Slow Cooker Love!

So sorry for the total lack of posts in the past month and a half or so. You all know how crazy the holidays can be, and then when you add in the stress (and fun!) of moving to a new place, it's quite an adventure. Mr. C and I are slowly but surely getting settled into San Antonio, and we've both fallen in love with the city already! It's such a neat place with lots of culture to it, and the food is absolutely to die for. I'm a huge fan of Tex-Mex (especially since it's so corn based and usually pretty gluten-free!) and San Antonio is the Tex-Mex capital of the world. Now, I just need to find some good Pilates classes to make sure all of this great food doesn't go straight to my butt!

Speaking of food, one of my resolutions this year is to use my slow cooker more often. I love the fact that you can plop everything in there, turn it on and forget about it while you go about your day. There is nothing more satisfying than coming home after a long day out and about to dinner already cooked and waiting for you! Even better, I've been using the Reynold's Crock-Pot Liners, so when we're done I can just pitch the liner and not even have to clean the pot. Really, the main reason I hadn't used my crock-pot more than a handful of times in the first year of marriage was simply because I thought all crock-pot recipes involved boring old chicken in some bland sauce. Totally not the case!

I found the most amazing blog called "A Year of Slow Cooking" where Stephanie, the blogger, made a resolution to use her slow cooker everyday in 2008. The result is this wonderful blog filled with outside the box recipes for everything from main courses to drinks and desserts, all made with the crock-pot! I've already made quite a few of her recipes, and have the Margarita Chicken cooking as I write. I think my favorite so far has been the Thai Beef. This took literally five minutes to put together and was as simple as opening the can of coconut milk, opening the bottle of peanut satay sauce, pouring both onto the beef and making sure it was good and saucy, and finally dumping in a bag of baby carrots. Then I hit "cook" and walked away for eight hours. Like magic, that evening I had a delicious and healthy meal. When we were done eating, I pitched the liner, put the crock-pot away and my kitchen was still completely clean. That was the moment I fell in love with my crock-pot.

Do yall have any good slow cooker recipes? I'm always on the hunt!

Great Deals on Magazines!

Sorry that my posts have been brief lately... between getting settled in the new city and the holidays, I haven't had too much time to blog! I'll keep trying to post great deals I find, though, and after the first of the year, you can expect a more lengthy blog post! Until then...

DiscountMags.com is offering some great deals on a few magazines that make great gifts. Hurry though, there are only limited quantities of these deals and the absolute latest they'll be available is 12/20 (today!) at 11:59 PST. 

ESPN Magazine is only $2.99 per year when you enter code 1143 at checkout! Perfect gift for a husband, dad or brother... what guy doesn't love ESPN?

Golf Digest is only $3.99 per year with code 1804 at checkout! I ordered this for Mr. C since he is a golf junkie! I'm sure you all know one of those :)

Glamour is also only $3.99 per year when you use code 7497. A great treat for yourself or any other females on your list.

The next two would make great gifts for any mom-to-be or new mom. What a great gift that keeps giving for a baby shower!

Parenting: The Early Years is only $4.99 total for a two year subscription when you use code 9902.

Parents Magazine is only $5.99 for a three year subscription when you use the code 7735.

If you're scrambling for a last minute gift for Christmas, you could always subscribe somebody to one of these magazines and go to the store, buy the current issue and wrap it up with a note that more are on the way!

Also, note that these DO NOT auto-renew so you don't have worry about your credit card being charged again after a year if you don't cancel. I HATE it when companies do that, don't you?!

Free Yogurt!

Since I'm following a gluten free diet, breakfast tends to be a struggle for me. I can't have any yummy pastries or baked goods and a lot of cereals and granola bars are not gluten free either. One thing I eat in the mornings a lot is yogurt, either by itself or blended into smoothies. Yoplait is giving out a FREE cup of Yoplait Original Yogurt if you go here and sign up! Enjoy :)

Great deal on movie tickets and cereal!

I just wanted to make a quick post to let you in on a great deal that I found! General Mills is running a promotion where you buy two specially marked boxes of certain cereals (Cinnamon Toast Crunch, Lucky Charms, Reese's Puffs, Trix and Honey Nut Cheerios,) enter the codes from these boxes here, and then get a printable voucher for a free movie ticket! To see the list of participating theaters, you can visit this website. There are quite a few theaters that accept the "movie cash" that you get, and you're sure to find one close to you. We have almost 20 theaters that will honor the free movie ticket within 30 miles of our zip code!

If you're anything like Mr. C and I, you love going to movies but hate how outrageously expensive the prices seem to be recently! Well, even if you buy two boxes full price at about $3 a box, that's only $6 for a movie ticket... way cheaper than any theater's prices around here, and you get two boxes of cereal to either eat or donate to a food pantry! To make it an even sweeter deal, you can use coupons or sales that stores have going on. There is a $1/2 coupon from 11/14 General Mills insert to save you some money. Also, keep an eye out for special sales going on. Publix often has these cereals buy one get one free, which combined with the coupon would make an amazing deal.

In case any of you are military wives, here's the deal I found at the commissary that inspired this post (the deal is only good through tomorrow though, so hurry!)
Cinnamon Toast Crunch (Mr. C's favorite... he's such a kid at heart!) was on special for $2.25
The commissary had coupons on the shelf for $0.75 off one box, bringing the price down to $1.50 a box.
I forgot to check if the $0.75 qs were store or manufacturer, but if they were store coupons, you could also use the $1/2 manufacturers coupon to bring the price down to two boxes for $2! If you can't combine the two, it still makes the deal $3 for two boxes of cereal and a movie ticket!

