Magical Night

A goal for this year 2009

Hubby and I talked about ways to save money this year.  One way we thought of was to save on our food bill.   I love to save money on food , but I been lazy about it.  We spend any where from $1000.00 to $1500.00 a month on food.    So this area is a big one to save in. As is fast food.  We are going to cut way back on that.  No more well we feel like ???? and then go get it.  We are going to make the Mexican food , Chinese, or make a good steak dinner.   But we still will go out but with my coupons, I will tell about those another day.  Because who knew you could get a $25.00  dinner for only $2.00??  I found out how.

Some of it will still be high because of my food allergies.  Wheat free foods cost more than normal ones.  A box of Mac~n~cheese for me is about $4.00 a box.  My bread is $4.99 a loaf.  I can make my own and I do, but for toast and sandwiches I use the bought one.  I am good about buying my bread though.  We order it from the maker and get 3 cases at a time.

So we are going to try keeping a budget of $100.00 a week.  That is just for food not household things or animal food.  Animal food is a another high bill.  That bill is as much as our house payment.

I am writing a menu out for the next two weeks.  I am trying to use what we have in stock and also buy what we need and try to keep the stock up.  Any advice would be great.

God Bless, mj

Day 2 of our cleaning

Today was day 2 of our cleaning out junk.  Hubby had the easy job he took 1/2 the boxes out of the garage and then went in to watch college football !!  I think he got the better end of that stick!

We girls we through all the boxes made a HUGE trash pile a small yard sale pile and a small donate pile.  We went through so many thing that brought back memories.  I found the star fish hubby and I found on one of our dates 20 years ago (yes it was already dead).  I found pictures of me and hubby back when we were dating, we were so skinny then  What happened .  I guess I learned how to cook to good! 

I showed hubby what I want done in the garage soon to be play room.  I want to put up dry wall and pain one side.  He is so cute , he told me he would do it for me!

Yesterday was the 1st day in a year that he let me do normal work!  I felt good but it also hurt at the same time.  But when he offered to do the dry wall it was neat.  Because before I broke my leg we girls would do it!   He is treating more and more like a princess, I love it and some times it drives me nuts!!   I want to be all the way normal and to just get up and do it.  But , this dang leg will not meet me there!  I have one more surgery to do and then we will see what he will do about the bones in my leg that are still broken.   I just wish it was over with!

I need to finish building my ranch, corral ,round pen , arena, fence off for my garden, till the land again, finish the goat pen, make room for a new storage unit, rebuild the feed shed, fix the barn and more. We girls can and will do it all.  Do you know it has been a year since I last rode my pony?!?!  I have been lead around on Cody, rode Stormy for a few minutes but that is it.   I need to redo all the hours I put in my pony, he has gotten verry ornery just running the land.   

Shayna will have to get all the bucking out of him before I get on.  If I was to land wrong on my leg and break it again they might not beable to save it again!  So Shayna gets the fun stuff!

Thats all for day 2.  God Bless, mj

My mom made me laugh , then think!

I come from a family of smart butts.  We all have it in us.  I get it more from Bubba (my grand father) and my mom loves it.

Mom sent me this email on bras and it made me laugh and think here is the part that made me laugh.

Have you ever wondered why A, B, C, D, DD, E, F, G, and H are the letters used to define bra sizes?
If you have wondered why, but couldn't figure out what the letters stood for, it is about time you became informed!
(A} Almost Boobs...
{B} Barely there.
{C} Can't Complain!
{D} Dang!
{DD} Double dang!
{E} Enormous!
{F} Fake.
{G} Get a Reduction.
{H} Help me, I've fallen and I can't get up !

It also got me thinking.  Are we just a size or are we just us ?!?!?  I hate it when I am introduced to my husbands employees because they always look at my chest before they even look at my face or eyes!!  Hellooo I am up a bit higher!  Yes ,I am a female and I bet you mom , sister, aunt , grandma has a chest with breast too.

