I did it

I'm not joking! I did it! I am so excited. Oh, the boys - they are so ready to save, save, save...

Yesterday I had a few little things to do. I had to get the boys to the library because they have read everything in the house. No joke. My boys, yes, the same ones that HATE to read. Sssshhhh...don't tell anyone but I actually caught them all reading in the car yesterday.

After our little meeting on Saturday about saving and coupons and such, I have been thinking and discussing it with the boys and Superman. So...I thought that I would try it out while I was in the city. Here is what I did...

Campbell's soup regular price $1.39 a can.
I had a Walgreen's coupon for Campbell's soup $.59 a can.
I had a $1 off of 2 cans.

I paid 9 cents a can. Yes, $.09 a can.

Isn't that just AWESOME!

That is what the Coupon Queens call stacking. Stacking because I used 2 coupons on the same product.
Now get this. Some stores take their competitors coupons. Check with your local stores and see if they take other stores coupons.

I know it isn't like you have seen where some Coupon Queen goes in and buys $500 worth of stuff and pays only $.19 - but I'm getting there. Just one little step at a time!

Frugal and More

Frugal saves money. It really does. But there's more...

Saturday we had a little meeting at the church with one of our friends / sisters. I like the term sister better. Lisa over at her blog gave us some great info and advice. I have heard about people doing the coupon thing and coming out of the store with $500 worth of items and only paying $.19. I thought - Yeah, Right. Well I sure gotta say that Lisa has shown me the way!

Run on over there and do a little reading for yourself and see what you think. I'll try to let you know how I do from time to time.

In the Middle of

Right now I am in the middle of a lot of things. And in general, that's how it is. Some people call it to many irons in the fire. Regardless of what it's called, that's where I'm at.

My family is running from here to there and we seem to be just spinning our wheels. Even with spinning our wheels, things are getting done. Granny Karen is coming home tomorrow from rehab. I am thinking of taking the boys to Publix on Saturday for the pumpkin painting fun. My sister is flying in on the 30th. She even said that she would go Trick or Treating with us. That's gonna be a blast. My mom has surgery on the 31st. I'm still giving Tigger some meds. I just have a couple more days of that. It's not to bad if you hold him right. Yeah - and just how do you hold a cat to shove a pill down his throat? Very carefully!

No matter how many loads of laundry I do in one day, it always seems like the laundry basket is still running over. At least the boys have picked up a lot of the chores and they are even starting to do them without being told. Sometimes I have to give gentle little reminders, but I can deal with that. Every Sunday I assign different chores to everyone. Instead of us trying to remember them, I post them on the refrigerator. I know they all see it on the refrigerator because they drink tea like it's going out of style.

I've been working on a couple of crafts. Yes, more than one. Go figure. I just finished a beautiful baby blanket for a friend. About a week ago, I started an afghan for one of the boys for Christmas. It's camo, which is all 3 of their favorite colors. I wonder how in the world I'm ever gonna tell them apart. Oh well, I'll worry about that later. Today I started making a few more cloth bags. I make them from pants and shorts that the boys have outgrown. Some of the clothes I can pass down but most of them I can't. My boys like to play in the dirt and help their dad with working on greasy stuff. Some things you just can't shout out. LOL
One of most impressive crafts right now is plastic bags. Oh yeah, back on the eco thing again. By the way, I stay on it. Before we started using cloth bags (recycled from clothing) we would get lots of bags every time we went grocery shopping. I searched online and I found an awesome way to recycle them.

Marlos Crochet Corner has this awesome Plastic Tote Bag that you can make. There is a link on the website for the instructions on cutting and tying the bags. Once I get enough of the bags cut and tied, I'll start crocheting them. I thought that I would make at least one bag (probably many more) and use them when we go grocery shopping. I'm not worried about any certain color pattern right now. Most of my bags are white with black writing on them. It's silly for me to go out and find different color bags, that really defeats the purpose anyway. And if this works out, I thought that I would ask my friends to save their bags for us.

Superman has come up with the idea that we should make Christmas stockings instead of buying them. Of course I have all this material that I hoard, so it won't be difficult finding material to use. He has the idea that all 5 of us can make them one weekend. It sounds like an awesome family project to me. I'll have to let you know how that goes.

