O. W. IN G. S.

Current Chaos - the calm before the storm

2011-10-10T15:20:00.003-04:00

I noticed that nobody has posted here in a while, so I figured I'd pop in to explain. After our costly January, we were informed that I would be losing my job at the end of April. I spent the rest of February, March, and April working every hour possible to squirrel away as much as we could. The thought process was to try to make it through the time between jobs. Little did I know that there was no job in the area for me. The month of May gave way to June, which quickly became July. Before I knew, it was August, and I was still job hunting. I looked into the possibility of returning to school to finish what I'd started 18 years previous. I enrolled at the local Community College, and started classes in early September. Here we are in October, at midterms, (we are still on quarters until next year),and I am barely able to think. I came here to see what was going on from my wife's perspective, as we haven't had much time to converse with each other lately. I still don't know anything, but was at least able to, for the moment, relieve the stress of having to do schoolwork. I had two midterm exams today, with a paper, quiz, and another exam tomorrow. Maybe Brandi could tell you about our vehicular adventures in her next post, or maybe she will be trying to relieve her own stress as she plans to return to college as well. The storm is coming.....

Ha!

2011-01-25T21:48:00.002-05:00

I'm pretty sure there aren't many more appliances or machines that can break down. This month alone, we have replaced a sump pump, water heater, and two furnaces. Now, our van, the only vehicle we all fit in, is at the shop. We suspect the starter is bad. So, I think we'll just be done with repairs and replacements for a while. Thank you very much!

Merry Christmas!

2010-12-24T10:04:00.000-05:00

May the peace and joy of Jesus Christ be yours this Christmas.

Almost Done?

2010-12-01T23:10:00.003-05:00

Jon, the boys, and I have been fighting off some type of cold or flu the last few days. The girls have been a little testy, but they haven't acquired the fever. I wasn't as bad off as Jon, so I've been the one to run the errands and get the girls to where they need to go. Hopefully, we are on the mend and no one else gets sick.

I was concerned that we might be getting behind on school days, since we took off a few unexpected sick days. So, today I checked our day counts and found that we had done enough extra days this year to make up for the missed days/hours. I can rest easy!

We're going on a picnic . . .

2010-11-12T21:12:00.003-05:00

...and we're going to bring

Apples,

Bonsai fruit, *squeak*

Chips,

Dip,

Eggs,

Fish,

Grapes,

Horseradish,

Ichabod's pumpkin,

Jalapenos, *gasp*

Kite,

Lollipops,

Monkey,

Nanas,

Oranges,

Pulled pork,

Quail,

Risotto, *mama mia*

Salsa,

Teriyaki sauce,

Uncooked pasta,

Velvet ice cream sheet cake, *yummmm*

Water,

Xylitol,

Yam pudding, *ooooohhhh*

and

Zesty crackers.

The *sound effects* were added every round by one particular member of our family. Can you guess who?

=====================================================

*All sound effects were made by Jon (yes, Mr. Owings).

"Mom? I have a complication."

2010-11-05T22:01:00.003-04:00

I should have dug out our camera for this picture, but my phone was handy and I didn't want to miss the shot. If you look to the left side of the picture, there is another cat there curled up against Kitty Kat's side. Tiger, the cat on Kat's lap, curled up there on his own while she was working.

Whistles and Chocolates

2010-10-23T09:50:00.006-04:00

Yesterday, the kids and I went on a field trip with a homeschool field trip group. Our first stop was the American Whistle factory. We each got a whistle at the end of the tour, and I bought different colored lanyards for each of us. The kids were really good and I didn't have to confiscate any whistles. This is in Columbus, OH. The tour costs $4.00 per person and you get a whistle. If you can't make it to the factory, they were featured on How It's Made season 10 episode 12 and will be featured on Factory Made.

My kids are on the right end of each row.
Top row: Birdie and Froggie
Middle row: Monkey and Kitty Kat
Bottom row: Puppy Dog and Little Bear
I think one of the moms told the kids to make funny faces.

We ate lunch after the whistle factory tour and then went to the Anthony-Thomas candy factory.

This huge buckeye weighs 235 lbs. and costs $3500.00! The girls asked how old it was and found out it is seven years old. At the end of the tour, we got to sample the normal sized buckeyes. Some of my kids liked them, but most of us prefer homemade buckeyes.

Yeah, it's about time for Little Bear to clean off his temporary tattoos.

Breakfast - cold cereal with bananas and milk

2010-10-17T07:47:00.002-04:00

I started keeping track of what we were eating this past week. This posts title was saved in a draft from the seventeenth. That's all I had. I didn't get back to it until today. Pardon me if I don't dig through my memory and recap the entire week.

Did you notice in the title that we had bananas? Though I did have banana slices in the freezer (part of the frozen fruit in this post), these were fresh bananas. Jon brought home a case of bananas that needed to be used right away. I now have more banana slices and two banana pudding pies in our freezer. We also ate some banana pudding cups the other night for a snack.

Apparently, the chili and potatoes went over well with Jon. Monday evening, while I was at Sonflower Scouts with the girls, Jon and the boys went grocery shopping. Jon bought some huge potatoes and some more chili ingredients along with a bunch of other things (he even bought dry beans, rice, and lentils). Jon thought I was going to fix chili and potatoes for our Life Group on Thursday. He forgot that I was going to make beef stew. So, I took a poll of our group members. Chili and potatoes won.

Thursday Night's Chili

2 lbs. ground beef
1 large onion (chopped large so those who don't like onions can pick them out)
1 30(?) oz. can of diced tomatoes
1 10-12 oz. can tomato paste plus one can water
2 15 oz. cans diced tomatoes with jalapenos
2 15 oz. cans hot chili beans

Brown the ground beef and onions. Drain. Mix all ingredients in a slow cooker and cook on high for a few hours or low for longer. I think I used a combination of high and low. I also left the lid propped open with a spoon for a few hours to let the chili cook down some. Less or no water could be used for thicker chili. I mostly used the water to help get the paste rinsed out of the can.

Our potatoes were BIG, so I baked them at 400* for about two hours.

The chili and potatoes went over well. One of the men had a work related meeting, so he wasn't at Life Group. We only had one potato and a bit of chili left over. The man's wife didn't want the leftovers, so Jon took those for his work lunch today.

Tonight's Chili

2010-10-16T18:17:00.003-04:00

I make different versions of chili depending on our moods, what I have on hand, or what I can get a good deal on at the store. I try not to spend more than two dollars a pound for any kind of meat. It is getting increasingly more difficult, but I try to buy extra when there is a good deal. The ground beef was expensive this week and I was out, so I bought a two pound pack and a pound of lentils that were on sale for less than two dollars a pound. I had a fifty-five cents off coupon that got raised to one dollar off for two cans of Brooks chili beans, so I bought two large cans that were on sale.

I cooked the lentils and browned the ground beef. Then, added enough lentils to the browned ground beef to double the volume. After mixing the beef and lentils, I put half away in the refrigerator to use for tacos later this week. I still have some lentils cooling. I think I'll freeze those with the water they are in to use for soup.

So, here is the recipe I threw together for tonight's chili:

1 lb. ground beef browned and drained
cooked lentils (enough to double the volume of the beef)
1-30.5 oz. can mild chili beans
1-30.5 oz. can hot chili beans
1-14.5 oz. can peeled diced tomatoes with jalapeno peppers
1-14.5 oz. can peeled diced chili ready tomatoes

I let this simmer while I baked some potatoes. I baked extra potatoes for Jon's work lunches and for use later this week.

To prepare the potatoes I slice them in half, make some slits in the meat of the potatoes, butter them with Country Crock calcium plus vitamin D, and salt and pepper them. The chili goes on top of the potato and then we add a sprinkle of cheddar cheese and a dollop of sour cream.

On The Menu

2010-10-16T12:38:00.001-04:00

I’ve been so busy lately that I’ve neglected to fully plan our menu. So, today I decided to just do it. Pardon me as I think in this post.

Grains: rice, various flours, corn meal, a small amount of star shaped pasta, oatmeal, bread scraps in the freezer, flour tortillas, tortilla chips, cold cereal

Fruits and Vegetables: potatoes (~ 15 lbs.), celery, cabbage, frozen three pepper and onion blend, one onion, frozen spinach, canned tomatoes (various styles),
tomato paste, pineapple tidbits, mandarin oranges, a small jar of peaches,
~ 1 b. of various apples, frozen fruits, canned pumpkin, pickles, applesauce

Proteins: peanut butter (smooth and crunchy), a fryer chicken, a beef chuck blade pot
Roast, a 20 lb. turkey (thawing in a cooler), chili beans, lentils, 2 lbs. ground
beef, pork shanks, dry navy beans, 4 doz. Eggs, Polish sausage

Dairy: 2 gal. milk, 11 slices of American cheese, 6 c. shredded mild cheddar, 6 c. shredded mozzarella, 2 lbs. Velveeta, 16 oz. sour cream, mint chocolate chip
ice cream

Beverages: water, tea bags (various flavors), coffee and creamer

Other: a Wanchai Ferry sweet & sour chicken meal for two, instant pudding and gelatin mixes, cake mixes, etc.

Meal Ideas

Lunch or Supper

Pizza
Polish sausage with three pepper and onion blend over rice with cheddar cheese
PB&J, apple slices or applesauce, celery
Chili with baked potatoes cheese and sour cream
Ham, beans, and corn bread
Tacos, chips and salsa
Turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, gravy, pumpkin pie or cake (buy some g. beans?**)
Turkey salad sandwiches, celery
Roast chicken, potato wedges, veggie (I need to buy some more**)
Chicken and stars soup, PB&J
*Beef stew (I need to buy carrots**), rolls, dessert of some sort
Turkey burritos or tacos
Turkey and cheese sandwiches, pickles, carrot sticks (need to buy carrots**)
Leftovers for Jon’s lunches
Leftovers

Breakfast
Oatmeal (various flavors)
Cold cereal
Toast
Pancakes and fruit syrup
Eggs and toast

*The beef stew meal will be for our Life Group (small group through church). I’ll probably plan something else for the kids to eat unless the roast I have is big enough to make two stews.

**The store was out of the carrots I normally get last night. I didn’t buy many vegetables, because money was tight and I wanted to make sure I had enough for incidentals later. I managed to save $22 of my grocery money that I can use tomorrow to buy the Sunday paper (for the coupons), carrots, and some other veggies.

Today’s meals:

Breakfast - cinnamon raison oatmeal

Lunch - pizza made with leftover spaghetti sauce that needed used up I went light on the cheese

Supper - I plan on making chili with baked potatoes, cheddar cheese, and sour cream.

Snacks - I haven’t decided yet. Though, I did eat some turnip greens for my mid-morning snack. The children got up late today, so they didn’t have a mid-morning snack.

Overheard

2010-10-02T16:03:00.003-04:00

I overheard the following during a rather calm argument my boys were having.
Puppy Dog: "So, just stop arguing."
Little Bear: "Yeah, that's a good idea." (I posted this on Facebook earlier this week.)

Monkey and Puppy Dog had been in a fight. I had just finished hashing it out with them and told them, "now, hug each other and make up." Monkey and Puppy Dog hugged. As they were hugging, Monkey said, "alright, now we've hugged. Let's go find some make-up so we can hug it." Then, they did.

Mondays

2010-08-31T07:59:00.007-04:00

Well, I was going to illustrate this post with a bunch of pictures. Apparently, I won't be doing that, because my pictures won't load to the blog. Anyway . . .

Jon has Mondays off work, so for now, Mondays are our field trip and special classes days. This past Monday, we packed our lunches and walked downtown. We ate at a picnic table in the shade of the Town Hall building. After lunch, we had the kids spread out over the courtyard to draw/sketch. The directions I gave the kids were:

You can go anywhere in the courtyard.
You can lay on your belly, lay on your back, sit, stand, or whatever you want to do.
Choose something you like and draw it.

Some chose to draw a fountain or fountains, one included a sibling in her drawing, some chose to draw plants, one drew a horse she saw in the clouds, and one drew three pictures. Most sat up to draw, but one drew while laying on her back. They were all intense. We are getting ready to start an art class together. Our plans are to return to the same place in the Spring and see how much their drawing improves.

We stopped by the library on our way home and checked out and reserved some books we needed for school.

Next Monday we will head to my sister's home for her annual Labor Day cookout.

God, thank you for spiders!

2010-06-24T08:55:00.004-04:00

Yesterday, I went to put some meat in one of my Crock-Pots. I stopped short when I saw something in the pot. "That's strange," I thought. "I know this got washed. Maybe something got missed?" So, I stuck my finger down in the pot and poked at the "flaked, leftover-from-being-missed-during-washing-who-washed-this-Crock-Pot-last-time-anyway, peeling food" only to discover that it was a live spider. Yuck!

I postponed putting the meat into the crock. There was no way I was going to cook in it without rewashing it! As I was drying the crock, I discovered a crack that went from one side of the crock's bottom to the other both inside and out.

If it weren't for that spider, I could have had a mess or disaster on my hands!

We still had our dinner, I just cooked it in my other large Crock-Pot.

Look What Came Monday!

2010-06-19T09:30:00.006-04:00

I was down to about 1/4 teaspoon of loose yeast. I did have a couple packet strips of yeast, but their "best by" date was sometime in 2008. I keep them for measuring reference and because I can't stand to waste anything. I'll probably try to use them sometime when I'm not in a hurry. Maybe I'll use them when I can let my dough rise overnight.

A while back, a friend asked me to post about how I buy my yeast. That was a couple months ago, sorry!

Yeast at the grocery store is expensive! A three packet strip is a "good" price at about a dollar a strip. Each strip has 0.75 ounces. That is about $21.34 for a pound of yeast on sale! A four ounce jar of yeast costs between $5.00 and $7.00+. That works out to $20.00 to $28.00 dollars or more for one pound of yeast. I'm not going to pay that much!

There was a time when I did buy the jars for just under $5.00 a jar, but then I discovered King Arthur Flour, www dot kingarthurflour dot com/shop/yeast-baking/yeast . A one pound package of yeast is as low as $12.45 shipped! A two pound package is even better at $16.45 shipped! This time, I bought two 2lb. packages (one is for a sister-in-law) and paid $27.90 to have it shipped to my house. That is four pounds of yeast for about the same price at one pound at the store.

