Final Tally

The final tally for our Kroger shopping in September is $238.31. We came in below our goal of $75.00 per week for groceries, but don't let that fool you.

September was actually a rather expensive month for us. We've been working on redoing our living room and have purchased paint, trim, adhesive, and curtains among other things. We also had to get shoes for five of the children and me. Jon's birthday was this month and we went out to eat and of course I bought him a gift. September is a pretty busy month for us and we ended up eating out more than usual.

Most likely, any money we saved on food was spent on other needs, wants, or desires.

Post (Aren't I Clever?)

As you can probably tell from my title, I'm not feeling very creative today.

The past few days have been wonderful, crazy, and busy. Saturday included Jon's birthday, the Buckeyes winning, the kick-off party (carnival this year) for Sonflower Scouts, and a trip to Young's Jersey Dairy for the boys. Jon was supposed to start his new work schedule Saturday, but he took the day off. That gave Jon six days off in a row. The girls and I joined Jon and the boys at Young's for ice cream after we helped clean up from the carnival. On Sunday after church (I had nursery duty) I was exhausted and Jon sent me to take a nap (it was a long nap). Jon and the kids did a lot while I slept. When I got up I fixed a late lunch. Then, the kids and I went to church. I now help with Little Bear's class on Sunday evenings. When the kids and I got home we watched the Bengals game (Jon had saved it). The Bengals beat the Steelers in Cincinnati! Yesterday, we caught up on some cleaning that has been falling to the wayside with school. As a treat for their hard work, we took the kids back to Young's for ice cream last night.

Jon goes back to work today, and I have a feeling that we'll be doing school almost to bedtime. We're still trying to figure out how our schedule will work. If I have the energy, I might post about our schedule tonight.

On the way home from Young's, we stopped by Kroger to pick up a few things we needed. We spent $19.12. Our Kroger total for September is now $238.81.

Day 20

Last night, the children and I went to Kroger. Our total was $106.14, and between sales and coupons we saved $51.18. Our total Kroger spending for the month is $219.69. That leaves us just over $80 left for the month.

Grocery Update

Jon ran to Kroger for me (a few times) Thursday to get some things we needed for some meals we were providing outside our home. The total for the three trips came to $32.95. So that brings our total Kroger spending to $113.55 for the month for any average of $37.85 per week so far. That's not bad, but we have spent some money at other places. Our grocery spending has not been much in addition to the Kroger purchases. I'm going to have to go shopping soon. I'm just about out of some essential baking items.

Hard at Work

Froggie, Monkey, and Puppy Dog copy their Spelling lists.

I'd report our grocery spending...

. . . but, there hasn't been any.

I take that back.

I did spend $4.50 Sunday afternoon on a newspaper and three bags of fall candy. The newspaper had four or five coupon inserts. I thought there were just four, but when I thought I was done going through them I found another under the newspaper. It was either a fifth one or I hadn't kept them all together. A bag of candy corn and a bag of candy pumpkins in a jar I use for incentive treats for school time. (The children were disappointed to learn that they could only have one pumpkin per day.) The other bag of candy I bought was candy "Autumn mix" corn. I'll use that to refill the jar later. That would bring my Kroger total for the month to $80.60.

I still have meats, veggies, and some other items in the freezer to use up. I'm wondering if I get it all used up this month. I really don't want to have to put anything back after I defrost the freezer though. I may need to leave the freezer off until I can find a new seal or another solution, since it doesn't seal properly at the top. Our refrigerator is a stand alone fridge (no freezer).

I've been out of milk for a few days, but we have had other sources of calcium and vitamin D.

The cabinets are starting to clear out, so I'll have to take inventory soon.

I think we'll go shopping after Jon gets paid tomorrow.

Poor Lily

Lily

We decided to air out the house yesterday, so we opened up the front and back doors. We kept a close eye on the cats to make sure that they didn't venture out. Our cats are indoor cats and have not been vaccinated for some of the ailments they could contract if they come in contact with outdoor cats. We did really well until later in the evening. The cats had been so good that we quit checking on them. Then, we went to bed.

