Quick Family Update

1. I think we are finally all healthy. We missed a week of homeschool while the Lambs and I were sick with a cold/cough/fever. It was a rough week where nothing got done. This week is very busy making up doctor checkups etc. It was so ridiculous that I was too sick to go to the doctor for a thyroid checkup and appointments like that. We are finally scheduled to make some of that up. I am so thankful that we never had stomach flu at our house, just the colds.
2. Our church had a wedding on Feb. 5 during the regular Sunday morning service. I do plan to blog more about the wedding soon. The wedding reminded me of our wedding with the same version of the Te Deum that we used. Ram was happy to have a copy of the music in front of him because he did not have a copy during our wedding and he did not have it memorized like I did!
3. Our church has a fish fry fundraiser for medical expenses for one of our members coming up on Friday. We are happy to be going to help on the fundraiser day. I am so impressed with all the behind the scenes work people from our congregation are doing to get ready for this fundraiser. We are praying for a very successful fundraiser to help this family.
4. The ladies at my mom's church are having an apron party this spring. I have dug out some of my books and aprons to help my mom with her planning. It has been fun to get all that out and look at it again.
5. I volunteered to present at a teacher's conference this fall. I don't know if I will be asked to speak or if they will have enough speakers, but I am hoping for a chance to do a little back in the teaching world again.
6. Ram is working hard on his schooling. Reading, writing papers, and doing interviews are all going well.
7. The Lambs are continuing with homeschooling and piano lessons and confirmation class at church. We just keep plugging along and when we finish one book we go on to the next.
8. Because I was sick I have not gotten everything together for our tax lady yet. Hopefully I can finish that by early next week.
9. The dishwasher is fixed. There was some food stuck in it and when that was removed it worked fine. It motivates me to scrape/rinse the dishes a little more. If I owned this house I would invest in a better dishwasher, but I don't so it means scraping and rinsing better.
10. We are studying what activities and day camps this area offers for this summer. So far Lamb 1 and 2 want to do several camps and Lamb 3 hasn't found any that he is interested in. I think it will be a very busy couple of months being chauffeur for what each Lamb is interested in. I am going to look into what the Science Museum offers because I think that is more what Lamb 3 would like to do instead of sports like his brothers. I am happy to let them do different activities in the summer for a week or two instead of committing to an entire fall or entire spring of chauffeuring. Plus I like that they can try out a wide variety of activities and see what interests they would like to pursue more.

11 days

We are renting an old house. Since we moved in on Labor Day it has seemed something was always broken. I have been very thankful that the landlord is responsible for paying the repair bills, not us. I am also thankful that the landlord takes care of repairs, but it does take a little while because our landlord does not live in our city, so he asks his mom that does live locally to schedule the repairs.

We waited several months to get a pipe repaired in the basement that our kitchen sink was draining into. Everything in our house was working properly for 11 days after that was repaired. Then the dishwasher broke. We have been doing dishes by hand for two days. I will be thankful when the repair man gets here on Friday.

Frugal mom win today: We did not go out to eat tonight, we cooked at home and then I did all the dishes. My Aunt Agnes used to always say to do the dishes after every meal. She said if you don't get behind then it doesn't seem so bad to do one meal worth of dishes. That is so true! When we first moved to the house we bought in ID we had dishwasher problems but we continued to use it, we just had to mop up water afterwards until it was repaired. I have not been without a dishwasher since I was pregnant with Lamb 1 and he will turn 13 in a few weeks. I hope the repairman can fix it on Friday!

The Lambs have had some practice drying dishes, but our kitchen is small so I haven't asked them to do dishes yet. They will be glad when the dishwasher is fixed and they can get out of drying duty.

Decluttering works!

The least favorite chore for me each year is to put away the Christmas decorations. When we lived in MN and I had babies, often it would be several months before the Christmas decorations were packed up and put away. They usually got stuck in the guest room and when we would have company spending the night I would finally get the job done.

This year Ram and the Lambs put the Christmas tree away and left the decorations for me to put away. Once again I dreaded this chore so I put it off for a week. We don't have a lot of room at our rental so I decided to finish the job today.

I was surprised how quickly the project went once I began! This was because I seriously decluttered before we moved. We still have a lot of Christmas decorations, but we gave away a lot before we moved. Everything was labeled and organized in plastic tubs before we moved. It was easy to put everything back in the correct tub today.

We also kept some of our Christmas decorations packed up this year as we are in a rental and didn't have room to get everything out. The Lambs chose their favorite ornaments for the tree and the rest stayed in the tubs. Of course we got out a few other decorations and stockings, but we didn't get out every Advent calendar that we owned. I didn't feel that we were missing anything because our favorites were out. When we finally purchase a house again, we will all rejoice to decorate for Christmas like we did in Idaho.

This motivates me to keep at the decluttering. Even though we gave lots away before we moved, there are several boxes left to really go through and decide what to keep. This reminded me that it is worth the time to declutter.

Ram and Ewe's new bedroom

These first two photos are our bed when the house was staged for house sale. It was my bed and my chair, but not my bedding. Ram's mom suggested that after 15 years of marriage and after seeing the house staging, it might be time for us to buy some new bedding of our choice. We gave away the chair before we moved and also our mattress, but we kept the bed. After we had the new mattress I thought Ram's mom had a good idea that we should go shopping for new bedding.

