This site has some great daily good deals. Today you can get a Wilson Leather Youth Baseball Glove for $4.99 and $5 shipping. So under $10 for the item, shipped. Have a birthday coming up? Or just think ahead for next spring. This site is worth keeping an eye on.

A couple months ago I bought a Polaroid 7.1 MP camera for my daughter (it’s pink) for $39.99. It’s put away for Christmas.

This Saturday you can get into any Smithsonian affiliated museum at no charge. Simply go HERE to find a participating museum in your area (there were several in my area and we're pretty rural). Then click on the "Admission Card" tab to print out your free pass. Free field trips Work For Me! To see more Works for Me Wednesday tips visit Shannon HERE.

And, from earlier posts this week, see how to keep the family from dumping stuff on your dining table HERE. And my loose shoe solution HERE.

Do you have this problem?

This really makes me nuts. You see, we have a lovely entry off the front door, with plenty of space inside for shoes, but NO ONE uses the front door. Seriously.

We also have a mudroom off the back door, with a basket reserved just for shoes. Guess what? No one uses the back door, either.

Everyone uses the side door that comes directly into our dining room. I HATE the messy pile of shoes that is always outside the door and have been trying to come up with a viable solution for some time. Well, yesterday I was walking to the store and our little gift shop had this wheelbarrow display case sitting out front for $35. They'd bought it to use as a display for the store, but it didn't work for them. (It still had the $149 price tag still on it)

What a perfect place to put shoes. It was cute as could be but the color, a pretty springy green, really clashed with the house. Still, don't those shoes look ever so much better on their shelves?

Today, I painted the doors on the house and went through my odball paints to find something to paint the little cart with. I showed dh my choice and he was confused because it didn't match the house. I mean, I have all this house paint, why wouldn't I just paint it with that? Honestly, I TRIED to explain that I didn't want it to "match" but rather, wanted it to "coordinate". I think he thought I was nuts.

Nonetheless, I think it turned out lovely. In fact, I think I might even use this color on the porch floor. (If I can figure out what color it is) Up until now, we were thinking the dark chocolate that is on the trim. But is shows dirt and dust terribly. What do you think?

Oh! I plan to reserve the top shelf for seasonal decor to make the shoes even less noticeable. Next trip to the store I'll grab some pumpkins to put up top.

You know, if you compare the pic before the cart and door were painted and the pic after they are painted ... isn't it amazing what a difference a few coats of paint and the right colors make?

I've been promising updated house pics for weeks and keep putting it off. Unfortunately, I'm not getting as far along as I'd like. Today I'd hoped to do the stairs and start on the porch posts and corbels. However, the weather failed to cooperate and it sprinkled most of the day. I went ahead and painted the doors and finished some trim under the porch.

We need to replace the porch skirting by the driveway before I paint it. Well, I guess there's one small piece I could paint. then I need to sand the rails, posts, corbels and soffit area so I can paint it. I'm totally burnt out on this project but would really like to have the porch put back together before the weather gets bad so I'm hoping I get a second wind and get back to it this week.

Here's where we started. Well, not really. That was after quite a bit of sanding. The house didn't really look that bad! lol

The last update I took was a few weeks ago.

And below is today. Now, since then, I did the entire left side, which isn't in the photo. lol Please ignore all the little oddball things. Like that white corner piece of trim on the porch that should be dark. Yes, I know it's there. I had to patch some wood and have yet to sand. There are quite a few things like that.

I also had dh chop off all the bushes by both steps. I wan't to do some actual landscaping next spring and some of the bushes were really overgrown. I just want a clean start, even if the stumps do look weird for now.

You can finally access the front door, too! The porch and posts are all replaced.

I painted the doors today. That was fun and gave it some punch. i also found a wreath that matched the house colors perfectly and dh put up the new porch lights. And I put up the house numbers as well. (This pic looks dark)

And here's the side door. The color is a bit more true here. Actually, it might be a bit more red than it actually is. The actual colors are somewhere between the two. lol Maye I should paint the front screen door red, too. What do you think?

And no, the porch will not be blue. I'm still not sure what color it will be. But not blue. I painted that little cart today and I'm kind of thinking that might look good on the porch. Of course, I have no clue what color it is as it was one of my oddball quarts and the label is faded. lol I'll post more about the cart later.

I occasionally find myself on a "refashioning" site or blog and then get lost for hours checking out all the links and projects. I would really like to find the time to do more of this kind of thing. I thought this idea looked especially easy and turned out GREAT! (These are wonderful projects to make with thrift store finds) Here, she took an A-line skirt, with some lovely embroidery and turned it into a tote bag. Isn't that lovely? See the how-to HERE. It actually looks surprisingly easy.

I have to keep telling myself that! If you're wondering where I've been....it's HERE:

This is what WAS our front porch! I'll spare you the details but, suffice it to say, one thing leads to another.

Anyhoo...since there are only so many warm days left, I'm getting a bit worried about getting this project done. I'm trying to work in the mornings and sand/paint in the afternoons.

