Things to do:

I am interrupting your regularly scheduled broadcast to bring you this special bulletin... meaning I will get back to the REST of vacation pictures next week!

I have been sick for the last 5 months. NOT every day, or all the time but a lot. If I haven't, then one of  my kids  have! It has really, really screwed up some of my plans. I am fighting with wanting to be FREE and just go with the flow.... and on the other side knowing things have to be different for us to succeed!

So here are my things to do!

vitamin regiment. I am starting the entire family on vitamins- yes, Family Team- (elderberry????) feel free to send me yours!

schedule.  Yes, because you all KNOW how good I am at it, but it must be done.  So wake up time is 6:30 and the day shall be as regimented as I can make it but still allow us to breath!

routine.  I have set in motion a few new routines, one being a NEW chore system.. YES, because you know how much I like change and failing previously aforementioned chore chart systems!

grocery and menu planning.  I was really good at this and have felt it slipping away from me, so this is just a matter of putting THIS hat back on!  I will make my list of 30 rotating meals and quit trying to be ingenious for a while and just put food on the table!  I will also be busting out some batch cooking.

budgeting.  Dave and I tried this new budget thing called MINT.com    UM... hello it tracks everything you spend to see where your money goes.  OUCH.  Um Double OUCH.  So we are back to envelopes.  :0)

lesson planning.  I actually had great lesson plans for this 6 weeks- I am pretty happy with it but need to critique a few things.  I also need to again be diligent to be purposeful in the schooling we do!  I am calling MONDAY the beginning of my new 6 weeks and moving on from there! Our new schedule will take us through April 1 and sabbatical week, then through May 20.  We shall see!  :0)

homemaking.  I have been lacking in this area with not feeling so hot.  I am going to try to not let it drop so far into NOT A PRIORITY category again.  I also have so many plans with decorating that I want to do, but it is time for SPRING CLEANING and another GREAT PURGE!


SO none of these things are NEW..... I am just using YOU guys as an excuse to remind ME what I need to do!  THANKS GUYS....

Weekly Wrap Up-- Week 27

Monday--

We started out by doing our errands and I had a hair appointment at 9:30, I had the kids work on some school work at the appointment so it wasn't a total loss of time!  We met mom at Panera for a little snack.

I went by house and picked up library books and Book IT coupons. Left and got Dave lunch, dropped that off at his office, picked up the kids BOOK IT pizza, went into Walgreen's to pick up more envelopes to mail rodeo stuff, ran by the library and then HOME.

AND I WAS DRAINED. So I rested while the kids did chores.  We accomplished little but since I have been at home since last Tuesday night... there were things to be done!  :)


TUESDAY...

Bible- the story of Samuel and Eli and Saul becomes king

--- Matt said that (talking about the Ammorite king who was going to gouge out the right eyes of all the Israelites on the East side of the Jordan river) that it would be freaky to walk into a whole town of one eyed guys!  I agree!


We choose our LOVE CHALLENGE...

Math- check

Language-

FLL-- 3 lessons

FLL3---3 lessons

Writing with Ease--- one weeks worth.. It was Caddie Woodlawn, both Kate and Matt want to read it now so I need to go dig it out!  I couldn't find my copy but got two at the library!

IEW- Kate finished lesson 4 and just needs to proof and rewrite

Matt's writing- This week he was kind of boring.. one of his sentences was " I built him."  I asked him if we could jazz that up abit... so I said,  "I built him to fight the evil forces..."  and Matt said, getting excited, "the skeleton army!" 

Perfect! Skeleton army it is... fight on!


LLATL-  Emily made long vowel (Y) wheels, she had fun doing it... so I will print some out for the other vowels too.


History- the kids read Phoebe the spy. 

Science- We are almost finished with chapter 10. FINALLY.  I felt like this was a LOT of information!  I will tell you however when I went to the neurologist., I could look at the posters and read some information with knowledge of what they were talking about which is pretty cool!


Wednesday...

I had my neurologist appointment and Dave got so sick at work that a co worker drove him home.  We stopped at the library on the way home and got in just before the weather got really cold.  We basically had the kids sit around reading library books all day!  The did accomplish math, handwriting, ETC- Emily, and played a game together!  But it was a lost day!

The kids did pick their LOVE CHALLENGE- Emily got

Write a secret note to your sister/ brother and leave it for them.

She was SOOOO excited! In fact she wrote one for both of them



Thursday...

Well Hubbie got up and got going~

I was shocked, but glad that he was feeling better!

