Sept 20th - 5 on Friday

The Good Life Blog 5 on Friday

I decided since I'm lacking inspiration for a good post I would do the 5 on Friday for the first time. My 5 on Friday will be 5 things from my week:

1. No School.......Due to storms my son had no school today. It threw me for a loop but he was able to stay at daycare all day. I'm grateful that he doesn't go to before/after care at school because they weren't open either due to power outage at the school. Now I need to take this as motivation to stock supplies in case this happens at our house!

2. Feeling congested.....Since I went on a field trip last Thursday at a State Park I have had a stuffy/runny nose and a cough. I am so ready to be done with it! I've tried sinus medicine, hot tea, running it off, and taking it easy but it doesn't seem to go away.

3. Boys Scouts..... My son joined as a Tiger and it is 6 times more expensive then the Girl Scouts. I hope he enjoys this for all the money we are spending. I'm looking forward to being part of this group but I still feel like an outsider at this point.

4.Favorite Pin of the week:

source: ZippyCart

I hate all the candy that can come with holidays, kicking it off is Halloween so why not reinvent healthy foods.

5.  Mother Daughter 5K

 

My daughter and I finish our first 5k together and it was my best time yet. We didn't win any age awards but my daughter was awesome for doing her first race and only having about 3-4 weeks to train.

Household Coordinator

Source: someecards.com

(I decided I need fancy names for my household projects. So for my post on improving my money will be called Financial Expeditions, Organizing will be Household Coordinator, and Health will be Well-conditioned.)

As my husband was commenting on how he has been working 60 hour work weeks, I thought to myself "big deal." I bust my butt every week to keep this household together. He gets to come home, leave his job and doesn't have to answer the phone. I work 40 hours outside of the home, then I come home to do 80% or more of the household and child rearing. I make the appointments, buy clothes, co-ordinate schedules, make list of list, and entertain kids. So sorry if I'm not sympathetic. I think I did my wifely duty by just writing this on my blog and not telling him to his face.

..........................................................................................

As household coordinator, I have already developed a weekly list of chores, which I haphazardly follow. Now I need to come up with back up plans for when I'm out of town on the weekend or when I'm not able to clean during the week.:

Gone For the Weekend Chore List
Monday- living room dining room tidy up, dust, vacuum furniture and sweep floors
Tuesday- clean both bathrooms
Wednesday- clean kitchen, sweep floors
Thursday- tidy up basement, laundry clean and put away, balance checkbook, and plan meals

Weekend Power Clean
1. place all laundry downstairs and start a load
2. assist kids with cleaning bathrooms
3. run load of dishes
4. tidy up dining room and living room, dust, vacuum furniture, sweep floors
5. move laundry to dryer and add another load if necessary
6. kids clean their rooms, while I clean kitchen
7. laundry to dryer
8. kids move to tidy up basement, I mop floors
9. work on my bedroom
10. everyone puts laundry away

Another thing I would like to do is to make a more detailed list of cleaning rooms to follow, and to teach my kids more about what a clean room entails. My daughter can work two hours on her room and it will look like she has done nothing because she still have a mess all over the floor. I gave them list to check off the other day and it worked great so I would like to make more list for their chores so they have clear expectations.


Money report: $8.82 on lunch,bought Chinese at Hy-vee with a pop
Chore Report: swept floor made bed, ran dishwasher cleaned up living room/dining room, laundry down stairs
Health report: ran/walked tonight, drank pop :0C , and I am tired since I didn't get to bed by 10 because I stayed up to watch movies and woke up with a stuffy nose.

Learning Through Your Kids

I love the saying "you learn something new everyday", because it is so true.  My daughter is learning about Ancient Egypt, and brought home this book Unraveling the History of Mummies Around the World. I only thought mummies were in Egypt but apparently mummies have been happening all over.  There was a monk, named Tetsumonkai, who only ate  certain things to get rid of the fat and fluid in his body, and turned himself into a mummy to show religious devotion. I can't believe I haven't heard of this diet fad yet.  Chapter 4 on mummy fads is also very interesting.

My daughter loves non-fiction books, so I'm sad that there is only one more to this series.  The other one is about Vampires.

Let me know if you have found any good books through your children lately, or what your kids taught you today.  I love reading comments!

