SEMI SPOILER ALERT: I hesitated seeing Cloverfield for a couple of reasons. First, I was thinking it was going to be another Godzilla. Didn't like Godzilla and don't want to see another. This was more like War of the Worlds, though it was never said that the creatures in this movie were aliens. In fact, it didn't explain them at all. Suddenly they're there and then we're following these people through the city, trying to rescue some girl, while everyone else, in their right mind, is trying to leave.

My problem with this is that they tried to make it seem like some love story about this guy who's about to leave the country and so he hadn't even had a real relationship with this girl, didn't care about her enough to take her with him, but then risks his and his friends lives trying to find her. Meanwhile, their families could be dead for all they know, but hey, let's worry about this girl; who, when they get there find she is only hit in the shoulder. The shoulder people. Somehow she was well enough to get ahold of her cell phone and call the guy but can't get out of the building because of her shoulder. If you can't help yourself in that situation, you deserve to die. If I had gone through what they did to find her there like that, I might have killed her myself. Of course, I wouldn't have been so stupid as to go after her.

Secondly, the movie was done by the producers of Lost. I am so frustrated with this show it makes me wish I'd never started watching it. Not only do I not believe that the writers even know what's going on, but they keep taking these huge breaks in between episodes. Is this show not hard enough to follow already? Out of principle I want to stop watching but I can't because you only watch this show to figure out what will happen in the end. So if I stop watching before then, all these years would have been wasted. That and I do enjoy watching Desmond. Forget Sawyer, he's good-looking, but I love an accent myself.

Don't even get me started on Hurley and Kate. Hurley, lose some weight. I get there's food on the island but not that much. You would have lost some weight by now. Kate, you're not B.A. so stop tromping along with the guys, acting like you are. It's ridiculous.

I thought I'd feel better if I got that out of my system, but nope, still don't.

I have been having so many problems with Walgreens lately that it's made me think twice about going back. First they had a deal a couple weeks ago where you could choose any 9 items listed over 3 pages and get $20 back in Register Rewards (money for next time). Well, it only printed $10. Then I had a manager try and tell me that I had to buy 9 of the same item to get the deal. I stood there and argued with her but she kept talking to me like I was an idiot, so I decided to do what she said. I had 7 of the same item anyway. So I exchanged the other 2 for 2 more of the one item and got 9 things of toothpaste. Guess what. It still only printed $10 so she felt like an idiot, but I got my $20 and I wrote Walgreens when I got home to complain. They ended up sending me a $20 gift card for the inconvenience.

So, then I went back the next week and there was a coupon on an item that I bought. The guy scans it but it didn't work. Rather than punch it in, he puts it aside and says "eh, it doesn't work". So, I returned the item on principle. Of course, I could have called up a manager but it would have been the same lovely lady who didn't know what the heck she was talking about last time so I didn't bother.

Then, my last trip, they rang 2 items up wrong and so I need to go back to get that fixed. All this would make you think either 1. I should go to a different Walgreens or 2. stop going all together. I know many other shoppers have stopped shopping at Walgreens for these exact reasons. As for me, 1. gas is too expensive for me to drive to another Walgreens. Any money I'd save would go right in my tank. 2. I cannot pass up a bargain, even if it is a hassle.

**Hot Deal** Today, for instance, Walgreens has a $5 off $20 purchase coupon you can get here. I'm not sure what I'm going to get but I just gotta go there, otherwise, it's like losing $5.

Even with the problems I've been having with them, I got all the stuff in the picture for $4.49. Here's how:

8 Chef Boyardee for $10 - $5 rebate = $5
9 Crest TP for $22.50 - $1.75 in coupons - $20 gift card = $.75
WG Maxi Pads for $1.99 - $1.99 rebate = FREE
WG light bulbs for $1.69 - $1.69 rebate = FREE
2 colgate TB for $8.98 - $2 coupons - $8.98 rebates = $2 PROFIT
Ivory Soap $.99 - $.25 coupon = $.74
Free 8 x 10 for Mother's Day

To answer your question, yes, I do need 9 things of toothpaste to go on top of an already huge stockpile. Hey, they were $.75. How can I pass that up?

So tonight's the American Idol finale. Although I would like David Cook to win, I didn't waste my time voting this year. Both David's will get record deals either way and, frankly, both deserve it. I've always said David Archuleta is not my thing, but I can't deny that he can sing.

I don't know that I agreed with Simon last night in saying that Archuleta out did Cook. I actually loved Cook's second song that Simon hated. I didn't care for the Collective Soul song he did, but I didn't like the original either.

I'm really not sure who I think will win tonight but I'm going to say Cook will take it. Even Simon said that Cook deserves it over Archuleta because he's paid his dues. Archuleta's only 17 and will have plenty of opportunities. That is, if his controlling father doesn't ruin it for him.

