Nope! Not gonna do it.
However, since this is the last day of the year, and we start school back up on Wednesday I'm going to spend the next two days decluttering and filing paperwork.
Hubby and I started on a cupboard last night. We sorted, bagged, labeled, and boxed all the cords. (Phone chargers, battery chargers and walky talkies and their chargers.) We then tackled the papers in the same cupboard that were stuffed in the with bill organizer. Most got thrown away, and some went in a pile to put in my home management binder today. The bill organizer also got cleaned out an organized.
I used some Christmas money from dear Mother-in-law to buy a new purse. Finally big enough to fit my coupon orgnanizer. Actually I can fit the coupons, my wallet thingy, JoAnn's and Hancock fabric ads, and a full-sized Bible in there, along with all the other odds and ends a lady is supposed to carry! I also bought a wallet style contraption. It has several slots for bills, all my store club cards (and one credit card) insurance cards, a place for pictures, checkbook, and paper pad! I finally was able to get rid of all the money envelopes I carry around since we use an envelope system for our budget.
Here's my to do list for the next few days.
Call about the numbers that go on the back of the generic dental cards they sent us. X
Look up Delta Dental and find out which dentists we can go to. X
Pay some bills X
Clean and reorganize the Home Management Binder and add papers found yesterday X
Type up some of my papers for HMB
Figure sales tax for my business and file my paperwork to make room for 2008 X
Clean/organize top shelf of school cupboard X
Go through box under bed of bills, receipts, etc from 2007
File those and get rid of the file from 2006
That should keep me busy along with the regular daily and Monday and Tuesday chores. No school or sewing until this is done, or Wednesday.
Hope you all have a productive day!
~Stella
Monday, December 31, 2007
New Year's Resolutions
Friday, December 28, 2007
GNATS
When I was cleaning my basement I had to find a solution for gnats. Anyone who gardens and brings produce into the house for the winter will understand. A few stragglers come in on the food (onions, potatoes, squash, etc.) and then they multiply. No matter how often you pick out any food that is starting to go bad; you still cannot get rid of them.
Well, I had hundreds of gnats to get rid of before our get together. Not willing to fumigate, I got to thinking about something that works for apple trees to keep the worms out. I put one cup of vinegar in a jar, with a cup of sugar. Worked like a charm. Within a couple of days I had a jar full of drowned gnats. ( I had a picture too- but the computer... Ah well, it was pretty gross anyhow!)
I'm Back
I really didn't leave. We had a big get-together here on the 22nd. Then my computer crashed. I had a virus that I deleted many times, yet it kept coming back. I also caught a real virus, as did the entire family.
We are not healed, cleaned, and restored. Well, almost. I am having problems with internet explorer on some sites, but Foxfire works fine on them???? Anyone have any ideas?
I had planned to post some more before and after photos of my basement, but all my before shots were lost with the system restore. I am not willing to mess it back up just for a good photo. LOL.
I hope everyone had a nice Christmas, holiday, vacation, or whatever.
Saturday, December 15, 2007
Super Saving Saturday Payoff!!!!
This was our super saving for the week! We paid off our loan. We had been paying little bits extra on it here or there, but in the last few months we have paid several hundred dollars extra, mostly from cutting our grocery budget ( and this right before Christmas! It is so neat to have extra money at Christmas time!
Our savings is now from having NO interest bearing loans besides the mortgage! We still have 2 interest free loans to pay. One will be paid off in February, and we hope to have the other paid off by Feb. of 2009. LORD willing!
Need to know how to get huge savings on groceries. Check out http://www.moneysavingmom.com/ You can see our recent savings, and grocery budget goals here: http://happyinthehome.blogspot.com/search/label/Frugal%20Living
Thursday, December 13, 2007
Decluttering the Basement
Part of my to-do list to get ready for Christmas was to declutter the downstair/basement. I've been working at it for 2 days now. These are just a few of my before and after pics. Here is the toy area under the stairs.
Basically it just didn't all fit. So while everyone else was busy. I cleaned up. This area alone required 1 1/2 lawn size garbage bags. The tubs on the top shelf still need going through, but much better.
This is what will eventually be a family room. I didn't have much to work with here, as there is as yet no better place to store the box spring. We are keeping it in case the girls decide to ditch the bunks.
Much better. It really is hard because this is all yet unfinished. The only actual room down here is the girls' bedroom which is on the other side of that wall. Hubby did a beautiful job. We have lots of plans for down here, but we need to wait until we can afford to do the work.
This wall is almost entirely filled with shelves and storage items. Baby clothes, decorations, and school books. For some reason I didn't get all of the shelves in the before pic, but they were just as bad. Lots of garbage bags here.
This area is still not finished. The desk is not being used and needs to find a new home, though I don't think that will happen before Christmas.
I wonder what the trash collecter thought when he stopped. Lots of extra bags, an old car seat, and a rolled up matteress.