I will fill my old yeast jars, store them in my refrigerator and put the rest of the yeast in my freezer until my jars are empty. Two pounds of yeast will last me quite a while, but when this order runs out, I may just order four or more pounds for myself. That would save me on shipping costs in the long run.

************************************************************************************

Update: I was at the GFS (Gordon Food Supply) store the other day and found yeast hidden behind a hanging display in the baking aisle. It cost about the same or less than the yeast at the KAF site, before shipping costs were added on! Needless to say, I'll be checking GFS the next time I'm in need of yeast!

Where have I been?

2010-06-03T20:45:00.003-04:00

A lot has happened in the last month. Puppy Dog, Birdie, and Monkey were in the children's Spring musical at church followed by an awards party the next week. The girls and I had the Sonflower Scouts badge ceremony to go to. Jon got back on first shift. We now get up at 5AM! I got a pretty bad case of poison ivy. We got burnt at the Memorial Day parade (I got sun poisoning) and then went to a park to cook out/play.

I know there is more. I just can't remember right now. We have some pictures, too. I might post those later.

Tomorrow, the kids and I are going to the Columbus zoo with my parents. Hopefully, I'll get some cute pictures of the kids.

Good night everyone!

Happy Mother's Day!

2010-05-09T00:00:00.001-04:00

We may not always see eye to eye, but I really appreciate my mother. Thanks Mom for putting up with me! I love you!

One of those days

2010-04-14T22:36:00.003-04:00

Today was one of those days that nothing seemed to go as planned.

I like a plan.

I NEED a plan.

My family needs a plan.

My family just doesn't realize they need a plan.

This last month has been all mixed up for us. Daddy was away for work (two weeks). We drove to PA to meet up with Daddy and visit friends in MD. We came home and nothing was normal anymore. While Jon was away, we started to more or less follow a first shift schedule. The kids also became accustomed to no one being asleep when they were up. Now that Jon is back we are trying to get back into a semblance of a schedule. First shift doesn't work, because Jon is trying to sleep and then spend a little time with us before heading off to work. Second shift doesn't work, because all our outside activities are based on a first shift schedule.

Jon's days off are spent as family days and then Jon and I end up staying up late to have one on one time. I am so glad he is home!

I've gotten myself back into burning the candle at both ends. Ugh!

I know God will not give me more than I can handle, but sometimes I just wish He would place a schedule in my hands and tell me to follow it.

I'm out of words for now.

Just a note: Normally, this is the type of post that I would write in my head, be done with, and never put into print. I try not to be negative. It's a constant battle. I told myself tonight that I should just post it. So here it is.

Now I really am going to go. I have to go encourage some children to go to sleep so that I can go to sleep.

Whew!

2010-04-10T12:45:00.003-04:00

This week has gone by quickly. I'm not even sure what all has happened. We were just trying to recuperate from the last few weeks.

March 19th through April 1st, Jon was working in Pennsylvania. On April the 1st the children and I left after their P.E. class to meet up with Jon in PA. Normally, my children do not do the whole "are we there, yet" thing. This time, however, they had really missed their daddy and were looking forward to getting to PA (and later Maryland). We had only been out of Springfield, Ohio for thirty minutes when the first child asked, "are we almost there?". So, we continued our countdown (that started before Jon left) to when we would see Daddy. Our drive to Pennsylvania took approximately ten hours since we stopped a couple times for food, stretching our legs, and other necessities. Kitty Kat helped read off the directions to me for part of the way. Froggie and Kitty Kat both helped look to see if I could change lanes. I could see, but was concerned there might be some blind spots since our van was packed so full. I figured it couldn't hurt for the girls to practice being more observant anyway.

Jon had reserved the hotel room adjoining his for us and we got settled in a bit before he got off work. Some of us slept. Little Bear, however, had slept a good portion of the trip and would not go to sleep at the hotel. Jon and Little Bear ended up doing some laundry instead of sleeping.

After repacking the van and checking out of the hotel, we spent some time as a family before heading to Maryland. Friday evening, we went to a Good Friday service at the church some friends of ours minister at (we were also there Sunday). We met up with our friend after the service and followed them back to their house. We spent the next few days with our friends.

We had a wonderful time of fellowship with our friends and then came back home Monday afternoon. I can't even tell you how long it took us to get home, about eight to nine hours probably. We stopped a couple times and it was probably a good thing. The children slept nearly the entire way home and Jon and I fought sleep nearly the whole way.

The whole thing is a blur in my memory. We did so much as a whole group and split off with friends! I might see if the children want to do some posts of their own to tell what they remember about our trip.

Pancakes and ...

2010-03-30T15:21:00.002-04:00

Breakfast today was Whole Wheat Banana Pancakes and milk. I made some substitutions to the above recipe according to what I had on hand. I used whole wheat flour in place of whole wheat pastry flour. For the milk, I put a couple tablespoons of lemon juice in the measuring cup and then added milk to make two cups. Finally, I used canola oil in place of the olive oil. As I was pouring the oil into the batter, I realized that I could have used apple sauce. As the first set was coming off the griddle, I realized that I hadn’t used any sugar. I double checked the recipe and guess what? It doesn’t call for sugar! We taste tested one of the pancakes and it was good without sugar! The kids and I each had three pancakes (~4 in.) and I had four left to freeze for later. The recipe will feed all eight of us without doubling it. Next time, we want to try it with apple sauce in place of the oil.

For lunch today, I transferred some navy beans I cooked in my Crock-Pot overnight to a pan on the stove. I added some mixed veggies, sliced (coin shaped) smoked sausage, salt, pepper, and garlic salt. I brought this mixture to a boil then added some wide whole wheat noodles. I cooked this for another eight to ten minutes and lunch was ready. Everyone had seconds.

Supper will be at my parent’s house tonight.

Twodays' Meals

2010-03-29T20:53:00.003-04:00

Yesterday, after church, we stopped by Kroger to get our papers. The kids and I decided we wanted pizza for lunch , so we decided to buy frozen ones that I knew were on sale so we could eat sooner. I had wanted to spend some more at Kroger this month anyway. We have been stocking up this month and I want to get my fuel discount as high as possible. I didn’t have my coupons with me, so I chose to buy items that were a good price that I didn’t have coupons for anyway. My fuel discount is now $0.70 off per gallon.

Here is what we got for just over $40.

2 papers

~ 17 lbs of meat for our freezer ( I don’t like to spend more than $2/lb. I spent $1.28-$1.49/lb.)

2 pizzas (part of a buy 8 items/get $4 off deal)

6 2lb. bags of frozen veggies (part of the above sale + I used 2 coupons from a dispenser for $1 off 3)

I forgot to buy the garlic bread we are supposed to take to my parents’ house Tuesday, so I may have to go back. I could make it myself, but we’re going on a long trip soon and I really want a bigger fuel discount. Purchases I make on sale items now will be purchases I won’t have to make at regular prices later when money may be tight.

Sunday’s meals

Breakfast - instant oatmeal (Thanks, Sis!)

Lunch - salad, pizza

Snacks - at church

Supper - fish sticks, corn

Today’s meals

Breakfast - cold cereal, milk

Snack - Colby cheese and Club crackers (Thanks, Sis!)

Lunch - Lasagna Hamburger Helper, French cut green beans

Snacks - Cuties (M. oranges) or orange juice, peanut butter on a spoon (while watching how peanut butter is made on TV)

Supper - Meat loaf, baked potatoes, carrots, apple sauce

Menu Plan

2010-03-27T13:43:00.003-04:00

I don's always make a menu plan. When I do make a plan, I don't always make it meal-by-meal and day-by-day specific. If I specify too much, I end up changing things around anyway. Some days just don't go as planned. Other days, I'm just not in the mood to make a particular food or I want to make another. So basically, this is a list of my options for the next week or two.

Breakfasts

cold cereal and milk
pancakes
oatmeal
muffins
omelets
toast
yogurt
orange juice

Lunches/Suppers

Proteins:

pork chops, hamburger, chicken (various kinds), smoked sausage, fish, tuna salad, egg salad, boiled eggs, peanut butter, walnuts, dry beans, lentils

Dairy:

milk, yogurt, cheese (various kinds), ice cream [I also get other foods that have Calcium. There is some lactose intolerance in our home.]

Vegetables:

frozen - broccoli; corn; French style green beans; peas; peas and carrots; broccoli, cauliflower, and carrots in cheese sauce; carrots; stir-fry veggies; and three pepper and onion blend

carrots, potatoes, green cabbage, purple cabbage, lettuce, salad mix, canned tomatoes, chili ready canned tomatoes, Rotel, onions, tomato paste, spaghetti sauce

Fruits:

raisins, Cuties (Mandarin oranges), canned Mandarin orange sections, pineapple, chopped dates, applesauce, apples, tomato juice, frozen peaches and blackberries (I might save these last two until Jon gets home and make a pie and cobbler.)

Grains:

various pastas, Hamburger Helper, brown rice, white rice, popcorn, white and whole wheat flour, flour tortillas, bread, corn muffin mix, barley

Snacks and Desserts:

I have plenty of items for this category, but I won't list them now.

Today's Meals

breakfast: cold cereal with milk

snack: kids - yogurt tubes, me - yogurt cup with All-Bran Bran Buds (sample from the mail)

lunch: peanut butter and jelly, carrot sticks, applesauce, tea

supper: tacos and/or taco salad, chips and salsa, tea

K-mart and CVS

2010-03-27T12:45:00.004-04:00

Birdie and Monkey had an overnighter at church last night. Little Bear and I went to pick them up this morning and then we stopped by a couple stores we didn't' get to last night, since we could go to them without going out of our way too much.

K-mart had the dog food we buy on sale for $18 for 40lbs. We usually get it at Wal-mart for $19 or $20. I also had a coupon for $2 off, so we got our dogs' food for $16. I won't need to buy dog food for a month and a half now, since we still have around 20lbs. left from the last time I bought it.

CVS

Kleenex $0.97 each and I had a coupon for $0.50 off three

VO5 shampoo and conditioner $0.77 each

CVS body wash $1.77 I had a coupon CVS sent me via e-mail to get this free. I got $1.99 off.

Colgate $3.99 I had a coupon for $1.00 off, and I got $3.99 bucks back.

I used a $2.99 Bucks Back coupon.

subtotal = $3.73

sales tax (7%) = $0.58

I paid $4.31 and got a $3.99 Bucks Back coupon.

Financial Friday: Making Sacrifices to Get Out of Debt

2010-03-26T11:52:00.008-04:00

For a while, I avoided those center aisles in the grocery store. Recently, I have gone back to them. While I still pick and choose to try to provide the healthiest options I can for my family, I am taking advantage of cheap options to free up more funds for getting out of debt. Some things like Hamburger Helper, Betty Crocker potatoes and some other items have made it back into our menu, when I can get them for the right price.

I use a couple online sites to load coupons to my Kroger Plus card: Cellfire and Shortcuts. Say I load a coupon for Yoplait yogurt. When I purchase the yogurt at Kroger using my Plus card, the amount of the coupon is automatically deducted from my order. I can also use a traditional paper coupon for the same item, increasing my savings. Not only that, but I will wait until that yogurt is on sale to use the coupons.

Where do I get my paper coupons? I get some from the Sunday paper. We don't subscribe to the paper but we will buy a couple copies on Sundays for the coupons. We more than make up for the cost of the papers by using the coupons. Some other sources for coupons are online sources
( www.redplum.com, www.smartsource.com, www.pillsbury.com, etc.), in freebie packages, in/on the items themselves, and from the coupon dispensers at stores. I haven't tried buying any from e-Bay yet. I have participated in a coupon train before.

One area of caution is that not all stores in all areas will accept coupons printed from a computer. Some people can use these coupons at their local Wal-mart, but my local Wal-mart will not accept them.

today's breakfast: cold cereal and milk

today's lunch: chicken, rice, and stir fry vegetables with teriyaki sauce

today's afternoon snack: Tricuits with Colby cheese

I have to go scan the loss leader adds and then I'll be back later to report on my meal plan and shopping trip.

==================================================================

I'm tired so I'll make this short. The only store we ended up making any purchases from tonight was Kroger. There were so many good deals, that I passed by some.

total number of items purchased = 77

balance = $96.50

manufacturer coupon savings = $24.55

bonus coupon savings = $6.03

store coupon & Kroger Plus Card savings = $55.57

total coupons = $86.15

total savings = 47%

My cupboards, which were nearly bare in January and February, are now bursting. I'm stocked up on several items.

I haven't made up my menu yet. I'll do that tomorrow.

Today's supper was carry-out pizza that we ate in between stops. I had promised that we would have pizza since Birdie and Monkey would have it at their over-nighter. I got carry out to save my sanity and so we wouldn't have to go home between dropping the girls off and grocery shopping.

Yesterday

2010-03-26T11:14:00.003-04:00

I finally went to the store, yesterday. I did. The children stayed in the van listening to music and reading a HARDY BOYS book while I ran in and grabbed a gallon of milk for them to take to their grandma's for supper. Yes, that's all I got, one gallon of milk for $2.28.

Earlier in the day, some of the children and I did go into a Family Dollar just to price check, while we were in the area. We didn't buy anything.

Backtracking...

We started our day out with muffins that I made using some leftover oatmeal, applesauce in place of oil, and orange juice in place of the milk. I portioned out the batter, came up with twenty muffins and added a little more to each cup to use up the batter. Silly me, I should have squeezed another muffin cup onto the tray. So, the children and I each had two muffins for breakfast.

Before we left for Homeschool P. E., I gave the children another muffin as a snack. Nothing we had on hand that was quick sounded good to me, so I didn't snack. Big mistake! By the time we left Homeschool P. E., I could barely stay on my feet, and boy was I irritable! I was nervous about driving home in my condition, so we went through a McDonald's drive through and I bought seven McDoubles for $7.oo. We parked near the Family Dollar and after we ate our burgers, four of us went in to price check.