In the next day or so, I'll tell you all about our pumpkin carving that we did last night.

Side Tracked

I can get side tracked online so bad that I loose track of time. No joke. Especially since I started blogging. It's horrible. Kinda funny too. If I could just wean myself from the computer like I did with TV, then things for me would be ...well they just would be. LOL
Laying all jokes aside, I found some pretty interesting things today. And, I have just skimmed the surface. Of course we all know that there is so much interesting stuff online that we could read all day and all night for a long time and never get done.

Here are a few things that I found today...

Everyday Art Curriculum, classroom teachers and homeschoolers can find resources for teaching art, including classroom art projects for kids and guidelines for class discussion. These children's art lessons are open ended to stimulate creativity, and are flexible enough to work with a wide range of ages and abilities.

I entered another Blog Carnival and my article was picked. WoooHoooo! I love the Blog Carnivals. Mom On Wheels hosted the Carnival of Family Life this week. I'm tellin ya - if ya blog, you really should check out a Blog Carnival.

Now this really gets my hair standing up on end. I mean to the point that I look like a rabid bull dog with my teeth showing, foaming at the mouth and the hair on my back raised up and ready to attack.
Go Green and Get Sued, his veggie oil bumper sticker caught the attention of local law enforcement and he was fined $1000 for not paying motor fuel taxes. And that's not the end of it either.

Fun Things

I found a couple of things that you just might be interested in. And if you aren't interested in them - well - that's ok too.

Halloween Survival Guide, not just a survival guide but fun things to do for all ages.

Something else that I came across today and I really don't even remember how I found it. Superman and I have considered buying the LifePac Bible curriculum for our boys. Why haven't we already bought it? Cost. Yep, plain ole money. We talked about it and thought that once we got the boys going on their regular class studies and all of the required by State stuff that we would start some type of Children's Bible Studies. Here is what I found today that is absoutely free! Bible Study Planet. Yes, I said FREE! All you have to do is print the lesson plans out from Adobe. Easy enough for me.

That's all for now, I'm off to read a little more in my book. We have our homeschool meeting again tomorrow and we are all looking forward to it.

Is This Where I Live

Is this where I live? I had to ask myself that question today between 4pm and 5pm. The house was so incredibly quiet that I thought that I may have come home to the wrong house. Have you ever felt that way? I think this is a first time for me.

After our wonderful Home School meeting today, we all cleaned the car out and once we got inside, we put everything away. How cool is that?! Once that was done, I sat down to read a few emails and I started supper too. The phone rings and someone knocks on the door. Yes - all at the same time. That said to me - Welcome Home! It took me less than 5 minutes to answer the phone and the door - all at the same time. The knock on the door was one of the boys friends wanting to know if they could go over and swim. OH YES! Of course they can. The phone call was Superman saying that he had one more delivery and he was less than 2 miles from the house and he wanted MJ to ride with him. What a joy that was for MJ.

Now no one is home but me. Ok - me and 3 cats, 3 dogs and 3 horses. And the critters are so quiet. It was all I could do to keep from sneaking into my dark and cold bedroom for a quick nap. I resisted! I finished supper, WW and JD came home and started studying for their Science test. Superman and MJ were walking in the door about the time all of that was happening and the quietness was over. What a pleasant and relaxing hour that was. And I add - very much needed.

Today on the way to our Home School group meeting I was busy thinking of ways to make the ride a learning thing for the boys. So I started asking what the road sign that we just past had said. The boys had no clue. Then I started giving points and they were interested really quick. Talk about competition! Then I had to get more creative. Now was this a learning trip for me or was it for the boys? Ok - both! Now I try to make it real interesting. We start looking for road signs with US Highways on them. Oh yeah! US 27 and US 41 and on and on... They loved it. JD saw a solar panel and ask me what was it and then he ask what was it for. Without me really researching that particular solar panel, I couldn't give him a 100% answer. My answer was that it could be used to power the lights for the train engineer. Then they all ask about lights for the train engineer. Which lead to the question of what is in the cars on the train.

