I did it!

I finally got the pantry cleaned out and organized. Thanks to the Boss for some help with pulling everything out and helping to clean the shelves. I think I'm done. I won't know for certain until I start to pull things out to use them and then put them back after cleaning.That's when you know how good a job you've done.

I've found a great blog, The Healthy Home Economist, and am getting some good tips for cooking healthy. I don't know that I'll use all organic like she does due to budget constraints, or that I'll be able to incorporate as much as I'd like into our routine, for the same reasons, but she's got me all excited about changing our eating habits. Of course, this is just in time for me to leave the country for a few days. But when I get back I'll be alone during the day, have two less picky eaters, and a real need to recover from the expenses of this past summer with some good, made-at-home, healthy food and school lunches for the family.

Off to watch a video on healthy french fries. Yum!

Today I didn't do any of the cleaning/organizing that I had planned. I was going to clean out and organize the pantry with cousin's help. She loves to do that kind of thing and I was looking forward to it. But I got sidetracked by other stuff that needed to be taken care of before our trip (ever pack a saddle to ship?) so it didn't happen. Could still happen this evening...we'll see.

But I did manage to find something to clean out. My inbox. Granted it still has way too much mail to sort, but I did make the decision to unsubscribe to most of my e-mails. I will keep the one from Hillbilly Housewife and Knitting Daily, Lion Brand Yarn and JoAnn's. JoAnn's I should probably stop, but now that I'm back where I can get to one, I'll wait and see what kinds of deals I can find as I get my sewing machine up and running again.

I also unsubscribed from several feeds from blogs. I have them bookmarked so I'm not sure why I'm getting their e-mails. I mean, I know why. I just can't figure out why I thought it was a good idea.

The feeling of not having to delete most of my mail every time I get online is really nice. I can open my mail and not find a mess needing to be tossed out. Now to get my house in that good a condition.

Victory is the Only Option

What is the Bible Basically About?

It's gone...

...and I don't even miss it.

Before the big move home Baba and I were talking about what we'd need to get set up once we were back here. We knew that in order to get internet worth having we'd have to pay through the nose. That had me thinking that we could just cancel the dish service that our friends had set up here for their son. I'm a big believer in the kids not watching much, if any, TV during the week when they have their homework to do. Even on the weekends it's not that important. There are too many chores to do and animals to play with at our place now to keep them outside and happy. Even in winter there's still stuff to do and homework, etc. Plus we were finding a lot of enjoyment in watching whatever DVD we were in the mood for.

We've also gotten started watching favorite series on DVD. Overseas the shows were often a few seasons behind anyway and it's so much more fun to sit and watch as many episodes at a time as you wish. No commercials and you can pause whenever you feel the call of nature.

So when Baba said he didn't want us to have dish I was all over it. Yes! Great minds think alike. All we needed to keep TV here was the converter box since none of our TVs are HD. We get a great picture and there's plenty of programming to find SOMETHING on and if there's nothing, it's no great loss. Really.

One of the channels I'm thrilled to have is PBS. With all the expensive cable/dish channels for kids out there, the best one of all is still free. {sigh} We haven't had Disney Channel or Nick for weeks now and no one's complained. OK, maybe the first day or two until they realized those channels are GONE, but once they found PBS (and we have 3 of them!) they've been perfectly content.

Life in the country is good.

I dared!

Several years ago I bought a book called Dare to Repair: A Do-It-Herself Guide to Fixing (Almost) Anything in the Home by Julie Sussman and Stephanie Glakas-Tenet. That second woman's name should look a bit familiar. Remember George Tenet? As wives to men in the CIA they could either wait (forever) for their husbands to come home and start on the Honey-do list, pay outrageous sums to repairmen for simple repairs, or learn how to do it themselves. They not only did it themselves, they wrote the book on it...literally.

This is the book I probably missed the most while living in Lebanon. In q8 I had Baba there to fix things. If he couldn't then the concierge called in someone (and repairs cost less over there and were usually covered by the landlord). But in Lebanon I was on my own. Baba's best friend, who I called for most things, was busy working and taking care of his own place so there was usually quite a wait involved unless it was truly urgent. If I'd had this guide with me I'd have been in much better shape.

Today I pulled it out again to take care of a situation (you do NOT want the details) and it walked me through it like a breeze. If your handyman isn't too handy much of the time (or just not that handy in general), this is the book for you.

