23 months

C and I have now been married 23 months. Why does it matter, you ask?

Well…

We were dating 23 months before he popped the question.
We were engaged 23 months before we ran off to Enchantment of the Seas to get married.
We are now married 23 months… and nothing. Nope, we’re not taking that next step (yet) and having a baby.

Marriage is hard at times, but absolutely wonderful at others. It has been great for me to have someone to come home to every night; someone I know will hold me tight, tell me things will be OK, and someone who will listen to my stupid stories. I’m the worst storyteller ever, so this is a big feat.

I’m incredibly spoiled by C. It is so hard to not take for granted that on Fridays I’ll have a clean house to come home to. He truly takes care of me and looks out for my best interests, even though I don’t want to admit he’s right. I try to take on too much. It’s probably my biggest downfall. He’s right though, I have to scale back. Burnout is a nasty thing; been there, done that. I don’t wish to revisit that experience.

Just today he’s called me 3 times to check in on me (I had a small procedure this morning and have been a little uncomfortable all day). So sweet.

I’m so thankful.

Rain, rain…

Come and stay!

C and I went ahead and bought two rain barrels off Craigslist in June and definitely seeing the payoff! As luck would have it, we bought the barrels, rushed to set them up that day since it was supposed to storm, and… it didn’t. We had almost 2 weeks of no rain, and finally we got massive storms the following week! Ever since then it’s been on and off, but thankfully we’ve never completely run out of stored water. We’ve come close, but never run out.

Our setup is pretty simple; we have the retaining wall that was built last March, where we put in a French drain to divert the water away from the house. We purchased a little piece of flex gutter which is set up to drain right into barrel #1 under the deck. Knowing that we want to keep as much water away from the house as possible, we chose this one to be the recipient of the trash can we had been using to catch water. A little piece of hose, a hose fitting and there you have it… an overflow container!

Barrel #2 involved a bit of cutting, but it was still very easy to set up. It is positioned at the back corner of the garage, conveniently tucked behind the house. This barrel doesn’t have an overflow container, but I think that is going to change very soon. We did take off one of the caps for the overflow water and let it just drain out where we already had water problems from the original gutter.

An example of them in use was one week early on that brought .75 inches of rain according to the Weather Channel. We filled up both 55-gallon barrels, 2-5 gallon pails, 1-2 gallon watering can, 1-1 gallon watering can, 2-2 gallon pails, 1-1 gallon pail, and 1-33 gallon trash can. That puts us at a grand total of 161 gallons saved from one rainfall! This means that I can water the veggie garden 5 times (when it’s in its max planting) without running out. Due to the constant fear of drought, the rain barrels were crucial to our garden. Overall we never had to use the hose to water, yay!

Shopping those sales…

My recent addiction: shopping the sales at CVS, RiteAid and Walgreens. Slightly lame, yes, but I am constantly amazed at how much I’m saving each time I go. I am getting the hang of it. The thing is, you have to know what the regular store prices are to be sure you’re actually getting a good deal. Sometimes I make a mistake and don’t save any money, paying the same I’d pay at the regular stores I shop, and occasionally I’ll pay more. Thankfully, those mistakes are few and far between; lessons learned the hard way.

It’s no secret that these stores tend to be on the pricey side when it comes to shopping for the necessities, but I’ve found that with some careful planning, topped with creative uses of coupons and rebates, the upfront cost is pretty minimal.

I’ll gladly spend 10 minutes a week sitting in front of the Sunday ads and making my little list of things I know I have coupons for. That 10 minutes usually pays off for us, saving $10, 20 or even $30. You can’t beat the BOGO dish soap and having a coupon on top of that, so you’re getting 2 bottles of dish soap for $1.50. It’s hard enough to come by some of the coupons, much less coming across two of them for the same item at a time. Like store sales, coupons are cyclical. By the time you’re finding sales you’re actually interested in, it’s tricky finding coupons that match your best interests. Not impossible, but in times like these… I’ll do everything to save a buck or two.