Last night we went shopping and this is what I ended up choosing at Tuesday Morning. My sister would be happy that it is purple. I didn't try to match the blue curtains at the rental house as they are temporary for us. Purple would not normally be my first choice, but I love what I chose. We do not plan to hang up most of our pictures nor do much decorating at this rental house as it is temporary for us. 

After Tuesday Morning we stopped at Target and couldn't resist getting "Ewe" and "Ram" lamps for our bedroom. We actually did need more lamps for both our bedroom and downstairs so it wasn't a total splurge. Old houses not only don't have enough closets, but they lack built in lighting.

Both lamps were on clearance, but for some reason the Ewe lamp cost more than the Ram lamp. I tried to talk them into giving me both at the lower price, but Target said the clearance price is determined by corporate and no way they can change that. This was the last Ewe lamp they had left so I still got it.

I do not enjoy interior decorating, but I am happy how our couple of purchases came together to be something new at our house that Ram and I both like. Of course the lighting was important so we can read in bed! 

Big August update

Surgery went well and I am past the 2 weeks recovery time. My thyroid was double normal size but all benign. I am so glad I had the surgery.

I followed Dr. orders to not lift more than gallon of milk for two weeks and we still finished for our target date to list our house on August 16. After discussing price with our realtor it was listed a few thousand above what our realtor recommended at 11:30am. We figured we would try a little higher and we could always lower the price. It was shown at 1:30pm and our realtor called us with an offer at 6:30pm. The offer was slightly above asking price with buyers that have already sold their house and are anxious to have closing and get in soon. We praise God it sold in 7 hours! The few thousand above what our realtor thought pays for the repairs we made this summer before we listed it. The realtor never finished making flyers and never had the scheduled open house. Our neighbor was upset that he never saw our house online before the listing was pulled for "sale pending". God had all the details worked out for us-even with several other houses in our neighborhood for sale and the sale so close to school starting. We are so thankful for this house profit.

We are currently resting at Ram's parents and then will go "home" to pack up the moving truck from the storage area. Then we will drive to IN to begin the new chapter of our lives. We are getting excited about this new chapter!

July Update/Looking forward to August

July flew by and it is time to update you on several things happening to our family.

1. We are getting our house ready to put on the market. This is an excellent time to sell a house in Idaho, but unfortunately it seems that most of our subdivision got the same idea to sell now. I promise that I will eventually share more of how we decided to sell our house, but for now please keep our house sale in your prayers. We need our house to sell fast and for a profit once it gets on the market.
2. I am scheduled for thyroid surgery on Tuesday. July was spent getting the ok from the endocrinologist and hematologist that I could have surgery. There were several doctor appointments to get a green light. Please pray for the surgery and recovery.
3. During surgery recovery I will not be allowed to lift more than a gallon of milk for two weeks. We went to Ram's parents for a long weekend over the July 4th holiday. When we returned both Ram and I have spent every day since then getting our house ready to sell. There have been deliveries to give stuff away and take trash to our city. There has been coordinating handymen, landscapers, house cleaners, window washers, painters, and friends to help us for our move.  There has been coordinating selling appliances and other items to friends and neighbors. We are getting very close to our goal to have most of the work done before my surgery. Most of our belongings are now in storage. The chest freezer and one refrigerator are empty. We continue to try to use up food from our one refrigerator and pantry.
4. One of the Lambs spent several hours the last couple of months having a lot of medical tests. Then Ram spent way too long on the phone trying to get the results of those tests. It turned out that this Lamb does have a medical condition that 5% of the population has but most of that 5% doesn't even know they have it unless it is discovered during a MRI or other medical test. We praise God that it is a mild condition and the results simply meant that he has the knowledge that he has this condition and there are no follow-up appointments necessary.
5. Due to this Lamb and Ewe having so many doctor appointments we are going to meet our health insurance deductible. This means that the rest of the calendar year will be "free" medical care for our family. We praise God for health insurance especially during years like this.
6. After working so hard in June and July, I am looking forward to relaxing during surgery recovery time. During this time I have some books I want to read and plan to turn over the rest of getting the house ready to Ram and then to our realtor.
7. The Lambs have been troopers during this transition time. They try to play with the neighbor boys when schedules for both families allow before they are no longer our neighbors. They have put up with most of their toys being put in storage and helped move their beds to another bedroom so that we can clean and paint their bedroom. They have helped with a big variety of tasks. This transition time has not been without tears and mild behavior problems, but that has meant that Ram and Ewe take a break during this crazy time to spend time with the Lambs. They did complete the summer reading program at the library, go to the pool with their friends at least once a week, and we went to a baseball game. We have some activities planned for August to do one more time in the area that we live in. They continue to check carpeting and vents at this house for Legos.

Declutter Shopping

We have been decluttering all areas of our house and have made several trips to try to resell items at the used kids store, donated a lot to our pro-life center, donated a lot to our rescue mission, sold books to the used book store, and given outgrown clothes and toys to a friend with younger boys.

A few weeks ago we went and spent all our credit at the used bookstore. Yesterday I went to the used kids store to spend our credit there. The pro-life center would not take a stroller that I wanted to donate to them so we had quite a bit of credit at the used kids store.