Apparently, no one checked to be sure the cats were accounted for. This morning when I let the dogs out, an animal started fussing. At first, I thought it was the puppy from across the street. However, the longer the animal fussed, the more cat-like it sounded. Birdie walked up behind me and said, "I hear Lily". I told her that I knew it sounded like Lily, but I thought Lily was inside. I brought the dogs back inside (they were dawdling), and I kept asking everyone to keep an eye out for Lily. Finally, I started calling the cats. Midnight, one of the dogs, about went crazy wanting me to go out back. I went to our back entryway and sure enough, there was Lily at the door crying to be let in.

Midnight

Lily was a little cold and a little scared, but she seems alright. Tiger, our other cat, is not pleased. He has been hissing and growling at Lily all day. He has even started to hiss and growl at us, if we pick him up or pet him. Lily must not smell right. Seriously though, I wonder how long this will last? Tiger is usually our laid back kitty.

Tiger

*Our other dog, Maggie, did NOT want her picture taken. She is a bit shy and kept cowering away from the camera.

**Oh yeah, yesterday, Kitty Kat found our camera under a china cabinet of all places.

+ Kitty Kat had the idea to rub a towel over Lily and then over Tiger. Unfortunately, it didn't work. So, I gave the cats a bath. Hopefully, that will do the trick.

Tuesday (because I'm not feeling creative today)

I was totally worn out from our travels yesterday. Therefore, our meals today were rather blah.

Breakfast: banana oatmeal

Lunch: leftovers and bananas

Supper: french fries with browned ground beef, cheese, and ketchup

Snacks: fruit snacks (kids)

I did get a loaf of banana bread made and some bananas frozen. We'll have the bread for breakfast in the morning. In total, I took care of seventeen of the bananas Jon brought home. We used five bananas from what we already had here for lunch.

On the homeschool front:

I only had the kids work on unfinished assignments and take Spelling tests. They were supposed to take the tests on Friday, but they got carried away with their Science assignments and we ran out of time. Before the tests three of the girls sat in a circle and gave each other a "fun test" (Monkey's name for it) for review. Those who had tests to take did well (nothing below a B+, three got A or A+). Puppy Dog fussed that "someone" lost his Spelling list, so he couldn't study. He got all twelve of his words and his bonus word correct!

Tomorrow we're going to have to work extra hard so that we can go to evening church.

Bananas!

Since it's a new week, I'm determined to post what we eat for the $75 a Week Grocery Spending Challenge. I'll try to post for every day this week. I'll decide for the following weeks when I come to them.

Sunday

Breakfast: cold cereal and milk

Lunch: chicken, 3 peppers and onions, and corn with teriyaki sauce over rice

Supper: cheese pizza, banana halves

Snacks: sliced bell peppers (from my Mom's garden), tomatoes (from our garden and my
Mom's), and tomato juice (Thanks, Mom!)

Monday

Breakfast: leftover pancakes (from Saturday), milk

Lunch: macaroni and cheese with peas, fried bologna, and sliced tomatoes

Supper: cookout at my sister's house We're taking deviled eggs and carrot sticks.

The kids are thrilled about this next subject! Some of them have been fussing about only getting a half banana at a time. They don't care that half a banana is a serving, they just want a whole one to themselves. Anyway, Jon brought home a treat last night from work.

Bananas for banana bread!

Sorry about the picture quality. We misplaced our camera and still haven't found it. This picture was taken with my phone.

Tomorrow will be quite busy with school, housework, and lots of baking!

Grocery Trip #1

This week has been a little crazy. This week has been so crazy, that at any given time, I lose one or more of the days in my memory. (Jon was thinking out loud for me and said, "either the week was crazy, or you're getting old. Since you're not getting old, the week must have been crazy." Isn't he sweet?) Therefore, I'm not going to report on everything we've eaten so far this month.

Jon and I decided that we would only count our grocery expenditures for this challenge. I will not be counting household items, toiletries, or pet supplies unless they are purchased at Kroger with our food purchases.

Most of our food purchases are made at Kroger. We don't get food items at other stores very often. I know what the best prices are for the items we use and I'm careful to shop the sales, but I don't usually go out of my way unless it is really worth it. This week we spent $76.10 at Kroger. We got some treats for our cats ($2) and a bar of Fels-Naptha ($1.29) or we would have been under budget. We do have a rebate to send in to get $10 back and $70 off a Dell computer. We most likely will not use the Dell coupon. We also probably won't get the $10 before the end of the month.

