At Home, At Work, At Play.

Back At It!

2012-01-31T06:30:00.000-06:00

Things got pretty hectic there for a bit in our life and I took an unintentional bloggy break. It happens.

Since I have left off (last real blog post was Friday, January 13th, right?) a lot has happened. I am going to rely partially on my Facebook statuses and partially on my calendar and partially on my memory to update you all on what has been going on in my life - at home, at work and at play, so without further ado...

On Friday and Saturday (13th and 14th), I wasn't feeling well. I had a major headache/migraine that left me feeling absolutely horrible and pretty much confined to the couch. Thankfully, I have bigger kids that are huge helps when I need them to be. They knew that I had wanted to make some changes in their rooms and they did the heavy lifting work for me.

Cephas and Koren took apart Koren's bed and moved the pieces of it into the living room next to the bar, then slid Cephas' mattress under Koren's bed. You see, we have plans to get the three boys a new bunkbed with trundle drawer for another mattress. That way, all three boys can have a bed with the "footprint" of all the beds taking up the same floor area of their room as just one twin bed. However, we needed more space right away.

I had also wanted to have the boys and Oralee change dressers. The boys had an eight drawer dresser that was constantly driving me nuts because I would fold their shirts and put them away and within a few days, every single shirt would be crumpled up in their drawer, no matter how I folded them and arranged them. It drove me NUTS! So I decided (after talking with them to see what would work best for them) to start hanging all of their shirts and pants. So they only needed a dresser for underclothes, pjs and shorts. Yes, shorts. Even though it is January and we do live in a climate that is generally colder this time of year, it has been a really warm winter and we have had days in 70s, so yes, shorts.

Anyhow, to get back to the subject matter at hand, the boys traded out their 8 drawer dresser for their sister's 5 drawer chest of drawers. It's the perfect amount of drawer space for the two boys but I was going to have to figure something else out for Jeriah's clothing.

Next item up on the busy agenda: Girl Scout cookies started selling on January 13th. We have been BUSY with that! Oralee has made it to the 150-200 box mark without really even trying for sales and we have only done door-to-door sales for the distance of one block, going up one side of the street and down the other, skipping the houses that were unlikely to purchase. It's a block that we visit EVERY fundraiser, EVERY Halloween, EVERY...well, everything. They are good supporters of my children. They are also my inlaw's neighbors. That helps, I'm sure.

Then all that week, I was feeling incredibly run-down. Not sick exactly, but just feeling absolutely tired and exhausted. I was ready to go back to bed for the day before I even got out of it. Man, that was a difficult week. Still, I did all my mommy-duty stuff. That was also the week that Hubby went full-time and started working six days a week, so it was definitely all on mom to get stuff done. I did too. Housework (although the standard for that week may have been lowered) and volunteering at school and bringing treats to school for Cephas' birthday and making special dinners for Cephas' birthday week and running kids to activities and going out for visiting teaching and helping kids with homework, and all that other mommy-duty stuff that I love doing. It was just hard to keep up with it all that week.

My inlaw's have also been getting a house ready to be put onto the market. They bought a house for my youngest brother-in-law to live in while he went to college. He is still in college but after living in the house for three years has decided that he wants to live in an apartment closer to campus, so he and his roommates moved out and now his parents are busy fixing the place up so that they can sell it.

They had offered it to Hubby and I last year, but we didn't want to renew our lease at the house where we were living and brother-in-law wouldn't have been moving out in a timeframe that would work with our timeframe, so instead we got the house where we live now.

After being in the other house, I figure that it could have worked well for us, but it isn't a huge loss to us. Besides, the payments for the house that we are buying and all the utilities are still less than just the house payment for the other place. It's a cute house though. If our finances were different and if it didn't require the kids to change schools again, it could be a top contender. Such a cute cute house!

Oh - the reason I mentioned the house was because the inlaw's have been cleaning it out and we were given some things from there that we had to go pick up and bring home. At this point, we have been given a large rug (berber style to go under our table in our dining room), a dresser (for the boys' room) and a clothing rack (for me to use when I'm ironing clothes). We have also been offered a nice blue leather couch that we are still deciding on.

I started feeling better the following week and did a thorough scrubbing down in my bathroom. And I mean THOROUGH! I cleaned the shower, the tub, the tub surround, the vanity and sink, the mirror, the toilet and the floor. Then I moved onto the chair rail, the bead board and the baseboards. I decluttered and organized and made it all nice and neat. Yeah, I kicked it into high gear in that room. It needed it big time and I was so happy when it was all done! Oh - and I also did like 8 loads of laundry that day too.

Little Oralee came down with a cold about a week ago that kept her up most of one night coughing and just feeling miserable. Jeriah had croup earlier in the month but the spacing wasn't right for that to be Oralee's issue. So anyhow, she had this cold that turned her high-pitch girly five year old voice into a husky, funny sounding voice for the first four or five days. It was ADORABLE! I loved hearing her talk when she was sick because it was just so different from her regular voice (her regular voice is adorable as well - this sick voice just had a different quality of adorable). She is much better now.

My status update from Thursday, January 26th pretty much sums up my life right now though. I'll post it here:
"Busy day so far! Hubby up and out of the door by 8 am, four kids up and out of the door by 8:20 am, dropped kids at school, went to Hubby's work to drop off Girl Scout cookies (and made a few more sales) and then off to our "home visit" with Jeriah's teacher. Came home, fed the boy, now time for some cleaning and then will get him ready for school, put him on the bus, head over to the school myself, do Thursday folder and then pick up kids, get them to do chores/homework, music practice, fix dinner and out the door for an activity this evening. Busy busy day it will be! This is my favorite job (being a mom)!

Of course, that night, Cephas had a homework assignment that I didn't understand AT ALL, even though we tried and tried and tried working at it, so I ended up meeting with his teacher the next morning before school. Then, when we ran into the same issue on Friday evening, I emailed her, per her suggestion. She emailed me back. On a Friday night. With an explanation and words of encouragement. Awesome teacher!

The neighbor girl that I had been taking care of quite a bit has been spending less time at our house lately. I did watch her this past Saturday while her mom ran an errand across town (about an hour and a half). We ran an errand as well but it was one that was close by our homes and of course, with her mom's permission. She and Koren were starting to bicker and I didn't feel like dealing with it so I just separated them and decided that was the PERFECT time to run the errand. She ended up mad at me though because I sent her home when her mom got home. She wanted to stay and eat dinner with us and watch a movie and stay the night. I told her that maybe she could do it this next weekend. We'll see what happens though.

Today I have to get some work done around the house. I have a LONG list of chores for Jeriah and I to do. The last Tuesday of the month, Jeriah doesn't have school and the other kids get out of school early so that teachers can meet and plan together. I wish that had happened yesterday though! It was 70* out. And today, the day that they get out early, the high is only supposed to be like 55*. That's just the way things happen sometimes though.

And tomorrow, one of my best friends is going to come over and spend the day with me. I have no idea what we are going to do but we are going to spend the day together at any rate. It should be lots of fun! Before that though, I really want to get the house to looking nice. It will be the first time she has come over here, so I'm a little bit nervous. I am always nervous the first time that someone comes over. I'm not sure why, I just always am.

I can't wait though! Big day of cleaning and projects today. Hubby has some plans to rearrange the furniture in the living room and front room (yes, again - even though we JUST did it and loved the way it was arranged!) in a few weeks. Before that, I need to continue to declutter. I have been keeping tally marks on my dry-erase board of how many items I have gotten rid of so far this month and I am now up to:

For the year 2012, I am up to a grand total of: 56 items.
Which means I have 1956 items left to go and 48 weeks to do it in.

I have also been doing really well with my goals for this year that I wanted to do each week. I don't really feel motivated to keep tracking those though. I think I just bogged myself down with those. I will continue with the 2012 in 2012 though. I really really enjoy that particular challenge!

I plan to return with regular posting now. Yay! Hope to see you around here! Oh and a quick mention I want to make. You should check out Heather's blog. She has been doing the 2012 in 2012 as well! Way to go Heather!

Delayed...

2012-01-17T14:28:00.000-06:00

Just a quick note to let you all know that the posts that I normally have scheduled for Sundays, Mondays and Tuesdays are going to be delayed or skipped this week. My kids were home from school yesterday for the holiday and I had a busy day with them. Today, I don't feel so well. So if you were looking for my regular posts, just be prepared that they will be late or not happen this week. On Friday, I will be definitely be back for Company Girl Coffee and next week, I should be back to my normal posts. Thanks so much for stopping by!

Changes This Week

2012-01-13T09:30:00.005-06:00

Good morning! Why don't you come on in and sit for a spell? I don't have any coffee on (though I could put some on, if you'd like) and visit for a bit. I'll try to keep this on the shorter side as I have a lot to do today.

It's been a semi-busy week and yesterday, I let things go. But I'll get back to that in a bit. This past weekend at Hubby's work, someone quit on the spot. Just up and quit. Hubby has taken over this guy's hours as well as his own. It'll be nice when the paycheck shows up for it. Unfortunately, that won't be til the first payday in February, but that's okay. We'll make it work.

The Neighbor Girl, My Kids and Family and Friendship
I have had the neighbor girl every day after school and it has been going REALLY well. She loves coming over to my house after school and I'm not quite sure why. On Tuesday, she was sick and her stepdad's mom came to stay with her for the day. (My phone was dead and by the time, I was able to call her mom back, she was busy and had her phone turned off so she didn't get my message in time that I could take her daughter.)

On Wednesday, the girl's mom didn't need me to take her before school because the mom didn't need to be at her appointment until 10am. However, on Tuesday, one of the ladies that teaches at church asked me to go over to the church on Wednesday and pick up a food order for someone, so that is where I spent a large portion of my Wednesday morning. Then, I stopped in at Hubby's work to grab a bite to eat (I have about $50 or so in gift cards to use there and I get a discount on top of it, so a really good deal) and to try to have lunch with him. But he was almost done and it wouldn't have made sense to have him take a break right at the end of his shift, so I ate without him.

When it was almost time to pick up kids, I called my neighbor to see if I needed to pick up her daughter as well. She said that her daughter was really upset that morning because she didn't get to come over to my house before school and that it would probably make her daughter pretty happy if I picked her up. So I did.

We had to stop at her house on the way home to drop off some stuff and I went in and talked to our neighbor for a little bit. Her daughter had a chance to come in at that point, but chose not to.

When we finally got home, I had the kids do their homework and gave them a snack (which is our regular routine for after school) then they played video games (we have puzzle-solving games on the wii so I figure at least it is something that they have to think about and work for, right?) then sent the girl home at dinnertime.

Yesterday, when I was walking up to the school to pick my kids up (I no longer needed to take the girl before and after school because her mom's need for that was temporary), the neighbor calls me and asks me to pick up the girl and I agreed to do it. It really isn't any extra work for me, I mean, I'm already there doing that exact thing. It's just using one more seat in my van and at my table. One more snack and one more kid to help with homework. No biggie.

We get back to our home and the kids come in and get started on their homework, then snack, then a game. I drove the girl home just before dinner (yes, she only lives a short distance from us but it was VERY VERY cold and I wasn't going to make her walk in it, I didn't want to walk to her house in it and I definitely didn't want to walk to her house AND back in it) and talked with her mom for about an hour. It was nice to have that time. I get the impression that her mom doesn't really have that many people to talk to in a grown-up conversation and to be able to REALLY talk, you know? It was really nice. I enjoyed it.

Time Management and A Bad Schedule
This week, I have also been battling a bad sleep schedule and really bad headaches most of the day that evolve into migraines shortly after dinner. This past week, I have been waking up around 4:30am and I have been getting tired (and going to sleep for the night) around 7:30pm. My kids' bedtime is 8:30pm. So Hubby has been left on his own for the evening and bedtime routine. Poor guy!

Yesterday morning, even though I had a ton of stuff to get done, I went back to bed for a couple of hours after Hubby went to work. I was hoping that by getting some additional sleep earlier in the day, it would afford me the ability to stay up until, oh, I don't know? 9:30pm, 10:00pm? Something more reasonable than 7:30pm, at least. So I did it, then I went to the school to do my normal Thursday afternoon volunteering session (stuffing Thursday folders in Cephas' fifth grade class and Koren's second grade class) then going home for a bit before going back to get him and the others. Needless to say, I didn't get a whole lot done around the house. In fact, I don't think I have done ANY housework since Wednesday. Yeah, that doesn't go so well. I mean, that's like 36 hours of no housework being done. Scary. Honestly, it doesn't look that bad, thanks to some changes we have made around here.

Volunteering and Work

After doing second grade's folders and before doing fifth grade's folders, I ran over to Hubby's work to see if he was done yet because we are sharing a vehicle right now while mine is in the shop being repaired. He wasn't done, but he was close. His head manager (the store's general manager) was sitting at a table across the room and he saw me and waved. I waved back and relaxed there for a bit, drinking a complimentary diet soda and eating on some complimentary french fries (told ya I get taken care of there!) and out of the blue, Hubby's GM stands up, points at me and says, "You're fired!" It's a running joke. He fires me nearly every day that we are both there. I don't work there, have never worked for him, yet he fires me all the time. :) Weird, I know. But he's a fun guy.

Hubby got off work and went with me to finish up fifth grade's folders and then I found out that he had been promoted to prep trainer. Yay! He makes an extra $3.00 an hour when he trains AND he gets a free meal (yes, I sometimes get free food and he still has to pay for his usually) so that is pretty cool. I keep telling him that he needs to take advantage of his free meal when he gets it but he usually passes on it. Oh well. Probably healthier that way, I suppose.

Oh and my plan of napping earlier in the day worked. I was able to stay awake until 10:30pm last night before crashing. And I slept through until my alarm woke me up at 6:00am. Do you know how long it has been since I have slept through until my alarm woke me up? (Okay, last Wednesday, but before that it had been quite awhile as well) It is wonderful to sleep until your alarm goes off. I felt so excited about it! I woke Hubby up to tell him how happy I was to wake up that early. He wasn't nearly as thrilled as I was though. Hmmm, wonder why? ;)

Plans
So that was my week in a nutshell. Today, I have a lot on my agenda. I need to tidy up the house from the last 36 hours and then I have some ideas that I want to put into action in the kids' bedrooms. Oralee received a new bed last week from a co-worker of mine and then this week, she received a new vanity from some friends of ours. Her room is getting considerably more girly by the minute, I tell you! And I LOVE it! I never thought I would drink in all this girly froo-froo stuff but it is so cool and wonderful! I have some changes to make in her room (remove her dresser and set up a different system for clothing storage) and then in the boys' room (make a trundle drawer for Cephas' mattress to go on and get rid of one of the bed frames, move Oralee's dresser into the boys' room for the boys to have more clothing storage for them and rearrange their room just a bit) plus, I have a clean home challenge and an organized home challenge that I am working on as well. So I have those things to do. One thing is for sure, it is never boring in this house! :)

I hope you are all having a wonderful week as well! And many wishes for you and your family to have a wonderful weekend and next week too! Thanks for dropping by for my (long-winded) update for this week!

Organized Home Challenge - Week 2 prep

2012-01-10T15:00:00.030-06:00

This past week's focus was: Kitchen Organization: Countertops & Sink.

Step 1: Think About the Functions of Your Kitchen.

Cooking (and food preparation)
Food storage (both cold storage and pantry)

Step 2: Create Usable Counter Space and Clear Your Kitchen Table (mostly).

The counters have been cleared of all unnecessary items! (Although, in the photos, you will see a pan next to the stove. That was for my dinner set-up. I had the pan setting out there, with my dry ingredients in it so that it was ready to go when it was time to cook.)

I had planned to clear off my bar area instead of our dining room table, but this didn't happen this week. It's still better than it was, but it is not where it should be ideally. It is something that will get done, but has not gotten done yet.

Step 3: Consider These Kitchen Storage Solutions To Help Clear Counter Space.

I did not get a magnetic knife storage thing for the wall. It's just simply not in the budget right now and quite honestly, I'm not sure how it would look in my kitchen in the area I have for it.
I also did not get shelves for my spices, but instead I did a little bit of food storage rearranging so that I could put my spices into the cupboard instead of having them on my counter next to the stove.

Step 4: Create The Habit Of Keeping Your Sink Clear Of Dishes At Least Two Times Per Day.

I have done this faithfully every day since I got my cupboards cleared. And yesterday, when I started dinner, my sink was clear. I was able to fill up the sink, toss my dirty dishes into the sink as I used them and loaded them all into the dishwasher while the lasagna was in the oven. Then all I had to do was the lasagna pan, the spatula and our dinner dishes. It was so nice to not have any "extras".

And now for the pictures, because we all know that is what you are REALLY here for! :)

Okay, in this picture, there are a GREAT number of things that I removed, including:
hot pads (I hung those up), hodgepodge pile of dishes that aren't used regularly and don't belong in here (moved to the dining room), boxed food goods (put away in cupboards, a spice tray (which you can't even see in this pic - moved to a cupboard), toaster, mixer and can opener (moved to small appliance cupboard - which needs clearing out in a major way!), coke cake (in the aluminum foil - we ate it), soda (I drank it), and yeah, that pretty well takes care of this pic. Oh - there is a chair. I moved that back to the dining room.

Okay, now we turn the camera to get the other side of the counter area in the kitchen and we find more food items needing to be put away (which they were), more dishes that needed to be moved to the dining room (which they were), dirty dishes in the sink, a miscellaneous mixture of items on the microwave (I went through every item up there and decluttered it in a major way) and more random items on the bar (some of which got cleared off, some of which didn't).

And then some pictures of the bar area. Actually, in the middle bar picture, you can see the top of the armoire, I also did that surface as part of this challenge, but didn't get an after shot of it because I didn't think of it. I might grab one yet this evening and add it in to this post. But here they are, feel free to click on them to look at them in full-size. I left them little because I don't have comparison pics for you to see anything afterward.

Stove and small area next to it all cleared off and ready for cooking to happen!

Counter all cleared off, save for the tomatoes and avocados and the evening's dinner prep.

Full -view into the kitchen (yes, there were a couple of things on the floor - they have been removed though!

Kitchen sink - CLEARED!

My microwave with my drink tray on top of it. I actually swapped out this tray and the one that was on the microwave because the previous one wasn't big enough to hold all the drink mixes, etc. Also, you see my coffee pot and my digital kitchen scale and what appears to be a to-go cup from a coffee shop. Well, that IS what it is, but it holds the beans that I got from that coffee shop.

Area next to my sink where my handwashed dishes dry. I hate this area. I think it always looks bad, even when it is all cleaned. I really want a different dish drainer or maybe just a larger mat to let the dishes dry on so that I can put it away and not have to look at this.

Just another view of my sink. Looks more inviting, doesn't it?

And now, to make this an incredibly long post, we find out what the challenge is for week 2.

Week #2: Kitchen Drawers & Kitchen Cabinet Organization

Step 1: Recall the Functions of Your Kitchen From Last Week

Step 2: Declutter Your Kitchen Cabinets and Drawers

Step 3: Sort What Is Left According to How Often You Use It

Step 4: Strategically Place Everything In Your Kitchen Cabinets and Drawers According to Their Zones

Step 5: Consider Kitchen Storage Solutions For Your Drawers and Cabinets to Maximize the Use of Your Available Space

So there you have it, week one complete and week two starting up.

Clean Home Challenge, Week 2

2012-01-09T18:00:00.001-06:00

If you remember from my post this past week, I took a picture of the top of my dresser. It was quite cluttered up with various things:

A basket of Christmas ornaments, a box of extra school supplies, clothes, hangers, a couple of single boots, a tote with some clothes in it, a container with some change in it...just very miscellaneous schtuffs. (That's the technical term for it, by the way!)