There are still a lot of areas down here that need to be decluttered. The good news is I got rid of a lot and didn't just shuffle it to another part of the basement. Maybe I'll update as I go.
Oh, and just for comparison sake, our upstairs is NOTHING like the down stairs. We actually have peaceful looking living areas.
Wednesday, December 12, 2007
Our Family Portrait
Two of our daughters are paper doll nuts. They have made paper dolls for every person they know. This is our family. Amy definately does not have red hair, but other than that and the REALLY long legs. It's not bad.
My Tubal Reversal
By 1996 we had been married 4 years and had two children and one on the way. This was going to give us 3 children 3 and under. I was stressed emotionally and we were both stressed financially. I knew nothing about budgeting, child raising, or managing a home. It was a good day if I did the dishes and the kids ate more than mac-n-cheese, hot dogs, and canned fruit for lunch. They always had cold cereal for breakfast. I cleaned house sporadically, and spent a lot of time in front of the TV.
I was not a horrible mom, I stayed home, breastfed, took my children outside and walked with them a lot! I just didn't have my priorities straight. (Boy, have we come a long way)
Anyway, we had been having trouble with our finances. We were using WIC, and the state was paying for our health insurance. We were trying really hard to get off the assistance when I found out I was expecting. The lady at the state office said they would tie my tubes for free. What a relief. (Never, never, never make a decision when you are stressed, and/or pregnant.) It was all too easy, and everyone was so supportive.
Hubby never let on that he was having second thoughts even on the day of the surgery (the day after Amy's birth) when I asked, "Are you sure". I was having second thoughts but I chalked them up to pre-surgery jitters. Boy was I grumpy when I came to. I blamed that on the anesthetic.
Amy was the perfect baby! (as far as the world is concerned). She rarely cried, she slept for long hours and would fall back to sleep very quickly and easily. It wasn't long before I was pining for another baby.
Six months later I was saved! My prospective slowly started to change. I started learning these crazy ideas of how to be a good wife, and to train my children.
I prayed for God to heal my womb. In 2000, I was on a Christian woman's homekeeping board, and say the signature of a woman there. She listed her children and then added and our tubal reversal babies... I actually thought she had had a tubal pregnancy moved. When I did a search on tubal reversals, I realized what she had done. Then we were pointed to Psalm 127. We also read the book "A Full Quiver". Our eyes were opened, we had not trusted God. We had leaned on our own understanding. What were we to do. We talked and prayed for God to heal my womb. We knew that we couldn't afford to get a reversal as they cost $12,000-15,000.
Praise be to God, we found that there are doctors scattered around the country that did this surgery at a very reduced cost. We found a doctor a few states away that charged $4375 all inclusive. This was still a HUGE amount of money for us, as we had never saved any money. The next paycheck we were able to put $200 in a savings account. We figured at that rate it would take.....
Well, God had other plans in mind. Apparently we needed to learn to trust. Every paycheck we put money in the bank we had to take it back out for an unexpected expense. For months and months we never accumulated more than that original $200. I really felt that God wanted us to do this, but if we could only save $200 in six months it would take....... Ahhh. One day I re-read Psalm 127:1 "Except the LORD build the house, they labour in vain that build it". Now I understood, that I was trying so hard to build my house, but if the LORD wanted this surgery, He would provide for it.
I then quit worrying about it. Then in January I was figuring our taxes and about went through the roof. Some of the tax had changed and we were a lot of money back. $4175 to be exact. $200 shy of the amount we needed for the surgery. Then I remembered the $200 still sitting in the bank! We couldn't believe the money was the exact amount! (Actually, when I refigured I had made a mistake, we actually ended up with $7 more. Hmmm) Praise God! He did it all!
Hubby told me to go ahead and make the appointment. I could get in March 21, which just happened to coincide with the month that Hubby gets an extra paycheck because of how the weeks fall. That money would pay for our travel.
Dr. Curlin was great! He had pictures of his sons and grandsons (he didn't have any girls) on the wall with Bible verses underneath them in his office. He was retired as an OB-GYN and did these surgeries as a ministry. The surgery went well, and I went home early the next morning.
The next four years were a huge test of faith, and I constantly had to go back to the beginning of Psalm 127. I had since found out that one tube had scarred closed, and it was the side my body favored for ovulation. That made it very hard to conceive, and when I did I kept miscarrying. I had to keep giving this back to God. I had done what I could to fix my body, and the rest was up to God. At one point during a Bible study, I realized that my worth was not wrapped up in whether I could have more children, how many I had, or good a wife and mother I was. My worth was because God created me for His purpose-not mine. I was finally able to rest in the Lord.
