Taking a trip, Clipped Blog style!

As I've mentioned before, my husband travels almost weekly for his business, so it's just me and the baby for most of the week days. And while I'm blessed to be able to stay at home with her, there are some weeks where having the husband gone for 5-6 straight days just leaves me a little too coo-coo for cocoa puffs. Such is this week. Hubby has already left for his week long business trip, and I made the executive decision that the bean and I would take the opportunity to spend the week with Gramma.

My parents live about a 3.5 hour drive from us, well - 3.5 hour drive sans baby. The first time I ever took her to my parents' house when she was 2 months old, it took us 4.5 hours to get there and 7 hours to get home. To say she hates riding in the car would be the understatement of the century. That's why it was nice to know that along the way, there were some places where I could stop, grab a bite to eat (or a giant diet cherry limeaid), change a diaper, get in a feeding, and head off again into the wild. But that was before I was on mandatory coupon restriction.

o_O

I have NO idea how this trip tomorrow is going to play out. I've already started planning way ahead: I plan to make a run to the store after nap time to buy some bottled waters so that I can have a store of drinks both going and coming; although I have some fast food restaurant coupons in my little plastic baggie of goodness, I'm not sure if they are regional-specific, so I think to be on the safe side I will pack a sandwich and some snacks; I have half a tank left of the one allowed pre-experiment fill-up PLUS a $50.00 BP gas card that was purchased for $40 with the coupon from the Publix circular two weeks ago; and I've already informed my mother that I will not let her skirt around the rules by buying stuff for us outside of the usual dinner out that my dad likes to "take care of" (oh, how he loves to "take care of" a bill!).

I think I'm on target to do ok while out of town.

I've even thought ahead to Wednesday, where I'll be driving another 100 miles across the state to catch up with an old college friend for lunch. I've explained the experiment to her and she's gracious enough to go eat wherever I can find a coupon for us. And thanks to couponclipper.com, we've got several choices of restaurants within about 15 minutes of one another. I even found a butcher near one of the restaurants who offers a coupon, and I am seriously thinking of taking a cooler and getting all the meat that will fit in it!!!

But don't think that my changing physical locations will slow down these posts. With any luck, I'll get the opportunity to make some phone calls and set up some interviews while Grandpa holds the baby! And I'm sure I'll have some interesting occurences...one with a child never travels without experiencing interesting occurences!

So come along for the ride!

By the way - this picture is very funny to me. Most likely because I watched my husband attempt the same thing last night with our daughter. Poor, traveling, Daddy...