Once we got home, I fixed egg salad and made sandwiches with toast.

I ate supper at my Life Group.

The children fix their supper on Thursday nights. They took Hamburger Helper Cheeseburger Macaroni (double box), two pounds of ground beef, frozen French style green beans (Little Bear will eat these but fights eating snapped green beans), a can of pineapple chunks, some Grands biscuits, the milk, and place and bake chocolate chip cookies to fix at their grandma's place. When I picked the children up, I found out they only fixed one of the sets of H.H. They have one left to use another week. There were also leftovers for Jon's mom to eat this week. Huh? They should have made both sets. I guess they were alright though. They didn't even ask for a bedtime snack.

Jon has been in Pennsylvania this week, we've had dishwasher issues, and I have been so busy that I still don't have my menu and shopping plan reading for this week. I hope to finish my plans before I have to take Birdie and Monkey to their I.A.H. overnighter tonight, so the rest of us can go grocery shopping.

A night like this...

2010-03-24T22:19:00.003-04:00

...is a night I wouldn't normally post. It's just a blah night. This should be short.

I did get the stock strained and the chicken picked out. I did make the chicken pot pie. However, I took a nap this afternoon and ended up starting dinner too late. The pot pie was done six minutes before we needed to leave for church and it was HOT. So, I put it back in the oven at a low temp hoping it wouldn't be overdone when we got home.

I noticed a little while ago that I forgot about my potato water. I'll have to see if it is still good tomorrow. Maybe, I'll use it tomorrow? Thursdays are crazy busy for us. I'll have to wait and see.

Breakfast: cold cereal with a little milk (We were running out.)

Lunch: fish portions; applesauce; and lots of broccoli, cauliflower, and carrots with cheese sauce

Snack before church: Triscuits and orange juice (calcium fortified)

Supper: chicken pot pie

We took it pretty easy today.

2010-03-23T23:51:00.003-04:00

Breakfast was cold cereal with milk and orange juice. Snack was Triscuits with Colby cheese and pepperoni. Lunch was peanut butter and jelly with applesauce. Supper was at Frisch's with my parents. Other than some of us eating slaw at supper, our day was pretty much veggie free. We'll have to load up on vegetables tomorrow.

I didn't get the stock strained today. I ran out of time. It's in the fridge, and I'll have to take the time tomorrow. We're supposed to be having chicken pot pie for supper, so I have to do it.

A Day of Homemade Yum

2010-03-22T20:20:00.004-04:00

Breakfast: homemade raisin, date, and walnut oatmeal
milk

Lunch: roasted (in my Crock Pot) chicken, broccoli and cheese sauce (not homemade), biscuits (not homemade)

After I got most of the meat from the chicken, I put the bones, skin, the onion I had stuffed in the chicken's cavity, a bit of white vinegar, and some water back in the pot with the broth. As the day went on, I added veggie scraps (carrot peels, potato peels, green cabbage, purple cabbage, and onion) to the "stock" pot.*

At lunch, I asked the kids what they wanted for supper. The answer? Bread bowls with cheesy potato soup like my mom makes. I don't have any Velveeta in the house. It was $5 last time I was at the store! I will not pay that! Anyway, I started brainstorming and came up with an idea for a new recipe. Wha-ha-ha, my children were my guinea pigs!

Supper: brewed iced tea
homemade bread bowls

Tuna Chowder (This recipe fed me and the kiddos.)

7 all-purpose potatoes
1 medium onion diced
1 large carrot diced
1 can evaporated milk
2 cans tuna in water
~2-4 T butter
salt, pepper, and garlic powder (or a clove of garlic) to taste

Peel and chop the potatoes and put in a pot with some water. Cook until tender.

Peel and dice the onion and carrot while the potatoes are cooking.

Drain the potatoes in a colander over a bowl to reserve the water. Leave the potatoes in the colander until you are ready for them. Melt the butter in your potato pan, then add the onions and carrots.

Add the salt, pepper, and garlic and cook (and stir) the vegetables until the onions are starting to caramelize and the carrots are tender crisp. Drain the tuna part way (I gave the water to our cats later) and add it to the veggies. Add the milk and a little water to rinse the can out. Add the potatoes back to the pot. Cook to desired consistency adding potato water* as needed. I served this in bread bowls with a sprinkle of mild cheddar cheese on top.

So what did my guinea pigs think? They all gave as many thumbs and spoons up as they could while not missing a bite. Froggie asked if I would make it for supper tomorrow night!

*I'll strain the stock and pick the meat out of it tomorrow.

**I saved the rest of the potato water and I plan to use it to make bread tomorrow.

I'm exhausted!

2010-03-21T22:48:00.004-04:00

Last night, after a very long day, I got about six hours of sleep. I put my C-PAP on, turned off the light, laid down, and didn't move until my alarm went off. Literally! I rolled over to stretch and my new mattress with it's individually wrapped coils had an indention from where I never moved. That may sound great, but my back and neck suffered. I woke up stiff from not moving in my sleep.

Normally, I take a nap on Sunday afternoons. There was just too much I had to do to fit one in today. I still have more I need to do tonight before I retire. Then, I have to get up early tomorrow in case a repair person shows up early.

Another thing that has me ragged is that my blood sugar or something was off today. The kids and I didn't get in as many small meals as we should have. We never seem to on Sundays.

Breakfast

Me: coffee with a little sugar and flavored coffee creamer, strawberry yogurt with bran flakes,
orange juice (with calcium), and a banana

Kids: "breakfast split" (1/2 banana sliced in half and then lengthwise, strawberry yogurt, bran
flakes), orange juice

Lunch (While I was fixing lunch, we each ate two granola and nut clusters, since I was crashing.)

spaghetti with tomato and basil sauce and a sprinkle of grated Parmesan
tossed salad with cheddar cheese and choice of dressing
biscuits
choice of pop

[various snacks at evening church]

Supper

smoked sausage, three pepper (red, green, and yellow bell) and onion blend, and rice with a bit of quesadilla cheese
water for the kids
tea for me

I fixed a freezer meal from both lunch and dinner for Jon to take to work at a later date.

I had way too many simple carbs at breakfast and not enough complex carbs. Breakfast did not stay with me through Sunday school and church.

I can't even think straight so, I'd better get a chicken in the crock pot, get my work done for the day, and go to bed. Maybe I can relax some tomorrow.

Sorry, the spacing is off on this, but I'm just too tired to fix it.

Get Ready to Save

2010-03-20T11:30:00.002-04:00

Heidi at The Frugal Girls has her "Sunday Coupon Preview: Sneak Peek at Inserts!" post up.

One coupon I'm looking forward to is "Fleischmann’s Yeast, strip or jar Save $.40/1 (6/6)" from the Smartsource coupon insert. The will double at Kroger making the yeast much more affordable. If you are planning on making homemade bread this next week and don't have yeast on hand, this can help get you by. I'll post how I get my yeast in a later post.

Heidi also has links for sites that you can print coupons from. Kroger and Meijer will accept these coupons in our area, but Wal-mart will not.

Thank you, Heidi!

Also check out Cellfire and Shortcuts . After registering, you can load coupons to your Kroger Plus (or affiliate) shopper's card. When you use your shopping card at the register, the coupon discounts automatically come off your order. You can use paper coupons on the same products and they still work.

Exploring A Store

2010-03-19T19:38:00.003-04:00

We stopped by Aldi's while we were in the area today.

I did pick up some of the tuna in water for $0.49 each and some garlic powder (5.5 oz.) for $1.07. We paid $3.05 and walked out of the store with four cans of tuna and a jar of garlic powder. While there were a few good deals, most of the prices were comparable to or more than Kroger brand and Kroger Value brand prices. I can sometimes get the name brand item for less than the store brand by using coupons at Kroger and Kroger sends me coupons to use on their brand items.

Aldi's only takes a debit card as a debit card, so we have to use cash if we shop there. We refuse to use our check card as a debit card because we do not want to pay a fee each time we use it. When we use our check card as a credit card, there is no fee.

I wasn't impressed enough to shop at Aldi's regularly. Shopping there would add another stop to my circuit and more time to my trip for very minimal to no savings. It just wouldn't be worth it for me, especially on days I have to take all the children with me.

***Thank you Monkey for coming up with the title for this post!***

Financial Friday

2010-02-05T12:17:00.004-05:00

This has to be one of the worst times to be in debt. Interest rates keep climbing, making it more difficult to pay off old debts. Minimum payments keep climbing, making it more difficult to pay off old debts. The price of groceries, household goods, gasoline, and more keep climbing, making it more difficult to pay off old debts.

We have been trying to get out of debt for years now, but it seems we take a step backward for every two steps forward. We have made progress. We outright own our vehicles, and we have paid off some credit cards and other debts. Last year, we tried not to use our credit cards. We did all right until a few emergencies came up.

One exception we make to our no credit card usage rule is using our Old Navy card. We always pay off the balance after we use it so we don't have to pay interest. If we will not be able to pay it off, then we don't use it. We don't use it often. Following is an explanation of why we go ahead and use the Old Navy card.

My cousin's baby shower is tomorrow and I went to get her a gift today. We did not have the money in our budget for a gift, but we did have a ten dollar Old Navy Bucks Back coupon earned by our previous purchases.

This is what I found. I got the notepad so that I would not lose two dollars, but it is a nice pad that my cousin could keep handy in her diaper bag.

This is a copy of my receipt.

I am always looking for new money saving ideas, so now let me ask you. What do you do to stretch a dollar?

Tidbits

2010-02-03T21:27:00.003-05:00

Things have been rather crazy, lately.

The challenge of eating out of our pantry was not well timed for us. Then again, we really didn't have much grocery money this month, so maybe it was well timed. We were blessed by both of our moms. My mom sent some carrots (from my sister's garden) and some other food items home with us last month. Kitty Kat helped out Jon's mom and she sent Kitty Kat home with some items she wouldn't use: corn flakes, rice, dry pinto beans, tomato juice, and condensed milk. Between the items we were given and shopping just for what we absolutely needed, we made it through the month.

We had two birthday girls in January. Monkey turned ten on the twenty-sixth and Froggie turned fifteen on the twenty-seventh. My parents had a birthday dinner for the girls on Monkey's birthday. The boys had started coughing the Thursday before. That evening at my parents, six out of the eight of us had fevers. Tomorrow will be two weeks since the boys began getting sick. Most of us are still congested and worn out. The birthdays weren't as much fun as they could have been.

Little Bear, who turned five last month, was just miserable Friday, so I took him to the doctor. He was diagnosed with an acute cold, an acute ear infection, conjunctivitis, and a bead was in the other ear. Yes, a bead. The doctor said there was no telling how long it had been in there. Little Bear could not remember putting it in his ear. It was a type of bead that we have not had out in quite some time.

A few days ago, I reached up to put a clip in my hair and pulled a muscle in my neck and shoulder. I can barely move without taking ibuprofen and using Biofreeze. I've been stretching constantly, but the muscle(s) is/are still very tight.

We aren't buying pop anymore. Jon is even in on it. Actually, it was his idea! We have been drinking a lot more water.

I saved thirty-three percent off my grocery bill Monday using coupons on sale items. We have more food in the house. The trip to the store took a while, but it was worth it.

I hope and pray you all have a good night/day.

Yikes!

2010-01-12T15:18:00.003-05:00

I will definitely have to go back to the store soon. The only meat I have left is a package of five brats. They are fairly large, so I hope to make them feed the whole family. I really hope they thaw before tomorrow's lunch prep.

I might be able to wait until Thursday morning. The kids and I are eating at my parents' house tonight. We're having banana bread with cream cheese for breakfast tomorrow. I think I'll fix brats with homemade buns, salad, and a cooked veggie for tomorrow's lunch. The kids and I can eat peanut butter and jelly and vegetable soup for supper tomorrow. I was wondering what I would send for Jon's work lunch tomorrow, but just called and he may take a personal day today (his workplace doesn't need everyone tonight). That would leave tonight's lunch for tomorrow.

Alright, I think I have it all worked out. I will stop rambling now.

Update: I still need to figure out what to send for Jon's work lunch tomorrow. The guy just ahead of Jon in seniority took the cut, so Jon is working tonight. I may need to go to the store tomorrow morning.

"Eat from the pantry challenge"

2010-01-06T15:36:00.003-05:00

At the end of December, Money Saving Mom issued an "eat from the pantry challenge". I had decided to play along. I was looking at my cupboards and realized that I had already been doing this for the last couple months. I do have some areas that have surplus, but I'm definitely going to have to go to the store for quite a few things. Maybe my goal should be to restock my pantry!

Tuesday night, I started to take inventory of what I have. I sort of finished the inventory yesterday. By the time I got done going through my cabinets, I was tired of taking inventory. I opened the refrigerator door, saw how many little items were in there, and decided not to itemize the items in the fridge. I know what I have in there. There is very little left in our freezer. Following is a breakdown of what we have in our cabinets and on our counter top.

