Stacie's Place

  It's that time of year again!  Choosing one little word or finding what one little word chooses me .  I came up with this word: Devote/Devoted/Devotion.  Partly, because the word kept coming to my mind & partly because for awhile I've been feeling like I have needed to be more devoted in certain aspects of my life. Keep reading to find out what areas I will be working on in 2026.

 Since the Christmas card template I picked has photos that go by month, that might be the best way to recap our year in words here with more details. Enjoy!

  I take my birthday deals seriously and this year I again updated my spreadsheet so I could keep track of what I wanted to redeem, when freebies expired, etc. It was super helpful and I just use Google Sheets to set it up. So! Here's what I worked on this year with all the birthday emails I received.  Adidas - 15% off birthday coupon to use on their website. I did not use this. I had 8 days to use it. Aerie - 10% off a purchase online. It was good for 30 days. I did not use this. AE & Aerie- $5 to spend. I did not use it this year Albertsons - 2x the points in the month of July. I don't think I went to get groceries here at all so that was a missed opportunity.  AMC - free large popcorn. I did not make it to a theater to watch any movies in July. Archibald's - a yummy restaurant in Utah. They did not send me anything this year but they did send me a free meal (b1g1) in 2023 and 2024. Not sure what happened this year. Azteca - a restaurant in WA. The deal was fo...

  **This post contains affiliate links** Lately I have been feeling extremely dissatisfied by the water bottle options available in stores and online. There are so many brands ~ Yeti, Zulu, Simple Modern, Hydro Flask, Ninja, ThermoFlask, Starbucks and on and on. There are so many lid styles ~ flip, twist, slide button and more. Handle or no handle. So many different colors, designs and sizes. It's enough to make your head spin, am I right?

  (This post contains affiliate links) Do you have a best friend or a bunch of best friends? I feel like I've made special relationships with friends throughout the years depending on where I have lived and worked. The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines a best friend as, "a person's closest and dearest friend." Aw! 😌 Today I wanted to share some ways to celebrate your best friend(s) for National Best Friends Day which is coming up - June 8th! But before I share those ways, I wanted to talk a little about best friends I have had in my life. I'd say my first best friend in life was and still is my sister Laura. I'm the oldest of 8 kids and she is the 2nd oldest which meant we did of lot of activities together when we were kids, teens and young adults. Even to this day, she's someone I talk to every day and I try to visit her as often as I can. Other best friends have not stayed best friends for my entire life like Laura has but I still consider them the bes...

  If you know me well, you probably know I have a lot of things. In all the categories 😵 Clothes. Shoes. Craft supplies. Snacks. Holiday decor. You get the idea. America has so much abundance everywhere and its all so easy to access via shopping stores and the internet in particular. I am party of deal/coupon groups and can't resist sometimes! I am not saying this as an excuse, it's just how it is here in the USA for most people. Access to fun things is just so easy. Probably too easy. For those who like to collect things, those who have a passion for fashion, those who love many brands of shoes, those who can't stick with just one kind of craft and so on and so forth. I have traveled a lot in 2024 and I do want to travel in 2025 but would like to keep this one little word - Simplify - forefront in my mind, when I am home and able to downsize and declutter. Doing these things will help me simplify my life, I hope. I am aware that this is not something that will happen over...

This year of 2024 has been one for the books! It was filled with lots of miles being put on our cars to visit family, friends, crew at balloon festivals as well as regular visits (for Stacie) to Disneyland.  Tony went to S. Korea for a month for work at a military base there and then got asked to go back again about 6 months later, this time for 6 weeks. Stacie and her friend Alice joined him for 3 of those weeks, and you can catch up on her Facebook page of all the recaps and photos from that trip.  Other highlights include traveling to Texas for the full eclipse, visiting Stacie's brother James and his wife in Arkansas and hot air ballooning friends who moved to Missouri from California,  spending the 4th of July in Idaho, Tony's family reunion at Lava Hot Springs in August and getting to Apple Hill in September.  Stacie was able to make it to Camp Ritchie again to work on the rappelling staff,  attend 2 Pinners Conferences, Craftcation in Ventura and other c...