Well, I cleared it all off, dusted off the decorative scrollwork that is at the top of my mirror (not shown in the picture) and then removed all the cluttery items from my dresser and put it all away. Clothes went to the appropriate places - laundry room or the person's bedroom, the hangers to the closet, the box of school supplies to the closet where they are supposed to be stored, the boots to the shelf next to the front door where we keep them, the container of change got emptied into Hubby's change tray and then I was ready to clean off the top of the dresser itself.

I got it all cleaned off and dusted, then I put a picture frame with a family picture in it on the dresser along with three jars that I got from the Dollar Store. I had planned to use those jars to make homemade sugar scrub for Christmas presents but I never got around to it so I still had them. I just added water to them and put in some floating candles that I've had laying around here for the last two years. I also had three pillar holders (for candles) that were still new in box and I decided to pull them out and put them in there too. I think it adds a nice little touch to the dresser's look and I feel like I finally have a use for them. Then I added a small tray that I absolutely love. I actually have a set of three of these trays. The one on my dresser is the smallest of the bunch. The next size up (which is the same length but in a square) I have on top of my microwave to corral miscellaneous items that need to be taken out of the kitchen. I also have a large one that is rectangular that I use for a drink tray - well, to store drink mixes and such, not to serve drinks on.

And overall, I am quite pleased with the way it turned out! It only took about 15-20 minutes to clear off and straighten it up and decorate it. Oh - and don't mind the mirror. I had some clean laundry on the bed that needed to be folded and didn't want that to take away from the nice look of the dresser. Oh - and in case you hadn't guessed, I did find my camera. It wasn't on my dresser but just under the front edge of the dresser. How it got there, I don't have the slightest clue, but regardless, I found it!

Okay, now a quick side-by-side comparison so that you don't have to scroll up and down to compare the two:

And now moving on to Week 2:

This week we are supposed to head on out to our living rooms and clear off just one end table. This actually works out pretty well for me because I only have one. I did have three but I just recently got rid of two of them.

I have to confess, the picture of my end table is actually taken partially done. I was cleaning up the living room this morning and decided to clean up the area near my favorite relaxing / study spot in the living room. So, what you will see here is after I picked up two of those bottles of soda (Diet Dr Pepper - belonged to me, two yogurt cups with spoons - belonged to Jeriah and Hubby, a bowl and a spoon - belonged to Oralee, as well as various random bits and pieces. I had also decided to put the basket that was on my dresser in my before pic down here to store all of our various charging cords (my laptop, our cell phones, the boys' dsi chargers, the little kids' Leapster charger, etc. etc. etc.) which I think looks better than a jumble of those cords just laying down here. I may revamp that plan later on, but for now, I like it.

And here is the picture:

The Saved Quarter Challenge - Week 1 Catch Up and Week 2

2012-01-09T00:00:00.022-06:00

I'm joining in on this a little bit late, but I am ready to participate! For the first week, we were supposed to set a goal and write it down.

My goals are to:

Save 10% of our income for an emergency fund.

Save 5% of our income for medical expenses not covered by insurance. Or to use for co-pays, etc.

Set aside 10% of our income for tithing. While not technically saving, it is an important investment and I think a crucial one when it comes to money matters.

Week 1 Complete

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Beginning of Week 2

Savings:
Hubby got paid on 1/6/2012 and I immediately put 10% of his paycheck aside for savings in a certain tucked-away spot. It would make more sense to put it in the bank to accrue interest but that is not a logical option for me right now, as I am too quick to withdraw money from there when I want it. I now have $20.00 set aside for our emergency fund. (Hubby had a lot less hours than normal over the last month or so, these totals are going to be smaller for this paycheck and the next.)
Total: $20.00 this week, $20.00 year to date

Medical:
I also tucked away 5% in another spot to set aside for medical expenses. I now have $10.00 set aside for for medical expenses.
Total: $10.00 this week, $10.00 year to date

Tithing:
And finally, I tucked 10% into an envelope and turned it in to the church yesterday morning. I contributed $20.00 plus an additional amount to the church for our tithing.
Total: $20.00 this week, $20.00 year to date

Tracking Spending:
I haven't been writing everything down as it happens, but I do keep every single receipt and then I record it later. This works for a couple of different reasons. This way I can also track regular and sale prices for individual items as well. But since I have the receipts to use for all of this, I can easily track our spending.

This also helps with one of my 2012 Resolutions, in particular Item 6e.

You can click the image above to be directed to the Saved Quarter or you can click here.

Organizing My Life - Week 2

2012-01-08T06:00:00.002-06:00

Last Sunday, I posted about some routines that I want to change to make my home a better place and to make a healthier me for this year. It's now the end of week one and I'm here to report back to you on my progress so far.

As you can see (click on the image if you want to see it bigger), the goal that I had set was to be up for the day every day by 7am. I most definitely accomplished this every single day, with the exception of one, which was actually Thursday but I see now that I mis-marked it as Wednesday. It is a bit difficult to make that image so I am not going to fix it. The number is right though. I achieved my goal on 6 out of 7 days this past week.

The ironic part of that day being the ONLY day I was not up by 7am? I had an appointment for all 4 kids at 8am. I woke up at 7:52. In my defense, I had a cold this past week and was feeling terrible and the night before, I took some NyQuil. I got some wonderful sleep, I just did not wake up to my alarm.

Luckily, I was able to call the dentist's office and let them know that I would be half an hour late (it's a good 25 minute drive over there) and that they would only be seeing three of the kids because the youngest one was sick. They said that would be fine, so I started throwing clothes at kids and urging them to get dressed and of course to "QUICKLY brush your teeth!"

We actually made it there in about 35 minutes. I called the office at 8:30 (when we were supposed to be arriving per the second arrangement) and let them know that I was at a stop light and about 5 minutes away from them and asked if that would still work. They said yes again. Phew!

So, dentist visit went well for the kiddos. One (flossing) cavity among all of them. The five year old, Oralee, is our best brusher out of the older three kids. Then it is ten year old, Cephas, then eight year old, Koren. Koren is the one with cavity as well. It only showed up on his x-ray because it is so tiny and in a spot between two teeth where they meet.

He will need to go back in February to get sealants put on his teeth and to fill that cavity. Cephas and Oralee passed their dental exams. Cephas, to date, has had one cavity, Koren, to date, has had one cavity, Oralee to date has had no cavities and same with Jeriah. I think that is an okay record. I would have loved for it to be zero for all of them, but this is okay too.

Oh wow. I was here to write about goals and got off on a tangent about dental appointments. Sorry. I do that a lot. I'm guessing you already know that though.

Okay, so anyhow, getting back to the regularly scheduled blog post, I accomplished my goal of waking up at 7am for week 1 on six out of seven days. My goal for the coming week is to continue with last week's goal and then add to it the new goal of walking for at least 10 minutes, 3 times each day. I should be able to accomplish this goal fairly easy every day of the week, particularly if I am getting up at 7am each day. I will get this. It will become a habit and I will do it every day! If these goals are something that you'd like to join me in or if you'd like a blank copy of that chart, please leave me a comment and I can email it to you. Or you are welcome to just jump in as well and join me where I am for that week.

2012 in 2012 - End of Week 1

2012-01-07T22:00:00.009-06:00

This year I have set a goal of getting rid of 2012 items. I saw this done on other blogs last year and I like the idea behind it. So that is my goal for this year as well.

So far this week, I have:

Tossed:
1 train table (it was broken)
1 bag of miscellaneous items from the living room
1 bag of miscellaneous items from the kitchen
1 bag of miscellaneous items from the dining room
1 bag of miscellaneous items from the front room
1 bag of miscellaneous items from our bedroom

Donated:
2 end tables (I put these out on our curb and sure enough, someone who needed them came by and picked them up!)
1 couch (I also put this out on our curb and sure enough, someone who needed them came by and picked them up!)

Sold:
Nothing this week

Returned:
1 twin xl bed frame
1 twin mattress

That brings the grand total for this week to: 11 items.
For the year 2012, that is a grand total of: 11 items.
Which means I have 2001 items left to go and 51 weeks to do it in.

*I do feel inclined to admit thought, that even though I got rid of one bed frame and one mattress, I also brought in one toddler bed and one crib mattress. However, I feel that the others count in the lessening of items in our home simply because of the space gained. Trust me, it is a HUGE difference!*

Busy Day

2012-01-06T06:15:00.002-06:00

Today is the last weekday before school starts back up for the new semester. My kids spent the night at Grandma's house and I will be picking them up midday from her. Today, I have a full agenda. Hubby and I rearranged the living room and front room in our home and as such, I have now have a huge pile to deal with on my dining room table. Well it was sort of a result of the rearrangement. None of the stuff on my table actually came from the living room or front room (as far as I know) but instead from a corner built-in cabinet that I had been using as our "curriculum cupboard". Considering the fact that we don't homeschool and barely afterschool anymore, I felt that this cupboard was best to go through and to use it instead for our dinnerware items. Plates, bowls, cups, salad plates and glassware. This was done so that all of our food storage could be accomplished within the boundaries of the kitchen cupboards. It has taken some re-working (and is still being re-worked, if I am to be totally honest) but it is progress. I am really pleased, however, with the dinnerware and glassware being in the dining room cupboard though. I think this puts more emphasis on real family meals - the kind where the food is placed in dishes and passed around, not just served from the pot or pan on the stove.

This does mean, however, that I have a quick job of tidying up the living room and front room and a little bit more extensive job of cleaning the dining room and kitchen. I need to get dishes put away so I can run the dishwasher, clear off the counters and the stove and make sure my sink is empty. Then I need to focus some effort on the dining room to clear off the table and sort through the pile that is on there at the moment, pick up the floor and then sweep and mop both the dining room and kitchen. And then last of all, I need to move all of the clean laundry into our bedroom then do a quick clean of the bathroom (toilet, sink, mirror, tub, floor). Oh, and to make it interesting, I have two hours. Yup, two hours.

You see, there is a family that lives just around the corner from me and they are going through some seriously rough times right now. Seriously rough. And today, they need someone to watch their 7 year old girl. It was not without a lot of thought and prayer and even seeking approval from my own 8 year old that I decided to offer to watch this little girl today. She has some challenging behavioral issues and as I said, her family is going through some really really rough times right now. But I called her mom last night and offered to watch the girl today. The lady who watched the girl all week had let the mom know I would be calling, I think, because she had mentioned something about the other lady mentioning my name as well. (Yes, I had even talked to the lady who had taken care of the girl all week! I'm telling you - I took this under great consideration.) The mom agreed to have the girl come over here today and just hang out and she will also be coming over every morning next week for an hour before school and two or three hours after school . I have a feeling that I am going to know this family very well by the end of next week. I am grateful for this opportunity to serve this family as well.

But that means that I need to get my house in order before the girl shows up. And I am clearly not as motivated to do it as I should be, considering the fact that I am sitting her blogging about what I need to do instead of, oh, I don't know - doing it? Yeah that. Oops. Ah well. It will get done. And most of it will be done in time. I don't mind some of it not being done in time, but I do want most of it to be done.

Later today, the girl and I are going to run my cocker spaniel across town to our vet for grooming. Our vet has a grooming area and a doggie daycare center as well as a hospital all in one building. It is great and I love it there! So we will drop off the dog and then go pick up my children from Grandma's house.

When we come back here today, we will either be making (and decorating!) sugar cookies or else assembling gingerbread houses that I picked up on clearance this past week for $2 apiece. I had only gotten four of them (as I only have four children) but I think that the girl would enjoy the activity more than Jeriah will, so I plan to have Jeriah and Oralee share a house to decorate, if we go that route. Who knows? And maybe, just maybe, I can convince Hubby to go to the Dollar Store after work and pick up a large disposable deep dish baking pan so that I can make the girl's family dinner for tonight and that way the mom doesn't have to try and worry about getting that all squared away after a long day too. Maybe. I hope that we are able to do that at least.

But anyhow, I am now down to 1 hour and 48 minutes to get as much housework done as I can before the girl arrives, so I will sign off for now and check back in with you all later! Toodles!

*Checking back in*
The day did NOT go as planned, though it did go very well. The girl was late in arriving. I had expected her at 8:00 but she actually showed up around 8:30. That was fine because it gave me some time to sit out on our front porch swing and just relax for a short while.

She was disappointed that my kids were not here this morning, so we went over and picked the kiddos up early from my mother-in-law's house. The kids played a few games over there while my mother-in-law and I visited for a bit.

We then headed back to our house and I sent my kids off to clean their bedrooms. They actually have more chores to do than that, but since today was a different sort of day, I decided that just cleaning their rooms would be enough. Afterwards, the kids watched a movie while I continued to work in the kitchen and dining room (which I hadn't gotten completely done before the girl arrived) then we left to go get lunch. I had ordered pizza from a small shop close to our home that has pizza that the kids love (and I am okay-ish with, mainly because they are SO affordable!) and then we came back, the kids ate lunch and then they finished the last twenty minutes of their movie while I cleaned up and put our leftovers away. Then we broke out the gingerbread house kits!

What a disaster! It was a lot of fun, but man oh man, it was difficult to put those houses together, or maybe I should say, to KEEP those houses together! Ay yi yi! Koren gave up pretty quickly on his and decided to go outside to play with some neighbor kids, then Cephas' kept falling apart and he decided he was done but that he had had a good time trying to create his. The girl's house held up well enough for her to take home about four hours later. I helped Oralee and Jeriah assemble their house and left them to decorate it. Their house actually turned out the best. I think mainly because Oralee is very caught up in patterns (or "patterins" as she calls them) and so her side of the roof looks very balanced. Meanwhile, Jeriah's side of the roof was random in the coloring although the candy he used was all the same type. Overall, a very fun day!

I then set the kids up with the second movie that they had requested for today, but they spent more time playing with toys and on the computers and Nintendo dsi and Leapfrog Leapster games. Regardless, I think they really enjoyed the day.

When the girl's mom called to say that she had just pulled into her driveway, we got ready to go and Cephas and I walked the girl home. Cephas came along to carry the girl's gingerbread house. Isn't that sweet of him?

The girl's mom and I talked for about half an hour. I set up plans with her for taking the girl next week. Next week, the girl will be coming over in the morning and I will take her to school when I take my kids to school and then bring her home afterward when I pick my kids up. I am actually wondering if it would be better for me to just keep the girl overnight so that her mother doesn't have to struggle to get her up in the morning. It's something that I plan to ask her about later this weekend. I am just trying to figure out how best to help this family.

I also plan to bring them prepared, complete meals next week. I wish that I'd had that idea today because that mom was so exhausted after her day. It seems that there must be something more that I can do to help them, but I honestly don't know what I can do for them. I do know that these things would help them out and that is a good start, I think.

My main desire in all this is that I can somehow share her load and provide her with some much-needed respite in whatever capacity that I am able to provide.

Clean Home Challenge, Week 1

2012-01-03T06:30:00.012-06:00

Well, I think the sticky note pretty much says it all doesn't it? And honestly, my dresser could use a major overhaul. For some reason, things have been stacked up there and piled high. I have a mirror on the back of my dresser and I'm not even sure if I could see myself in it. I have a vision of what this space should look like and today is the day to make that happen! So here goes...

This is my dresser before doing anything to it. Please don't mind the crappy cell phone pic. If I knew where my camera was at the moment, I'd have used that instead. Maybe while working on my projects today, I will find it and be able to take my after pic with that instead.

I can't wait to get this done and to show you the after pic. I have plans to get a jewelry box in the future because I think it would look so nice sitting there on my dresser and it would also be nice to have a place to put my few pieces of jewelry. But for now, I would be happy to just have a cleared off dresser and maybe to even add a few decorative touches to it.

Complete Living Area Makeover

2012-01-03T06:30:00.011-06:00

There are some HUGE changes in store for my house this month. Hubby and I were talking tonight about some options for the furniture arrangement that we have and what we would like it to look like and how we want it all to be laid out. You see, we have some very odd spaces in our home that don't seem so odd until you want to place furniture. Then it becomes a big issue. We have a number of not-functioning-as-well-as-it-could issues here at our place and we are working on fixing it.

This is the current layout of the front room and living room.

As you can see, when you first walk into our house, you are immediately bottle-necked or outright blocked from getting into the house because of Hubby's desk/chair and the cedar chest. Not to mention that when Hubby is sitting in his chair (and therefore has it out further than currently shown) there isn't much of a walkway between his chair and the train table.

What we talked about doing was getting rid of the big couch in the living room (it really is a must-do item) and then moving the loveseat to the living room to take the place of the couch. It only has two seats but we don't really watch TV all that much. The TV is generally used for Wii, which the kids stand to play and then sometimes for Hubby and I to watch TV together (and we don't mind sharing the loveseat!) or for our Saturday Night Movie Night. But even then, when there are five of us watching TV, at least three are usually on the floor with pillows and blankets anyhow. So I really don't see it as an issue of losing seating in that area.

Once the loveseat is moved, then Hubby's desk will go to where the loveseat was. Then the bookshelf that was in the living room will go to where the desk was. Then the cedar chest will be moved to where the bookshelf was. And then the little side table next to the entertainment center right now will go between the loveseat and the wall. Then to end it all, the train table will go out to the shed until later this year when the kids have bunk beds and have room in their bedroom for it.

Having a hard time picturing it? Good thing for you that I rather like Microsoft Paint. So here it is:

So, what do you think? Does that look okay? I know that the front room looks really sparse and as much as I tried to get it fairly accurate on scale, I have to admit that it isn't 100% on scale. There is quite a bit more empty space in the room, but I rather think that I like that. And if it turns out that we want to bring pieces back in or whatever, that is always an option. But I doubt that we will want to.

Plus, the last time we had the floor area of the front room all open the way it is in the second picture, the kids LOVED it. I can't remember why we changed it up and decided to put the train table there, but I think going back to the openness will be better for everyone!

So that is our project for today. Whew! What a job! But it will be so worth it when it is all done! I cannot wait!!!

I am linking this up to 5 minutes for mom. You should go check them out and see the tackles that other people are doing too!

Organized Home Challenge - Week 1 prep

2012-01-02T06:30:00.001-06:00

So I started this up last year and then completely dropped the ball and since it is something that I am passionate about accomplishing this year, I am going to really strive to make it happen this time.

This week's focus is: Kitchen Organization: Countertops & Sink.

Step 1: Think About the Functions of Your Kitchen.

Cooking (and food preparation)
Food storage (both cold storage and pantry)

That's actually about it. Our kitchen is off at one end of our home and therefore, we don't use it in the additional ways that a lot of other families use theirs. We have a separate dining room although we do have a bar in the kitchen that separates it from the living room.

Step 2: Create Usable Counter Space and Clear Your Kitchen Table (mostly).

Well, as I said, we don't have a table in here but we do have the bar, so I will use that to accomplish this part of the goal, as it does tend to pile up with miscellaneous things. I also do not have a lot of counter space and with our current configuration, I have even less than I could have. I have a few ideas that I plan to implement to use our space more efficiently.

Within this step, she recommends that we put away things that do not fit in with the intended purpose that we have for our kitchens. This part is really easy for me because I can quickly and easily see things that do not belong in here at all but for whatever reason landed here.

The next step within a step is that we put away things that actually do fit in with intended purpose of our kitchen. Yikes! This is the hard part for me because I also do not have a lot of cupboard space. This should be interesting.

