The title reminds me of a show my girls used to watch: "Where in the World is Carmen SanDiego?" The theme song is running through my head as I type this-anyone remember it?

I cannot believe a month has gone by since I made my last blog entry! I'm so sorry. I guess it's taken me that long to adjust to my new schedule and fit everything into the hours of my days. I'm only working 3-5 hour days, but Oh! My!-how do women who work full time do it? How did Ma Ingalls work at the restaurant AND do all that she had to do besides that and not be totally exhausted?

I've realized some things in this past month:

 

#1-I wasted A LOT of time when I stayed home.

#2-There are never enough hours in my day and never enough days of the week!

#3-The world will not end if the floor isn't swept or the furniture isn't dusted.

#4-If I keep up with the basics, like laundry, dishes and straightening up each day-it makes my life easier.

#5-If I get all the deep cleaning done on my days off(Tues. and Wed..)-it makes my working days and Saturdays more bearable.

#6-My family HAS to help more around the house-I was doing them no favors by doing everything myself.

#7-Working makes me want to stay home more on my days off and spend less money!

#8-A weekly menu is a must, so I don't have to think of what to have at 7am as I'm rushing out the door.

Phew! That felt good. I do like my job and the people I work with are wonderful christians. It challenges me mentally-not physically-so I'm "brain dead" on the days I get home.Oh! Well! With time, it will get easier though-so bear with me on my blogging.I have yet to figure out how to fit it in my schedule.

A few things have happened in the month that I want to tell you about.

 Caitie went to her prom and was beautiful if -of course I am partial being her Mom!!! Ryan loved wearing his tux!

My Mom came and we had a yard sale-talk about a crazy 4 days!!!!!! We did pretty well considering it poured almost every day and it was chilly. I made enough to get caught up in my heating oil and car insurance envelopes. If we were short on money each month, I had to shortchange these envelopes, so I had gotten behind.

As you know, Seth goes to preschool 3 mornings a week to get his speech therapy-well, a couple weeks ago I get a note from his teacher that said to keep Seth home if he had a runny nose because on that particular day, his "yucky snot" was getting all over their toys and she had to keep cleaning them. Seriously, she wrote "yucky snot"!  An educated teacher wrote "yucky snot"!!!!! My "Mom antenna's" went up and I was seriously angered by the whole thing because Seth didn't have a runny nose when he was home, but as soon as he got there he had one. He came home smelling like hospital disinfectant a couple days and I couldn't figure out why until this letter came from the teacher. Needless to say, I kept him home for the rest of the week with no runny nose wondering if I should send him back or not. I wondered what else was going on if his "yucky snot" was bothering her. How did he get wiped after he pooped for crying out loud! She then left me a nasty message on my answering machine after I kept him home like she wanted me to that said, " I'm sorry that Seth has to stay home when he has "infection" coming from his nose, but ALL the other parents know the rules and follow them!"

I felt she was insinuating I was a dumb Mother who is using her as a babysitting service for a sick child-but Seth wasn't sick.I believe he is allergic to something there. I prayed and prayed about it wondering if I should send him back. He WAS talking better and I had no other place for him to get his speech therapy-I felt I was up against the wall here. So.......after much praying and talking with my hubby, I sent him back for the last few weeks of school- BUT, I will NOT be sending him there next year. I'm scrambling around for somewhere else to send him to get the therapy. Any suggestions out there? He has 2 years before he will start kindergarden, so he could take next year off and then I could place him the following year. What do you think?

On a lighter note around my home: a mama bird has made a nest under our deck board, so Seth and I can peek through the crack to see the eggs each day. How exciting! I can't wait to see the look on his face when they hatch and the baby birds are in the nest-he will love it!!! If only we could see through a child's eyes everyday!

It's been wonderful blogging this morning, but I really do need to get some other things done. As some of you know, I am able to read your blogs every now and then. I miss all of you and will hopefully be able to blog more now that I'm in a routine. At least until summer vacation starts for my children.... that's a whole other story!!!!!!

Blessings to you!!!

~Amy

 

 

 

My next to the oldest daughter got her driver's license today. My Caitie "Poo-Poo" is growing up. What's a Mom to do? Let me tell you about my-once-middle(until I had Seth) child.