I do have a large natural chest.  I always have.  I wear a size 36 E to F.  But I am more than just *****.  I am a wife, mom and so much more than what they see.  Please look at my face when you meet me not my chest.  If you are my family or friend then you can joke with me at my chest.  Like my mom, daughters , friends do, they will say I saw a cute dress or shirt that would look great on you but it will never fit over those.  That is ok because I complain about the same thing.  Try finding a bathing suit!!  In high school and after I used to have them custom made to fit me. I had a 34 top then and a 16 inch waist, the good old days. 

I love my sons they never look or make fun of me, I am just mom!  But here I will share a picture of one of my daughters making fun of my over the shoulder boulder holder:

I love you hunny, but I had to share.  Nanna started it with her email!

I hope this make you laugh and think.  We are the size God made us, we are female with female parts, just as God made.  We might be numbers or sizes to buy clothes that fit us.  But most of all we are just as God made us, his perfect work.

God Bless, mj

Day 1 of our cleaning

Today was day 1 of our cleaning junk out.   We started in the tack/storage unit on the ranch.   What we did is take it all out, move all the saddle racks, bridle holders, blanket hanger, halters hangers, medicine chest moved, blanket boxes, hog supplies, goat supplies to the verry back of the unit rehung it all and organized the rest.  The best part is we went through it all donated some, trashed some.  We were shocked to see we have 11 saddles!  And  I need a new one for my pony .  Mine one is to long for his short back.  It works for now.

We put on one side the keep stuff and made stack of go through stuff.  Then we put the yard sale donate stuff on one wall along with my patio table and chairs that will be moved to the patio in the next few days. 

We also cleaned up one barn stall that has toys in it for the grand-babies. We still have to pick up the crushed boxes in that stall, we filled up 4 trash cans.   Then I started in the feed shed.  Why did I do that .  Hubby fixed the shed gate , thank you hubby .  I picked up empty feed bags, hay ties.  But we need to empty out all the barrels and take out the hay holders, then rake it out and level it. Maybe tomorrow.

Tomorrow is the day we will take everything out of the garage for me to go through.  I will make a keep stack , a donate one, a yard sale one and a trash one.   The keepers will be moved to the ranches storage unit as will the yard sale one. 

I am turning the garage into a family room for the girls and grand-babies.    I will put a rug in there with a futon  a t.v. center with t.v. and game units.  Put the books out there , toys , sewing machines and more.

Dinner was easy tonight fast food.  Well I am off to soak in a nice long hot bath, my leg is hurting from working so much today and hot baths help.  Maddie is staying the night tonight, Jeffie and Michelle are sick.

That all for today God Bless, mj

Home schooling info for all, I fixed the link

Kristi has been board with her school books, so I took out of storage  the Far Above Rubies unit study based on Proverbs 31:10-31.  I was looking for things to use for this unit study like books, web info and so on.

I was happy to find this site :

http://www.geocities.com/trishnonaka/FAR_intro.htm

I fixed the link.

This site has soo much info for each of the 20 unit studies in the set.  But it also has a ton of pages for parents not using the study on every subject.  I found that most of them are Christian site and Christian info.

I had to stop looking at it for a few minutes to share this amazing place to you all.  Some of the pages are no longer there, but look around and see all the stuff they have.   Who ever did this did a ton of work looking up hundreds of web site for us all.

Go check it out, God bless, mj

We finally decided on the decor for inside the house!!

About 1.5 years ago when we were going to sell this house and move to our ranch I packed up so much of the house.  I then broke my leg and it is STILL broken a year later, yup a year!!  I broke it on 12-27-07.  Any way due to my leg I did not unpack.  I have done some but need to do more.  Hubby is going to help next week, thank you God.  I can not move the heavy boxes any more and he stacked the boxes too high for me to reach.

So hubby and were talking about redoing the decor in the house again and we could not agree, Husbands!  I have leaning towards cowboy decor, hubby was wishy washy about it.  But he saw his friends house (his mentor) Pat (uncle pat) and his house was cowboy decor and he loved it !!!  Finally we agree on it.

