My Life Rhapsody

Home Makeover, Part 9

I mentioned a few weeks ago that we were working on replacing the siding on our house. We finished the siding, but also painted the trim and railings around our front porch (bye-bye baby blue, hello black and white).  New mailbox. New porch light. We decided not to replace the shutters, so the front of the house looks quite different now.

Here's a picture of what our house looked like 4 years ago - November 2004 - just days after we moved in. Blue trim. Air conditioner hanging out of the side of the house. Sidewalk and driveway were chunked up from root damage (we have brand new sidewalks now, thanks to the road construction on our street)

Here's a picture of what it looks like now - November 30, 2008. The only thing that will change yet on the outside is gutters. We've never had gutters on this house, but will have them installed by the end of the year.

How fun, to change the entire look of your house!

My Black Friday Haul

I avoid Black Friday like the plague. Why? I hate the crowds and know my own temption to impulse shop. I simply cannot believe that a man was killed at WalMart this year by a stampede of people!

This year I did give in, kind of, and shop CVS's Black Friday deals. But unlike other stores, CVS starts their Black Friday sale on Thursday, Thanksgiving Day. So that morning while DS was taking his morning nap and hubby and DD were doing their own thing, I snuck away to CVS. There is a CVS one mile from our home, so this was not a major trip.

Ahead of time, I had compiled a list of CVS's "Extra Care Bucks" deals and gathered coupons to get an even lower price on some items.

In the end, I spent less than $5 out of pocket and walked away with $100 worth of items and $10 in ECBs to spend next time at CVS (think CVS gift card). I like to think of this as CVS paying me $5 to come and take $100 worth of their products for free!

I was quite pleased. Many of these items will be given away to charity or as gifts. And a few of them are for my family to use and enjoy. If you are new to the concept of freebies at CVS, check out these popular blogs Money Saving Mom and The Thrifty Mama

So, what did I get?  

1 Reinventing Beauty magazine

4 small First Aid kits

2 Colgate Total toothpaste

2 packages Philips Headphones 

2 Reese's Peanut Butter cup candy bars 

3 Gatorade 20 oz

1 package of 5-Hour Engergy

1 CoverGirl Smoothers pressed powder

1 Crest Pro-Health Whitening Toothpaste 

1 Maybelline Mineral Power Liquid Foundation

 1 Johnson's Soft Lotion

 1 CoverGirl Smoothers liquid makeup

 1 Hershey's King Size Milk Chocolate

 2 Aussie Hair Care shampoos

1 Sally Hansen maximum growth plus nourishing nail color

1 Blade Shaving Cream

1 L’Oreal Colour Juice sheer lipgloss

1 Sippy cup for DS

1 Garnier Nutrisse Cleansing Towelettes 25 ct. 

One Year Ago

This week I've been recalling that one year ago I was HUGE pregnant, ready to burst with my 11 pound 4 ounce son.

It was perfect that he was due around Thanksgiving time, because his life from the start was a beautiful and miraculous blessing.

For 3 years my hubby and I had been trying to conceive. We had always wanted a large family and would gladly welcome 5 or more children. We both love kids and have greatly enjoyed parenting. We had had no problem conceiving DD in 2002 and just assumed that we would conceive again around the time DD turned 1. But months went by and then years. No baby. As much as we adored DD, our hearts yearned for other children. And the idea of us forever being a family of 3 was heart-breaking. I went through a very difficult time, as I struggled to trust God with our fertility, our family size, our hopes and dreams. Fertility is one thing that everyone takes for granted. With so many unwanted children and unplanned pregnancies, nobody anticipates not being able to get pregnant when they want to. We had an initial consultation with a fertility specialist, but we did nothing more medically. We did not undergo testing to see what the biological problem was. We didn't see In-Vitro Fertilization as an option. We just waited... and trusted God.  

In March 2007, we finally had a positive pregnancy test and our firstborn son was born in early December. We call him a Super-Sized Blessing, since he was such a big boy.

Now our big boy turns 1 and we rejoice. Yet once again we are staring into the unknown, as to whether or not we will bear more children. Looking back and remembering what God has done for us, though, encourages us to remain faithful (literally, full of faith). We do not know what the future holds for our family. Having gone through what we have, we know better than to believe that our fertility is within our control. It never was, despite what our culture touts as "birth control" God alone is the One who holds life and death in His hands.