Rummaging

That's what I'm supposed to be doing right now. My plan for today was to de-clutter my bedroom. I do NOT want to do it while at the same time I really want to dig in. It was bad enough before Baba arrived. Then I worked on organizing into piles. Piles that I knew needed to be filed, piles that I was sure needed to be tossed, and those that I needed Baba to sort through because it was mostly his stuff.

Well, the piles are still there and there's even more stuff. I feel like I'm channeling the spirit of George Carlin. What I really need is for the FlyLady to move in with me for a few days. I do use her resources but I just can't see how only spending 15 minutes a day in that room will help. So I'm going to spend an hour in there today. If I can make more time and I'm not feeling overwhelmed, then I'll spend more time. I'm charging my iPod or I'd use The God Whisperers as my egg timer. So today I'm just going to have to keep an eye on my watch.

Last night I did pick up my Luther book. That was as far as I got. I held it in my hand for a bit. Maybe tonight I'll find time to actually open it and, gasp, READ it!

How long does it take anyway?

Today I thought I'd try making yogurt using my crock pot. My good one is an odd shape and could give me trouble when trying to get all the yogurt out so I used the one I inherited from Grandma, which is 70s green. After about 45 minutes of sitting on LOW it wasn't even warm at all and I figured it should be at least starting to warm up on the sides or bottom...somewhere. So I've switched to the stove since I don't have time to switch if I want to get to bed at a decent hour.
I don't know if I want to throw away the old crock pot yet though. Did I even give it enough time? My crock pot in Lebanon didn't take as long to start warming up but it also tends to run hotter than I'm used to. Still, you'd think that after 45 minutes, even on low, that it would start to do something I could feel with my hands. So it'll probably end up in the trash.
I'll keep an eye out for one at Goodwill or Big Lots, I guess.

Right now I'm enjoying the peace and quiet at home. The kids are at the neighbor's enjoying the pool and I'm making yogurt (on the stove now) and waiting for the No-Bake cookies I started hours ago to harden. We went to an LCMS church for the 3rd week in a row and I love it so far. Good Sunday school on Luke for the adults and the kids' SS has been good. The regular SS year starts next week. Feels like home.

9/11 Bud Commercial - AIRED ONLY ONCE

So much to do

I'm so lazy lately. I have so much to do to get the house in shape so I'm spending time online. Makes sense, doesn't it? There's so much waiting for me. Now, to be honest, some of it needs to wait until the kids start school. The Boss is big enough to help, but the Peanuts need more watching and interrupt more, so it only makes sense to wait on some stuff. For the first week and a couple of days of school I'll have a 12 yo and 10 yo still around so less supervision required on my part and I can get some help too. The 12 yo is a big helper and wants to have stuff to do to help. The 10 yo is a helper too and they will help me get stuff done. We can tackle 3 things at once or work together to knock out something that needs more than 2 hands.

Today we have nothing on the schedule except Meet the Teachers tonight at the Peanuts' school and I need to work with the puppies again. Last night was their first "class" with me (one at a time, of course) and they didn't do too bad. Sister is obviously the dominant one and wanted me to know it, but she'll come around. She also wants to please and loves attention. Brother tried to convince me I was torturing him (actually Sister did too) but he did so very well. They're sweethearts.

Well, off to eat breakfast and start my day properly. Let's see how much I can get done today!

I survived...

two whole days at an amusement park. Even during an extreme heat warning it's possible to have a good time if you have plenty of attractions designed to get you nice and wet. Which one of them definitely did. When you're on a boat with giant water guns and the people on shore have the same guns, there's lots of water flying. Today we even got wet while in line! It felt really good, let me tell you.

The last ride got us good and wet, which was not probably our best idea since we headed straight to the car after that. We drove back to town and met my brother, SIL, and their two girls for some Chinese food. The Boss had been dying for it since we got back and mentioned it Sunday. My brother remembered that he'd been asking for it and suggested it for tonight. Good uncle!

Now I'm going to go crash and enjoy no alarm going off. If Baba calls in the morning before I'm ready to wake up he will NOT find someone happy to talk to him. Just sayin'.

Best laid plans

Yesterday we were going to head down to a local amusement park (located in the other country music capital) for an afternoon/evening of fun. If you arrive after 3 p.m. you have the next day free. We took our time, thinking we'd enjoy the evening and then spend the full day there today. Turns out last week was the last week for the later hours. Starting this week they close at 6. So, the place where I'd stopped for tickets saved us some hassle. AND were selling 2-day passes for the price of 1-day passes. So we're heading down there today and tomorrow for 2 full days of fun. Whoohoo!