Caitie is a petite little thing-takes after my sweet Granmmie hazel. She's only 5' and weighs a whopping 113lbs. I sometimes wonder if she's really my kid! She looks like she's 12 years old!

She was born in the Netherlands(Holland) where my hubs was stationed at the time and she had the most beautiful complexion when she was born. Out of all of my children, she was the most content baby and slept through the night by the time she was 6 weeks old. She was content just sitting on a blanket playing. I never knew why she was such a loner and had such good fine motor skills until she was about 2 1/2.We found out she was deaf. Actually, she could hear gurgling noises, like if you were underwater, but that was it. We were so upset. She had had chronic ear infections that affected her hearing and we never knew it. I felt so stupid- well not quite as stupid as when Sarabeth swallowed a magnet the size of a quarter when she was 2-but hey, that's a whole other story!

Well, we found a wonderful doctor when we got out of the service who thought that tubes and speach therapy might help. What did we have to lose? You should have seen her when she came out of the hospital the day her tubes were put in-she was such a frightened little girl hearing all those  loud sounds around her for the first time ever-everything was magnified to her-she could hear!

 Then came the day we had to send her to speech therapy so she could learn how to talk and form words and sounds. She got on a little bus 3 days a week to go to a special school for hearing impaired children at 3 yrs. old-talk about hard! She was a quick little learner and started talking. We may not have understood everything-but at least she was trying. She talked "baby-talk" at first, referring to herself as "Taitie". She never said, "I need to go potty". It was always, "Taitie need to go potty"-up until she was about 7 or 8 did she finally refer to herself  as I.

Caitie has overcome a lot of problems-depression, immaturity, the middle child syndrome(hee-hee) and many, many other things I won't go into here. She is one of the youngest in her class, and everything comes so much harder for her. If I had to do it all over again, I would have held her out one more year from school.

Today, my Caitie is a bright little piece of sunshine(most of the time, depending on the time of the month!) to our family. She cracks us up constantly with the wrong use of words and funny stories. She's our "artsy-fartsy" gal and see's everything differently than we do. She can look at clouds or her half-eaten PBJ sandwich and see Italy or a Nike swoosh! She's so creative. She is in her junior year in high school and is taking Cosmetology at our local vocational school, so when she graduates next year, she can take the state boards and be a beautician. We thought that's what she wanted to do with her life, until one day, she came to me saying she thought she would like to go on to college. "For what", I asked? "To be a delivery nurse, delivering babies." Who knew? We are behind her all the way. I have told her her whole life,through all of her problems, she could DO anything she put her mind to. I think she is finally believing it.

Today as I sat nervously waiting for her to pass her driver's test, her whole life passed before my eyes. My quiet, content baby is growing up. She got a summer job at our local Tastee-Freeze and she got her driver's license all in the same week. I know this is what we are supposed to let our kid's do-grow up-but the Mom in me is having a hard time letting go of some of those strings. Darn those apron strings!

Now I'll leave you with a funny Caitie story for today;

 

Me: "Caitie, do you want to drive home(this is after she had passed her test)?"

Her: "No, I think I'll just sit back and relax. You know what Mom?"

Me:"What?"

Caitie: "Passing your driver's test is a lot like giving birth-it's so exhausting and all you can think about is getting it out(or getting your license). But, once it's out, you're too tired to play with it!!!"

Me:(As I'm cracking up!) "You know what Cait-you're right!"

That's my Caitie "Poo-Poo" for ya'!

Blessings~

Amy

THINK SPRING!
Aaaah! I love this time of year when the air starts getting warmer and the birds are singing and my big chest freezer needs defrosted.
 WHAT?!
 Yes-it's true. I love to clean out my freezer and use up what I have on hand for a few weeks to prepare meals for my family-I call it "pioneering". This is how I "pioneer" ladies-sit up and listen good!

