Observations from the day....

Today has been insane-crazy. I'm pretty sure that we reached a whole new level of crazy over the past 24 hours, and it's only going to get worse.

It started with a phone call from my mother to let me know that my father had to be admitted to the hospital after what was supposed to be an outpatient procedure this morning. It's nothing serious serious, but he's 88 years old so there are always risks. They only expect to keep him overnight, but I've learned to brace myself for more bad news when things like this happen. Of course Mom is getting stressed out because we're having our big family reunion next weekend - I told her not to worry and that we'd try to get on the road earlier than planned so that we can get there Monday instead of Tuesday.

Of course, since we had originally planned to leave Monday evening and we now want to try to leave Sunday morning, we've basically lost 2 days of prep time. We haven't started packing anything yet, laundry isn't done, we don't have food to take on the road, and we are just totally not ready.

Along with all of that, there's approximately eleventy bajillion things to do around the house before we can walk out the door and leave it for almost 2 full weeks. The garden still needs to be weeded, the grass needs to be mowed, there's a huge pile of tree limbs that really need to go away to prevent rodents from taking up residency before we get back, the house needs to be cleaned, mouse traps need to be set now that those little a-holes have decided that they like my pantry, I need to get the house key to the neighbors, and so many other things that I haven't even thought about yet.

And here I thought that I was being so efficient by getting the oil changed in the van the other day. "Woohoo, look at me go, getting it done ahead of time." Ha.

Of course while this is all going on, we have a major opportunity for recruitment for Scouts tomorrow and I've been running around all week getting stuff ready for that, including taking about 3 hours to get set up for it this evening (not to mention making some really generic derby cars for people to play with at the event) so that I can maybe sleep a little bit later tomorrow - but basically my whole day tomorrow is shot too.

I have no idea how we're going to get all of this done. None.

But I just keep reminding myself that it will get done. I might lose my mind in the process, but it will get done.

Why is it that there is one wheel missing every time I buy more
than one derby car? 

Starting to weed the garden as the sun goes down was an amazing
 moment of peace in a day of chaos and stress.

By about 9:15pm it was too dark to see what I was doing,
but at least I got everything watered and started weeding.
And it was still 99 degrees outside.

The bats come out around 9pm. And it's really hard to
catch a picture of them with a cell phone.

If it was a full moon, I might have had enough light
to keep weeding.

Checking things off....

Today was a crazy busy day.

I managed to get the entire front flowerbed weeded, which was more of a challenge than I had thought it was going to be - but it's done and shouldn't be completely overrun with weeds before we get back from vacation.

Hopefully at some point there will be more flowers in there than dirt, but until everything that I planted establishes itself, it's going to continue to look relatively pathetic.

After I got done with that and got a shower, I took Alex and Daniel into town for their very first official eye exams. I figured that since the older three kids now all wear glasses, I might as well get these guys checked out too.

Luckily, we escaped from that appointment without any new glasses - which actually disappointed the boys. I, however, did a happy dance on the way out the door.

We then ran a ton of errands - stopped at a paint store to pick up some paint chips for a friend, ran to the library to make a whole ton of copies of stuff for Scouts for a big recruitment thing this weekend, got the oil changed in the van, grabbed some (late) lunch, picked up a few things at the store, got gas, stopped and got a new air filter for the van, and then came home to keep working on clearing the fabric pile out of the garage.

Oh. The air filter.

The oil change place wanted $35 to put a new air filter in the van. I might have laughed at the poor kid who was working there when he told me the price. So I bought one (granted, it's still a stupid expensive filter) and changed it myself when we got home.

In the meantime, The Dude went to get the Scout trailer to bring it over here and stash it in my garage as we had planned. I was still out there going through the fabric and suddenly a thought came to me - I walked to the open garage door and reached up and touched the top of the opening with my hand without even stretching (and I'm short). I pulled up the pictures of the trailer on my phone and tried to judge the height of it.