She then recommends that we declutter gadgets and appliances. This is going to be crucial to be able to utilize the space that I actually have available. I can even think of a few appliances that I have in my cupboards that could maybe be switched out to longer-term storage or even get rid of it (like my bread maker since I generally make bread by hand, not by machine) and my blender (which I do use from time to time - which should stay in the kitchen area at least). The only things on my counters that are honestly used every day is the microwave, the dish drainer (although I really would love to change out the style of mine so that I can fold it and tuck it away when not in use) and my cooking utensils and knives and our spices, though I have some ideas for those things as well (thinking vertically here - wall storage space - spice rack, magnetic knife strip) but other than that, I don't use my toaster every day or my coffeemaker. And I actually have room to put both of those items in my dining room where they would be more likely to be used more frequently.

Step 3: Consider These Kitchen Storage Solutions To Help Clear Counter Space.

Heh, I already started this on the last step. (Can you tell that I didn't read ahead?) But some of the suggestions that she has that I plan to maybe implement are:

Magnetic knife storage for the wall (as mentioned above!)
Shelves for spices (as mentioned above!)

Then we are on to Step 4: Create The Habit Of Keeping Your Sink Clear Of Dishes At Least Two Times Per Day.

The idea behind this is to make sure that the sink is clear so that we don't clutter up the counters with other stuff since the kitchen already appears to be messy. I like this idea and plan to implement it for the morning after breakfast and in the evening after dinner. It would be even better if I were able to just unload the dishwasher in the morning and put all the dishes away and then as the dishes come in throughout the day (breakfast, lunch, snacks, dinner) that I would be able to simply rinse them and put them in the dishwasher, which I could start at bedtime. Meh, maybe that is just what I'll work toward. I like that idea better anyway and I do believe that we have enough plates to get through the day just fine without running short (unless we are having company over)

That completes this week's challenge preparations. I will add in some before and after photos at the end of the week as well as some commentary to show you how I changed things to be able to gain back usable counters and also to keep the sink clear!

2012 Resolutions

2012-01-02T02:40:00.000-06:00

Yesterday, while the kids were working on their chores (and they did a very nice job on them for the most part) Cephas came up to me and was asking about resolutions. He said that he wants to make some for this year. Miss Lil Oralee already did make two, which she shared with me, and it got me to thinking that I should make some as well. I have my goals for Organizing My Life and a number of those goals actually directly correspond with some of my resolutions.

But without further ado, here are (some of) my resolutions:

1. Improve my health.
a. I plan to do this by getting into a consistent sleep schedule. I want to be able to have more energy to spend on the things that really matter and that requires me to get adequate sleep. It would also improve my health and wellness.
b. Another way that I plan to do improve my overall health is to start exercising on a more consistent basis. Sadly, I do not even walk on a daily basis.
c. I also plan to eat balanced meals, at home, at the right time of day, so that it has the best possible effects for my body.
d. I would like to lose 90 pounds by this time next year. I bought a scale yesterday. That is the first step. (Get it, step?! I crack myself up!)

2. Improve my spiritual life.
a. I plan to pray specifically and to journal those prayers and answers on a regular basis.
b. I plan to read my Scriptures daily and to continue to journal about the things that I am covering in my reading.
c. I have also accepted a teaching position at church and will be spending time once a month (at minimum) teaching others and being there for them.
d. Attend church every week.
e. Read the Bible with my children daily.

3. Improve my homemaking skills.
a. The kids have their regular chores and they are fairly good about doing them. I need to be better about doing my own personal chores though as well.
b. I need to be able to say no to things that would interfere with my own goals of what I want my house to be. My home needs to be a higher priority.
c. Continue to teach my children how to thoroughly clean a home so that they are able to do this when they become adults and don't have to struggle with it the way that Hubby had to.
d. I need to develop a regular cleaning schedule that works for me and for my house and my life.
e. I have a vision and a goal of what I want my house to look and feel like and I will know that this has been accomplished when my house feels and looks the way it does in my head.

4. Continue to build new relationships.
a. I have started building new relationships and have been rebuilding some current relationships. I have found this to be most pleasing overall and really want to be purposeful about this.

5. Improve my education.
a. Ideally, I would love to continue to work on a degree, but honestly, I don't foresee that happening at this stage in my life. I am okay with that though. Or mostly okay with that at least.
b. There is a plethora of online resources for learning and I plan to utilize these to increase my education this year.

6. Improve our financial well-being.
a. This is an interesting thing for me to list in here, as I have actually stopped working regular hours and am just on PRN status with two different families, but maybe that is also while it is even more important.
b. I want to get all of our bills caught up and current within the first 3 months of this year.
c. Beginning in March, I want to pay off every bill IN FULL that we receive every month.
d. Beginning now, I do not want to accumulate any additional debt this year.
e. I also want to start putting money aside every paycheck (maybe 10%) to begin building a nest egg for a rainy day.
f. I want to get rid of our storage unit by March as well. That is money that we are spending each and every month that serves no real purpose for our lives. I do need to go through it and make it work into the space that we have available for long-term storage or make some tough decisions.

7. Get rid of 2012 items in 2012.
a. I have seen this on people's blogs this year and I would like to do that this year. It goes along perfectly with Resolution #6, part F, don't you think? I love it when things work together like that!

I think that is it for this year. I may come back and add more or even do a new post in which I change them or add to them or whatever, but I feel good about this list. I expanded on general goals and clearly defined what I want to happen. I will check back in with you all and let you know how they are going.

Organizing My Life - Week 1

2012-01-01T04:41:00.002-06:00

You all might remember when I first introduced this idea here and if so, you can see here and now that I remembered this and am still planning to stick to it. And for day numero uno, I have succeeded. I am awake and present and accounted for by 7am. It feels good to accomplish this goal already this morning! Yay for a good start to the year!

New Year's Eve!

2011-12-31T21:34:00.000-06:00

I began the early part of today in the hospital with Jeriah. Last night when we went to pick the kids up from a day at Grandma's house, I noticed that Jeriah didn't seem like himself, was warm to the touch and had a scratchy voice. Once I began observing him, we noticed that his lungs sounded off as well. It sounded quite a bit like he was growling from deep within his chest with each inhalation. I took his temp (axillary) and I know it wasn't on there for long enough because I was using an old-school mercury thermometer (both of MIL's digital thermometers were in need of new batteries) but even still, his temp read at 100.2, which I am quite certain was a full degree less than his actual temp.

I called our doctor's office to get the procedure rolling so that I could get a first thing in the morning sick appointment set up with our pediatrician. The office uses a nurse line so I called that and after the nurse had gotten my information from me and then also listened to Jeriah's breathing over the phone, recommended that we call an ambulance to have him transported to the nearest emergency room. I declined the ambulance and told her that we weren't far from "West" (the nickname for one of our three hospitals) and she then suggested that we go to "East" instead because "West" doesn't have a pediatrics ward should he be admitted.

So, I drove him in. The wait was FOREVER long but they were very friendly and even gave Jeriah his own crayons and coloring book to color in and take home with him. In Triage, we discovered his temperature was actually 102.5. Shortly thereafter, we were taken back to a room and they were pretty prompt at getting him checked out. The P.A. who saw him was AMAZING. She doesn't like to use antibiotics unless absolutely necessary. We have a lot of the same beliefs regarding medical care and what/how to treat/not treat certain things. For instance, we don't generally medicate for fevers unless they are greater than 102. We are more likely to medicate for a child's comfort and ability to sleep while sick than for fever. And we also generally take a "wait and see" approach before using antibiotics.

They gave him a dose of Motrin since it is also an NSAID (non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug) to reduce his fever and also because of it being an NSAID to reduce any potential swelling that he might have had going on. They also gave him an oral steroid to help out with his lungs and his breathing situation. His oxygen saturation level was 94% following that, which was an improvement over what it had been when we first got there (around 92%) and he was just laying there sleeping soundly. His fever actually went up even more before they got it to go down. They ended up giving him a dose of Tylenol as well and when we left, his temperature had dropped down to 101. Normally, they keep kids there until their fevers are down to less than 100* but I was comfortable with his fever so we were able to leave prior to their standard protocol.

And then it was one of Hubby's bosses last day at work, so after dropping a sleeping Jeriah off with Hubby, I went over to the restaurant and spent some time with the staff and management and got to say goodbye. Hubby had already had an opportunity to do so while he was at work.

I got home, went to bed and then got up with the kids in the morning when they got up. They actually all slept in until 8:30, which is unheard of around these parts.

We had plans for the day but most of them were cancelled with Jeriah being sick so we just had a low-key day. I let the kids just do their own thing with playing video games and watching movies. It's not something that they get to do very often, so they thoroughly enjoyed it. And after the LONG, LATE night I had, I needed the time as well.

Tonight, they are watching a movie for our regular "Saturday Night Movie Night" and Hubby is also watching it with them. We rented Kung Fu Panda 2 (I believe) and they all seem to be enjoying it.

Tomorrow begins our new chore chart and rewards system that I spent WAY too long today working on. The kids actually requested to go back to this system again because it is by far their favorite chore system. I'm definitely okay with it as well.

Tomorrow is also the day that we will be spending with my mom and brother for Christmas. We were going to do it today but since I had a long night and Jeriah isn't feeling very well and my mom and my brother both smoke (though not inside my house), we felt it was best for his lungs to have a chance to recuperate for an extra day before being exposed to that.

Tomorrow is also the day that I begin my new plan that I started <a href="http://catalina-at-home-at-work-at-play.blogspot.com/2011/11/organizing-my-life-intro.html">here</a> back in November. I cannot wait! Although, admittedly, I would prefer to sleep in a little bit tomorrow. Ah well, it'll be okay.

You can see some of my New Year's Resolutions in that link there.

Oh - and my new favorite hardware store has an AMAZING sale going on tomorrow as well, which I fully plan to stop by and take part in. There are a number of things that I am planning on picking up and it will be so wonderful to get some much needed items to do household projects with.

Speaking of household projects, when we moved to this house, the previous owner, Allison, had these really nice sheer chocolate drapes hanging up in the living room and front room. I found out where she got them and they are SO much cheaper than I had anticipated. They are definitely in the budget now, so that is one item on my to-do list for this first week of 2012.

I have also decided that I want to do a couple of things this year in addition to the other blog post. I want to get rid of (minimum) 2012 items this year through donation, consignment, gifting or trashing those items that need it.

I also want to do a household task each week, whether it is decorating, cooking, cleaning, whatever the case may be.

Week #1 - Buy and hang new sheer drapery panels for the front room and living room.

Last Company Coffee of 2011

2011-12-30T12:34:00.001-06:00

Today is the day for the last Company Coffee for the year and I am so excited about Rachel's Small Things coming up this year. And also for the big things that we will be doing as well! Yay! I haven't really tried to create as much Sanctuary here at our new place as I did the at old one. And we moved in July. Yeah. I think that pretty much sums it all up.

As it is right now, my house is in major need of a thorough deep clean, I have window treatments that need to go up. I finally did find some that are in our budget and much like the ones that were already here when we moved in, so that is exciting for me. Now I just have to wait til Hubby gets home after work today to show him.

Although the Sanctuary aspect of our home is missing lately, the kids have definitely enjoyed our little projects and work times together this semester break. We have made and decorated Rice Krispie treats (as opposed to cookies) and we have plans to make and decorate sugar cookies and gingerbread houses. These are projects that we work on while Hubby is at work because they stress him out and the kids and I would prefer to not stress him out.

We had a wonderful Christmas and I hope you all did as well. We have had three Christmas celebrations so far. One for Hubby's mom's side of the family, one for Hubby's dad's side of the family, and then our own little family. Tomorrow, we have one more with my mom and brother. I don't know yet if we are going to my mom's house or if they are coming over here but either way, it should be a great time as well.

We have a very full month. Four family Christmas celebrations, two violin performances, one piano performance, Wolf Scouts, Webelo Scouts, Daisy Scouts, working in the classrooms, field trips, illnesses, company in from out of town, you name it. And I love it!

So without further ado, I will turn you over to the other ladies at Company Coffee! Go check them all out and maybe link up yourself! It's a great chance to get to know some great ladies! Have a very Happy New Year!

Wedding Prep - Flower Girl Dress Shopping - Take 1

2011-12-01T21:45:00.036-06:00

As promised, I am back with photos from the dress shopping for a flower girl dress. I have decided that I am going to use this photo (to the left) in every post about the wedding. Because it is a picture that the bride-to-be loves and is a flower that she had wanted to use in her wedding until she discovered that the image was a created one, not a photograph.

But moving on to the pictures now. I cropped the pictures down to just the dress which is something that I wish I had thought of doing before. It really allows me to see each dress individually instead of looking at the smile that my daughter is surprisingly NOT wearing in most of the photos. You'll have to trust me on this. She was tired and hungry and a little bit shy. Which apparently adds up to not smiling when the camera is near her. Away from the camera, she was bouncing and skipping and twirling. Children.

Okay, this is the dress that we are most in love with at this point. It's gorgeous. And the beading on the sash really closely matches the beading on the bride's dress. I am in love with this dress and am really hoping that this is the one that we end up choosing. In the end, it's up to the bride, but at this point, she is also in love with this dress. I will just have to remind her how much we love this dress when we go to look at other ones. We are planning on shopping other stores over the next few months to have Oralee try on dresses and decide which one we absolutely love.

Oh and yes, you do see a veil in the back of this photo. My mother-in-law was holding it above Oralee's head and trying to get her to smile for the picture. But obviously, Oralee will NOT be wearing a veil (although I totally think she could...)

This is another dress that we liked quite a bit. I personally love the thick piping around the bottom hem of the tulle, but my mother-in-law and future sister-in-law were not fans of it and that's okay too. Especially since we are all smitten with the dress above.

One other thing that I liked quite a bit about this dress was the sash. It is tulle material but it has a bow and is decorative. When we took the dress off the rack, the bow was in the front center, but the sash is totally removable and when I put it on Oralee, I positioned it to the side to see how it looked and I quite like the look of it that way.

Due to multiple clothing changes, Oralee's hair got quite static-y and I brushed it and was going to put it up in a pony tail to try and alleviate that problem, but no one had a pony tail holder with them. I didn't even have my wallet with me. I was really flying by the seat of my pants! So in a pinch, I did what I could with Oralee's hair, which was a bun with her hair pulled through to secure it. It lasted until the next outfit change and then it was down again. Of course, I couldn't get it back up again after that, but I just loved the way her hair looked so I had to take a picture. I think I am going to do her hair like this more often. How cute is that?!

We had other dresses that we tried on, but I only took pictures of the ones that we liked the best. Lots more dresses to come though! Brace yourself! You will be seeing a LOT of wedding between now and then! :)

Wedding Prep...

2011-11-29T23:30:00.002-06:00

My brother-in-law is getting married next year to the most amazing woman. Dan and Jess have been dating for three or four years now and I am so excited for their upcoming wedding! I had been hoping for a couple of years that he'd just propose already and then last year (I believe) he finally did!

So, now we are on to wedding prep. I get to be a part of it, which is super cool to me. Hubby and I didn't have a wedding, so I missed out on all the fun festivities that Jess is planning. And my little Oralee is the flower girl. Tomorrow, we meet with a florist and a bakery and start shopping for flower girl dresses. Of course, we won't actually buy the dress until next year when they are getting married, because Oralee is only five right now and will likely change sizes by then.

I am just so far beyond excited about this whole thing! Jess is amazing and I love her to pieces! She is my sister, even though she hasn't yet become my sister-in-law. We don't hang out (we live about 50 miles apart and we don't travel each other's way very often) but we get along supremely well!

Next year, they are getting married on Koren's ninth birthday. He is ecstatic about it! I mean, how could he not be? He gets to be a part of a HUGE party on his birthday (it isn't his party, but he gets to go to it), he gets to dress up, he gets to stay up late, and he gets his first aunt! ♥ Love that boy!

Hubby has two younger brothers, I have one younger brother. We have no sisters. Jess is greatly needed! :)

And tomorrow, we shop! Can't wait! May even have some pictures to show for it.

Daisy Party

2011-11-16T06:30:00.005-06:00

This past Monday was our Daisy meeting. For those of you that may not know, Daisies are the youngest group of Girl Scouts, made up of Kindergartners and First Graders. My Oralee is a Kindergartner. And this past Monday, we met with her other Daisy Scouts and celebrated Juliette Gordon-Low's birthday. Juliette is the founder of Girl Scouts and her birthday is October 31st. She founded Girl Scouts 100 years ago. So this is an important year in Girl Scouts.

We made a card for Juliette and we celebrated all of the girls' birthdays. It was quite a nice time! We also discussed (and earned!) the petals for "being a sister to other Girl Scouts". And the girls also decorated some shirts. It was a lot of fun and Oralee did a fantastic job!

Here is the (VERY!) decorated card that the girls made for Juliette:

I just love the creativity of the girls! They were so into decorating that card! It is quite the change from working with Cub Scouts the last 3-4 years, let me tell you!

Also we got preliminary information on Cookie Sales! We are doing direct sales this year - for the first time! The girls will have cookies that they can sell (and deliver) right away! No more card orders and waiting til March to get your cookies (unless of course, we run out! And even then, we would try to fill the order by getting it from the office or another troop or something. I am really excited about this! Oralee already has probably close to $100 in sales lined up for January 13th. This will be an awesome thing for her! She is so quiet and shy and I think it will really do her quite a bit of good to do the sales and build up her people skills and confidence. She did quite well tagging along with the boys while they were selling popcorn for Cub Scouts.

Very fun and exciting times!

Such Great News

2011-11-15T08:00:00.001-06:00

I have already mentioned it briefly <a href="http://catalina-at-home-at-work-at-play.blogspot.com/2011/11/thirty-thankful-days-days-11-15.html">here</a> but recently Hubby has been offered more hours at work. This is great for us! My hours were pretty much set in stone, but I was on call all the time and often would bring (unpaid) work home with me. Recently, I have had some time off from work and during this time, Hubby had been working more hours and has had the time and opportunity to really put his best foot forward at work.

His boss pulled him aside and told him that he had asked around about Hubby and the feedback he had received was very good. Boss said that the only negative feedback that he received about Hubby was that he didn't work often enough (wasn't scheduled enough). So Boss asked him if he would be interested in more hours at work and even asked him what hours he would want to have if given a choice. Hubby said he would prefer to work Monday - Friday closing shifts. That way he would still have his Saturday evenings to spend with his friends and his Sunday evenings for time with our friends as a couple. I can always get out with my friends on Sunday evenings after we spend time with our other friends, if I want to.

Some other really nice things about this would be the increased money that Hubby would earn (he makes 50 cents more per hour when he closes) and the possibility of having a predictable schedule in an industry where predictable schedules are not always the norm. And I would be able to possibly stay home with the kids full-time or just work a few hours each week/on call hours.

I just really hope that the whole thing works out the way that I'm wanting it to. It would, of course, mean that I would be on my own from dinnertime to bedtime with the kids and that I would need to figure out how to coordinate our activity schedules to make that work out. But even still, it would be a small price to pay for the ability to do stay home. During the morning, Hubby would be sleeping and that would allow Jeriah and I time to spend together just the two of us. Then in the afternoon, while Jeriah is at school, that would give me time to spend alone with Hubby or to go in and volunteer during those hours. I would just have a lot of time to get things accomplished around the house if this came about.

Then, in the evenings, we would just follow our normal schedule (although it would be a little more routine simply because I would always be the one doing it - two people never have the same exact routine when left in charge) and I think that would benefit everyone greatly! I have a very Type A personality and am all about scheduling and planning and organizing and my kids also thrive best on a fairly structured schedule.

Well, I'm off. I just had to share this with all of you! Wish us luck!

