Category Archives: Life

Thursday Thoughts

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Lots of things are happening. Wanted to share a few thoughts with you.

  1. Our trip to Florida was different this time.  First, we drove my car instead of the Tahoe.  We chose this because of the holiday travel. I did not want to be pulling a camper on the Sunday after Thanksgiving.  By driving the car, we were able to stop for gas less, make better time, eat at a drive thru and overall spent about half the amount on gas as we normally do. Next, we purchased lighten lanes to use at Disney- This was a true luxury.  We were able to watch 3 shows, ride all the rides we wanted except 1 (Rise of the Resistance) in a shorter day at Hollywood Studios.  I am not convinced that we will need this in the future but they did make things much easier and quicker.  Finally we enjoyed staying at hotels but even Zach said he preferred the campground and staying in the camper to a hotel room.  I really missed the extra luggage space as well.
  2. Both kids are on the swim teams which means 3 days a week practice with one usually a morning one. We have two meets before Christmas Zach has also started baseball workouts which are also three days a week.
  3. The weather has made a massive change with snow and wind which means extreme cold, and I DISLIKE the cold. The benefit is that we are having lots of soup this week!
  4. My friend Nancy and I are planning a Christmas Dinner party. I am excited and really do enjoy cooking when I don’t have to hurry or worry about it.  I am hopefully to have some time to sit and plan and hopefully even share how I am planning and preparing for it.
  5. Because of the party, I would like to have our house clean and super clean. I had a house cleaner come this week on Monday and another cleaning scheduled for 3 days before the party.   I also am making a short list of extra chores that just need to be done ahead of time.
  6. In preparation for the party, I want to try out a dinner roll recipe and see if I can get decent results.  I hope to accomplish this on Saturday along with making Reindeer Crack.
  7. Most of the Christmas decorating is complete.  I decided to only put up a Disney Village and one LARGE tree.  I did add a couple of decorations to the kitchen but legitimately about half of the regular decorations.  We have not decorated the outside except for Matt who has installed permanent lights.  Another Saturday goal is to pull out and get the outside decorations done.
  8.  I currently have purchased and wrapped all Christmas presents!  I am super excited and proud of this accomplishment.
  9. My work continues to be stressful.  This school year has been one of the hardest for me.
  10. My mother’s surgery is scheduled for next week. This is to finally get her heart back in a normal rhythm.  I am praying this get her back some energy.
  11. We are headed back to Florida on the Saturday after Christmas. This trip has two purposes: celebrate Christmas with Haley and David  and bring Lily home!
  12. I am in total agreement that December is just as busy if more busy than the month of May!

Five Things

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  1. This has been a better week for me. I have been able to enjoy work and am actually staying somewhat caught up.  I hope to continue this routine as the first of this school year has been rough and I am glad to not dread coming to work.
  2. We are headed to Florida for Thanksgiving. We have travel alot more years than we have stayed at home on Thanksgiving. My only disappointment is the temperature in Florida are suppose to be in the 70s , I was hoping for 80s.
  3. Thanksgiving is late this year, the last week of November so I have decided to go ahead and decorate!   I hope by the end of the weekend to have all the decorations that I am going to use both inside and outside in place.
  4. Zach has already started practice for Baseball in the Spring,  He is continuing to swim.  This means that staying at home all evenings was short lived but much enjoyed. I am glad that he finishes baseball around 4:45 instead of 5:45.
  5. I think we have settled our plans for Christmas/ New Years so now I definitely need to get my plans together for the beach next year!

Successful Saturday

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Today was an awesome day!  I have been behind and feeling overwhelmed for a season, so I need to celebrate even small wins!

Today Matt was able to get the new permanent light up and working on the house. He was able to get a couple of new electrical outlets placed last week so that puts up finished up with another one of the projects we have taken on.

I decided that we needed to pull up a flower bed on the side of the house under my office window. We have attempted for at least 5 if not 10 years to get something to grow in this area.  It only gets probably two hours of sunlight a day.  Zach spent a couple of hours removing the bounder and scrapping up the mulch.  I purchased two bags of grass seeds; Zach was also able to get the seed out in the yard and in the area where he removed the “no grow bed”   Hopefully we will get some pretty grass from this attempt.

I was able to get our Halloween box of decorations and outfits packed up and put away as well. I also did some food rotation in order to keep up using what we have and reducing the need to purchase more food.

I got meal prepping done, including our soup for dinner for tomorrow. I also planned the meals for the week.

Amazon returns have been done.

Suitcases have been unpacked and returned.

The house is not dirty but not clean and I am finally starting to feel like we can breathe!