August 14, 2004 Hubby's dad went to be with the LORD. Now we know that God knew Hubby would need something to look forward to in the dark days of depression when he was missing his dad so terribly. Two weeks later we found out I was expecting. We conceived the night after Dad's passing. This was our first (and so far only) son, named after his grandpa. God is so good, he knows all things. If we could only look into the future and see what God had planned for us, we would always say, "Yes, LORD, your ways are always right".
Monday, December 10, 2007
I've Got the Blues!
Okay, not really. I'm not depressed or anything. It's just that the desire to have another baby gets really strong at times. It seems like the last few weeks it's been getting stronger. At first I couldn't figure out what it was. Then I started to count. I know 9 women expecting 11 babies, and that is not counting my cyberfriends.
That is truly incredible. I can usually at any given time count 2 or 3 pregnant women that I know. I really do get excited when someone tells me they are expecting, whether it's their first, or tenth, or they just had one ten months ago. Okay, there are a few that give me thought for example the unwed mom expecting twins..... That seems to be when I get a little jealous, but God is sovereign and He knows what He is doing.
It took 4 years to get Little Boy, and I am still prone to miscarriages. I'm also 35, and while I know that it's not ancient by any means, fertility rates do go down and when your not very fertile anyway... well. Yes, I have written about contentment, but sometimes it is hard, especially when these are good gifts that I desire. I will praise the Lord no matter what!
Oh, something truly amazing I read yesterday. A sweet blogger had a miscarriage last month, and just found out she is STILL expecting. The doctor has her theory's, I say it's a miracle! Anyone who miscarries knows this is what we hope for after we've gotten the bad news, even though we know it is irrational. Praise God, this is what happened in her case!
I truly am blessed to raise 4 lovely, interesting, unique children for the Lord. I also know I have a brood in Heaven! I don't normally tell people about wanting another child. I hear so many times, that I should be happy for what I have ( as though I'm not), There are people who have no children (yes, and that is so sad). One person even told Hubby while I was pregnant with Little Boy, "Some people can't have children and you breed like rabbits", said the nice Christian lady. It is just so foreign to people in today's world that someone would desire many children.
If you are expecting, praise God for that little one. It truly is a miracle to be able to conceive and carry such a precious little bundle! I know, I've gotten to do it 4 times!
Psalm 127 was one of the verses instrumental in us deciding to have a tubal reversal 6 years ago. I have many times had to go back to the first 2 verses. I also think it is interesting that He put these verses together.
1Except the LORD build the house, they labour in vain that build it: except the LORD keep the city, the watchman waketh but in vain.
2It is vain for you to rise up early, to sit up late, to eat the bread of sorrows: for so he giveth his beloved sleep.
3 Lo, children are an heritage of the LORD and the fruit of the womb is his reward.
4 As arrows are in the hand of a mighty man; so are children of the youth.
5 Happy is the man that hath his quiver full of them; they shall not be ashamed, but they shall speak with the enemies in the gate.
Okay, now that that is out, I can concentrate on the things I can do something about!
Saturday, December 8, 2007
A Few Good Deals
I didn't keep track of my shopping this week, but I did get a couple of good deals from our local grocer.
*Crispix cereal was on sale for $1.88. I had a $1 off coupon. Total 88cents.
*Hamburger Helper on sale for 99cents. I had a 75 cent off three coupon.
*Store coupon buy 4 Hamburger Helper get $1 off hamburger. Bought 1# hamburger on sale for $1.99. Paid 99cents.
*Store coupon $2.00 off any Sundown Vitamin. Bought the 100 ct. 500mg Vit C at $2.59 paid 59cents.
Saving my coupons and watching for store sales has really helped me to get some good deals. Before moneysavingmom I would not have thought to use both the Hamburger Helper coupon and the hamburger coupon together. Actually I probably wouldn't have thought to clip the coupons at all.
Check it out: http://www.moneysavingmom.com/
Friday, December 7, 2007
Let's Cheer Each Other On!
Hadias has said she will play the tagging game next week. She decided to take a break from blogging so if she doesn't get to it, we'll assume she was busy getting caught up!
I had thought about leaving the questions till next week also, so I had lots to write. Going ahead and writing it down made me decide I better do something, so I got on the horn and called all the relatives and got a date put on the calendar for our Christmas party.
I was just thinking that it was not just Hadias and I that are a bit behind this season, and it would be fun to have a little accountability while cheering each other on. So if anyone else is game, why don't we make a list of the things we REALLY want or need to get done this month. You can either leave a comment with your list, or a link to your blog entry with your to do list!
Lord bless you and may you have a productive week.
~Stella
My To Do List
Take a picture of the kids
Turn the picture into a Christmas Card and get them sent out
Catch up one day on school so we can start the new year right on time
Finish planning the Christmas party
Finish shopping for My family, Secret Santa, and Stockings
Declutter the downstairs for the Christmas party
Wednesday, December 5, 2007
I've Been Tagged!