Thirty Thankful Days - Days 11-15

2011-11-15T06:00:00.012-06:00

Click to go to Day 11

Day 11: Today I am thankful for good friends. My best friend of 18 years came into town tonight and we had time to spend together. We were going to just go out the two of us, but at the last minute, we decided to bring our hubbies along as well. And I am so glad that we did! Shea and I had a great time hanging out, chatting and catching up and the guys had a good time as well. It ended up being a pretty late night by the time Hubby and I got home (around 3 am) because we ended up going shopping for a couple of things afterwards and then visiting with another friend at her work (she works 3rd shift) and then coming home. Hubby had to take my mom home along with my two oldest boys (who she allowed to stay up til 3am!) and I promptly fell asleep on the couch. That is why this post is so late in coming.

Click to go to Day 12

Day 12: On this day, we went over to my in-law's house to watch the college football game and even though my mother-in-law and I had a bit of a falling out earlier in the week, we had a nice visit and talked about house remodeling stuff and various things. In the afternoon, she and father-in-law went to watch a movie and allowed us to have a couple of friends come over to visit and play cards, so we did. When they got back from their movie, we all sat around and played a card came called Pitch. It was so much fun and I was thankful once again for friends and also for the kindness from my in-laws.

Click to go to Day 13

Day 13: I was tired. But tired doesn't even begin to cover it. I was exhausted. On Day 11, I had been up way too late (3am) and then ended up waking up around 4 and not being able to fall back to sleep until almost 6, then got up with kids around 7. So about two hours of sleep that night. Then I was awake ALL day on Day 12 - I even laid down with Jeriah to get him to nap and didn't fall asleep! So by the time we got home on Day 12, I was exhausted! The kids went to bed without too much fuss and I crashed hard. I woke up off and on about every two hours but was actually able to fall back to sleep. I woke up for the day around 7 on this day, but thanks to my Hubby was able to take a 2 hour nap. (I let him sleep in til noon.) That nap was so refreshing and necessary! It was fabulous!

Click to go to Day 14

Day 14: That was yesterday. I was thankful for my mother-in-law and her willingness to help me out with time crunches and kids' activities. You see, we live on the north end of town. The older boys, Cephas and Koren, have music lessons on the south side of town at 6:00pm. That's around 10 miles from where we live - or a 30 minute drive. But Oralee also had a Daisy meeting to go to at 6:30pm - the same time the boys get out of music lessons - close to our home. It is not even remotely possible to do both things unless Hubby is home and he wasn't. Because he had to work a closing shift. So my mother-in-law came to my house and picked up all three boys so that I could be with Oralee at her meeting without having to try to chase Jeriah down. She picked them up at 5:00 and then dropped them back off at 8:00. It was really nice that I had her to be able to do that for me. Otherwise, at least one child would have had to miss something and I didn't want for that to happen.

Click to go to Day 15

Day 15: That is today but I already know what I'm thankful for today. This morning when Hubby got home, he told me that his boss wants him to pick up more hours at work. Ideally, the boss would like Hubby to close 5 nights a week, which is good money for us because Hubby makes an additional 50 cents per hour on closing shifts. So today I am thankful for that - and the fact that if this happens, I can stay home full-time with the kids or at the very least, work part-time or even just PRN shifts. It is something that I am totally hopeful for but we will have to wait and see if that is something that will come to fruition.

Thirty Thankful Days - Day 10

2011-11-10T22:00:00.002-06:00

Today, I am thankful for time to myself. I had a very rare opportunity this morning to have the house all to myself. There was NO ONE home except for me and the dogs from almost 8 am until nearly 3pm then from 3pm til around 4pm.

In that time, I was able to get a number of things done. I did some laundry, gathered dishes, gathered trash, unloaded the dishwasher, reloaded and ran the dishwasher, cleared off and wiped down all the counters, cleaned the inside of the microwave, cleaned the stove, straightened up everything in the dining room, cleared off and wiped down the bar area, cleared off a bookshelf and moved it, cleared off an endtable, wiped it down, cleared off the couch, dusted the entire living room, top to bottom, washed the living room windows inside and out (double-hung windows that both lean inwards!), cleaned the window sills and frames, dusted and wiped down the bookshelf and put new items back onto it, cleared out the kennels, cleared off the entertainment center, wiped it down, reorganized the shelves, vacuumed, hung window treatments in the living room and front room, changed out a light bulb in Oralee's bedroom. Okay, changing a light bulb may not seem worthy of sharing in a list like this but I think any light bulb change that requires a pair of slip-joint pliers gets to count for SOMETHING, thus, it gets included. And if I ever find out who designed the lighting system in this home....grrr.

So anyhow, I got all that accomplished before noon. So I treated myself to a relaxing rest. I didn't sleep though. I laid on the sofa and texted with a friend. I felt like I had worked hard for a break. But then I kind of didn't get back to it much for the rest of the day. But I feel like I have an amazing starting point for tomorrow!

I am thankful for the solitary time that I had today, for the work that it allowed me to accomplish, the relaxed time it allowed me to spend this afternoon. Sometimes things like that just have the power to rejuvenate me. I feel fired up and ready to tackle more tomorrow!

Organizing My Life - Intro

2011-11-10T05:30:00.003-06:00

I have decided to start a new plan for myself for the year 2012. I want to start implementing a number of different things. I want to give myself a new task to incorporate each week. It will be something minor each week but little things that will help me to get and stay on track as I progress through the year.

What do you think? Does this look like something that would help you as well? I'd love to hear your feedback so that I know if this is something that I should maybe stock in an etsy shop. Also, I would love to have 3 people try it out and let me know what they think of it. I want to know if it helps you.

No matter what I do online, I have to have a physical paper version of it to really get me to stick to it. My problem with online things is simply that. They are online. Which involves me sitting at my desk (if I am using the desktop computer) or on the sofa (if I am on my laptop) where I am not exactly motivated to get whatever it is done that needs to be done.

This way, I can put it on a clipboard or inside a page protector and hang it somewhere that I am sure to see everyday. Like the wall next to my desk or in the kitchen. Shoot, even in the bathroom would work but I'm not sold on hanging it there. Unless I had multiple copies of the same sheet and hung them up in the room where each job would end up occurring so that I would be sure to see it while I was in that room. I don't know, I guess it could work. We'll see though. I'm going to start out with just one copy put up in a central location.

Who knows? If this works for me, it might even work for the kids to develop personal responsibility habits? It just might work to help them out as well.

Thirty Thankful Days - Day 9

2011-11-09T22:00:00.001-06:00

I have been hit hard by whatever this is that has been plaguing me this past week. Today I am thankful for the ability to stay in bed all day long. I went back to bed around 10:00, I think it was. I would have to check my text history to see which was the last message I sent before falling asleep, because I can fall asleep just that fast sometimes (but never when I want or need it to happen!) and then I slept for the rest of the day, waking up sometime around 9:00pm. But I needed it. I truly did. Of course, that means that I'm up at 2:00 in the morning writing blog posts and planning and cleaning and watching TV instead of sleeping. I hope to be able to lay back down and get some sleep so that I can get myself readjusted before the kids come home from school tomorrow afternoon. It's a start...

And in the meantime, I'll just keep trying to get over whatever this thing is. The good news is that I can now eat without feeling like I am going to die. I always call that a good thing.

Thirty Thankful Days - Day 8

2011-11-08T22:00:00.003-06:00

Today is Day 8 and it is really easy to choose what I am thankful for today. If you read my post from 11:30 last night, you can probably guess. Today I am thankful for forgiveness. I am thankful that I have the ability to mess up, to be sorry and to be forgiven. I don't try to mess up. I'd love to never mess up. But the fact is, that I do mess up. But I am forgiven. And I'm grateful!

Organized Home Challenge - Week 45 prep

2011-11-08T15:00:00.000-06:00

Kids' Bedroom Organizing Challenge

Wow. Can my kids (and I) ever use this challenge right now! I also like the idea of doing this challenge at this point, where it is far enough before Christmas that we can weed out space for the incoming new items, yet it won't leave them feeling deprived of their purged belongings because Christmas will be coming up soon enough.

In the older boys' bedroom, they have two twin beds. We hope to change this out to twin beds or even really to this one bed I found that has a set of twin beds with an attached loft bed, creating an L-shape. I love that bed design! Three beds taking up the floor space of one! Perfect for a small room!

Anyhow, for right now, only the two older boys are sharing a room and that is the one that I am going to share with you. Their room is done up in a sort of sports theme. I wish it was more complete but it's a work in progress.

We start out with their beds. Two twin beds. We have had these beds in nearly every single configuration that is possible in this room. The way it is right now is the configuration that they have chosen. They also have their dresser and Koren's keyboard (for his music practice) and Cephas' violin and music stand (for his music practice). They also have some toys in their room as well as some storage drawers that they have inherited from my mother-in-law's garage sale pile. Well, actually, I inherited them, but then didn't need them afterall and so I offered them to the boys.

Cephas also uses an older wooden tv tray as a night stand next to his bed. I actually like this idea because it takes up less room than his old one did and it matches the wood tone of their beds. The dresser is another story as it does not match but that's something that I have just come to deal with. We bought that dresser back in the day when Cephas was an only child. And a teeny tiny child at that. Like two years old. It's been around awhile now. It definitely shows too!

But we're not here to talk about his dresser. We're here to make sure that their room is organized and functional for them. The first step to do that is to determine what this space is used for.

The first, primary use of their bedroom is for sleeping. For sleeping, they need beds. Check.

The second use of this space is for clothing storage. They have a dresser. Check.

The third use of this space is for music practice. They have their music area set up. Check.

The fourth use of this space is for playing with toys. This is one of the areas that needs some fine-tuning. They have storage and they have toys, but I think it could use some tweaking to be honest. Koren tends to be a very orderly child. He likes to have his toys separated into different bins or compartments or whatever based on what the item is. So all of his Hot Wheels are together, all of his dinosaurs are together, all of his sea animals are together, all of his stuffed animals are together, so on and so forth. Which I love! That is a child who takes after my CDO (a family joke - CDO is like OCD but in alphabetical order the way it should be).

Cephas also likes storage bins and having things organized. However, there's something missing somewhere between having the containers and keeping things organized. He also tends to be a bit on the hoarder side of things. Or so it seems. The fact that he has an old end table that we tried to get rid of and an old computer that barely functions in his closet is an indication of that.

So, that is the primary thing that I am going to be working on this week with them. Organizing their space for their toy/playing/entertainment functions. Check back at the beginning of next week to see how it turns out.

Tackle It Tuesday - November Week 2

2011-11-08T05:30:00.009-06:00

After the weekend I had, there is plenty to tackle around here! *SOME DONE* I have a mountain of laundry that needs to be folded and put away.
I will be working on this today. Much as I'd like to not do it.

*SOME DONE* I have another mountain of laundry that needed to be washed and dried so that it could be folded and put away.
And another item that I will be working on today.

*SOME DONE* The main rooms in the house (front room, living room, kitchen, dining room and bathroom) could all use a thorough and detailed cleaning.
Not sure about a thorough cleaning but a good picking up is definitely in the cards for these rooms. Hubby did a fantastic job in the kitchen late last night so there really isn't much to do in that room. Same goes with the bar area of the living room.
I did a thorough job in the dining room and a general picking up of the other rooms. It works. I always start in the dining room for some odd reason and then work into the kitchen, then to the bar area, then the living room, front room, entry area, bathroom and then the hallway. It's the way that I clean the house. I don't know why exactly, it just is.

*DONE* The shed needs to be cleared out so that we have room in there to put our exercise bike (because we don't have room for it in the house at this point...although since it is getting colder and less likely that we would be using our regular bikes, it would make more sense to have this indoors) and for our bikes and for the lawn mower.
Before this blog post even went live, Hubby went out and cleared out a large portion of the shed so that we could begin to use it more effectively. So this item is already done. The bikes and lawn mower have yet to go in there though.

There is a pile of various things out in back of our house next to deck that need to be taken over to the dumpster so that it can be hauled away.
It has been raining and is set to snow later today, so this one is not getting done for this post. Maybe next week's post?

We need to put up some new fascia on the shed so that the rain (and eventually the snow and ice) doesn't damage the wood supporting the roof.
Because it has been raining and is set to snow later today, this one is not getting done for this post either. Maybe next week's post?

*DONE* I need to put away a card table that I've had sitting out in the bar area of our living room.
Before this blog post even went live, Hubby took down the card table and put all of the things that were on it, um, somewhere? I am not sure exactly where he put the things that were on it, to be honest. Probably in our bedroom? It's kind of messy in there right now but I have plans for that room tomorrow.

We need to clear off the front porch, which has become a collecting ground of sorts. Plus, my mom smokes out there and leaves her messes out there and I don't always see it in time to ask her to clean up after herself. (Plus, I would expect that a 50-something would just know and do it, but that's another story completely)
It is unlikely that this one will be done today due to the rain and impending snow this evening. Maybe next week's post?

We need to replace some of the boards across our back deck.
Nope. This one is DEFINITELY not happening today. Maybe next week's post?

I want to put up some chicken wire on the inside of our back deck so that I can send the dogs out there to get some fresh air. They will stay on the deck on their own but it's more for their safety than anything else. The little dogs can get really rambunctious and I don't want them to get crazy while playing and accidentally knock the other one off the porch through the rail slats.
I will probably do this one around the same time as the one above, so this one won't be done today either. Maybe next week's post?

We also need to work on our storage unit, decluttering and getting rid of things that we no longer want or need.
I am a wimp and don't want to work outside in the cold and rain on something like this. Plus it would be easier to do without the kids and when we have more time available to do it. Maybe next week's post?

Both of our vehicles need a thorough clearing out. They are both so messy! Plus, mine still has lots of stuff in it from camping three weeks ago? Yeah, it's needing to be done.
Once again, I'm a wimp. I don't want to clean out vehicles in the cold rain. Maybe next week's post?

*DONE* We have also been contemplating moving a few things around and making some changes to Cephas and Koren's room as well. We are thinking about making a music area in their room for Cephas to practice his violin and Koren to practice piano (well, we have a keyboard but you get the idea!). Not totally sure where we are on this though!
This is another item that Hubby had started and which I plan to continue working on some today. This is one that will be getting done today.

*DONE* I also could clean out the front closet and get it ready for winter wear. Which means we will have winter coats AND jackets being stored in there as well as our gloves and hats and scarves.
This one has a definite possibility of happening today as I need to get it done. our weather here varies so much that it is important to keep the items that we could possibly need for the weather on hand and organized.

*SKIPPED* I also have to prepare for our Daisy Troop meeting for next week! Oh my!
This also has strong potential to get done today. I need to talk to my co-leader though. She probably thinks that I've been ignoring her. Which I haven't. I've just been VERY busy!

So, which one will I choose? Check back to see!

Struggles

2011-11-07T23:30:00.000-06:00

They happen in real life and I'm not about to hide them. As you all know already, Oralee got sick on Friday and had shown some improvement by Saturday and Sunday. Night time was still a major issue with her and I called her in on Monday because of the rough night she had on Sunday night.

And let me tell you, that child was UPSET that I called her in too! She raged at me about it. I know she was sick and wouldn't be able to focus in school and needed a day home to just be able to recoup, but man alive! She was angry. She was talking about how she had science class and how she doesn't like science class but she learns during it and how she was going to miss it. If you followed that one better than I did, kudos to you because she lost me on it. She doesn't like it, but she was upset that she was missing it? Yeah. I don't know.

She was also completely convinced that she is never going to be able to go back to school again. You know, because she missed one day. Yep, one day out of school and now she is a kindergarten drop-out. I know, I shouldn't jest, but seriously? The child is intense.

So today, we were home and I was still feeling under the weather myself. It seems that every single time I ingest something, I have sharp, hot, stabbing pains in my stomach that last for hours. It's bad. And I have been moody today. Like chewing out the whole entire world moody. I was hurting and people kept doing things that upset me. Which is true. People were doing things that upset me. But I also had a choice in how I handled it. And needless to say, I did not handle it well.

The only thing that I handled at least moderately well was dealing with my mother-in-law chewing me out for something that I had nothing to do with. She knows that I had nothing to do with it, had no knowledge of what happened, yet still felt it would benefit somehow to chew me out for 30 minutes (on a day I am not feeling well, mind you!). Actually, I hope it helped her to relieve some of her stress because she needed it. But even still, it wasn't something that I did, had any part in doing or even knew about and I still got to spend half an hour of my day on the phone listening to her yell about it.

And actually, maybe I should have said something more than what I did (which wasn't much) but I just don't know really how to handle that kind of situation. It has been my experience for many years that when someone has their mind made up about something and they are set in their way of thinking, it really doesn't do much good to try and convince them otherwise. But in not sticking up for myself, I don't know if that indicates somehow to her that I am at fault for what was upsetting her? I don't honestly know.

And even though, we are both grown adult women, she is somehow still like an authority over me. Maybe that's just the way that I was raised. My grandmother was still very much an authority over my mother and so I can see that somewhat being the way those kind of relationships are supposed to be. But at the same time, I am now (and have been for the past 12 years) the authority figure over my mother as well. That's a whole other story though.

So today, I am struggling. My mother-in-law is mad at me, I have been horribly moody to my own family, I have been sick and in pain for most of the day. I am depressed too. I feel like there are a lot of negative things happening right now and I don't know exactly what to do about it.

Oh - and my own younger brother called me yesterday and left me a voicemail message cussing me out for not doing my mom's yardwork. You know, since I'm just sitting around all day eating bon-bons and such. He was upset because he had to do her yardwork for her, which simply was not the case. But regardless, it seems that this weekend and Monday, the only thing I was successful at doing was igniting the anger of everyone around me.

I feel like I'm not enough. Like I am somehow failing EVERY single person in my life. And I know in my head that really, that's not the case, but sometimes the way you perceive something ends up being more powerful than reality.

However, I finally finished reading a great book today on my Kindle app (for the computer) although, I cannot even begin to tell you which book it was. I'd have to go through and try to figure that out based on the books that show they have been read completely through. But there was a quote in the book that I absolutely loved. "You are not truly sorry if you are still blaming someone else for your actions." Kathryn Cushman. A Promise to Remember (p. 267). Kindle Edition. Okay, so I decided that it was worth looking for. For some odd reason, it didn't show up as me having read through the whole book but I forgot that the app had an error and closed itself down so that is probably why. I plan to do a review of this book later on, but I just wanted to share this one line from there. Incredible line isn't it?

That fact that it hit home when I read it is part of the reason that I needed to share it with you though. No matter how I have been (or just perceive to have been) wronged by others, my bad attitude today was mine and mine alone. Granted, I shared it with just about everyone. But it was MINE.

It doesn't matter that my mother-in-law was blaming me for something that I had nothing to do with. Or that my brother left me a message on me out on the phone for something that I honestly had not had time to take care of. Or that Hubby did not make sure that Cephas had violin after school on Friday yet specifically told me that he had sent him back in to get it. Or that because of said missing violin that BOTH Cephas and Koren missed their music lessons this evening. Or that housework wasn't getting done today because I was literally barely able to move from the couch today. (Seriously - I have had ONE bathroom trip ALL day long! I even ate my ONE meal laying on the couch.) Or that Hubby didn't seem inspired to help out as much I thought he should have. No matter what happens, I have a choice in how I perceive it and how I respond to it.

Today, I struggled. I took everything as a personal attack (some were but still...) and I responded in a poor manner. Those were both my choice to make. I didn't make the right one. But I am now. I was rude, short-tempered and moody. Today I struggled but I know that my family forgives me. They know I am truly sorry. I don't blame them. It wasn't them. It was me. Things like those listed in the previous paragraph happen quite frequently. Generally, they don't affect me the way it did today. But there's always tomorrow and it will be better. But for today, I am sorry.