After going through the Lambs clothes, I realized that Lamb 1 had outgrown almost all his pants. So this is what I bought at the used kids store with our credit.
*6 pairs of jeans for Lamb 1
*1 pair dress pants for Lamb 1
*2 pairs of sweatpants for Lamb 2
*3 pairs of shorts for Lamb 1

I had enough credit that my total out of pocket was 60 cents. It is a lot of work to go through their clothes and then sort out where to donate or resell everything. It really is worth going through your kids stuff and reselling what they no longer use and replacing it with what they need.

June Family Update

1. The boys just finished two weeks of swim lessons. We went to the city pool for the first time this year. The first week was great weather, the second week was cold and rainy. All three boys passed the level of swim lessons they were in. The last day of lessons was a fun day and they all went off the high diving board into 12-13 feet water.

After swim lessons each day then they went to free lunch in the park. The lunches are simple, usually sandwiches, but my boys love them probably because they don't have a school lunch every day. It worked out great to go directly to lunch after lessons and not have to wait in line. I'm tempted to sign them up for another session of swim lessons because they had so much fun at both lessons and lunch. But I signed them up for the first session so that we could have the rest of our summer free.

2. We are in full declutter mode here. We dropped off these items at electronic waste day last week: old TV, 2 VCRs, old computer monitor and various other computer parts (keyboard, speakers, etc.), and several old batteries. I am finally making it to the boxes in the garage that were never unpacked when we moved here 4 years ago. We have several items ready for the pro-life center-stroller, baby gate, maternity clothes, etc. I cleaned out my garage fridge and we are going to sell it and downsize to just one fridge to save electricity and be better organized. We have had so much trash and recycling from all my clean out projects.

3. We are in minor house repair mode here. The boys bathroom floor was replaced. This was necessary after 4 years of little boys going to the bathroom in the middle of the night. We have other little repair jobs planned for this summer.

4. I have a consultation for surgery on my thyroid at the end of June. I am hoping to get surgery scheduled soon so I can get it over with and go on to recovery. One of the Lambs has been having some medical tests for some minor symptoms. We are waiting for results to know if medication or treatment is necessary for our Lamb. Prayers are appreciated for our Lamb and for Ewe during all of this. 

My collection

My friend had an accident with her collection of Willow Tree figurines. I commented about them and she wondered which ones I have. So this post is to answer her question.

The Lambs (with Ram's help) started my collection when we lived in MN. It took a couple of years worth of birthdays and Mother's Day to get my collection. Then it took a couple more birthdays to replace the ones that got broken. In MN we had them on top of our china cupboard in our living room. This was too fragile of a location with 3 young Lambs. They look like they are wood, but they are actually quite breakable. They are like dominoes when one gets knocked you will probably have 2 or more broken ones in the end!

When we moved into our house in ID, I knew exactly where to put this collection. I put it in the master bathroom by the bathtub. Even when the Lambs use my bathroom, this location is protected from them. We haven't had any break since we moved here.

On the faucet end of the bathtub. Left to right these represent:
Ram before he got married (he still loves reading!); 
Ram and Ewe married;
Ram with a newborn; and Ram with an older son.

When we first moved in a friend wondered which picture I would hang in these "cubbies" in the master bathroom. I never did figure out which pictures to hang there, but I did put my figurines on the shelves. I like the "blank" space above them.

On the other end of the bathtub. Left to right these represent:
Ewe with an older Lamb (Lamb 1); Ewe with a toddler (Lamb 2); Ewe with a baby (Lamb 3); and pregnant Ewe (to represent our miscarried Lambs). When these were purchased for me, the Lambs were those ages. 

I don't make time to take a bath nearly enough, but when I do I always smile looking at my collection. I don't desire to add to my collection, but I like the meaning behind these that I have.

Picture proof of progress

Ram brought a couple more file drawers home yesterday. While I worked on organizing periodicals, he had a bunch of binders that he went through. Most of these were from his time at the Seminary, and some were also spiral bound handouts from professors. He found an entire binder of blank lined paper and the Lambs were thrilled to each get a "new" binder with paper out of the project. He saved a couple of papers out of the binders but all the rest went in recycling. The most frustrating part of this is I have been complaining how expensive binders are now. I could have used those binders for organizing Sunday School materials at church and for organizing homeschool materials. We threw out the worst binders and kept the rest to either use or donate. Here's one more example of decluttering not only gives you more space, but it saves you money.

I recycled some magazines, but this picture is just what Ram did in one day.

To Do List Update

• Tax paperwork is ready to submit to our tax preparer. This year seemed extra difficult-there were problems with our paycheck company information, health savings account information, etc. I am so thankful for our church treasurer and her help for all this bookkeeping! I am still determined to organize the 2015 paperwork for taxes now, but that is not finished yet.
• Ram and I began cataloging the last two bookcases in his office. These are large bookcases, but we can see the end in sight. Our catalog list is now over 7000 books in our home/his church office.
• I began going through more of my teaching files. I have completed 7 out of 12 file cabinet drawers. When this project is completed there will be some empty drawers and none of the drawers will be packed full.
• We finished reading the book for February for library family book club. We are beginning to read the book for Lamb 2's book club. We read the books as family read alouds.
• Now that taxes are done and the end is in sight for cataloging Ram's books, I am starting to come up with a plan of what to declutter at home next. I love seeing declutter progress!