Baking Supplies

11 lbs. all purpose flour
5 lbs. whole wheat flour
~1 c. corn meal
4 lbs. granulated sugar
~1 c. powdered sugar
2 lbs. brown sugar
shortening
canola oil
flax seeds
1/3 lb. cinnamon

Beverages

hot chocolate mix
tea bags (various)
instant decaf. tea
drink-ade pouches
bottled water
various soft drinks
coffee

Cereals and Grains

partial box of Rice Krispies
~2 lbs. oats
3 lbs. white rice
1 lb. pearled barley
1 1/2 lbs. saltine crackers

Condiments

8 bottles BBQ sauce
3 bottles ketchup
64 oz. apple cider vinegar
1 gal. + white vinegar (I use this mostly for cleaning)
2+ bottles of syrup (regular and boysenberry)
4 small jars jelly
5 envelopes ranch dressing mix
2 boxes of Sure Jell
1 envelope onion soup mix
Worcestershire sauce

Proteins

1 lb. lentils
1 lb. green split peas
2 lbs. navy beans
6 1/2 lbs. peanut butter
2 cans tuna
2 lbs. ground beef (fridge, still frozen)
3 + dozen eggs

Fruits and Veggies

~5 lbs. russet potatoes
10 bananas
4 clementine oranges
1 can Rotel
2 cans mandarin oranges
1 can tropical mixed fruit
2 cans pineapple tidbits
2 cans pineapple chunks
1 can pineapple slices
1 can mushroom pieces and stems
1 can French style green beans
1 1/2 lbs. raisins

Jon's lunches

gelatin and fruit cups
pudding cups
(2) 1.5 oz. boxes of raisins

Snacks and Desserts

1 lb. graham crackers
~4 c. popcorn kernels
5+ lbs. star bright mints
1 bag spiced jelly beans
1 jar hot fudge
1 bag peanut M&Ms
2 1/2 bags mini marshmallows
1 bag regular marshmallows
1 bag fruit flavored mini marshmallows (These are actually for school projects not consumption.)
12.4 oz rainbow twist Twizzlers
3 Hershey's bars
1 bag candy corn
1 bag Autumn mix candy corn
Tootsie Roll Pops
Blow Pops
2 cake mixes
5 tubs frosting
2 brownie mixes (boxed)
1 brownie mix in a jar
sugar cookie mix
1 can apple pie filling
2 pound cake mixes
1 can evaporated milk
1 lb. block white chocolate
1 lb. block milk chocolate
1/2 c. blanched and slivered almonds
Baker's chocolate
14 oz. sweetened flaked coconut
8 oz. chopped dates
homemade oatmeal raisin cookie mix
1 lb. walnuts
1+ bags milk chocolate chips
1 bag white chocolate chips
1 part bag Hershey's Kisses
1 box graham cracker crumbs
1 chocolate chip cookie mix
12 boxes of gelatin
1 box of pudding mix

Spices

Oops! I didn't inventory the spice cabinet. I'm getting low or am out of a lot of spices.

Can you tell that we don't eat much candy or desserts? Some of that candy is from Valentine's Day and Easter from last year. Some may be older than that. We also bought a lot of treat type items for holiday baking and then didn't have time to make everything we were going to. Hmm...is January the month of desserts?

It's been a while.

2010-01-03T16:08:00.002-05:00

It's been so long since I've posted that I don't know where to start. I think I'll just leave it at that. Perhaps, I'll be able to collect my thoughts later.

So Busy

2009-11-28T11:49:00.004-05:00

I've been very busy, lately. In fact, I just got done weeding through nearly two thousand e-mails. I am now down to eight e-mails. Whew! I've had very little time for the computer. That's alright, I've been productive in other areas. I'll continue to be very busy over the holidays. I can't guarantee that I'll be posting here.

Oh Yeah, Our Van Got Fixed

2009-11-21T20:32:00.002-05:00

I just realized that I never posted that the van was fixed. We took the van to the repair shop on Tuesday and got it back on Wednesday. It doesn't overheat or leak anymore!

In other news, I have to go prod the children to lay out their clothes for tomorrow and get them to bed. G'night all!

Last Weekend

2009-11-13T21:17:00.003-05:00

The answer to my last post:

What Do The Following Items Have In Common?

high temps.
hobos
dead car
party
murder mystery
call to the police
4am
missionaries
cinnamon rolls
scalloped potatoes
gas caps
Bengals
Buckeyes
lunch run
Wal-mart
four hours
zero hours
antennae topper
Reese's Pieces
shoes

is they all took place last weekend.

high temps. -- children with fevers (actually Mon. - Sat. for that one) and our van overheating
hobos -- Birdie and Monkey went on the 5th-6th grade youth group hobo hike. They dressed a
hobos and had to help rake leaves at a church members home so that they could roast
hotdogs and marshmallows over an open fire for their dinner.
dead car -- Jon's car quit working. He had to leave it away from home for a couple nights until a
friend helped him tow it home. (My dad came today and helped Jon fix the car.
Thanks, Dad!)
party -- Friday night, some friends from church threw a murder mystery party. Jon and I were
on a team (two couples) that tied for the win. Thanks for watching the kids, Mom and
Dad!
murder mystery -- See above.
call to the police -- I went out to go pick Jon up from work Sunday morning just after 4am.
When I got to our van, I discovered that the door to our gas tank was open and the
cap was gone. No gas was stolen. I called the police to report it before going to pick up
Jon.
4am -- See above.
missionaries -- This month is missions emphasis month at our church.
cinnamon rolls -- I made homemade cinnamon rolls for our Sunday school class.
scalloped potatoes -- I made these for the potluck lunch our church had for the missionaries who
were in town.
gas caps -- See "call to the police" and "Wal-mart"
Bengals -- They won on Sunday!
Buckeyes -- They won on Saturday!
lunch run -- Jon was on a lunch run for the two of us when his car wouldn't start.
Wal-mart -- After picking Jon up for work Sunday morning, we went to buy a new gas cap for
our van. The one the book at the store said to get was not the right one, so we had to
take the first one back and get a different kind (the most expensive :( ). We now have
a locking gas cap. On the way to church Sunday morning we saw our gas cap at the back
of our property. Anyone want an old gas cap?
four hours -- The number of hours I got to sleep Sat. night to Sun. morning.
zero hours -- The number of hours of sleep Jon got after getting off work Sun. morning.
antennae topper -- Sadly, the boys discovered Sunday evening that the antennae topper my
sister gave us was missing. We assume it was taken at the same time as our gas cap.
Reese's Pieces -- Birdie and Monkey won boxes of Reese's Pieces for having two of the best hobo
costumes. My mom did a terrific job helping them with their costumes!
shoes -- Little Bear announce that he couldn't find his shoes at about the same time we should
have been leaving for church Sunday morning. We didn't find his shoes until after
church. I found a pair of Puppy Dog's old shoes that we thought were too big for Little
Bear. They fit him! We were still late for Sunday school though.

Yesterday, our van let me know in no uncertain terms that it will no longer provide transportation for us until we get it serviced. Friends of our gave me a ride to our small group meeting last night. Of course, this happened the week I was responsible for dinner.

What Do The Following Items Have In Common?

2009-11-08T23:42:00.002-05:00

I Really Don't Like It When My Kids Are Sick

2009-11-04T10:07:00.002-05:00

Then again, I don't think anybody does. It's so frustrating to see an ill child and not be able to fix the problem in an instant. My children don't get sick often, but it tears me up when they do. You can read that word, tears, either way you want (my original intention was that it have a short vowel sound).

Monkey and Birdie are no longer ill. Monkey has been fever free since yesterday afternoon. Birdie has been fever free since last night.

This morning, Froggie woke up with a fever. Ugh! I always dread Froggie getting sick. She works herself up and feels much worse than she needs to. A mild fever turns into a major fiasco. She thinks that if she is at all sick, then she must throw up. She forces herself to do so. She also has no regard for where the product of that action goes. It goes wherever it goes. Does anyone have any suggestions as to how to clean the hole in our living room floor that our t.v. cables go down through? It's a wood floor. I suppose I'll just have to spray Lysol down the hole and hope it doesn't damage the floor's finish.

Apparently, the ibuprofen tablet I had Froggie take took affect in the twenty minutes she allowed it. Her fever is gone right now. I'm trying to get her to nibble on a saltine cracker to make sure her stomach is settled, but so far the cracker is just laying beside her. The saga continues...

Who knew that the other children would want to eat today? Can you believe it? They're asking me what they can have to eat. Their sister is sick and they want to eat! I haven't been able to get to the store and they want to eat! Alright, saltines for everyone (including myself lol)! I'll have to make some chicken soup today. That usually perks Froggie up when she's ill.

Where to start?

2009-11-03T17:29:00.007-05:00

I guess I'll just go in chronological order.

October 21:

The children and I went to the Creation museum with two other homeschool families from our church.

Little Bear and Kitty Kat

Puppy Dog

Birdie

Kitty Kat, Monkey, Froggie, and Puppy Dog

October 30:

Our Mountain Dew can coupons for Young's Jersey Dairy were getting ready to expire, so we played miniature golf at Udders and Putters and got ice cream.

October 31:

Jon participated in a forklift rodeo and we finished using our cans at Young's Jersey Dairy. This time, Jon's sister and her family joined us for golf and ice cream.

November 1:

THREE OF OUR CHILDREN GOT BAPTIZED! Jon had the honor of baptizing them.

Froggie with Jon

Monkey with Jon

Puppy Dog with Jon

November 2:

In the evening, the girls and I had Sonflower Scouts. By the time scouts was over, Monkey really wasn't feeling well. She had a high fever, but I don't think it's the flu. By bedtime, Birdie was also feeling bad and running a fever.

November 3:

Both girls are still feeling dizzy and feverish. Birdie got sick some. It may be the flu, or it might just be that her empty stomach couldn't handle cranberry juice during a fever. Ibuprofen takes care of the fevers and the girls feel better with the fevers under control. Today became a p.j. day for the kids.

Jon and I voted.

Various days:

We painted our living room. We made and exploded a volcano. Actually, the kids made the volcano while Jon and I painted. They had to work together to make the dough and build the volcano. I used red food coloring when I made it erupt. Another Weaver mom had mentioned using a water bottle to build the volcano around. We did that and the eruption was wonderful, because the pressure built up causing the "lava" to shoot up a bit.

Our washer gave out (a repairman Jon talked to thought it was probably the transmission), so we had to get a new one. We somehow missed that the one we picked out was HE. I can't use my homemade detergent in it, but we needed the extra load space. Hopefully, we'll save enough on water and electricity to make up for the high detergent cost. It's a lot easier to get the laundry done now. Of course, laundry is never actually done...

Jon planed a door down and installed it in our bathroom doorway. We no longer have a curtain for a bathroom door!

Jon changed the dryer duct.

We've been busy...

2009-10-24T21:01:00.002-04:00

church, school, painting, volcano explosions, field trips, exciting news about three of my children . . .

I'll post more later. Right now, I don't have time.

Final Tally

2009-09-30T22:45:00.003-04:00

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?)

2009-09-29T11:23:00.003-04:00

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

2009-09-21T11:22:00.002-04:00

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

2009-09-19T10:52:00.003-04:00

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

2009-09-16T10:54:00.003-04:00

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

I'd report our grocery spending...

2009-09-16T10:15:00.003-04:00

. . . 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

2009-09-12T15:22:00.006-04:00

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)

2009-09-08T22:20:00.003-04:00

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!

2009-09-07T11:25:00.005-04:00

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

2009-09-04T20:27:00.005-04:00

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

2009-09-01T22:25:00.005-04:00

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!

2009-09-01T20:11:00.005-04:00

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?

I Have a Busy Day Tomorrow

2009-08-31T23:24:00.005-04:00

I already had tomorrow roughly planned out, then something came up. I changed my plans around only to realize that the event that will take us out of the house will not just change how we do school. I had plans of making bread tomorrow. We're out. My lunch plans were dependent on me being home to mess with the bread. We can't eat out. Jon also will need a work lunch. I've got eight pounds of burger in my fridge that I need to do something with. I was going to make meatloaf for tomorrow and brown some. Hmm...pardon me while I think on here. A list, I need a list!

To do before 10:00am

Devotions (These will be a must!)
Start the bread. Hmm...maybe I'll start this tonight!
Get ready for the day.
Check the dough. Punch it down. Shape it and get it into pans.
Make sure the children are up and getting ready and feed the pets.
Fix and eat breakfast (oatmeal and yogurt?).
Bake the bread.
Make meatloaf with potatoes and carrots around it.
Get the bread out. Make sure to put it in the cabinet after it cools a little, so the pets don't help themselves to a treat.
Put the meatloaf in the oven at a cooler temperature than normal (300 d. ?).
Get together the children's assignments.
Clean the kitchen.

10:00 am - ?

Head out with the children and some of their assignments.
Reach our destination and start the children on their school work.
Do what it is that I need to do (the something that came up).
Call Jon to have him check the meat loaf? I don't want to wake him too early.
Come home.
Finish fixing lunch and Jon's work lunch.
Eat lunch by 2:00 pm.

2:30 - ?

Jon goes to work. The rest of us take a rest time?
Chores
Finish school.
I guess we'll have to eat supper sometime. Which means I'll have to fix it. Pizza might be quick and easy.
Brown the ground beef while supper is baking/cooking.

I really hope I have a couple of good helpers ready early! I'm going to need all the help I can get in the morning!

I'd better get started on that list since it's after 12 am already. I'll have to get some sleep sometime soon.

Thanks for putting up with my ramblings.

Please pray for me if you feel so led. My attitude about tomorrow is not what it should be. Thank you!

School Isn't Starting Until Wednesday

2009-08-23T19:42:00.002-04:00

I had every intention of starting school tomorrow. Then, I went to my sleep consultation appointment. I had to wait a month and a half to get in for the consultation. So, I expected that I would still have quite a bit of waiting in my future. The doctor set up a sleep study and nap study for tomorrow and Tuesday! I go in tomorrow night at eight and don't get done until Tuesday afternoon at four. So, school isn't starting until Wednesday. I guess we'll be doing Saturday school to stay on schedule.

Potluck time at Green Thumb Mama's

2009-08-14T21:30:00.003-04:00

I have to get off here and let Jon have the computer, so I'm making this brief. A recipe I threw together the other day has been featured in the Potluck at Green Thumb Mama's Recipe Box!. Green Thumb Mama added a recipe of her own that compliments mine. If you're curious, head on over. Thanks, Green Thumb Mama.

Have a great night!

Crunch Time

2009-08-11T09:54:00.005-04:00

August is always a busy month for us, but this August seems even more busy than usual.

Next month, we are hosting our Life Group (small group from church) and we still haven't finished our living room. So, along with everything else, we still have to finish the living room. The living room furniture is in the boys' room and our dining room, so really we have at least three rooms to finish.

We just got accustomed to our new, later schedule. Then on Saturday morning Jon called work to see if he could start early to make it easier to do traffic duty at church the next day. Instead of having him start early, they had him switch to third shift for the week. For the week! There went our schedule! However, God always provides. Mr. M. went home that afternoon. Jon is on third this week which makes him available for the visitation and funeral. There is also a rumor at Jon's workplace that they will have a new schedule bid soon. I have no idea what our regular schedule will be now.