Thirty Thankful Days - Day 7

2011-11-07T21:00:00.002-06:00

Today I am thankful for my ability to be involved in my kids' education. I was supposed to be working in Oralee's classroom this morning and then in Cephas' classroom afterwards. But due to our illnesses, it didn't happen. Just the same, it is absolutely wonderful to be able to be fully involved in their classrooms and to be able to see my children during their school day. I have yet to be able to make arrangements to be in Koren or Jeriah's rooms but I plan to email to make those kind of arrangements to be in their classrooms once a week as well.

I am in Oralee's classroom every other Monday for an hour and a half and in Cephas' classroom every Monday for as long as his teacher needs me. I have days available to be in Jeriah and Koren's classrooms as well. I'm trying to decide if I should make it an all-day Monday thing. Help out in Jeriah's classroom from the start of his school day for an hour or so and then head on over to Koren's classroom and be there til the end of the school day? I can definitely see that working out well! I do know that Koren's teacher could use help on Thursdays stuffing the students' Thursday Folders. Maybe I could go in and do that for all three of the older kids' classes. But really, the bottom line is that I love being in the classroom and if I could, I would love to teach. Maybe that is something to look into though. I am still so undecided on what I want to do for my professional career. Someday, I will decide what I want to do. But until then, I am happy and thankful for this opportunity to be able to be with the kids.

Menu Plan Monday - 11/7

2011-11-07T04:30:00.001-06:00

Well, here we go. We're gearing up towards Thanksgiving! And towards the increased food prepared for the holiday as well. Some of my pre-Thanksgiving menu planning will begin this week.

Monday, November 7, 2011
Tuna mac casserole
(Music lessons so will need to be pre-made)

Tuesday, November 8, 2011
Chicken noodle soup

Wednesday, November 9, 2011
Chicken and cheese enchiladas
(Church group so will need to be pre-made)

Thursday, November 10, 2011
Kids' choice
(Pack meeting so will need to be pre-made)

Friday, November 11, 2011
Lasagna

Saturday, November 12, 2011
(L) Bread bowl chili
(11 am college football game so will need to pre-made)
(D) Homemade pizzas

Sunday, November 13, 2011
(L) Broiled chicken, potatoes and veggies
(Church before hand so will need to be pre-prepped)
(D) Beef brisket, potatoes and veggies

Thirty Thankful Days - Day 6

2011-11-06T21:00:00.006-06:00

Okay, in all honesty, this one may sound kind of weird but today, I am thankful for my Hubby's friends and for their ongoing plans for Saturday nights. I know that it is good for the two of us to have some of our own friends, our own interests. Not so many years ago, I thought that we had to do everything together and the only friends we should have are the ones that we have together. It wasn't healthy nor right, but all I wanted was for everything to be even and equal. Yet today, I am so thankful that they are not all equal and even. I am thankful that we have our own friends and our own interests. I am thankful for the way these things allow us to grow and experience other things. It is truly wonderful.

So today, I say thank you to Ratt, Tiny, Squish, Rolo and Nate for being such awesome friends to my Hubby and for having your usual Saturday night plans every week. You guys rejuvenate my Hubby and he looks forward to his time with you guys all week long!

Intentional Acts of Kindness - Days 1-6

2011-11-06T21:00:00.005-06:00

I decided to list these acts of kindness out once a week on Sundays, so here goes:

Tuesday, November 1st, 2011
I went over to my mom's house and took her out to do some grocery shopping. It was later in the evening and I was tired, but I did it anyhow. I actually ended up having a pretty nice evening with her. She also asked me to check on a few things for her in her house, which I also did.

Wednesday, November 2nd, 2011
We had our home visit with Jeriah's teacher today and Hubby was SO tired. I had been up much of the night helping my mom with things and getting other things ready for the kids for school, so I was tired as well. Regardless, once we got home, I had him go lay down and I stayed up to get Jeriah off to school before laying down and taking a nap myself. That was extremely hard to do.

Thursday, November 3rd, 2011
On this particular evening, we went out to the mall for a little bit and while there, I picked up a few items to put into a box for a donation to our local mission.

Friday, November 4th, 2011
I was home taking care of a sick child most of this particular day. I did let kids watch a movie on this day after they had their homework and chores done.

Saturday, November 5th, 2011
I was battling the sickness that Oralee had on this day and as such, I let the kids do a minimum amount of chores and they also had more screen time than they normally would have. I know that this doesn't particularly count, but we didn't go anywhere or do anything and I barely made it off the couch this day, so I think it counts. Plus, kindness begins at home, right?

Sunday, November 6, 2011
Well, this one is honestly tied to Saturday as well, but here it is. Even though, I was battling the sickness that I inherited from Oralee (who was better by the way), I encouraged Hubby to stick with his plans to spend time with his friends. They have standing plans to get together on Saturday evenings. Generally speaking, they get done around midnight and Hubby is almost always home by 1am. On this particular night/morning, Hubby didn't get home until around 3am, which would have been 4am had it not been for the time change. Anyhow, even though he was out three hours later than I expected him to be, I didn't get mad at him for it. I knew that he had missed seeing his friends and was enjoying himself. He hadn't seen them the last few weeks because of his work schedule.

Also, while he was gone, I was able to talk to an old friend of ours. As it turns out, this particular friend really needed someone to just listen to him, which I did. This friend of ours is really facing some personal challenges right now and I hope that by being there for him to talk to and lean on, I was able to help him in some small way.

Some things I want to do this coming week:
(MON) Take my mom out to run errands
(TUE) Take a load of donation items to the local mission
(WED) Check on the possibility of serving the community somehow
(THU) Taking part in a volunteer advisory committee for our school system
(FRI) Volunteer at the kids' school (outside of my normal hours)
(SAT) Take the kids out to a park to pick up litter
(SUN) Volunteer in the church nursery

You can click the picture above to be taken to the linky where all these Intentional Acts of Kindness are taking place!

Thirty Thankful Days - Day 5

2011-11-05T21:00:00.003-05:00

Today is Day 5 of 30 Thankful Days. I have one sick kiddo and I had a laundry room overflowing with things needing to be washed. Mostly bedding. We'll leave it at that. And you know what? I am thankful for that. I am thankful that I am able to be here with my little Oralee while she is sick. I am thankful that I have a laundry room in which to take care of the linens as they were dirtied.

My mother-in-law took the kids overnight on Thursday night due to our work schedules and when Oralee came home from school on Friday, she had a cough. Around 6pm, she asked to change into her pajamas. That was my first sign that she wasn't feeling well. My poor little doll was up all night, coughing and feeling just miserable. I stayed up with her and cycled the laundry through and watched old reruns of Reba on TV.

Special, sweet times taking care of my little princess. Hope she feels better soon though! I don't like for my kiddos to be sick.

Thirty Thankful Days - Day 4

2011-11-04T21:00:00.002-05:00

This is Day 4 of the 30 Thankful Days. Today I am thankful for my mother-in-law being willing to take the kids overnight last night. We both had been called in to work and she was willing to take the kids pretty much at the last minute.

The kids love to spend time at their grandma's house. I am happy that they enjoy their time over there and I also am happy that my mother-in-law lives close enough that we are able to have the kids go over there on short notice.

During the month of October, my inlaws were out of state quite a bit and it was hard. Not because of the daycare thing but because I realized that I actually missed them. It was odd. I don't spend time hanging out with them or anything. My mother-in-law and I have a real touch and go relationship. We get along most of the time, but we definitely have had our falling outs over the years. But overall, I have to admit that I actually am really lucky to have her in my life. And today, I am also thankful for my mother-in-law and for having her in my life.

Bathroom/Laundry Room Storage

2011-11-04T05:00:00.000-05:00

Every so often, I get a wild itch to just change something up. Either the thing is just not working as well as it could be, it isn't aesthetically pleasing or for whatever reason, it just bugs me. Well, this is what happened with our bathroom recently.

Our bathroom has the oddest layout I have ever seen. It looks something like this:

You can click on it to make it bigger if you want. It's just a very basic layout of out bathroom. You can see how the room is long and narrow. We didn't design this space, that is just the way it was when we bought the place and we are doing our best to make the best of it. The one area in question that was bothering me to no end was the area to the right of the toilet (when facing the far end of the bathroom). I had two sets of storage drawers in that spot. Two sets with drawers apiece to be exact. In white frames, clear drawers. The cabinet next to the drawers is black. Two of the drawers were actually broken and needed to be thrown out.

There drawers are where I store our extra toiletries and supplies. Extra toothpaste, toothbrushes, body wash, shampoos, conditioners, feminine products, etc. All of that stuff is stored in these drawers. But the problem wasn't really with the drawers themselves. It was with the stuff that would end up getting piled up on top of the drawers. It was driving me crazy. That and the fact that we didn't have any place to store dirty laundry.

So on one of our WalMart trips, I picked up one of those cheapy PVC piping plastic laundry dividers ($10) and brought it home to assemble it. My thought was that it could maybe go on the other side of the toilet, between the toilet and the wall where the furnace is. Except it was bigger than I thought it was. So, thus began the reorganization of the bathroom.

First step was to remove the drawers. Second step was to clear out the black cabinet. That was where I had originally had all the products but I cannot reach much past the front of two of the shelves so for storage purposes, it was okay, but I needed to figure out a different plan for those things. That was when I moved them into the drawers and put the drawers next to the toilet.

But now, I wanted the drawers out but I wanted the products to stay so I had to figure something out. On a whim, I took one of the drawers to see if it would fit into the cabinet on the shelf. It did! Then I had to see if two of the drawers would fit on the top shelf and on the main shelf (only one drawer fit on the middle shelf). And two drawers did fit!

So I had six white-framed drawers that I could divide up to put into the cabinet to keep the toiletries divided and organized and put away. But I also knew that I had a set of five black-framed storage drawers in our bedroom where I keep the kids' PJs... I am guessing you can see where this is going.

I had Hubby empty out the five drawers and bring them in to me. I transferred all of the products from the six drawers into the divided-up five drawers and put those drawers in the cabinet. It is beautiful and it works incredibly well. On the top shelf, in the top drawer, I have all of Hubby's shampoos and conditioners and body washes. In the bottom drawer on the top shelf, I have my feminine products. Next to the shelves is a gap that is the perfect size for the extra rolls of paper towels that we have on hand.

On the middle shelf, which can only hold drawer, I have our oral care supplies stored. Next to the drawer is the same gap as the upper shelf and that is where I have stored extra rolls of toilet paper.

On the lower shelf, there are two drawers. One is mine for lotions and cremes and body washes, etc and the other one is for shampoos and conditioners. The gap next to the drawers on this shelf is where I keep a basket of smaller items that are partially used. This is the basket that we go to first before opening something new.

I then put the laundry sorter where the drawers had been and loaded the sorter up with laundry that was on the floor of the bathroom in various places and moved the white-framed drawers to the front room. I wasn't sure exactly what to do with those, so we let them hang out in that room overnight.

This is the conversation that Hubby and I had that night about the drawers:
Me: You know, we could put those drawers in the front closet and use them to store the kids' shoes in there.
Hubby: Yeah, we could do that.
Me: Or we could use it to store winter stuff like mittens and gloves and hats and stuff.
Hubby: Yeah, I think that would work.
Me: Or we could put the drawers in the boys' room so that they can use it to store their toys.
Hubby: That would make sense, since they seem to be wanting to be more organized these days.
Me: Or I could give it to Oralee for her room. The boys already have some storage tubs in their room.
Hubby: Yeah, you could do that.
Me: Or we could have them in the living room and store the boys' music stuff in them near the keyboard.
Hubby; Whatever you'd like to do, I'm sure it will be fine.
Me: Ooooh! I bet we could put them in the dining room next to my desk so that the kids can put their special papers from school in them to go through at the end of the year and decide what they really want to keep from school.
Hubby: Well, whatever you decide, I am sure will look fine. Just let me know if you need me to move anything else. I'm going to go watch some T.V.

That is a pretty typical conversation at our house when it comes to organizing and rearranging or whatever. Hubby is 100% supportive and will move things around for me. He just prefers that I am 100% sure where I want everything to go before he starts moving things around. This was a lesson he learned the hard way.

In the end, the white-framed drawers ended up under my desk, where they are out of the way, yet accessible and look neat and orderly.

Oh - wait, this was about the bathroom/laundry room storage though. So here is a picture of what the end result was:

I know it doesn't really look all that different, but it is a huge difference! What you cannot see from my aerial view drawing is the pile of stuff that cannot end up stored on top of the shelves. The cabinet is now fully functional. I can store things in the drawers, which actually go all the way to the back of the cabinet. I can reach everything and not worry about things getting knocked over and spilling in the cabinet. It will only spill in the drawer or the basket that I am using to store the items.

I also now have a place to sort and store our dirty laundry without it being on the floor in front of the washer. Extra bonus there! Plus, the cart is on casters, so if I were so inclined, I could even roll it over to the washer, but I have yet to do that. I just grab an armful from the sorter and walk over to the washer with them.

Well, thanks for reading. I am sure it wasn't the most riveting piece you have ever read, but it was a great thing to get done around here!

Thirty Thankful Days - Day 3

2011-11-03T21:00:00.001-05:00

Today we went out to look for a new winter coat for me. I haven't had a winter coat for the past two or three winters because I have a very difficult time spending money on myself. But today, we decided that I was going to get a new coat because I needed one.

I had checked at WalMart and they didn't have anything in my size so I knew that was not an option. Their coats were around $50 so that was my rough base for a winter coat. I knew that JcPenney has decent coat prices so that is where I wanted to look. We met up with some friends who were shopping at the mall (for her) for clothes and we decided to just shop together. We went to Bath & Body Works (for her) and I picked up a $1 bottle of lotion for Oralee (in strawberry!) to give to her for Christmas and with it, I received a little flyer booklet that had coupons in it! (Yay for that!)

Then we went to Lane Bryant (for her) and while there, I decided to get a bra fitting. It's been awhile and I have actually been in need of some new ones. When I was measured, the sales lady measured me at a cup size that was 2-3 sizes larger than what I generally wear. But we went ahead and looked for some bras in my "normal" size and found them. I tried several on and ended up finding two of which I liked the fit and shape and support. They were also having a sale with 40% off AND they were also offering gift certificates for 1/2 of my purchase price along with the sale. So (for example) I buy 2 bras at $41.50 apiece (roughly) and there is the 40% off, making each one around $25.00. New total is $50.00 plus tax (around here, that would make it $53.50) and then you get a gift certificate for $25.00. Not too shabby, eh? It's like buy one, get one free. Or something like that.

Then we went over to JcPenny. I knew exactly what I wanted to get, knew the price I was willing to spend and bee-lined it for the coat section. That's the way I shop. I found what I wanted almost immediately. It was a black and purple 4-in-1 coat and it was seriously on sale. A little bit more than WalMart but this one a) fit me and b) I had a coupon at home that I could bring in within a week and they would give me back the difference in my cost, which would knock it down to roughly the same price as WalMart anyhow.

Actually, here is the link to their site. LOVE this jacket! Catalina's new coat. Isn't that great? Love it! There is actually more purple in the coat I believe and the purple isn't as dark as it shows in the picture on the site. I am so happy with it! I cannot believe I actually have a winter coat! So exciting!

And today, I am thankful for a few things. I am thankful for the ability to buy a coat and new bras. I am thankful for a wonderful husband who encouraged me to do so, even though I was questioning whether or not I should get them. It is so so so hard for me to buy stuff for myself!

And those are a couple of the things that I am thankful for today!

Home Visit

2011-11-03T05:00:00.000-05:00

Yesterday was our "home visit" with Jeriah's classroom teacher, Miss Cari. I put home visit in parentheses because it wasn't held at home. It was held at the school in the hallway outside of Jeriah's classroom.

We worked on a set of Opposites puzzles with Jeriah. He understood which pictures went together to make the puzzle but had some difficulty deciding what each picture was or being able to verbalize "The opposite of hot is cold." It is something that we are going to continue to work on though. We had the opportunity to share with Miss Cari our pictures from when we made homemade pizza for our movie night and some from Halloween and we told her about Jeriah and Oralee singing karaoke way late into the night. It was a great visit!

We set mini goals at each home visit. One for Jeriah and one for us as parents. Our goal for Jeriah was to continue working on opposites until he is able to identify and vocalize what the opposites are. Our goal as parents was to establish a bedtime routine for Jeriah. He is our most difficult child to get to sleep. It used to be that Cephas was our most difficult but Jeriah has clearly taken over that position. We also have the option of meeting with the school psychologist to work on it as well, but I passed on that. I'd rather try to get it all settled myself and if there isn't significant progress in the next month when we have our next visit, then I will request her input. But until then, I am going to do what I can to establish a good bedtime routine for Jeriah.

Jeriah took a photograph of his Opposites puzzles that he put together today. We will be adding this to his Family Literacy Portfolio that we turn in at the end of the year.

Thirty Thankful Days - Day 2

2011-11-02T21:00:00.000-05:00

I came across this just a little bit ago and I am doing a retrospective post. I am sitting here typing the post up at 4:44 am on Thursday, December 3, 2011 but will be posting it as Wednesday, November 2, 2011.

Today I am thankful for a wonderful workplace. They have just offered me the opportunity to be home with my kids during the week and maybe just work weekend overnights. By working overnight shifts, I am able to be home with my kids and be there for their activities and everything else that we have going on from week to week while still being able to earn money to help support the family.

This will not even take away much time from the family on the weekends either because I will be able to sleep while I am working. That is a deal that I just cannot turn down! I love that part of it!

It also allows Hubby more time to be able to work without needing to rely on childcare from his parents. We try to work our schedules out so that we are the ones that have the kids but every so often, we end up needing to have someone watch the kids and when that happens, we turn to my mother-in-law to watch the kids.

This will also give me more time to get the house into the kind of shape that I want for it to be in and will also allow me time to get through our storage unit and figure out what we are going to do with all of that stuff!

You can click the picture above to link up to the Thirty Thankful Days as well. Or just click over and read what others are thankful for today.

Halloween Day and Evening

2011-11-01T04:00:00.001-05:00

What a great day all around! Hubby didn't get home until almost 2 am from work but he was willing to get up and get the kids off to school this morning, which was great for me because I had fallen asleep for about 20 minutes earlier in the night and could not fall back to sleep until close to 5 am. Since he let me continue to lay and rest/sleep while he took the kids to school, I was able to get some additional much needed rest. Then I got up and took care of Jeriah and we played and watched TV and did housework together while Hubby went and laid down. I let him sleep through until almost 4 pm.

I got Jeriah ready for school and onto the school bus and then I took myself out for Chinese food. There is this place close to my work that I absolutely love but haven't had much lately and I have really been wanting to get something from there and I decided that today would be the perfect day for it.

After getting my food from there, I went over to the kids' school and helped out in the classroom for a couple of hours. All I needed to do for the first hour and a half or so was assemble the fifth graders' academic skills testing packets. There are four booklets and their scantrons that needed to go into folders. I took care of them for one teacher (Cephas' teacher) and then moved on to another fifth grade teacher's packets. I got those almost done but was not able to get them completely finished because I ran out of folders and sticky labels. I marked my spot though so that I could pick back up where I left off. I plan to go back in later this week to finish those up for that teacher. That teacher is currently out of school right now. She has a new grandbaby and is taking a few days off from teaching to help the new mama. I think that's really sweet and I'm glad to hear that she was able to do that.

Then we had the fifth grade class party. It was a low-key affair. The teacher, Mrs. P, and her practicum student, Mr. H, another parent and I just kind of oversaw the festivities. Mrs. P bought sugar cookies, frosting and sprinkles and let the kids come up to a central table to decorate the cookies and they also had chips and water and were able to sit and watch some movies she had projected onto the white board from her laptop. Then they played hangman. It was nice and the kids enjoyed it immensely.