Final January Declutter Update

*Ram and I began organizing his library at his church office in January. He brings a couple of boxes home at a time. First he decides what he is willing to part with. Then I am cataloging and typing up a list of what he keeps. I estimate we are about 40% done with his library. I am hoping I am not overestimating that! He inherited books from both sides of our family, a lot from my dad, and a lot from the former pastor of our church. His library is so massive that he may have duplicate or triple copies of the same book on different bookshelves in his library. So when we finish the entire library then we will study the cataloged list to see if there are more duplicates that we did not catch in the process. He has also discovered some treasures that he did not know he had.
*He has already found a lot of books that he did not want. He also found some duplicates. He took 10 boxes to the used book store and they bought 5 boxes worth. We have a lot of credit there even after he purchased a few books that have been on his wish list. I am always amazed at what they want. I hope to make it out to the used bookstore soon to see what I want with the credit.
*I got together a bunch of stuff to donate including the boxes of books the bookstore did not want and one more box of books that I didn't think was worth asking the bookstore. Soon Ram will deliver all this give away stuff. He already delivered one box of books to give away.
*We have two boxes of books that we plan to share with friends or donate to the church library. Those are set aside ready to deliver.
*Working on Ram's church books inspired me to work on my Sunday School/religion files at home. I made it through one out of two file cabinet drawers-organizing and purging a lot. I hope to finish the second drawer soon.
*We made appointments for the Lambs and for Ewe for their annual physicals. We found out there is quite a long waiting time for appointments so we decided to schedule them several months in advance so we are sure to get in.
*I began getting the paperwork together to send to our tax lady. My goal this year is after I send the taxes in to have all my paperwork here organized and shred what I don't need then. Usually I'm so happy to be done with taxes that all the paperwork gets thrown in a box. I have several boxes to go through. I would love to have all the 2015 paperwork organized now.

Not a lot of other decluttering has happened here besides Ram's library. Helping the Lambs with Stonesetters, library book clubs, homeschool, chauffeuring, and housework has kept me busy. I know Ram's books are a project worth doing and when we finish his library I will get back to decluttering at our house. Final tally of book boxes that left our house in January was 14!

Almost there

Ram's mom hosted us for Thanksgiving. She said that the day before we came she thought to herself one recipe down, 4 more to go, etc. until she made all the food. She prepared all the food before we got there so she could relax while we were there. She cooked everything from scratch so it would be Paleo so everyone in the family could eat it.

It is my turn to host Ram's parents for Christmas dinner. First I have thought one room down, 11 more to go, etc. until I cleaned the whole house. I didn't want to put up the Christmas tree until the living room was cleaned. (Full disclosure here: I deep cleaned the downstairs rooms and fast cleaned the upstairs rooms. I hope to deep clean upstairs after the holidays.) It took me the entire month of December to do all the cleaning. My house was very neglected in 2014 when Lamb 2 was in all his therapy and I think I finally got caught up.

Now it is my turn to make all the food from scratch and Paleo. I began with desserts. I chose 5 desserts because they are small and Ram's parents will be visiting us several days.  I have completed 4 of the desserts and will wait to make the 5th one until this weekend. The Paleo pecan bars were more complicated than I thought they were going to be, but I had a small sample and it was worth all the work! I am hoping to have one dessert each day they are here, but if Ram's dad hears about it he will probably request to sample all of them with Christmas dinner!

I did most of the grocery shopping on Saturday and the poor Lambs have had to ask before having fresh fruit and other snacks that are usually unlimited because they are for recipes. Today I went to a couple more stores and picked up the final ingredients for Christmas dinner. I still had money in my grocery budget and there were great items on clearance so I stocked up a little on a few more items.

Tomorrow the Lambs will put our Advent calendars away and they also have a few areas of the house to clean up their toys. I will tidy up and do a fast clean the bathrooms. I will make the sides to go with our ham too.

I am looking forward to going to 4 church services in the next 4 days. I am looking forward to several days of relaxing after working hard cleaning and baking. I am halfway done with Eternal Treasures and hope to finish. I am looking forward to playing card and board games with the Lambs. I have enjoyed reading Christmas cards we have received from friends and family. I plan to send New Year's cards this year.

