Sweetest Friend

Thank you, LaDonna @ Just Our Thoughts. This is a sweet award. You have really made me feel special. This award originated from Evening Shade Morning Latte and has been making the rounds in bloggy-world.
The award is as follows:“These blogs are exceedingly charming. These kind bloggers aim to find & be friends. They are not interested in self-aggrandizement. Our hope is that when the ribbons of these prizes are cut, even more friendships are propagated.”The rules of the award are as follows:Please give more attention to these writers. Deliver this award to 8 bloggers that then need to choose 8 bloggers of their own to pass the award to. Include the following text depicting the award…“Each of the following ladies, I simply love. They each have faced their own challenges in their lives & the way they encapsulate their experiences endears them greatly to my heart.”
My first choice is
1. my dear friend in real life - LaDonna of Just Our Thoughts?
and the rest I will have to wait till I have connected with some other bloggers.

OK, looking back at my post I realized that I say so much. So this time I am just going to say this!

Get organized!

I am now a SAHM but I wasn't always. Mornings can be rushed at the best of times but when you add the baby of the family NOT being a morning person it all goes bad pretty fast. I didn't have enough hands to deal with her morning routine and make sure that lunches remained nutritious at the same time. With a good sized family and food prices high we decided that it made more sense to buy in bulk. One morning after sending the kids off to school with money yet again for snack shop at school I decided that there had to be a better way to make things work. There was and I found it!

Here's what I did.

When we went grocery shopping with our list we followed our list and bought the things we needed in bulk. Made sure we grabbed the snack and sandwich baggies and cellophane and headed home. I sat at the table after all the things were put away except what I was working with. I got a big bowl and a measuring cup ( found this worked the best) and dumped the item in the bowl. It is way cheaper to buy party mix chip in the big bag then in the small 1 serving sizes. This goes the same for Ritz bitz, fish crackers, and anything you can think of. I would measure out the 1 serving for each bag for all the lunch items we brought home. Then I would got to the veggies. We buy these in bulk as well so I would go through the same process with them and do any cutting etc that was needed at this time. The next step was the cookies. If the cookies were store bought I would bag them up and put them in the same pile as the crackers chips etc, but if they were home made I would put them in a different pile (the freezer pile). Home made cookies squares and muffins don't taste as good if they are left out too long so all these items go into the freezer (still individually packed). For the main part of the lunch is use items like meat buns (bread dough rolled out like Cinnamon buns meat and spaghetti sauce spread on it or cheese and ham or what ever you can think of then roll it up and bake it in a muffin tin then I wrap them in cellophane), left overs in a reusable lunch container, I will even do a big cook and make a few different types of meals like beef stroganoff, spaghetti, chili, or stew. Basically anything that you can freeze I make it. They are all froze in lunch size portions just like the chef on the shelf at the grocery store. They get nutritious food that they like and it take no time in the morning. Don't want to do the big cook? No problem, just add a little extra to your pot at supper. Then instead of leaving it in the fridge for leftovers put it in the freezer for lunches.

So lets recap:

Buy in bulk
individually pack
home made goodies go in the freezer (the baskets that sit in the freezer work great)
main items go in the freezer too
fruit and veggies go in the crisper (grapes and strawberries work well too)

divide up the rest of the items up into bins with the child, mom or dads name on it. Decide when it will be time to refill bin. Then let everyone know that there is enough snacks to last till then.
(this last step helps to keep sneaky fingers out of the snack box)

The most important thin that will help to make this work is to NOT pack away all of the snacks. Everyone likes to have a snack now and then and the bins poss a temptation on those days. So if you save some cookies for the cookie jar that will be hit first.

Hope this works for some of you!

ps. some or all of this would work for the home schoolers out there too.

Just a bad day!

Yesterday started out great. I planned a visit with LH and kiddies, had a laugh with my sister-in-law, gave a gift, deposited money, served a friend and more.


The visit was over and then my day started to take a swift u turn. Not quickly though. Kids texting me asking me if they could go here, do this. You know the seemingly normal stuff. Then the bottom fell out.


