Poor Ambs.

Teen Mom OG, Amber Portwood went to court today, and in very interesting turn of events told the judge that she wanted to serve out her 5 year sentence in Prison rather than go to rehab. Apparently she has never stayed clean and said that she will never be able to stay clean. She is now in jail until her next court hearing next month to see where it will go from there. If she does serve out the sentence, Leah will be 8 when she gets out.

proud

As you all know, my husband is a drummer. We have been together for 8 years and and I have seen him evolve into an absolutely amazing musician. I have watched him go from strumming a borrowed guitar in his living room, to playing in the worship band at church, and now, he is in a great band, that is on the road to something great. 


I am so proud of him, words can't even explain it. Every time I see him play it, I am blown away. He is good. REALLY good. And now he is going to the same events as really famous musicians. This is Brad and Kristian Bush of the one and only Sugarland:

I still can't really wrap my mind around this. It's just crazy. I mean, what if the band really does make it big? I know it won't all be easy. He was gone for a week this time. And it was really hard. I missed him like crazy. I'd venture to say that if and when Softsilence goes on tour he will be gone for a lot more than a week at a time. But, we have made it through so much already, I know that we will survive anything else life dishes us. I am just so proud of Brad for not giving up on his dream and continuing to work for it, and showing our kids that you can do anything you want to do. 

DIY

This is the first time that I have had a dishwasher while living on my own. Prior that this, my only dishwasher was my husband. He did a good job, but I am happy to have a real one. I decided to see what making my own dishwasher detergent would entail, and it was surprisingly easy, cheap, and according to the reviews works as well, if not better than expensive store bought stuff so I decided to give it a try. It only takes 4 ingredients.
    
     Borax
     Washing Soda (NOT baking soda)
     Salt
     LemiShine


I was able to find all of the stuff at Walmart, except for the Washing Soda which I found at the grocery store in the laundry aisle. But I learned, thanks to pinterest, that you can turn baking soda into washing soda. I failed Chemistry so I can't explain how it works, but I found this explanation online: 

     Baking soda's chemical makeup is NaHCO3 (1 sodium, 1 hydrogen, one carbon, and 3 oxygen molecules). Washing soda's chemical makeup is Na2CO3 (2 sodium, 1 carbon, and 3 oxygen molecules). When baking soda is heated up to high temperatures, it breaks down to become washing soda, water steam, and carbon dioxide.




So, If you bake Baking Soda at 400 degrees it will turn into washing soda. You will know that it is washing soda when it is no longer semi shiny, and is dull and grainy. Or you can just buy it. Either way it works. 


Anyway, back to the recipe. Like, I said, SUPER easy.

I even made a cute label for the container! I love my cricut! 

Mix 
1 Cup Borax
1 Cup Washing Soda
1/2 Cup Salt
1/2 Cup LemiShine (use more if you have hard water.)


Mix together in an air tight container. (MAKE SURE IT IS DRY BEFORE YOU USE IT...Trust me)


Use 1 tablespoon per load. You can use white vinegar as a rinse aid if you want. My daughter decided to dump all of our vinegar out on the grass the other day, so I didn't do that, but my dishes still came out clean and shiny!! 

Lemonade Ice Cubes

Ok, so these are pretty self explanitory, but Brad insisted that I pin these because HE made them. Nevermind the fact that I told him exactly what to do, and he would have never come it with it on his own, HE made them. And he did a good job.

Slice a lemon and put a slice in each cup of a cupcake tin. Pour in lemonade. Freeze.

Easy, and versatile. Mix it up! Use different fruit and juices. The possibilities are endless. And the BEST part- It doesn't water down your drinks. And making them in a cupcake tray gives you bigger cubes that are perfect for a big pitcher of lemonade on a hot summer day!

There you go babe! lets see how many repins you get! ;) 

I got Swag.

Swagbucks.com is my new obsession. I have been a swagbucks member for a while now, but just now am I really getting into it. What is swagbucks you ask? Well, it's a website. Obviously. Through this website you can earn "swagbucks" a few different ways, and redeem them for gift cards or other swag. There are thousands of things to choose from. The ways you can earn them are pretty simple. There are daily polls, surveys, special offers, watching commercials, through special "swag codes" that are put out regularly, and by utilizing their search engine. My goal is to build swagbucks over the next several months and then cash them in around the holidays to help out with Christmas presents. So far I have enough swagbucks to get a twenty dollar amazon giftcard. And it's only May, and I have only been actively trying to build them up for a few weeks. So hopefully by December I will have much more.

So, I really think y'all should check it out! Every little bits helps right? click on my referral code and sign up! You will get a few bucks to start, and I will get some to for referring you! Help a sister out! ;)

 Here it is! Do it! What's the worst that can happen?

http://www.swagbucks.com/refer/sloneal21

http://www.swagbucks.com/refer/sloneal21

Deals!

I'm slowly getting back on the couponing bandwagon. I showed you a deal last week on Nivea, and today I got a couple other good deals!

