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Archives for June 2011

Home Depot: Lil Toolbox

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Photograph Credit: The Home Depot

Tomorrow, Saturday, June 18, from 9:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m., the Home Depot is hosting a special Father’s Day workshop. The project is a toolbox for Dad.

My kids love attending the FREE Kids’ Workshops at Home Depot. They get to build a project, earn a certificate of achievement, and receive a pin to adhere to their orange Home Depot aprons.

In the 2-3 years our family has attended these workshops, our Home Depot has never run out of projects.

If you will be near a Home Depot in the morning, then stop in to attend this event with your kids. With no registration needed and all supplies included, you can enjoy a fun family event for the price of gas to get you there. Enjoy your family this weekend!

Michaels: Father’s Day Crafts

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Photograph Credit: Michaels

Today and tomorrow, Michaels Craft Stores have free Make-It Take-It Father’s Day projects for children ages 3 and up. The projects are different for each day, and the supplies are limited.

When our family attended the Thomas and Friends Make-It Take-It event (about 2 years ago), we arrived early and received the last wooden train 2 minutes into the event. Of course, the Thomas event was well attended, but the supplies really are limited.

If you are planning to be out, then you might want to stop by for the event. For me, I would not tell my kids about the event to avoid any disappointment that may be had. 🙂

If you can make it, here are the details:

Friday, June 17 from 6:00 – 8:00 p.m.

Father’s Day Card Event FREE Make-It Take-It

Create a thoughtful card for Father’s Day. Make it extra special with words of loving encouragement. While supplies last. Ages 3 and up.

Saturday, June 18 from 10:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m.

Father’s Day Key Chain Event FREE Make-It Take-It

Create a handmade keepsake for Father’s Day. Design your keychain creation with lots of love. While supplies last. Ages 3 and up.

Grocery Store Bound

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After avoiding the grocery stores for a month (due to a busy schedule), I have exhausted my staples. My pantry is still relatively full, but I have pieced together as many meals as my creativity can muster. Upon realizing that dinner was not to be had from my kitchen tonight, I requested dinner out.

Considering our choices, we decided to visit Firehouse Subs where kids eat free on Sundays and Wednesdays. With the allowance of 2 free kids’ meals for each paying adult, our family of 5 enjoyed 2 adult combo meals and 3 kids’ meals to the tune of $16.

Though I could have created a meal for far less, the night off was so nice. After watching another hail storm while at dinner and attending church, I came home ready to cut my coupons, organize my binders, and create a grocery list from the grocery store sales this week. With the help of Jenny Martin at southernsavers.com, I matched my coupons with the sales, printed my lists, and prepared myself for shopping tomorrow.

Although the sales were not outstanding this week, my family will enjoy having some of our normal meals again. I am pretty sure I have missed a ton of great deals and opportunities to buy ahead, but I chose to use my time wisely and hang out with my kids. Hope you are using your time wisely and able to snag some great savings while you feed your family.

RSS: Feed Reader – Part 1 of 5

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Photograph Credit: Wikipedia

Are you familiar with this little icon? Many web sites include this icon near the subscribing by e-mail or connecting through social media, i.e., Facebook and Twitter, images. On Using Time Wisely, this icon is located across from the title at the top right of the Home page. The icon color turns from gray to orange when the cursor hovers over the image.  In this 5-part series, I will answer the following questions:

  1. What is it, and what does it do?
  2. Where do I start?
  3. How do I add my favorite web sites?
  4. How do I customize it?
  5. Why are some of the feeds incomplete?

To begin, the icon represents RSS. I have found helpful this explanation from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia:

RSS (most commonly expanded as Really Simple Syndication) is a family of web feed formats used to publish frequently updated works—such as blog entries, news headlines, audio, and video—in a standardized format. An RSS document (which is called a “feed”, “web feed”, or “channel”) includes full or summarized text.

RSS formats are specified using XML, a generic specification for the creation of data formats. Although RSS formats have evolved from as early as March 1999, it was between 2005 and 2006 when RSS gained widespread use, and Firefox‘s icon was adopted by Internet Explorer.

So what does all this jargon mean? It means that there is a way to save you lots of time while reading the new information on your favorite web sites without visiting each web site. Yea! This is a huge time saver for keeping up-to-date in a short period of time.

This little RSS button will save you minutes, if not hours, of time. With one-stop access to all the newest content posted on your favorite web sites, you will use your time wisely while keeping informed. Come back next week for part 2 where I will show you where to start.