Category Archives: Life

5 Things Friday

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  1. Kendall got her first real injury this week on Wednesday. She was hit by a baseball bat. The result lots of blood and plastic stitches. Unfortunately this means that we will not be making a trip to the water park because she is suppose to keep them dry till Saturday and then the doctor specifically said no.
  2. Zach and Kendall both enjoyed their first full week of school. They both were excited to have homework a couple of nights this week. I hope this continues.
  3. We have declared September as a low spend/no spend month with the hopes of getting our budget back on track.
  4. Matt and I both purchased new iPhone and after several weeks of frustration I *think* everything is set. I really like the size of mine because I can read the screen easily.
  5. The weather is beginning to cool down here so. By the middle of September I hope to be able to open the windows and turn off the air.

August in Review

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Personal-
1. Blogging– Post 20 per month. Fail. This is post number 17. I feel much better about my blogging this month. I am trying to be consistent. I knew this would be a stretch to begin with so I am proud of my progress even if I did not meet my goal.

2.Weight Loss– 175#. Fail but a positive fail as it is once again moving in the right direction after vacation.

3. Spiritual– Spend at least 5 days a week, reading and studying The Bible. Nope. I am most upset about not working harder on this goal. I am going to make this my most important goal.

Personal goals are a failure for the third month straight. However, I am going to give myself a break, I dealt with a lot of stress this summer and decided to focus on my kids and making memories so how can that be a fail.

Financial- 

1. Set aside money each month in every budget category. Fail

2. Establish and maintain Emergency Fund- Fail.
3. Groceries: Goal is for $550. Fail . We spent $615 in Groceries this month. I reduced the goal from $700 in June and have been over the past 3 months so that tells me that I may have been premature in reducing the budget but will wait till December to make any other changes.

4. Gas: Spend $300 a month- Goal Met! We spent $263 this month including  our gas for our trip. The next couple of months will be expensive with oil changes and renewal of tags but I hope to spread out over a couple of months instead of just one month.

5. Pay off all Credit Card debit by December 2016- Fail. I am meeting bare minimal payments on everything but really was hoping to begin to get control and reduce this number.

Overall, August was a better month for us but we still need to work on getting our spending under control. I am planning on a very low spending month in September!

More Beach Fun

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We had an awesome vacation and I want to share some more pictures. The weather on Saturday was rainy and humid. The tide clocks are changing due to the full moon. So high tide was not expected until 9;40 am. After checking out these two things we decided to go play putt putt. Putt-Putt is one of the things that we have been talking about doing for over a year and the timing never seems to work out. Most of us had a great time.  We did stop at Sonic that was next door to the course at 10:55 am and purchased 99 cent drinks for us! Here are the pictures.

image image image image image image image image

Can anyone guess who did not like Putt-Putt? For the record Matt scored the best.

Thursday Thoughts

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  • Zach has been missing his two front teeth for almost 4 years, I noticed today that he has one that is grown in about half the way and a second that is starting. This is changing his appearance and I will miss my toothless wonder.
  • Lily and Kendall both had orthodontic appointments today. Kendall mouth is umm not the best. In fact, she will have a tooth pulled in September and start her first round of braces in October. We are hopefully that two sets will do the trick.
  • Lily will only need one set of braces so we will continue to wait for all her permanent teeth to come in before starting braces. Next summer is the estimate.
  • I picked up one of my two new sets of glasses today. My ordinal pair was over 2 years old and the side piece had broken. The doctor did not include bifocals on my prescription and I lasted less than 3 hours at work before calling and getting the prescription corrected. I do have a second set but of course they are on back order and will be here after my vacation.
  • Lily will officially start school on the 22nd. We are all becoming very anxious about this.
  • We have worked this month on restocking our pantry and freezers so instead of focusing on the budget, I have been focusing on eliminated waste. I have discovered several areas that I can make improvements on. First is water, I am trying to use water that we cook with instead of pouring down the drain. Second is food, we have stopped menu planning this week to focus on eating what is ripe and in our fridge that needs to be cleaned out.
  • Today was our third trip to the water park. It was a much shorter trip only four hours but we all had a blast and I am exhausted! We are hoping to squeeze one more trip in prior to public school starting.

School Choice

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Choices are not always black and white, nor are they always easy, and most important as a parent, a choice for one child is not always the best choice for all your children.  Today, I am announcing that we have chose to place Lily in a online charter school for her sixth grade year.

The start of this adventure which really starts August 22, begans last November, specially on our Disney trip. Lily told me that she dreamed that she graduated from High School at fourteen. This was not a one time dream, but has been reoccurring.

Next came the realization that Lily will begin Middle School this fall.  Neither Matt nor I every doubt that academically Lily is super prepared and will handle everything thrown her way. However, middle school girls are mean and given the fact that Lily is a full year younger than most, very small, wears glasses and has horrible eczema, I have no doubt that these next couple of year could be emotional and difficult for all of us.

