I fell in love with my husband again last night.
Not that I was out of love, not at all.
But I saw him through an unusual lens.
His father is ill. Very ill. As we sat and talked with his dad, I was able to observe a different level of their relationship and to experience a hint of the depth of the love between them. My husband served his father his dinner and he sat down, grasped his dad's hand and mine and prayed for his father.
My father-in-law is a kind and generous man. He has been quietly providing for his children and their families in so many ways, many we were unaware of, as long as I've known him. And seeing my husband's kindness and gentleness toward this special man reminds me that life is so much more than the day to day things we do to get through to the next day. And that I'm blessed that the apple has not fallen far from the tree.
A blessing beyond words.
Life is short, art long, opportunity fleeting, experience treacherous, judgment difficult.
Hypocrites
Note to the one reader who knows who she is. Yes. Or else. Two days have passed and my muscles hurt. I'll be asking you. Prepare. Now. Back to the story of my grocery goodies.
So far my journey into $500.00 worth of groceries was problem free and chugging right along. But I was running out of options and had to dig into the fine print. (All of the offers had fine print.) I clicked on several, read the details and backed out.
Finally, I clicked on a face cream trial but repetitive-clicking-exhaustion had rendered me momentarily (yes, opening myself up to nasty comments here) clueless and I didn't read all the details. This one was the only negative experience. Because I didn't read the fine print very well I ended up missing the deadline for the inexpensive trial and had to buy the face cream. I got the second shipment canceled before having to buy a second one but the one I purchased was pricey....$78....pricey. The face cream is great, actually. But really, not $78 great. And the really, really frustrating thing was that the company didn't click clear me as participating so when it came down the final week before my completion deadline I had to find one more offer to participate in. This one cleared me right away and I ended up getting some great bargains through them so I ended up being okay. But. If you participate with any of these, learn from me...read the fine print.
With all eight of my offers completed, my gift card quest reached the next level. I filled out paperwork, mailed it in and waited. And waited. And waited. All the time I waited I wondered if I had purchased the equivalent of a bumper sticker or T-Shirt emblazoned with a bright orange "SUCKER."
Would I actually get my card? And if I did, would it work?
I did and it does.
Free lunches usually have strings but if you can work within the strings, that free lunch can be a tasty, tasty little meal (or many).
Note to someone specific, if you are not that person you may check out for just a moment, I did my Wednesday workout, did you? And since I won't see you today, you have one more day of grace. Use it wisely and I'll ask you about your workouts on Friday....
Okay. Back to the regularly scheduled post.
I posted a link to Freebies VIP last week. And mentioned my awesome deal and said I'd share about it later. So. Looks like later. Here goes.
In early November, shortly after I realized that legitimate freebies were something I could find on the internet I checked out the Freebie VIP offers and one in particular jumped out at me. It was for a $500.00 gift card to various grocery stores. One of which was Whole Foods. I was understandably skeptical but decided to trust that what was said was true. In order to get the card I had to participate in several offers via other companies. Eight of them to be exact. I had seen other listings that mentioned participation was required and had read about another blogger who'd gotten some real satisfaction through one of the companies that was participating.
I went through all the options and there were many. Several seemed safe. Two no-brainers were Netflix and Blockbuster at home. I clicked and joined both intending to keep one and lose the other after the low-cost or free trial. I had been toying with Netflix for months so that was an easy choice. Another easy choice was a birthstone ring for a total of $7.00 and Silkies for about the same. I joined both, got my goods and canceled upon meeting the requirements. So far I was pretty pleased.
I joined two different on-line savings groups. One offered a free $25.00 card and the second offered two $25.00 gift cards. So I stayed with them both for the free trial and one month paid membership to get the additional freebies. If I was a big on-line shopper they might have been really beneficial but I'm not so I can't say much about the benefits there. I also joined a free music site that offered free songs. I downloaded the songs and canceled before the monthly charge kicked in. The only issue with any of the above was that the songs didn't download onto the I-Pod like they were supposed to. Each of the things I had signed up for were very easy when it came time to cancel and well worth trying out and cost very little.
Now comes the oops.
And maybe I'll leave you hanging. I'll share my oops tomorrow.
Wow. We've been enjoying documentaries and creative reality television via Netflix for the past few months.
Lately, Frontier House has caught our attention.
Watching this particular five-month experiment/project has been eye-opening.
Lord of the Flies, the tale of young, civilized boys finding themselves on an island embracing animalistic survival-of-the-fittest mentality and becoming something altogether different than civilized, fits the experiment results in Frontier House pretty well. One family resorted to "trading" with modern families a walking distance away (with the teen girls watching MTV while the trading was in process), then making moonshine to supplement their income. Another family is on the verge of divorce and man oh man the dialogue/interaction between two bitter adults is an ugly thing to watch.
That said, I am thankful that I live in modern times. The lack of cleanliness, the hard, constant, physical labor, the close quarters would be a challenge I don't know that I could survive let alone thrive in. Fascinating place to visit via television, wouldn't want to go there.
This little lady is too cute.
If you want cooking lessons from someone with a little history under their belt (or bloomers) check this out.