Valentine Gift To Myself

Yesterday I went out and bought myself a Valentines gift.  My husband has been getting irritated with the fact of my phone dying anytime and anywhere.  I have a smart phone (Samsung Fascinate) and it takes a lot of energy to play games, Shopkick, and get my Checkpoints.  So I went and got myself an iPhone 4s.  I used some rewards from Best Buy and from Shopkick to get the phone cheaper, so that was a plus.  I'm also super excited with the fact that it has a really nice camera, front or back.  My Samsung's camera stopped working a couple of months ago, do to some memory card glitch.  Now I just need to figure this new phone out. All in all, Valentine's Day was a sucky day for me and I'm glad it's over.

If anyone has some tips on using an iPhone, I'm all ears!

So here is my afternoon in pictures:

I think it's cool you can see the birds nest in the trees.

The days are semi nice and the snow is melting.

The creek is running, yet there is still some ice holding on at some points.

I walked the .9 miles to school to pick up my daughter at school.

Here is to more sun shiny days!

Simple and Effective Clean Up

Before

Before

 This morning my kids were out of the house so I decided I needed to take the time to pay attention to something I have been ignoring.  I decided it would be the top of my washer and dryer.  This took a whole 10 minuets out of my day and look a lot nicer.  Now the picture on the left has a blue plastic item in the picture.  This is the missing piece to the game Mouse Trap which we couldn't finish because we were missing this crucial piece.  I have no idea how it ended up on top of the washer or why I couldn't see it over 5 times a week and not connect what this piece was, but I can't wait for next week so we can play Mouse Trap again.

After

After

 The basket on top of the dryer I use for a garbage can.  This I bought for the bathroom to decorate but my bathroom is too small for a lot of decor so I re-purposed it for my laundry room.  I also keep that business card to help scoop up the dusty crumbs when I empty the lint trap.  Whoopee, like brand new appliances!

We also took the kids sledding today.  My daughter has a snowboard that I got from Target about two years ago.  I believe it was $8 and it is so much fun.  I like to ride on it too, but I think I hurt my hip today in an awkward fall so I'm sure I will feel it tomorrow.  When you live in a place where it has a season of sweltering summers and frigid winters, you have to take advantage of all the things you can do. The snow isn't quite ready for snowballs yet, but I can't wait because the kids got a snowball maker from Santa I really want to try out.

Inspired by this link:

Backlinks - Getting Back to Basics

Which I found through:

Problogger and Dear Mommy Brain

Here is some links on organizing and cleaning laundry rooms:

Noni at "A Slob Comes Clean" Organizing the Laundry Room

iSavvyMom How to Organize the Laundry Room

AlexisAnne at "Clean, Smart, Style" More Skeletons in my Closet!

Changing to More Frugal Ways

I have been trying to find ways to cut back on cost around here.  Hy-Vee had a sale on boxes of Jello Pudding for $.69.  When I went to the store to buy a box I saw that they have the Hy-Vee brand was only $.49 for its everyday price.  I decided that pudding was pudding and brought home the Hy-Vee brand.  The box said it was worth 4 servings, but I was able to make 5 serving from one box for my daughter's school lunch.  Unfortunately she forgot her lunch today and was unable to give me her take on the taste.

I also found these deals at the stores this week:

Fareway:

 $3/2 Campbell's Chunky Soup

Fareway coupon $3/3 (limit 3, one coupon per customer)

Manufacturer coupon $1 off of 3 

Final Cost: $2/3

Hy-Vee Two Day Thur/Fri Sale

Rice-a Roni $.99 box

Manufacture coupon $1/4 (facebook like coupon)

Final Cost: $2.96/4

Days of Kindness Two Days In

So it started yesterday, 30 days of intentional act of kindness with your kids.  I'm not sure if I will get to do each of these with my kids, but I want to at least talk about it with them.  Yesterday I brought treats to work for those that were helping me set up my store for Christmas.  I was going to make something, but then I saw that Walmart had Little Debbie Christmas treats out for $1.50, so I bought a few boxes.  I figured I would spend more trying to make something since I don't make things from scratch.

Tonight, my kids and I are going to pick an Angel from the JCPenney Angel Tree.  This is an easy online way to pick and donate gifts to the elderly or a child in need.