I started watching ABC's The Bachelorette with DeAnna Pappas on Monday. I had actually watched every season of the Bachelor/Bachelorette, but stopped in the midst of The Bachelor with Brad Womack and DeAnna. I didn't care for him and decided I was only going to watch The Bachelorette from now on. Why do I want to watch a bunch of women with only one guy? Instead I'll watch 15 guys and hopefully like one of them. This season though, is slim pickings. There is a guy from my home, KC, but he's a hairdresser. The only other guy that stands out id the "dorky" science guy. When he puts his glasses on, he's pretty sexy. I'm not sure what happens when he takes them off but he really shouldn't do that.

Whitney Thompson won America's Next Top Model Cycle 600 or whatever it is. Now everyone's saying she only won because they wanted a plus size or "full figured" girl to win. I say, she's beautiful and it's about time. Even if Tyra chose her to serve a bigger purpose, it needed to be done and good for Tyra. I say that and I don't even like Tyra Banks.




More than anything else right now, I'm so excited to hear that The Mole is coming back. I'm not sure why it ever left but I loved that show. My husband and I were on vacation, in a restaurant, and realized it was coming on and we had them wrap our food to go because we loved that show so much. This was before we had Tivo to record everything.

Every year, countless occasions go by where I have great ideas at the last minute, too late to actually do any of them. With my son, Jaxon, I am determined not to let this happen. Jax turns 1 in October and though I have a lot of time, I am eager to get started planning.

While I do consider myself pretty creative and pretty crafty as well, I don't want to over-look anything that I may not think of because this is my first time around. So, I'm scouring the internet looking for ideas and hoping that you all might share your tips as well.

I make and sell invitations so I'm not worried about those. I just need to pin down my theme first. I'm thinking story time. This was going to be Jax's room theme, but we went with jungle instead; but I still love the idea of story time.

I could probably make invitations by altering old Golden Books. Just gut the insides and line with some scrapbook paper and we may have the beginning of something.

I've also thought about narrowing the theme to specific stories or even authors, like Dr. Seuss. We could have a lot of fun with the cake for that theme. My husband suggested Willy Wonka with Golden ticket invites. I might hold off on that until he gets a little older and can enjoy all the sweets that would accompany that idea.

We can think of lots of ideas for older kids because frankly, my husband's not too far off from a big kid himself. I'm just at a loss when it comes to baby themes though.

So far, I haven't had any luck I don't want to just buy a birthday in a box, though the packages I've seen available do make it tempting. What I want is to do something crafty and heartfelt, for this birthday especially. Does anyone have any ideas or know of any good resources out there?

A few weeks ago, I posted about a great site I found to increase traffic to your blog called Blog Explosion. You can read it here if you missed it. Since then, I've had quite a few people sign up via my site and I want to thank them for that.

Just so you know, Blog Explosion can take a little while to approve your blog but you can earn credit surfing others blogs while you wait. That way, you'll have credit to assign to your blog when it is approved.

For anyone who hasn't signed up yet, you can click this link below to do so now if you'd like. It really has helped my traffic "explode". It's free to join and there are no gimmicks. Just browse or "surf" others blogs to get credits to apply toward getting traffic to your blog. It's as simple as that.




I also wanted to tell you guys about a new site I found that is very similar to Blog Explosion, called Blog Soldiers. I only just joined myself but it looks promising.




Another site I found that has it's own spin on things is called RoyalSurf. It has a medieval theme to it with games you can play amongst surfing other sites. Personally though, I didn't care for it. While the other sites mentioned are blogs only, RoyalSurf is all kinds of sites and it ends up being a bunch of sites just trying to get you to sign up or buy something. I don't think I'll be spending any time there myself. I can see, however, how some might like the games there. They're more role playing, Dungeons and Dragons type games.



Hope this helps.

For the 5th Annual MommyFest, I will be doing a little giveaway of my own. Included will be a bunch of coupons (not on-line, printable coupons) so they will be accepted everywhere coupons are accepted. -And- the 3 x 5 Dishwasher dirty/clean magnet shown below.


I actually make and sell these magnets for $2.99 each. They are lightweight, flexible magnets, with a laminated top and a fully magnetized backing.

Pictures will face upwards when dishes are dirty and then you simply flip the magnet around as needed. While most dishwasher magnets only give you the option of letting you know when the dishes inside are clean or dirty, I also included "empty" to let you know when the dishwasher has already been emptied; so you don't have to keep checking unnecessarily. I also included "unload me" for those of us who want to leave a message for your children, roommates or spouses.

If you do not win but would like to buy a dishwasher magnet, or any magnet for that matter, you can either click on my ecrater store to the side, or use this link Kel's Hideaway. I have been a seller on ebay, ecrater, iOffer, etc for about 6 years now. I have recently halted my listings with ebay in protest of the way they treat their sellers, but you can certainly look up my feedback record there if you'd like.