I've been tagged by http://www.keepersofthehomejm.blogspot.com/ to play a question and answer game.
1. What did you accomplish this past week? Oh dear, you expect me to remember a WHOLE week? I can't think of anything out of the ordinary. The house is mostly clean, every one is clothed and well fed. Business has picked up and I did a huge amount of sewing.
Maybe I should list the things I should have gotten accomplished: Picture of the kids for a Christmas card. Organize Hubby's family Christmas. Any volunteers to take these over??? I dread them both! Organizing the family Christmas is my life long job. Everyone else has a family with 2 full time jobs, which means trying to find a weekend day and time when no one has to work. Ugh! Okay nuff complaining, it really is fun when such a big family gets together!
2. Did anything not go as expected? Yes. We didn't get to go to Church Sunday. We had some weather problems, which caused vehicle problems. Meg was supposed to play piano for the special music portion of the service. We had to call and they told her they could fit her in at the end of February. I think I was more disappointed than she was!
3. What was the highlight of your week? Goodness I sound so whiney in my last two responses. Really the week was rather quite and busy as usual! I love being home with my family! I love having days that others would consider boring! The highlight was probably realizing we have less than two more weeks for school on this years calendar!
4. Did anything exciting happen that you did not expect? An Amish buggy hit our mailbox. I'm not sure what happened, but the girls said the top of the mailbox was leaning. On inspecition there are horse prints and wheel marks right up to it. I hope they are all right!
Well, I get to tag someone.... How about http://proverbswife.blogspot.com/ and http://bellamamasprairielife.blogspot.com/
Tuesday, December 4, 2007
Dad made it out okay.
We don't know if the procedure will take care of his pain or not. The doctor said it may feel worse before it feels better. No complications, but he still needs to watch for side effects for a couple of days.
Glad that is over.
We're taking my Dad to an appointment at the hospital this morning. He injured his back a LONG time ago and they have been doing various pain management routines. Today they are going into the nerves by his spinal cord. The doctor thinks this will give him some real relief, however it is not without risks. If there is any bleeding during the proceedure it is emergency surgery. Also there is the risk of paralysis anytime they get close to the spinal cord.
We'll all be glad when this proceedure is over. My mom is so nervous she won't even go. She volunteered to take the kids at her house (this is really unnecessary). It will keep her busy, so they are packing up the school books and heading to Grandmas.
There is also a chance of bad weather today, which doesn't easy Mom's nerves any; another reason she doesn't want to go.
Any prayers today, would be greatly appreciated.
I'll update later.
Monday, December 3, 2007
Sing Jesus Mommy
After his naptime story, Little Boy curled up on my lap to snuggle and whispered, "Sing Jesus, Mommy". I've sang to him since he was newborn, anything from "Jesus Loves Me" to "You Are My Sunshine". I thought it was so sweet that he wanted a "Jesus" song!
Saturday, December 1, 2007
Super Saving Saturday (CVS Long Distance)
3 Puffs 2.97
2 Candy Cane 1.76
-Puffs coupon - .50
-ECB -3.99
Total oop .29
Total oop $1.81
I had not intended to use ecbs for the phone cards. We use them for long distance anyway. However I didn't get the Benefiber and Gax-ex I had intended to which put my total lower. After they gave me my total they told me I wasn't supposed to use ecbs for the cards. I feel somewhat guilty now. I don't want to abuse the system. I could have thrown in some batteries or something, but I don't think well on my feet. kwim
Anyway, my transaction did not generate any ecbs, but I am still pleased to have lots of things that we can use. Next weeks deals include Tide and cough drops. The sale price on each is what I would normally spend on sale and will generate ecbs. So I will be back in the game.
On another note: When we got home when had a gift package with goodies for the kids, including unsweetened applesauce, juice boxes, canned ham, barbequed pork, and fruit snacks, and peanut butter! Praise the Lord!
Want to participate in Super Saving Saturday? Visit Crystal at http://www.moneysavingmom.com/
Super Saving Saturday! Black Friday
-$1 Soft soap coupon
-$2 off $10 purchase
- 9.98 ECB
=total oop 65 cents
Recieved 14.46 back in ECBs
CVS Transaction 2
Excederin 3.79
2 CVS Freezer Bags 3.58
2 Candy Canes (bogo) .99
Bic Soleil Razor 6.99
2 Hersheys Pot of Gold 9.00
-Excederin Q 2.00
-Bic Q 2.00
-ECB from Transaction1 14.46
Total oop $ 6.58 Which is slightly less than I was going to pay for the 2 Pot of Golds at another store. We were in a hurry to get to another sale, which is why I didn't do a 3 rd transaction and get these for free.
Got back 16.36 in ECBs
We were also given a pasture fed turkey, and 2 1/2 dozen eggs. Praise the Lord for all his provisions!
You can see other great deals at http://www.moneysavingmom.com/
