New Places, New things

As most of you know, Brad and I moved to North Carolina in August of last year. For the first time in our lives, we hold residence outside the great state of Alabama. Needless to say, the transition was a bit difficult at first. However, with new places comes new things. One of my favorite parts about moving has been discovering all the new places and events that are at our finger tips. Here are some of our favorites we have found so far.

1. The North Carolina State Fair

One of the first events that Brad and I found was the North Carolina State Fair. The fair comes every fall and it is a BIG deal around here. We decided since neither of us had ever been to a state fair so we could not miss this. Despite the rain, we had a great time!!

2. Duke Camp Out

Duke Campout = 48 sleepless hours in a tent with the hope of winning a little green card. What is the little green card you ask? One of the most prized possessions on the Duke Campus - season tickets to Duke Basketball. The legend that is Duke basketball is almost something that words can't describe mostly because I don't really get it. For those people who grew up here though it is their world. Brad and I had the best time spending the weekend living in tents with our friends. What a fun way to start the year. Brad won tickets too which made the weekend even better. In the picture is our dear friends Tom & Holly Warren.

3. Snow

This is not really anything that Brad and I discovered but still we loved the snow. We never really got a true snow in Alabama ( or not in the past 10 years at least ) so we were so excited for the first big snow in February.

4. Beantraders Coffee Shop - Brad loves nothing more than to hide away in a coffee shop all day and read a good book. So, he was so excited to find a great local coffee shop called Beantraders coffee. It is a great shop that offers tons of coffee but also uses a lot of local items like milk from a local farm.

5. Durham Farmers Market - I love fresh fruits and veggies but the grocery store does not exactly off the best quality. After a little research, Brad and I found the Durham Farmers Market which is held every Saturday in the heart of downtown Durham. Local farmers from all over the area bring the best fruits & veggies they have to offer. It is a really fun, open air market full of local culture and flair.

6. Durham Bulls - what is more fun than a baseball game & good hot dog? Durham has their own minor league baseball stadium that offers just that. The Durham Bulls is a town landmark. You drive any where around downtown and you can always spot the giant bull (yes the male cow) that is perched on top of the stadium wall. We hope to make some games in the near future and enjoy the nice spring weather.

7. The Liberty Antique Festival - My personal favorite. A couple of weeks ago, I and two other friends took a gamble and drove an hour out into the middle of no where to the Liberty Antique Festival. I saw a commercial for it on TV and thought it would be fun. It turned out to be great!! We spent 5 hours wondering up and down rows looking wonderful antiques mixed in with all kinds of cool stuff. Needless to say, this will be on my calendar for next year. Here is a picture of the two items I purchased (it was a struggle to only buy two!)
An old floral picture - I loved the frame

An antique picture frame - they just don't make them like this anymore - it is hard to see the detail in this picture but the detail is beautiful!


Well - I hope you have enjoyed this small tour of our lovely town. Have a great week!

Better Late than Never Right?

Well, as I feared, I have been a little slow in posting to my blog the past couple of weeks. I am back though and hope to be a little better about my posts. Last I wrote, I was headed to Birmingham to meet my niece. As promised I have posted some pictures of her beautiful face. Oh how sweet she is. She is such a beautiful baby with such an easy going personality. I love her already. Here are some of my favorite pictures....





Needless to say it was very hard to come back to North Carolina after spending the weekend with McKenzie. Little babies are just so cute.

It has been pretty busy around our house recently. Brad is finishing up his first year at Duke Divinity which seems to have flown by and I am still plugging away at work but enjoying the slower pace right now. Brad has spent the past week at home studying for finals. They give the students a whole week to prepare. Beats the two days Auburn gave us to get ready. I will say there are times when I miss being in college, but watching Brad study so much quickly reminds me why I am glad to be done. College would have been a blast without any homework or tests. Don't you agree? The best thing about being out in the working world is Sunday afternoon/evening that you used to spend doing all the homework you had due Monday that is now spent doing whatever you want. It is a beautiful thing. It puts a whole new meaning to Sunday being the day of rest.

Spring has finally arrived here and with that, I have gotten an itching to do a little spring cleaning/decorating in our apartment. When we first moved in, I spent a lot of time getting things set up and decorated but now that we have been here for a little bit, i am seeing areas that need some work. I have been coming up with all types of spring projects that I want to do at the same time wondering how and when I am going to get them done. My favorite project completed so far is some plates that I have hung on the wall behind our kitchen table.



The lighting is not great in the picture but you can get the idea. I have always thought that plates on a wall looked so pretty and simple so I decided to try it with some plates that I have from an aunt. It actually turned out much better than I expected - I was just glad they were all straight and in line. My next project is to put a planter on our balcony and grow herbs. We will see how that goes since I have absolutely no experience in growing anything. I guess there is a first time for everything and you can't learn if you don't try.