5 Things Friday

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  1. One of the areas that I have been struggling with getting and keeping the house clean. For the past many years, I have been paying different kids to complete cleaning around the house. But currently, both the girls are working pretty much every day, so no time for cleaning.  One purchase we have made is robot vacuums’. One for the upstairs, main area of the house and a second for the living room which is down a set of steps.  Matt is in charge of emptying these. It is getting easier to remember to turn them on and I think we have been able to remove all the things that they get caught on.
  2. Our house projects are getting completed. The bathroom and deck should be completed before the end of August. We have decided that we need to have a couple of additional electrical outlets installed including one dedicated for the camper. We still need to order and install a new front door.  One last project will be once the bathroom is done, we are planning to build shelves in the closet area.
  3. I am feeling a bit overwhelmed today. We are heading to me returning to work full time and I still have several things on my personal list that I want to tackle this summer.  I am waking up without an alarm and trying just to do the next right thing. I am actually looking forward to the trip to take Lily as this will force me to just stop and enjoy the ride.
  4. My garden has been so crazy this year.  I have been able to harvest and preserve many items but June was extremely dry and July has been the wettest on record.  I am planning to post pictures because I think my garden looks more like beginning of July instead of the beginning of August. That is not a bad think but may mean lots of preserving even after I return to work.
  5. I had not planned to participate in August in the “Every Bit Challenge”  I return to work in the middle of the month and with our trip at the first of the month I did not think I would be able to preserve much at all. However, that has not been the case so far. Yesterday, I made 3 bags of grilled chicken, 5 bags of cubed chicken and 6 bags of shredded chicken. Today, I canned 5 quarts of broth and made 6 bags of tomato sauce.

Bonus List of Every Bit Counts Challenge list:
3 chicken and broccoli casseroles
20 pints of salsa
45 quarts and 12 pints of spaghetti sauce
4 quarts of baked beans
4 cheeseburger pizza bags and dough
3 cheeseburger Pies
30 omelet bags
chicken spinach lasagna
2 million Dollar Spaghetti Pies
6 bags of squash casserole mix
Frozen blueberries
Frozen bananas
4 pints of strawberry syrup
15 quarts and 3 pints of beef broth
21# of canned shelf stable ground beef. These are in pint jars so approximately 1# per jar.
4 meals of Sloppy Joes canned in addition to our lunch for Saturday as well.
30 Salisbury steaks cooked and vacuum sealed in the freezer.
30 Cheddar Bacon Hamburger patties
38 Regular plain Hamburger patties!

5 Things Friday

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  1. Things have not slowed down the first week of July. I ended up attending 3 additional medical appointments with my mother.  But I have started to catch up and feel like although I don’t have alot of free time, I am making progress on my summer goals and projects.
  2. The floor has been finished and I will have everything back in place by Saturday.  I am still in negotiation with Home Depot, so I am reserving the story and pictures until everything is settled.
  3. I was able to make progress on preparing meals ahead.  I made a chicken spinach lasagna and 2 million Dollar Spaghetti Pies in those are in the freezer.
  4. Garden update- My garden has been struggling. The squash bug won their battle and I ended up pulling up, spraying with bug spray, adding a couple new bags of soil and replanted both the squash and zucchini. We attempted to go organic but that was not successful. We are starting to get some tomatoes but they are not the prettiest. I also feel like I am throwing out just as many as we pick.  I did make my first full batch of spaghetti. My goal is to can 52 quarts of spaghetti sauce so still a long way to go.
  5. The weather has been so hot!  We reached 100 degrees today!

5 Things Friday

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  1. The past two weeks have been stressful and exhausting.  Exhausting both mentally and physically exhausting.  I am looking forward to a slower pace next week.
  2. We have been working on doing some remodeling in preparation for new flooring to be installed this week. The install is still not complete!   I will be so happy and pleased once this process has finished but currently it is one of my main stressors.
  3.  We have painted the hall, hall bathroom, kitchen, dining room, and laundry room.   The doors are the last on the list to be painted. Hopefully that occurs tomorrow.
  4.  Today we had the septic tank pumped. This should help with drying up our yard!
  5.  We have been eating out ALOT over these last two week just to survive. I am hopeful that staring today, we can get back on track for eating and I can get back to sticking to a budget!

Granny’s Surgery Journey

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I have debated on what and how much to share about this but have decided I will share my facts and experience just for a record.

On Monday June 10th, my mother had an elective mastectomy of her left breast.  This was also the day that Kendall left for camp for a week.

