September Acres

LM leaves for school at about 7:40am each day. Sometimes I take her and sometimes my friend E picks her up. Today she was ready to go at 7:19. She's usually ready fairly early but this was especially early for her. She decided to spend the time outside with Smokey and a tennis ball. Here's Smokey eagerly awating the ball being thrown. He often catches the ball in his mouth before it hits the ground. Very impressive. LM got a whistle at school and wanted to 'train' him to come to the whistle. Seems he prefers to come when he is called by name. Yes, she looks a bit like a ragamuffin here, right before leaving for school. Nothing a hairbrush can't fix...

The title of this post means two things to me today. First, I will tell you what's going on with me. In a nutshell, lots. Only 3 weeks left of school. This school year has flown by - much faster than K & 1st did. But I am happy for summer vacation to be here. It's nice to slow down a bit. And, although we don't really sleep in here it's nice not to have to be out of the house everyday @ 7:40 am. I have put in my request for LM's teacher for next year. We have a new principal this year and no one is quite sure if she will accept requests but LM's teacher wrote down my request in case she does. There has been so much talk about no requests this year that I was a little hesitant to do it. But I thought, darnnit , I pay my taxes that pay the school employees salaries (so in a sense they work for us, right??) & I help out alot at school, try not to cause problems, let the teachers teach, etc so I figured I had nothing to lose. We requested Mrs. A, who was...

We are still watching American Idol around here. LM watches it some and had picked Tim as her favorite. She didn't get to watch last night so I had to break it to her this morning that Tim had gone home. Me: 'Tim got voted off Idol last night.' LM : 'What's Simon's number? I'm calling Simon.' Me: 'Simon doesn't control who goes home, America votes.' LM : 'Well, get me the federal government!' Alrighty then...

Sometimes I have strange dreams. Last night was one of those nights. I had a dream that my good friend and her husband (who live in India) invited my husband and me to meet them at a resort for a vacation, along with 2 other couple friends. When we got to the resort we saw one of the couples (no idea who they were) and the wife and baby of the 2 nd couple. A few minutes later (in dream time) the wife's husband shows up and it was no other than... Tom Brady. Isn't that funny? Where did that come from? To say I am not a Tom Brady fan is putting it mildly and I'll leave it at that. My husband isn't either but in the dream he was totally star struck by meeting him. And my friend that invited us to the resort in the dream doesn't even watch football. She may not even know who Tom Brady is. I am sure this all means something in the dream interpretation world. I wonder what that is...

My friend C is having a baby. It's her fourth but her first boy. Her youngest girl is 7 so there's quite an age difference. She wasn't sure if it was in the cards for them to have another so little by little she had passed her baby things on. At 39 she didn't think it was meant to be. But God certainly had different plans and baby J will be here in 2 weeks (maybe less). So it was time for a baby shower! The shower was yesterday and so much fun! It has been quite a while since I have been to a baby shower. We played some games, which I usually don't like but these were okay. Especially the word scramble which I won. There were some tough words. Like egranftbeside & tinroom (answers below). A couple of ladies got together and gave C the most fun gift. It was a laundry basket with Dreft , diapers, baby wipes and a clothes line with baby clothes, a hooded towel, a blanket & bibs clothes-pinned to it. So, so cute and very useful. I am not sure wh...

In our house, there is a love/hate relationship with distilled (white) vinegar. I love it. My husband hates it. He thinks it smells. It does, but not for long. He thinks it doesn't really clean. I beg to differ. I use it for everything. Mopping the floors? Vinegar Cleaning windows & mirrors? Vinegar (I can't remember the last time I bought Windex) Smelly laundry? Vinegar Cleaning counters? Vinegar You get the idea. Yesterday we went to get my husband's new CPAP machine(more on that another time). The clinician was explaining how to use it and how to clean it. He says, 'for cleaning the hose you can fill a sink with water and soap or VINEGAR and soak it for a few minutes'. My husband & I looked at each other and started laughing. Then we had to explain why that was so funny...

Today Life as Mom asked 'What do you do to save money?' I've said it before and I'll say it again (and again): the biggest change we have made regarding money has been to pay cash for our groceries . I am constantly amazed how much difference one little thing makes. I take out a budgeted amount every two weeks for groceries. When it's gone, it's gone. Simple as that. When I first started this I knew how much to take out since I had been using my debit care since forever to buy groceries. I took the total $$ I spent the year before and divided it by 26 (every 2 weeks) and took out that amount to start. I have actually started budgeting LESS than when we started because I was spending less. When I started this cash system I also was taking the $$ out weekly but found it was going to be easier to stock up on deals if I had a little extra; if I spent more this week I would spend less next - because I had enough food and because I had less money left. I als...