Pandamania VBS 2011

This week Emily's been in Bible School.  She has had such a great time and it took a while to pull her away tonight when it was over.  

The girls were against the boys in raising the most money and they did the old faithful "bring pennies only" trick.  The boys were the blue bucket, the girls were the pink.  Who do you think won? ;)

The losing team in the end had a designated goat kisser.

This was one thing everyone, even parents couldn't wait to see.

Well, he got off easy.  A kid?  Come on!  It was so adorable, not many wouldn't kiss it!  Ok, I wouldn't but still.

Posted

I was finally able to post on our home-school blog today.  We've been busy around here and Emily has been at VBS this week, so when that's over, we will be able to pick up with our reading through the Bible each evening.

The girls are swamped with church activities in July, so I don't know just yet how we are going to stick with our schedule, but we will do our best to.  

Floors come in this week, but until then, it's bedtime for this old lady.

My Other Blogs

Although this blog is a hodgepodge of my life, I've decided to keep my homeschooling blogging separately.  I'm really wanting to keep that area of my life more organized and easier to look back on. I'm also thinking I may have the girls as team members on it if they ever feel the need to post.  You can find it HERE.  (It's still needing some tweaking, though)

We came to a halt before we even got started real well on our Reading Through the Bible blog.  I had planned to start up again last week, but as you know, things didn't work out like I planned.

So, check them out, become a follower, leave comments, etc.  Anything to keep us moving helps.

Mind Blowing

We've all heard it.

No matter what you go through, someone always has it worse than you.

This may be a lesson well learned after today.

A friend of mine and her husband works out of state.  They have been gone from home for a few months now and went home this weekend.  They came home to the remains of their home after it had flooded and they didn't know anything about it until they got there.

These pictures BLOW MY MIND!

This is so tragic!

They were just renting this home.  The neighbor saw water coming from the home and informed the landlord. The landlord came in the home, shut the water off and that was it.  He didn't call my friend to inform them of anything.  He said he didn't see any mold when he had come in.

DUH!

Some people...

I feel for my friends.  It makes my complaints seem so nit picky and pathetic.

I'm now inspired.

I'm not Superwoman!

 Every valley shall be raised up,

every mountain and hill made low;
the rough ground shall become level,
the rugged places a plain.

-Isaiah 40:4

I am beyond being overwhelmed.

Sometimes I don't realize it until it's too late and I've found myself in the very depths of despair.  That's where I am now.  I try to be Superwoman too often I think.  When I get overwhelmed, I completely shut down.  Not laid up in the bed sleeping all day depressed, my life still goes on. I'm just not as productive.  If at all.

I've already mentioned before how busy this month was going to be and it has FLOWN by.  I've not had the chance to even do half the things that were planned due to the flooding in the house and all that...blah blah blah.  On a normal day, I would have even had all of it cleaned up, carpet up, and laid new flooring by now.  It has simply stopped me in my tracks this time.  The girls are helping, but when I don't feel like messing with anything, I don't even worry about them doing anything either.  I'm just blah.  There are still so many things that are coming up for the rest of this month and I'm about to pull my hair out.  These are the times and the only times I wish I didn't home-school.  It's hard to think about lesson plans for 3 different aged students and getting everything together for the week.  That alone takes up an entire day.

So, now that I recognize it, even though it's about an hour from bedtime, I think I'm going to brew me a pot of coffee and soak up some Word of God and beat this.  I don't plan on doing any more today, other than that, but I do need some good old fashioned encouragement and inspiration.  We have a busy day tomorrow.

Kitchen Makeover

I'm in remodel mode!

Then again, I always am.

I just get overwhelmed sometimes and don't want to touch anything remodel related.

I think the biggest problem is being financially overwhelmed.  Knowing this entire house could use updating, and the updates I've done are only temporary, it is going to get expensive.

I remember the first home we owned.  Our income wasn't a fraction of what it is now, yet we were still able to bring a house that should have been condemned, to a cute little place we called home.  Why do I feel we can't afford to do that to this place?  Our bills are more plenty now and higher, but still, something can be done.  We just have to be determined to get there.  Just like we were in that little house many moons ago.  A place, we still call home to this day.

The biggest sore spot on my home now is my kitchen.  It is tragic.  No, that's an understatement.  I've never seen an uglier kitchen.  I've brought it far from what it was when we first moved in, but it's still the most annoying room in my home (other than the bathrooms).  I can't put my finger on "why" exactly, but I think it's all of it.

So, with that being said, I've decided to do what I've preached to others about when it comes to buying for something expensive such as an entire kitchen makeover.  I'm going to buy cabinets a little at a time and stick them in storage until I have all I need.  Then, when I have all I need, it's out with the old, in with the new!  I figure this will be easier than saving since once the cabinets are bought, that's not money that can be spent elsewhere.  Sounds like a plan to me.

Maybe doing it this way will be motivation for me.

Now that the expense part is figured out, it's time now to decide exactly what I want.  What color cabinets do I want?  What style?  Oh, the agony!  Decisions, decisions.

One day while we were letterboxing, we passed by our little old house I mentioned above.  There is a house on the corner from that house that I have just always loved.  It is now for sale.  I had never been in that house, despite the fact the elderly woman who lived there always wanted me to bring the girls over for a visit.  I never made the time, but the house just always intrigued me.  So, being the type of person I am, I decided to go take a look and waste the realtor's time.  Yep, I fell in love, but that's not the point I'm making.  I fell in love with the kitchen.  It wasn't anything special, really.  It was small, even.  It had simple, plain white kitchen cabinets and the walls were yellow.  That's still not why I loved it, though.  I loved it because it was a kitchen that was by itself.  It was closed off to the rest of the house with only a door leading from it to the dining room.  It didn't have a closed off "feel", though. 

I know I've said it loads of times before, but that's one of the things I absolutely can't stand about my kitchen here.  It's entirely too open to the large dining room, which in turn, is too open to the living room.  I find it a waste of space where more cabinets could go.  I've looked into having a bar or something dividing the two areas, but that's just not good enough for me.  I thought about it before and decided I wanted french doors being the only way into the dining room from my kitchen, but was talked out of it, for fear it would be too closed off.  So, I went another direction and really loved the new idea.  Not now.  I'm back to wanting french doors that open into my dining room from my kitchen.  I just can't find a photo online to see how it will look exactly.  The way I see it though, it will be just what I'm shooting for.

So, without having a lot of natural lighting in my home, as far as the kitchen area, I'm thinking about going a light color for the cabinets.  Since the room will be closed off to the more modern, darker woods in my home, it won't matter much that it's a different style, right?  I love bright kitchens.

Here are a few pictures I found for inspiration:

Well, I'm using my old computer and it's acting sluggish, so that's all the pictures I'll post for now.  By the looks of it, I guess I'm leaning more toward the lighter side of cabinetry.  It's just really more versatile, I think.

Still don't know what style though. :)

Fried Kool-Aid

A friend of mine was watching the news and saw where a man had fried Kool-Aid.  She got me interested, so I thought I'd search online to find the recipe.  Well, the creator of this treat isn't spilling his recipe, but I did find one, so I gave it a shot.  I wanted to try it with the girls, but they just weren't fast enough.  I had to try it immediately!  Turns out, this stuff is pretty stinking good!  Definitely fair food, just as the creator, Charlie Boghosian made it for.  Check it out here.  

Sorry for the bad photos.  My battery is dead, so I had to resort to the old phone version pics.

Oh, and the recipe doesn't specify the unsweetened, sweetened, or the drink when it says koolaid.  I used the sweetened and still had to add more flour to make it thick enough.

Give it a shot!