I figured I would start "pioneering" this week because there wasn't anything good to stock up on in the grocery ads. If you've been reading my blog long enough, you know that I don't shop like most people-I buy my staples in bulk and use coupons for getting most of my other stuff for cheap or free. I only buy reduced meat. Well, because of the way I purchase my food, I usually have about 14 or more meals I can prepare at any given time. So, a couple times a year-us ually spring and fall-I "pioneer". I look through my deep freeze and freezer above my fridge to see what is lurking in there to be eaten up by my family. It's usually the things that we aren't that crazy about, but still keep in our diet. For instance, I have a couple of pork roasts in there that someone actually gave me that I could probably make into 4 meals-it's not the kid's favorite, but it's food that needs to be eaten up so it doesn't go to waste.
So,now I have a list of what I have on hand in my freezers. Now, I look in my pantry for everything else that goes along with the meal-pasta, potatoes, vegetables, desserts, etc. I pair each meat item with something from my pantry. For instance, I'm making pulled pork BBQ sandwiches one night, so I paired that up with fried potatoes, applesauce and carrots. If I'm making something a little leaner-like homemade vegetable soup(all my leftover veggies from my meals goes in a bucket in the freezer to be used for this soup), then I make homemade bread or rolls and a dessert. My family doesn't feel like they are missing out on anything that way-it's all mental!!!!! I'm a tricky, tricky keeper-at- home!!!!
As I finished up my list of meals this weekend, I discovered I had about 21 or more(with leftovers) meals! No kiddin'! I did need a few things, like potatoes, boxed mac & cheese, milk, mayo, q-tips(not for consumption-we just needed them!), saltine crackers and a few other items-let's just say that $25 does NOT go far in this day and age, so I was keeping track of every penny as I shopped.
Now I was prepared to "pioneer".
 Everyday is an adventure for me concerning meal time during "pioneering" but I always happily announce that the "grub" is ready by 6pm every night and hold my breath until they start chowing down. It's funny, because the further I get into the weeks in doing this, the more creative I get! If we really stop to think about our meals, they are to nourish us and to keep up our strength to live our lives-NOT to impress anyone! On my menu, I usually plan, 1 soup night, 1 breakfast night and 1 homemade(of course)pizza night. This really helps to stretch my meals and cut costs too. My family enjoys the breakfast night because we very rarely are able to eat a cooked breakfast together in the mornings. It's usually just cereal, toast or muffins because of school and work for my hubs. Since he's a mailman, he works every Saturday too, so that day is out and on Sunday, we just barely get out the door for church! You need to figure out what works for your family. If my family starts acting like they are disappointed with what they are getting for their meals, I promptly tell them how lucky they are to even have a meal to come home to and I try to prepare a special dessert!!! It always works. it's funny how they'll eat the vegetable soup without complaining if they see that the chocolate cake is waiting in my beautiful  glass cake server on the counter just oozing with goodness! Gosh, I'm cracking myself up today!
Something about "pioneering" that you may discover without ever really knowing  it: if tough times came, could I still make meals for my family using a little "nothing" to make "something"?! I usually use my "pioneer" days as a test to see how far I can go and to hone my "pioneering" skills farther. How far could I actually stretch my meals if I had too? Like Cheryl wrote about in her wonderful blog-tough times may come to us financially in one way or another someday-what are you doing to prepare for it?
I have many plans for stocking up again this year. I plan on canning more. This year, I canned applesauce and spaghetti sauce, green beans and strawberry jam. I would like to can more soups and some apple pie filling also. I also want to start some raised garden beds. I had a big garden when we first moved here 7 years ago, but it never really did well because we have clay soil. So, I think raised beds with new soil would work better, plus they are more manageable concerning weeds and planting.
Now, I don't want to shock you-but that $25 I just spent was for 2 weeks-NOT for just one-but it doesn't include milk, we get that delivered right to our door once a week just like the old times-I always feel like June Cleaver bringing it in ever Tuesday morning!!!!Oh, I wish it were in glass bottles though. I loved the clinking it made. Monique-can you hook me up?
Okay-back to reality now, Amy!
 So, if I were to add in our milk, I will have spent about $44 for 2 weeks. How far can you stretch your groceries? What an awesome challenge for us all to do together. Who's up for "pioneering" with me? No experience necessary!

My 3 Simple Blessings today~
~the ability to want to learn new skills
~a family who will consume practically anything when they are hungry!
~the ability to be thankful for what God has provided me with,

Blessings~
*aMy*