Make sure you look for the boxes that are clearly marked across the front of the box "FREE Movie Ticket!" Also, once you enter the code on the website, you have sixty days to use the ticket. You can enter the codes up until August 2011, so if you're not planning on using them for awhile, you can hang onto them and enter them when you're ready!

Finally... a post!

So sorry for the lengthy delay between posts! Between Thanksgiving and our move out to Texas, I haven't had much free time lately! We made it out here safely last week, and thankfully all of our personal belongings arrived on Monday. So far the move has been relatively uneventful, and for that I am VERY thankful! I've already fallen in love with San Antonio and am really looking forward to exploring all that the city has to offer. We've already checked out the outlet mall in San Marcos, and I had the chance to shop at a Pottery Barn/Williams-Sonoma/West Elm outlet. I thought that I had died and gone to heaven! If you've never had the opportunity to go to one, just picture a building slightly smaller than your average Target but completely filled with fabulous kitchen and home supplies, accessories and decor and all at discount prices. I really need to find a job, because I can already tell that it's going to be a DANGEROUS store!

On an unrelated note, today marks the 111th Army-Navy game! I had the opportunity to attend two Army-Navy games during Mr. C's time at the Naval Academy, and it is one of the most spectacular things I've ever seen. It's always a game filled with so much tradition and patriotism, not to mention fun! If you have the chance, tune in today at 2:30 EST on CBS and check it out. It's an awesome sight to see these young men duke it out on the football field while knowing that off the field they'll all be working together to keep our country safe. It will make you very proud to be an American!

With that said...

Go Navy! Beat Army!
(Image found here)

Signs of the Season

Can yall believe that Thanksgiving is a week away?! I know I've said this before, but my goodness, this year has FLOWN by! I'm beyond excited for Christmas, though, as I love EVERYTHING about this season! I can't get enough of Christmas music (I'm listening to it right now...) and I love the hustle and bustle of holiday shopping. To me, there are a few things that mark the arrival of the holiday season, and they have all appeared in full force.

First, my recent major guilty pleasure of the holidays is the Chick-fil-a Peppermint Milkshake! Have yall had one of these? If not, run, don't walk, to your nearest Chick-fil-a and get one. I promise you will not be disappointed!

Starbucks Christmas coffee cups. Love them, and love the fabulous wintery drinks that fill them! Sorry for the quality of this image... I didn't have the patience to deal my digital camera and its pokey uploading! Also, Starbucks has their holiday drinks buy one, get one free from 2-5 pm today through Sunday, November 21! What a perfect excuse to catch up with a friend over coffee!

Lastly, as I've featured earlier... I love it when stores roll out their Christmas displays of wrapping paper, decorations and all sorts of other fun things! Speaking of wrapping paper, I wrapped my first gifts of the season! With the move coming up, I'm trying to get my shopping and wrapping done early to cut down on stress later.

Notice my fabulous pink and green Hobby Lobby paper I told yall about earlier! Also, I got the polka dot black paper for $0.74 (!) on clearance at Target! I was a little skeptical if it would be Christmas-y enough, but I found that wonderfl glitter ribbon at Michael's and it tied it together nicely, don't you think?

Anyway, on a different note... as I mentioned yesterday, I've earned some extra cash and gift cards by doing online surveys! Now, you won't make a killing, but if you have some time to spare you can make at least a little extra cash and also help shape new product designs, etc. In the past year or so, I've made a little over $175 in cash and gift cards by doing surveys at night while watching tv, etc. One of my favorite survey sites just sent out an e-mail that they are accepting new members, so I thought I would pass it along! This site is called Pinecone Research, and they pay $3 for each survey you do. I know it may not sound like a lot, but these surveys only take about 20 minutes and are actually pretty interesting. Also, some of them can lead to product trials where you get free items to try out! Here is the link to sign up!

Well, I'm off to do some more packing and move prep while dancing around my house to Christmas tunes!

(Milkshake image from here!)

I've got the BLUES!

One of my favorite things about Pensacola is that it is home to the Blue Angels, the Navy's flight demonstration team. The Blues, as they're known affectionately around here, had their homecoming show this past weekend to ring in the end of their 2010 season, and it was also the perfect way to celebrate the end of our time here! Not only did the Blues perform their AMAZING show, there were tons of other aircraft both as static displays and also flying demos and performing amazing stunts. If you ever have the chance to attend an air show, I highly recommend it! This was my first, and despite the fact that I know pretty much nothing about flying or planes, I found it to be both informative and very entertaining. Without further ado, here are some pictures!

These are two Russian built planes called "Yaks" that do aerobatics and all sorts of tricks! They performed in the evening show, and the sky was absolutely beautiful!

This is one of the planes that the military used to train aviators in the World War II era... isn't it unbelievable that we used to fly these types of plane into battle?!

The Shockwave Jet Truck - a semi-truck with three jet engines that goes over 300 MPH. Completely excessive, but totally cool!

The C-5 Galaxy - The picture doesn't do it justice, but these planes are unbelievably huge in person. As you can see in the picture, the nose of the plane lifts up so tanks and other supplies can easily be loaded and unloaded from both ends.

One of the Blue Angels on the ground.

Fat Albert is the transport plane of the Blue Angels.

The Blues fly with only 18" between their wings! These pilots are the creme de la creme of Naval Aviation!

Hope you enjoyed the pictures! Tomorrow I'm going to blog about some legitimate websites that pay you for your opinion, so stay tuned :)