Gee, isn't this supposed to be gone?

Yes I believe that I said I was moving my blog (that no one reads by the way) to word press, but you see I just haven't gotten around to it.  I have accomplished quite a bit of things over the past week, but have not bothered to share it with all of my loyal readers.
My husband kicked me out today and told me to go do something that I wanted to do..... then he posed a very pointed question.....
"Do you know how to do that? I mean, I don't want you to go run errands and do things you need to do, go do something you want to do.".  Well I sat down at the kitchen table, looked at my coupons and gift certificates that I had, thought of the things I needed to do:

1. pick up a rental violin for my daughter who is starting orchestra
2. pick up new jeans for my oldest girl who just seems to keep growing
3. get laundry detergent at Target, since none of my grocery stores seem to stock it anymore
4. figure out what to make for dinner and pick it up
5. go by and pick up printer ink
6. oh and pick up popsicles for the sick one

So as I hung out waiting for the new yogurt shop to open up (because that was the thing I was going to do....) I decided to just forget it.  I went to Publix, bought a couple of things and took my sushi outside to eat it ALONE.

Now I probably only spent 10 minutes on me, but it was really nice for my husband to offer.  I do enjoy running errands, taking care of my family, etc.  I honestly wish I could find a hobby, but I like toying around on my computer, and I like taking care of my family, I should probably spend more time with my kids before they aren't kids anymore.......right now they are all on their computers, or ds's or xboxes and really don't want to have anything to do with me.

I think I will be participating in the SPARK Thursdays over at House Honcho.  I have bought plenty of books that I would like to do for the kids to read one day.  I am also going to start working on a memory jar to give all the grandparents so we can find out about their life.  That is my goal for September.  We will see how that works out.....

Anyway enough rambling.....I am off to peruse my google reader to check on the blogs I follow :)

Looks like I will be moving.....

I am contenplating moving this blog from here to its own domain and onto wordpress.  I am "playing with it" right now to see if I want to bother.  This is a personal blog, with very few readers but it is a wonderful outlet for me.  I am going to create a professional blog / webpage on my domain but do not know if it will be worth it to me to move this.  The only thing I can say is that I could organize my recipes better and actually have a space to put them.  But then again most of the stuff I use I "borrow" from much better sites.  My kids laughed at me the other night when I was trying to measure out how much butter goes in Kraft Mac n Cheese.  You see I follow receipes to a T.  That way if they stink it is not my fault...lol.  So, if anyone reads this post, what do you think?  Where do you like to blog best?

It's a showdown.....Word Press Vs. Blogger!

No more Sunday Confessionals

Life can change in an instance and sometimes it will never change.  I have discovered there is a lot more to me than I gave myself credit for.  For me I have been content and have decided it is time to shake things up for me a bit.  I think that everyone has midlife crisis (I am pretty mid, I must say) but more important studies show that you will change your profession more than three times in your life.  I have already changed twice.....what is once more, you know.  Don't wait until tomorrow to start living your life.  I have found something that I think I can do, realistically and enjoy myself doing it.  I must say I love Blogging, but I have found it hard to find the time or to open myself up as much as I should.  You know there is a difference between personal and private.  There will be more personal things going on on this blog.  I am a proud mom (my most important job) but I wear many hats, and now one more.  I am scared, excited and energized all at the same time.  Come join me on my journey!

Saturday Family Fun

Sometimes your family has to divide and conquer to have fun.  Today we split in two groups.  The older kids took off with my husband to enjoy all the city had to offer.  I, however decided to stay close to home, do some grocery shopping, purchasing a new router (boring) and such.  I spent the first few hours of Saturday cleaning house, now we can all relax tomorrow and watch the race.  It should be a great day!

Thursday - Featured site of the week - Evernote

I discovered this a while back, but over the past couple of weeks I have had plenty of time to play with it.  I LOVE IT!
It is just like one note, which I loved, but I could never get it to sync right and since I had the 2007 version I couldn't update it on the go.  Evernote solves it all!

I have an android phone, an ipad, and a laptop.  It has a version for each of my devices as well as a web based application and a desktop version for my PC.  I can sync this anywhere.  I can also share my notebooks with anyone I choose.  They can edit the notebooks or be granted read only access (with Premium membership).
Most people will be just fine with the regular free account, but since I use it for work as well I find the file attachments feature (any type with premium, pdf's and photos are allowed with free) invaluable.

Want to find out about it watch a great video here:

I have already started a Christmas notebook so when I see something I can take a picture and add a note (directly from my phone) and there is no guessing or trying to remember.  This is one of the best organizational tools that i have seen in a LONG time.

School starts Monday!

I created a menu to write my blog posts from, but honestly, sometimes I am not in the mood to write about what is on the menu.  Sometimes I do not feel like writing at all.

I promised my husband that I would not write specifics about my family.  So for the most part this blog has stayed pretty innocuous.  I have thought about writing about the struggles that my family has to maintain balance and sanity.  But for now I will just keep this kind of general.....This weekend I am working on a couple of things:
A. Relaxing, school starts on Monday and I need to be mentally and physically ready.
B.  Getting my ducks in a row.  I have four kids that I need to have on a schedule and things ready for the new school year.

So how do I do that?  Here you go:
First of all, our "chores" have changed because we have less time to get them done.  I have used program after program on my android and my ipad.  I still keep going back and forth to find a great option.  I had been using cozi.com but then I decided that I can't copy and paste an entire list to that.  So I am still working on which program I will use, but for now it will be home routines.  I downloaded this app over six months ago and even though I love my android because it is on me all of the time and I do not use my ipad as much, this is still hands down the best program I have found to manage my lists and my kids list.  I can email them to the kids and I can also get them to copy and paste the entire list in their home routines in just two steps.

Next thing is meal planning.  I have been using Plan To Eat for over a year now.  While I like it, I disliked the fact that I could not import recipes from blogs.  They have worked on it and it is better but still not great in my opinion.  It is time to renew my membership.  $40.00 is a big chunk for me, so I am wondering if I will renew or not.  I am going to do a test trial with Big Oven again.  I downloaded that program a few years ago.  Even though it is not as pretty as plan to eat, it is significantly cheaper.  I am also looking at Allrecipes.  I would really like to have nutritional information.  Big Oven automatically calculates the nutritional information.  Probably the only thing I really don't like about Plan to Eat.  Still thinking about this one.

I have established google calendars for all of the kids.  At the beginning of the week I print out a calendar for each one of them so they know what they have to do each week.  Then I put the information on the large calendar in the kitchen.  We have a wonderful calendar that I purchase each year from More Times Moms.  They have great customer service.  One year they changed where they put the holes for the calendar and I called them, they refunded my purchase price.  This will be the fourth year I have purchased a calendar from them.  I love it!

Ok so that is what I have started so far, I will finish up the laundry this weekend and will be ready to start school on Monday!