Update on things

Well, we are surviving quite well without TV. I might be cheating because I did watch the new episode of ER on hulu.com. I think that website is awesome! You can watch almost all your favorites...anytime you want, for free. It was better than tv to me, because there were only 3 short commercials (two 15 seconds, one 30 seconds). I do miss watching the morning news when I wake up. It is more work to get up and go down the hall to the computer to check the weather. Oh, wait! Mr. Snippity does that for me! I love the weather man at my house :)

Tonight was the first meeting I hosted for the Women on Mission group at my church. It was very promising. We had a great turnout, and some good ideas were presented. I am going to learn so much from those ladies~ I cannot wait! And, I baked a scrumptious peach pound cake to get the ladies to be nice to me. Maybe I can snag a photo of that for you in the morning, before my family finishes off the small bit of leftovers.

I'm sufficiently worn out from my day now...

Today is the day...

Imagine all the posts we could write with that being the appropriate title. Today is the day the cable technician is supposed to come get our box. I am happy and yet a little bit anxious as well. I think that we have definately used the tv as a tool to avoid doing lots of stuff we shouldn't have avoided. I admit, I am one of the biggest offender about this, especially on the weekends. So...this may be a short experiment, but for what it is worth...turn it off!

Tasty Thursday

Pepperoni Bread

My gang LOVES pizza...how about yours? This was a quick throw-together thing that I made today. It is white bread dough, with pepperoni, mozzarella and italian seasoning rolled up inside. Everyone liked it...and the whole loaf is gone!

Soccer begins

My daughter can kick.


So she gets to play goalie. She is also not (very) afraid of the ball(usually). This works great for playing goalie. However, she's on the short side for her age group...and unfortunately she's kind of slow. This is very stressful to the mom on the sidelines, because she usually misses when the other team takes a shot :( But at least she's not afraid to try! :)

Mr. Max

Max came home last night! It was kind of strange, really. Each of the family members were doing their own thing. The youngest was taking to herself. She kept getting louder, then screaming before we paid her any mind (oops). She was saying I see Max. She really did. He was skittshly hanging around the back porch area. Everone was so thrilled, they thundered to the doors, and scared poor Max away! With some patience, and food :) we were able to get him back inside. Since then, he has been the most loving cat ever! Ok, maybe not in the world or anything, but he was very attached to Mr. Snippity for the evening.

The note

My son is very upset about the cat being gone.

Translation: My best friend Max. Gone Forever. Doesn't like rain.

I'm not sure how my son knows he doesn't like rain, since he's been an indoor kitty. I guess he understands that cats generally do not like to get wet. And no, we do not want another cat right now, thanks for asking. As for me, I'm sad that my kids are sad, but I'm awfully glad I hadn't scheduled (and paid for) the neutering yet :)

He drew another picture, but I can't find it at the moment. This is a very tenderhearted boy. He still is sad for the bunny that we had that died last year.

Sarsaparilla Skirt & Vest GIVEAWAY !!!!!!!

Sarsaparilla Skirt & Vest GIVEAWAY !!!!!!!
I stumbled across this giveaway on a blog recently. I am linking so that I can have a chance to win it. Wouldn't this look great for dress up for the girly kiddos? Her blog looks great, too. I can't wait to read more.

Max is missing...

Our cat Max has escaped. He has slipped out about 3 times now, and we were always able to scoop him back up and bring him in. He waits for the door to open, then BAM! In a house with kids that are bad about standing at the door with it open, it was a matter of time before he bolted again. That time was Friday night. Hannah had that friend over, and they tried really hard to find him, as did the rest of the family. So far, we haven't seen him again. We've talked with our neighbors, and none of them have seen him either. I'm going to get Mr. Snippity to canvas more of the neighborhood this evening with a picture. There have been many tears in our home over this. I will post a picture of what my son has drawn about it.