There was coal in the cars on the train. We talked about how coal is used to make power for us to use everyday. I am always telling the boys to please don't use the lights in the house during the day. Please open your curtains or your blinds for natural light. They just could grasp the concept of why I don't want the lights on during the day. Well today was an eye opening experience for them. The conversation about the coal lead to the miners that were trapped in the coal mine. I had to explain what miners are and what they do. Our boys had no idea that there were men and women that actually worked underground so that when we turn on the light switch we can have power and make the light work. WW said to me "Mom, why didn't you tell us about the miners? Now I understand and I will try harder to help the miners." What a wonderful think for WW to say.

Explain things to your children. Don't just assume that they will understand. Everything that you tell your children is not because you say so.

Hump Day

We all made it to Hump Day! What a relief.

I have got to get out of the house more though. I am spending way to much time inside and our yard is really suffering from it. I need to pick up a few things and tidy the whole yard up. It really isn't too bad, but it isn't nice and neat like I prefer it to be. Since Rocko came to live with us, he has taken to laying in two places. Of course those places are right up against the skirting on the house. Right now it is just pushed in just a little but if I keep on putting off working on it, then it could get pretty ugly. I like to keep up with things like that so they don't get to far out of hand. It is one of the easiest things to fix too.

Speaking of getting out of hand. Yesterday I had the horses grazing on the yard. I hear a really weird noise in the den. I walk into the den and I can tell that the noise is coming from the window. I open the curtain and what do I see...Shadow looking back at me. Shadow is one of our horses. She has the screen from the window in her mouth. No joke! She pulls on the screen and it comes out of the window, then she drops it. Once she drops the screen, she starts licking on the window. What's up with that? She is just being her silly little (1500 pound little) self. And now I have a screen to fix. But this is just one of the things that happens around here from time to time.

School wasn't bad today. JD did have a small issue with a sassy mouth, but I just don't put up with it anymore. I just tell him in a very calm voice to go to his room. When he is ready to do school work and put his mind on the task at hand, then he can come back to the classroom. Today was just one of those days that he needed sleep. He gets that way from time to time. He went to his room and slept for over 2 hours. He knows that he cannot come out of his room without my permission, so after his nap he opened his door and called me. I didn't jump up right then, I waited a minute or 2 and then I went into his room and ask if he needed to go to the bathroom or get something to drink. He wanted a drink and then he ask if he could do his school work. He started on his school work and there were no problems at all the rest of the day. I really think that he is having some sleep issues and at some point they are just catching up with him. Superman and I are paying attention and we are trying to put things together and figure out ways that we can help him.

Tomorrow is our weekly field trip with our home school group. The boys look forward to it every Thursday. I have a few more emails to read and then I am off to bed. I refuse to stay up to late tonight.

Have a great evening!

Empty Bottles

Last night I thought that I would spend some relaxing time in a hot bath. I walk into the bathroom to start the water and Captain (as usual) thinks the running water is for her drinking pleasure. Much to her surprise, her tail ended up soaked and the cat hair flew as she took wing and hovered above the water for a brief second before finally finding her wings and flying across the bathroom. Well that's what it looked like in the blink of an eye. Cats sure can move fast!

With the bath water all steaming and ready for me, I eased down in the water and instantly could feel my skin start to cook. Ok - a little to hot! It's too late to back out now. I lean against the back of the tub and try to relax. I see empty bottles (now why didn't I close my eyes). The empty bottles are shampoo bottles, liquid soap bottles and heavens knows what else. I just looked at them and wondered how did they all come to live beside the tub. Oh, now I remember! (That comes directly from one of the boys sayings.) I buy the large bottles, because it saves money, and I refill all the bottles around the house. Once the bottles are low enough, I turn them upside down and put them by my tub in order to use them and not waste a single drop. I even put a little water inside them when they are completely empty, just to make sure that not even one teeny tiny drop is wasted. I managed to empty the shampoo bottle, the soap bottle and the conditioner bottle last night. Now around my tub looks all nice and neat again, no skeletons standing around upside down waiting for their brains to spill out.

