Wednesday, August 28, 2013

Where's Wesley?

I admit...today's Where's Wes is a tough one to start with. A Winter pic...good luck. Please Leave guesses as to where you think he might be.

Obviously Wes is not alone in this pic, but it was the best I could do for this location. (BTW Ladies...the handsome young man in the red coat is single still...just sayin!)
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Get this Party Started...Beckee's Deals Revamp


Hello friends! Boy I have not been on here much! I have just moved across the country and I am doing my best to settle myself and 5 kids into a new place. I have also been trying to figure out what to do with my blog. I wondered if it was time to retire it altogether or maybe just revamp. I have decided to go with the revamp. I am still a mom of five looking for a great deal, I still want to share great deals, product reviews and other great content. However, my blog has had some changes.

While in Omaha, I focused a lot on local grocery deals, store sales and local free or cheap activities. I tried to do the same when I lived in Scottsdale, AZ last year but found it was difficult. In that area, grocery deal match ups and couponing were not of interest. I think some of it was backlash due to the perception of couponing people now have thanks to shows like Extreme Couponing. Some of it was the fact that most people living in that area do not need to coupon. Whatever the reason, it was a fail-my blog numbers dropped dramatically.

The place I live now is a small town. It does not have the same kinds of options for pricematching and groceries that big cities have. I am still learning how to shop and save money here. Luckily for me there is a FANTASTIC blog locally that is helping me learn. If you are a local or are planning to visit Grays Harbor at any point, make sure to check out Annaliese over at Grays Harbor Deals. Her blog is awesome! And I know her personally-she is awesome too!

Most of my readers live in Utah and Nebraska. I have a good group in Arizona, and I found I have a growing number all over the country-actually all over the world. I learned in looking at my blog stats, that the posts with the most hits are usually my travel posts. Awesome! Reviews and travel posts are the ones I like to do the most!!!

So, here comes the new plan (which is a work in progress, so bear with me): we are bringing back the weekly series! We are continuing to review and give away products, and we are focusing on deals that are not quite so local (that's not to say I won't post local stuff-I will sometimes). 

My former Weekly Series looked like this:


  • Sunday: Sunday Savings: Newspaper round up
  • Monday: Mommy School Mondays 
  • Tuesday: Tuesdays Travels
  • Wednesday: Beckee's Best of Omaha Grocery
  • Thursday: Thrifty Thursdays (Random thrifty tips on a variety of topics)
  • Friday: Weekend Warriors: Daycations
  • Saturday: Service Spotlight Saturdays

    Here's what I am going to do now:

  • Sunday: Sunday Savings: Estate Sale Sundays
  • Monday: Mommy School Mondays 
  • Tuesday: Tuesdays Travels
  • Wednesday: Where's Wes (and Beckee) Wednesdays
  • Thursday: Thrifty Thursdays 
  • Friday: Weekend Warriors: Daycations
  • Saturday: Service Spotlight Saturdays

    And this is what I will do for each of those. 

    Estate Sale Sundays:  We just bought a really cool big old home. We have many empty rooms which we will fill throughout the years. Local friends told us to just check out Estate Sales. I had never even heard of them but now I am obsessed. At my very first Estate Sale, I found a TREASURE! I found the recipe box from that wonderful woman. I am trying to cook through some of her hand written recipes. Sundays, I will show you some of my recipe creations from this box (and from any other box I can find). I will also show you some of the fun stuff I pick up at Estate sales as they come up and I will let you know of any upcoming estate sales I hear of.

    Mommy School Mondays:  I teach my kids preschool before I send them off to Kindergarten. I love it. 4 of my 5 kids go back to school next week, and it will just be me and my baby boy (ok-he's 2) at home. We will be doing some organized Mommy school activities and some not so organized. Mondays I will try to share with you some lessons, resources and fun things I have used with my kids over the years (or with my 2 year old that week).

    Tuesdays Travels: Wow-this one takes some time and effort. It is where I try to research and share all kinds of fun activities to do in a vacation spot of my choice. I tried to share places I know last time. I will revisit some of those, and I will also pick spots I want to visit and research them and share my finds with you! I am sure I will BEG for reader input here and ask for YOUR best tips and tricks for visiting these places. Remember, many will be places I have not visited before, so I will want people to give input that have firsthand experience visiting or living there!! 

    Where's Wes (and Beckee) Wednesday: This my be a short lived series-depending on how many pictures I can find or take. Wes is my husband and the other day I was looking at pics of us from various places and mentioned that it would be fun to do a Where in the world is Wes series. He thought I was joking...hehehe...If I can coordinate these pictures with the Daycation post for the week, I will-that means I will post a pic of Wes (or me, or the kids) somewhere in the world on Wednesday. Then on Fridays Weekend Warrior Daycation post, we will reveal where the pic was taken AND I will post about that place!

    Thrifty Thursday: This one is various Thrifty ideas or Tips. That's it.

    Weekend Warriors Daycations: This started as a series when my husband was a medical resident and we had very little money or time for any kind of vacation. So, we started taking any weekend he had off and having "Daycations" at local areas. Parks, Malls, Lakes, Rivers, Free local events, anywhere! We could make anything into a Daycation. Now we have lived in many places, and I have had the chance to visit a lot of these places for Day trips. I have a whole new area to discover here in Grays Harbor as well. These Daycation posts have consistently been my biggest posts for people to come back to. The Daycations will be from places all over, but because I have lived in these places, a lot of them will likely be in or near: Salt Lake City, Omaha, Spokane, San Diego, Scottsdale/Phoenix, Grays Harbor/Olympia/Seattle. I also spent a lot of time in Anaheim/Long Beach/LA area, love New York City, and Chicago as well so look forward to those areas as well. Really-it could be ANYWHERE! I love Greece too...just sayin...

    Saturdays Service Spotlight: I love to focus on the positive. I love seeing great examples of Service in my life. This is going to be a place I can share internet articles about service, or personal experiences. Readers can submit items to be shared this day. I will ask my friends and family to contribute. The point of this is to show the positive in the world! It is a place for me to remember the great things people do for each other when the media focuses so much on the bad! 

   So, if you made it through this post-WOW! Thanks for being a loyal reader! Remember there will still be reviews and giveaways! I have a couple reviews going up this week!! 

    And now, Let's get this party started!!


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