December Declutter and Cleaning Update

I had plans to do a lot of cleaning in December while many of our extracurricular activities are on vacation. I did not get off to a good start due to being sick. I was determined to clean before getting out Christmas decorations. Here's what I accomplished recently:
*Went through all my December teaching files. I discovered some craft ideas to do with Sunday School. I threw a bunch out. I don't think I had ever gone through these files-there never seemed to be time to do that during the holidays.
*I organized all of our Christmas books. I put a few to give away and plan to read a few one more time before giving them away.
*I put the fall decorations away/organized/gave away some.
*I am half way through organizing our biographies in our library.
*I organized the homemade jam to give away as Christmas presents. I kept about a dozen jars for us and gifts to be given away later, but all the rest is marked with names of who it goes to.
*I organized all the piano music and piano books. The piano bench was stuffed full and it was all over the top of the piano and floor by the piano. I couldn't convince the Lambs to get rid of very much, but now it is out of the piano bench and organized.
* I cleaned up and did deep cleaning in these rooms:
     Schoolroom
     Entryway
     Stairs
     Dining area
     Living Room
What was needed most in these areas was to wash the walls-I really didn't expect a neutral color inside the house to be this hard to keep up with. The areas that were worst were by door handles, light switches, and the stair handrails. Several Magic Erasers were used!
*I began organizing our files on our computer. I often download free homeschool resources and they were in one huge folder just titled homeschool documents. I started the project to organize all that and ended up organizing all our documents. I am not finished, but I already love how much easier it is to see what we have.
*We have had a very gradual decorating the house for Christmas this year. As we decorate I am cleaning out each tub and getting the Christmas decorations organized. I have given away some and plan to give away more after using it one more Christmas.

Here are my plans for this week:
*Finish decorating for Christmas. Continue organizing tubs of Christmas decorations.
*Wrap and mail presents for far away family.
*Clean back entryway and kitchen.
*Plan menus for meals while family will be here.
*Finish any Christmas shopping and grocery shop for Christmas meals.

Declutter Update 6

*I added all the 700s, 800s, and 900s to our library list and reshelved them in order. Ram and I both chose some to give away. The 900s are our largest section in our home library (a history major married a history minor). It is so good to have that all done and organized.
*I tried cleaning the shower door again using some ideas friends suggested. It still didn't remove all the soap scum. This is so frustrating to me, our house was brand new 4 years ago and this shouldn't be this difficult. I give up on that project.
*I reorganized the chest freezer. I had plans to clean out the fridge freezer and fridge on National Clean Out the Fridge Day, but that didn't happen. I restocked the freezer with several good deals recently and everything fit so cleaning it out can wait.
*I began new bags to organize the give away stuff. Ram needed to go get more liquor store boxes so organizing the give away books had to wait. We now have more boxes so I need to finish that project.
*The Lambs chose a few blankets to get rid of that they thought were babyish. I washed them and put them in the give away pile.
*I pulled all the Christmas stuff out because a lady at church asked to borrow my Advent wreath for an event. I pulled out what she would need for that and my Christmas china for setting my table for that event. I took all that to church. I organized our outside decorations so Ram can put them up after Thanksgiving. Then I put everything else back in the garage because it is way too early for me to decorate. It was good to be reminded again of what I have before the Christmas season. I hope to really downsize our Christmas bins after Christmas this year.
*I organized all my scarves. I didn't choose any to give away, but hopefully I will wear them a little more often now that I can easily see what I own.
*We went to an event where we needed to dress warmly so I pulled out all the Lambs hats and gloves. We were able to find what we needed for the event. We still need to declutter those, but they are all together waiting for that project.

We did school today but I am giving the Lambs the rest of the week off. It is just too difficult when the public school neighbors have Thanksgiving break. I plan to use the next couple of days to do some school planning and get a little more organized. It seems like I start off the year well and then after a couple of months the school room is a mess and my brain is also a disorganized mess of what goals I have for them. Hopefully next week I will feel more prepared to finish off this calendar year of homeschool.

The December calendar is looking very calm for us. Many events on our regular schedule are canceled in December. This year others have volunteered for church events so all I need to do is lead crafts for Sunday School for a couple of Sundays. Other than that I am not in charge of anything at church! I am hoping to get to some deep cleaning in my home after working on decluttering so much this fall. I would like to have the downstairs clean before we put up our tree. So that is my main goal for the next couple of weeks.

Declutter Update 5

I haven't posted about my decluttering projects for awhile. I did break for getting ready for the bazaar, but here is what is completed since the last update.
*We cleaned out the minivan and vacuumed it on the one year anniversary. It was really bad after being in the car so much during cross country season.
*I went through all my empty canning jars and organized them. I kept all the jam size and a few quart and pint size, but got rid of all the rest. I may regret that when I want to do canning and crafts, but for now I love all the extra space in my pantry! I really only use the jam size so it was ridiculous to have so many. I took them to our bazaar and they didn't even make it out to the sale, the lady that priced everything bought them for her daughter.
*I've been working on making recipes that use ingredients in my pantry. I made cranberry lemonade, chamomile lemonade, and Chex Mix. The Lambs loved all the "fresh" lemonade. It used cranberries from my freezer, chamomile tea, and fresh lemons that were on sale.
*I brought home some cookie cutters from my mom so I organized all that and got rid of the duplicates.
*The Lambs went through some of their dress up clothes/costumes and organized that.
*The Lambs went through their backpacks and bags and organized that.
*I organized the top shelf in the coat closet. This was mainly rewards for the Lambs. I organized their rewards and took out the prizes that were too babyish and I knew they would never pick them. I added all those to our Trunk or Treat. Our car was very popular with those prizes. I got rid of all those small prizes at Trunk or Treat. The kids loving picking a small toy instead of just more candy.
*I spent a day organizing our guest room. I still have some boxes to go through that I brought home from my parents, but the room isn't a complete disaster any more. Now I am ready to go through that one box at a time.
*I can't even tell you how much stuff I took to the bazaar, but it was a lot. I took a pair of lamps, a serving tray set, about 6 dozen canning jars, and bags and bags of misc. items and a few boxes of books. I was so happy that almost everything sold and helped the church make some money off of my junk treasures.
*All of the crafts that I took to the bazaar sold so I didn't have any to bring home and store here.
*Ram's parents came to celebrate my birthday and we gave some scrap wood to his dad and got it out of our garage.
*Ram had a set of two very large suitcases from when he studied in England. Since we have been married I don't know if we ever used them. We found the keys and donated them. They are too large to fly with today and too large to take in and out of hotels if you go anywhere by car. They took up a lot of space in the garage and I'm so glad they are gone.
*We took a few other items to donate when we took the suitcases. One was steps from when I did step aerobics at home. I only had a VHS for step aerobics so it was time for that to go.
*Ram took 3 1/2 boxes of books to the used bookstore and they wanted almost everything. We got $80 credit there.
*Lamb 3 decided to sell his Mickey Mouse scooter and buy a regular scooter. I took along a few other items to try to sell at the used kids store. Altogether we got almost $20 and I gave that to Lamb 3 towards his next scooter. He hasn't gone shopping for a new scooter yet. I was glad to get another large toy out of the garage-until it gets replaced with a new scooter.
*I began typing up the 700s in our library. I didn't realize how large this section is until I started typing them! When I am done typing up the list, I will reshelve them. I think I will find duplicates or books we no longer want while I am reshelving. This section contains books on art, music, games, and comic books.