My fear was right.

So now, the garage is cleaned out for a trailer that's sitting in my driveway. Because that's my luck. But the latch has been repaired and it's here and safe for the time being, and I'll work on going through all of the stuff over the next few days and get that all sorted out.

But.....other than balancing the checkbooks and washing the rest of the fabric (those are at the bottom of the list) I've gotten everything done that I set out to do today.

That means one thing - time to make tomorrow's list.

I'm so ready for vacation.....3000 miles in a vehicle with 5 kids will be a cake walk after this week.

Grocery shopping - NSM style

Some of you expressed an interest in how I was able to go to the grocery store today and buy a month's worth of groceries for me and 2-5 kids on $216. I promised that I would explain, so here it is.

My first step was to make up a menu. 

Keep in mind that I don't have all 5 kids with me all of the time. The older 3 spend half of their time at their father's house, so on those nights I generally don't plan meals - we either eat leftovers, or I make something small for the 3 of us who are here. I plan the meals for when we are all here. The kids also eat breakfast at school on some days, and also eat lunch there - so that cuts down on my meal planning a lot (until summer break).

Once I have the menu made up, I go through meal by meal and list out all of the ingredients on my grocery list. After I get the first draft of the list made, I go through the cupboards and cross off anything that I already have, and double-check to see if I need anything else. At that point I have my final grocery list.

I don't really do coupons. Our grocery store sends some out based on our purchases, and so I use those because they're actually for stuff that I use. But I don't have the time or the patience to do much more than that with coupons. Not to mention that I don't have the storage space for 873 cans of tuna or 47 cases of toilet paper. I buy what I need - period.

So....what did I buy?

The stuff that's edited out is just what was duplicated when I took the pictures - so what you see is every single item that we got.

Yes, there's a bottle of Mt. Dew and a king-sized Snickers up there at the top. We were hungry. And thirsty. But other than that, there is no junk food on there. I don't buy cookies and chips and crackers - I make all of our snacks from scratch. It's not that I think I'm SuperMom or anything like that - it's just cheaper. And while I'm (obviously) not a health food nut, if I make the stuff I at least know what's in it.

I splurged a little bit and got a 10 pound package of ground beef this time although we didn't really need that much - but it was on sale and this way we'll have it. I'll divide it up into 7-8 packages tonight and stick it in the freezer to use for meals throughout the month.

There's also not a ton of fresh produce on there - and there are a couple of reasons for that. To be completely honest, we don't eat as much as we should (although we are getting better about it). Also, where I now work I can get some produce and lots of dairy stuff at a slight discount AND it's super fresh - plus I don't have to have the cash for it because they just take our purchases out of our paychecks. So I will be getting more of that stuff throughout the month, but not in large quantities so that it will be fresh and not go to waste.

But as of right now, there is enough stuff in this house to make everything on that menu - plus some. So although I will have to get a few more things throughout the month, for the most part I am done grocery shopping for the next 4 weeks. I also plan to keep track of the little purchases that I make here and there and get a better idea of the total amount that I spend over these next 4 weeks, but I'm guessing that I can keep the total under $300.




PLEASE NOTE: Some of you know where I live, and/or where I shop. It's obvious that this is a Kroger store, but let's just leave it at that, ok? And I am NOT going to say where I work, so don't ask - and if you know, please don't say it. I hate to even have to bring this up, but I've had to do some filtering over the past couple of weeks so I thought I'd just mention it here. I know I put a lot of my life out here for everyone to see - but that doesn't mean that I want to give the wackos and nutjobs directions to my front door.

I have a plan...

Earlier this evening, I mentioned that I was formulating a plan - but I didn't say what it was.

Well, here it is: the reveal.

Seriously, it's not that big of a deal. Well, it kind of is. But not really. 