September $75 Grocery Challenge

Mary from Owlhaven is doing a grocery challenge this month. I spoke to Jon about it, and have decided to take her up on the challenge. We may not be able to stay within the $75, but I'll try. Saturday was the first time I did any real grocery shopping in about three weeks. Our cupboards are not full. Our freezer isn't full either. We are having some problems with the seal on our freezer and it is frosting horribly. Therefore, I need to empty the freezer. This challenge should help with that.

If you follow the link above(Mary from Owlhaven), you too can join in the challenge. I dare you!

Today and Way to Go Birdie!

Last night I remembered some more things that had to be done before I went to bed. I did get the bread started last night. I was still up when Jon came home from work, and I didn't get to bed until after three in the morning. Since I was up so late, I decided to allow ourselves to head out at eleven instead of ten.

I printed off my blog post last night so I would have my list handy. It was a good thing! I decided to check my list and was reminded to have my devotional time. I chose Philippians chapter four for my Bible reading, because I knew I would need it. I actually had planned on reading from the Old Testament, but Philippians four came to mind while I was praying. My mindset today was much better than last night.

before 10:00 am list

We got everything done on my before 10:00 am list. I did make some minor adjustments. Instead of oatmeal and yogurt, we had oatmeal and milk to save time. I also heated water in the tea kettle and used that to make the oatmeal instead of cooking it on the stove and having to watch over it. I nixed the potatoes and carrots so that I wouldn't have to spend the time fixing them this morning. I had planned on putting together some cross word puzzles for the kids to use to practice their spelling words. The links on the site I had bookmarked to do that with just kept taking me in circles last night. I knew I didn't have time to do four different puzzles on my own. I didn't get the children's things ready. I let them do it! Instead of cleaning the whole kitchen I did some dishes last night and this morning. Our dishwasher is ancient and doesn't work right, so we have to hand wash.

10:00 am - ? list

We headed out just after eleven this morning. The children were pretty good about doing their homework and helping out. I was much more at peace about things today. I did call Jon before I headed home and he turned off the oven for me. I fixed mashed potatoes and peas and carrots to go with our meatloaf and bread-and-butter. We still ate lunch around two.

2:30 - ? list

Jon left for work a little later than usual. He was spending time with the kids and forgot to watch the clock. He was still on time, but just didn't get there as early as he likes to in order to get his equipment for the night claimed. I rested while the kids avoided resting. When I got up, I mandated rest time. We haven't gotten back to school. Jon suggested that we do a half day today and a half day tomorrow in order to paint the living room. I'm taking him up on it. We had a late snack. I still need to fix supper after I am done posting this. I'll probably have the children do their chores while I'm fixing supper. I really don't feel like browning the ground beef tonight. I checked the date on the meat an I still have a few days. I'll do that tomorrow.


Way to go, Birdie!

Birdie has trouble with visual perception and fine motor skills. Due to this, her writing is rarely legible. Last year, she could focus to write legibly for about the time it took her to copy two or three words. The word would often be mirror images of what I had given her as an example. Sometimes the word would be up-side-down and sometimes backward.

Following are Birdie's penmanship papers from last week and this week. For some reason, our scanner did some weird things with the pages. I didn't feel like messing with it, so I left them as they were.

Last week, I printed out part of our memory verse for her to copy. I intended to have her do part of the verse each day, Wednesday through Friday. The verse is Matthew 5:14. Everyone had it memorized Wednesday, so I gave them a break on penmanship for rest of our first week back to school.

This is Birdie's penmanship from last week. I was pleased that I could make out some of the words.


This is Birdie's penmanship from yesterday. The verse was on our white board and I didn't make a copy for her. I wanted to see what she could do. I was also pleased with this. I can make out some of the words and this was a more difficult task for her.


Today, Birdie's penmanship REALLY impressed me! Since we weren't at home and I didn't want Birdie trying to copy from yesterday's penmanship (as the others were doing), I had Kitty Kat print out a sample for Birdie to copy from.




Didn't she do a great job?