Gotta love the little guy

Last night the Little Prince disappeared into the kitchen a bit. I didn't think much of it at first and he did come back. We were watching "Born Free" and had the lights low so I didn't notice anything unusual. Until I went to the kitchen...

On the floor next to my trash can was something that looked like hair. You know, like the hair on the floor at a salon after you've had a trim? I thought, who did this? Then it dawned on me. The Little Prince! At least it was his own hair this time instead of his sister's. Luckily our neighbor and good friend owns a salon so I called her to see if she could squeeze him in this morning. I'm letting him sleep in so when he wakes up I'll call her to get a fix. He took chunks out of the front, the crown, and the very back/bottom. Ugh! Luckily he likes it short. Cuz it's gonna be really short for a while. {sigh}

I have my flight for my trip home! I'm taking the cousins home at the end of the month and needed a way back here. For once I'll have an international flight by myself. No one asking me to take them to the bathroom. No one giving me their leftover food (though if I'm hungry enough I might miss that-LOL). All the time to read, sleep, whatever with no interruptions. I'll miss my kids but the time cleaning/packing and then flying alone will give me a bit of a break after 2 months of 5 kids. Don't get me wrong, I'd love to have 5 kids of my own, but when 2 belong to someone else and are homesick or in a bad mood, or the other 3 are feeling jealous, etc. it can be a bit much. I'm really looking forward to that flight back.

Well, I'm off to grab some breakfast and then do some tidying up before the kids are all up and messing it up again. Wonder how long it'll take them today.

I'm a lump of potatoes

I got up this morning with the intention of getting dressed and heading to the school to apply as a sub. Actually I was sleeping in with that intention. Then Baba called and reminded me that I need to check on what we can do with the kids' tickets and to check into flights for me to get back home after taking the cousins home. So I got up, started the coffee, and made my first phone call.

After a couple of hours of surfing online while waiting on hold (and a short stint of reading while waiting on hold after the cordless phone's battery gave out and I was stuck in the bedroom) I was too attached to my FB account and messing around online. I think I may be an internet bulimic. Is there such a thing? I'm so gorged right now with internet "stuff" that I just want to get offline and do something, anything, else but I can't make myself stop typing and clicking. It's disgusting. You'd think this laptop was made of a certain Italian restaurant chain's breadsticks or something. At least there I can eat them with a nice salad, but nothing salad-like with this internet thing.

On the good side I've checked out a few blogs that I've missed the last couple of months and a few I'd added to my bookmarks before leaving and had forgotten about. That's been nice. Also found an author's website and blog that I'd missed reading. Another nice thing.

I did manage to make a nice, healthy lunch today and wash a load of laundry (still needs to go in the dryer) and do a load of dishes. So I'm not totally mush today. To get us out of the house today we'll go get some pizza and I'll pick up a few things at the supermarket. Or maybe just go to the market alone and do something cheaper. Or maybe go knock a couple of heads into unconsciousness and save even more. ;)

Whoohoo!

I'm online on the farm! Yeah!

I have tons of pics from Disney World on my laptop and more waiting to be loaded. Then I need to choose the ones to post on FB, etc. I'll also choose some for here. I need to take pics of Rex and Fly, the new puppies. They're Blue Heeler mix, brother and sister. They have their microchips and they had their surgeries yesterday morning and we picked them up last night. I feel kind of bad having them outside but the run is bigger than their cage at the shelter and they have the room to go into. There are probably a couple of hours of no shade on the run, but even though the room is stuffy, the concrete is cool and out of the sun. Considering they have shade most of the day and two water dishes, they're fine. Tomorrow should be the last day of really bad heat. Chance for thunderstorms later in the week. Hopefully nothing severe. If they forecast severe weather, I might have to set up a dog crate in the basement just in case we need to grab them and head down. I'm not willing to risk my life for a dog, but I want to be ready in case there's time to get them. I might get a litter box ready too in case the cats are handy.

The Boss has a sleepover at his grandparents tonight and the cousins and Peanuts are at a neighbor's. Luckily it was late when they went over so bedtime should have already occurred. I have the evening to myself to enjoy being online.

I'm annoyed that the DVD of the twins' graduation doesn't work on our DVD player or my parents'. It should work on computers so I'll try it later.

Well, it's almost midnight and I want to check out a few more things before heading to bed. But I'm online! Whoohoo!