Me and My Big Mouth

So lately I've felt convicted about eating out. Don't get me wrong--I love to eat out! Someone brings me a drink when my cup is empty, I eat food I didn't cook, and there is no clean up. What's not to love?

It's these stupid finances. We are in debt. I hate being in debt. It really bugs me. I mean, we have a mortgage and car payment--I'm not talking about those. In a perfect world we wouldn't have those either, but I consider those "normal."

I think it's these hospital bills looming over my head. I can't even make myself do the math to figure out what year we'll be through paying those off. Maybe the Lord will return before then. It's likely.

But there are some other smaller debts too and I just want to be out from under it all. I don't contribute a pay check to our family anymore. What can I do to help?

Yep. Save money. That's what a wife can do. Make each dollar stretch. Be frugal and make her man feel like a king on a pauper's budget. (Not that we have a pauper's budget--but you get what I'm saying.)

So now you know how I had the brilliant idea to stop eating out. Only I forgot to mention it to S.

THEN, I had a little look-see at our checkbook today and decided to bring it up.

Me: S, I think we should make a commitment to not eat out as much. I don't mean NEVER--because sometimes you just have to--but I mean almost never. We ate at home all the time when I was growing up. I think we could save SO much money.

S: I agree.

Wasn't that a great little conversation?

Well. It went on.

At the end of our discussion it had been determined that we would eat at home (we usually do all week but it's the weekends that kill us), and we would pack a lunch for S the night before so he could eat at the office and spend a little time studying for his sermons/Bible studies in the upcoming week instead of going to grab lunch on his lunch hour.

See what I did there? Killed 2 birds with one stone I did! He had just told me he needed to find more time in the week and now I found it for him! What a great wife!

It went on.

He told me he really needed me to help him in these areas:
1. Meals/lunches
2. Clothes ready to go each day.
3. Keep up with the house.

Um.

Hmm.

OK somewhere this conversation has gone awry. We seem to have gotten off course here! We are all discussing ways that WE could save money and WE would be so responsible and suddenly we're all talking about things Brenda needs to do to step up her housekeeping game!!!

I don't think that worked out to my advantage so much.

Humph.

But, let me say this. Tonight after church, instead of going out with our folks from church like we usually do, we came home. We ate hot dogs and tuna sandwiches in our pajamas and had time to sit around and visit before bed. It was kind of nice. AND...I figure we saved about $15 just tonight. Cha-ching!

Nobody Blogs on Saturdays

Do they? Well, this happens to be the time I can jump on here. Boy, having one more little kid really throws a kink in your blogging!

Tomorrow REAL FALL will come to Texas! Well, for a couple of days anyway. We decorated for fall at the beginning of September, but I haven't been able to burn my pumpkin spice candles because the ceiling fan keeps blowing them out. Welcome to Texas fall.

But tomorrow, and its already hit most parts of Texas, the cool front will be here and we will go to church in 50 degree weather. Can't wait!

Only...we don't exactly have anything to wear for that weather. Sweetheart especially has grown a bushel and a peck since last year. We just finished pulling all the tubs of clothes out of Little Bit's closet and they tried everything on. Sweetheart has 2 pair of pajamas, 2 sweatshirts, and 2 long sleeved shirts that fit.

I actually did find a dress I think will work for her tomorrow, but the only shoes she has are these.

Ladies Size 9. MY size! Good grief.

And I think we can all agree those are pretty chilly in 50 degree weather.

So we will head out in a bit to find more appropriate shoes for fall church wearing. Little Bit and I both have boots from last year that still fit for now so we're good.

And Bee has tights. OH she is going to look so sweet in those tights. :)

So I'm sneezing from pulling out all the clothes. I don't know why that always sets my allergies off but it does. I guess pulling the tubs out of the closet kicks up enough dust to do me in.

Next week we have to be SUPER DUPER REALLY AND I MEAN IT serious about school. It's our last full week until we go camping later this month and I want to feel a little caught up and further along before we take off on a vacation.

And for those of you who get annoyed when people type in call caps...it's how I talk. Really.

Back on topic, I need to rifle through the school shelf and make copies and get organized for the upcoming week o' education at our house. I must do this now while Bee is sleeping. And we're home.

Anyone else tired of running? (Shut up Suzanne-stay-home-for-2-weeks. I'm not talking to you.) We SO need to stay home more this week. For school to happen. For Mommy to not have a headache. For rest. For sanity.

I'm off to plan. Must have a plan.

Checking In

Thursday. I'm up too late. I've been wanting to blog so badly but my arms are full of fat sweet baby and I haven't figured out how to hold her, conduct school, assure that my husband has clean clothes and my family has food, and blog all at the same time.

But I'm working on it. Because I miss blogging. It's almost like I'm having a real conversation with grown-ups!

Which doesn't happen too often.

Which is why I was so chatty with the optometrist today. She probably just thought I'd had a bit too much caffeine.

I hadn't, by the way. I was just happy to be visiting with an adult!

So my brain is full--just chock full--of stuff to tell you!

Like...

• I had Freebirds for lunch today. I really like that restaurant.
• Sweetheart and I both need new glasses.
• I'm a preacher's wife. I had my first pull-preacher's-wife-to-the-side-and-ask-hard-questions-of-her moment this week.
• I did OK answering. I think.
• Baby Bee has a tooth.
• She's 4 months old.
• She looks like this:

And this:

Not sure where she gets the big mouth from. Hmm. 