This day... I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life, so that you and your children may live. Deut 30:19

Thanksgiving

"Give thanks to the Lord, for He is good; His love endures forever!" Psalm 107:1

I am thankful for...

my Lord, my country, my family, my children, a warm house, cars that get me from here to there, good health, good food stocked in my fridge and freezer.

How can we be anything other than thankful considering all that we have in America? Even in times of "economic crisis" we are the most blessed nation on earth with thousand times more money and "stuff" than other people living on earth have right now.

Lord God, we thank you for Your faithfulness to us. In times of want or in times of plenty, we are blessed. We have all we need, when we have You alone. Make us ever more grateful, I pray. In Jesus' name, Amen.

Review of Homeschool Year One

We chose the Christian Liberty Press (CLP) Kindergarten kit for my DD's curriculum this year. Since we started school in the spring, we will soon enter our last quarter of the school year. DD has done very well. She reads at a 2nd-3rd grade level and just devours books. Since we don't own a TV, books are a favorite pasttime. Even weekly trips to the library aren't frequent enough to keep new stories in front of her.

As far as CLP goes, there are some of the materials that I really like and others in the kindergarten kit that I stopped using early on.

The math book works well for us. It's a lot of repetative material and seems too easy, so I usually have DD do every-other page in the book. It covers the basics, from counting and numbers to adding and subtracting. We're not there yet, but will eventually cover money and time.

The Phonics book also works well for us. I was not taught to read using a phonics method, so I was intimidated at first. But this book is basic and DD is catching on to the concepts.

Because DD loves to read, she has no problem at all with the set of 4 small books that accompany the phonics workbook. These are filled with simple one-page stories and colorful pictures. She often doesn't want to stop at just one page and wishes we could continue on. She'd love to read each book in one sitting!

We are also using and enjoying the Nature Reader. I usually read this to DD and she follows along. This book has 26 lessons, and for each letter of the alphabet covers one animal whose name starts with that letter. So M is for Manatee, N is for Newt, O is for Ostrich, etc. For each animal, there are 2 pages of text with colorful photos. The facts are interesting (I've learned plenty along the way) and the book has a focus on God as the Creator of all.

We aren't using many of the other materials from the CLP kit. The Science book is the only exception, but I use it as a supplement more than as the primary textbook. I found that the CLP history book is way too in-depth and un-interesting. We also use other materials for Bible study, art, and handwriting. So, for this being my first year as a homeschool teacher, I have learned some of what I like and don't like. I've already started a list of possible curriculum options for 1st Grade, which we will start in the spring of 2009, Lord willing.

Homeschooling.... it's been an adventure.

Worst thing about it: handling the common misperceptions "outsiders" have about what/how we do homeschool; deciding on a "method" has been a challenge, since there are dozens out there and all have some appealing aspects

Best thing about it: laid-back atmosphere; flexibility about what days/time we choose to homeschool; wonderful choices out there for quality curriculum; ability to incorporate character training and morals in to the basic 3-Rs part of education; quality time spent with DD as we learn together, reading, coloring, "doing school"

Looking forward to year two, with continued resolve that homeschooling is the right choice for our family.

Home Makeover, Part 8

If you've been following along, you know I've already chronicled numerous home improvement projects we've done. Just in the last week we finished some minor work in our master bedroom.

When we moved in, the room had pretty flowery striped wallpaper on 2 walls (definitely not my hubby's choice). Here it is.

The other 2 walls were white textured plaster. We left the room alone for 4 years and just in the last few weeks decided to remove the wallpaper and paint where it used to be. We also painted the trim all the way around the room a slightly darker shade of brown. The walls are a lighter tan color. There's a chair rail on the 2 walls that had the wall paper. The paper was above the rail, with the white textured plaster on the bottom. So to paint it didn't require a lot - just the upper halves of two walls. But it looks quite a bit different - a definite improvement. What do you think?

There is no closet in our bedroom. If we stay in this house a few more years, we will probably put one in that would be just like the one we put in to DS's room. But for now, we live out of the dresser and hang dressy clothes in DS's closet. It works for now.

I always try to make our bedroom feel like a sanctuary and not a catch-all room. But this is a big challenge as the clutter just piles up. Since we painted last week, though, I had to move all the clutter out of the room so we could reach the walls and the trim. With renewed vision, I aim to keep it as tidy as it is right now!

Random Ramblings

We had our first snow of the season this week. One night my hubby took the kids out on the sled. DS lasted about 3 minutes out there. DD had a ton of fun though and didn't want it to end.

