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 :)

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!

Saturday - Family Fun

Today part of my family is in Missouri helping with the Tornado clean up, I am at home and the others are having their visitation time with their other parents.  So todays family fun is basically me sitting by myself.  I am trying to get motivated to do something but it has been such an exhausting week.  I have laundry that has piled up and a hundred things that I need to get done to the house.  But I am thinking I need to take some time off.  We have been just going and going and going non stop since Sunday.  School ended yesterday as well, so it has been really busy here.  So I think I will have a nice long shower and relax a little today.  Maybe take myself out to lunch.  The possibilities are endless.  I hope everyone enjoys their day, and those who are in the midst of cleaning up, I hope that they are able to recover absolutely everything they can.

Saturday - Family Fun

Well, it is Saturday.  Another long spring week has come to a close.  This is the first weekend it has been just the two of us.  We left this morning and ventured into the world.  We ate, we shopped and we just rode around and enjoyed the day.  I have such a good time with my husband, doing pretty much ordinary things.  We got home after our trip (yep exciting things like Staples, Grocery and Target) we came home and worked on our pond. (Our pond is in the picture below, although it was not taken today)  My wonderful husband is now cooking 1/2 chickens for our dinner.  It is one of the things he cooks that I just love.  It is one of my favorites.

PHOTO CREDIT: My Husband Please do not lift

Have a happy Saturday!

Whew.....what is today?

I had a big meeting first thing Monday, I had tried to do my menu planning on Sunday, and I had a good start until my husband and I talked and we decided to chuck what we have and have something different. At the beginning of the week we had one birthday, one of the other parents was sick over the weekend so we had extra kids we weren't counting on. It was just one of those time periods when a menu plan was probably key. We had a difficult week at work, I had two educational meetings for one of the kids and doctor appointments, just life's craziness showing it's ugly head. The sad part about it is that I can't even remember what we ate this week. One good thing that came out of my lack of planning was I got to take my ladies out to dinner last night. I am not really a spontanious person, but my husband suggested I take them out. They were shocked to say the least. It was nice. Tomorrow we are going to have a nice Easter dinner since we will not all be together on Sunday.

Happy Easter everyone. I will see you Monday with a new meal plan!

Tuesday - Gratitude, April 12, 2011

In early 2003 I lost a dear friend of mine.  She was a wonderful person and she was 47 years old and died of a heart attack.  She had a husband and two boys.  She was happy.  She worked way too much (that is where we met) but she enjoyed her time with her family and she really enjoyed her work.  Shortly after she died I started to re-evaluate my life.  In doing so I picked up a book called Simple Abundance.  It has an entry for each day.  You can start the book on any particular day and start reading about her journey.  She talks about gratitude, focus, self nurturing and various other topics.  Some of the essays really didn't fit me but it was ok for me, it gave me a starting point.  A few years later, I made my future husband a gratitude journal, so he could write things down that made him happy.  It turned out he really didn't use that, he loved the gift but it just wasn't the format he needed.  I have searched for several different formats.  I have decided that it is up to each person what works for them.  For my young daughter I found a diary for her ipad.  She can write whatever she wants and add pictures.  Sometimes she uses it as a diary, but most of the time she just put thing that makes her happy. 

I just purchased a package of ebooks.  In that collection was a book called Gratitude Journal.  You can print it out and write in there.  It is $5.99 but if you like this format it might be a good one for you.  If you like Ipad or Ipod you can get search for gratitude or you can just get a free journal on ipad or ipod.  You can go buy a calendar at the dollar store or even just use a cheap note pad. 

I do not think it matters what form you use to write down what you are thankful or grateful for, I just think it is important to record it.  We are working on our geneology right now.  My husband's grandmother passed away a while back, but a couple of years before she did he interviewed her and asked her all kinds of questions.  He is very grateful that he has those now.  So wouldn't it be great if later in life your children and grandchildren found the things that YOU were truely grateful for.  What a wonderful gift, for them to know a part of you!

Wednesday - Whatever Wednesday - April 6, 2011

This weeks Whatever entry is my favorite Ipad/Ipod app.  I have been addicted to this little game for a while now.  We have six people in our house, so we have a large variety of apps on our devices.  My son introduced me to this little app and then he stopped playing it.  I then recruted a friend to play it with me.  We have now worked our way up in the levels.  It is a free app that is really fun to play.  I even have my mother in law playing it.  Check it out on Itunes.

Pocket Frogs

Friday - Taking time for me / Saturday Family Fun

Yes, yes I know it is Saturday and I am yet another day behind on my blog goals. This is what is supposed to be for me. Time I set aside each day and the past week I have been a day behind with any post I have put up.

It is hard to take time for me. I have mentioned before we are a blended family. One day I will have six people who eat dinner, the next day two, the next day four. It certainly gets hard to plan. Each week I try. This week it is only going to be two of us. All of the kids have spring break and they are not with us. So we have a week of work and hopefully relaxation at night.

I have really had to let the house go this week more so than usual. Now that is not saying I haven't done things. I just haven't done as much as I would have liked. I have done the laundry, just not put it up. I have cooked meals, but my kitchen just seems to be a bit behind on the cleaning. This week will be my catch up week. Obviously there will be less dishes and less laundry. Of course that means the chores they normally take care of will not be done. So it is kind of a catch 22 on the house aspect.

I am only doing one post for Friday and Saturday because my daughter is having a birthday this week. Because of spring break I do not have her this year. I have the option of seeing her, but she wanted to take a trip and not have to worry about getting back. So we spent extra time together last night and today. She had a friend over and they made a pie. So we had a little family fun early. It was nice because she was the only kid here and had the house to herself. Something that seldomly occurs.

I have noticed something today as I finally opened my google reader for the first time in two days. I am getting an average of 30-40 blog notices each day. I love to read all of the blogs I have found. I end up reading blogs more than I find time to devote to writing one. Maybe that is not such a bad thing. After all I am not a writer, and I have no idea if anyone reads this or not. So I guess my best things is just to figure out a time budget, so I can spend x amount of time either writing or reading. I get so many ideas from the blogs that I know they are helping me and my family.

Happy Saturday everyone!