Mr. H had been having a hard time getting some of the kids to listen in his math group and I so wanted to be able to help him out. But I didn't. I have been there and done that with students and while I knew that I could get them to listen and follow along, he really needs to develop those skills himself. I think he will be a great teacher. One of the hardest parts though, honestly, is getting the kids to respect you as a teacher when you aren't confident about your abilities.

For the first time ever today, I let the older boys walk home from school. At our old house, they had walked to and from school every day, but with living in a new neighborhood and being so close to such a major arterial street, I have been reluctant to let them walk home. But today was absolutely gorgeous, I knew I had the time and the patience to allow them to do it and so I did. I also circled the route twice checking up on them (but couldn't find them!). They ended up walking home with our next door neighbors (who walk to and from school EVERY day of the week!) so it worked out pretty well. And, as it turns out, those two kids know a path that keeps them off of the main arterial street. One of these days, I am going to have to get the boys to show me this route so that I know where it is. If I'm comfortable with it, there is a good chance that I will let them walk home from school in the spring. Maybe. It seems kind of pointless though, because we still have to go to the school to pick up Oralee. But the boys have been wanting to walk home from school so badly that I agreed to it today. We'll figure it all out eventually.

Once home, they buckled down and got right to work on their chores and then decided on some last minute changes to their Halloween costumes. I ended up waking Hubby so that he could be up with the kids and awake to get Jeriah from the school bus and I ran over to our friends' house to pick up an bright orange vest and hat for Koren, who decided that instead of being a pirate wanted to be a hunter. It worked out. He had a camouflage turtle neck and a NERF gun. That plus the oversized (to him) hunting vest and stocking cap, made for a decent hunting outfit.

Cephas had planned to go as a robot but was having some difficulties with his costume design so we changed it up at the last minute and he wore a set of my scrubs (too big for him) and some gloves and a mask and we called him a doctor/surgeon/whatever.

Once they were set, we had to dash over to the other side of town for their music lessons, only to realize that we had not had them practice this past week AT ALL. It's been crazy busy/hectic, what can I say? Ooops. We'll do better this week, I promise!

I dropped the boys off at the studio and ran over to the inlaw's house to do some last minute things that I hadn't gotten around to yet. Cleaning out my mother-in-law's car, putting some camping gear back in the basement, starting a load of laundry in the washing machine, general tidying up and also trying to get Oralee and Jeriah's costumes together. Oralee was on the fence about what she wanted to be. MIL has a stash of dress up clothes and Oralee couldn't decide between a cat (all black clothing, plus ears, tail and collar to match), the water fairy (complete with tiara and wand) or a different fairy (forgot which one - but without the extra accessories). Oralee couldn't find the water fairy outfit or the cat outfit and had settled on the other fairy outfit when I found the water fairy outfit and she ended up going with that option.

Jeriah wanted to be a painter. I had planned to make him a little painter's palette out of cardboard but I couldn't find any over there (and I was in such a mad dash to get over to that side of town that I didn't grab cardboard from our house) so I just took some sheets of computer paper and glue stick-ed them together and then used a marker to draw in the paint circles. We got a brush from the garage and a washcloth to tuck into his waistband and he was good to go. He wouldn't dress up any further than that.

At one point I had even tried to persuade him to be a cowboy (MIL has a cowboy hat and a vest - it actually goes to a pirate costume but looks really cute with the cowboy hat) but he was adamant about not changing his clothing.

We had to run back to the studio to pick up the boys and then head back to MIL's house to park the van so we could hit up the neighborhood over there. We did it and ended when pretty much all four kids were ready to quit. I cannot believe that it happened around the same time for all of them! How awesome was that!

We then packed up and left. At this point, it was 8:30, the kids still hadn't eaten (so busy getting ready for music lessons and trick or treating and then actually doing those things) and while we were out, I had gotten a message from the restaurant where Hubby works saying that for a Halloween special, kids could eat free with an adult purchase. That sounded like a winner to me so that's what we did. We did not go to Hubby's work though. We went to a different location for our favorite server.

Our server, Jay, was dressed up as Charlie Sheen. My kids totally missed the reference (because they are really too young to know the difference) and there was karaoke going on. Let me slow this down for you. Favorite restaurant + favorite server + cheap food + karaoke. My kids were in HEAVEN!

My kids sang karaoke. Oh yes, they did! I finally pulled them away from the restaurant around 10:30. Our normal bedtime on a school night is 8:00 (ideally asleep by 8:30). But. It was a special occasion, the kids were being unbelievably well-behaved, they were enjoying themselves and quite honestly, I lost track of time.

Oralee started the karaoke singing for our family tonight by singing the ABC's. Yes, the karaoke guy had that. Then Oralee and Jeriah and some random kid (one of our server's regular customer's kid - didja follow that one?) sang Twinkle Twinkle Little Star together. And then Cephas and Koren got up and sang More (by Usher - yes, they know the words. They are HUGE Usher fans!). They were going to do a few more songs after that but that was when I realized how late it was and had them go up and pull their requests. I had joked around with Jay, telling him that I was pretty sure if left to their own devices my kids would close the restaurant. But the restaurant doesn't close til like, 1 am? (I should know this actually!) and there was NO WAY my kids were going to be up THAT late on a school night. It was bad enough that we wouldn't be home til 11 pm as it was.

Before we left though, we had to get a picture of the kids and Jay in their costumes. It was so cute! Jay was sitting on a chair, Koren and Jeriah to his right, Cephas and Oralee to his left. It was quite cute and cheesy. I, of course, promptly posted it to facebook and tagged Jay as well.

We drove home and I warned the kids that it was time to go STRAIGHT to bed when we got there. Bathroom stuff then bed. I wanted them in bed within 15 minutes of getting home and asleep as soon as possible after that. They promptly obeyed. Well, all but Jeriah. He was up til 1:30 am. And he was the one who was the MOST tired at the restaurant. Guess the boy hit his second wind or something. He literally fell asleep when Hubby was walking across our front porch to come inside. Stinker!

And that, my friends, was our Halloween. What did your family do?

Menu Plan Monday - 10/31

2011-10-31T05:30:00.001-05:00

This will be a challenging week to make a menu plan for due to the fact that I don't get paid until Wednesday (which also happens to be my day off) and I hadn't had a chance to do meal prep this weekend. But here goes anyhow:

Monday - we have to get the kids' costumes ready and they have homework and then they have music lessons and then Trick or Treating. I honestly think that this day may be made up of frozen burritos or fast food.

Tuesday - I work and Hubby will be in charge of dinner on this night. I honestly foresee Mac N Cheese and hot dogs for the meal this night as Cephas has Scouts after dinner time.

Wednesday - I am home this day and it is also payday. I plan to put some time in on this day to get some meals made for the remainder of the week. This evening I am making lasagna.

Thursday - I work this day and Hubby will be in charge of dinner on this night as well. I plan to have a tuna noodle casserole in the fridge for him to just reheat in the oven.

Friday - I work this day as well and Hubby once again will be in charge of dinner. I plan to have enchiladas in the fridge for him to just reheat in the oven.

Saturday - Homemade pizza has been a favorite for the kids on their movie night, so that may be a good option for this evening.

Sunday - baked chicken and pasta

I think that sounds like a good menu overall. We'll go with it. Even with the parts where the kids are eating junky food at home or from a drive thru. But since I haven't prepared ahead of time, I am okay with planning for this in advance.

Kids Movie Night

2011-10-29T17:30:00.004-05:00

I wasn't sure that it was going to happen this week because we have had some major issues with defiance and attitude. But the kids buckled down and got their chores done so that they could enjoy their night of a movie with homemade pizza and popcorn. The kids settled in to watch "It's The Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown" while I worked on some projects myself and while Hubby was at work. I don't think my children have ever seen this movie before. I had to have them watch it. Just on principle. Although, I did notice a few things in it that I don't allow my kids to say. Koren (who is 8, mind you) gasped and said, "Mom! They said a bad thing! They said the S word!" I rewinded the movie (is that even the correct term when it's on DVR?) and played the scene over again. "See Mom!" he insisted. "They said the S-T-U word!" (Hint: The S-T-U word ends in P-I-D and that is a word we do not allow in our home. Whoops.)

Other than the mishap with some questionable (to our children) language and situations, they LOVED the movie! All four kids sat through the movie and watched it very nicely. I heard some discussion between them about Lucy and Charlie Brown and how she would pull the football away when he was about to kick it. They said that it wasn't nice of Lucy and that she should apologize. They found it funny but realized that the actions were not desirable. I like the way the movie made them think and the discussions they had about them.

Going back to the topic of work, I currently work 3 days a week and Hubby works 2-3 as well. I work 12 hour shifts and Hubby's shifts are 5-8 hours. I found another job that I am tempted to apply for. It is early morning hours (though if I were able to get the job, I would see if I could actually start a full hour earlier) and I would be cleaning a bowling alley. It's an every day of the week kind of deal but I would be done and back before the kids would need to get ready for school or even be awake possibly. Some of the things that I like about the job prospect are the hours and the pay, the fact that I can do it WHILE still working my other job (no issues there!) and I'd be able to be there for the major part of the kids', well, everything. And if Hubby picks up more hours at work, I'd like to cut back at MY work and be able to be home for/with the kids more. Ideally, I would still work my 12 hour shift every Friday and work the morning shift cleaning the bowling alley instead. It's a job where I'd be working on my own. I kind of like that to be perfectly honest. I do have the option to have someone help me out with the work but it couldn't/wouldn't be Hubby because he would need to be home with sleeping kiddos. I have a couple of people in mind. One of them is actually Cephas. He is such an early riser and he can really buckle down and get right to work when he wants to. Of course, I'd compensate him for the work. I just don't know if the company would allow me to have him help me out there. Guess there is only one way to find out.

Cephas and Koren have a lawn job lined up for next weekend already. They need to mow and rake and do general picking up of a postage stamp yard that belongs to my mother. And Grandma is going to pay them more than I think they should get for that job, but I guess until the boys are comfortable setting their own prices, they will take the amount offered them or pass on the job. What should the going rate for a lawn job be? I figured $2.00 per mulched lawn bag. If they are raking and not using the mower, I think it should be around $2.25 per lawn bag. Does that seem reasonable?

For instance, the first job that Cephas had, he made $20 and had 9 bags of leaves. That would have averaged out to about $2.25 per bag. But he was also having to fight against long grass in his attempt to rake the leaves. But had he been able to mulch and use our bag mower and get the grass as well, it probably would have been around 7-8 bags worth. The leaves would have been compacted down quite a bit more than they were but there would have been grass added to it too. Then there is also the gas for the mower to figure in as well. So, for a mulched bag at $2.00, it would have been somewhere in the neighborhood of $15.00, which I think would have been fitting for the job had he been able to use the mower. Just some thoughts I've been having in regards to this. I am hoping that he can get some repeat business soon. He really enjoys the extra work (and the extra money!) and I think it's good for him.

Well, it's time to get some more things done before Hubby comes home so I will post again tomorrow maybe?

Communication

2011-10-28T11:00:00.002-05:00

Generally, I think that my husband and I have stellar communication skills. But this past week, it has been a real trial. I think it comes from a few different sources. First of all, we have had a lot going on and haven't spent as much time making sure that we are being as effective as necessary in our communications with one another. Secondly, Hubby has been in pain with some dental issues and has been on some pretty strong pain meds. Thirdly, I have been really short-changed on sleep this week. Not because of any one reason, but because that's what happens to me every so often.

You see, I generally sleep all the way through the night. I don't get up for drinks or restroom or anything. If I do wake up, I stay in bed. Once I have to physically get up, I'm done for the night. I just cannot fall back asleep. It interrupts my sleep cycle in a most vicious way. This has been the case for most of my life. Add to that the fact that I am both a night owl and an early bird and well, it all adds up to sleep deprivation.

Occasionally, I can grab a short afternoon nap while Jeriah is at school with the bigger kids but this week, it has been so hit and miss. Part of it is that I lay down but cannot fall asleep for the first two hours, which gives me about 30 minutes to nap before needing to go pick up the kids and then I'm worried that I'll oversleep so I automatically wake up about every 5 minutes.

Okay, so with all of that being said, I know that I need to work harder to try and get better rest at night and see what I can do to sleep through the night again. I may even take some Benadryl tonight just to get myself to fall asleep a little bit more quickly. You know, jump start my sleep cycle.

And as far as communication goes, I know that with the pain meds that Hubby is on, I cannot have the expectation that he will be able to listen and understand what I am saying. And I need to not take it to heart when he doesn't. It's a difficult thing for me, because our communication is so easy most of the time. I am just used to the way it normally is. This is just a short season. Soon, he will be better and our communication will be back to normal as well.

Until then, I'm going to work on being more understanding, try to minimize trivial conversation and let him rest as much as possible. I think that is the best thing that I can do right now. By doing those things, it will allow him to rest and hopefully get to feeling better and will minimize the number of opportunities that I have to allow my feelings to be hurt.

Could you keep his healing and my emotions and my ability to sleep in your prayers this week? I'd greatly appreciate it! In the meantime, I have a LONG list of things to do while Hubby is laid up. Guess this is as good a time as any to get all that stuff done!

(Linking up to: Home Sanctuary and this week's Company Girl Coffee.)

Gotta Get Stuff Done!

2011-10-27T04:00:00.012-05:00

Hubby is having some severe dental issues so I am off of work for the remainder of the week. Since I know this (in advance) I can plan the remainder of my week accordingly. I have a number of things that I would like to get done over the next few days. I am going to make a list here and cross them out (along with the date) that I get them completed. Here goes:

Wipe down dining room table and re-set decorations on top (10/27) (10/28) (10/29) (10/30)
Sweep and mop dining room floor (10/27) (10/28) (10/29) (10/30)
Dust dining room

Clear off kitchen counters (10/27) (10/28) (10/29) (10/30) (10/30)
Unload dishwasher and put dishes away (10/27) (10/27) (10/28) (10/29) (10/30)
Load and run dishwasher (10/27) (10/27) (10/27) (10/28) (10/29) (10/30)
Clean stove top (10/27) (10/28) (10/29) (10/30)
Clean counters (10/27) (10/28) (10/29) (10/30) (10/30)
Clean out fridge and wipe down interior
Clear off top of fridge
Sweep and mop kitchen floor (10/27) (10/29) (10/30)
Dust kitchen

Finish folding and putting away clean laundry (planning to do this 10/29)
Put folding table away (planning to do this 10/29)
Tidy up kitchen bar (10/27) (10/28) (10/29) (10/30)
Tidy up low bookshelf (10/29) (10/30)
Clear off end table (10/29) (10/30)
Clear off entertainment center (10/29)
Dust living room
Vacuum living room

Clear off computer desk (10/29) (10/30)
Straighten front closet (10/29)
Hang jackets and coats (10/28) (10/29) (10/30)
Clear off cedar chest (10/28) (10/29) (10/30)
Clear off train table (10/28) (10/29) (10/30)
Dust front room
Vacuum front room

Do laundry (times like a million!) (10/30) (10/30)
Clean vanity (10/30)
Clean mirror (10/30)
Clean toilet (10/30)
Clean bathtub (10/30)
Straighten cabinets (10/30)
Move storage drawers (10/30)
Sweep and mop bathroom floor
Dust bathroom

Straighten top of dresser (planning to do this 10/30)
Move storage drawers (maybe?) (planning to do this 10/30)
Straighten top of chest of drawers (planning to do this 10/30)
Make bed with fresh linens (planning to do this 10/30)
Fold and put away clean laundry from this room (planning to do this 10/30)
Take dirty laundry to bathroom (planning to do this 10/30)
Straighten closet (planning to do this 10/30)
Clear off nightstands (planning to do this 10/30)
Straighten drawers of nightstands (planning to do this 10/30)
Dust our bedroom
Vacuum our bedroom

Pick up toys outside (10/27)
Straighten front porch (planning to do this 10/30)
Straighten back deck (planning to do this 10/30)
Put propane tank away (planning to do this 10/30)
Store bikes for season (planning to do this 10/30)
Mow grass and leaves (10/27)
Pick up brush and branches (10/27)
Clean out flower bed and ready it for winter
Clean out vehicles (planning to do this today 10/28)
Clean out storage shed and organize (planning to do this 10/31)
Start going through and emptying out storage unit

Some other things I want to do:
Wolf Scout activities with Koren (10/28)
Webelo Scout activities with Cephas (10/28)
Daisy Scout activities with Oralee (10/28)
Make file folder games for Oralee and Jeriah (10/28)

Oh - and did I mention:
Figure out four Halloween costumes and create them (10/29)
Find activities for 20 fifth graders to do during their "party" (planning to do this 10/31)
Prepare to volunteer in the classroom (planning to do this 10/31)
Grocery shopping (10/30)

That should just about cover most of it. I'd just like to get most of those things done by next Monday evening because Tuesday morning, I am back to work again.

Wish me luck!

School, school, school

2011-10-26T10:34:00.000-05:00

I cannot believe it is already Wednesday! It just seems like this week (or this month really!) has flown by! Monday, I worked in Oralee's classroom and that was interesting. This time, the teacher and her practicum student (formerly called student teachers) were teaching lessons and I spent my time walking around the room, going to kids who had their hand up to ask questions, keep kids on task, etc. I find actual teaching to be so much easier to be honest, but I still enjoyed it.

After helping out in Oralee's classroom, I dropped by Cephas' classroom to offer my assistance there for future Mondays. Beginning next week, I will be going into the classroom and helping in his classroom when I am done in Oralee's classroom. And next week is also their Halloween "party" time and I have been recruited to help pass out snacks and do some fun activities with the kids for the last 20 minutes of the day. Man, have times changed! I remember our classroom parties went for an hour or so when I was in elementary school.

Then yesterday (Tuesday) was parent teacher conferences. Cephas was our first conference. He is doing really well. For the first time in probably 3 years, he is reading on grade level. Just barely but he's on grade level. No interventions needed. I think that he just needed time to come into it on his own. But regardless, he is doing well. His teacher even asked us if he has trouble with other kids and adults and social situations. The VERY first teacher who recognized it! It was refreshing to have her ask. For the last three years (2nd, 3rd and 4th grade) Cephas has had issues with students and teachers alike. And I think part of it is that with other students, he tries too hard sometimes and then he gets to be annoying to them. And he is a social kid. He likes to talk a lot. His teacher doesn't view that as a bad thing either. She said we just need to continue working with him on what to say and when to say it. Which has been something that we have worked on for 3 or 4 years. She said that sometimes he seems to be missing that internal filter on what to share. And she said that one of the problems that he may have had in the past with what Cephas called "being singled out by the teachers and getting into trouble even when it wasn't my fault" could simply be because his voice carries. So when he told us that his classmates were talking to him and he was trying to tell them to be quiet so that they wouldn't get into trouble, his voice was probably the one that teacher heard and that was why he was getting into trouble. So nice and refreshing to have a teacher with 22 years of experience for him! Now the question is, can we keep her? Oh - and we ended up with a 30 minute conference instead of a 15 minute one because she had a gap in her schedule and there was the social issue to discuss as well.

Then we went on to Koren's class. His teacher had rave reviews for him. He is an incredibly hard worker, he is serious and the other kids look up to him for his work ethic at school. He received a couple of 2's on a math test (I'll explain the grading system in a minute) and will need to have a re-teach on those concepts. He has NEVER had a 2 in math before. He has even been in the highest math class possible too, even testing out of a full chapter in second grade to be able to move up to a higher math class.