So far today I have managed to get a little cleaning done (Karisma, this is all your fault). I hate housework! I really do. There is no doubt that I had rather move horse manure all day as to spend 1 single hour cleaning house. I always keep the house fairly tidy, because we all pick up behind ourselves. I can promise you that if I find a pair of socks laying around, I will attach them to the floor with a nail and a hammer. Well not really, but the boys think I will. I have them convinced and that is what's important. During the day we are all individually responsible for our dishes. You mess it up you wash, dry and put it away. After supper we all pitch in and do the dishes. Laundry, well I wash everyone dirty underwear. Isn't that a lovely chore? I know I do it because there is a certain way that I want it done. What can be so darn difficult about doing laundry? Nothing, absolutely nothing. It's just something I do. Ok - the boys help out a little. They fold their own clothes and put them away.

Since I have dial up and it's slower than molasses in January, I am able to do a few of these things, while I was waiting for a few (dozen) windows to open on my computer. Here are a few sites that I found that I will be saving in my favorites folder, for later use. DIY Ideas, Garden Ideas, Kitchen and Bath Ideas. I think these sites may be what put me in the cleaning mode and not Karisma. Ok Missy - I'm sorry to blame it on you!

Thursdays Fieldtrip

We met with our Home School group again. Yeppers - back at the springs. I don't remember if I told you the name of the springs or not but anyway, we meet at Rum Island Springs. The kids get to swim and interact with others of all ages, even adults. The park admission is free on Thursdays. We had a great time (as usual). Our coordinator couldn't stay because she had to take her oldest son to the doctor. An email from her today said that her son is fine and on antibiotics.

We had 2 new parents and 3 new children join our group in the last week. Great people! I think the group is really going to grow.

I will tell you all about JD a little later. Ok - I'll tell you now. He was not allowed to swim because of his behavior on Wednesday. He sat at our table and complained about his work. My gosh - he only had 7 questions to answer. It was open book and the answers were on 2 pages. Ok - enough of that for now.

When we left the springs and went into Gainesville because as usual, I try to save time and gas and get everything done while I am out and about. We stopped by The Learning Path and the boys loved the store. I thought it was ok - well better than ok but I think it is more focused on Public School than Home School. There really are some wonderful things for the classroom, if you are into that sorta stuff. Once we left there we drudged across town and into the University traffic. Yeah - what a blast that was. LOL Barnes and Noble bookstore. One of my very favorite stores. The boys had read some books during the summer and for every 8 books that they read, they could get a free book. WW and JD was able to get 2 free books and MJ was able to get 1 free book. Pretty darn neat idea! I had 2 gift cards, one from Mothers Day and one from my birthday that I wanted to use to get me a couple of new books. I walked around and around and I looked and looked - no books for me. I know - how can I not find a book for me in a darn book store? Because I shop the bargain books. I generally buy my favorite author's hardback books for less than $10. That way I can get more bang for my bucks. Or more books for my bucks! I love a bargain! I did manage to find 2 wonderful wall maps for our classroom - one is a World map and the other one is the United States. I managed to get them for $6 and that was with my 20% Teachers Discount (more about this in a minute). As I was walking around looking for my books, I found a table with some school info on it. There was an application for a 20% Teachers Discount - It includes Home School. I'm all signed up for my Teachers Discount! Yee Haw! You really need to check it out!

5 O'clock traffic! Oh no! And to top all the traffic off, WW started screaming like a little girl! And crawling across the back seat and coming out of the shoulder harness of his seat belt. A teeny, tiny spider was on his seat belt. Boy, oh boy - You would have sworn that a giant man eater had jumped in the car with us. I had to stop the car and have a talk to him about spiders and they are not man eaters. It certainly made an interesting topic at supper.

Ok - now will you please pass the Xanax!

ps - JD finally finished his school work and the munchkin made a 100!

My First Home School Meeting

I am so excited! Me and the boys went to our first home school meeting today. It was great! The people were wonderful! We met at one of the Springs here in North Central Florida. Our group is the "Tri-River Home school Group" We meet every Thursday from 10am til 12pm. When we first got to the meeting, we had informal introductions, then all the kids ran off to play and swim. The adults kinda just walked around and watched the kids or went swimming. Me - I waded in the water, kidded around with the kids (all of them) and talked to a couple of other homeschoolers and non-homeschoolers. A very relaxing atmosphere. Merrillee (the group leader) called us all up to the table and we had a more formal introduction, she talked to everyone (kids and parents), just letting us know what to expect. That lasted about 20 minutes and then we were all off to play, swim, mingle and do our own thing.

