I have a lot of updating to do....bear with me.

One of the things I've spent a lot of time doing this year was finding ways to save more and spend less. With the current economy and three kids in college it was a must. It has almost become a sport for me. I follow several money saving bloggers. OK, I don't know if I follow them or just look at their posts a lot because I'm not really up on how all that works. Which, is another reason I'm back on here I want to figure out how to share the wealth of information I've found through these amazing people. First of all if you use coupons - you absolutely must sign up for www.couponmom.com love this system. I saved a total of 29.75 today in coupons thanks to the coupon mom, all on things I use or will use and spent very little time clipping coupons. I store mine in an accordion file with date they were in the paper on the front page of each insert - makes clipping coupons on shopping day super simple.

back at it

So I apparently didn't have as much time as I thought I would this year. I have kept very busy working full time ( 3 kids in college - yikes). I'm finding that life continues to be about balance. As our stages of life change so do the things we are balancing. My current big balancing act is between working full time outside the home and still being able to do all the things I love at home ie: cooking, homemaking, crafting etc. I like for the nest to be well feathered each time the little birdies flock back for a visit. I found myself wandering back to this blog after browsing so many of the inspiring blogs out there. Not that I have anything to really inspire anyone with, but what a great way to communicate with others in this cyber driven world we live in. I am sad today because we normally go visit dear friends in KS (we used to live there) this time of year but it didn't work out for us this year. All three of our kids attend college at a school that happens to be on the way to visit the friends in KS - so alas, no visit with them either. So instead I sent each of them some pumpkin sugar cookies! I was pleased to read on the middle kids facebook page the following status, "just ate the best cookie ever- thanks mom". Ahhh, little things like that make it so worthwhile to have worked 52 hours in five days at work and still managing to bake cookies late at night. Makes the balance act a bit easier. Thank goodness the hubs can leave his job to take my packages to the post office. PS: who doesn't love looking up at a full October moon!!