Okay, quick side note, our school system grades as follows:
4 - exceeds district standards
3 - meets district standards
2 - approaches district standards
1 - does not meet district standards (and generally interventions are put into place)

He continues to struggle in reading but is continuing to progress. He has struggled in reading for the longest time but it could also be caused by the fact that he is actually legally blind in one eye without correction and doesn't see that great even with correction. We have been told by his optometrist that he will never be able to drive because he won't be able to pass the vision test. I think if he can have larger print books, he will do much better. That is something that I will email and suggest to his teacher later today.

She also said that he is an incredible artist and recommended that we enroll him in art classes. However, on his report card, his art teacher graded him at a 2, so I think I may need to meet with her and find out what the difference is between her opinion of his art and the classroom teacher's opinion of his art.

Then it was time to meet with Oralee's teacher. It was a quick meeting and I really didn't learn anything new about her, since I'm in the classroom every other week anyhow. She is a social child, but she is also an eager learner and participates in class. She holds back a little bit until she is sure of herself or her answer. She also is still working on recognizing her letter names and sounds.

We had a little bit of a break and then it was time to meet with Jeriah's teachers. We met with his classroom teacher, his special education teacher and the speech language pathologist who is working with him. He had two basic goals on his IEP that we set at the beginning of the year and he is rapidly working towards one of them. We may even have to meet earlier to redo his IEP with new goals if he meets them before the end of the year.

One of his language goals was to create sentences that had 5 words or more during 75% of his utterances. At the beginning of the year, his sentences had an average of 3.7 words. Now, two months into the school year, his sentences have an average of 4.3 words. This is based off of 100% of observed utterances. Also, at the beginning of the school year, the average amount of sentences that contained 5 words or more was 13%. Already he is at 33%. If he continues at this rate, he will likely reach the goal of 75% around February. His IEP is to last until August of next year. And most likely, he will reach this goal before then.

Also, his teacher did a Kindergarten preparation book where she is testing the kids on their knowledge of Kindergarten concepts such as shapes, colors, numbers, uppercase letters and lower case letters. Jeriah knew every shape, every color, every number, every uppercase letter and all but one lower case letter (l) when "tested". The teacher had numbers 1-20 on the page but she had only prepared (and therefore only "tested") for 1-10, not realizing that there may be a student who could go higher. He also can rote count to 16 (he missed 17 when she did it) and can count 1:1 correspondence to 16. She said that was really good because often times, kids can count more quickly by rote than they can when doing 1:1 correspondence so that when they try to do the 1:1, they will often end up with a number higher than the actual number of objects. But not Jeriah. He was on track with it.

The thing is, Jeriah can recognize numbers up to 100. Not just up to 20. I plan to take some numbers and additional shapes with us for our Home Visit next Wednesday to show her the differences in what he actually knows and the kind of activities that he is currently working on at school.

She also had him draw a picture of himself. His picture included a body, head, legs, arms, hands, feet, eyes (with pupils), nose, mouth and hair. No ears though. Maybe that's because he doesn't like to listen so much anymore! :) He is really coming into himself and is showing more independence and asserting his own opinions and thoughts more often now.

Let's see, there was also a page where she had them try to cut out shapes. He did not do well on that one at all. I think probably because most of the time at home he is told, "No Jeriah! Put the scissors down!" So we might need to work on that a little bit at home.

She also mentioned that Jeriah could drop kick a playground ball. We already knew this because he started doing that his summer with soccer balls. But it was neat to see her excitement about it. I did mention to the teachers the fact that Jeriah only kicks with his left foot. He will not kick with his right foot at all. I don't know if it something that we need to be concerned about. I know that for me, personally, I tend to kick more with my right foot than my left, but I'm right-handed. Jeriah is also right-handed, so I would think that he would also be more likely to have his right foot be dominant, but since the exact opposite is true, I felt it was pertinent to mention to his teachers.

For his next "testing" for Kindergarten skills, his classroom teacher said she may need to come up with some other options for his numbers and letters, shapes and colors. Instead of testing to see if he knows his letters, she is going to see how he does on letter sounds. I am not sure what her plan is for the shapes and colors and for numbers, she is going to just need to increase the parameters that she is "testing" him on. All good things though!

It's actually kind of amusing to us that our Special Education preschooler has more Kindergarten-level skills than our neurotypical Kindergartener. I actually feel a little bit of compassion already for Jeriah's Kindergarten teacher. He seems to be about a grade or two higher in letter and number skills, on par with fine motor skills and lacking in his social abilities. What a combination! But it very much reminds me of, oh, myself, in the early years at school.

Webelo Camp Out

2011-10-24T11:00:00.003-05:00

As planned, we met up with the Webelo group at the kids' school on Saturday morning while Hubby went on to work. We left for the lake shortly after. Once we arrived at the lake, we unloaded our gear and the boys set the tent up.

I didn't realize it, but in Scouts, there is a kind of unspoken rule: "Don't do anything for a boy that he can do for himself." This includes setting up tents and campsites. My two boys worked together and had our tent set up in no time flat! They worked together and got the job done.

And here you can see the fruits of their labor. At this point, Oralee and Jeriah were playing inside the tent while Cephas and Koren were off getting instructions from the leaders.

The boys made lunch for the group (meatball subs on a camp stove, applesauce and hot chocolate) and after lunch, they went for a 3 mile hike. After lunch, I left Cephas and Koren in the care of another Scout mom, who also happens to be one of our neighbors and the mother of some of the boys' friends. I needed to get the little kids back into town so that I could focus more on the boys and their activities.

By the time I got back out to the camp site, the boys had already gotten back from their hike and it was almost time for them to start making our dinner. Gosh, but there is something that just rings about that statement. Time for THEM to start making OUR dinner. Yes, I do think I like the sound of that. But first, we needed more wood. Because this woodpile (below) apparently wasn't big enough. So off they went to bring back wood.

And then they needed to saw it down. Here is a picture of the Littlest Woodcutter (aka Koren). Isn't he adorable just plugging away? He cut that log down into 1' lengths. It was a 12' log. That's a LOT of cutting for the little guy. And he wasn't even a Webelo. He's just a Wolf (three grades lower!). By the time he was done with that log, he came over to me and I looked at his hands. He already had calluses from raking and mowing and riding his bike (yes, he grips his bike handles THAT hard!) and after sawing down a 12' log, he had new calluses in the middle of this hand. He couldn't be coaxed away from doing it though. He was bound and determined to finish that log.

The older boys MAY have alienated him a little bit while they were cutting down some of the logs to usable sizes saying that he was just a little Wolf and couldn't do it. So he MAY have been extremely determined to show them that he most certainly could do it. And outdo their efforts in the process. That little boy is going to have workin' man hands by the time he's 10. And nope, he's not a farm boy. He's a city kid. You'd never guess it looking at his hands though!

The next order of business was for the boys to receive instructions on how to start a fire with a flint and magnesium and then they each got a turn to try it out.

Then the boys went off to gather a few resources for kindling. Paper, dried leaves, small twigs and then tiny little branches. After they had the base of their fire started, they were allowed to feed the fire to get it hot enough for it to burn the actual wood.

Then, the Den Leader told them that they were done feeding the fire and he added the logs to the fire pit and built it up nice and hot. That was really nice because the day was cloudy and cool and threatening to rain nearly the whole time.

Mmmmm, nice and hot! Then we had to let it die down and cool some so that we could make dinner. We had an assembly line where we each made our own pizzas - tortilla shell for the crust, tomato sauce, cheeses and cheeses, hamburger/pepperoni/sausage, green bell pepper, red bell pepper, white onion, it was DELISH! We wrapped them in foil and then the boys cooked them on the coals of the fire. So melty yummy!

The boys cleaned up the meal and then went off to play games while the adults sat around the fire pit and built it back up. About an hour after nightfall, we called the boys back to camp and let the fire die down again and we roasted marshmallows and then built the fire back up again for ghost stories.

And then it was time for bed. It was GREAT day and the boys had SO MUCH FUN! And so did I! I cannot wait for the next campout!

Weekend Plans!!!

2011-10-22T04:00:00.000-05:00

We have a very busy weekend planned. I cannot wait for it all! On Saturday morning, Hubby has to work and the kids and I will be going to the kids' school to meet up with Cephas' Webelo den.

Then, we will be heading out to the lake for a camping trip. I wish Hubby would be able to come along and be a part of it as well, but due to his work schedule, it's not possible. We will get out to the lake, set up our campsite and the Webelos will make some lunch. We will eat and then in the afternoon, we will be going on a three mile hike. It's during this hiking time that Hubby will be coming out to join us (and to pick up the younger kiddos who would be better suited to being in town with their dad) and the other boys will be able to work on some of their own skills and badges and such. We will eat a dinner prepared by the boys and then have a campfire time with skits and s'mores and fun stuff like that. Afterwards, the boys will be playing some games in the dark and then we will head to bed. In the morning, we will get up and the boys will fix breakfast. We will eat then break down camp and then head back home.

When we get back home, it will be just in time for Hubby to leave for work, so we will unload the vehicle and get everything put away. Then, Cephas and Koren have been hired for another lawn job for the afternoon, so we will head over there to do that. It's for the family I work for so there's a bit of added pressure for them to do a fantastic job. And of course, I'll be around to make sure that they actually do a fantastic job and will be able to help them out with it and oversee it and also to jump in and correct anything that needs it. I'm a little bit nervous for them (and for me) because I know that the family can be a little bit particular about things. I would really prefer that we be able to go over and do the work once Hubby gets off of work so that he can go along with as well or so that he could be home with the little kids. We will just have to try it out and see how it goes though. One way or another, we will make it all work. I'm actually pretty excited about the whole thing. I am just nervous too.

Sunday evening we will spend time together as family. I'd like to have some time playing board games or card games with the kids that evening, but I'm really up open to the family's suggestions for that evening as well.

Also, one other thing I haven't mentioned. We have cut out the kids' computer time during the school week. It seems a little bit odd maybe, but it really works for us. Before, we were limiting the amount of time they had on the computer, which wasn't working quite as well. They would lose track of time and it was difficult to enforce the exact amount of computer time and all of that stuff, so we decided to just cut it out. Computer time is now limited to the weekends. Eventually, we may go back to some limited computer time during the week, but for now, this is really working well for all of us.

Sometimes It All Goes As Planned

2011-10-21T09:00:00.021-05:00

And other times, it just doesn't. Like the plans I had for the kitchen.Yeah, not so much. I had high aspirations for that room. However, I am okay with it not getting done and this is why:

We worked together to rearrange our bedroom.

It was time spent one-on-one with my wonderful Hubby. We were able to put our room - our little sanctuary - first. It was a small way to show each other that we were putting US first. I mean, in the end, we still ended up doing some of what needed to be done in the kitchen, but we took care of our special space first. We made our room and us a priority.

It's a very basic principle that often gets lost, I think. We tend to get caught up in the kids and their activities and the busy and the to-do list and work and and and...and we neglect us. Not because we mean to, not because we want to, but because we both understand. Which is also great. But sometimes, we need to just stop. Be still. Put our spouse back into the spot where they are supposed to be.

So that is what we did. We spent time rearranging our bedroom and thoroughly cleaning it from top to bottom. We did this while the kids were at school and then we laid there and just talked. We held hands. It was a wonderful time to reconnect.

I love my husband so much! I take him for granted though. I'm working on changing that. And this one day, in this small way, I showed him that I value him. I value us. I value our special time and our special place. I think we both needed that. Oh - and one other thing - I did it without even thinking and without bringing up the work that also needed to be done.

It was a blessing to him. It was a blessing to me. I think that once a week (maybe on Wednesdays, when I am off from work) I am going to spend some time focused on our bedroom. I had initially hoped to get some of the other house maintenance done on that day. And that still holds true. But the main focus on that particular day will be our sanctuary. It's also the only day that we both have off from work while the kids are in school and don't have any other things planned.

And do you know what else? Sometimes it all goes as planned (by us) and sometimes it all goes as it is supposed to. Just a little food for thought.

(Linking up to: Home Sanctuary and this week's Company Girl Coffee.)

Kitchen Plans

2011-10-19T04:30:00.003-05:00

Okay, so I got a jump start yesterday on the kitchen. Hubby and I moved a bookshelf that has been in our kitchen since we moved in to another area. It will be going out to the storage shed to be used for storage purposes out there. Then we moved the armoire into it's place and while we were at it, we pulled the fridge out and swept and mopped under that. Today, my to do list is pretty typical for a kitchen job:

Take the bookshelf out to the shed.
Do the dishes. (Yes, there are dishes in my kitchen left over from yesterday. No, I did not do them last night. Thanks for asking though!)
Clear off the counter tops.
Clear off the stove.
Clear off the top of fridge.
Clear off the decorative shelf space above our cupboards.
Clean the sink.
Clean the stove.
Clean the microwave inside and out.
Clean out the fridge and wipe down the interior. (Thankfully, the freezer portion is not in need of this too.)
Then sweep and mop and voila! Kitchen is done.

You will notice that I did not mention dusting or washing windows. I'm being realistic here. If it gets done, that is awesome. If not, I'm not going to beat myself up over it. Our one window is mostly blocked by the armoire and before that, it was the bookshelf. It's also a window I have to clean from outside and it's kinda chilly out there. Also, as far as dusting goes, most of the things that need to be dusted will end up being dusted in the process of clearing things off and cleaning them. That's good enough for me for right now. I think the kitchen will take about an hour and a half to two hours to get it all done and tidy and looking great.

Dining Room Transformation

2011-10-18T21:00:00.000-05:00

As I mentioned here in my last post, I wanted to tidy up and make my dining room look better. I had planned to just:

straighten our built-in corner cabinets

I did this. I reorganized each and every shelf in both of the cabinets (total of 8 shelves) and now anyone who wants something from one of the shelves can easily figure out where to get it from and best of all, can also easily figure out where to put it back. Before, there were a few shelves with mixed items and some of the things stored on the shelves were actually split up and stored in multiple spots. That was not working for me. The way it is reorganized now though, definitely works better for me and for the rest of the family.

straighten the armoire where I keep extra storage containers

Not only did I straighten the armoire, but I removed EVERY item from within it and then with Hubby's help, we moved it to the kitchen into a spot where I thought it would look better (which it does). It also happens to be the same spot where I wanted the armoire when we first moved into the house, but it was placed in the dining room instead and I have dealt with it being in there for quite some time. I'm very happy that it has relocated. It is now cleared out, happy in it's new home and filled with different items from the kitchen. The items that were in it were either moved into one of the corner cabinets in the dining room or moved to a new location within the armoire itself. Yay!

straighten the little kids' table (where the little kids eat when we have company)

For this job, I really just cleared it off and put miscellaneous items back where they actually belong. Things like the iron back in our closet, the table top ironing board back onto the rod of our bedroom closet, some plastic grocery bags thrown away and some dishes put into the sink. I still need to wipe down the table and bring in the chairs that belong with it, but it's a definite improvement over what it was.

clear off the table

I did this and also put on a fall table cloth that Cephas (I believe it was him - although it might have been Koren, I can't quite remember) picked out about a month ago. It has an array of pumpkins in all different fall colors on it. Not my first choice (I was leaning towards the leaf print at the store) but it still looks quite nice on our table.

straighten the few items that are regularly kept on the floor of this room (the dog dishes and the extra dog food)

I put the tote of extra dog food under the little kids' table because that is an area where it fit and where it doesn't take up floor real estate. Love it! I also moved the dogs' dishes away from a vent. Now, it's in front of one of the corner cabinets, but it's on that we don't use very often at all and the dog dishes are easy enough to move when I would need to get into that cabinet.

dust

Did NOT get this done, but got some other stuff done, which I will mention in a moment.

wash windows

Ditto for this.

sweep

Done and...

done. Don't really think that there is too much detail needed for these items.

Some other things that we did to this room was to move the older boys' computer desk into the room. Now, I know that it may sound weird, but the boys didn't even have the computer hooked up nor sitting on the desk. It's taking up room in their bedroom and they don't use it. I need a space to put all of my important papers and other things. I now have my Girl Scout Leader stuff stored neatly on the desk as well as the boys' Cub Scout activity book which they use to earn their belt loops and pins. These are all stored on the main part of the desk where you would put a monitor. I also have a file tote stored on the lower half of the desk (where the tower and printer would go if it were to be used as a computer desk) as well as a box with my coupon inserts in it that still need to be organized.

Hubby and I also got to talking about some major renovations that we want to do to this room and even put up a swatch of a paint option on the wall to see if we liked the color (we didn't) so now we are semi-committed to changing the color of the top half of the room relatively soon to get rid of that paint swatch. The top part of the room is a dark tan color. The swatch is a red tone, which is a MAJOR difference, as I am guessing you would guess. We decided to go with a burgundy tone on the top half of the room and we are still deciding what we want to do with the chair rail and the wainscotting. Right now, we are torn between just freshening up the white paint that is currently there, changing the color to a wheat color or even removing the wainscotting and the chair rail and making the room a solid color. We're just not quite sure yet.

Oh - and all told, it probably took about an hour to do what I had wanted to do and more! And now, I have a jump start on the kitchen work that I wanted to accomplish too! Yay!

Tomorrow will prove to be a very busy day. We will get the kitchen stuff started and the laundry all sorted and folded and put away or into a pile for the consignment store and hopefully we will also get our bedroom rearranged. Hubby started to do it as a surprise to me while I was working on this post but it will be a big job and one that will require two people to work on.

A Case of the Crazies!!!

2011-10-18T04:21:00.000-05:00

Okay, I admit it. My house is driving me insane. Or rather, the cluttery-ness of it at the moment. I have to work a 12 hour shift today (which is why I am awake at 4am, of course?) but let me assure you, when I get off work today, I am going to start a full-scale clean and declutterization of the whole house. Notice I didn't say that I was going to get it all done, rather I said, START one. You see, I am realistic. I know that what I am wanting to do here is going to take some time and is not likely to be completely accomplished in one evening. Maybe 1/8 of the house will be done (equivalent to one room of our home) but rest assured, the job will get started!

My plan of attack is to start in our dining room. It's one of the smaller rooms and overall, it should be fairly easy to accomplish. I just need to straighten our built-in corner cabinets, the armoire where I keep extra storage containers and the little kids' table (where the little kids eat when we have company). Then just clear off the table, straighten the few items that are regularly kept on the floor of this room (the dog dishes and the extra dog food) and then dust, wash windows, sweep and mop. Then the room will be done! All told, the room should take about an hour?

Then the room to follow will be the kitchen, then the living room, then the front room, the bathroom and then each of the three bedrooms. But just taking it one step at a time! I just needed to put it down here so that there was some kind of accountability to make sure that I get it done.

I may start doing Tackle It Tuesday (tackle on Monday, schedule a post for Tuesday) but I'm not sure just yet if that is something that I want to take part in. I love memes, don't get me wrong. I just don't know if I want that to be the focus. I want to have new and inspired material on this here blog. Not just something that I did and blogged about because I was supposed to. Does that make sense to everyone? I guess as long as I have other content as well then it will could be okay. We'll see...

Date Night 10/14/2011

2011-10-17T05:00:00.002-05:00

Oh date nights. I love date nights with the Hubby! We have family date nights where we go out and do something fun together as a whole family. We also have date nights where Hubby and I join friends and do something with them, and we also have date nights where it is just Hubby and myself.

Friday night was a date night with friends. You see, one of my oldest and dearest friends recently moved an hour or so away from our hometown. She and her hubby still own their house here in our town and they travel back on the weekends that they don't have to work to fix up the house and try to get it readied for selling. Most weekends when they are back, they are so busy working at the house that we don't get a chance to connect and spend time together. That makes me sad. I love this couple and their children like family.

