Sunday Shopping, Robin Ellis's new Cookbook and More!

Hello, everyone! Man, I have just been slammed at work by new job duties and at home by various family issues, so my posts have dwindled again. Here's a catch-up post about the shopping I did on Sunday.

First up, I was getting dangerously low (oxymoron?) on diet name-brand soda, so my first stop was Rite Aid where there was a Pepsi deal. Buy 3 12-packs of Pepsi products for $9.99 (which is NOT a very good price at all) plus I used $2 Ups that were expiring. So each 12-pack cost $2.67. Still not a good price, but better than any other store, all of which were selling the 12-packs of Pepsi for $2.75 or more (and Coke for $4 or more!), so this was a moderately good use of my expiring Ups.

Another deal I did was to take $12 in Staples ink cartridge rewards (turning in used ink/toner cartridges nets a member $2/each and I turned in 6 last month) to take advantage of this week's sale on TP. Each of the packages of Charmin shown below cost $6.99. After 25-cent mfr coupon and rewards, I paid $1.73 OOP for all this TP:

Recently I received my copy of Robin Ellis's new cook book Delicious Dishes for Diabetics from amazon,

and once my havoc-wreaked life calms down a bit, I plan to start fixing some of the wonderful-sounding recipes. In preparation for the first recipe I plan to try -- Comfort Lentils or Dal -- I realized after inspecting my pantry that the only ingredient missing were the lentils themselves. I happened to have a $2 ONYO for Weis grocery store, and Weis happened to have their store-brand lentils on sale for $1/bag, so voila -- 2 free bags of lentils, kitten approved! These aren't the beautiful red lentils that Robin uses in his blog post, so if you want to see this dish in a picture-filled how to, please visit his recent post HERE.

And then onward to GiantPA for my weekly grocery haul:

According to the receipt, all of this was worth $64.54, and after deals and coupons, I paid $29.38 -- a 54% savings rate! A couple things to note: The Cats Pride should have been $1 cheaper than it was. For some reason, the $1/1 coupon did not double even though it started with a 5 (the UPC code) and did not say "do not double" on it anywhere... The Coffee Mate creamer jug was a freebie after mfr coupon (looooove Coffee-Mate creamer!!) as was the Pam cooking spray. That orange thing in the back right quadrant is an acorn squash. It just looked so pretty and I haven't enjoyed any squash yet this Fall. Following Betty Crocker's instructions, I pricked it a few times with a knife, then microwaved it for about 11 minutes total (turning it over half-way through). I will scoop out the cooked flesh and add it to something or just reheat with a little butter. Yum!

As for all the other stuff in my life, today is Dad's follow-up with his physician after an MRI last week. It would seem to be that time in his life where I, as the Agent named in the Power of Atty paperwork, need to step in and help with things... like the fact that his 2010 Tax Return to the IRS never got filed (!!). So I will be talking with his doc and seeing what needs to be put in place for me to start dealing with all those sorts of financial things.

Meanwhile, I have visited a true angel -- a lady here in town who custom makes orthotics to help people with foot problems (and boy, do I have foot problems!) overcome their pain. I have her first round of orthotics, made from a mold she took of each of my feet, in my shoes as I type. So far, there is a LOT less pain -- hallelujah!! I go back after another 5 weeks so she can start tweaking the orthotics to make them even better, and will eventually make them "permanent" so they last about 2 years. As usual when I find someone or something that really helps me, I wish I'd thought to do this a long time ago :)

Hope everyone else has a great week!!