So here's a glimpse of today and the next thirteen days:

Aug. 11 - We have to get the younger two girls home from my sister's (South of here) and the boys from my parents' (North of here). Jon has a Stage Right (drama ministry) meeting. Jon works.

Aug. 12 - Mr. M.'s visitation is from 2-4 and 6-8. We figured we would go during the earlier time, since we can. However, Puppy Dog has a dentist appointment at 2:30 in Urbana. Jon's mom also has surgery on this day. Jon works.

Aug. 13 - Mr. M.'s funeral at 10:30 AM, my grandmother's birthday, our fifteenth anniversary, and Kitty Kat's thirteenth birthday Jon's mom has a Dr. appt. and may need a ride?

Aug. 14 - Jon has a chiropractor appointment.

Aug. 15 - Jon goes back on second shift. Jon works.

Aug. 16 - We will probably have to go to all three services at church, if Jon is in a skit. Jon works.

Aug. 17 - Jon works.

Aug. 18 - I have a sleep study consultation at 8:45 AM. Jon works.

Aug. 19 - Jon has a dentist appointment at 4(?) We have a combined birthday party with our Life Group for the whole family at Young's Jersey Dairy. Jon's niece's birthday (15).

Aug. 20 - Jon's younger brother's anniversary (10th).

Aug. 21 - party for the above anniv. ? It may be moved to the 22nd.

Aug. 22 - Puppy Dog's seventh birthday. Jon works (?).

Aug. 23 - Birdie's eleventh birthday, church, and I think this is my week for nursery duty (if so, we attend all three services). Jon works (?). **I have a Sonflower Scouts leaders' meeting at 3PM.

Aug. 24 - first day of school, Jon's niece's birthday (3?)

Those are just the events we have written down on our calendar. I'm sure I'm forgetting something.

I'd better get to work!

**edited after receiving an e-mail.

Tomorrow Will Be Another Emotional Day

2009-08-08T22:50:00.003-04:00

So, evident by my last post, last Sunday was a very emotional day. Tomorrow will probably be an even more emotional day. Today, at 12:30PM, a wonderful man of God who has influenced hundreds ( thousands or ...?) of people for Christ went home to be with his Savior after an intense battle with cancer.

Mr. and Mrs. M. missed being able to worship with their church family, so a week ago Wednesday, the church came to them. Somewhere around 450 people showed up at their home and had a worship service in their yard in the rain. The M. family put Mr. M.'s bed by the window so he could watch and participate. Afterward, he sat on his knees at the window for three (?) hours as everyone passed by his window giving him hugs, handshakes, etc.

Last Sunday, some men went to the M. house and helped get Mr. M. into his vehicle so that he could come to the end of our third service to watch his grandson be baptized. More men helped get him into a wheelchair and into the church. Towards the end of the service, Mrs. M. came to the front pews without Mr. M. I knew that either he wasn't able to make it or he was waiting to come out. Mr. M. was brought out on stage and he prayed before one of his sons baptized his grandson. Hence, the intensity of my emotions last Sunday/Monday.

While we will miss Mr. M., we know he is no longer in pain and we are happy for him. We pray that God will comfort the M. family and friends.

This song is so fitting.

Have you ever...

2009-08-03T00:19:00.002-04:00

...been so full of grief, joy, amazement, and a whole slew of other emotions that tears just run down your face as if you had two little water falls for eyes?

A New Schedule

2009-08-01T23:26:00.004-04:00

Our "normal" schedule just wasn't working very well. It didn't work well during the school year. It hasn't really worked for us this Summer. So, after finding out that Jon wouldn't be going back on first shift, I decided to try a new schedule. First shift people will probably think we're insane. We might just be.

So here's the tentative schedule:

9:00 AM Mom up, devos., shower, and get ready (7:00 on Sun. and Thurs.)

10:00 Kids up, devos., shower, get ready; Breakfast (8:00 on Sun. and Thurs.), Dad up?

11:00 Chores, Dad up?

12:00 PM School

1:00 Clean up and fix lunch.

1:30 Lunch

2:30 Dad goes to work, School

4:30 Snack

7:30 Finish school and eat supper

8:30 Free time, homework, evening chores, and family time

11:00 Kids to bed (10:00 on Sat. and Wed.), Mom prepare for tomorrow

2:00 AM Mom to bed (1:00 AM on Sat. and Wed.)

3:00 Dad home and to bed (?)

We plan on getting/making some thick curtains for the kids' rooms to block out the early morning light.

Today was our first day trying this schedule. I just came up with it last night. It didn't go too bad, but the boys did get up too early. Hopefully, with time we'll all adjust.

So, what does your schedule look like?

August

2009-07-31T21:33:00.001-04:00

Tomorrow starts a new month. (Yes, I have a knack for stating the obvious.)

Better Late Than Never?

2009-07-03T17:16:00.002-04:00

So, a little while back (September 14, 2009), a little wind blew through our neck of the woods (remnants of hurricane Ike) and a tree branch fell on our roof.
Today, almost a year later, I finally got the monster off of there. By monster I mean that what was still on our roof was 22 foot long and about 2 foot across. This was after taking off as much as I felt comfortable doing by myself which included another section that was about 6.5 foot long by 1.5 foot across. That limb fell DOWN on TOP of our two-story home! Yeah, as one of the less-than-professional "Tree Care Specialists" stated when giving us a quote, "That's one big-ash tree!"
So, better late than never. Now, to get the roof repaired...

StoryBlox

2009-06-29T17:00:00.002-04:00

Have you ever checked out StoryBlox? If not, I highly recommend you do. StoryBlox sells handmade educational toys. Yes, this is a shameless plug for my sister's company. No, she didn't know I was going to do this.

StoryBlox just announced a 25% off Grand Opening Sale at their Art Fire shop .

Moms Aren't Supposed to ...Part II

2009-06-28T16:33:00.004-04:00

Jon and I have pondered whether or not I have sleep apnea for a few years. One night last week I really gave Jon a scare. He kept having to wake me up so I would start breathing again. So, he told me to set up an appointment with our family doctor and I did. I REALLY don't like going to the doctor. I usually just deal with whatever is bothering me and/or try home or OTC remedies.

Thursday evening at our Life Group meeting we asked our group to pray for the appointment to go well. It did.

My mom took the children with her to visit relatives who were in from GA on Friday. That way, Jon could go to the appointment with me.

So, here are the results of that appointment:

1. I'm on antibiotics for ten days for my sinus infection.

2. I'm now taking allergy medicine (nose spray).

3. I have an appointment in August for a consultation with a Dr. for a sleep study.

The allergy medicine makes my headaches worse. I couldn't even sleep Friday night, because my headache was so bad. If the headaches don't start improving I'll have to call the Dr. I already have a terrible time with several different types of headache and I don't need another type. The information with the medicine actually says to call my doctor if I get a headache from it, but since it's the weekend I can't. My symptoms have gotten worse since I started taking the medicine, but apparently that's normal for the first few days.

Hopefully, I'll be on the mend soon.

Have a great day everyone!

Moms Aren't Supposed to Get Sick, Right? or I Think

2009-06-22T22:49:00.003-04:00

I think I've been fighting this off for a while now. I've been dealing with allergies, aches, headaches, etc. just about all Spring. Now, I'm sick.

I think being busy for our week of V.B.S., which our church is now calling Kid Fest, was the final straw.

I think whatever I have is viral. (I almost decided to change the beginning of that last sentence. Then I thought, "Oh, well. It's a pattern." I seem to be doing a lot of thinking for someone who is having trouble thinking.)

I think I better cut this short and go get some more rest. Hopefully, I'll recover and feel more myself soon.

Why Didn't I Think of This Before?

2009-06-08T00:08:00.002-04:00

There are times when I have take my children with me to the grocery store. I'm pretty sure taking the kids doubles if not triples the time spent at the store. The trips are always smoother when I am creative and have something planned for the children to do while we shop. Yesterday evening I had to take the children to the store and I came up with a plan and I think it was the best in a long time.

Saturday, our local library had a book sale. I went by myself in the early afternoon and brought back a backpack full of books for five dollars. I didn't have enough time to look, because I had to get home to take the four girls to a skating party. While the girls were at the party, Jon and I decided we would take the boys to the library and see what else we could find. As we walked in we were handed plastic grocery bags and told that we could have whatever we could fit in a bag for one dollar. The boys had a blast helping us fill the bags. We brought home seven more bags of books.

Our children are loving having all the new books to devour. At least one has plans to read all of them this Summer (well maybe not the college math book I picked up).

I took advantage of their interest last evening and allowed each child to bring a book with them to the store. That was the most peaceful shopping trip with children that I have had in a long time! I'm definitely going to do that again.

======================================================

On another topic, I have a couple prayers of thanks. 1. We paid our van off Thursday and we now officially own all our vehicles. 2. A man in a car sped through a red light Saturday. The boys and I (in the above mentioned van) had been stopped at the light for the intersecting street. We and the van turning in the lane beside us just missed being in an accident with the speeding car. The fact that I was at a full stop at the light before it changed kept us from being in the intersection as the car sped through. The car missed our van by about five feet and missed the other van by about five inches. As Puppy Dog said, "that car was flying" and "we need to thank God that He made you put on the brakes!"

Some of What We've Been Up To

2009-05-05T20:33:00.005-04:00

We've been a little busy, lately.

Birdie, Monkey, and Puppy Dog were in our church's children's choir. This year they went by the name, Inside Out. Froggie and Kitty Kat didn't sign up for the Jr. High choir in time, so they didn't participate (on stage) in the Night of Worship this year.

Birdie and Monkey

Puppy Dog

all six children after the Night of Worship

We watched two of Jon's nieces last Saturday. While they were here, the children discovered some strange fungi (?). The children have been been observing the fungi each day. It dies off each day and then a new fungus is in the same area the next morning. Does anyone know what it is?

Birdie, Monkey, and Puppy Dog after their Inside Out award ceremony.

Kitty Kat, me, Froggie, Monkey, and Birdie after the Sonflower Scout badge ceremony

This is what our living room ceiling looks like right now. Little Bear says we made it naked. Actually, it's not even there. The old plaster ceiling was falling down, so we had to take it down. We're hoping to have the new ceiling up this weekend and get the living room repainted next week. We still haven't decided what color of paint to use. We have some ideas, though.

New Post Coming Soon

2009-04-30T23:53:00.002-04:00

I haven't forgotten about all you wonderful people. I just haven't had time for Blogging. I'll be around to visit and post sometime soon, perhaps after we put our living room ceiling back up.

THE AWARD FOR THE MOST COMMENTS IN ONE DAY...

2009-04-10T12:09:00.002-04:00

. . . GOES TO DAMAMA T !

Yesterday, Jon and I moderated seventeen comments from Damama T. Welcome back Damama! I probably won't get around to answering all the comments, but if you give me enough time, I may.

I'll have to see if we can get an award made up for you Damama.

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We did our shopping yesterday, so here are the numbers.

Kroger: $69.67

total for three weeks: $346.67

weekly average: $115.56

The average will probably drop even more next week.

An Angel with a Flaming Sword

2009-04-06T11:35:00.009-04:00

Aren't four year olds interesting? Little Bear just told me, "Mom, when I grow up I'm going to be an angel, but I'm going to have a flaming sword. Do you want to know where I got that from? I got that from my Adam book." LOL My son is not going to be a doctor, a lawyer, a street sweeper, or any other normal profession. No, my son is aspiring to be an angel with a flaming sword. I wonder what he'll want to be tomorrow?

=====================================================================

I didn't get to the store on Thursday which is our normal day to shop. The kids and I went on Saturday. The kids were not in the best of moods. I started out by telling the kids I was going to take a picture of them to put on the blog anytime I caught them misbehaving. It didn't take me long to realize my mistake. I switched to taking pictures of the kids when I caught them behaving.

Birdie helps by getting beans to put in the cart while we were at Wal-mart.

I caught Monkey with her hands in her pockets while several children behind her were handling the items on the shelves. Her siblings saw this take place and the next thing I knew, several others had their hands in their pockets. (Pay no attention to the green coat sleeves. Ugh! They are the stained sleeves of Froggie's old coat. I told her I would not put a picture of her in the blog if she had the coat on, but she refused to take it off. She was caught being good a couple times, but I can't post her picture since I told her I wouldn't.

Puppy Dog stands by the cart with his hands in his pockets.

Birdie poses with her hands in her pockets. Monkey is in the background looking at a movie display with her hands still in her pockets. Another sister is looking with her hands. Ahem!

Little Bear tries to hide behind his arm as I take this picture. It took me several tries!

What a great older sister! Kitty Kat helps out by taking the boys to the restroom at Kroger.

Our total for food at Wal-mart was $21.56 .

Our total for food at Kroger was $77.75 .

Jon spent about $40 while I was at a friend's Friday.

weekly total = $139.31

total for two weeks = $277.00

average weekly spending = $138.50 .

I haven't been stressing out about food prices as much these last two weeks. Most likely, this is due to the fact that we have had more money available for food. It's looking like our average for food may be higher than it was previously. Due to the rising cost of food, we may have to increase our food budget. Then again, I usually will have a week here or there where I don't do the regular food shopping. That would really drop the average.

====================================================================

While I was typing this, Little Bear brought me the book he previously referred to, and showed me the picture of the angel with the flaming sword. The book is CREATION MY FATHER LOVES ME by J.D. Wise.

So, what do you think?

2009-04-01T13:04:00.002-04:00

Yesterday, is a blur to me. lol I didn't post last night because I was too tired, and today I'm drawing a blank. I'll try to remember, anyway.

We started out with cold cereal. After doing some chores and other things, we had lunch meat sandwiches on wheat bread with lettuce, tomato, and cheese. We also had bananas. We then ran some errands. I had put a roast with potatoes, carrots, and onions in our slow cooker in the morning. We had that and sour dough bread with Country Crock for supper. Then Jon had a drama rehearsal and while we were waiting on him the kids worked on their schoolwork while I read to them. We had another stop to make after the rehearsal and we snacked on fruit chews in the van on the way. We got home and snacked on chips and salsa (just Jon and me) and Cheez-Its (just the kids). After putting the kids to bed, Jon and I had jalapeno poppers and pop.