If you want to enter to win the prizes listed, then simply post a comment anywhere on my blog. I will notify the winner at the end of MommyFest.

Also, it's Tipster Tuesday @ BeCentsAble's blog. I just got a great tip from my sister that CVS pays you Extra Care Bucks for filling out surveys for them. Here's the link. $5, $10 and sometimes $15 ECBs. I can't wait to get started!


Lastly, here's my "Tuesday Toot" where I get to toot my own horn. I am showing great restraint with my diet so far. Yes, it has only been 2 days, but I am a huge late night snacker and it's actually really hard to give up. So, I'm proud of myself.

Yesterday was my first Mother's Day. Yea Me! I know that it's not like New Year's where you make a resolution, but that's exactly what I'm doing. It's time to bring sexy back, or as close as I can get to it and lose the pregnancy weight! Okay, it's not even the pregnancy weight. Truth is, I did really well during my pregnancy. I only gained 35 lbs. I ate right, drank tons of water, and all that jazz.

I then lost the weight I'd gained pretty immediately after having my 10 pound baby. The problem is that I wasn't expecting to lose it that fast and it tricked my mind into thinking I had super metabolism. So I ate all the things I denied myself when I was pregnant and ended up gaining 10 lbs. That on top of the weight I've gained since I was in high school, leaves me wanting to lose 40 lbs.

To give you an idea of what I'm talking about, here is a picture of my husband and I back in the day:



I was feeling pretty good about myself back then. And here is what we look like now:

Notice, that I didn't put a full body shot, nor will I at this point. It's not that I expect to look like I did when I was young. I just want to be healthy and more energetic for my baby's sake. I especially don't want him to have the same eating habits I have now. So, that's it. I have to make a change for both my baby and myself.

I'm not exactly sure how I'm going to go about this just yet, but I'm hoping that posting about it will make me feel accountable. So, when I post next week, hopefully, it will be good news.

So far today, I had a healthy Special K breakfast bar and I did some Wii DDR. If you don't know what that is, click here. It is a real work-out that is truly fun.

On a different note, but very much going along with Mother's Day, I will be joining the MommyFest Blog Party May 12th thru the 16th. I invite any other mother's to join along. I'm hoping to make some new friends and have some fun in the process.

I've been making some changes to my blog's appearance and I thought I'd share how I did it.

ADDING FEED TO YOUR LABELS:

Thanks to Purple Moggy who helped me add feed to my individual labels. Now, if you click on the to the side of my labels, you can subscribe to the feed for that particular category.

This came in handy for me because I wanted to add my movie reviews to my other blog, On My Lists. It also is helpful to those who have blogs about many different topics so that if a reader is only interested in one particular topic, they can subscribe specifically to that.

You can do this too. All you have to do is go to Layout -> Edit HTML. Download Full Template so that you have a backup copy just in case. This is important to do no matter what changes you are making on your blog. Then you want to follow the instructions on given here.

ADDING CLICKABLE PICTURES:

To add my clickable pictures like my name "Call Me Kelly" above, I used Blogger Buster's cheat guide you can get here. Everything you need to know is on page 39, but the whole guide is really helpful. I highly recommend it for those wanting to make their blogs their own. Wanting to skip the whole guide and just want clear cut directions on how to make your pictures clickable links, BlogU has what you need here.

Last night, I went back to CVS because I had some coupons about to expire. I got:

2 pckgs Pampers. $8.99 a piece. So, $17.98-$2 coupon FIP=$15.98.
3 Pringles. .88x 3-.30 coupon FIP=$2.34.
Dawn. .88-.50 coupon FIP=.38
Colgate TB. $3.99-$1 coupon FIP. =$2.99 got back $3.99 in ECB $1 Profit
2 NatureMade Vitamins $8.48 (4.29 + 4.19). BOGO so -$4.19 and -$8.48 I had in coupons for the vitamins for a profit of $4.19.
10 more free pics like I explained here.
Subtotal=$17.50
-$5 ECBs from last time
-$9 in CVS coupons found various places.
=$3.50 plus tax OOP

That's $3.50 for all of this including 2 things of diapers. Don't forget I also got $3.99 in ECBs for next time. I can't wait! Though I think I'm going to Walgreens next.

**Hot Deal** At Walgreens you can get a free 8 x 10 photo on-line if you use the code 4MOM at checkout. The deal ends tomorrow, May 7th so act fast. Thanks, Be Thrifty Like Us for the tip. Frame these and they would be great mother's day gifts.

I know I am behind in my movie watching. Again, I stress how hard it is to watch a movie with a 6 month old baby. Previously, I would have been in the theaters first thing for this movie, No Country, Atonement, etc. However, as good as all of these movies looked, I am left very disappointed with all of them.

