I Moved

I've moved. You can now find my blog at www.neverquiteperfect.com
I hope to see you there. Please update your bookmarks and feeds accordingly.

Wordless Wednesday - Face Painting

Only one picture this week because I have a nasty cold and just haven't had a chance to get the other pictures off of my phone. I'll make up for it with more pictures next Wednesday.

This weekend we went to the Yankee Candle Halloween event. Yes, they have their Halloween stuff out already. Hubby loves decorating for Halloween so he was excited to get a new decoration. The store we stopped at also had face painting so Pumpkin got her face painted while daddy shopped. This was her first ever face painting experience and she did very well. Plus, when she was done we let her have a piece of the cake they were giving out. Umm, cake!

For more Wordless (or Wordful) Wednesday, head over to:

5 Minutes For Mom
Look What Mom Found...and Dad Too
Seven Clown Circus
Mud Bug
Ordinary and Awesome
A Daily Dose of Toni
My Sippy Cup Runneth Over

To Do Tuesday

Last week I really didn't too bad, but I could have done better. The poor dogs haven't gotten much of a walk for the last few days because summer has finally arrived her in Baltimore. It's just way too hot and humid out there for them.

I'm still looking for an affordable To Do app for my iPhone. I really don't like paying a lot for my apps so that is limiting me. I want a To Do app that will push the notifications so that I get the little bubble telling me how many things I have to do. If anyone has one they want to recommend, please let me know. Right now I'm still keeping a To Do list online with Toodledo simply because I haven't found something I like better and I can at least access it with my iPhone.

Here is my To Do List for this week:

Clip Coupons (still haven't done this)
File Coupons (still haven't done this)
Put Away Laundry

Here's my Recurring To Do List:

Keep daily food & exercise journal (Tu W Th F Sa Su M)
Write daily blog posts (W Th F Sa Su M Tu)
Keep email inbox cleaned out
Track Daily Spending (Tu W Th F Sa Su M)
Walk dogs every evening (Tu W Th F Sa Su M)
Write in journal daily (Tu W Th F Sa Su M)
Complete Menu Plan for next week

What do you need to get done this week? To see more To-Do Tuesday lists, head over to Crazy Adventures in Parenting.

Books I Want To Read

It's been awhile since I've participated in Top Ten Tuesday over at Oh Amanda so I thought I would jump back in. This week I'm listing out ten books that I'd like to read. My reading list is always growing, but these are some books that I've come across recently and I would like to read. Here they are, in no particular order:

1. Best Friends Forever: A Novel by Jennifer Weiner
2. Even June Cleaver Would Forget the Juice Box: Cut Yourself Some Slack (and Still Raise Great Kids) in the Age of Extreme Parenting by Ann L. Dunnewold
3. The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows
4. The Unhealthy Truth: How Our Food Is Making Us Sick - And What We Can Do About It by Robyn O'Brien and Rachel Kranz
5. I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith
6. Free-Range Kids: Giving Our Children the Freedom We Had Without Going Nuts with Worry by Lenore Skenazy
7. Cheap: The High Cost of Discount Culture by Ellen Ruppel Shell
8. Nourishing Traditions: The Cookbook that Challenges Politically Correct Nutrition and the Diet Dictocrats by Sally Fallon
9. I Was a Really Good Mom Before I Had Kids: Reinventing Modern Motherhood by Trisha Ashworth and Amy Nobile
10. A Touch of Dead (Sookie Stackhouse) by Charlaine Harris

As you can see from my list, my reading is all over the place. That and I am a neurotic mom who also likes a good novel.

To see more Top Ten lists, head over to Oh Amanda and check out all the links.

Menu Plan Monday - August 10

Last week we actually did very well with sticking to our menu plan. We did have a little bit of a lst minute change because we had last minute dinner guests one night, but it wasn't a big deal. We still used the chicken I had thawed out, I just had to prepare it in something instead of just having grilled chicken. Now I just hope that we can stick to our meal plan again this week.

Here's what I have planned for this week:

Dinners:

• Monday - Meatloaf
• Tuesday - Chicken Melts
• Wednesday - Meatball Pitas
• Thursday - Chicken Quesadillas
• Friday - Hot Dogs with Homemade Macaroni and Cheese
• Saturday - Pancakes
• Sunday - Beef Roast

This week we also have a bunch of strawberries, blueberries and peaches to work into the menu. My daughter has a serious blueberry addiction so I think we will go through them with no problem. The strawberries are another story. I have three pounds of them and no one else in the house will eat them. I honestly don't know if I can eat that many strawberries before they go bad. I guess I'll have to freeze some of them or something.

This week we're back over with Org Junkie so head over there to see all the Menu Plan Monday links.

Yard Sale Update

This week we had another Moving Sale, or yard sale. I wound up making $144 which I don't think is too bad for one day. Other people had some stuff at the sale as well and they did pretty well too. It was nice getting rid of some of our extra stuff and making some extra money. After the sale we took some of the money and treated ourselves to a nice late lunch at a local restaurant. By the time we got back home we were all beat.

We're debating having one more sale before we pack everything up and donate it. It's tempting because I do still have a lot of good stuff that could bring me in even more money. It would give me a chance to get some stuff out of our storage unit and sell it too. I will be so glad when we get our house sold so we can get rid of the storage unit. Luckily I do get a nice discount on the unit, but I still hate paying for storage. I've been of the mindset that if you don't have room for it in your house you really don't need it. The only reason we even have one now is because we "decluttered" our house before we put it up for sale. Since we don't even miss a lot of the items that are in there I figure we can probably sell some of them.

Right now I am leaning towards having another sale, but I'd like to wait at least another week or two before having it. But really, after that we need to just pack up anything that's left and send it on to charity. I'm sure that by next year we'll have even more stuff to sell. Depending on where we're living at that time we may have another yard sale or we may just pack it all up and donate it. We'll have to see.

What do you do with your extra stuff? Do you have a yard sale or just donate stuff? If you do have a yard sale, do you donate the leftovers or keep them for another sale?

I hope everyone is having a nice, safe weekend. Come back Monday to see my menu plan for the week. I'm off to work on that now. I'm trying to use the slow cooker more this week to save myself some time on weeknights.

Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes

When I first started this blog it was a way for me to share the deals I was finding and to pass that info on so others could benefit from it. While I do still enjoy posting about things like that, it is a bit much for me to keep up with. I have a toddler and a full time job outside of the home which seriously limits my blogging time. To be a good frugal blogger you need to be able to blog throughout the day as the deals come out and that just is not possible for me.

I'm sure that my regular readers have noticed that I really haven't been posting about many "deals" lately. While you will still see the occasional deal post here, I plan to change the focus of my blog a bit. I have a lot more fun blogging about things that relate more directly to my life. These are things like my daughter, saving money, tips for organizing and being more efficient, household tips, journaling, sewing, reading and, well, anything else that might catch my fancy. My interests are pretty varied, so why shouldn't my blog also be varied?

With this change in direction, I also feel that the name Pillaging With Buffie no longer fits. I'm still deciding on a new name, but once I make a decision the name will be changed. My Pillaging With Buffie url will still work and bring you here, but we will also have a new url. I will make an announcement here once I have decided on a new name.

I hope everyone is having a great weekend. Come back tomorrow to find out how today's yard sale went. I hope it goes well since I have a lot of "stuff" to get rid of.