We got started on Bible- Samuel and Saul

Instead of using the bible curriculum that just glazes over some stories we are reading right from the Bible right now... it is so interesting to my kids, you know with all the slaughtering going on!  :)

Math- check
handwriting- check
ETC- check

Science-- finished chap 10!!!  I feel like I have ran the gamut with those two chapters for some reason!

History- the kids watched three episodes of Liberty Kids- I am not overly happy with some of their "historical facts" but it gives the kids a sense so that's cool.  We shall watch with trepidation! 

Emily read amazingly today!!!!!!!  YEAH.... Really, I feel like I should shout from the top of a mountaintop!  I am so excited and so very glad because I have been so weary in this department, for so long.

Kate and Matt started Caddie Woodlawn and are enjoying it so far.

all three kids did their LOVE CHALLENGE without prompting today! Emily had a kind word to say to her brother and sister and Kaitlin was a peacemaker at lunch by taking a piece that was more over cooked.  I really am loving this so far!


Friday...

The kids did math, handwriting and that was about all.  We had a family funeral, so learning today was put on hold.  We will get back to it next week.  Thanks Vickie for watching the kids....

This was in a lot of ways a hard week, but we have a weekend to be with family and to just relax and gather our strength to face next week...

 

Embracing Our Lifestyle...

I have friends, blogs and people that I envy how they run their lives. I don't mean they have everything together. I don't mean they have perfect lives. I don't mean that I envy THEIR lives.

I envy how they run their lives.

THEY are in control of their lives. They make decisions for their family based on what their family needs. They order the steps of their day based on what their family needs. They have or do things that are best for their family.

Now I don't mean that I never do these things for my family. We do, but I still struggle with making decisions and worrying about what others will do.

***I still struggle with doing what the world indicates is necessary.

***I still struggle with allowing other peoples lifestyle to govern what ours looks like.

***I still struggle with thinking what I choose to do is wrong or bad or not the best judgement.

***I still struggle with choosing a path that is not conducive to what we want for our family.

*** I still struggle with not setting up our day and home to meet the needs of our family.


I plan on giving more examples of this in the coming weeks... but with this being the year of decor, I want to embrace our lifestyle of being a home schooling family.  I go back and forth with wanting home schooling to invade EVERY area of our life.. but then thinking it isn't okay for our home to look like we home school.  Of course those two thought patterns don't jive.  Now maybe if I had a separate room for our schooling stuff I could of course mesh those thought patterns, but our current living situations dictates where our school room is.  I have thought of moving the dining area back to the "real supposed to be dining room" area and the school room back into the utility room.  

My problems lies with the fact that I don't like how big the "real dining room area is"  I don't know how to separate out that space so that the area doesn't feel WASTED.  The utility room is small, technically large enough for us to school in, but still small.  So should I switch the rooms and just work it out?  What meets our needs more?  Or just EMBRACE our current situation...and let the school room be the MAIN emphasis. 

Well Hubbie decided for me!  He says embrace that we are home schoolers and keep as it... he reminded me of why I moved from the utility/ dining room in the first place.  He said this is just how it is for now... anyone who comes to our house---KNOWS who we are. 

So there you have it.

Ways I am going to embrace this is to decorate the school room in a manner that is whimsy and promotes learning!  I want to not be ashamed of the wall of posters -showing what we are learning!  I will simply display them proudly!  It brings to mind the movie CHEAPER BY THE DOZEN- the new one, not the old one! 

The father is an efficiency expert.. every year they rented a house at the seashore and the dad came up with a gimmick to teach the kids something over the summer.  Well during the movie the dad painted Morse code on the bathroom so that the kids would learn it that summer!  What a way to embrace learning!  Now I don't want to go that far!

I don't want THIS....

Nor do I need THIS..

How about this peaceful, well ordered school room...

I want a bigger white board---- I always run out of room!!!

I know that I want scripture.  One of the main verses we have for this year is 'hiding God's Word in our heart, so that we might not sin against Him"--- I cannot expect my children to learn scripture if I do not show it's incredible importance.  I need to have God's Word be the focal point of our home- I want it in my decor, but not like this...

more like this

You know but of course minus all the ducks.  :) 

GOSH I AM SO PICKY!!!!

Anhoo I digress.

Embracing our homeschooling lifestyle.  It is important to me because it is so much a part of who I feel I am, and who we are as a family.  I do want my home to be welcoming to others, I do want my home to be used for other purposes so there must be a balance that I can find....

