New Year's Resolutions Part 2

My third resolution is to keep a strict budget. Neither Chris or I are accountant minded, therefore at the end of the month we say, "Where did our money go?" So Chris has made out a strict budget and we are going to stick to it.

As part of this we are going to save at least $400 each month. In order to do this I am going to have more meals planned, so there is no stopping on your way home to pick up dinner. This also goes with eating better. We are also switching our cable to Dish network. I am also going to open an Etsy store. I have been making beaded crosses that I am going to sell in the store along with any other crafty thing I come up with. I love to be crafty and this will give me a way to make some money on my crafts.

I have not figured out exactly how I am going to accomplish my last resolution. It is to spend more time with God. I am not a morning person, so getting up before the kids to have a quiet time is really hard. Also as soon as I get up early, Seth gets up. So I have to figure out a better time of the day to accomplish this.

This morning it hit me that I have to put all of this into action now. This is January 2nd and that means it is time to start acting on these. We have some PW Apple Cake in an Iron Skillet leftover from lunch at Chris's parents house. I started to have that for breakfast and then I remembered that now is the time to start cutting out the sugar. If I eat one bite of sugar in the morning I will crave it all day. I also woke up with a sinus headache. I want a coke so bad. It would knock this headache out, but no cokes for me today.

Well here is the recipe for the Apple cake for anyone that wants it. http://thepioneerwoman.com/cooking/2009/09/apple-cake-in-an-iron-skillet/

Curly Girl

All of my life I have had straight hair. I mean straight as a board, nothing can curl it hair. If I use hot rollers or a curling iron, it will be straight again before I can get out the door. Back in the 80's, when perms where the thing to do, I would have to get my hair fried to get it to curl. It was bad.

When I found out I was pregnant with a girl in my second pregnancy, I selfishly prayed for her to have curly hair. I prayed for more important things for her too, but I did not want her to have the curse of flat hair. (Now I know some think curly hair is a curse too. I have a friend who has very curly hair and would love to trade me for my very straight hair.) When she was born, she had a full head of black hair. As she got older it got lighter and curlier.

When it got to the point it was very curly, I realized one problem. I had no idea how to take care of curly hair. It is so different from straight hair. My hair is soft and hardly ever gets tangled. Her hair is so coarse and get tangled when you just look at it. She also has a tender scalp, so when we comb it out we have tears and cries of pain and I get very impatient.

I have tried so many things to make it easier to brush out her hair. My hairdresser told me not to use the products that say they will get tangles out. She says they are very acidic. What has worked best for us is during her bath I comb out her hair while there is conditioner in it.

As she has gotten older her hair has become more straight. We have let it grow out long and there is just a wave to her hair now, but it still tangles so easily. And we still have so many problems combing it out.

The other night I was reading Smockity Frocks. She had a link back to an old post she had done about a book called Curly Girl and how she took care of her hair. I found it so interesting that I read all she had on it. So now we are going to try the Curly Girl way. Last night I did not use shampoo on her hair. We just rinsed it and then put conditioner on it. I then combed it with my fingers and then we did a quick rinse. I did not want to rinse out all of the conditioner, but just a little.

This morning her hair is curlier. She is complaining that it is too fluffy and will not go behind her ears, but I do think it is curlier and looks better. We will see what this does and if it makes it easier to take care of her hair. The only problem is that she got make-up for Christmas from her Aunt Sandra and she put glitter make-up in her hair. Just rinsing it in water did not get the make-up out of her hair. I wonder how long it will take to get that glitter out?

Here is the link to Smockity Frocks: http://www.smockityfrocks.com/2007/03/curly-girl.html

Mom's Soup Pot

I have been in a dinner rut. I have had no ideas for dinner and have not been to the store, because I did not know what to buy. Everything that I could think of to cook made me think of winter food. I like lighter food in the summer.

I had finally decided on two meals to cook and had plans to go to the store yesterday. Then my oldest came down with a stomach bug. I did not make it to the store. My husband stopped on his way home and bought some essentials and stuff to make quesadillas. That did not sound good to me either, but everyone else like them and they were happy.

Finally today I went to the store. I have been craving an all vegetable dinner. I also saw a recipe on the Crock Pot lady's website for Cowboy beans. And then Pioneer Woman had the best looking potatoes and steak and stuffed tomato on her site today.

Last night when I could not figure out what to cook, I put as my status on facebook that I did not know what was for dinner. I am friends on facebook with a couple of my friends that I grew up withs parents. One of them sent me an email telling me how she used to freeze all of her leftover vegetables and then make a soup out of them.

That reminded me of how my mom talked about her grandmother's soup pot. She said that she kept a big bowl in the refrigerator and put all of the leftovers in it. Then once a week she made soup out of it. I think that was a pretty common practice. Those women of the Great Depression knew how to not let anything go to waste. They made sure everything they bought for food got eaten. How different is that now? We through food away and do not think a thing about it. It bothers me that I am throwing away food that we paid for, but not enough to do anything about it. I try to make my family eat leftovers, but it does not happen very often. Right now there is a almost whole chicken spaghetti sitting in my refrigerator. It was a new recipe and no one liked it. It tried to eat it, but who wants a whole chicken spaghetti? I think if it is still good, I am going to freeze it and then try and use it this winter for a soup.