Jon made some food purchases this week that came up to about $30.oo.

I had stopped getting whole wheat flour when finances got tight at the end of last year. Jon wants to go back to whole wheat now, so we are. Yay! I haven't found the time this week to make tortillas. We were at Wal-mart to get a few things yesterday and we picked up two packs of tortillas and a bag of WW flour. Our food total at Wal-mart was $7.30.

During our errand running we took our aluminum cans (35 lbs.) to the recycle center. The price of aluminum had dropped to 25 cents/lb. so we got $8.75 for the cans.

So for this week our total food spending to date is $174.99.

NOW FOR THE TITLE OF THIS POST

What do you think? Should I continue to post everything we eat each day, or should I just keep a running total of our food expenditures? Please, put your thoughts in the comments section. Thank you!

Feeding a Family of Eight Part V

2009-03-30T22:20:00.002-04:00

Today we had banana oatmeal for breakfast. I was going to make muffins with the leftovers, but when I went to start that I realized that I had left the burner on low. I let the kids have seconds.

I didn't get our lunch started in time for Jon to eat with us. He took leftover vegetable beef stew, yogurt, Cheez-its, and I don't know what else for lunch. He packed his own lunch today. He picked up a sub on the way to work. He has been buying a few food items with his spending money, so I'll have to add that into our food totals. He didn't eat the bun or rolls that were in yesterday's lunch. I may be making bread pudding soon.

The kids and I had chicken, broccoli, and rice casserole; salad; and milk for lunch. Little Bear decided he was too tired to eat lunch. He went to the couch and took a three to four hour nap!

Supper was tuna and egg salad sandwiches with lettuce, tomatoes, and cheese. Little Bear got up right as we were getting ready to fix supper. He ate most of his lunch and most of his supper, while the rest of us fixed and ate supper.

We have a lot of running to do tomorrow, so I'm going to have to come up with some quick on the go meals and snacks.

I'm Beat

2009-03-29T21:42:00.003-04:00

After an abbreviated night of sleep, I got up and made monkey bread. We had the monkey bread and milk for breakfast.

When we got home from church I fixed spaghetti with meat sauce and Parmesan cheese, green beans with onions, and rolls. We had water to drink. Jon took a nap before going to work. He didn't eat with us, so I packed his up for him to take with him. He also took the leftover Sloppy Joe and bun, the rest of the egg salad, two rolls, pineapple rings, yogurt, pop, and Cheez-its.

The kids and I went back to church for an extra 4:00pm children's choir practice. Since we got there a little early, we stayed in the van for a little while and I read to the kids. I carried a sleeping Little Bear into the church. I left him in the charge of his older sisters while the three choir kids and I went in search of their practice. We ended up just reading in the foyer and visiting with those who passed by. The kids and I snacked on the fruit chews I brought with us. There are only supposed to be six packs in a box, but when I was done passing them out to the six children there was one left. While we were in the foyer one of the choir directors came by and we found out that there hadn't been enough interest in the extra practice, so it was never actually scheduled.

Monkey went to her ensemble practice, some of us stayed to watch the practice, and the older girls walked around the church with two of their cousins. After the ensemble practice, I signed all the younger children into their classes and then made sure that the older girls made it to their small group. I then went into the sanctuary and read while listening to the adult choir practice.

After church we came home and I made pepperoni and pineapple pizzas for our supper. We had water to drink.

The children are all in bed, but they're not all asleep yet.

I really want to go to bed, but I have some things I have to take care of before I can.

Today Was Better Than Yesterday

2009-03-28T21:48:00.004-04:00

I think a big part of today being better than yesterday was that I started my day out with God. The pets woke me and I had to take care of them, but none of the kids bothered me until I was done with my devotions. I take that back. I sent two girls back to bed. Puppy Dog came to our room while I was praying and laid down beside Jon. P.D. was quiet though and let me do my devos. without interruption. I went back to sleep after my devos. LOL

When the kids all started to congregate in the dining room, I told them that we were having cold cereal for breakfast. Some time went by and they started fussing about really being hungry. Apparently, I have catered to them too much this past winter. It only took a small verbal nudge to convince them to fix their own cereal though. I came out while they were fixing theirs, fixed mine, and added some banana slices to everyone's bowls.

Lunch was Sloppy Joes, baby carrots, applesauce, and milk. We used Manwich, because it was a good price this week and Jon wanted it. I used two pounds of ground beef and two cans of sauce. We had enough left over for Jon to have enough for a sandwich at work later this week. The buns were also storebought. They were on sale and I had a coupon.

Jon took the rest of our leftover chili, a yogurt, and some pop for his work lunch. He usually drinks water and eats some of the fruit that his workplace keeps out for employees as well.

The kids and I had yogurt for an afternoon snack while we waited for our bread to cool for supper. I also made rolls for tomorrow.

Tonight's supper was egg salad (homemade) sandwiches (homemade bread), baby carrots, cottage cheese with pineapple rings, and water. We had enough egg salad for Jon to have a sandwich later.

This is Little Bear's plate from supper. As the youngest, he got the priveledge of having the heals of the bread. The younger three children tend to take turns eating the heals. If they fight, then I get them.

I assigned How-to reports to three of the children this week. Kitty Kat decided on "How to Make Old Fashioned Sugar Cookies", Froggie chose "How to Make Meatloaf", Monkey chose "How to Make Chocolate Tea Bread", Puppy Dog chose "How to Make Chocolate Chip Cookies", Birdie wants help deciding, and I haven't heard from Little Bear yet. Did you catch that five children are planning their reports when I only assigned reports to three?

Kitty Kat decided to use the recipe on the back of a sugar package. I tried to dissuade her, but she wouldn't budge. I let her try the recipe without interference at first. She would ask my opinion from time to time.

One of those times was when the "dough" was supposed to be ready to go in the fridge to chill. It looked like quick bread batter. I went through the ingredients with her and double checked the measurements she used. It turns out that she measured the milk before adding the lemon juice to it (as a replacement for buttermilk). I had told her a day or two ago to first put the lemon juice in and then to finish measuring the milk. Apparently, she forgot. She also confessed to having the milk a little over the mark on the measuring cup. Add that to the fact that the eggs we have right now are extra large and there was definitely too much moisture. I had her add a little extra flour a 1/4 cup at a time to get a better consistency. She added 1/2 cup and we decided to try it.

I let her work on the cookies alone after the "dough" chilled. I came to help her check on them when the first set was ready to come out of the oven. The cookies were a little burnt. I helped her get them off the pans quickly and then the kids and I ate those cookies as a bedtime snack. The oven temp. was at 400 degrees and she baked the cookies for 7 minutes. I checked and she had followed the directions. I then proceded to help her by getting the rest of the cookie "dough" onto the pans and she added the cinnamon sugar. I made the cookies bigger than the recipe called for, left the temp. the same, and had her time them for 5 minutes and then reset the timer as needed. She ended up with enough nice cookies that she can take them to her small group at church tomorrow evening and leave a couple for Jon to have later. She will be trying a different recipe before writing her report though. I tasted the raw batter and it tasted just like the batter minus the bananas of a banana bread recipe that I once made from a recipe on the back of the same brand of sugar. I have never made that recipe again because the banana bread turned out bland.

The kids were in bed before 10pm tonight. I actually sent them to bed before 9:30 but I had to fuss with the boys to get them to stay in bed. Once the boys were in bed, they fell right to sleep. I did have to go upstairs to send the girls back to bed a little while ago, but I think they have settled down. Hopefully, they will get enough sleep, because we are going to be at church a lot tomorrow.

Rough Day

2009-03-28T12:38:00.007-04:00

bacon, egg, and cheese onion bagel

Thursday night we were up late, so I let everyone wake up on their own. I also didn't fix breakfast or brunch or whatever you want to call it until everyone was up and downstairs. Yes, that's right, the girls are back upstairs! So, we had our first meal at about 1:00 pm. That was not a good start to the day! We hoped that the day would get better after everyone's tummy was filled with the bacon*, egg, and cheese bagels and orange juice we had. The day did not get better.

Jon had a family ticket to go to a Cincinnati Bengals vs. the local Sheriff's Association basketball game at an area school. He was going to take the kids to that while I went to see my niece in the musical, THOROUGHLY MODERN MILLIE. The kids were so rotten yesterday that Jon decided they wouldn't go. If you know Jon, then you know what a big fan he is of the Bengals.

We had our next meal, vegetable beef stew with biscuits, before I left to go to the musical. The stew was planned for earlier in the week, but our plans had changed. I would normally make homemade biscuits, but there was a very good deal on biscuits at Kroger this week. We got four four packs of ten count Pillsbury biscuits for $4.00. I sent Kitty Kat to make some biscuits and she pulled out a can. I had totally forgotten about the canned bisuits. LOL We drank tea with our meal. Kitty Kat makes most of our iced tea and yesterday's was no exception.

I left to go to the musical with a heavy heart knowing that Jon was missing out. I'll have to be sure to take someone with me next time I go to something like that. There were long periods of time when I was by myself and I didn't know what to do with myself. My mom, nephew, and niece were there too, but Mom and my nephew were helping with costumes and my niece was running around with a cousin. There was also the trip from Springfield to Urbana and back alone in the car.

I got back and was swarmed by kids and pets. The pets are still acting like I was gone too long.

While I was gone, Jon and the kids snacked on some battered shrimp and Girl Scout cookies. When I returned, we had hot dogs and jalapeno brats with leftover chili, applesauce, and salad. We only had six hot dog buns, so some of the kids had their hot dogs cut up and had leftover rolls to go with it. Little Bear didn't want to eat his salad. He asked if we could put it in the fridge for the next day, and since he asked nicely, I complied.

Once again we got to bed late.

*I saved the bacon grease to use later in the week.

Feeding a Family of Eight

2009-03-27T11:01:00.005-04:00

Some friends and I were talking yesterday and they seemed surprised when I said that we only spend $100.oo per week on food. So, I decided to use our shopping trip last night through the end of April to find out on average how much we spend on food.

There are some things you'll need to know up front. I am not starting with an empty pantry, so I won't be buying every single thing that I need for all our meals each week. Because I am not starting with an empty pantry, I am able to stock up on sale items that will be used in future weeks. That's why I decided to go with an average rather than a weekly amount. There will be some weeks that I go over $100.oo. There will be other weeks that I spend less. For the sake of this study, I will not be counting non-food items or pet food since the study is about feeding our family of eight. If we buy a new pan (we're looking for an inexpensive bun pan) I may add that in. I usually shop at two main stores, Super Wal-mart and Kroger. I buy mostly store brand items if they are of good quality. If name brand products are cheaper, then I go with those. If another store has a good sale, then I will shop there if the savings is worth it. I make most of our baked goods. I cook from scratch a high percentage of the time. I'm sure there is more you'll need to know, but I'll address that as necessary.

So, let's take a look at what we purchased last night.

We unpacked everything quickly and I rushed to get a picture and get it all put away. I can't afford to have our milk or other cold items spoil. Obviously, it takes a lot of food to feed eight people, so I won't be listing off the whole list of purchases.

Cost of groceries 3/26/09:

Wal-mart $0 - We didn't make any food purchases there this time.
Kroger $119.41
Meijer $18.28 - We saved ~ $6.00 over the cost of the same items at Wal-mart or Kroger. That's definitely worth the extra stop.

Our total for this week is $137.69.

Menu options:

Breakfast

oatmeal
muffins
cold cereal
eggs, bacon, and toast
bagels
bacon, egg, and cheese bagels
banana bread

Lunch, Supper, or Dinner

Sloppy Joes, applesauce, carrots
meat loaf (a la Froggie), mashed potatoes, corn, rolls
pot roast with carrots, potatoes, onions, bread and butter (We use Country Crock w/Calcium and Vit. D added.)
chicken and rice casserole, salad, rolls
fried chicken, mashed potatoes, green beans, biscuits
BBQ ribs, green beans, baked potatoes, rolls
roast chicken, stuffing, rolls, brocolli and cheese
egg salad sandwiches, carrots, cottage cheese, bananas
tuna salad sandwiches, carrots, applesauce
spaghetti, bread sticks, corn
tacos, chips and salsa
hot dogs, salad, applesauce
pizza
PB&J, chicken noodle soup

Snacks

yogurt
cookies (sugar cookies a la Kitty Kat, chocolate chip a la Puppy Dog)
chocolate tea bread (a la Monkey)
fruit snacks
tangerines
cantaloupe

Drinks

1/2 caf. coffee (just me)
water
orange juice
iced tea
milk
hot tea
Mt. Dew (Jon)
Dr. Pepper (Me)

Last night we had a bedtime snack. The kids had fruit snacks. Jon and I snacked on some Pringles and had salads (We had a package of Sargento Cheddar Chicken Salad Finishers that was about to expire. We tried a raspberry vinaigrette on it and we both liked it. We must be getting old, our tastes are expanding.) The kids didn't have drinks since they were headed straight to bed. Jon and I had pop.

On Second Thought... And, We're Still At It

2009-03-24T22:34:00.004-04:00

We never did start the elimination diet. Of course if you've been keeping up with us you probably already figured that out. I'm pretty sure there would have been a mutiny if I had started the diet. Everyone was relieved when we made the announcement. I think more center aisle foods made it into our cart on the last shopping trip. Of course, that may have been because everything else was so expensive and we had limited funds.

____________________________________________________________________

The kids are still helping me in the kitchen on their days to pray. They each have their own count-down going to the day they get to help next. Yesterday, Froggie helped make pepperoni pizza. Today, Kitty Kat helped make PB&J sandwiches and a vegetable salad. We also had a fruit and nut salad that I made to go with it. Birdie had to check (for the umpteenth time) to make sure that tomorrow is her day to help before she would go to bed. Cold cereal and bananas (breakfast), vegetable beef stew with rolls or biscuits (lunch), and chili and rice (supper) are on the menu for tomorrow. I also have some leftover oatmeal from this morning's breakfast, so I may make some muffins for snacks.