Happy Weekend to Everyone!!

4 Day Weekend, Baby & Family

Since starting work back in September, I have come to love National holidays, Saturdays, Sundays and most of all Vacation days. Vacation....what a wonderful world. Getting up every morning to the same routine can wear on you after a while. I do realize that it has only been 8 months but I would almost say the first months are the hardest since you are used to your 4 hour days from college where you may or may not decide to go to class that day. With work there is no thought that "I may just not show up today".
Well tomorrow AND Monday are two days described by the wonderful word vacation. Since the end of busy season has officially passed, I am taking a long weekend to head to Birmingham for a little rest, relaxation and family time. On top of that, for those of you who don't know, the Taylor family welcomed a new addition in March. My brother and his fiance had a beautiful baby girl on March 10th named McKenzie and I am dying to see her. All I have seen are pictures and it has been killing me. My Grandfather is driving down from Kentucky for the weekend to meet McKenzie for the first time as well. The only part that will be missing is Brad. He has to stay home and go to class/finish up work for the end of the semester. As much as I will miss him, I am so excited about the trip.
In my mind, there are not many places as wonderful as Birmingham. It has everything you could need without all the things you don't want that you get in most big cities. The only trouble with a trip to Birmingham is that there is never enough time to do all the things I would like. There are friends to see, stores that I must visit for a little shopping, Mom's home cooking to eat, favorite restaurant to go to, in-laws to see and the list goes on. I am going to try my best to hit the highlights this weekend included breakfast with my dear friend Erin & Sarah and a trip to see my in-laws' new house!
I hope you all have a wonderful Friday and weekend whatever you may be doing. Come back Monday for pictures of baby McKenzie!

Record Savings

Well I have made reference to this topic in a prior blog, but this blog is devoted to my Sunday activity- The Grocery Game.  Before I moved to North Carolina I had never heard of the grocery game but holy cow it is an amazing thing.  The first time I heard about it, a coworker was talking about how her husband had saved over $1,000 during the year on groceries.  My ears immediately perked up.  For those of you who know Brad, he is a big boy and it takes a lot of food to keep him full.  Not to mention, we rarely eat out (because it's so expensive) so we eat a lot at home.  As such, my grocery bill tends to be rather high.  So, the idea of being able to save extra money every week at the grocery was great.

Here is how it works.  The Grocery Game is a website where each week, a woman and her team post lists for various stores that list each item on sale at each store.  The list tells you the sale price of the item as well as how you can use coupons that have appeared in a past Sunday's paper to get the best deal on that item.  There are a number of stores to pick from and you can pick more than one.  My store of choice is Harris Teeter.  The list is also color coded into three colors: black, blue and green.  Items in black are on sale but not at a great price.  Items in blue are items that are on sale at "rock bottom prices".  They are the lowest price they ever really go.  Those items in green, you can get for free based on the sale price and coupons that apply.

An example:  Sour cream  Regular Price $2.29   Sale Price $1.89 Coupon $.50       Total Price Paid $1.39

 

This may sound like a lot but it is really great.  Here is how I do it.  Each Sunday I stop on the way home from church and pick up my paper.  I go home and look at the list on the website and scroll through selecting items that I am interested in.  I then print off the list where it You it shows only the items I have selected - which is great.  I then just spend 10-15 minutes pulling out the coupons for the day out of my coupon holder and I am off to the store.  

Still not convinced?  Well, today I did my usual routine and went to Harris Teeter to do my shopping.  I got to the checkout and as I was trying to pay, the cashier asked for a manager to come over who proceeded to approve my transaction.  Why you ask??  I saved $108.79 and because I had saved so much, it had to approved by a manager.  That is right ladies and gentlemen.  I saved $108 at the grocery store for a total of 50% savings.  I actually paid $.10 less than I saved.  The best part is, I bought all things that Brad and I eat on a regular basis so now I just have a good stock pile and don't have to stress about going to the store again for the next couple of weeks.  Stocking up is really the whole idea of the game.  You buy items while they are at their lowest price so you don't end up paying full price because you have to buy something in a pinch.  If you know you eat it and it won't go bad, buy it while it is on sale!   

One last tip - check out your local stores on a regular basis for special deals.  Today Harris Teeter did triple coupon day for any coupon up to $.99!!  That is a great deal!!

I highly recommend the grocery game to any of you out there who already clip Sunday coupons and even if you don't you should give it a try.  You can do a 4 week trial for $1.  What do you have to lose?

How old are you?