While Merrillee was talking to everyone, MJ tapped me on the arm, so I bent down to hear his little whisper, He said "Momma, I think I am really gonna like this group". I think all of my boys are excited about being home schooled now more than ever. Even JD seems more excited about it.

The first meeting in September will be more formal and less play time. However, there will still be play time and swim time. We will attend as many meetings as possible and we all look forward to the lessons that we all will learn. There will be Park Rangers, Bread Makers and many other speakers for our group. We will take nature walks and learn lots and lots about nature. I am really glad that the boys are going to be in that first hand. And Merrillee is an artist and she will teach us all Art. How wonderful is that?!

Better Ending to a Bad Start

Well I have to say that my 1 mile walk/trot thing was my workout for the day. I had all kinds of plans on what I wanted to accomplish today, but things happen. The horses made sure that I managed to get my exercise this morning. I guess they just figured I needed it - and of course - I did need the exercise. Thank you CoCo, Shadow and Redman!

After my little rodeo, I decided that I was pretty much done for the day. With the August heat outside and the air conditioner on inside - hmm... think I'll stay cool for the rest of the day. I started doing a few things inside and then I thought about getting a few errands done. Darn good thing I did. By doing 2 errands today I saved almost $100. Here's how I did it...

I decided to go ahead and run over to our local home school store and buy the Lifepac material that I needed to start school on the 20th of this month. They didn't have all the material that I needed, so I ordered it. By paying for the items today, I didn't have to pay State sales tax. Yes - no tax until midnight tonight for school purchases. How cool is that?! I had a store credit of $42.95 also. WW and JD will be starting in the 5th grade, so I don't have to buy the teachers guide for one set. That in it self saved me another $40. So with the credit, the discount for not needing the 2nd teachers guide and the no sales tax, I think I did pretty darn good. We were looking at $250 for each child, making it a total of $750. However, I managed to get all my material paid for at a grand total of $516.00. Yippee!

Off to Walmart I hurried so I could pick up a few last minute little things (3 chairs, 3 binders, 3 pair of scissors, 3 sets of binder dividers, 2 erasers and a quilt marking pen for me). We're getting ready for our big day - our first day of home school. I think the boys are as excited as I am. I showed all the material to Superman and I thought he was gonna cry. We both are so happy that we are able to love and provide for our 3 boys.

I almost forgot to mention that I started a quilt pattern today. I haven't quilted in several months of Sundays. So for now, I am off to bed (and lookie at that, it's before midnight), really early doctor appointment in the morning. Nighty, night, night!

Breezy Yard Sale

We finally set up for a yard sale today. I know...It's about time. I certainly wished that I would have planned better. But that's ok with us. It's not easy when you have 3 boys that are constantly calling "Mom" and for some reason there always seems to be a question mark at the end of "Mom". It kinda sorta sounds like this "Mom?!" We were set up with the yard sale at my moms house because she is right on the road and we are just too darn far for drive by buyers. We made a total of $34 - I split the money with the boys and kept $5 for myself. What I kept was all in change, so I just dropped it in our vacation jar. I know that $34 doesn't sound like much but to the boys it's a lot of money. Their faces sure did beam when I gave them their cut.
Right when we were packing up, an elderly man came by. He gave us this story about how he is disabled and trying to support 13 adults and kids. It doesn't matter to us. And I even told him, "I won't be offended if you have a yard sale with these items". He said that what he does is has a bunch of friends over and they all sit around and go through the items, then the items that no one wants are given to the kids and the kids are allowed to have a yard sale with those items. I'm ok with that. Think of it this way - we were gonna pack it all up and give it to charity. Then we woulda had to pay for gas to take it to charity. Now it's all gone and hopefully it will be used by someone else. It's not in the landfill and that is very important to us.

Today there was a breeze blowing almost all day. That's always nice when the temperature is 99 degrees. It was still hot but not as hot as it coulda been.