Second Shift Can Be Hard On A Family

2009-03-24T14:52:00.003-04:00

Little Bear was having a difficult time getting to sleep last night. I had him come to lay down on Jon's side of the bed to see if I could get him to sleep. The following conversation took place.

~12:45 am 3/24/09

Little Bear - Mom? Why do you and Daddy share a room?

Me - because we're married

L. B. - If I was Daddy, and they called me into work I wouldn't go.

Me - Then you would lose your job.

L. B. - Well, if I had to go to work, then my kids might miss me.

Me - Is that why you can't get to sleep?

L. B. - Yeah.

Me - Well, you just lay down on Daddy's side of the bed, and I'll move you later.

L. B. - OK.

I ended up falling asleep too, so Jon moved Little Bear.

* Little Bear helped type this. His self appointed job was to type B and b. He thought it was hilarious to hold the key down. I was mean and erased the extra ones. So, here are some lines typed by none other than Little Bear himself:

g;;jmnnnfnmnnnnb,mb,bbb9Benjkphwrr jvkjitrjjtguj5r3ut5huhr3euireyuewyuhrewyu3yggf
bbuhhbfuhfhet5yeutrediotue3y78934uu4ui5ihyu4yuggg bvvcvvvvswvsvgbbbbbbb b bb b bbb

Saturday at the Owings Cafe

2009-03-21T16:26:00.005-04:00

Today is Little Bear's day in the kitchen again. He helped make Hot Pot Slop for lunch.

L.B. pours the cheese sauce mix into the pot. Do you see the cheesy pose? He kept wanting to do this for each picture, but I told him to watch what he was doing.

L.B. dumps the corn into the pot.

L.B. scrapes tuna into the pot.

L.B. adds an extreme amount of Worcestershire sauce to the pan. (It ended up being just fine.)

L.B. pours milk from the cream of mushroom soup can.

L.B. nearly stirs the pot off the stove. (Actually, it just started to slide a bit as I snapped the picture. I grabbed the pot right after the shot. I had to tell him to hold onto the pan every time he stirred before this. This time, I just decided to capture the moment. Now, I can point out why he needs to hold the handle with a visual.)

Little Bear shows off his plate.

Friday at the Owings Cafe

2009-03-21T11:44:00.005-04:00

Friday was Puppy Dog's day in the kitchen.

Puppy Dog chops onions. (This was a very sharp knife and he thought he should move at lightning speed. He really made me nervous.)

Puppy Dog cutting hot dogs. (We had leftover grilled hot dogs from earlier in the week. Notice that he is using a fork and a different knife. The fork keeps his fingers out of harms way and the knife was an old dull steak knife.)

P.D. puts the chopped hot dogs into the pot with the onions.

P.D. dumps in pork and beans.

P.D. stirs the beans and weenies after I added some brown sugar and ketchup.

P.D. cuts bananas in half.

P.D. counts out baby carrots onto Daddy's plate.

Puppy Dog shows off his plate.

Thursday at the Owings Cafe

2009-03-19T22:20:00.003-04:00

Today was Monkey's turn in the kitchen. She helped make stir fry veggies (we also added a bag of broccoli so we would have enough to go around) with chicken and teriyaki sauce, rice, and fruit cocktail. She also helped make mandarin orange spice tea.

Monkey cuts up chicken (precooked with yesterday's lunch).

Monkey stirs the chicken and veggies.

Monkey adds teriyaki sauce.

Monkey shows off her plate.

Wednesday at the Owings Cafe

2009-03-18T23:14:00.003-04:00

Today was Birdie's day to help with meal prep.

Birdie peels carrots.

Birdie adds onion to the dish.

Birdie seasons the dish.

Birdie shows off her plate.

Tuesday at the Owings Cafe

2009-03-17T22:29:00.005-04:00

We had fish sticks, fries, green beans, and macaroni and cheese for lunch today. Kitty Kat made the macaroni and cheese. We have a cold bug going around right now and it just might spread a little quicker now. Kitty Kat ate off the cooking spoon and then put it back in the pan. We added more milk and cooked it a little extra in the hopes that any germs would be killed off since Kitty Kat has a sore throat.

We had drop biscuits and dried beef gravy with buttered peas and mashed potatoes for supper. Kitty Kat made the biscuits from the recipe without my help until it came time to put them on the baking pan. She also did most of the work on making the gravy and mashed potatoes. I helped her by fixing the peas so she wouldn't be totally overwhelmed. We also worked together to make peppermint flavored hot tea.

Kitty Kat mixes the biscuit dough.

Yech! Kitty Kat wasn't fond of the Crisco on her fingers after greasing the pan.

Kitty Kat stirs the gravy.

Kitty Kat fixes Little Bear's plate.

Kitty Kat shows off her plate.

Monday at the Owings Cafe

2009-03-16T22:42:00.005-04:00

Monday is Froggie's day to pray and now her day to help fix a meal. We had Sunflower Scouts tonight, so it was just us five girls. The boys are at my parents' house for the night, and Jon is at work. Froggie wanted to fix pepperoni pizza, but we decided that she could do that next Monday and do something else tonight. We needed something quick and easy. Taco salad was our choice.

Froggie is cutting up a slice of onion while the beef starts to brown.

Froggie puts the chopped cabbage into a serving bowl.

Froggie stirs the seasoned meat and onion.

Froggie shows off the finished product.

My Little Chef

2009-03-14T19:18:00.004-04:00

In the past I have tried to have each child take turns helping in the kitchen. Usually, we get out of the habit for one reason or another. We're trying again. Each of my children has a day of the week that he/she is responsible for certain prayers (meals and before school), but that's another story. Anyway, each child is now going to be my kitchen helper for at least one meal on the day he/she is to pray. I hope to keep up with it by blogging about each child's turn at least at first.

Today it was Little Bear's turn. Here he is with the pepperoni and pineapple pan pizza he made for supper.

Last Weekend

2009-03-14T17:38:00.009-04:00

Friday, March 6, 2009

Jon's workplace had their award's banquet. The theme this year was Prom. Jon received a trophy for competing in a forklift rodeo. My parents watched the kids overnight. One of Jon's coworkers surprised his girlfriend and married her at the banquet. Yeah, I'll just say, that was different. We didn't stay for the whole thing. They always have a Monte Carlo time when you win raffle tickets. They always have a lot of raffle prizes at these functions, but we left without getting our starting tickets and didn't go back. Instead, we went home, changed, played board games, etc. Etc. in this case means I forgot what all we did. We enjoyed the time without kids. Thanks Dad and Mom!

Do you know how difficult it is to find a modest Prom worthy dress for someone my size? We got the most modest one we could find. We had to wait until Friday to get a dress. We didn't have the funds before that. Jon and the girls had gone dress hunting earlier in the week, so Jon knew what our options were. We found a dress and the additions items I needed. It didn't seem like a good idea to wear hiking boots with the dress. LOL (We also found a coat for Froggie. It was a $350.00 genuine lambskin leather coat and we got it for about $45.00 after taxes!)

We were running late getting ready so Mom met me between our house and hers to get the kids. I got back home with just enough time for us to get ready and get to banquet right on time. Jon was nearly ready when I got back. He had shaved! The last time he shaved was for our anniversary back in August '08. He was helping me get ready. He started to hand me the dress and found out the cashier hadn't removed the security tag! We had to go back to the store before going to the banquet. I got dressed as best as I could and wore jeans and a t-shirt to the store . The cashier was the same one and didn't recognize Jon all dressed up and clean shaven. LOL I changed into the dress in the dressing room and then we went straight to the banquet.

I was fine in the dim lighting around people I didn't know well (most of whom were at least a little or a lot drunk). However, much to my embarrassment, a lady in the restroom recognized me from church. Jon had me put the picture of us on Facebook so I might as well post it here as well. I think my cheeks are turning a shade of red similar to the shirt I am wearing as I post this.

Wasn't Jon handsome!

Saturday, March 7, 2009

The girls are in Sonflower Scouts at church. Last Saturday was their annual Father/Daughter Banquet. This year's the was Masquerade. I help lead the K and1st grade group, so I had to be there to help. Mom kept the boys and Dad came to the banquet so that Jon wouldn't be as outnumbered. I'll have to see if Jon will post more about the banquet. In the meantime, here are some pictures.

Froggie twirling with Jon

Froggie dancing

Jon dancing with Froggie

Kitty Kat dancing with Papaw

Kitty Kat and Jon

Birdie dancing with a friend

Jon and Monkey

Papaw (Brandi's dad), Birdie, Kitty Kat, Froggie, Monkey, and Jon

They make a beautiful group, don't they!?

Update 3/15/09: Today, when Birdie went to put on her dress for church, we discovered that the top skirt seam had come out for a length of about five inches. She had to wear a different dress.

After church, when Froggie was changing, the straps on one side of her dress pulled out.

Below is a picture our Sonflower Scouts Events coordinator gave me at church today.

Papaw (Brandi's Dad), Kitty Kat, and Froggie in their masks

Change of Plans

2009-03-14T17:02:00.005-04:00

Change of lunch plans, that is.

Today, we were going to have LaChoy beef chow mein over rice for lunch. Those plans changed when I started to stir the vegetables into the beef and sauce and found this:

Yes, that is a piece of blue plastic stuck (cooked into?) that piece of beef. Two sets of chow mein and $6.80 were wasted. I already had the rice cooked, so I improvised. I cooked some onion, mixed vegetables, and broccoli in a little oil. Then I added about 3/4 c. of peanut butter, some curry powder, garlic powder, and a little water. We ate that served over the rice. The kids and I liked it, but Jon was indifferent. He did eat it though. He's such a good sport!

I couldn't get in contact with La Choy today, but I was able to send a product complaint to Con Agra Foods.

Has anyone else had something like this happen? I'm sure there are a lot of interesting stories out there. In fact, that is not the first time we have had a problem with a La Choy product. We once had a bottle of sauce that had about an inch of sediment stuck on the bottom of the bottle. We thought we would just shake it and mix it back in but it was STUCK. We received a check for replacing the item from the company. Hopefully, they will be as kind this time.

Update: I got an e-mail from Con Agra Foods on Monday. They are sending me two coupons for free replacement of the Beef chow mein.

Update II: We received the coupons in the mail several days ago.

Where have I been?

2009-03-09T23:19:00.005-04:00

Jon and I recently found some of our friends from college on Facebook. Needless to say, some of the time I used to spend on blogging has now gone to Facebook.
Jon's second shift schedule still has us out of sorts.
I think we all have Spring fever. The kids are going crazy, making more messes than they help clean up, fighting, testing us, I could go on and on.
There for a while, I was struggling with being optimistic. Since I'm supposed to be "Optimistically Walking in God's Sight", I really didn't want to bring my pessimism to this blog. I actually considered starting a new blog just for fussing on, but that would have defeated the whole purpose. Wouldn't it?
Due to some or all of the above, we have found it very difficult to get school done in a reasonable amount of time.
We are all downstairs for the winter, so we're are most likely experiencing cabin fever.
This past weekend we were busy. I'll do another post on that later.

What am I going to do about it?

Catch up with friends but try not to neglect other friends in the process.
Um...I guess the kids and I will have to go back to a first shift schedule. It will be tough, but it looks like it is necessary.
I've got to get the kids into a rigid schedule where they don't have time for messing around. Of course they don't have time to mess around now. They mess around and their responsibilities and relationships suffer. The weather has been nice the last few days. We need to enjoy it before the snow comes back. More outside activities are in order.
Things are looking a little brighter. I've recently come to the conclusion that two of my children have Sensory Integration Dysfunction (or Disorder if you will). Everything seems to point in that direction even the early intervention and special needs pre-school experiences before we started homeschooling. So, there is hope of finding some way to help them academically and behaviorally (or at least understand them better). I've also been reading up on allergies. I know we all have at least some allergies. Jon and I have decided to do an elimination diet to check for food allergies. We know that Little Bear is at least lactose intolerant and the kids are affected by red dyes. We suspect that there may be more food sensitivities. I was going to have us start the diet Monday, but changed my mind. Sunday afternoon I realized that we have several dozen eggs and other items that would go bad if we didn't eat them before the diet. So, we are going to try to finish what is in the house. When I shop, I will only purchase things that we will be able to eat on the diet. So, next Monday will be our start date. It's a good thing that we changed the start date, too. My birthday is this week and it would be awful difficult to not eat cake and ice cream. LOL
I need to get the children back on a fairly rigid schedule. That means I have to be on it, too. Ugh, we all despise change, but this will be for the better.
I'm hoping that, with the warmer weather, we'll be able to move school back upstairs to our school room. It should be easier for the children and I to focus. I also want to get outside more.
It is now past midnight here in Ohio and I am starting to type in a dyslexic manner. So yeah, the post about our weekend will have to wait. Please excuse any typos. Tonight my typing is off. Last night it was my handwriting. Even Jon noticed when he got home that my writing was odd on a page I had handwritten. It got so bad that I just gave up and went to sleep. Yeah, I'm going there now before no one can figure out what I'm trying to say.

Good night everyone!

Hmm...in reviewing my post I noticed that I mentioned the rigid schedule thing twice. It must be important, so I'll just leave it as is. I really am going to bed now. 'Night!

We Would Make Lousy Drunks!

2009-02-27T22:50:00.004-05:00

Did I catch your attention with that title?

While we were at the store last weekend, Jon picked up a corkscrew that was marked down at Wal-mart. He discovered as he was taking it out of the bag at home that the screw part was broken.

Thursday, while the older five children and I were at Homeschool P.E., Jon and Little Bear took the corkscrew back to Wal-mart. That afternoon, we went back out to run our errands and Jon bought a sturdier corkscrew and a bottle stopper. Thursday night, as we were fixing supper, Jon opened our bottle of wine. We were being silly, smelled the cork, and both made faces. Gross! We weren't even sure if we could get past the smell. Jon poured some, and we both took a sip. It tasted just as bad as it smelled. Jon dumped the wine he had poured down the sink. Jon informed me that he didn't mind if I wanted to cook with the wine. I guess I'll get to put the wine recipe book (that we won years ago) to the test. LOL

Kids, you have nothing to worry about!