A week after the bazaar I am very pleased with how much stuff we got out of our house and garage in the last month. It went to various places (thrift shop, used kids store for credit, used bookstore for credit, church bazaar, Ram's parents, and some was just trash or recycling). The important thing is that we got it out of our house and currently everything has been delivered where it was supposed to go. It doesn't seem like much progress until all that has been delivered and is no longer in the spot we set aside for give away stuff. It is not enough for me to decide to donate it, when it is finally out of the house is when I realize our progress.

My projects for the next week include:
*Finish organizing the 700 books.
*Try some of the ideas I was given for cleaning my glass shower doors and hopefully be successful this time.
*My freezer was cleaned out when the garage fridge died, but now I need to organize all the freezer stuff. I don't even know which freezer (inside house or garage) everything is in, much less Ram or the Lambs know. Everything fits, but it needs to be organized.
*Begin new bags/boxes to donate stuff as we go through it. We have a complete new start on this as everything is donated now.

Whirlwind Weekend

Thursday our PE class went rollerskating. I will post about that in another post.

Thursday evening Ram and I went out on a date. Lamb 3 won tickets for a pre-showing of the Peanuts movie, but it was in the 21+ section so Ram and I used those tickets. We did not like the Peanuts movie. Afterwards we went out to dinner at a restaurant where we had a coupon. I will post more about the movie and dinner in another post.

Friday we got the Lambs out of bed to go to the library book sale. The fall sale is not my favorite as they sell by the book instead of by the bag. I was impressed that we got out of there by spending less than $10. We did find a couple of good treasures.

Friday afternoon Ram had his annual checkup and met our new doctor. She is from Fort Wayne, IN and she has three boys. Everyone in our family has completed all their annual doctor visits this year. Ram and Ewe just have a little to report for the Be Well program this year. It is good to have all that completed.

Friday afternoon we set up for the church bazaar. Saturday was our church bazaar. One lady made chocolate cupcakes and they sang happy birthday to me. She gave the Lambs  and me a cupcake and put the rest of her cupcakes for sale.

The bazaar was a success and we did better than previous years. We were at a point of wondering if it was worth all the work so it was good it was a success. The financial success is good too.

What did I contribute this year? The youth sold fancy coffee and homemade bread. Lamb 1 is now in youth group so that meant I needed to make some bread. All 4 mini cranberry bread sold, 2 big loaves of paleo banana bread sold, 1 out of 2 bread maker whole wheat bread sold, and none of my paleo pumpkin chocolate chip muffins sold. I didn't mind that the muffins didn't sell and brought them home for us. There were several youth involved and each made $22 (they divide the profits with whomever works a fundraising event).

The LWML makes and sells crafts. Last year I made tooth fairy pillows and Christmas ornaments with a Peanuts characters on them and none of my crafts sold. I took the same items that didn't sell last year and all of them sold this year! I also took a dozen jars of jam and 9 of those sold.

The LWML also runs a chocolate corner that sells homemade chocolate. All of my buckeyes sold. I also made a couple of items for this section that did not sell well and the ladies ended up giving them away to whomever bought something. I'll blog more about those items in another post.

I was the most pleased with the garage sale section also run by the LWML. I brought so much stuff over there. In the last month it seemed like every day I gave Ram a box or bag to take to church when he went to work. Those items were from all over my house-wherever I have worked on decluttering. My silver serving tray sold and also my lamps. The canning jars didn't even make it out to the sale, the lady that priced everything bought them. I had so many items marked 50 cents or a dollar and almost all of that sold. I estimate they made $70 on my garage sale stuff-all those little items added up. I love that some clutter is out of my house and it helped our LWML too. We were surprised that so much stuff sold. There were tons of books for sale and there were many left over, but many did sell. There wasn't a whole lot left over besides books. Someone from church will deliver the rest to donate this week.