See more acts of kindness at I Can Teach My Child

Buckling Up Kids

A few months back my husband bought me a new car.  A 2012 Volkswagen Jetta.  It is a really nice car and gets much better gas mileage than my '02 PT Cruiser.  I wouldn't exactly call it a family car because I haven't figured out how to keep the light to turn on in the back when I open the door, the back doesn't have vents, and the seat belt connectors slip into the seats which is hard for my kids who still sit in car seats to buckle.  This is frustrating because I like my kids to be able buckle themselves.  I tried to go to Lowe's and buy these small clamps to keep them from being sucked into, but they didn't fit.  So then I decided to go to Wal-mart and buy their cheapest wash clothes.  They cost $.47 each.  I stuffed them into the holes so the belts won't be able to slip in to the seats.  Hopefully this will help.

Wash cloth is the beige color in this picture stuffed into the hole.

Progress and Juice Diet

So this week has been busy, and I'm sure next week will be too.  It seems like a lot is going on next weekend in my town and I won't even be here.  Yesterday I went to Costco and stuck to the plan except I bought some apples since my sister requested them and I buy her food to watch my kids two days a week.  I ended up spending $45.94. Not too bad.  Next I went to the mall to get my wedding ring checked, and my daughter talked about how she had never had chocolate dipped strawberries.  We passed by Godiva and they had them in their display so I splurged and got them.  5 for $10 plus $.60 tax.  Ouch.  Next stop Target to get mouthwash and more cotton candy for the ugly cake which cost $4.76.  Not too bad.  After the fair we stopped and bought a juicer for $83.94 ( I'll explain this), and also my husband was sad that ice cream in our freezer melted so I bought sonic for $8.15.  If I wouldn't have really thought about this I would have said I spent about $80 to $100 today.

Total for Saturday: $153.39, yeah this is more of my typical weekend routine of spending money.  So my total spending for last week was $262.16.  Over $151.86 for the three weeks.  That is a lot and I'm not sure if I'll be able to make that up.

I might have to rethink my strategy.  They other day I watched Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead.  It was an Australian guy with an Australian juicer going around just drinking juice.  He lost weight and helped get himself  off medication.  He also had a few others try it and got them hooked on it too.  Now I like drinks so I thought "What an idea".  I'm not sure how it really works but I also found this website: Juicer Recipes.  The movie also has a Facebook page and a website to help you get started on juicing.  The whole problem is they said it cost $14 a day.  For us that could be times 2, plus I don't plan on putting my kids on this diet or giving them crap, easy food while we do it, so I'm not sure how  this will work out.  My plan for now is to start with food to help clear my skin, then do a two week detox, and then repeat again in 3 months.  I'm not sure what my husband plans to do, but he wants to lose weight.  If you don't want to invest in a juicer there is also this website: Green Monster Movement.

So I need a new plan.  I think this week I will just keep blogging about what I am spending.  It is my daughter's birthday so I want to buy her gifts and also it is my nephew's birthday and I still need to get him gifts.  I'm also still in need of 5 more window treatments and decorative hardware.  I think I will keep dwelling on these things till I buy them.  I have been doing well on my saving money on the side so I do feel good about that aspect of life.  Maybe by next week I'll have a good plan.

What is an Ugly Cake?

Our entry, didn't win

So I'm still not sure what a fair means by ugly cake.  There was an ashtray cake, a vomiting clown cake, a kitty litter cake, a trash cake and mostly gross cakes.  I'm not sure who won but we are going back so I will check and try to get better pictures.  Our entry, my daughter tried to make a Chinese crested chihuahua.  it actually looked more cute because the cotton candy for hair idea didn't work out so good.  I also plan on going to the state fair where I believe they have the same contest so I'm sure that will have more entries to give us some ideas for next year.

I've Got Feeling

Today I'm feeling crafty.  Tommorrow we are having a baby shower for my daughter's 4-H leader.  Now mind you I am one of the only mom's who has a job and kids don't go to home school, so I often feel less than super mom around these ladies.  I have a lot of respect for those who seems to have it all going on and organized.  So I looked around the internet for homemade decorations and found this site with some great ideas.
http://www.fun-baby-shower-ideas-and-more.com
I'm going to make the roses out of baby socks and maybe put them in a bottle for a vase.  I also would like to make the banner.

Cost Breakdown:
Walmart: baby socks 10pk in white $5.88
Michaels:  wire $1.99
                tape $1.99
               plant stakes $2.99
total:  around $12.85 plus tax


Since April is volunteer month my work is going to do the March of Dimes walk.  They want to have 25 people sign up and each raise $200.  To me that is a lot of money to raise.  We are going to try to have some inside fundraisers.  One thing I thought of was to silent auction some Easter baskets.  I also want to make these cute eggs for inside.