Aren't They Sweet!

2009-02-17T17:05:00.005-05:00

Jon had to work Saturday, so Jon and the kids fixed a candle light dinner for two for Jon and me to enjoy Friday night. The kids ate separately, served us, and watched CHITTY CHITTY BANG BANG. I was sent out of the house to spend some alone/errand time while they prepared for the dinner.

Jon went all out this year. He got me flowers*, the movie FIREPROOF, the book THE LOVE DARE, and a Fireproof t-shirt for me and one for himself. He also gave me my birthday present, a comparative study Bible, early. He even got a bottle of wine to try with dinner, but we haven't opened it, yet. You see, we don't normally drink alcohol and Jon forgot we that we don't have a corkscrew.

After dinner, the kids finished watching their movie while we started to watch FIREPROOF. When the kids' movie was finished, we put them to bed and then went back to our movie. Overall, it was a wonderful evening. Thanks Jon and kids!

*One of our cats, Lily, is being quite obstinate about getting up on our table and nibbling on the flower blossoms. I had to put her in her carrier for a while last night. I let her out later and when I got up this morning one of the blossoms she had been chewing on was completely gone. So which flowers does she nibble on? Roses? No. Daisies? No. Mums? No. She nibbles on the lilies! I think we named her well.

Midwest HOMESCHOOL Convention in Cincinnati

2009-01-30T09:09:00.003-05:00

The Midwest HOMESCHOOL Convention in Cincinnati is April 16-18, 2009. I've never been to one of these conventions, but I have a sister-in-law who has been to the one in Cincinnati and says it is really worth going. It's going to have a HUGE EXHIBIT HALL, INCREDIBLE Speaker Line-Up, and AFFORDABLE REGISTRATION. You can even enter to win:

One (1) FREE Family Registration to the convention.
One (1) FREE hotel room for Thursday, April 16 and Friday, April 17
One (1) complete set of the recorded Sessions/Workshops from the convention.
$50 cash to spend in the HUGE Exhibit Hall!

Four other lucky winners will receive a family pass to the convention and $25 cash to spend in the vendor hall. Entry details are here.

Fourteen Years of Keeping Us Hopping

2009-01-27T15:30:00.002-05:00

Our Froggie turns fourteen today! She wanted to sleep in for her birthday, and she got to.

Since the boys were still with my mom, Froggie decided she wanted to paint her tea set today. She has had this set for at least a year. It was just never a good time when she wanted to paint it. So, Froggie painted her tea set and the other girls painted with water colors. The boys came home before the girls were finished, so the boys got to paint with water colors, too.

I figure we'll probably make a cake for Froggie later tonight or maybe tomorrow. We still have some of Monkey's cake.

The kids are all just grumpy and out of sorts today. I let them put in a movie to rest to hoping they would quit fighting and tearing each other down. It seems to be helping some.

Friday, we are going to have a birthday dinner for both girls at my mom's house. Thanks Mom and Dad!

Nine Years of Monkey Business

2009-01-26T14:21:00.003-05:00

Nine years ago today our fourth daughter crawled up over my shoulder in the hospital and earned her nickname, Monkey. Yes, today is Monkey's birthday.

It has been and will be crazy today.

Jon took a personal day yesterday, because he couldn't sleep Saturday night and Monkey wanted to sleep in for her birthday, so we let the kids stay up a little later than usual. The kids slept in some and that let Jon get more sleep without all the noise. We let the kids have the day off from school on birthdays, so we were just lazing into our day (Jon and Monkey were still asleep) when a friend dropped by for an unexpected visit. Our dogs tried to get out to lick her to death. Her jaw dropped in surprise when she saw me in my bathrobe. LOL She didn't end up staying.

We made a quick cake to eat with lunch. Monkey frosted it herself and put the candles in. Jon ate a piece right before running out the door to work.

The girls and I have Sonflower Scouts tonight. Mom just picked up the boys so she could watch them overnight for me. They normally have father son time on S.S. nights, but Jon's new schedule doesn't allow that. The boys aren't sad at all though. They get to play with their cousin and spend the night with their grandparents.

I have to get parent letters ready with petal point information (for Sonflower Scout badges), so I better go.

How do you get a letter to Jesus?

2009-01-16T15:59:00.005-05:00

Little Bear is really coming up with some deep problems and interesting solutions, lately.

Monkey, Puppy Dog, and Little Bear were making/playing with "mailboxes", cards, and letters today. Baby Bear decided that his card/letter was for "Baby Jesus". Questions and answers about how to get the card to Jesus, Jesus growing up, Jesus dying on the cross, and rising from the dead, etc. followed. Of course, you can't just mail a card to Jesus. My idea that Jesus would see it as Bear wrote it wasn't enough. So, Little Bear has decided that he needs to climb a mountain to give the letter to Jesus. Not only is Little Bear planning to climb a mountain, but he also has to put on his shoes and socks so that he can climb the mountain with Daddy and me.

As much as I need to get into better shape, climbing a mountain really isn't what I had in mind.

Who Me? Procrastinate?

2009-01-01T14:10:00.006-05:00

Last year at our Owings family Christmas/New Year's get together, my mother-in-law assigned the moms with making a scrapbook page for each of their children. She even gave us a scrapbook ideas book for our Christmas present. The problem is that I don't scrapbook. I don't even get pictures developed.

Back in November Jon's mom had some of us get together at her place to work on our pages. It's probably a good thing too. One of my sisters-in-law gave me some sheets of scrapbook page paper (or whatever it is called). I had asked previously what size page. The answer I got was, "The regular size." To me regular size paper is 8.5 X 11. The pages my sil supplied me with are about 11 and 15/16" X 11 and 15/16". Like I said before, I DON'T SCRAPBOOK! This was one case in which procrastinating was a good thing.

I had some of the pages done yesterday. The rest I finished today. Keep in mind the following:

I DON'T SCRAPBOOK!
Since I don't scrapbook, I don't have very many scrapbook supplies.
Since I don't have very many scrapbook supplies, I had to make do with what I did have.
It's a good thing Jon let me keep a few of my BHG magazines "just in case the kids need to cut something out for school".
No one else in my family seemed too interested in helping me.
Due to number 3, I only have school glue. You know, the stuff that isn't supposed to be used with pictures and makes paper warp.
That's alright. I don't have "real" pictures anyway. Remember, I don't get pictures developed. I printed the pictures out on regular printer paper and cut them out.

So, without further ado, here are the pages I came up with.

This is the page for Froggie. I didn't have any good pics of just her.

I could probably do an entire scrapbook of Kitty Kat reading.

Birdie

Monkey

Puppy Dog

Little Bear (He was still Baby Bear at the time of the pics.)

Jon took the kids to Young's Jersey Dairy a while back while I was needed elsewhere. The clip-art images on this one are from
http://etc.usf.edu/clipart/index.htm .

These will have to do. I'm out of time. We have to be at the get together at 6pm today.

Busy Times

2008-12-31T10:31:00.005-05:00

I haven't been posting much. I've just had too much on my plate. Here's a little of what we have been up to.

Birdie, Monkey, and Puppy Dog sung in the children's choir with the adult choir the Sunday before Christmas. They did a wonderful job, but we forgot to take our camera.

Christmas day we did our Christmas first thing in the morning; Christmas and a niece's birthday at my parents' house; Christmas with extended family on my mom's side in Lynchburg, Ohio; and then we came home and had to settle the kids down so we could all sleep. Jon and I made the decision not to use credit for Christmas this year, or use credit for other things either. Aside from a few small items that we had picked up here and there through the year, all the gifts we gave this year were homemade. Jon and I did not exchange gifts. We didn't have enough time without the kids around so we didn't get to finish our main gift to the kids. It's just as well though. The gift has become a project for our family to work on together and the kids are excited. Jon is even taking a few days off work at the beginning of the year so we can work on it. I'll try to do a post about it after we finish.

This week, we're working on our projects for Jon's side of the family and the kids are spending time sleeping over at my sister's and parents' houses. Tonight we will all meet up at Mom and Dad's house for a New Year's party. Tomorrow we have our Christmas/New Year's celebration with Jon's side of the family. I guess I better get back to work on those projects.

Merry Christmas! and Happy New Year!

I about forgot to mention that our kitties were spayed/neutered and declawed Monday. Normally they are good about taking medicine, but not this time. They have a combination of an antibiotic and pain killer to take and they fight it tooth and back claws and writhing even though we scruff them or wrap them in a towel and scruff them. It takes both Jon and me working together to get their medicine in them. They foam at the mouth and try to spit out the medicine after I give it to them. The stuff must taste nasty. The poor pathetic things just lay around and want to be cuddled now and then. Does anybody know how to make a collar to keep them from licking their incisions? I was told to make them if they start licking themselves, but not exactly how to make them. So far, they aren't licking the incisions. I have to take them back to the vet to get their mittens off Friday.

The Play Went Well

2008-12-20T11:55:00.005-05:00

Last Sunday was the church play, SCROOGE REVISITED, that Jon, Kitty Kat, and Monkey were in. I figured that I better get it posted before tomorrow.

The first two pictures are of Kitty Kat and Monkey in the opening street scene.

Here "Scrooge" is studying his books. "Bob Crachit" was off to Jon's right at his own desk.

"Scrooge" and his "old dead partner Marley"

"Amy" a.k.a. Kitty Kat and "Jenny" a.k.a. Monkey
"Mark Scroggins", "Jenny's" and "Amy's" dad; "Spirit 1"; and "Scrooge" in the background

The actors and actresses really got into their characters. Can you see "Jenny" cowering as "dad" got angry with "Amy"? "Mark S." was a modern day "Scrooge".

"Scrooge" and "Spirit 2"

"Scrooge" observes at the "Crachit" house.

"Spirit 3" tells "Scrooge" the good news about Jesus.

"Scrooge" kneeling at the manger scene

The church choir and praise band performed the music for the production behind the stage. They had a curtainless curtain call, and the choir and band members joined the cast on the stage. The choir and band members came out wearing Santa hats (don't ask why, I don't know). Here is a picture of Jon's mom. She is in the choir.

Bye-bye Baby Bear, Hello Little Bear!

2008-12-09T21:56:00.008-05:00

Baby Bear decided that he didn't want to be called Baby Bear any more. We convinced him to wait until he turned four. Today that day came, and he is now officially Little Bear.

Jon had to work today, so Little Bear got to open his birthday present before Jon left.

Last night, Jon asked Baby Bear what he wanted for breakfast. His answer? Pizza! (By the way, we had pizza for supper last night.) So, I made plans with Baby Bear to make a cinnamon "roll" pizza. This morning I made the pizza for Little Bear's breakfast. I got up later than I intended, because I didn't sleep well last night. Jon had to leave before the pizza was ready, so he ate a bowl of instant oatmeal. We saved a piece of pizza for him.

This afternoon, I asked Little Bear what he would like for lunch. His answer? Oatmeal! So, I made Peanut butter oatmeal with a jelly dollop, carrot and celery sticks, and applesauce. I piled the kids' plates high with the oatmeal. I didn't want them to get hungry too quickly. Little Bear didn't finish all his veggies and applesauce. It was just as well though. He is fighting off some sort of flu bug. I realized that the applesauce would only make matters worse after I served him.

Tonight was a dress rehearsal for the play at church. We all went so that I could help with make-up. After the rehearsal was over, we were all standing in a prayer circle. As one of our elders was praying for everyone to get and stay healthy Birdie threw up on the sanctuary floor. Fun times! (oozing with sarcasm)

We had cake and frozen yogurt/ice cream. Birdie had to sit this one out.

*I had more photos I was trying to post, but for some reason they weren't uploading. I may try again tomorrow. I'm too tired to wait for them.

O. W. IN G. S.

Current Chaos - the calm before the storm

Ha!

Merry Christmas!

Almost Done?

We're going on a picnic . . .

"Mom? I have a complication."

Whistles and Chocolates

Breakfast - cold cereal with bananas and milk

Tonight's Chili

On The Menu

Overheard

I overheard the following during a rather calm argument my boys were having.Puppy Dog: "So, just stop arguing."Little Bear: "Yeah, that's a good idea." (I posted this on Facebook earlier this week.)

Mondays

God, thank you for spiders!

Look What Came Monday!

Where have I been?

Happy Mother's Day!

One of those days

Whew!

Pancakes and ...

Twodays' Meals

Menu Plan

K-mart and CVS

Financial Friday: Making Sacrifices to Get Out of Debt

Yesterday

A night like this...

We took it pretty easy today.

A Day of Homemade Yum

I'm exhausted!

Get Ready to Save

Exploring A Store

More Posts In The Future

Financial Friday

Tidbits

Yikes!

"Eat from the pantry challenge"

It's been a while.

So Busy

Oh Yeah, Our Van Got Fixed

Last Weekend

What Do The Following Items Have In Common?

What Do The Following Items Have In Common?

I Really Don't Like It When My Kids Are Sick

Where to start?

We've been busy...

Final Tally

Post (Aren't I Clever?)

Day 20

Grocery Update

Hard at Work

I'd report our grocery spending...

Poor Lily

Tuesday (because I'm not feeling creative today)

Bananas!

Grocery Trip #1

September $75 Grocery Challenge

Today and Way to Go Birdie!

I Have a Busy Day Tomorrow

School Isn't Starting Until Wednesday

Potluck time at Green Thumb Mama's

Crunch Time

Tomorrow Will Be Another Emotional Day

Have you ever...

A New Schedule

August

Better Late Than Never?

StoryBlox

Moms Aren't Supposed to ...Part II

Moms Aren't Supposed to Get Sick, Right? or I Think

Why Didn't I Think of This Before?

Some of What We've Been Up To

New Post Coming Soon

THE AWARD FOR THE MOST COMMENTS IN ONE DAY...

An Angel with a Flaming Sword

So, what do you think?

Feeding a Family of Eight Part V

I'm Beat

Today Was Better Than Yesterday

Rough Day

I overheard the following during a rather calm argument my boys were having.
Puppy Dog: "So, just stop arguing."
Little Bear: "Yeah, that's a good idea." (I posted this on Facebook earlier this week.)