Well today for about 2 hours I forgot how old I was. With Brad's family in town we decided that it would be fun to take his parents and brother to a putt-putt and arcade place. For those of you who know Brad, you know that this is right up his alley. We started off the afternoon with a fun game of putt-putt. This activity is usually something that we only do at the beach but it was a beautiful afternoon so we thought we would give it a shot. We had such a great time. I was once again reminded me though of how bad I am at golf. I had some good moments but used the 6 stroke cap rule on more than one occasion. Mr. Acton ended up beating us all but I will say that I did not come in last place.
After the game, we went inside to a mass of small children running around playing arcade games with adults fresh on their heels trying to keep up. We decided that we would all spend a little time and play a few games. I headed straight for the ski ball machines. This has always been my favorite game so I played a few games and spent my $5 dollars. Mr. Acton decided to give it a shot and next thing I know he has won the jackpot and the ticket machine is spitting out tickets faster than he can pick them up. We suddenly become those people carrying around two handfuls of tickets with people staring at you like it was real money. As we stand in line to hand in the tickets to get a less than exciting prize, Brad runs over and has just hit jackpot on another game. In short between the five of us, we won a total of 3000+ tickets. By far the best part of the day was when an 8 year old boy looked at Brad and the tickets he had won and said "you have to teach me your skills". At that point I quickly realized that we were the only adults in the place without a child 10 or under close behind. We had a great time though and there is nothing wrong with not acting your age right?

Guests & Gift Baskets

Some people hate having company but I for one love it. Brad's parents and youngest brother drove up to North Carolina today and are here for the weekend to visit. Branch (Brad's brother) is staying with Brad and I while his parents stay in a hotel in town and celebrate their anniversary.
They came up this afternoon and stayed for dinner. I spent last night getting everything ready. I made my casserole, pealed my carrots, set out the pots I needed to cook everything and the list could go on. For some reason these things relax me. Brad thinks I am nuts and to some degree I don't even understand it but for me relaxing is baking something. I just love entertaining people. I love to plan a party and plan a fun menu and think about what dishes I am going to serve them on. I think deep down I should have been a party planner. I tell people that after I planned our wedding, I would really love to be a wedding planner. I guess for now Ill continue as a CPA and dream maybe one day.
So on to my next topic, gift baskets. When the Actons arrived they came bearing gifts. Brad's sweet grandmother sent us an Easter basket. This is not your typical Easter basket either. It's full of all kinds of wonderful goodies. Here is my question though. How can any normal person trying in the smallest bit to eat healthy possibly consume all the goodies included in a gift basket? I personally feel that whenever someone gives me something that I should eat it,use it, display it or whatever the case may be, but sometimes that is just hard to do. On top of that, there are countless homeless people in the area where Brad and I live so whenever I go to throw away food, I always think of those people who have no food. Some of you are probably thinking, well just give the food to the homeless people but for some reason I feel bad giving a homeless person a bag full of chocolate. I guess I feel like they need real food-meat and veggies. So I am left with my dilemma, if you can even call it that.
On a final note, now that Brad are in NC we have embraced the basketball thing and with that comes the NCAA tournament. He and I both filled out a bracket and have a bet going to see who can get the most correct. I am proud to report that I am 8 for 8 so far in my picks :) You can go a long way just guessing.

Relaxation

What a wonderful word. This is the word that for the first time in a long time describes my weekend.
As many of you know, I am a CPA and with that comes busy season. I never knew that working 55+ hours a week could be so hard on you physically and mentally, but as of Friday, busy season was officially over. This weekend was a wonderful and much needed break. Friday night, I feel asleep on the couch at 5:45 and slept until 9pm when Brad came home from a conference. We watched Duke advance in the ACC tournament and then I went back to sleep.
It was a cold and rainy day on Saturday - the perfect weather for sleeping in. To top of my afternoon, I went to a spa near by and had a"Stress Zone" massage. My sweet in-laws gave me a gift certificate for my birthday which was a great surprise. For those of you who have never experienced this wonderful gift from God, I highly recommended it! There are those who think it is weird or uncomfortable to have a stranger rubbing on your body, but trust me, after the first 5 minutes you forget all about it and feel as though you could stay there for days.
Sundays are always nice days in our house, and today was no different. We have found a church that Brad and I both enjoy (which was a challenge with a divinity school student). After church, we usually have lunch with friends and then I stop and pick up the Sunday paper so I can cut out the grocery coupons. I am avid about coupons. I, like many others, participate in the Grocery Game which I may explain in a later blog. Ill just say that today at the grocery store I spent $58 and saved $47. It's amazing! Brad and I also watched Duke beat Florida State to win the ACC tournament - GO Blue Devils!! Since living in North Carolina, I have noticed that basketball up here is much like football in the south and North Carolina is like Alabama. There are two teams to pick from and you must pick which one you cheer for. Since I am married to a Duke student, I don't have much choice - I have become a Duke fan by default. It is fun though. It is like nothing I have ever seen before. These people LOVE their basketball. Again, that is for another blog. I am new at this so I am rather scattered!
Here is a question. How do you end a blog?? I guess I will end by saying I hope that each of you were able to relax at some point this weekend and regroup for a new week.