Doing well, doing well. Except for a huge welt/hive right below my right eye (1) making it hard to see and (2) necessitating benadryl which is now making me kinda sleepy. I’ve checked in with some contacts and already have a coffee date for tomorrow, drinks on Wednesday. I made a pile of appointments for before our insurance lapses. I walked the big boy to his first day of summer camp, and will walk to pick him up. Quite possibly, my biggest accomplishment is my meaningful, targeted to do list, focused on doing the right things first. Like, for example, meal planning!

I did this again for the first time in months and months, 3 weeks ago with the big P. By involving him in the plan, he tried all sorts of new foods willingly, like pasta salad. He’s always liked ethnic food, but getting him to try new things has waned since he turned 4 or so. He’s not here for me to plan right now, but maybe next weekend.

Monday:  Already in the slow cooker, anticipating a medicine-induced nap, is slow cooker tortilla soup, one of our family’s favorites. I used fresh corn leftover from last night’s dinner.

Tuesday: Grandma Fran’s porcupine meatballs, garlic bread & steamed brocolli. I have two lbs of ground turkey in refrigerator I need to use this week. This will make dinner and some awesome lunch leftovers for me.

Wednesday: Spinach ravioli, some veggie side. I’m going to hit the conventional grocery store on double coupon day, so I’ll grab something fresh to add to the ravioli.

Thursday: Pecan maple chicken and roasted potatoes. This was a recipe P selected that I haven’t had time to make yet. I’m excited to try it.

Friday: Leftovers.

Saturday: Both of my brothers will be in town, a rare treat, so I’m sure we’ll be grilling or splitting some take out.

First, I’m over at BeCentsAble today, talking about green craft ideas to upcycle all those lovely holiday cards. Here’s a sneak peek:

But on to coupons!

I have three bundles:

• #1 — Value: $13, including $8 off different types of Seventh Generation products (like 2x $1 off diapers), $2 off Gerber cereal and bowls or utensils, $2 off JASON baby care, $1 off Stonyfield Farm YoMommy
• #2 — Value: $9, $7 off Seventh Generation (1x $1 off diapers) and $2 off JASON baby care
• #3 — Value: $5, all Seventh Generation (no diaper coupons)

All expire 12/31/08. If you’re interested, let me know in the comments or via email. If more than one person is interested by Thursday night, I’ll use the random number generator to pick a winner. If you want more than one bundle (or to be eligible for more than one), let me know that, too.

I know I’ve been posting less, but I’m finding as my kids are getting a little older, I’m *doing* more! When I started sage, I considered it a repository of all the links to projects I wanted to do with my oldest son and green things to do around the house or make for dinner… someday. It was hard to imagine a time when I could do any of those things again.

Now the little boys are 8.5 months old (eek!), I’m 2 months into my new job/new nanny schedule, and into that nesting time of the year when you realize you’ll be bounded by your house for the foreseeable future so you ought to declutter a little, and somehow it’s all actually happening!

Friday, I had three babies napping and an older kid immersed in his Legos so I put the last of our orchard apples on the stove for a final batch of sauce, the bones from our rotisserie chicken (they’re $5.99 at our Whole Foods on Tuesdays, so I buy one each week and get 2+ meals out of it) into another pot to make stock, and a 2 pound container of baby bellas into the slow cooker for cream of mushroom soup. I’ve got my meals planned out for the next three weeks, so the stock is ready for Chicken Tortilla Soup tonight. Yum! I organized our pantry cabinet, too. It was a day of many accomplishments.

Saturday, we had 4 of the families on our block for a potluck vegetarian brunch and we also were going to a potluck Havdalah dinner, so I made two large mac and cheeses from a recipe that doubles exceedingly well. For the first time in my adult life, I didn’t get into a total CHAOS spell before our company came. I was very proud of myself.

Sunday, we caught up on laundry and picked up a new (to us) dining room table since our old one barely fit 6 people and their plates and, well, we’re 6 people every day now. And we crammed a few pounds of baby lima beans into the sleeves of a sweater with a busted zipper and my big boy sat at the piano hammering out a happy song about upcycling, making “door sausages“, and loving his momma. Joy!

Angie from Freepeats, Baby Cheapskate, and Blog Coach was kind enough to share sage as a blog critique yesterday. And wow, what helpful comments! I am going to work on all the areas mentioned, many I never thought of. We do live in triplet land, though, which means that it will take me awhile to get rolling on some of the ideas. If you have additional comments about how sage can be more helpful to you or what you would like to hear more about, just let me know anytime on any post or via email.

The first change I’m going to roll out has been on my mind for awhile, a more predictable schedule for posts. Going forward, I will post any time-senstive, breaking deals, like the Whole Foods coupon or Bum Genius sale, as they come up, since that’s kind of my core mission. Other than that, a broader sage finds will appear on Fridays. A more tightly-edited sage reads will be out on Wednesdays. Features like sage *hearts* etsy and the goose is getting fat will appear over the weekend.

Otherwise, I’ll still join in on some memes from other sites, like Menu Plan Monday. I’m looking for a fun parenting meme that I can bring the sage perspective to, if anyone has any favorites you could recommend. Oh, and I’ll increase the font size ASAP, too. Probably this afternoon during football

Of course, the little give away winner is Kristin. I got so many emails from readers (who I encourage once again to shed their fear of commenting!) who are past the stage they would need the coupons but didn’t want me to feel unloved. National Delurking Week won’t come around until January but I hope you will feel comfortable adding to the conversation, even if it is to tell me to stop getting so excited about Walgreens coupons

I’ve been promising some site improvements for awhile, but we’ve hit a head cold-teething-another head cold trifecta here, coupled with a mini-vacation next week, so I’m thinking it’s still not going happen until the end of the month. Thanks for bearing with me, and maybe you can comment here (nudge, nudge) about your favorite aspects of sage and what you’d like to see more of!

I was very fortunate to be chosen as a regular blogger over at BeCentsAble! I hope that you’ll join me (and my fellow thrifty green mama Katherine) on Tuesdays for the Organic & All Natural feature. And if you’re visiting here for the first time, welcome! Please take a minute to look at my regular features (sage finds, sage reads) and other posts about parenting green on the cheap. In celebration, I’m going to do a little site redesign tonight, so check sage out for a new look tomorrow, and thanks for stopping by.

EDITED: Redesign is up! Let me know what you think. I’m going to reorganize the sidebar (again) in the coming days to make everything a little cleaner. I’ll update the sage links page (above) as well.

Thanks for following me from wordpress to my own URL, or if you are here for the first time, welcome!