You asked, I answer

Clearly I should have asked you guys a loooooooooong time ago about some blog topics for my tired old blawg. I am SO glad to have some new things to talk about.




Leigh asked: Do you coupon, and what strategies do you use to coupon? Also, do you have any pets?


Nope, I don't. I should. Grayson does the grocery shopping in our family, because he said I always spent twice what I should have back when I did the shopping. Now that he does it, we spend far less money -- but he doesn't have the patience to use the coupons I clip. The exception to that rule is at Costco. If I tuck the coupons in his wallet right on top of his credit card where he can't miss them, he'll use one or two coupons at Costco.


I do have several friends who are such Epic Couponers that they save literally hundreds of dollars a month on their grocery bills. Their favorite coupon sites include Coupon Mom and I Heart Publix. My friend Doran (who is also a faithful blog reader -- Hi, Doran!) does a segment on our local ABC affiliate as "Savvy Mom." She shares tips on how to save money via coupons and other ways (such as Closet Swapping) all the time. You can follow her on Facebook to learn all of her money-saving secrets.


And yes! We have a pet. We have a cat named Scout, who is the only pet we have left at this point. We lost our cat Ellie almost two years ago to kidney failure and our dog Moses shortly thereafter to old age. We mourned both of them mightily, but Scoutie is the best cat we could ever ask for and we're so lucky to have him. His mom was Siamese and his dad a Maine Coon, and he definitely takes after his dad. Most of his life he weighed about 17 pounds, but he's lost three or four pounds over the last couple of years. His whiskers are about six inches long and he has the sweetest disposition of any cat I've ever known. We love our Scoutie!

Amanda asked: Where do you get those shirts with the boys' names on them?


The white ones the kids wear at the beach come from Smitten & Co.

The ones with their names in big letters across the front that usually have a star underneath them come from 3Ts and Me. I adore both of the shop owners, who are always willing to work with you on custom designs and who use the softest cotton known to man.

Links to those shops remain in my sidebar if you ever forget who they are and need to link to them!




Joan asked: With a lot of the boys' clothes personalized with their names, do you hand down those shirts to the others? 


No. I have no problem with it, but they only want to wear shirts with their OWN names on them. I can understand that, so it doesn't bother me. They get two short-sleeved shirts a year and one long-sleeved one per year with their names on them. (Light green ones are coming this Fall!) You see them pictured a lot here because they are usually their absolute favorite shirts of the season. As I mentioned a minute ago, the shirts are ultra-soft, and they usually choose them first thing out of the clean laundry pile. I bet Nathaniel will grow out of the idea in a year or so, so I'm enjoying it while I can. When they get a little older, I plan to have a friend make a light quilt for each of them out of their favorite shirts, and some of these will no doubt make the cut. 


There were a lot of other great questions, and I'll be coming back with answers to them over the next couple of weeks. Thanks again for asking!