DS is very close to walking. He walks a lot pushing his walker-toy. He will stand for a few seconds without holding on to something. And he has started babbling more than ever before as well. Lots of bababababababa. Can't make out any words yet, except an "i" sound that may be "hi."

We have had a construction crew working on the street outside our house for 6-8 weeks now. The street itself as well as our sidewalks are gone. We've had to use alley access this entire time, which is very inconvenient when carrying groceries and kids. But we've survived it. They appear to be ready to pour the sidewalks and maybe asphalt the street today or tomorrow. Very encouraging.

One week from today is Thanksgiving. Hubby found out yesterday that he has a short work day on Wednesday and then gets Thursday and Friday off. Great! We don't usually travel for Thanksgiving, but celebrate locally with my husband's family.

That's a current update. Have a terrific Thursday!

Home Improvement Commentary

I've posted about the numerous home improvement projects we've done at our current house. Here's the behind-the-scenes commentary.

My husband is a perfectionist. This can be good and bad when doing home remodeling. On the down side, it can take A LONG TIME to finish something because it has to be just right. No second rate work is allowed, even though it might cut the project time in half. We will work as long as we need to in order to get it right. On the positive side, though, things look GOOD afterwards. Not just good, REALLY GOOD! And not only do they look good, but we know that what lies underneath the surface (like electrical wiring, insultation, etc) is also installed correctly. There are a lot of short-cuts that you could take when repairing a home - like not putting enough insulation in the walls, using old and not-up-to-code wiring - and to anyone just looking on the surface you wouldn't know the difference. But we know. And we're trying to do what is right, not only by us but by those who may own this home after us.

I also must say that living in a home while you are doing home improvements is NOT EASY. As a woman, it is my tendancy to want a clean home. I am an organizer by nature. I love to clean and put things in their proper place. It is very hard to live with rooms torn up, with everything out of place  (because it has no place), with drywall dust covering everything and with tools strewn throughout the house. This is the hardest part of do-it-yourself living for me. My hubby does all of the really hard physical labor part. I deal with the emotions of my house being chaotic and I struggle almost daily with keeping that chaos from affecting my inner being. It really is a struggle for me. There have been seasons when we can't have anyone over because of the remodeling projects. And that whole first year we lived without a kitchen. Actually the first 24 hours in this house we lived without running water!

A friend of mine said "Wow! It's like you were camping... for a year!" Yeah, basically, that was it. I have to try to keep it all in perspective. So I lived without running water for a day. There are people who travel miles to carry water to their homes. I lived without a kitchen - meaning that I didn't have a room in my house with a fridge and a stove and a sink. But we still survived. We had food to eat and ways to prepare that food. I lived without a laundry room for years. Now I am all the more grateful for laundry machines being so handy. Millions of people throughout history have lived with so much less - this reminds me that I am blessed... with or without a proper kitchen or running water. When I remember that, I live through the chaos and can even find joy in the midst of it.

I'm off to give a big hug to my hubby and maybe even to my laundry machine too

Thankful Tree

image from Oriental Trading Company

It's become a tradition at our house to spend the whole month of Thanksgiving focusing on all that we're thankful for. This year, I worked with DD to cut out 30 fall-colored leaves from construction paper and I cut out a brown tree trunk. Each day we are writing one thing we're thankful for on a leaf and taping it on or around the tree (similar to the picture above, but a smaller, do-it-yourself version). I admit that I've been impressed with some of the things DD has come up with to thank God for - including the Bible, kindness, and today's "plants and trees."

More than ever Thanksgiving is being pushed to the backburner as a second-rate holiday that pales in comparison to Christmas. So I am doing all I can to keep Thanksgiving as the focus of November and then let Christmas be the focus of December, all the while cultivating thankfulness in our home for all the wonderful blessings God has given us!

Talk about a Price Drop!

I cannot tell you how happy I am to once again see the price of a gallon of gas fall to under $2!

It was just a few months ago when prices were over $4 a gallon and everyone was predicting $5 a gallon by the end of the year. That is one prediction I hope doesn't come true for years to come.

However... when the price of fuel went up so high, the price of everything else followed. Milk is up to $3.50 a gallon, regularly. The price of stamps went up (yet again) and the reason was "high gas prices." But now that we are getting "half price gas" I doubt the other items will follow suit. Things that make you go HMMMM.