I always say that I'm going to plan out my month of meals so that when I get my money towards the end of the month, I can do one huge grocery shopping trip and be done with it. Sometimes I do it, and sometimes I don't. What usually ends up happening is that on that day, I spend a couple of hours paying bills, then run some errands, and then race into the store "just to get something for tonight" and then go home. Then the next day I get just a few more things - and so on and so on, and I end up running out of stuff and it's really annoying.

So, since we didn't have to go anywhere tonight, I sat down and started making a menu for the next month - with the help of so many wonderful people on my facebook page. But I made the menu, and then I made the grocery list - more or less.

Both of them are really pretty rough drafts at this point - I'll probably rearrange a few days on the menu because I forgot about an after-school activity or something like that, but for the most part, my menu and my grocery list for the next month is DONE. I can tweak it some between now and Wednesday, but now as soon as the kids are in school I can pay the bills and go to the store before I go to work, and all will be good.

This is something that I really want to stick to this month - with me working now, my time is even more limited, so doing this should really help to eliminate some of the stress and chaos that I deal with on a normal basis - theoretically, at least.

So that's one problem solved.

Now to figure out how to get my van running again. And to get The Dude back up on his feet. And to get moved into a bigger house.

Winning the lottery would definitely be a big help right about now. But since that's not going to happen, it's just one battle at a time.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Don't forget about this.

We still need your help.

:)

It's a puzzle

This is what my brain feels like tonight.

I'm not sure what's going on with it. Maybe it's the fact that Christmas is over. Maybe it's the impending New Year. Maybe it's the full moon. Maybe it's a combination of a whole bunch of different things that are jumbled up in there.

All I know is that right now, my mind is going in eleventy bajillion different directions, and I can't seem to get it to slow down. I have so many things that I want to do in so many areas of my life, and I'm just feeling a little overwhelmed right now because all of those ideas are running around in a great big unorganized mess in my head.

Yes, I know I go through this every now and then. I think everyone does, whether they want to admit it or not.

It used to be that when I would get into these moods, I would either ignore them and drive myself nuttier than I already am, or I would just jump right into whatever crazy plan was rolling around in my head at that moment. Or worse yet, I would start all 87 plans that were in my head at the same time, and never finish any of them.

I'm going to do something different this time. I'm just going to let my brain go. I'm going to see what kind of crazy ideas develop. And I'm going to keep a notebook and a pen beside me and I'm going to write things down. And I'm going to figure out what it is that has me so restless right now. Maybe, just maybe, if I write everything down as it comes to me, I'll be able to get my thoughts organized. I'll be able to figure out what it is that I want to do vs. what I need to do. I can prioritize. And maybe I can actually feel like I can accomplish something instead of starting it and never getting it done.

I feel like so much is finally starting to fall into place in my life - I am so lucky and so blessed (that is a word that I don't toss around lightly, either) - maybe this is really the time for me to start focusing on some of the things that I want to do with my life. Maybe this is the time to start looking into how to turn my craft hobby into a legitimate business (one of the biggest things bouncing around in my head right now). Maybe this is the time to start looking for a part-time job to help supplement our income. Maybe this is the time to really start looking for a bigger house for us to move into in the next few months.

I'm not usually the type of person to do "resolutions" every year, but I'm starting to think that maybe this could be our year. I can finally say that I'm looking forward to the future instead of dreading it.

I'm ready to get the new year started.

Conferences and accomplishments

So my day started out with a small to-do list.

We all know that I'm the queen of making lists when I need to get motivated, and today was no exception. I've been slacking around the house, so I busted out the list early this morning.

I knew that realistically, I wouldn't get it all done.

But at the end of the day, I can't really complain about how much I *did* get done.

And if you look really closely, you'll see a couple of things that got added to the list - and subsequently crossed off - throughout the day.













I got to spend some quality time outside by myself today, with the lawnmower - which in my opinion is always a good thing. I love to mow the grass. I got it done for what should be the final time this year. It was just an absolutely gorgeous day out, and I enjoyed it for every second that I was out there.

