Blogging: I actually have improved with this in the month on March. I am currently on my 14th post but I have to admit that I did post 4-5 of just pictures from Haley’s birthday party. I am going to set my goal at 3 a week or 15 plus a month. I honestly don’t think that I will ever be able to post daily but I want to keep trying to keep up with the blog to document life if nothing else. Devotions: I am trying but I still have not met consistently 3x a week with a higher goal of 5 times a week. I have to design a time and stick to it. Couponing/Grocery Budgeting: This has been an awesome month in this regard. I checked the Grocery spending for the month and it is 800.35!! This includes the food for Haley’s party and quite a bit of stockpiling especially of drinks and diapers. The plan for April is that we cut the budget in half to $400 but not include the money we spend on food in Florida. In case you are wondering, I have budgeted $100 a day in addition to $150 for each of the 2 special meal that we have reservation for. I have already paid for the most expensive meal at “The Royal Table.” My plan is to take in one soda a day for each of us and the water bottles. I honestly don’t think the food budget will be a problem on the trip but of course I can alway be very wrong. Financially: We did okay this month. My car ended up with some major repairs during the month of February and March. We ended up spending almost 300 in March alone for repairs. However with that begin said, it is running awesome, I am hoping to get at least 300000 out of it. We also are spending around a thousand dollars on our septic system. Hopefully this will solve or at least move the problem so that we don’t have to replace it yet again. We did not pay off any extra debit but after looking over our spending for last month, we had around 300 additional in medical expenses and we have been eating out ALOT. Matt and I talked and this is going to change we have decided to limit eating out to 50 a week or 200 for April. We are not including our trip in any aspect of the budget this month. Hopefully we will have an awesome time and still stay on track! Weight– A big ole ZERO, nothing..I am disappointed……any suggestions?

Just when I think that we settling in to routine, something changes and it gets crazier. Because of space issues in February, all our church events/activies are moved from Wednesday to Tuesday nights. I realized that this made it possible f0r Lily to start cheerleading. Am I crazy? yeap. We deciced to start this new adventure in March. One of the major changes that this involved was figuring out how to eat on Wednesdays. I finish working no earlier than 5pm so that leaves less than an hour for us to eat and get to the cheer gym. We have started meeting for dinner and then I bring Lily to the gym. Matt heads home to get the little ones to bed. So far this is working out but it makes my weekly schedule a little more crazier.
To add to the confusion, Amanda’s car is finally dead. So until she is able to find and afford a car, I am driving her to college and arrange to have her picked up. This week was an awful week to start that. It makes it really hard with the time change or as Lily said today, “It is all the farmer’s fault for messing with our daylight. Another addition to this week is the fact we have our last Bible quiz of the year on Saturday so I am trying to get that all together. Here is what my crazy schedule looks like this week.
Monday-
Tuesday- Church activities for Lily, Haley and Matt. I stayed home with Kendall and Zach and tried to work on quizzing.
Wednesday- Lily at cheerleading til 8
Thursday- Off of work but hair appointment, car to be worked on, 31 party, tutoring.
Friday- Small group from 7pm till 10pm
Saturday- Quiz starting at 10am.

NEWS FLASH…………………. I am tired. Ok so it was not really a news flash but it is the truth and it sums up the entire week. I am tired. Want more details. I am going to share because 10 years from now maybe I will laugh and say man how did I do it? At least that is my goal.

Work- 5 days no break. I ended up covering for Debbie on Thursday because she was sick. So total I get paid for around 33 hours not counting drive time.

With kids clubs and Matt’s small group moving to Tuesday nights then we stay busy. Tuesday is church, I stay home with the little ones. Wednesday night are cheerleading for Lily so we met for dinner and I arrived home around 8:15pm. Thursday- we grabbed a bite to eat and then try to go to bed early because Zach and Kendall have been awake several times a night EACH. Last night (Friday) we spent some time as a couple after the little ones went to bed. We needed it!

Today has been busy with house cleaning and planting. We went up town and welcome home a friend and a solider who has been in Afghanistan since last May. Dinner with the Pierce was a great and fun end to the day. The fact we lose an hour of sleep tonight is going to make things rough in the morning as well

SO GOOD NIGHT!

Expectation-is what is considered the most likely to happen. An expectation, which is a belief that is centered on the future, may or may not be realistic. A less advantageous result gives rise to the emotion of disappointment. If something happens that is not at all expected it is a surprise. An expectation about the behavior or performance of another person, expressed to that person, may have the nature of a strong request, or an order.