So much for that plan

I had planned to spend a few minutes this morning, relaxed and snuggled deep under my comforter. Asleep for at least an hour past my normal wake up time. It didn't happen. My baby girl came to visit, then left. Okay, I can handle that. Roll over go back to sleep. Then, my oldest and her sleepover fried are outside on the porch, somehow locked out. That was the end of any relaxation I had. I rushed to get quickly dressed to let them in(see what it the world they are doing). I get to the door, and they are not there. I walk around the house...no kids. So I walk to the street. I don't see them, for about 3 minutes. It's early, so I wanted to be kind to my neighbors this early on the weekend. I waited until they got inside to fuss. Oh , yeah, they got a good lecture. Now, I'm still irate. Go figure.

woot woot...weekend

It's almost the weekend! I can sleep later tomorrow morning :) I'm a sleepyhead, I admit it.

Heading off into uncharted waters...

We are getting ready to do something drastic. We are having our cable television disconnected. The reasons are several, hopefully the benefits are much more. I am tired of my kids zoning out in front of mindless programming. I am tired of having to be the TV police with them as well. The cost is high, in dollars and in quality time wasted. This will help us in our goal to pay down some debts. We also will have more time to do family things, or alone things that require creativity or imagination. I stay up late to 'finish' watching shows that I really do not care about.

Have you ever done anything like this? Please comment to give me any insight into how wonderful (or terrible) this is going to be!

I've not gone entirely off the deep end, as I am keeping the internet. We will be able to check news & weather whenever we want. We also have a daily delivery of a newspaper, so we won't be entirely cut off from civilization. During the day, I don't turn it on for the little kids, except on rare occasions. They will have to make do with a DVD at times. I leave the tv on sometimes just for background noise, but I do have radio and cd's, plus streaming music from the internet.

We can do this!!!
Really.
I'm worried that my husband will suffer without the speed channel :)

Play-by-play

How is it that the weekends are so crazy? Even though I feel like we didn't have much on the 'to do' list, we've been on the go all day. Yes, Apple, we went to Wal-Mart. Wal-Mart is a whole other post to itself! Here''s my play-by-play:

• wake up to the cats demanding some breakfast
• My baby girl (age 4) had crawled in my bed and tried to take my spot
• cook breakfast
• get oldest kid to soccer practice
• forbid oldest kid to have a sleepover tonight, because her attitude sucked so bad before soccer practice
• throw a few loads of laundry on
• wash yesterdays dishes
• make a list for walmart
• decide not to waste a trip as far as walmart, so we decide to go to the pool on the way
• pack a bag for the pool, with changes of clothes for later
• shower so I can shave legs before being at a public pool
• play at the pool (Awesome today!)
• eat lunch on the pool deck (domino's..and it was good!)
• get ready to go shopping from the pool
• realize I forgot to pack my bra to change into. NOT GOOD, so I get to wear my bathing suit slightly damp under my shirt
• go browse a bit at home depot (and dind't buy anything~it's a noteworthy accomplishment)
• shop walmart
• head home
• scoop cat poop
• watch nanny 911 and thank God my kids aren't THAT bad

Now I am wasting time on the computer before I get to figure out what to fix my family for supper, and they don't know what they want! Thanks for bearing with my day. There are still quite a few things to be done before we can sleep.

Tasty Thursday

I am back to my baking self this day. Except this time, I had a special apprentice.

We made a relatively healthy Apple Square Recipe.

I started out with all the stuff ready to go. Then, together we scooped and stirred, and counted, and flipped flour out of the bowl :) Don't worry, only the grown up handled the knife.
My helper chatted about all kinds of stuff while we worked. She's a sweet one.

We smooshed it into the pan...

and had to swipe a lick off the spoon. After baking: It smells divine...

The verdict is in:

It's Good!

Why are people like this?