Recent Sewing Things

I think I mentioned that I have been doing a little sewing in the last couple of days. I put together some curtains for our homeschool classroom. They have a map of the world on them. The cutest darn things (or so I think). All of the primary colors too. WW and JD helped me sew them and they really enjoyed the project.

Yesterday I made curtains for our den. Of course they are John Deere print. I had to think for over an hour on how to hang them. Finally it came to me...I had some left over legs from a pair of jeans, so sure enough, I used the jeans material and I left the seam out for them the ravel. How cool is that?! Superman picked out the material and he said that he would love to have curtains made with the material. I orginally had a sunflower print hanging underneath them but I just didn't like the look. Yes, I made the sunflower curtains too and now I have them set aside for another window.

Check this out! I think I am the proudest of my little jeans project. My youngest son MJ somehow managed to ruin a new pair of Wrangler Jeans. Me being the thrifty and frugal person that I am thought that I would try to fix them. Well I tried. Sometimes things are just not repairable. I kept the jeans out and I thought and thought about what to do with them. I just didn't want to throw them out. It finally hit me! So I pulled out the sewing machine and started planning and sewing. I cut the legs off just above the crotch, that way I could fix the rip below the zipper. Here is what I came up with...a clothes pin bag!

I took the legs from the jeans and made a cute little bag. Sometimes when there are jeans that no one wears, I will cut them up and save them for later use. I had some pockets left over from another pair of jeans and added them to the bag. I had some heavy duty camo material, scraps from another project that I made handles out of. I know they kinda look like a pair of short shorts, but that really is the whole thought. Well that and the idea of recycling instead of putting something else in the landfill. To use the clothes pin bag, the easiest way would be to untie the bow and unzip the zipper. So watcha think?

I put all of the seams on the outside of the bag for them the ravel and I think it looks really neat. I can't wait to take it to the grocery store and load it up. It is heavy enough to tote the heaviest of thing. Now if I can only tote it once it is loaded up. But who says that I have to fill it to the top.

I am thinking about selling things like this. I love to create them. They are all orignal - designed and sewn by the 3 of us...Me, Myself and I.

Good Stuff

Bread on the Grill I thought this was just awesome!
Bake it Better Free information delivered to your inbox.
Baking with Kids A grandfather shares his experience with kids and grandkids with tips, techniques, and more.
The Prepared Pantry is a great place to get lots of free recipes, tips, tricks and so much more.

Here is a great link for the Farm Girl in you (or even the Farm Boy). Mary Janes Farm. There is also an Outpost for Mary Janes Farm.

Family Friendly Sites.

If you are interested in working from home, you may want to check Work At Home Resources - Resources for the work at home mother or anyone else who wishes to start a home-based business! A Woman in Business, Work From Home Directory, Working From Home With Success.

Maybe you just like to read Ezines or Newsletters.

There are lots of Free stuff at The Free Site or you can go over to The Free Stuff.

Don't forget to support your local farmers. The best organic food is what's grown closest to you. Find farmers' markets, family farms, and other sources of sustainably grown food in your area, where you can buy produce, grass-fed meats, and many other goodies. Local Harvest.

My Most Recent Finds

Well it's late again, and I am up while the rest of the family is sleeping. I really messed up today because I took a 2 hour nap. I call it a cat nap because every little thing would make my ears perk up just like a cat. Naps are generally out of the question for me because I have enough trouble sleeping normal hours. Generally when I get sleepy during the day, I will busy myself in some way. I usually get a lot done by just piddling around.
This morning we managed to get some low hanging limbs cut from around the barn. WW hauled 3 trailer loads with the four wheeler and there are about 3 more loads left on the ground for all of us to clean up tomorrow. I managed to get a few more things added to my little flower garden.
As soon as this roll of hay is gone, we are going to redo the inside of the barn. It's pretty funny that I even call it a barn. It started out as one of those metal sheds that Sears used to sell. You know the ones, they rust in about 2 years. A few years back we had a tin roof over it and my dad and my father in-law came over and helped us add on to it and pull the old rusty shed out. Now it's an L shape shed. But it just sounds much better when I call it a barn. I keep the horse feed and the hay in it and it is located in our little paddock, so we have come to call it a barn. I just like the sound of "barn" better anyway.