The above definition is from Wikipedia. I have been thinking alot about this word this evening. I consider myself a realist. I don’t like doing things like making a 5 year plan or even a 3 year plan. The reason, I am not in control God is…so why waste time and energy with a plan that I have no control over if it works or not? But expectations-yes I definitely have some of those. In fact, you may even can make a case that I have more of these expectations then most people. So what are some of the expectation I have?

First, when Matt became unemployed last July, I had a couple of expectations. I knew this would be a long term situation. I expected it to be very difficulty for all of us to adjust and I even realized that my expectations of what should/would get done during the day may be unachievable. After six months, we are starting to settle into a routine. It is VERY hard for me to go to work and come home each day. I am learning that I just have to let some thing go and that it is okay that some things are running more smoothly without me doing them. I NEVER expected that we would be in the best financial situation of our married life after only six months, nor would I have consider that we are taking most likely 2 major family vacations this year. My expectation of how well the kids are all adjusting has been exceeded, as well as the fact that homeschooling with Lily is more consistent than before. My expectations of what house work/chores should get done each week is evolving.

Next on my list of expectations would be those involving the kids. To protect the guilty, I am going to refer to the definition above “about the behavior or performance of another person, expressed to that person, may have the nature of a strong request, or an order. ” Maybe I need to change my wording and just say this is a strong request or an order?

Expectations…………………….. that is a mouthful!

I honestly think that we are on the upside of being sick and things are slowly starting to get back to normal around here. But that brings to mind a question what is normal around here? Glad you asked here are the top ten things that I would consider “normal” for us….

1. Sunday Superbowl Party- We had some friends over last night to eat and watch the game. My BF and I even managed to Wii Fit during half time and the second half of the game.
2. Monday- I was scheduled to work both jobs today but ended up with a super long lunch break of 5 hours so Matt has gone to get the oil changed and something else with the car.
3.Zach is side stepping everywhere and has learned to turn off both the computer and printer. He thinks it is a game to reach toward the buttons
4. Lily cried at naptime today because she wanted to do more school work instead of taking a nap.
5. In the past hour I have answered the question “Is it time to get up at least 4 times.”
6. We have at least 5 loads of laundry to do today in order for everyone to have clean clothes and towels.
7. The dishwasher has been run already once this morning with another load at least to be done before bedtime.
8. Kendall is sleeping in Haley’s bed, or at least resting in Haley’s bed because she like to mess with things in our room and or wake up Zach most day at nap time.
9. I have not given out any cold medicine all day long.
10. I am seriously considering a NAP!

UGH! This week has been so long and nasty. Here is a short bulletined recap.

• Last Friday morning, Lily woke up with a fever and was crappy.
• Last Saturday in the wee hours Kendall woke up with a fever also. We decided that I would stay home with them from Angel Food distribution so as not to spread our germs.
• Saturday afternoon, Haley called wanting to come home because she felt so bad.
• Sunday, Zach stayed with Pawpaw and Granny while Lily, Kendall and Haley went to the doctor’s sick clinic
• Kendall has the flu and Lily and Haley a virsus that is similar to the flu.
• Haley is out of school Monday and Tuesday.
• Lily is still not feeling great and doesn’t get to go to Kids Club on Tuesday.
• Wednesday is when Matt starting getting sick
• Both Wednesday and Thursday evening I picked up dinner on the way home and Matt is in the bed by 7pm.
• Yesterday (Friday) Matt starts to feel better but we are forced to miss small group.

We were able to head to Winston today but I am still giving out medicine on a regular basis, no one has a fever but everyone including Zach has a runny nose and/or cough. I am praying we all start to fell better/get back to normal this week!

Blogging- I sucked at this in January. I can blame my life on most but I need to make it more of a priority to get better.

Devotions- I did okay with this but definitely room for major improvement.

Couponing/ Grocery Budget: I have worked the hardest this month on couponing and stockpiling. I am starting to buy things just to stockpile. I ended up spending over 11oo on groceries in January however this included a huge stockpile of can sodas and all the extra junk food for our super bowl party. I also have focused on making sure I identify when I spend money on grocery items.

Financially- January was a good month in this area. A major happening was the “modification” of our mortgage which reduced the interest rate to 5.99% or 4 % and reduced our payment by almost $300. We are on track for February to be an awesome month in this area with a plan to pay taxes from last year, and begin the David Rasmey “Money Makeover” with a Emergency fund in place!

Weight-I have lost 4lbs overall. I hope this gets better!