What are your thoughts???

 

I feel crafty.. yes, I do! I feel crafty... so should you!

We are not snowed in.

We are not stuck inside during the great 49/ 50 states blizzard.

We are just a tiny bit cold, I mean colder than a lot of Texans like... but really just a LITTLE bit cold.

So although I have FEEL like I have cabin fever, REALLY I don't. The kids and I were at the park the other day, they rode bikes outside today with no jackets on. So really I have no excuse for the WINTER BLUES.

Brenda, has a thought that really it is just cold enough that our beds feel warm and cozy so we want to STAY in them! I think that is partially true!

However, honestly we have ZERO excuse.

BUT I am soooo not in a schoolin' mood! I don't wanna learn about lung capacity, or sound out "sch" words or "ng" end sounds, I don't wanna work on memory work or hand out copy work assignments.


I wanna craft!

I feel crafty. It may be from reading blogs, but I have found myself SEARCHING out blogs for crafty things to do... so I really think it is ME!  So I convinced husband that he needed to part with our preciously budgeted out money and give me some crafty dollars!  So I picked four small projects. 

Project number 1.

 Make valentines chocolates out of clay.  Yes, it served a greater purpose... I don't eat them!  I found this on a link from Michael's. 

On the Michael's video they used the soft clay from Crayola I think, but I used actual clay that you have to bake.  The reason is that I wanted it to last a while, not just one season and I have found the Crayola stuff tend to shrink and break apart after a while.  Also the clay I bought was much cheaper! On sale the Crayola stuff was $3.99 a bag, I wanted white, brown and red so that would have been $12.00, but the clay stuff was $2.49 on sale for $1.39 and I bought 5 so it cost me $6.95.  Almost half price.. I also have some left over for Kate to work on her own project.

The only other thing I bought for this project was some mini cupcake holders.  These were on sale for $1.27 at Jo Ann's 

Anyway, I opened up the clay packages and started making the shapes of the chocolate. You have to work it in your hand and until it is warm enough to manipulate.  I helped Emily start one and she was able to roll into a ball, but it was hard starting each block of clay.

 I stopped and used the white to make a topping but it turned tan, THE BROWN WAS on my hand.  DON'T DO THIS! So I finished making all the shapes and washed my hand, it came right off.  From there I decorated the tops with the white and a few touches of the red.

After I had them all designed how I wanted them... I put them in the oven at 200 degrees and let them bake for 25 minutes.  DONE.

I let them cool and then set them up in their chocolate box that I borrowed from Kate's room. ( I think she got a Christmas present in the box, but I just used the lid)

The other three will be presented like this and they will be set out together!

I LOVE IT!  IT totally fit my need to CREATE for a total of $8.22

2. These crafty little birds from Living, Life Creatively.  I saw the on Nester, but found out someone else had made them and low and behold that person sent out a pdf for the design!  WHOO HOO.   It did cost me $5.00 but I am really into the bird thing right now, so hopefully it will be worth the investment!

I went and bought three different material designs at Jo Ann's, a quarter yard each. I USED LIKE 1/ 16 of the quarter yard!  I am going to enlarge the pattern and make bigger birds!

This cost me about  $4.35, I didn't get my dream material, but if I can make them well... I can go back and make others and be more choosy in my pattern of material.  I also stupidly did not walk  into the store with a coupon!

I bought quilters thread.  $2.37 on sale.

and a bag of black beads for the eyes.  $1.29 on sale

and a spool of 24 gauge wire, which I thought I had some but could not find so I bought.  It was $1.29

And a bag of stuffing stuff for 2.99 at Hobby Lobby. (I needed this for the third project also)

So my total for project number 2 is $17.29, but I have supplies minus material to make A LOT of birds!  :)

BTW.  My birdie is sitting on the laptop looking at the birdies from LIVING, LIFE CREATIVELY... he thinks he's the same!  :)


On to project number 3.

I wanted some pillows like THIS for my couch, that I saw on one of my new favorite reads, Felt So Cute.  I went to a thrift store about spent about $7.00 on 4 different shirts, one is a dress to use as the material for the pillows.  My sister came with her sewing machine and said it is very, very hard to sew tshirt material... so she freaked me out!  After thinking and fretting, and seeing how I am NOT a sewer to begin with.... I thought of a way out.!

FUSION tape. I don't need these pillows to last for ever, or to be incredibly durable.  I just want them to sit on a couch for a couple of weeks!  So here goes!