Here we are with things getting even worse. Did I mention I'm the only one doing this? My husband is in harvest now, so the porch will remain that way until late August! lol Actually, I finally broke down and hired a young man to help sand, but he's working on the massive wall on the left side (that you can't see) This is all my "handiwork".

This is the nifty bench handy hubby made me so I can reach up to the corbels. Unfortunately, it is about six inches too short. I can reach everything except the front soffit board, which needs sanded as well. I'm just going to ignore it for now, though.  Oh!! And there are birds in that hole on the left, so we can't cover it up until the babies fly out. They freak me out because they rustle around when I'm working there and I always think they're going to come out and attack me - or Momma Bird is. She's not happy about this whole thing. But I'm not happy they're there, so we're even. lol We'd covered the rest of the holes w/fiberglass long ago and it held up well. This one still had a plug, which fell out.

 I painted the bottom front. Yay! I've decided that, for my mental stability as well as physical well-being (sanding is HARD, hot, dirty work!) I'll have to see progress and paint as I go.

Here are the colors. The body is Mochachino, trim is Chocolate Cupcake, Accents are Port and Porch rails and inside windows are Creamy White.

I actually got the body coat on the top front last night. Between MORE sanding, scrubbing the filthy corbels and moulding, priming and painting, I was on the porch from 2 - 8:30 pm!! I didn't take a pic yet, because it doesn't really look that good w/o the window trim done. Today is shot with activities, but I' hoping to get the rest of the top completely done this weekend. May be overambitious, but one can hope! lol Actually, my family was making fun of me last night because I wouldn't come in until I had the front painted.

There are times when a small house would be infitely more desirable. This is one of those times. :-) Still, I know that by doing this ourselves we are saving between $20,000 and $30,000. (Is that CRAZY or what??!! I think I'm in the wrong business. No. I wouldn't want to do this for a living)

Print off a coupon for free 22 oz Zout at www.trymefree-zout.com

~D

I will admit that I'm questioning my sanity a tad bit, but it looks like I'm now committed! I will be attending a homeschool conference in San Diego for our business, Trigger Memory Systems. But the "real" point of the trip is to sneak in a vacation that can be a partial business write-off. Unfortunately, hubby (who works in agriculture) can't get away in the Spring, which is when all the conventions are. This means that the three youngest and I will me making the trip. I roped my 18 year old into coming along for childcare and driving support as well.

In all honesty, I hate road trips and wanted to fly. I even found round trip tickets for $200! Three hours and we're there. Would you believe that ALL four kids want to DRIVE!!?? I made the mistake of mentioning that if we drove we could stop and see San Francisco and now they're not willing to pass up on that opportunity. (I thought the adventure of a plane ride would outweigh SF, but I guess not)

So....the trip will now be much longer than anticipated and I'm doing all kinds of searching for the best deals on hotels and entertainment. In the process of securing inexpensive lodging, I came across a new  hotels reservation site. TravelHERO.com helps you find hotels and make reservations for your next trip. If you’re looking for a service that provides discount hotel reservations as well as helping you reserve a car, check out TravelHERO.com. 

Another great bargain is the CityPass, available in most large cities. The one for San Diego saves you a bundle on admission to over five major attractions including the San Diego Zoo, Disneyland, Sea World and more. Better yet, I've since discovered that you can buy a discounted CityPass online for Costco.com Be sure and check it out if you'll be visiting a larger city this spring/summer.

I may, indeed, be biased, but the Schoolhouse Store is a great place to look for curriculum, games, home ec/homesteading items because of the FREE SHIPPING! That's right. No matter how much you buy (US only) you don't pay a dime in shipping. That's a deal that's hard to beat!

For more great online shops check out Rocks in My Dryer.

This looks like a nice one, too. These are the kinds of things I stock up on through the year and then use as stocking stuffers in Dec.  Free Schick Quattro Titanium Razor sample, while supplies last. If successful, you should get the message “Thank you for signing up! Your free razor is on its way!”. I just did it and it worked fine. Enjoy!

Your computer, that is. Last night I stumbled upon this site with really nice free computer wallpapers. I went with the daisy & clouds but have a feeling I'll be changing it soon since I like them all. Take a peek HERE. For some reason, when I paste in thumbnails they show in my preview pane but not on my actual blog. Therefore, you'll just have to trust me and go check them out. You won't be sorry. They are gorgeous!  See them HERE.

The last wallpaper I had was from Real Simple Magazine HERE. I like them as well. They all have a simple picture and daily thought. Here's the one I had.

And the one before that I had from HERE. They all have a scripture verse to go with the picture and some even have calendars. Some samples:

So there you go. Should give you lots of goodies to browse and help stave off the winter doldrums. I'm going to categorize this under Frugal Living. What's more frugal than free decorating?

And those Jamocha shakes are YUMMY!! Print coupon here.

http://www.arbysfinest.com/coupies/

Another I've used is the $5 off a Polly Pocket toy. Some sell for only $5 at Walmart. These are great for Operation Christmas Child or your gift closet.

http://www.mattel.com/PollyPromise/

Amazingly, both are good through Dec. 31