April Month Recap

Wow I've been neglectful....shame on me! Let's do a quick recap of the month of April
I realized Friday that I had not posted, that I had barely gone to the grocery store or pharmacies this month and I wanted a few things. We've had some crazy busy weekends in the month and we're required to have our flower beds at the condo weeded, and "nicely landscaped" prior to May 1 (the beautification committee walks around and issues fines.....of about $50 for non compliance) thankfully we rent so we're not permanently bound by these rules. We went to Home Depot and got mulch and weed barrier. They had large bags(covers 2 cubic ft) 5 for $10. We bought 10 bags, weeded, laid down weed barrier and the mulch. I decided to plant in my flower pots and set them on top of the mulch and trimmed the bushes. I used my flower pots because our condo is next on the list to have the siding removed, old cable wires removed, and new more energy efficient siding put on. I wish they were more specific about nicely landscaped definition and I hope the workman don't mess up our hard work too much.

Friday DH and I worked so hard I didn't want to heat up the house so we grilled. Since we were out of town many days in April and mostly ate from the freezer when home I got nice large marinated Delmonico steaks for DH and I on the grill with asparagus, onions, and a splash of balsalmic vinegar. It was delicious. I've been using down our stockpile and researching North Carolina a bit. Some exciting rebate news for the future-NC is a no alcohol purchase necessary state so I'll be taking advantage of more rebates!

We've been working to reduce our electric bill so despite some very cold nights throughout the month we've just used blankets and dropped our bill about $30. DH replaced our shower head with a water conservation style that is also a handle you can remove. We've reduced our water bill about $6 (not much but conisdering our bill was normally $23-$24, it's 25% reduction.)

May is going to be a busy month- My birthday is the 5th(DH is getting me the Nook ereader I am very excited and he's very thoughtful), Mother's day is the 9th(we'll be venturing to my parents home I got my mom The Blind Side on sale $12 at Target and my sister and I are having professional photos taken for her), we've got a small vacation to Washington DC(everything was cheaper prepaid and we're visiting monuments and musuems that are free and great enterntainment and get to see my best friend), DH's 2 sister's birthdays. This ends up becoming a very busy and usually expensive month. For DH's sister's I planned ahead-I used Amazon giftcards earned free from Swagbucks to get 2 cookbook/wine pairing books for 1 sister, and an ipod speaker system for the other. Both birthday gifts cost us $3 in shipping. In hindsight I could have waited until I got my Amazon gift cards credited tomorrow and paid $0-but I was afraid to wait on shipping.