I decided to start researching options that would allow her to excel and even advance quickly academically and work in our current household budget.  I did start asking some of my friends who are also educators.  Based on our rural location, we found only a couple of options: 1. The one private school in our area- academically would not be as allow her to advance at her own pace . 2. Home Schooling- not the best option currently due to my work schedule  3. Charter School.

I was told about the North Carolina Virtual Academy by a educator. We started doing research. This virtual academy has operated for two years in the state of North Carolina but the company K12  has operated for over 20 years and graduates have been accept to all major colleges in the US.  We began the application process for Lily in March.  Lily has been involved in many discussions regarding this and decided that she would like to try officially in May.  In June after finishing a ton of paperwork and submitting, Lily was officially accepted into the North Carolina Virtual Academy. Today, Matt withdrew her from the public school system.

Lily will be attending this online charter school for her sixth grade year. She will access her teacher and classmate via  web camera at least weekly but most likely several times a week. All learning is complete using both online method and traditional methods, in fact only about 60% of her academics will be completed online. Matt, who is considered her learning coach, is responsible for grading and entering grades online, inputting attendance records and ensure that Lily is completing academic work on a regular basis.  One of the greatest benefit is the ability to work at her own pace which if she so choses should allow her to accelerate her middle school and high school academics.

Her books weigh more than she does and are almost as tall!

Her books weigh more than she does and are almost as tall!

We have spent many hours in prayer about this decision and are truly excited about this opportunity for Lily. Zach and Kendall will continue to attend the public elementary school this year. We want to start begin slow and determine if and when they would benefit from the same online school.  Lily also is very aware of her option to return to public school next year is this does not turn out to be a good fit and huge benefit for her.

 

July in Review

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Personal-
1. Blogging– Post 20 per month. Fail. This is post number 15. I have been working hard the last two weeks to catch up and already have some plans for the next weeks so on to better things next month.

2.Weight Loss– 175#. BLAH!

3. Spiritual– Spend at least 5 days a week, reading and studying The Bible. Nope. I am hoping to finish reading through the Bible this month and start something new.

Personal goals are a failure for the second month straight.  Not much more to say in regards to that.

Financial- 

1. Set aside money each month in every budget category. Fail

2. Establish and maintain Emergency Fund- Fail.
3. Groceries: Goal is for $550. Fail . We spent $818 in Groceries this month. I am hoping for improvements in the next 2 months but if not I will again increase the budget!

4. Gas: Spend $400 a month- Fail! We spent $424 this month including a new battery.

5. Pay off all Credit Card debit by December 2016- Fail. I am meeting bare minimal payments on everything but really was hoping to begin to get control and reduce this number.

So if you read this review you can see that we have not righted our ship yet in fact most days I think we are headed in the wrong direction. My plan PRAY!

Five Things Friday

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  1. Today is the fifth Friday of July which also means I receive my third paycheck for July. I am paid every two weeks but budget based on two checks a month. This third check will cover our trip to the beach and our grocery overages for the past couple of weeks.
  2. Tomorrow night we are planning a “girls night in” as Zach is spending the night with Amanda. Matt will be working.
  3. Tonight is the end of one of the two “quiet” weeks of the summer. Piano and cheerleading were all the activities for the week. Next week is back to busy with a trip planned to Emerald Point and the girls have sign language camp all day Friday.
  4. My best friend used the same analog yesterday to explain MPLACES as I have been thinking all along. It is like Pokémon Go, as I am always trying to “check in” places at stoplights but in two months I have earned $15 in gift cards.  MPLACES is an app on my phone, ask me more if you are interested.
  5. I have officially booked our next trip to Disney. The goal of this trip is to pay for all or as much as possible by using apps and other found money. This money will not come from our regular budget at all and does not including saving on any bills or the differences in budgeted amounts vs. amount spent.

Monday Musing 1/25/20016

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  • We have 5 weeks before Zach and Kendall start back to school and 4 before Lily begins her adventure in a Charter School. The next three weeks are what we consider slower because the girls have cheer on Monday and Thursday. They will also have piano once a week.
  • I was able to make a deposit on our next Disney trip this week using money that we have earned from Swagbucks. Matt and I are both using this site to earn extra money. I am so excited. The goal of this trip is to totally pay for it with money not included in our regular budget!
  • Our garden has not produced like we had hope but one of the biggest reason is the heat. Currently in NC, we are experiencing Day 26 of the summer with highs in the 90s. A typical summer is 29 days of 90 degree temperatures.
  • Matt has assembled the new water barrel to start collecting any rain water. Hopefully we will be able to water the garden on a regular bases without increasing our water bill.
  • I did plant 3 additional tomato plants and a dill plant this weekend with hopes of increasing our harvest.
  • We have really enjoyed our 2 trips to Emerald Point, a water park, this summer. We hope to go a couple more times but plan on spending only 4 or 5 hours at the park instead of 8.
  • The plan for August is to re-stock the pantry so our spending may be really close to budget.