Much to say, little substance

I make no apologies for the scarcity of my posts. Ok, maybe, that's an admission that I feel somewhat remiss, but that is all. Life is fun and busy isn't it? When I started blogging I was a SAHM, now I am a working mom and school has started. Waaay different ballgame. So, I don't have the time I once had to devote to my imaginative ideas. I still have a few tucked up my sleeve, though and the best idea I have is scouring the blogs and trying other people's ideas that inspire me. The first thing I did for the upcoming holiday season was to make homemade holiday mixes. I measured out the dry ingredients for brownies, gingerbread, cornbread and cinnamon pancakes into large freezer bags and labelled them with the recipes and instructions on index cards. Now, while I am working through the holidays, all I have to do is add eggs, fat and milk and bake. Beautiful. I plan to do up some more of these. I got the fun of baking and making a big mess in the kitchen, but instead of just one final product I had four. Also I could put the mix in a jar and give it away as a gift. The next thing I tried was couponing. I have been collecting for a while and the other day I decided to be brave and try to go get some deals. I left my son at home and went to get two dollar deodorants, a free lotion and two for one chocolates. Good for stocking stuffers. I learned a few things, like how to organize them in a mini photo album so I can flip through and see them at a glance. I think with some practice, I could make couponing work. It is fun to find a cheap deal, and let's face it, with my inherent hoarding capacity, the idea of stockpiling toothpaste and shampoo at cheap prices is vastly appealing to me. My precious...

I have begun my holiday shopping with a strict limit of $20 per gift outside of my immediate family and those gifts are limited as well. For the office gift exchange, I plan to stuff a dollar store snowman mug with couponed chocolates and call it a day. I also recycled all my boring white tapers and tea lights into candle creations! I melted my son's old crayons into the wax for colour. I did all this after his bedtime of course. No need to have curious fingers in burning hot wax. I even recycled the wicks and after I bought some cute votive candle holders on clearance with Santa and snowflakes on them. I now have all my holiday candles for free and I may give some away as well. (The hoarding again, they look so good all in a big group, ha ha :) They turned out cute. My camera has been travelling around in the van, so you will just have to take my word for all this, I keep meaning to go get it but by the time I do, the kodak moment has usually passed. I hope you can enjoy last year's photo. We don't have snow yet, so this is fun for me. Welcome December!