Cost:
Michael's
Stryrofoam eggs $4.49
Sequins ( I bought a big pack) $3.99
Pins for squins 800 count $3.49 ( I think I'm going to need another box, or two)
Total: currently $11.97 plus tax

I also love the idea of having Easter baskets with my kids name on them.  I hope to have a tutorial up soon on how I got this done, but first I have to start.

So on a side note: sometimes I hate to clean because I can't remember where I decided to store something.  Other times cleaning and absentmindedness have their advantages because I found these goodies in a bag I didn't unpack.  The Old Navy coupon expired a few days ago, but everything else is still good.  I'm going to keep working on this "a place for everything and everything in it's place" because I'm sure someday I'll be able to find everything I need, when I need it.

Wow, What a Day! Planning a Kids Birthday Party

It was my day off today, but I sure didn't rest very much.  It was my daughter's 7th birthday party tonight.  Her real birthday is on Saturday, but since I work I thought it might be a good night to have a party.  Everyone is so busy on the weekends especially in the summer.  I started out shopping at about 12:30pm and stopped at 4:00pm. I set a budget of $100 for her birthday.

Here is the breakdown:
park shelter rental: $20 (cheaper since it was a weekday)
present: $27.64
decorations: $49.99
craft: $24.99
food: $82.69
misc: $24.29
Total: $229.60

Now we still have plenty of food leftover which you can't really prepare for, but I did buy it at Costco so I could have just gone to Aldi and picked up the cheap hot dogs.  In the misc is charcoal for the cooking at the park and afterwards my husband said we could have cooked them at home and brought them. Doh! Why didn't I think of that? The other misc amount is also for camera batteries, my camera seems to be sucking the life out of batteries lately because I just replaced them a couple weeks ago.  I should have just skipped the craft because after hours of deciding what for them to make, they were more interested in playing on the playground equipment anyways.  I am going to return $5.44 of decorations. This category included my cups, plates, and utensils. I ended up getting juice boxes so I didn't need cups. I think I could have just gotten table cloths, which only cost me $2.99 each, but next year I will just go to the dollar store. It was a little windy for balloons, and streamers anyways. I should have made some decorations at home. I went to Hobby Lobby this year because I needed scrapbook supplies, and didn't have too much time.  My mom and my sister bought face paint which we should have waited till the end because a lot of the kids ran around and got it on their arms and clothes, but its washable.  They do love the pinata so that is a keeper. I didn't include this in my total because I had a stuffed one from my son's party that we never used.  I really learned my lesson and could have been more dedicated to sticking to my budget.  When you are just rushing around and buying it is hard to keep a balance, then I also sent my husband to the store while I set up for things that I had forgotten.  All and all, it was the perfect night for an outdoor party and the kids had a lot of fun. It is best to have as many adults as you can get. It was my husband and I, along with my sister and her husband help watch kids and coordinating all the party.  I first let them play and get their face painted while we cooked, then we took a group picture, did the craft, pinata, cake, opened presents and played till the parents picked them up.  Clean up was quick and easy.  I didn't get a chance to eat at the party, so I also recommend if you are the adult host to eat ahead of time.  When it comes to kids parties I think it is best to not over think it, because kids have an easy time having fun.

Here is my list of items for a kid's birthday party at the park, edit to your hearts desire:

Food:
hot dogs (will need charcoal, lighter fluid, matches, tongs, tin foil and serving platter if cooking at the park, or a crock pot with water would work too if shelter has electricity, or cook at home and wrap in aluminum foil)
buns
ketchup, mustard, etc.
chips
cake
juice boxes
bottled water
ice for cooler
candy
Decorations
candles for cake
Happy Birthday Banner
streamers
table cloths
balloons
plates, napkins, and forks
masking or clear tape (for taping down table cloths and decorations)
Misc.:
camera
batteries for camera
sanitizing gel
pinata
bat or stick (for beating pinata
plastic cloth (for beneath pinata)
rope (for pinata)
cooler
game and/or supplies
bug repellent
lighter for candles
treat bags
first aide kit
list of parents phone number who leave
pen and paper for writing down gifts given
helpful adults
baby wipes

Did I forgot anything? I hope this might help someone plan ahead for their party.