  This coloring book titled, You Are a Child of God is for kids (or adults) of any Christian faith to enjoy.  On every page you can find ways to make meaningful connections with your kids, nieces or nephews. I love crafting,  it helps me feel calm (usually) and while coloring is not crafting exactly,  I do get to be creative with my various pens and colored pencils and I really enjoy that aspect.   Another aspect I enjoy about this coloring book are the Bible scriptures included on the pages which are great to think about or discuss during family time or one on one.  This would be a great gift to give this holiday season! 

Birthday Deals 2024! Here we go, here we go. A new edition of birthday deals that I am signed up for and I'm here to let you know which ones I redeemed. As you can see by the photo above, I redeemed tons of food ones!  Let's get started. Adidas ~ sent 15% off a purchase. I did not end up using this Albertsons ~ 2x the points on my account. I don't super care about that and I did not go out of my way to go to Albertsons in the month of July American Eagle - free $5 - I got a pack of cute cherry socks and paid the difference (about $4) Archibald's (UT) - free meal when you dine in. I did not get to UT to use this in time Azteca (WA) - free flan or churros. I was not in WA this month to use that like I was last year. Baskin Robbins - free small scoop. I redeemed this in Idaho Beansters's (CA) - free drink. I did redeem this Benihana's - I did not use this and they emailed me an extension that makes the deal good until Aug 28! But, it's good for dinner  only, Mo...

  Do you pick one little word to work on for the year? If so, leave a comment and let me know what you picked! Keep reading to learn about my word for 2024 as well as my thoughts on last year's word.

   What. A. Year 2023 turned out to be.  Full of more traveling than we imagined would happen + lots of family time, hot air balloon events, and many new experiences!

I feel like it's been quite awhile since a really really good Christmas movie has come out in theaters. Do you feel this way too? If so, the wait is over because the movie Journey to Bethlehem is coming to theaters November 10 and I couldn't be more excited about it. Truly. It's a movie I've seen a couple times now and will definitely be seeing it again with any friends and family who want to go.

  It's a new year which means it's time to give an update on the birthday deals I got in hopes that you want to get some (or all!) of them too. Let's get started!

  Someone mentioned to me last week that March 15th was when the US went into lockdown for the pandemic. Another friend made a blog post talking about how if you feel off, it's due to a dramatic shift 3 years ago. It was interesting to read the comments. I am not sure I have felt off, maybe a little? But I chalked it up to the fact I have been on trips and it always takes me a day or two or three to readjust when I get back home and try to slide back into my routine.  But it also got me thinking of the last 3 years. I don't think I really blogged a whole lot during covid about my actual thoughts and feelings about being locked down and the never-ending bad news I listened to daily for a while. So since this blog is also like my journal in a way, I figured it better late than never for putting down some of what I remember especially in 2020.

Impact-Site-Verification: 725347919   I can't believe the new year is here, again. This means I am back, with my one-little-word I want to work on this year. And it will be work ! I put that graphic on my Instagram stories and nobody sent me a guess. I suppose it was too hard of a word to unscramble? I am kidding... So let's get to it. My word for the year is 

 This was the oddest birthday deal year yet! Keep reading to find out why....

   After spending a wonderful week in Salt Lake City, Utah, I started the drive back to Ridgecrest. To break up the drive and give my leg a break, I stopped at my friend's house in St George for the night. We had dinner and a fun time hanging out.

This is it folks. My word to focus on for the year.  Last year I did pretty well with my word and had many different categories for my word (which was Grow). This year...instead of having tons of categories, I'm going to focus on less areas that need to be worked on, thus, simplifying (see what I did there?) so I don't get burned out or feel overwhelmed. But who am I kidding? I already feel overwhelmed. This year of 2022 has not been kind (minus the fact I got to attend CES in PERSON! with good friends..that was awesome), the rest of the days this month so far have been less than pleasant. I hope to get out of this funk soon and on to bigger and better things.   So for my word Simplify , my goal is really just a desire to downsize and de-clutter my belongings. Why? Even though many of them bring me happiness, they also cause me a certain level of stress. And in my life, stress can tend to create drama. Drama with who? Tony mostly. He doesn't say much but I can tell that he ...

      I have people ask me every so often what happened to my Instagram account. What did you do? Why did it get taken down?

  #GoShopPlayWin I am always so excited for something fun to do where I live that when the Monopoly game starts at Albertsons, I am all in for participating. Plus I love trying to win stuff anyways! We have an Albertsons less than a mile from our home, so we do get a portion of our groceries here throughout the year. I won't lie, I may try to go in extra times to get playing pieces during this promotion.