We had several people to help clean up and we left church an hour after the bazaar sale ended.  We have never cleaned up that fast. I bought the leftover chicken noodle soup which my Lambs love so I didn't need to cook that night.

Sunday my Lambs were about the only kids there for Sunday School. I told the teachers to cancel class and not just teach my boys. I was in a hurry to get home and feed the Lambs before Ram's parents arrived. They ended up not arriving until late afternoon and we would have had plenty of time. I received nice birthday presents. We went out to dinner at a restaurant that gives free kids meals on Sundays. This is probably the last time for that because Lamb 1 will be 12 in March.

Monday I canceled school to try to get caught up after the bazaar. Ram's parents brought  dinner from Costco. I was scheduled to pick up chicken that evening. Ram did the pick up, we ate dinner, I delivered my friend Joelle's portion, and then Ram went to a church meeting. Our time with Ram's parents was short this time, but we were able to celebrate my birthday with them. I finished preparing 40 lbs of chicken last night. I still have 20 lbs left to do today. I cut it in small pieces so it is ready for recipes. That takes a long time but it worth it to be ready for recipes.

Today we were back to a regular schedule of practice piano, homeschool, and piano lessons. I am so glad the bazaar is done this year and was a success. After the chicken is finished I will take it easy this week before resuming my cleaning and decluttering next week.

Living frugally in our house

We decided that after 4 years living here we would have the furnace checked and any maintenance done before winter instead of during winter. When we first moved in we had the furnace checked and we haven't done anything since then except change the filters.

A couple of interesting examples of living frugally happened at this furnace checkup. We asked if he could look at the A/C while he was already out here and prevent a spring checkup bill. I knew that it was too cold to run the A/C but figured since we didn't have any problems this summer he could at least look at it and see if there was anything major that he would notice. Since we have never had a spring or fall checkup, the A/C unit was really dirty and there was really no way to avoid a spring checkup if we want our system to run efficiently. At least he tried to take a look at it. I will admit that we run our A/C a lot more days than we run our furnace so it should have a spring checkup too.

Second, I mentioned that the day he came to check out the furnace was the first day we turned on our heat. He said his house is much older so not insulated as well as ours so he has needed to have his furnace on for the past few weeks. The day that I turned the heat on was honestly the first day that our house temperature was lower than I would have set the thermostat. We were fine with sweaters and blankets until then. I will also admit that it is never hot in our house during the winter, we set our thermostat much lower than the average family.

Third, while he was out he took a quick look at our water heater. He mentioned that our water heater was set low and we could easily turn it up from where we have it without being worried of burning the children with hot water. He said most people have theirs set higher than we do. If the temperature ranges were very low, low, high, and very high- he was suggesting that we move from low to high. But we have experimented with the temperature from where it was set when we moved in and where it is set seems to be perfect for us. If we lived where it was colder we would set it higher. But being set to low seems to be perfect for us and saves us money too.

Fourth, he told us that our furnace is the EXACT right size for our house and the builder planned that well. If we had any more square footage the furnace would not be big enough. If we had any less square footage the furnace would waste energy.

All this added up to tell me that even though we get disgusted with how easily things break here and we have done more repairs than we expected, it was a good financial decision to buy a brand new house. The furnace man confirmed all that for me. I'll continue to wait to turn on the heat until we really need to, set my thermostat low, and keep the water heater set low to save even more. Every little bit saved helps the budget!

Family Update

I turned the heat on this morning. Lamb 1 is the one that is always hot and he came in the middle of the night saying he was cold. Unless we have a warm day the heat is probably on at our house for the season now. We'll start using the fireplace too.

My bazaar projects are going well. I completed the two craft projects; one took all afternoon on Monday. My baking is about half way done. I've made cranberry bread, paleo banana bread, am halfway through buckeyes (need to dip in chocolate), and one loaf of bread maker whole wheat bread. We have taken so much to the garage sale portion of the bazaar. I love getting stuff cleaned out of my house! I'll try to post pictures of my projects soon.

Due to the fridge breaking I have done so much laundry. We used a lot of rags over several days to clean it all up. Due to the baking I have done so many dishes. I am trying to keep up with housework before Ram's parents come to celebrate my birthday.

Ram and I had a terrible time finding a babysitter, but we finally did so we can go on a date tomorrow night. All the boys are hunting or working and all the girls are busy with school activities. I am already looking forward to a few more years ahead when we don't need babysitters any more. Lamb 1 could stay home alone, but not babysit his brothers yet. Our last date was in January so it is time. (I'm not counting our errands as part of our vacation as a date even though we did go out to lunch then while my parents watched the Lambs.)

The repairman came and fixed our fridge yesterday. Because we had bought the used fridge from them he gave us a big discount on the repair. If we have to buy any more appliances we will definitely go back to them. I am hoping that we are set on appliances now! It was so much cheaper to repair than buy a new used fridge. Ram and I both watched him repair and I think we could do the repair ourselves if this ever happens again. I haven't transferred everything back to the fridge yet, but I have plenty of time to complete all that before the chicken arrives on Monday. Ram cleaned the inside of the fridge out while I was voting yesterday so I didn't even have to clean it!