So this past week when my girlfriend told me that they would be in town on Friday night and would be able to get together, I jumped at the chance. Hubby and I arranged for childcare and when I got off of work, I went home and helped get kids settled for the night, got changed and ready to go out, then we went and picked them up from their hotel.

The four of us proceeded to the bar where her uncle's girlfriend was celebrating her birthday. I have met the uncle's girlfriend once or twice before and we have gotten along. And now, that I'm an adult, the uncle and I get along too. He was always a scary presence to me when were kids - but that really went for all of my girlfriend's adult family members. That's another story entirely though.

So we got to the bar and it was actually fairly busy. Girlfriend and her hubby as well as her uncle and his girlfriend appeared to be regulars there because it seemed like they were talking to and knew everyone there. By the time the night was over, I pretty much did too. It's a small bar.

They were having a karaoke night. I haven't sang karaoke in seven years and that wasn't about to change, so we sat around talking and drinking (some had soda, some had mixed drinks, some had beer. I was in the last category myself) and just having a nice time. It was nice.

Girlfriend likes to dance - line dance in particular. I'm not very good at it myself though. We have gone to a lesson together before but then she decided that she didn't want to do that after the first one so we never went back. However, her uncle is a pretty smooth dancer and she learned quite a bit from him when it came to line dancing. She then decided that this was the night for me to learn to do it too.

She dragged me out on the floor for the electric slide, which I tried and I kinda sorta maybe have most of the idea of the steps down, but I would need to do it a few more times before I felt like I really had it. Then later on, she dragged me out on the floor again for a cha cha slide, where the music apparently tells you what you are going to do next, but it still was like a foreign language to me. I will get it eventually though!

Later in the evening, the uncle grabbed me and we two-stepped on the dance floor. At least, I think that's what it was. He is a very smooth and powerful dancer and the fact that I don't know how to dance didn't make a bit of a difference when I was dancing with him because he knew what he was doing and he is a strong lead. He just pushed me into the next step or wherever it was we were supposed to go. It was amazing.

It also sparked a conversation between Hubby and I about the possibility of taking lessons together. There's a place here in our town where they offer free lessons and that is where girlfriend and I went before she decided that she wasn't going to do that afterall. I would love to go there and take lessons with my Hubby and be able to dance smoothly with him. I had such a great time. Hubby had a good time, although he didn't dance at all. We talked about it afterwards and he said that he doesn't enjoy dancing because he doesn't know how to do it. That's how we came to the conclusion to look into the classes.

I cannot wait for when we start the classes! I think it will be an absolute blast! I hope Hubby enjoys it as well. If not, well, we tried. We still have PLENTY of other activities that we enjoy doing together, as well as many that we enjoy doing separately. I find it healthy and beneficial for each of us to have our own interests and friends as well as to have joint ones. So, if the dancing ends up being something that he really does not enjoy, it will work out just fine regardless. I ♥ my Hubby so!

And I loved the fact that we were able to just spend some time sitting around the table, talking with friends and enjoying the music. Good music, good friends, good times.

Columbus Day

2011-10-17T04:30:00.001-05:00

Columbus Day was an extremely busy day for me! I got the kids up in the morning and ready for school then proceeded to get myself ready for the day and over to the school half an hour later to volunteer in Oralee's classroom.

I love working in the classroom! I would love to be a teacher but that is one education that takes more time and resources than I have available to give to it unfortunately. So instead, I choose to volunteer. Oralee is a kindergartener. I volunteered in Cephas' class with he was in Kindergarten, as well as in Koren's class at that grade as well.

I was assigned to the Art table. I had two kids at a time come up to the table as assigned and they would work on identifying the pictures, determining which ones started with the same letter sound as their letter of the week ("M") and then they would cut the pictures out as well as arms and legs for a monster book they are working on and then they would glue the pictures inside the monster book. After they had done that, they could color the pictures. They had twenty minutes to do this.

Let me preface this by stating one thing: Kindergarteners are not all equal in their scissor skills. Very few kids got everything cut out that needed to be in order to glue it in their books, fewer yet got all their pictures glued into their book and not one of them had time to color the pictures.

It may just be me and the era I was raised in but it seems to me that the upper grades (3rd-5th) in grade school are not much different in the material taught than it was when I was in those grades. However, the younger (and more specifically, the youngest!) grades seem so focused and driven. I'm not quite sure what to make of it all.

I mean, when I was five, I went to Kindergarten. My teacher's name was Ms. Schnott. (yes, "shhh-not"). I hated her with a passion. Our basic day was to get to the classroom for our half-day of learning. We would sit on the rug, do our calendar time, say the Pledge of Allegiance and have books read to us and we would do little papers and get into the routine of a school day. We had recess and nap time.

Now, Kindergarten is full-day. There is no nap time, however, there are two recess periods I believe. It is very academic. Instead of children learning their letters and numbers and colors and shapes and the things that we were learning at this age, they are doing that as well as learning to read and add and subtract and do many many different activities. It is just so...busy, I suppose.

I don't know, I guess that is actually the kind of environment I was craving when I was five. (I started school reading, writing and doing math on a 1st/2nd grade level) However, with that being said, I really enjoy being a part of the classroom. With the requirements that our state and local governments put on our educational professionals, on top of the ones that our national government puts on them, I am glad to be able to help out and to help assist the teacher and the students both. The teacher needs additional adults to be sure that each child is learning to their full potential and the kids need that guidance time. And for me, it is additional time that I get to see at least one of my kiddos! That is one thing that always warms my heart and I am grateful for that!

Here's to another wonderful, fun, exciting Kindergarten year!

Crafting Update and Other News

2011-10-17T04:00:00.005-05:00

Otherwise known as a FAIL. Well, it is not FAIL exactly, as it is just incomplete. I did find the fabric that originally prompted me to buy the hoop, but I haven't gotten it put together and hung up. I did get ONE of the TWELVE panels completely finished and have three more in various states of progress. It's going fairly well. It just was not a priority this week.

This past week I feel like my feet have hardly touched the ground, I've been so busy. Between work and the kids' school and volunteering there and trying to get things done around the house and the music lessons and practices that need to get done, as well as house-sitting for my inlaws and then spending time with a friend who was in town for the weekend with some time to spend on me, well...yeah, crafting took a back seat.

This past Monday (Columbus Day) I volunteered at the kids' school. I was in Oralee's class working at the Art station with groups of children that changed about every 20 minutes. That may seem like a fair amount of time to work on an art project that correlates to their letter of the week (this past week was "M" - Mimi Mouse style) but really, it's a tight squeeze and some kids weren't able to get their projects cut out, glued and colored in the allotted time frame.

Monday night was music lessons. The boys did a fantastic job at their lessons! Cephas has a bow test, which I'm not completely sure that I personally understand, but he did well with it. And Koren's teacher told me that he has a real ear for music and rhythm. I find that to be true with all four of my children. They are all musical by nature. And I love that about them!

Wednesday night, we went to Hubby's work for dinner and enjoyed a nice time there as a family before heading home and getting the kids ready for bed. We so look forward to Wednesday nights! Especially now that I have that night off from work!

On Friday night, Hubby and I went out with a couple that we are friends with. Yes, my Hubby and I have been married for nearly 11 years and we stilll date. It was a great time! I think I had a better time than Hubby did though. I knew the people there better and I really enjoy dancing, although I am not very good at it.

Over this past weekend, we just spent time as a family getting chores and other miscellaneous things done around the house. I love having a clean, organized, clutter-free home. However, it does not often stay that way during the week. At all. Hopefully, by having a random day off in the middle of the week, it will help me to combat that issue.

But that is all for now. I will be working on some more detailed posts about some of the things I have written about and will hyper link them for your viewing convenience!

Crafting and Redecorating

2011-10-10T04:00:00.000-05:00

We have recently decided to do our boys' room in an all-out sports theme. They have sports-themed comforters for their beds but I want to do the whole room in a sports theme. At the beginning of October, we had a birthday party for which I made some beanbags for a game that we played. I used sports fabric to make the bean bags and I bought more than I needed for the bean bags so I had some left over.

Today, I decided to go to a craft store to pick up an embroidery hoop to put the extra fabric on and use it as a simple yet cute wall hanging. But then, in the same aisle as the hoops were printed cross stitch patterns. I love those things! I also like counted cross stitch but at this point in my life, the less I have to keep track of, the better. And of course, they had some with a sports theme. There were 12 panels in the package, which you then embroider by hand and then sew together with other fabrics to make a quilt, right? Yeah, I had to get it. I mean, seriously, there are so many options. I can do up all 12 panels and use four apiece for each of the boys and use LOTS of sports theme fabrics. I can buy two more sets of them and make the quilt as directed. I can make throw pillows out of them for the boys' beds, I can create more wall art for them, the possibilities are just astounding to me! I cannot wait to get these twelve panels all finished up so that I can decide what to do with them!!!

I also got a set of 12 butterfly panels for Oralee's room. Since she is the only one in her room and her room is on the smaller side (and currently decorated in fairies and princesses) I have time to work on her panels. No big rush on hers. I'd like to get some more wall stickers from the dollar store for her room though. I saw that they have long blades of grass and flowers that I think would be absolutely adorable around the bottom half of her room. We could move the fairies down so that they could hide in the grass too, with the princesses and other stickers above them. I have great visions, I tell ya!

I am so enjoying the hand embroidery though! It is so relaxing! I learned how to do the stamped cross stitch when I was six. My grandmother taught me. I remember spending many nights at her house, working on embroidery squares while watching television with her. A lot of my handiwork, I learned from her actually. She taught me to sew on a machine (I'm still not good at it!), sew by hand (THAT I can handle - pun intended), embroider, crochet...the list goes on. She was talented, no doubt about it.

My goal for this week (in addition to my normal daily stuff that I won't bore you with - at least, not at this point) is to finish the panels for the boys' room. Maybe this time next week, I will have even decided what to do with them and can share some pictures of finished items with you. That would be fun!

I had to share that with you real quick but I'm off to finish up some basketballs on quilt blocks. Talk to you soon!

Cephas' new "job"

2011-10-09T14:00:00.002-05:00

The other day while cruising craigslist (remember in my last post about there being time for anything we choose to do?) I came across an ad for a leaf raking job near my work. I mentioned it to Cephas and we discussed it. We went over the details of the job, how to conduct an initial phone conversation, what to say as well as what NOT to say and after rehearsing a few times, Cephas called the phone number listed.

He was sitting on my bed, with my cell on speakerphone between us. He got a voicemail and we VERY quickly went through the details of what to say when leaving a message. Basically the same as the beginning of his conversation that we had already rehearsed with a few extra details thrown in (like our phone number).

Later that evening, the person called us back. I answered the phone and then called to Cephas to come over and talk to the client. I don't know what else to call him so that is what he will be called from this point forward. We had the client on speakerphone again, with the phone between us as they discussed further details about the lawn job and made arrangements for the work to be done. After they were done talking, Cephas and I looked up the house address on Google Maps and the county assessor's website so that we would have an idea of what the house looked like, how big the yard was and to get an idea of what to expect.

This was all done on a Thursday. On the following Saturday, Cephas, siblings and I showed up to meet the client in person and for Cephas to get started. I let Cephas do most of the talking, as he was the worker and I wanted him to learn valuable interpersonal skills by doing so. I was not comfortable just dropping him off and leaving but wanted him to have the freedom and independence to get the job done (and to reduce his distractions with getting the job done by removing his siblings from his work), so the siblings and I "left" but stayed in the same area and let him get to work. We drove back to his location a few times here and there to "check" on him and make sure that everything was going well, which it was. Towards the end, I helped him out (against his wishes) because I could see that he was feeling like he was never going to get it all done. In his defense, it was a windy day, the leaves have just started falling and they were continuing to fall and blow onto the yard, which also had LONG grass that he was working against as well. Even I had trouble getting the yard raked.

Koren and Oralee got involved in the work as well. Koren was a great help at bagging the leaves and Oralee was the perfect size to put into the bag to crush the leaves so that we could get more leaves into the bag. Jeriah slept in his carseat in the van (with an open sliding door and windows on a breezy 75* day) just a few feet from where we were.

By the end of his day, Cephas had earned $20.00, I learned a few things, he learned a few things and developed some great interpersonal skills. He also learned how to create more business for himself. When he was talking to the client at the end, he told the client, "I got the job done but your grass is really long. If you'd like, I can come back tomorrow or Monday and mow it for you." Not bad entreprenuership skills for a ten year old!

And the things that I learned? One was about a product that I had never seen before but which I am now well familiar with. It's basically a cardboard box with no bottom and handles on the top that is the same size and shape of a lawn leaf bag. You put it in the bag and it keeps the bag open and upright and makes it much easier to load leaves into the bag. The second thing was that my children really can pull together and work well together for the benefit of just one of them. They all benefited from Cephas' job being done and being able to leave the area and get along with our plans for the rest of the day, but Cephas also benefited from having help to get the job done, earned money AND valuable experience.

All in all, I'd say it was a pretty good deal! And the client wants Cephas to come back. I figure with some of the skills he learned today, he will be well ready to get the job done next weekend and the weekend after that and the weekend after that...so on and so forth until the leaves stop falling. Based on the number of trees and the different types of trees which drop their leaves at different times that are near the client's home, it could be quite awhile.

Schedules

2011-10-09T01:08:00.000-05:00

Right now, schedules around our house are a nightmare. Between Hubby and I, we work every day of the week. The one great thing about this is that we rarely overlap. The problem that we are running into with schedules though, is trying to balance the kids' activities with their responsibilities. It is a hard task. Whoever said parenting was easy obviously was not a parent.

I try to have the kids' clothes picked out the night before. They are free to choose something different to wear if they want but at least this way, there is a full set of clean clothes ready for them to put on and start their day. I also try to have them put their homework in their backpacks and to have their backpacks hung up and their shoes and jackets near their backpacks as well so that when it is time to go they can just head out the door. Super easy! The problem with this happens on Wednesday and Friday mornings. You see, I work on Tuesdays and Thursdays and don't get home until really late. I'm not around those days after school to make sure they get their homework done and to do all of those things that I normally do with or for them the nights that I am home. On the other hand, I guess, it is only two days a week and maybe I just need to plan better for those things and make sure that the kids get up early enough on Wednesdays and Fridays to allow them time to do the things that they are supposed to do after school. I don't know. It's all a work in progress.

Right now, I am printing off some materials from one of my favorite sites (EVER!) called Donna Young. It is just an invaluable resource if you are a homemaker OR a homeschooler OR a mom just trying to get herself together. I'm a little of all three. I'm definitely the homemaker (even though I work more hours than Hubby does outside of our home), and we tend to be something called "Afterschoolers" (read "The Well-Trained Mind" if you have never heard of an afterschooler) and yup, I'm also a mama, just trying to make sure everything runs smoothly for everybody.

We have so many things going on, I just wish I could cancel some of them out. But in reality, I know that the things that we have going on for the kids are good for them and that they enjoy their activities and they grow from them. Webelos meetings, Wolf meetings, Pack meetings, popcorn sales, Daisy meetings, nut and candy sales, piano lessons, violin lessons, church youth group, Cephas' various jobs...all are worthwhile and enhance our children - and us.

So I try to remember that on the days that I have off from work and am running from school pick up to product sales to music lessons to daisy meeting and feel like I have nothing to show for my day. In reality, I have the entire day that they are at school to get things done that *I* need to get done on my day off. After school time should be about them and family and doing things that enrich us. So if you see me whining about how much I didn't get done, remind me that there is always time for anything that we choose to do. And in the meantime, I'll be working harder and smarter to make sure that I am getting the most use of my time as well! Thanks everyone!

Beginnings

2011-10-05T00:59:00.000-05:00

Here we are the start of a new blog. I have decided to start a brand-new, fresh blog for the purpose of keeping my family's information more private than before. Not that there was a huge concern about the amount that I shared on my old blog, but I just want to make sure that this one is totally safe for the kids' well-being.

Let me share a little bit about myself. For starters, I am a wife. My husband and I have been married for nearly eleven years now. We have been blessed with four children. Our oldest, *Cephas, is ten and a fifth grader. He plays the violin and the piano and is a Webelo in Cub Scouts. He loves sports and being active but also loves playing video games and vegging out in front of the television for a cartoon.

Our next oldest, *Koren, is also a boy, is eight and a second grader. He plays the piano and wants to learn to play the violin. He also takes part in Cub Scouts as a Wolf Cub. He actually has just recently earned his Bobcat badge and will be awarded with it in two weeks at the Den meeting. He is so excited! Much like his older brother, he loves sports and being active but is also willing to chill on the sofa and watch television or play a video game.

The third child in our family, *Oralee, is our only girl. She is five years old, in kindergarten and is generally a delight to be around. She loves all things girly, like pink and purple and shopping and fashion. She is into music but does not take any music lessons yet. She loves to dance and play and sing. We plan to enroll her in dance lessons at some point soon but for now, she keeps plenty busy with Girl Scouts as a Daisy.

Our baby boy, *Jeriah, is four. He is on the spectrum for an Autism Disorder. He attends a half day preschool class and has an Individualized Educational Plan to help him overcome or deal with some of the nuances of his disorder. He is an incredible child. Just like his older siblings, he also enjoys music and activity. He can memorize songs and melodies quickly as well as song lyrics. He doesn't have any extra activities like the older children do but that is okay with us. He will have his own activities soon enough.

My husband is a cook for a restaurant. He loves his job as cooking is one of his passions. He is also a fabulous father and husband in general. Oh sure, we have our moments (who doesn't?!) but overall, he is the best!

I am a health care professional. At work, I take care of people and also handle all the day-to-day tasks of organizing and running our workplace. It's a lot of work and there are many times that I end up taking work home with me as well. Lately, it has improved at work and I don't bring home work very often at all anymore.

I am a leader in my daughter's Girl Scout troop which is a perfect fit for me because I love kids and teaching. To be honest, if I didn't have to work outside of the home to make ends meet here, I would stay home and homeschool all four of our children. But that's another story, another situation, another post for another time.

I just wanted to introduce my family to you. We're happy to have you here!

(You may have noticed the * by the childrens' names. I used a random name generator online to find unusual names for my children for the protection of their identity. All the names I chose are of a Hebrew origin and are all rather fun names, in my opinion.)

2011-10-03T16:30:00.002-05:00

I just saw a link for this over at Absentminded Mother and had to click on over to I Can Teach My Child to check it out and see what it was all about.

I must say, I like the idea! I am also going to present it to my kiddos and suggest it as a family activity. It will also give us something to share about each night at dinner. It's also not a bad idea since the boys are in Scouts and one of the things that they are supposed to put into practice is to "Do A Good Turn" each day.

Some things I would like to do include:

volunteer at our homeless shelter
donate food to local charities
serve meals at one of the senior centers here
take a meal to a family
host a Thanksgiving meal for those who might otherwise not have a Thanksgiving
offer to babysit for a family for free
create a craft project of some sort to be given away

Plus, I really like all of the ideas that Absentminded Mother had as well! I look forward to seeing some of the ideas from the other participants so that it can spur on additional ideas for our family! I love to serve others. I do so with a (generally) grateful and happy heart. I long for my children to acquire that as well. I think they are on their way there. Koren most definitely. He wanted do a yard job for free just to be nice. I suggested that if he wanted to, he could do it for the money and then donate the money to a charity of his choice. That job ended up being cancelled, but I do believe that Koren's heart is in the right place.

So anyhow, I just wanted to let you all know about this great idea going on for this month. What do you think? Are you going to join up as well?