I bought Stitch Witchery for $3.29, plus the $7.00 dollars I spent on the material (shirts from thrift stores) and used the rest of the stuffing bag.... ( I also had to go buy another stuffing bag...didn't know how much stuffing it would take!)  So that make a total of $13.28 for four holiday pillows.  BTW.. the kids now have orders in to make them pillows out of their favorite (old) tshirts!  Matt wants a Star Wars one and Emily asked could we buy old shirt with butterflies!  :)

Project Number 4:

the bird thing does not stop at Chickadees, or robins or sparrows........... I like Owls too!  So I wanted to have some framed owls that were different scrapbook materials, sort of like this...  I thought and thought and was going to do some for the bathroom.. but when I got looking at scrap book pages I found a bunch of schoolish ones!  I thought how cute for over my desk in the school room!  So I got two frames from Family Dollar- they had Chinese symbols in them which I discarded ( I just wanted the $3.00 frame).  I got  6 sheets of scrap book paper at Hobby Lobby (they were $ .59 cents although two of them were clearance to $ .10)  So I spent a total of $8.56 on this project.  The only thing that came out of my budget money was the scrap book paper, because I had bought the frames a long time ago.  So really I spent $2.56....

I had a $30.00 dollars budget which I went over by $11.37 (and it had to come out of my grocery money!)

BUT I FED THE CRAFTINESS BEAST.... so I'm not as hungry anyway!

Happy crafting...

Pandora

Okay if you know  the word Pandora, not in relation to a box, you already know what this post is about...

My bracelet.

Oh my... how I heart these bracelets.

The charms are adorable! 

So I have not opened Pandora's box yet.. because you know what happened once the box was opened....

BUT, it doesn't stop me from wanting them.

Now... these are very expensive.  So expensive in fact, I feel sorta stupid for even wanting them!

However... I don't buy clothes or shoes.  I don't get my nails done.  I have stopped crafting for the most part-

I don't spend money on myself hardly ever!

So most likely I wont go out and buy myself a full bracelet!

BUT... I have talked to fellow LOVERS OF THE CHARMS and have acquired knowledge!

My new found information is how to work the PANDORA system.




Number 1:

Pandora is NOT the only name in the game!

ENTER TROLLBEADS AND ETSY! Oh and Chamilia (but is is really as expensive  as Pandora!)

Number 2:

If you buy a bracelet from Pandora then the Trollbeads wont fit, but if you buy a bracelet from Trollbeads then they both fit on the bracelet. Not to mention the cheaper ones from ETSY!  The reason is that trollbeads ends are smaller than Pandora and Chamilia so the beads from trollbeads don't always fit over the ends of the Pandora or Chamilia bracelets.  Plus Trollbeads has a lobster clasp, which is a separate piece from the actual bracelet.

Number 3:

There are certain Etsy dealers who will custom make you the glass beads for VERY inexpensive!

Number 4:

You have to buy beads stoppers that hold the beads onto the bracelet on each end, you can get these cheaper on ETSY

Here is an example of a spacer bead:

Now one of the cool things about Chamilia is that you can design your own on the actual website by dragging the beads of your choice over to a bracelet and you can save it on a wish list!  I made one to show you.. now I have TONS of beads I like better on other websites, but here is an example!

This is a bracelet I designed.. I LOVE the red and zebra beads, the camera at (5:00) is cute but hard to tell it is a camera from this shot, the blue one at (11:00) is another favorite, ! Now here is the catch, this bracelet, the one above, bought from Chamilia would cost me $1180.00  I am not drawn to as much of the bling though, I prefer a lot of the glass beads and I really prefer not to have gold on it at all.

This is more my style and it would be $912.00 with all the Chamalia beads but I still like TONS off of ETSY that are cheaper!!!  For instance some of the at the top of the post are only 4.99 verses 45.99, that is a HUGE difference when you have a whole bracelet of expensive charms and beads!

I would NEVER spend that kindof of money on a bracelet.. just so we are all on the same page!

 This is one of my favorite beads, it is from Trollbeads and is called THREE SIBLINGS... since I have three kids. 

SOOO why have I brought you into world of beads and charms.... because I have a plan!

I want to buy a bead, charm of my choice for every 10 lbs I lose, not the expensive ones but a few starter beads.  When I have lost 50 lbs I get to buy the THREE SIBLINGS charm.  When I have lost 75 lbs I get to buy the bracelet. 