So we are going to redo the house in cowboy decor.  I loved a rug uncle Pat has in his living room. I asked where he got it?  He told us the national finals redo.  So we talked about that and now we are going with him to the next one in December 09, ( can you believe it 09??).   I have found a rug we like on ebay, so we will get that.  But I am going to save up a few thousand for the decor for the home at the finals.

As I have been shopping on line hubby is sitting next to me watching his hunting shows.  I hate it when the hunt turkeys!  The dumb turkeys answer back when they are called and then get shot.   I think hubby love to put turkey hunting on because I yell at the turkeys, telling them to not talk, hide, what are you doing?? .   But do they listen noooo.  

We have had 3 pet turkeys.  Whitey even went to a turkey dinner at church one year (alive).  We also had Wanda and Waddles.  Waddles was a 65 pound tom that was a blast to play with. As for Wanda well she was funny to watch because she like to fight the chickens!  We laughed so much watching her fight because when she was done she sat on the chickens .   We all pulled out feed buckets and sat on them watching her.   No one ever got hurt or killed, we would never let that happen.  They all have passed on but the stories we have. 

That's all for now.  God Bless to all, mj

Puppies are here

The puppies are here !!  Gracie started having them about 7:30 this morning.  She had 2 girls and then she stopped for a while.  She then had a boy and another girl, we thought she was done, then she had another boy.   Kristi and I and Shayna all thought she was done we went to take a nap.  We woke up to another boy and girl. !!!

We are so happy she had 7 puppies. There are 3 families in our church who are hoping that these puppies can help with with their special needs children.  Gracie (mom) is a service dog and so is Alex (dad).  We have hopes that we can get 3 service dogs out of this litter.   Time will tell.

Michelle dropped the babies off this morning for us to babysit while she went to the Dr.   When she came back she said she wants one of the puppies (there was 2 at that time).  I told her no.  That she goes threw dogs like kleenexs!  I already gave Jeffie on of my golden puppies right before Jeffie was born.  Last year she gave the dog away.  She has gone threw 4 other dogs since then!!.

I will post pictures of them soon.

God Bless, mj

Layoffs at hubby's work

I feel so bad for my husband.  The drilling company he is the manager of is very slow at this time.  They are laying of some of the guys that work for him.  So far 5 of them.

I feel bad for all the guys that have been laid off for a few weeks.  I also feel bad for my husband Shannon as he had to lay off some of them.  He said it was very hard to do at this time of year.   But it was fair to the guys because there is no work for them for the next 3 weeks.   They ( 2 other managers with him) are talking about laying off more guys.

Last year his brother was to be one of the guys to be laid off, but Shannon stopped it.  His brother never said thank you or any thing.  But if work does not pick up  his brother might be one.  That is hard on Shannon, as it is his older brother.

Time will tell.

God Bless, mj

Christmas V.B.S

Tonight was the start of our Church's vbs for Christmas.  It was fun and hard at the same time. The hard part was we had to teach all of Matt 1 to Matt 2:23 and Luke 1 to 2:7 in 35 minutes!   I read the 4th grade class I am teaching part of each, then we talked. They loved it when I talked to them about what a manger was really.  So many of the children thought it was a crib of some type.  I told them that it is a food bowl for animals.  I got them laughing and gross at the same time by telling them that animals ate out of that manger , they licked the manger, maybe had snot from their nose in there, they loved it (it was fun)  Next I read from " The Adventure of Christmas By Lisa Whelchel".  I read about tradition ask about some of theirs (this was fun).  I also talked to they about the best gift in the world, Jesus.  How He gives us the best gift ever and how some people never even look at the gift from Him.  How would they feel if they worked hard to earn enough money to buy someone a really special gift and that person never even looked at it  or took it and then gave it back unopened ???  How would they feel???   How do you think Jesus would feel??  I left that being the last of the bible study.  But ofcourse got a few groans when I told them that is their home work , how would Jesus feel???

God Bless, mj

Are We old yet ???

My mom sent me this funny:

This is funny because age does that to us.  Do you feel like a number or just you??   I feel like just me , not a number.   My mom tells me when she looks in the mirror she wonders who that is.

God Bless, mj