After discussion, praying and planning. I had taken the entire day off on Monday. The rest of the week, I worked and then headed straight to the hospital to spend some time with Mom and to give my sister-in-law and brother a chance to go home. We had discussed beforehand that no one would be spending the night as mom is normally alone at night. Surgery went well but, in the recovery room, she went into A-fib.  The result was a cardioversion that occurred on Thursday.  I don’t function well on little sleep and each evening up to Wednesday was long and I got home much later than anticipated.  Most nights I talked a few minutes to Matt, Lily and Zach before heading to bed.

Mom was up and walking Thursday evening!

She was able to come home on Friday!

5 Things Friday Catch up Edition!

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  1. Our Disney trip was AWESOME!  We enjoyed Easter Sunday with David and Haley at the Beach.  David and Haley also joined us and Braxton for a couple of days of Disney fun!   We were able to enjoy the campground and have discovered that Hoop De Doo Review is our favorite show!   We are also learning that sticking with what we know we like is maybe better than trying all the things.  This was our first and last trip to Steakhouse 71, burnt steak is not acceptable on any level.  Although it was suggested that we go for breakfast so maybe!
  2. I came home on Sunday feeling absolutely miserable! I walked inside, took a shower and went to bed. I had a cough that lasted for 10 days.  I still have a cough, but it is much better. I was discussing with Matt that I have been sick more and worse this year than I can ever remember.
  3. I still LOVE the camper.   Side note, it took us a full week to actually get it cleaned out this time.  However, I can say it is definitely our money pit. Each time we take it out we end up needing to replace some items.  This trip, the toilet has to be replaced.  It is leaking water both in the bowl and on the floor. Matt has already replaced the seal, so the full thing is replaced this time. We also have to replace a taillight that cracked and the latch on the screen door.  Sunday morning before leaving we discovered that a light bulb needed to be replaced!   Next up will likely be the door!
  4. Because of being so sick on the way home, it has taken almost a full two weeks for me to catch up on everything including blogging!  Now I can begin my count down to summer. Technically, we have 8 weeks left in the school year with 5 of actual treatment.
  5. I have been super busy this week, working on getting the garden planted. We or I should say Matt worked hard before we left, and the greenhouse worked like a charm!  I will be planting out all the tomatoes and green peppers in the next week depending on the weather.

February in Review

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February is complete!   I would like to say that we enjoyed some of the slowest month of the year but then I would not be correct. I will say we are steadily moving forward!

Groceries- Budget $975/ $450   $1059.04 Goal fail! No reason just we bought food.  I do know that grocery prices have risen 25% but other than that we failed!  We are doing a no spend grocery challenge for the month of March until just before our trip. I am hoping for the best!  I do have some free money to use so that should help!

Auto/ Gas. Goal -= $600.  Goal Met!  We have spent $334.49 this month.  This did not include the tags so the better number is $450.  March will be expensive as well, the car needs an oil change and we need gas.

Blogging- 15 post per month. 8 post this month. Yeap a struggle.

Exercise- I am down to 207 which is 19lbs!   I did manage to walk an hour 3 times this month. I am challenging myself to walk 10 times before our trip!

Earn extra money: a $50 gift card from Fetch.  I am at 49653. Slow as slow!

Random Tuesday Thoughts

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I am starting to feel better again!   I started with a new and much more fun cold last Thursday. I came home from work on Friday and literally stay in the house spending most of the time in bed until Monday morning.  Today, I have lots of congestion, but no headache and less coughing!

I am going to continue the pantry challenge into both February and March.   The rules are that we only purchase items we are out of.   So far the lack of fresh fruit has been the problem so we did purchase some last week. We are planning a trip to Costco this weekend. I am going to work hard to only purchase our drinks for a month which is 2 cases of water, 1 case of diet cokes and 1 case of Dr. Peppers. Matt is getting his tea on subscribe and save so I am going to omit the case of regular cokes.  We also need flour and rice, bacon and sour cream.   This will not be a cheap trip but my hope is this will help us hold the course.  I have also reviewed and decreased our Subscribe and Save for February as well, I know that this will be $200.  I also need to order more laundry detergent for Lily which is $70.   Along with the Costco Trip I will be doing well to keep the budget at $500 for the month.   I will also be purchasing some fruits and veggies for our Junk Food Sunday.  Again I may end up around $700 for February.   I am going to be ok with it because I am still saving money and rotating the pantry.  I am starting to see a difference in our pantry and freezers so this is all a good thing.

On a positive note, we are currently getting an average of 4 eggs a day which definitely helps with protein intake and grocery expenses

We have started with our busy Spring Season of sports. This week we have both swim and baseball practice. Which means that Friday is the only evening that we will not be running somewhere.  I have been enjoying my easier, cook or heat meals so we will continue with those which will also help with our grocery budget.

It has reached our 60 day mark for our spring Disney Trip!   I was able to get up super early and got all the reservations that I wanted!   I can’t wait!