy one get two free with circular coupon

Deals using printable coupons and regular coupons:
Lysol cleaning products are on sale for $2.50 each (excluding disinfecting spray). Sign up here and there are printable coupons (when you are on the coupon page, click on "surface care") for almost every variety of Lysol ranging between $0.50 (that will double) to $1. You then would get the products for around $1.50 each.

Electrasol Auto Dish Detergent 75 oz & 8.45 oz. Jet-Dry are on sale for $3.99 each. Sign up here and there are $0.50 printable coupons for the detergent (that will double to $1 off) and $1 off Jet-Dry coupons so you can get each for $2.99. (Once you are on the coupon page, click on "home care")

Fast Fixin' Chicken Nuggets are on sale for $1.66. Print *five* of the printable available when you register here and get them for $0.66 each!.

Slim-Fast Optima, Hi-Pro & Easy Digest are on sale $6. Use the $1.25 coupon here (coupon link is in the bottom right of the page) to get them for $4.75.

Near East rice is on sale 5 for $10 (must buy five!), but you get an instant $2 off at checkout, making them 5 for $8. There are $0.50 off one coupons (that will double to $1 off) here, here and here. Print and redeem five of the coupons and get 5 boxes for $3, making them $0.60 each.

12-pack cans of Coke, Diet Coke, Coke Zero, Sprite or Dr. Pepper are on sale 4 for $11 (must buy four!). Use the coupon on page 6 of the circular to get 2 free 2-liters of Nestea with your 4 12-packs of Coke purchase. If you participate in My Coke Rewards you can also redeem 35 points for a "$1 off a 12-pack" coupon. It will generate a URL that you can copy and paste to print one coupon through Firefox and one in Internet Explorer. Redeem 70 points, print a total of 4 coupons, and get 4 12-packs and 2 2-liters of tea for $7 total!

Buy any five of these Pillsbury products and get one lb. of Land O Lakes butter for only $0.50. The products are:
Pillsbury Cinnamon or Chocolate twists - $2 each
Pillsbury Crescent or Sweet rolls - $1.66 each
Pillsbury Dinner rolls or loaf bread - $2 each
Pillsbury Refrigerated pie crusts - $2.50 each
There are tons of coupons for these items in recent newspaper inserts & there are coupons here, here, and here, as well as www.pillsbury.com.

Pick up any brand or flavor gallon of milk and it will be free at checkout when you buy any 4 participating Kellogg's cereals. The participating brands aren't listed out on the circular, but look for little stickers on the price tags at the store. There are several varieties pictured on sale 2 for $6 (not the greatest deal, I know), but there might be some participating ones that are less. There are also coupons for $1 off different varieties from a recent insert and there is a $1 off coupon here.

Deals using coupons from this week's paper or newspaper inserts from other weeks:
Nature's Bounty Vitamins are on sale buy one get one free and there a bunch of $1 off coupons from newspaper inserts available (there was also one inside the tote bag freebie from a couple weeks ago). You CAN use two coupons, even if you are getting one free, because technically you are purchasing two separate products!

Heluva Good dips are on sale for $1.66. Use the $1 off any two dips or cheeses coupon from this Sunday's paper to get two dips for $1.16 each.

There is a save $1 coupon in this Sunday's paper for any two boxes of Jell-o instant pudding is usually $0.50 a box and this week Cool Whip is on sale for $1. Buy two boxes of pudding and one Cool Whip and it will be $1 total after the coupon!

Ajax dish detergent is on sale for $1. Use the $0.20 coupon from this Sunday's paper to get it for $0.60!

2 oz. bottles of Tabasco original variety pepper sauce are $1.59 with Supercard. Use the $0.50 off coupon from this Sunday's paper to get a bottle for $0.59 after doubling.

Meow Mix Market Select single cups are on sale for $0.55 each. Use the save $1 coupon from this Sunday's paper to get four cups for $0.30 each.

Turkey Hill Ice Cream is on sale for $3.33 each. There is a $1 off 2 coupon from a recent insert that would make these $2.83 each.

Scotties facial tissues are on sale for $1 each. There are $1 off 5 boxes coupons and a $0.50 off 3 boxes coupon from recent inserts. That would make them either $0.80 each for five, or $0.66 each for three, depending on what coupon you have available.

Hefty OneZip freezer or storage bags are on sale for $2 each. There is a $1 off two coupon from a recent insert to make them $1.50 each. Also, there is a $1 off any one coupon from the same insert for Hefty trash bags, which are $7.99 this week.

Campbell's canned gravies are on sale for $0.66 each. There is a coupon from a recent insert for $1 off any 4 cans, which will make them $0.41 each.

Other promos:
There is a promo running where $5 will instantly come off your order when you purchase 10 participating products. These include Eagle brand condensed milk, some Crisco products, Pillsbury flour, frosting & premium brownie mix, Hungry Jack pancake mix & syrup, Jif peanut butter & Smucker's preserves. Of course you can work this to purchase what you need, but I don't think anything looks too fabulous here.

There is also a promo to save $10 on any fresh or frozen turkey when you buy $25 of participating Kraft products. There is a long list, but I don't think this promo is really great. If it was just $10 off your next order, it would be another story :)

Phew! Good luck! Love, Bay