Kroger
They had these Country Time canisters on sale for $1! They are usually about 3 bucks so that was a great deal all on its own, but I had coupons for $1 off of 2 canisters of Country Time lemonade! So they ended up being only 50 cents a piece. That's a GREAT deal.

Walmart
Sun drop 2 liters are on sale for a dollar. Supposedly this is supposed to be similar to mountain dew which is my favorite, and there were $1 off 1 coupons on last Sunday's paper, so that made them FREE! I'll try it if it's free. Hopefully it is at least halfway decent.

Also at Walmart, I found trial size bags of pedigree dog food for $1. A few weeks ago a coupon came out for $2 off any size bag of pedigree dog food, so I grabbed that and got a dollar taken off of the rest of the items in my cart. Moneymaker!! Woot Woot!

Tomorrow is Coupon day! Stay tuned for more easy deals!

The OC OG is going to be a grandma!!

That's right! Vicki Gunvalson, the only original housewife left, The OC OG, the First Lady of Bravo, is going to be a grandma! Her daughter Brianna (one of my faves) is prego! Last week we saw her tell mama Vicki that she had eloped at a drive thru in Vegas. Hopefully this was much better news for her. Can't wait to see how she handles this. I have no doubt Brianna will be a great mother, but Vicki is going to drive her nuts.

Woohoo!!

Deal alert!! Nivea and giftcard deal.

Target has a deal this week on Nivea lotions. If you buy 3 (and the total of those 3 items is more than 5 dollars before coupons) you get a 5 dollar giftcard. This is what I did:

1- 1.7 oz extended moisture hand cream. $3.27

2- tins of cream. $0.87

Total before coupons $5.01 (generates 5 dollar giftcard at this point)

I used 1- $2 off any Nivea lotion coupon that came out a few weeks ago, but even if you don't have this coupon its a good deal. So my total was only $3.01 making it a 2 dollar moneymaker! Woohoo for free stuff!!

One month down.

So, we've been in Nashville for a month now and we are getting adjusted. It's been hot. But apparently it's only going to get worse, so... I might die. I used to hate when I would complain about heat in California and people would say "at least it's a dry heat." it would drive me NUTS... I totally get it now. Dry heat is so much better then humid, wet heat. So we have been staying indoors most of the time. Between the heat and the bugs, we can't hangout outside much yet. We did go to a pretty awesome park one day when it wasn't TOO hot. The locals call it dragon park. That's probably because it has a giant mosaic dragon statue that people climb all over. It really was quite beautiful. It also had some really nice playground areas and this cool tunnel the kids loved. And lots of shade. Thank god! It's on Blakemoore in Nashville across from Vanderbilt hospital if you are ever in the area with kiddos! I recommend it. But not when it's too hot.
Anyway, it's hot and the bugs are eating me alive, but I'm still liking it here. It's pretty and people are so nice and helpful. I've had 2 neighbors being us food, which I don't think I've ever had happen in Cali. And the thunderstorms are awesome. We had one today and the thunder was so loud, it sounded like cannons going off outside our door. To be honest I was terrified at the time, but since it happened a few hours ago, it's cool. And the lightening has been something else. Usually we just see flashes in the sky, but today we saw huge, actual bolts of lightening. It was way cool. Also, lightening bugs! They are fun to watch.
My inlaws are in town, and they stayed home with the kids last night and Brad and I got to go out for a while. It was nice and much needed. We saw Josh Turner, who was playing in the Opry Mills Mall parking lot for the grand reopening party for the mall! (that whole area was destroyed by the Nashville flood 2 years ago and just reopened.) And we went to Dave and Busters. It was a lot of fun! We played some games and had a drink. Nothing fancy, but it was fun.
Overall, we are doing well! The band is doing great, and has some pretty awesome things coming up! So stay tuned!

Best Ever.

Jurassic Park is hands down my favorite movie trilogy of all time. People find this weird and random. I don't understand why. They are just some of those movies that I HAVE to stop and watch whenever they are on. I have noticed that the first and third installments are on fairly regularly, but the second is very rare. I guess that one is just a little too far fetched. People like realistic stuff. Dinosaurs running a muck on a deserted island is one thing, but once you have a T-Rex terrorizing San Diego apparently you have crossed some kind of line. Even if Vince Vaughn is involved. So sadly, I don't get to see one very often.
I really need someone to start making a fourth installment. Seriously. It's been over a decade. The world is ready. And you can bet your bottom dollar that I will be first in line to see that. In high def and 3-D with today's graphic capabilities. Just imagine it... It would be epic. So, if someone could get on that, that would be awesome!
I have been asking the Hubs for the trilogy on DVD for a few years now, and I still don't have it. So I'm going to make it easy on him.. Mother's Day is coming up. Here is the link.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B0057RCFQS/ref=redir_mdp_mobile?qid=1336197561&ref_=sr_1_1&s=dvd&sr=1-1
Thanks!