There Will Be Blood depicts a man, power-hungry and paranoid, who essentially loses it, pushing everyone in his life away. I felt the movie was long and slow. Editing could have done wonders here. On top of that the story was vague. It eluded to things, then left you wondering until it eluded to something else and you had to then piece it all together.

I felt the violence was unnecessary. Mind you they would have had to change the title; but at the end, I felt the whole thing was pointless.

Now for the positive, Daniel Day-Lewis and Paul Dano (Eli) were both amazing in the parts they were given. Daniel Day-Lewis is amazing in everything he does. I respect him a great deal as an actor. It's worth seeing purely for his performance.

As I mentioned the other day, I got a great deal on a One Touch Glucose Monitor, described again below:


I did not include that in my April total but it is a great example of the deals you can get. On top of that, this week, I got 8 Post It pads & flags. These were on sale for 2/$4, so they totaled $16. I had 4 $3 off coupons, bringing my total to $4. I then had a $3 off a $15 purchase from CVS, dropping the total to $1. Now, when you bought $15 worth of specified products, including Post It, you got back $5 extra credit bucks (ECBs). This is a credit to use towards your next visit to CVS. So, I made a profit of $4.

Wait, it gets better.

Secondly, I had a coupon for $4 off $20 beauty products coupon. These expired yesterday which is why I'm not listing links where to get them. Sorry. So, I bought 2 CoverGirl compacts for $7.99 each and 1 CoverGirl concealer for $3.99 which got me close enough to $20 as I could get.

The $20 minus the $4 coupon brought it to $16. I also had a $1 CoverGirl coupon, making it $15. On top of that I had a buy one CoverGirl get one free, so minus $7.99. The new total being $7.01.
Here's where I got an unexpected bargain. In fact, I didn't even know what had happened until I got out of the store and looked at my receipt. Apparently a new sale started today on CoverGirl products for buy 1 get 1 half off. Though it was a day early, I got the deal anyway. Thus, got an extra $3.99 off, bringing the total to $3.02 and I had another $4 off a $20 purchase that you get when you sign up for email offers at CVS.com.

At the end they owed me .98 for the makeup, but don't forget the $1 on the Post Its. Making the whole thing a wash. All I had to pay was tax and I paid that with a CVS gift card I got for free.

**Hot Deal** I also had a coupon for 10 free photo prints. I can't for the life of me remember where I heard about this, but if you go to The Washington Post and sign up then you'll have access to their past issues. Once you click on the paper, there should be a calendar on the top bar. Find April 24th. Over to the side you can browse the pages. On the last page, there's a full CVS ad. At the bottom where you can print, you can select "print custom area" to highlight only the coupons. There is a $3 off $15 purchase coupon along with a coupon for 10 free prints when brought in on a camera card or picture CD. These do not expire until 6/6/08 and you can print as many as you'd like for multiple visits.

At the end of my CVS visit, I had 5 ECBs for next time and another $3 off $15 purchase that printed with the receipt.

Plus Post It has a free gift when you buy $15 worth of their merchandise. You can print the form here.

**Hot Deal**CVS has another deal I got from SlickDeals.net for even more free photos:

Steps to follow to get 60 Free Prints:

1. At the CVS Photo Center,click on "Start Now" to create an account w/ your email and ExtraCare Number
2. CVS will instantly send you an email link to connect to & credit you
w/ 50 free photos
3. Under “Order Prints”section (you may have to upload a photo to get to
this page), click on the "Do More with Your Photos" on the right side of the
screen. Another 10 prints will be credited to your account

I just totaled my savings from CVS and Walgreens for the month of April. Through rebates, CVS' Extra Care Bucks, Walgreens Register Rewards, and coupons, I got 44 items for free! Everything from lotion, toothpaste, deodorant, hair dye, cereal, headache and allergy medicine. This was actually a slow month because I've been so busy the last 2 weeks, I wasn't able to even go shopping for new items to add to my already long list.

You may be wondering how I did it. Well, there are tons of blogs that help explain it better than I can, but I'll give it a try. CVS offers what they call "Extra Care Bucks" or ECB's, and Walgreens offers the equivalent that they call "Register Rewards". Basically, this is money back for specified products that you can then use on your next visit at that store. So, they're ensuring that you have to come back to their store.

The products change every week/month and you combine them with rebates and/or coupons in order to get them for little to nothing, literally nothing or sometimes even making a profit.


Other resources on this topic:
slickdeals.net
Be Thrifty Like Us
BeCentsAble

There are many more. I will try and list them in my blogroll. One thing you'll see on these other sites is that a lot of them print their coupons from home. They can make for some great deals, so it's worth checking around.