Since I am awake and everyone else is asleep, it really gives me some time online without being interrupted. So I browse through my emails, read a few blogs and in general just get caught up online.

Here are a few things that I just found that I really like and wanted to share them with you.

Maggie's Musings is a very interesting blog.
Martha Stewart has a lot of great tips and a website that can keep one busy all day. I especially like the crafts Martha Stewart Crafts.
If you are looking for low-cost, home-cooking from scratch, you really must check out HillBilly HouseWife. Owned by Miss Maggie. She is also the owner of An Old-Fashioned Education, where you will find a directory of free homeschool curricula, literature and text books organized for the use of homeschooling families.

I know I certainly will be looking around these websites. I like the whole issue of free.

Recent Things I Found Online

I sure know that I can spend hours and hours online. I have got to start limiting the time that I spend in front of the computer and get outside more. It seems like I get a lot done while I am online. Why? Because I have dial up. LOL I click on several links and I wait for them to open. While I am waiting, I have a chance to check a few emails, open a few more links from our local newspaper, take something out for dinner, turn the horses out, put on a load of laundry, hang out a load of laundry, do a few things with the kids, run a few errands and so much more. Once all of that is done, I can finally sit back down to look at the links that I have opened. I save a lot of them to my favorites, so that I can go back and look at them later. Later when I have more time.

Our latest update is that things are going really well with the boys. They have settled in really nicely and our finalization for the adoption is approaching rather quickly. We still don't have a court date but we expect to have one any day now. It will be exciting for all of us. We plan to invite some family and some friends to join us when we go to court to sign all of the final paperwork and the judge can put his/her final approval on our adoption.

Now back to my online adventures. Well I did say ramblings from a country family...LOL
Ok - here are a couple of things that I have come across lately that I think you might like. And hey - if you don't like them, remember you have control, just click on the bright red box in the top right of your screen and close the window.

Rolling Dog Ranch Animal Sanctuary
If you are interested in posting a flyer in one of your local businesses, you can get the PDF flyer here Flyer
I was amazed at what the Rolling Dog Ranch Animal Sanctuary is doing for the animals.

I wanted to invite you to join me on Gather. It's FREE. And best of all when you join and get five friends to join, you'll get a $20 Borders Gift Card!

Gather is a social network where people like us can write about and share our interests. The content is great and ranges from politics to cooking, plus you can publish your own articles or photos and comment on others' contributions. We even earn Gather Points just for using the site! You can exchange your points for great stuff like books, CDs, wine, and vacations. Check it out! Hope to see you on Gather.


The Awareness Garden. Honor the women in your life & help grow breast cancer awareness. You can plant an e-flower at The Awareness Garden.

Lowes has a great Money Saving Energy Guide that you can get for free.

Well I guess that is it for now. I am off to bed (finally). I have an early appointment in the morning so I best be getting off line.

Good night everyone - hope to see you around.

Fun and Free

I think that I mentioned a couple things about me. I want to Homeschool our boys, however, I haven't quiet made the decision to Homeschool them yet. One thing that I have just started is that I am Summer Homeschooling our boys.
I started out with my 3 boys. Their ages are 9, 11 and 13. This Monday (yesterday) the 3 neighbor children joined us for class. Their ages are 7, 9 and 11. Our public school has all of the children in the following grades: 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 6th. So you can see the range of grades that I am working with. We all read together as a group. Even the younger ones read aloud in class. I have even assigned them spelling words that will benefit all of the age ranges and grade levels. They all help each other out and I try to get them to learn a little patience while listening to each other. It isn't easy but they are all trying and that is part of learning.

I have found some wonderful links where you can print out free worksheet. Our boys really enjoy working together as a group and working on their own with the worksheets.
Some of these websites are free to join, others thre is a fee. I find free worksheets and information on all of the links.