Anyway, there's more!

• Sweetheart is such a neat kid. She still plays and enjoys life but you can have a real-life grown-upish conversation with her too. Thirteen is pretty neat so far. 
• Little Bit cleaned Bee's room today (Translation: cleaned part of MY room) and now I'm happy when I walk in there. It was pretty covered in clean laundry and other stuff. She rocks. 
• School is going better since I had a conference with the principal earlier this week. He helped me figure out some priorities and let some other stuff go. 
• Looking forward to going camping next month! It's been a year since we went camping. We're going to buy one of these for Bee.

I guess that's enough for now. If you know me in real life, you know I could have easily fit all of these topics into one conversation. I am THAT talented. 

But it's better for you that you read it instead of try to keep up with my crazy talk. 

I'll try to return with more cohesive thoughts next time--no promises. 

Fun Fridays

It just sort of worked out this way. Every other Friday, we will be meeting with friends to do 2 fun things.

One thing is our Keepers of the Faith club. Last year, my girls and the girls from our friends the Holiday family formed a Keepers at Home club. It was awesome!

Our girls and the Holiday girls showing off their club work for Pawpaw Holiday last year. 

But the Holidays moved a little over a week ago. What would we do about our club now???

Well, before we knew they were going to move, Carrie had already asked about maybe joining our club. So...now it's Carrie's family and us. Which, even though we miss our friends, is really nice. I am very glad we didn't have to stop the club because we all really liked it. (And the Holiday family found some clubs in their new hometown they can look into.)

(We still really miss them though.)

So last Friday we had our first meeting of our "new" club. We just sort of explained what the club was about to the girls, talked about some of the badges they will be earning this year, and did a craft. Oh, and I served awesome brownies that looked like meatloaf. Yum!

 Somehow I missed getting a picture of Emily. We had the girls make the first page in a scrapbook for their Keepers activities. Now we just have to be really good about taking pictures at our meetings so they will have stuff to scrapbook about!

 Matt kept Bee busy by reading her a Lego catalog or something. All I know is I overheard, "See? That's the BAD guy. We don't like him!" So, she was really getting an education during the meeting! :)

And when she got tired of Legos, we found a way to contain her.

The other fun thing we will be doing every other Friday is science. A friend from our old church is homeschooling her daughter and niece. This is their first year homeschooling and the girls are really de-toxing from public school. Working together is seen as cheating. She asked them to write 5 sentences in their journal about their favorite color. She told them, "write what you think. you cannot do this wrong" and they were just paralyzed.

Well, we are both using Apologia's Elementary Anatomy and Physiology this year. I really wanted to make sure the first meeting was fun. They need to know school can be fun! (And you can still learn!)

We did the first experiment together, which is to make an edible cell.

Anything involving jello and candy sounds like fun, right?

And then, just to kick things off--we traced their bodies and had them glue cut outs of their organs in them.

So, we will get together twice a month to do the experiments and other fun stuff with them. Oh, and go on some field trips too.

Looking forward to these two fun things this school year!

Oh! And H-Mama, I have a fun field trip planned for us too when we get to Japan, OK?

The Day of Productivity...For a While

Yesterday was Monday and I was so determined to start a fresh new week and get ALL our school work done WHILE taking care of Baby Bee and the house.

What can I say? Sometimes I have delusions.

But we really did have a good day for the most part.

Bee was in a good mood. It was chilly so she opted for her pink pants.

After breakfast, we all did science together. We finished up Lesson 1 in our book so now we are right on track again. Science is another post, however.

Then we started in on math. Math has to be completed early around here or there is great wailing and gnashing of teeth. Sweetheart was working in her room and Little bit worked with me at the coffee table. She's working on this with the door open. It was SUCH nice weather!

Bee was content to play for a while. Which is much easier than one-handed teaching with a baby on your lap.

And don't let this picture fool you...she only slept 10 or 15 minutes at a time all day! I kept awaiting the glorious 2-3 hour nap so we could finish school, but alas...I waited in vain.

So we plugged on. Sweetheart labored diligently at her desk.

And then entertained the baby while I read her read-aloud book to her. She was learning to multi-task!

Sometime during the course of the morning, Baby Bee rolled over. We were all out of the room and came back to find her on her stomach, smiling. I consider that an accomplishment just as important as math!

At lunch, we made foil hats for the baby.

And...it pretty much went downhill after that. We kept waiting for nap time that never came. I told the girls to do what they could without me. That would be piano practice for Sweetheart and Explode the Code for Little Bit. 

And the rest of the day was just trying to juggle stuff and the baby at the same time. She was in a great mood--just FULLY AWAKE all day! Finally I caved and called Grandma to come hold her while we finished some things up.

Then my sister came by after work to play with the baby, but the baby wanted to eat so my sister was left frying okra on the stove while I fed her. Therefore, I had to feed said sister because if you help cook, you get to eat you know.

We ended up finishing everything but spelling. That's OK. I'm giving us a little more time to get used to this year's curriculum and then we'll work on adding those last 2 subjects in (spelling for both and grammar for Sweetheart). Spelling is important, but it can wait until the wee one is on more of a schedule, you know?

And today was some the same and some different. Every day is just a juggling act, that's all there is to it.

Also? I know in a few months things will be nothing like they are right now.

And I know that I am blessed.