Why are so many people negative? It makes me sad. I had two phone conversations recently, with people whom I don't usually converse. I won't share about the first call...mainly because the memories are vague at this moment. But the second call was a doozy. Speaking with this woman was such a drain. She had not one nice thing to say about anything. No wonder she was not successful with what she had tried to do! It was all how they never do this, can't do that, won't do this. With prayer, I hope to get past that! Hopefully I won't have to deal much with her...or maybe I will. Well, if I do, I want to keep my ray of SONshine firmly shining! She needs it! Sorry for the vagueness, my friends, but I wouldn't want to make it seem like I am complaining about this!

Forgiveness

I woke up on Saturday morning to gray skies, wind and some rain, thanks to the tropical storm Hanna. It was just what I needed. I got to roll over & sleep a little later, and that is always a plus! The cruddy weather made it nice not to feel like I had to get up and get to work right away. I took it easy, and was able to put a dent in the schoolwork I had to do. Mr. Snippity got some quality time baking a new cookie recipe with the kids. They spent some time straightening up, and got to have crafty time to do whatever. I had a totally laid back day. Ah, rest & mostly relaxation. I even got to take a soak in the tub with a book. Perfection!

This relaxing time showed me that I really stress out too much over some things. I put a lot of pressure on myself to acheive certain things that really are insignificant.

Then, I get to Sunday school yesterday, and our lesson was on forgiveness. I don't think I struggle too much with this. I can forgive & usually forget quite easily. But, through the dialogue with classmates, I came to realize that I am forgetting to forgive someone very important. That would be myself. I hold grudges with myself when I don't do things perfectly, or often enough(like that cleaning thing). I have held on to some grudges against myself for a very long time. Did you know, you can forgive yourself, too? I never really thought about it that way before, but yeah, I think it could be very important!

So, even though I have a very busy time ahead, I am going to relax against myself a bit and see how it goes. Hopefully it will improve my attitude.

I missed tasty Thursday :(

I didn't bake yesterday. I didn't have time to come up with anything really yummy. I cooked several things, but nothing spectacular. Breakfast was bagels & fruit. Lunch was baked chicken breast, pasta salad and some fruit & veggies. Snack was pretzel crackers. Dinner for the family was spaghetti. I spent lots of time in the kitchen, but not having fun. It felt too much like a chore to cook yesterday.

Hopefully next week, I'll be on a more happy baking spree. Any idea what to make?

Have you ever thought you were maybe trying to do too much? I have been feeling this way occasionally. Then, I'd get mostly caught up and be fine again. Well, adding these two college classes may be pushing me over the edge again! Like I have said before, they are not intellectually difficult...but man, they eat up time like crazy! Read, read, read...papers papers. What was I thinking? Oh, wait...I get $$ incentives to improve my level of education. And more education = higher rating for my business. I guess it is worth it. Not to mention, I might actually learn something (that is the most important).

Please, please pray that I will learn to get my time management working well for me! I love taking care of my family, but at busy times like this, they need to step up and take more control of the things as they are able. Also, throw a prayer in there for my family to be willing and loving in taking more responsibility for themselves. That could be extremely useful.

Welcome to September

A pretty typical start to September is going on around here. The kids have gone back to school. My college classes have begun and my day to day is really going back to it's groove. There really isn't enogh time in my day to do all the fun stuff I want to do, but I do get most of the necessary stuff, and some of the fun stuff accomplished.

One class I am taking this semester has hurt my feelings already! It is a nutrition class. One of our first assignments is to keep a food journal. I've done that before, usually as part of a diet. (Sorry if I offended anyone with the four letter word). It is not physically hard to keep the food journal. However, it is particularly painful for me to face just how badly I am eating. I know all the right things to do, but I fall away into doing what is easy, instead of what is healthy. So maybe this will help open my eyes to how badly I am taking care of myself, so I can make some changes.

Now, the days are beginning with soccer for 2, gymnastics, homework, my work and school assignments, among the regular stuff that has to get done. Good luck too all of you who have tons of stuff to do, like me! Get 'er done, right?