Find the 50 State Capitals.
Lots of Free items at School Express
Songs for Teaching
Free Math Worksheets
Great printables
Teacher Stuff
The online reading program Reading a-z.com
Connections Academy—the free K–11 public schooling program that students attend from home.
Sites for Teachers
Free Educational Worksheets
Learning Page
abc teach
Printable Certificates
Teacher Planet
Carl's Corner
edHelper.com

Also - I wanted to invite you to join me on Gather, a social networking site where people like us meet, talk, and stay in touch -- all for free. The content is great and ranges from politics to cooking, plus you can publish your own articles or photos and comment on other's contributions. We even earn Gather Points just by using the site! You can exchange your points for great stuff like books, CDs, wine, and vacations. Check it out! Hope to see you on Gather.

Give Me Country Living

What does Country Living mean to you?

To me - Country Living means family. Country Living means growing as a family. Fields planted with vegetables and crops for the cows, sheep, pigs, horses or whatever you have on the farm or even in your back yard. A simple life where it is not ruled by the electronic gadgets of today.

Waking up early and thinking of those aching muscles from the previous days labor. Sitting on the front porch in the morning and listening to the animals all wake up and sing to the glorious day. Walking down to the barn to say good morning to all of the critters. Looking across the pasture and seeing all the green grass that the livestock frolic in. Getting a nuzzle from any of the critters that you so love. The smell of the hay room, feed buckets rattling, the neighs and whinnies, the moo's, baa's, cackles and so many more wonderful sounds. The feel of freedom when the doors are open and everyone runs out to frolic in the grass. Knowing that you have to mow, weed or work on the fence or the tractor. It sure beats the commute in traffic. Knowing that live is simple and not worrying about what might happen, because you take it as it happens and you deal with it.

Smelling the wonderful smells of the house as you walk in the door. Knowing what's for dinner because as soon as you walk in the house you can smell the biscuits baking, the chicken and dumplings cooking and you can feel the warmth of home.

Rocking in a rocking chair with a gentle breeze blowing across your face and you say "Thank you Lord, that breeze feels so nice".

It doesn't matter how big your space, it is what you make of the space you have.

How We Saved Over $200 Yesterday

Yesterday was our 5th wedding anniversary. Can you believe that I forgot it? But my dear husband remembered it. LOL Well that's just another reason I call him Superman.

What did we do? We stayed home and didn't spend any money. I like the not spending part. Actually, we saved over $200. For over a year now our refrigerator has been leaking water inside the top of the refrigerator section. The water was coming from the freezer area. You know - the bottom of the freezer and the top of the refrigerator. We have been keeping a tall cup under it and trying to remember to dump it out every day. Some days we remember and some days we forget. Yesterday we were just hanging around the house and chatting about what we wanted to do. Neither of us wanted to go anywhere or really get too involved in anything.

A couple of days back, Superman had given me a link to a website that has some really wonderful information about doing a little home repair on appliances. I ask him to pull up a chair beside my desk and look up the info on our refrigerator to see if maybe, just maybe we could fix it. So that is what he did. We looked online and read a few things and wa la, we discovered the problem. The defrost drain tube is/was clogged. So off to the refrigerator we headed and started taking everything out of the freezer and pulling the refrigerator out from the wall. Then we started taking the refrigerator apart to find the drain tube. Ah ha - we found it. He worked inside the freezer area and I worked behind the unit. We started pouring hot water into the freezer area and I was poking a small wire up from the bottom of the drain tube. Before we knew it the drain pipe was unclogged.

We reassembled the refrigerator, plugged it up and waited for the dripping water inside. And today we are still waiting for the dripping water. I think we can stop waiting now because we have no water dripping. The refrigerator is worked without soaking everything under where the dripping was.

That is how we spent time together on our anniversary and saved over $200. It wasn't difficult either.

***Update***

I have several request for a link to the website that Superman gave me. Here is the link that I used. Free Repair Help

Here is another great place for help with appliances Appliance Aid

Join Our Family

I would like to have one or two more writters for this blog. If you are interested in writting on "A simplier life. Made in the USA. Ramblings from a Country family and the country life. Crafts, critters, cooking and more..." Then you are invited to write for this blog. If your speciality is crafts then write about crafts. If you love cooking and sharing your recipes or tips then join us. There are many things that you can write about. Be creative, have fun and share with us all how you do it.