Lamb 1 and 2 practiced spooky songs for piano last week. This week they both started practicing Christmas songs. Lamb 1 has spent a lot of his free time practicing from the hymnal. Our piano definitely gets a workout daily even without Lamb 3 beginning lessons yet.

Unexpected To Do List on All Saints Day

Last night our church hosted a Trunk or Treat so we were at church for several hours. When we got home Ram and I decided to splurge and get pizzas after our busy week. The Lambs got to bed late but I wasn't too worried because of the time change and we don't have church until 10am.

About 2am I heard the sound that every mother recognizes and hates to hear. Lamb 3 threw up 3 times on the way to the bathroom. It rates up there as the nastiest I have ever had to clean up due to the pizza and lots of candy. Twice was in their bedroom and once was in the hallway. I quickly wiped it up and put rags over the top of it-there was no way I could scrub that with 3 Lambs trying to sleep. (Ram slept through all of it!) I cleaned up the sink and Lamb 3 and sent him back to bed. It took me awhile to get back to sleep and I mentally made a to do list:
1. Notes for Ram for announcements at church since I couldn't be there.
2. Decided Lamb 2 would need to stay home with me because I wasn't positive that Lamb 2 would have a Sunday School teacher and I wouldn't be there to sub.
3. Knew I would need to completely scrub down their bathroom and also clean the carpet.
4. Was very disappointed to miss church on All Saints Day.
5. Decided to get started baking for the bazaar on Saturday after the necessary cleaning.

In reality my to do list grew and grew and grew today.
1. Lamb 2 got up way early due to the time change and I wasn't ready to deal with all his questions. He was very frustrated that he had to miss church and didn't understand why. I wouldn't allow him to watch TV and he didn't know what to do while his brothers were still sleeping.
2. Lamb 1 had changed his own alarm clock and he accidentally set it two hours back instead of one. So when I told him it was time to get up he refused to get up. When I finally got him up, I had to answer all the questions again since he hadn't heard my answers for Lamb 2.
3. Lamb 3 should have slept in after the night before but he was up at regular time to get ready for church. He was grouchy because I put him on a diet of applesauce, banana, saltines, and ginger ale until I knew he was okay. I still wouldn't allow TV so both Lamb 2 and 3 were upset.
4. Finally Ram and Lamb 1 left for church and Lamb 2 and 3 started playing a game together. I started by cleaning off the kitchen table which had messes of candy and dishes on it. We were all gone the past 4 nights so it was a mess.
5. Then I unloaded and loaded the dishwasher because we had no clean glasses.
6. Then I cleaned the Lamb bathroom.
7. Throughout the whole day I did a lot of laundry and I kept running out of clean rags.
8. Then I decided to clean out the pantry. A few weeks ago I bought some oatmeal on sale and it has been sitting on my counter because there wasn't room in the pantry for it. I threw out a bunch of expired stuff and got everything to fit in the pantry.
9. After lunch the Lambs cleaned up their bedroom, put away their clean clothes, and Lamb 3 changed all his bedding.
10. I cleaned those carpet spots.
11. I have two crafty projects to complete for the bazaar on Saturday. I completed one this afternoon. I haven't even started the second one.
12. A few days ago I began cleaning the downstairs bathroom and decided to finish that project today. I cleaned the toilet and Ram replaced the toilet seat. When I was in the middle of cleaning the bathroom Ram came and told me that our garage refrigerator was leaking all over the garage floor. Our garage fridge has been dying, but I still had blueberries, cranberries and stuff like that in the freezer out there. The fridge out there was full of nuts and flour and stuff like that-if I had more freezer room most of it would go in the freezer but I don't have that much freezer room. I was gradually using up stuff in the freezer and was hoping it could make it until after Christmas when we would go down to just the inside fridge.
13. We took everything out of the fridge and freezer. We removed all the magnets from the front of the fridge. Ram cleaned up the water as best as he could. I was thankful we cleaned out the garage last weekend or cleaning up the water would have been a bigger project.
14. I cleaned out my chest freezer (in my kitchen) and put everything from the garage freezer in it. I cleaned out the refrigerator and fit most of what was in the garage fridge in it.
15. Cleaning out the pantry and the fridge and the freezer made a lot of trash and a lot of dishes. Ram took out the trash several times today and we both did several loads of dishes today.
16. I supervised Lamb 2 practicing piano and helped him with his theory work.
17. I finally got back to finishing cleaning the downstairs bathroom.
18. I am scheduled to get 60 lbs of chicken next Monday. We have to go fridge/freezer shopping tomorrow.
19. I didn't start any baking today, but I know what ingredients I still need after cleaning out the pantry and the fridge.

I am praising God because:
1. Lamb 3 was fine after that one time. No one else was sick.
2. We were able to do all our activities last week and should be able to do all our activities this week except for missing church this morning.
3. Sunday is my day of the week to clean the Lamb bathroom. I would have been cleaning it today any way, just disinfected a little more than a normal weekly cleaning. I did laugh at myself that I was so happy this happened the night before my normal cleaning day!
4. The garage fridge died a week before I got the chicken and two weeks before the grocery store has a sale that I always stock up at. I could fit almost everything in my fridge and freezer inside my house. This would have been a huge problem and also cost us a lot of money if it would have happened in a few weeks instead of today.