Category Archives: Lily

5 Things Friday

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  1. I have been really emotional this week. Probably the most emotional I have been in years. There are a couple of reasons. First, I am transitioning off a hormone I have been taking for a year.  Next is stress!
  2. Matt has a second surgery coming up on Tuesday. I am believing that this will be the final surgery!  This is hard on us on all levels. Physically- making sure everyone can get to and from everything!  Mentally- I don’t even need to describe this stress. Financially- We have been able to cover the cost of both surgeries, but we are stretch really really thin.  Emotionally-see above.
  3. Lily tested positive for COVID today. She has not experienced this before. We are trying to prevent it spreading to the rest of us!  She has been extremely tired with a sore throat.
  4. I am going to declare that first planting of green peppers a failure! We have one seed to germinate. We decided to go ahead and plant a second batch of orange peppers.  My plan was not to buy seeds this year, so I am hopefully we get a couple of plants from this one.  Tomatoes have started to grow!  We also planted kale and radish to feed the chickens.
  5. We have plans to clean the camper out tommorow so we can start preparing for our upcoming trip!

Saturday Happening

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Wow has this been a day! We decided early last week not to spend time working on putting metal up this weekend due to a couple of factors. The main one was the weather. The temperature this morning was 23 with the expected high of 40.  That did not mean however that it was going to be a slower take it easy kind of day either.

This morning, Matt worked on installing a new clothes drying rake in our toilet room.  The one we have been using was broken and starting to cause problems. It can and was fixed with cable ties so we just moved it to the camper!  Of course this required a trip to Lowes as does any good project!  He also was able to fix my office chair for me. He had been waiting on a wrench to use!

The chickens were definitely part of the excitement of the day. Lily discovered 6 eggs around lunch instead of the expected 4. Her next discovery was that we had caught a possum in our trap.  We decided to relocate this guy to keep our chickens safe.  As though that was not enough, Lily closed the automatic solar powered chicken door to gather eggs. Unfortunately, it decided to not work after she closed. Matt, Lily and Zach spent around an hour working with it trying to get it to even just open. The final solution was to simply to remove the door. The chickens have learned and do go up in the coop every night and the entire coop is enclosed on all sides. The real benefit to the door was to help hold in some of the heat. Hopefully this is more of a convivence problem than anything else now.

Zach had a birthday party to attend in Winston-Salem so we decided to make a trip to Costco.  We ended up spending $349 but we were out of several important and expensive items. I stuck to my list except for a few extra items for the Super Bowl party next week.

Lily and I managed to file her taxes today!  And we ended up with Braxton spending the night because Amanda likely has the flu and needed some extra help!

Man am I tired!

5 Things Friday

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  1. We have been getting one egg a day this week and today we found a second one!  This comes at an awesome time as we have used up the last store-bought egg in the house. I am going to try and avoid buying any more eggs so that might mean we are stretching what we get. I am very hopeful that soon we will have an abundance!
  2. Kendall was home this week from school due to not having to take exams. I asked her to organize and inventory the shelves of food in our laundry room.  I was actually shocked at what was hidden up there. I was also surprised and a little upset about her finding 4 cans of pork and beans.
  3. My biggest score of the week was 3 cases or 36 jars of regular mouth canning jars for $13.97 I found at Walmart this week!
  4. We have managed to not spend anything on groceries this week. The grand total for the month is $50.46.   I do have a subscribe and save order that will arrive next week for $67.12.   Which means I should be able to keep the grocery spending to $120 for this month!
  5. Lily has begun teaching piano and also continues to walk a friend’s dog as well as babysit. She is doing an awesome job at saving money for college.

Tuesday Thoughts on Christmas

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Thanksgiving and Christmas are my two favorite holidays!   I love celebrating with lots of food, family and fun.   This year, I am excited not only for food, family and fun but also a Disney trip and family pictures!  This trip is a combination birthday and graduation trip for Lily.  It is a girls only trip that includes flights in both directions!

In the past, I have always begun buying Christmas gifts in January and honestly by this time most years I am pretty close to finishing up the shopping.  Lots and lots of gifts are usually a party of this holiday. I can even recall a Christmas where the girls each opened a gift every day in the month of December. This year is different.  I started thinking and talking about how I wanted to give gifts last year. My kids are all teens and older which means they have very expensive taste. They also have all been able to save and purchase expensive items during the year.  We are also a family that enjoys traveling.  In the past year, we have been on a trip to Oak Island, two trips to Myrtle Beach, a trip to Asheville and 2 trips to Disney.   During each of these trips, I have enjoyed buying items for the kids both needed and wanted.   How does this relate to Christmas?  I made the decision that instead of buying alot of gifts, or even buying large items that I would prefer to use money for more trips and entertainment.  For the kids at home, Lily, Zach and Kendall, they each will receive one Christmas present.  We already have a weeklong trip planned to Disney at Easter and a weeklong trip planned for Oak Island in July.  Zach and Kendall are both involved in sports, and I have been willing and able to purchase items above and beyond the requirements.  Things such as hoodies and pants with fancy mascots and such.  For Lily, she has lots of graduation items, extra clothing and a extra Disney trip.   Amanda has requested and will receive season pass for her family to the zoo.  Haley’s family decided they would enjoy a trip to Disney’s Hollywood Studios.    These gifts are all great options and things that I would normally not give at Christmas but sometimes simpler is better.

I LOVE family pictures!   I will always treasure the last set of family pictures taken in November 2016 with my dad’s death in February 2017.  I am still not ready and don’t know that I will ever be ready for “Young Family Pictures” again.  I am grateful that my mom understands and respects this. But I am ready and excited about my family pictures. The last time we have pictures made Braxton was 4 weeks old.  We have added Haley’s entire family and Braxton is 4.  The plan is for pictures over Christmas when everyone is here.  I was able to purchase all the boys’ shirts at Belk’s!   This is going to be awesome.

Christmas and Thanksgiving both look different this year, but I am excited for simple and less gifts!