My yard

...and Nice Neighbor's - both done.

Probably the best part of the day was going to the older 3 kids' parent/teacher conferences. They are all doing so well in school and their teachers had nothing but fabulous things to say about them. Out of the 3 report cards, there was one "B" - and the rest of the grades? Every single last one of them was an "A".

Sarah was at basketball practice while we went to the conferences.

It was crazy sock day for Emily.

....and pajama day for Jared.

One of Emily's projects

...and one of Jared's.

And really.....who can complain about a day that ends up with angels like this?

And finally.....as requested.....a picture of me wearing make-up. I tried to make myself look human before the conferences, but I suck at taking self-portraits, so this is the best that I could do. Blah.

Meal planning for the month

So, tomorrow is my payday - aka the 4th Thursday of the month, which is the magical day when the Social Security Administration decides that we can have our money. And since we only get money one time per month (dependable money, at least) I do my big grocery shopping on that day.

I've been winging it the last few months and have just been going to the store and buying whatever. But I decided to try to be somewhat organized this month. So, I printed out a calendar, marked the days that I have all of the kids vs. just the younger two, and started planning meals around that. And once I had all of the meals done, I made a grocery list.

Yes, I even color-coded.

I don't know that I'll actually get the shopping done tomorrow as I had planned - it's going to depend on how quickly I get everything paid in the morning and on how I'm feeling, but it'll all be done in the next few days, and then theoretically I shouldn't have to go back to the store other than to get things like milk and eggs and such. I might even spend tomorrow searching for coupons if I'm feeling so inclined.

I'm even going to attempt to pre-make some meals and stick them in the freezer so that all I have to do on the really crazy nights is thaw it and cook it.

Can you tell that I'm trying desperately to be organized? I'll let y'all know how it works out for me. ;)

Planning....

So....here we are. We are leaving for TMOART:12 in about 10 days.

For those of you who are scratching your heads saying "what in the ____ is TMOART:12?" it is officially defined as "The Mother of All Road Trips: 2012 Edition".

This all started 3 summers ago when the kids and I decided to head back to Pennsylvania. I loaded up all 5 kids and we drove. And drove. And drove. And we had a great time. When I got back to Kansas and started uploading the pictures to facebook, I called the photo albums "The Mother of All Road Trips". Then last year, we decided to do it again, and that trip became TMOART:11.

Hence, this year is TMOART:12. Nifty, huh?

Each year we end up going somewhere else. Last year involved a stop at a friend's house in Kentucky, a weekend with friends in Virginia, a day in Washington, DC, the mandated stops in Pennsylvania, and then stops in Indianapolis and St. Louis on the way back.

This year is going to be even more of an adventure. We have stops scheduled in Virginia, Tennessee, South Carolina, and of course Pennsylvania. The final leg of the trip is actually the main reason for going - my family reunion.

Oh, and don't ask about the order of the stops. We know it doesn't make much sense from looking at the map, but considering that we have to work around other peoples' schedules and some things that we kind of have to do (like the family reunion), it actually makes a lot of sense.

The biggest difference this year is that I don't have to do all of the driving myself. The Dude is going along with us and will share in the driving (well, as much as I'll let him). So he'll get to meet a bunch of my crazy friends, I'll get to meet at least one of his, AND he'll get to meet my family - I figure if he sticks around after this trip, he's definitely a keeper!

Considering that I had a dream nightmare last night that involved us being on the road before I realized that we hadn't packed any clothes, the list-making starts tonight in full force. And I'm quite sure that the next 10 days will be spent writing and re-writing more lists and going on a massive cleaning spree in the house like I did last year. I haven't completely hit "basketcase stage" yet, but I'm getting close, because this whole trip has kind of snuck up on me rather quickly...

Crap. That reminds me. I have to call tomorrow and schedule the appointment to get the new tires on the van. And make our reservation at the campground in PA.

Where's my list.....?