Category Archives: Uncategorized

Birthday Party Sunday

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Today we enjoyed two separate birthday parties. Matt and Lily attended the party of one of her classmates, while Kendall, Zach and I attended Zach good friend at church’s party. I was very surprised to find that not only did they have bounce houses for the kids to play in but a reading time and cookie decorations. Everyone had lots of fun and enjoyed lots of sugar!

 

Wordless Wednesday-Veteran’s Day Program

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Our kids ministry presented a special program for veteran’s on Sunday. All three of the little kids played bells and sang. Lily also gave her testimony. I don’t have any great pictures but I do have an awesome video!

September Challenge Final Update-Budget

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Have you not heard?       Long ago I ordained it.   In days of old I planned it;  now I have brought it to pass, that you have turned fortified  cities into piles of stone.”
– Isaiah 37:26

Keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have, because God has said,  “Never will I leave you;     never will I forsake you.
-Hebrews 13:5

Yes, those are the verses that keep coming to my mind as I think about updating our budget status this month.  First I will be really honest, I did not met either of the goals that I had aspired to this month. However, I don’t count this month as a total fail either. In the area of money we have made small but steady progress.

Our emergency fund is currently sitting at just above $500, I was able to make steady payments on our small debt that is left. We are actually under budget in gas and groceries. In addition, I am actually currently under budget for the year on groceries. I will include actual numbers on the month in review post.  Finally, we are currently less than $800 to be even for the year. I am actually really excited by this number!  I have committed to work at the nursing home, one day a week for the next six weeks. This alone will make a huge dent in this $800. In addition, our hope is to finally get a web site published and therefore paid for in October.  Slow and steady wins the race and I am actually seeing a finish line way up ahead in the distance. The biggest blessing is the verses above because I do not have to worry, my God is in control and his timing is PERFECT!

 

 

Square Foot Garden

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photoI haven’t written much about our Square foot garden this year but we have been enjoying cucumbers, a few green peppers and tomatoes. I have even been able to freeze some of the extra tomatoes to use during the winter. This year we tried something new and moved our watermelon and cantaloupe to the back side of our deck. I was hoping that this sunny spot would work well. It has! Above you can see our first harvest! We are so excited to eat these.

After the success of this year we are already making plans for bigger and better next year. We will be adding a box for squash only as they take a lot of room and I would like to be able to freeze some for use in squash casseroles.  We also will be spreading out the watermelon and cantaloupe plant as the watermelon have really overtaken so this will allow both more room to grow. The plan is to replace the 3 spots for squash with more tomatoes plants.

If you recall we did not participate in the co-op this year and have not really missed the extra vegetables as we have received several gifts of produce in addition to our garden.

I do have quite a supply of zucchini from last year so this was not a big deal either. We are continuing to clean out and re organize our freezers which should help with decisions as to what to plant and plan for in the future!

 

July in Review

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Financial goals:  July has been a more difficult for us month. My car has required two major repairs, in addition I have been sick which means extra expense as well. Looking forward to August, I will be receiving an extra paycheck this month. The plan is to use most of that for our vacation. I will be using some to offset regular expenses in order to stay on track. We are currently waiting on a new website payment to help make up some of extra money we spent in July. Overall we are currently about $800 short for the month. This money was taken from our emergency fund as well as other categories such as gas, clothing and gifts. I want to replace as much of this as I can in the month of August.

  • Pay off Lawn mower by March 2014, so no interest is charged. Regular payment only.
  • Pay off all outstanding debt except the mortgage by June– No new debt incurred! This is a major accomplishment considering the extra expenses of the month.
  • Emergency fund to $2000–   None added, when Matt’s website income comes in it will remain at $550
  • Maintain a budget using a form of the envelope system – Still working well! It has really allowed  me to track expenses this month.
  • Groceries: Spend $600 or less a month   Well under budget this month at $325. We are still $275 over for the year but this is a great number at this point. Our plan is to only grab bare essentials and CVS deals until we return from the beach at the end of August. This should keep us at least on track for the month!
  • Gas- I am adding this category. The goal each month is to spend $400 or less for gas.  I did reduce this amount by $50 but still managed to come in at $344 for the month. The remaining money was used for auto repair.

Blogging:  Goal: 15 per month I have already scheduled a Wordless Wednesday post for tomorrow which means I have met this goal!!!!!!!!

Devotions: Goal is 5 a week   Goal Met! I am really enjoying my morning time.

Weight: Goal to exercise 3x a week and to be down to 150 by December by losing around 4 # a month.. To be honest, I have not even address this goal this month. I have not gained the 10# I lost but there has been no progress. Repeat from last month…..

Overall July was a success for my goals. We are able to keep our heads above water even when thing happen!  I am very pleased this month.

Sick Day

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photoThis is one of the rare occasions that I can remember that we have missed church due to illness. I went to Urgent Care on Friday afternoon to confirm that I have a strep and sinus infection. I was given an antibiotic and definitely are on the up side. Kendall developed a runny nose on Thursday and add a fever on Saturday but after a trip the doctor, it is a virus.  Lily has been tried, complaining of a “sick stomach” and this morning is sneezing and coughing.  Zach, who doesn’t like to be left out, threw up last night several times.   I think that it was a case of eating too much popcorn at the movies yesterday but I really would not want to be wrong on this account so we are all home from church today. Matt was asked to play drums several months ago and need left around 7:30am to go practice.  So just how are we spending our sick today. The kids are enjoying play dough. I really dislike play dough however we have a huge bin of play dough and toys to go with it. This morning I pulled out a huge sheet and let them play, with the rule that all the play dough has to stay on the sheet so I can take it outside and dump afterwards. So far the kids have enjoyed playing for the past two hours!  I have been using this extra time to catch up online, and have cleaned out the kitchen pantry.  We are planning on no shopping for groceries until after our beach vacation, so I spent about 45 minutes re-organizing and sorting out the pantry. We have plenty of food but honestly I was not sure what was in there so at least now I have a clue, but seriously who needs or can use 3 boxes of Bisquick and 5 boxes of corn bread stove top stuffing?

In other shopping news, yesterday I was able to grab several good deals on-line. First, Old Navy had a $5 swim suit sale, I was able to combine that with free shipping for over $50. I spent $53 and ended up with 1 suit for Kendall, 4 suits for Lily, 2 suits for Zach next year and 1 complete suit and an extra set of bottoms for myself.  Next, I located a great deal for bras at NOMORERACK.  I hope the quality is as good as the sheet set we ordered several weeks ago.