Lets go back a little further. Last year I was driving down the highway and a deer ran in front of me. The insurance company wrote it off. At the time this happened I was working so many hours that I did not have time to sleep. 7 was helping me too so every day he had off he was working. Somewhere in the shmoz of things we did not transfer our vehicle registration. We would have figured it out very soon as our registration comes up for renewal at the end of the month. But non the less it was not done.


Now back to yesterday, I was stopped by a sheriff (it is the Easter weekend and they were making sure everyone was following the rules of the road to a T). There was no intention on his part to issue a ticket but he still did the usual licence, insurance and registration please. Well the first 2 were not a problem but the 3rd was no where to be found. My thoughts were oh well I guess that it must have somehow got miss placed. Boy was I wrong! After sitting there for 40 min and having a few chats with the sheriff we both came to the conclusion that I had no registration on my van! I could not believe it. Thank God that I was polite and cooperative about the whole situation because the sheriff was suppose to impound my van right there on the spot. I was given 2 tickets totaling $460.00 and told to drive my van home and not to drive it till I got it registered. I said that I was sorry for the 20th time wished him a happy Easter and did as I was told.


Now for some people this may not have even phased them. For me though, I was shocked by the whole thing. How could this have been missed? Along with a billion other questions running through my head. Last weeks lesson (FPU) we heard a story about this single mom who had a bad day and to make a long story short bought McDonald's for supper because she was too tired to cook. Dave's response to this was we don't deserve that kind of break today! When we are debt free and we have a bad day maybe that would be OK, but we got ourselves into debt and as hard as it is going to be we need to buckle down to get ourselves out. $460.00 is half or aou grocery budget for the month. Please pray that God will find the means to pay all we need.


I am very thankful for a few things that came from yesterday though. The first is that when I needed a friend to vent to. Someone who would not call my husband down or tear him down putting all the blame on him. She was there, allowing me to vent, cry and get to the point that I could deal. Thank LH for keeping me together and not tearing me down. And I know that Diane was feeling like her "About me" was boring so I helped her spruce it up. The day ended on a paositive note and after all, it wasn't a "JELLYFISH BAD DAY".

8 Things

Something I got off of LH's blog Just Our Thoughts. Enjoy!


8 Things I am looking forward to:

1. An addition
2. Being debt free
3. Cheaper fruit and veggies
4. Hot sunny days, 25-28 above
5. Grand babies (but not too soon)
6. My patio set up and ready to use
7. Baking and fellowship with the ladies at the church
8. More time with 7 and my kids

8 Things I did yesterday:

1. cried (sobbed actually)
2. laughed
3. dreamed about hot summer days
4. enjoyed company
5. lent the bank more of my money
6. Made someone happy
7. felt loved
8. Fell asleep on the love seat

8 Things I wish I could do:

1. Look good in a bikini
2. Be the best at everything
3. Keep everything as organized as my craft shelf
4. Quote any scripture
5. Show someone God
6. Do any car repairs needed
7. Change past financial decisions.
8. Give like no one else

8 Shows I watch:

1. CSI - all of them
2. House
3. Knight Rider
4. NCIS
5. Mentalist
6. Cold Case
7. Law & Order: Special Victims Unit
8. Flash Point

If you read this, you are officially tagged!!
Take it and have fun!

Puddles

Puddles are so much fun! Especially when you have new warm and cozy rubber boots. Little miss was so excited to get her new boots. I can't wait to give her the matching coat (I'm so excited). It is so much fun being an auntie.

God is faithful

God is so faithful. Why is it that we doubt Him? Time and time again this question comes up and yet the next opportunity we get, we do it again! For those of you that read my post on puppies, you have seen that I was questioning God in this situation. It just barley got off my lips and there was an answer to prayer. At this very moment we have only 3 puppies left to sell. That being said we still have prospective buyers as well. This is much further then we were last week. Last week all I could see was a life with 6 puppies growing to be big like their parents and our food bill sky rocketing. I actually had fear in my heart. I am brought back to the verse "fear not nor be afraid, for the Lord you God He is with you". Again I ask "why do I doubt". Maybe I should change my name from Tammy to Tommy (you know, Thomas the doubter!)