Tonight for dinner we are going to have butter beans, sauteed squash, corn pudding, fried okra, and fresh tomatoes. We will probably have leftovers tomorrow night and then whatever is left I am going to put in a gallon Ziploc bag and use for soup this winter. My family may get tired of soup!

What I Have Been Doing

For the past week I have been cleaning out bedrooms. I started in my daughter's room. I have been wanting to paint her room, but it was so messy that you could not walk through it. We spent one day cleaning out and organizing all of her stuff. That night when I was giving kisses and hugs, my son asked if we were going to do his room the next day. I think he was a little jealous. He usually has the cleaner room of the two.

So, the next day we spent on his room. I thought his room would be easier, but it was actually harder. He had a bunch of little things that were very hard to classify. When it was done, he was glad.

After I had finished their rooms, my room was the messiest in the house. I tried all week to work on mine, but I had one big problem. The baby. His crib is in our room. I work the best while he is asleep. Finally on Saturday the kids had a birthday party to go to. I put Seth done for his nap in the pack and play in the living room and my wonderful husband took the other two kids to the birthday party and I had uninterrupted cleaning time. I was really embarrassed by how much dog hair was on my carpet and my comforter. I had taken my comforter off of my bed to take to the dry cleaners, but my dogs had decided that it made a good bed. One of our dogs is a Chow/Golden retriever mix and she sheds so bad in the summer. After all of my cleaning I finally took my comforter to the dry cleaners today.

In other news. I finally got all of my curriculum ordered. Today Grant's reading books came in and I am really excited about them. I have switched him to Sonlight for reading, but had to order them off of ebay. It took a lot of patience for me to wait until I found all of the books together and at a price I could afford, but I think this reading will be better for him. Last year we did Abeka reading. I love Abeka, but I think he was bored with it. When I started checking books out of the library for him to read, he started reading better. I think he will do better with reading real books instead of readers.

So, my plan for curriculum this year is ABeka for phonics, language, math, and spelling. Getty Dubay for handwriting. Math- U- See for Katie Beth's math. 100 Easy Lessons for Katie Beth's reading. Sonlight reading 2 for Grant's reading. Sonlight Core K for history. Some lapbooks and experiments in a bag for science.

I am still working on putting together our Bible. Last year I used a devotion book that Grant had and their memory verses from Awanas. This year I bought a book called Polite Moments. It is more of a character training book. I think I am going to focus on a "trait" a week and find verses to go with that "trait". I will write about how this goes when I start putting it together more.

In other other news. Our upstairs air conditioner is out again. This is the third time this summer. I am trying to be thankful in all things. I am trying to look to the positive. I put Seth to bed in his pack and play and I am going to go upstairs and clean bathrooms. I usually put this off for fear of waking him. Since he is not asleep up there, I know I will not wake him.

Off to clean bathrooms!

No More Fruit Flies

I have been having a problem with fruit flies lately. I put all of our fruit in the refrigerator or in Ziploc bags and I thought I had gotten rid of them.

Then I went to make Amish Friendship Bread. To make it you have to leave a bread starter out on your counter top for 10 days. Well the fermenting bread starter attracted fruit flies again. I had read somewhere on the Internet of a solution to get rid of them, but I could not remember where.

I remembered the ingredients, but I could not remember the amounts. The ingredients were white vinegar, dishwashing soap, and water. So I poured a little vinegar in a bowl and added a little dishwashing soap, and some water.

Guess what??!! It worked!! No more fruit flies!! Can you see the little bugs in the bottom of the bowl?

Anti-Procrastination Day

Well today at Biblical Womanhood it is Anti-Procrastination Day. I decided to take the challenge. Since we have moved in our new house I have had a lot of things I have been putting off.

One is the continual pile of mail that has been sitting at the end of our bar. Now instead of one big out of control pile, it is two small piles. One pile is bills that need to be paid and the other is papers that my husband need to go through. Well cleaning off that area meant a lot of things got stacked up on my desk. So then I cleaned up my desk.

My next chore was to finish tagging clothes for the Growing Kids Sale. There is a kids clothes sale in our town twice a year. I am usually able to sell enough clothes to pay for the clothes I buy. I do not think that is going to happen this year. I am saving most of Number 1 son's clothes for baby and I am going to be buying more clothes this year with three kids to buy for.

My next procrastination chore was the kids toy closet. When we moved in I just had the kids take toys to the toy closet and their rooms. I did not have the time or energy to sort through toys in the middle of moving with a 6 week old. Well then when I would have them clean up their toys they never cleaned up very well. So today I tackled the toy closet!! Here are the pictures to prove it!!


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