I'm Weak!

So yesterday I showed pictures of my toiletries stash.
Ashamed of the excess, I vowed to lay off the coupons.

Um, that lasted less than 24 hours.
I'm hanging my head in shame, yet secretly delighting in the bargains I scored.

It's all Caroline's fault. No, really.
Normally I go to the gym on Thursday mornings. I cut out of class early, take a shower, rush over to the school for lunch and then stuff the Thursday folders.
Today, I found myself in a different situation.

The school was celebrating "Artist and Authors Day" or as Caroline says "Arthurs". This is a complete tangent, but I thought I'd add that when I was younger, the school district I attended in California required that each kid write a book every year for a book fair. Only I called in the book "affair." The content, length and quality, etc depended on age and ability. We wrote a fairy tale my second grade year. I assume we were required to write a fairy tale because I wouldn't have chosen to write one on my own. I'm just not a fairy tale kind of girl.
Anyway, I wrote a story about a princess, named Elizabeth, and a guy named Arthur. Only I wrote "Author" for his name all throughout the book. My Great Aunt Glady came for a visit and I proudly showed her my book. She was not amused that I repeatedly misspelled Arthur's name and made me correct every last mistake. It crushed my eight year old pride, but to this day, I never misspell the words "author" or "Arthur" and I never transpose the two. An important life lesson.

So, back to what I was saying. Today was "Artist and Author's Day." What's that, you might ask? Well, it's a day to visit your child's class and see their artwork and writing on display.
It started at 8:30 am, so instead of my usual routine, I showered early and went to school with Caroline. I had planned on getting up early to exercise, but, um, when the alarm sounded at 5:45 am I decided that I needed a rest day. Bodies need rest. Right? That's just too early for me. I realize this makes me sound like a total princess weenie because Craig was up at 3:30am this morning, ready to start his day. I didn't hear him complain.

After perusing Caroline's work, I quickly stuffed the Thursday folders. It was 9:10am when I finished so I said good bye to Caroline, promising to return for lunch, and went home to eat some breakfast.
I had every intention of staying home and then swinging by the library to return a book and stopping at the grocery store for ONLY bread, strawberries and bananas before going to the school for lunch.
I made the mistake of checking out a local grocery stores online flier. And there written in beautiful bold yellow print were some of the loveliest words in the English language: Double Coupons up to $1.00. My heart pitter patted and I think I may have even let out a little squee of delight.

It doesn't take much to amuse me.

And, as a bonus (as if I needed one) they had ham on sale!
Ham!
How serendipitous, considering I've been planning to make one for Easter dinner.
Hard to resist the pull of double coupons and sale priced ham.

Without hesitation, I gathered my $1.00 coupons, hopped in the car and found my way to my version of heaven on earth.
I should say that I only bought things that we eat regularly. My goal was to pay less than .50 for any given product, unless it's something that I'm planning to buy at the commissary this weekend.
Excluding the ham, bread, bananas and strawberries, I bought $60 worth of groceries for $20. I got Craig's favorite Yo-Plus yogurt for FREE. Zone bars for FREE. Ken's salad dressing for FREE and Celestial Seasonings tea for .19 a box.

I did not buy one single toiletry, which is quite a victory.

I'm planning one more trip to buy some Truvia because I accidentally left my coupons for it at home. Have you tried Truvia? It's a sweetener, derived from the Stevia plant. It's supposed to be very natural. I like it. It's not as sweet as Splenda, but it works. The only problem is that it's expensive. However, I have coupons to use. Yay!

So you see, if I had stuck to my regular schedule, instead of going to the school with Caroline, I wouldn't have found myself succumbing to my coupon weakness.

Isn't placing blame on others one of the signs of addiction?

Just wondering?