So by the time I have lost 100 lbs I will have

 10 smaller less expensive charms

two nice charm

and the bracelet itself

 I am putting 15 a paycheck into an envelope in my drawer that will be my Charm FUND!  If anyone wants to donate to the charm fund.. FEEL FREE!  :) 

I think we always reward ourselves with FOOD, and I of course cant do that... so I am giving myself something to celebrate my achievements!  Clothes, even new sizes are truly not a reward to me, because there is such a stigma attached to shopping.. OH wow, I have dropped 5 sizes and I am still shopping in a fat store like Lane Bryant!  NOT fun, people.. in fact it is almost detrimental to me! 

Don't get me wrong, it is exciting to get into a new size and a new pair of jeans or a shirt is great and I WILL have to shop, but it isn't the excitement for me as it is other people.

So that's my plan... now all I have to do is keep losing!  Do you think I should maybe get ONE nice bead for the 43 lbs I already lost, even if I have gained some of it back over my whole headache dilemma?  Nah, I will start a fresh page for a fresh year!

What do you "need" to encourage yourself???

Accountability Club

All we need is accountability. We all post our new years resolutions, or thoughts for the year or goals or ideas of what we want to get done!!!! Than guess what happens...a big fat nothin!

Well most of us just dont do it!

So to change that this year I am going to invite you all to join my accountability club! The last day of the month I want you to post your blog to Mr. Linky and tell everyone what you accomplished that month!!! We can also blog our short term goals for the next month too! This will hopefully keep us working each month towards our goals! We can encourage each other and keep the ball rolling this year!!!! So if you would like to join in this year just post your ideas for this year onto Mr. Linky and than each month on the last day of the month we will have an update day!







My goals this upcoming year:



weightloss

savings and debt management

relationship management

household management



These are not specific but just area that I want to work on this year!

Fitness Friday...

Add or Subtract.

Brenda has given us an assignment for Fitness Friday! It is Add and Subtract.

I have given this thought this whole week. I thought what do I want to add and subtract in my life. What will make me a better person, a better wife, a better mother, a better teacher, a better women. Well since it is Fitness Friday obviously I want to subtract the pounds and add new clothes to my wardrobe. But that is like the cop out answer, the easy out!

This year is all about being real with myself and my aspirations...

I want to add willpower- which will allow me to subtract the pounds!
I want to add wisdom- which will allow me to subtract bad choices!
I want to add peace- which will subtract all the stress eating!
I want to add real foods- which will allow me to subtract the bad foods!
I want to add God- who will allow me to subtract all the fear and anxiety!

This envelope holds something that is really weighing me down...

I have written something in this envelope that is really weighing me down.


It is keeping me from joy.
It is keeping me from life.
It is keeping me from serving.
It is keeping me from being me.
It is keeping me from so many things.

I am tired of it. I am so tired of it that I have decided to get rid of it. I. am. tired.

Now you might wonder what I will do to get rid of this weight...

I will pray,
I will act,
I will fight,
I will change,
I will do so many things.

Check back in a while and see if I am making progress with my change. I am sure that I will eventually share this burden but for now I must keep it closed up inside because it is my trial and I have to face it alone. I will covet prayers because it will be hard and it will take a long time. But others have come before me and others will follow behind me.

Carrie

Update on Christmas goals!

Okay, so I have been questioned by two people about whether or not I met the goals I had previously laid out for myself. I am sad to say that I did not meet all my goals, but I did accomplish more than I had by this time last year!

So my goals were:

have everything wrapped by December 18--- Not done by the 18the but was 98% done tonight! Yeah!

I have everything grocery shopped for--- hubbie is going in the morning for the last minute things!

I did choose items that I needed to bring carefully and I have gotten them except for one pie which hubbie is getting tommorow!

I messed up on the kids outfit but I had forgotten I needed them Sunday night! So they are at the dry cleaners ad will be picked up tommorow at 4:00--- I shall not forget!

I did budget for Christmas lunch but I doubt we will eat out as I have plenty of meals handy here at home!

I did tone down some ideas I had for Christmas Eve. It will be a fairly easy meal and than for dessert we will only have a birthday cake because Deanna's boyfriend's birthday is the 25 and I think everyone deserves a birthday party!

I have not done a fun activity every day but we have done quite a few and I have more planned for this week with Daddy home!




So here is the update on the goals... I still didnt do as well as I wanted but it is better than last year and I have no last minute gifts to get so that is awesome!