Off Came Her Head!

So we got our Christmas pictures back. I ordered online a nice family pose...

And a goofy one for kicks. Got enough to send out to all our friends and family. Sadly, they chopped off my head and totally washed out the nice photo. Kind of made it look like it was not centered at all.

So if you happen to grace my mailing list, you’re getting the goofs this year. I know I could complain and force them to make good and send us a better image, but I’ve got much bigger fish to fry.

And the room in which we would fry those fish is getting scarier by the day. We had a couple of contractors come look at our kitchen… Not good… One contractor actually looked a little scared at the damage and said he couldn’t honestly give us an estimate because he wasn’t sure if the source of the leak was in the plumbing or roof (via the wall). He wouldn’t know until he actually started to rip it apart. The other contractor gave us a fix-it bid of…

Wait for this…

On second thought you may want to just skip the rest of the post – it’s that good.

$22,500.00!!!

No you don’t need to get your eyes checked. Twenty Two Thousand Plus!!! I could buy a home in a trailer park for that much. He said there’s a good chance the insurance company would cover a majority of the fix but I haven’t had that good of an experience with our insurance company to find out yet.

Apparently there’s a lot of dry rot and the problems been going on for quite a while and we finally discovered it when the floor started getting soft in front of the sink. Not only are they going to have to rip out counters, floor, subfloor, but they are also going to have to replace some of the major floor joist's (whatever those things are).

Folks, this home isn’t that old. It’s only 17 years old and it’s acting like a 30 to 40 year old house.
I know, I know – Happy Thoughts!

So when all is said and done I’m going to have a new kitchen!

Our family participated in our first ever Black Friday yesterday. Of course we split up – A Boy Car and a Girl Car. Prince Erik and our three boys stayed up all night at Best Buy and were able to get the items they wanted. The experience would have been good but the group behind them was having a drinking party and ended up hurling all over everything by morning. Not to mention they were extremely obnoxious and pushy.

Wait, here it comes, I’m grateful that my boys got an excellent lesson in abstaining from alcoholic beverages.

The girls and I braved the crafty coupon wielding crowd at JoAnn’s and I was able to get some needed items at over 75% off. Wahoo. We didn’t really get hardly anything for Christmas but we were able to take advantage of the super discounted items without being sucked into paying for extras that weren’t needed.

All in all it was a good experience. We might do it again next year.

Blah, Blah, Blah… I could go on and on. Tell you about our peaceful Thanksgiving or my evening out with the girls. But I’m working on a secret project.

A Secret Surprise!

One I hope to have done in the next couple of weeks. Kind of like a big Christmas Present for all of you. And my Husband – Prince that he is – well, he’s giving me tons of time to work on it. If I get lazy and back off, he supportively encourages me to get working on it again. I’m beginning to wonder if aliens have abducted him and messed with his brain. He’s actually taking over the kids and house because he wants me to work on this surprise. What husband does that?

I couldn’t neglect my blog though so I’m sneaking this post in as he is off running errands.

Hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving and are well on your way to a calm and peaceful Christmas free of the hustle and bustle. Hey, it doesn’t hurt to dream!

So today I put away all my Thanksgiving and Autumn decorations.

And we started working on a couple of decorating projects. Involving Free sticks and leftover spray paint. Here's a sneak peak. I'll show you the finished project when it just that - Finished.

But right now I'm off to work on my surprise.

And next time I promise a SHORTER Post!

Get off the Computer!

Step Away from the Computer.

You shouldn't be on it. Maybe you could step outside and enjoy one of these here Beauties!

Or stay inside and snuggle with your kiddo's.

Please don't tell me your as addicted to blogging as I am.

Geezzzz! It's Thanksgiving already. You know the time to be thankful for family and friends.

What are you still doing checking out my post. I could go on and on about the multitude of stuff I'm Thankful for but instead I'm actually going to spend that time with my family. O.K.

P.S. You should do the same.

Oh, and before you go. I just want to take the time to Thank you for being my blog friends, commenter's and lurkers. I really appreciate you stopping in every now and then to say Hi.

Hope you all have a wonderful Holiday and don't stuff yourself too much. See you in a couple of days.

Keen Give-away at DYM

The ever-and-always Awesome Daring Young Mom is having a super KEEN Giveaway right now. You could score some nifty shoes for you or anyone in your family. Or pick out a really happening bag instead.

I'm so breaking the covet commandment right now. So check out the company website here. Pick your favorite item and then visit Kathryn and leave a comment on which item you drool over the most and you could win it.

Then you could stick it under the tree and pretend Santa didn't have to tighten his pursestrings after-all.

Stick a Fork in it!

'Mom, there are dingle-hoppers everywhere,' Hope announced to us this morning as we were all waking up. Yes, she often dresses like a blue fairy with a bad eye for shoe size. It's amazing she doesn't fall down more often but she's got quite the balance for a 3-year-old.

So I looked out the window and saw these all over our front lawn.

A literal army of little Forks.

I instantly groaned thinking Evo-man was up to his wasteful Shenanigans again, or maybe it was some of Abners friends punking our house. Teenagers can be soooo annoying.

So I went down to investigate and I found this on the door.

Afterthought: If the meaning of this yard prank flys over your head. That's o.k. I forgive you for knowing nothing about Twilight. The setting of the book is mainly centered around the town of Forks, WA (hence the forks reference.) We now return to my reaction.

It was meant for me of all people. My moan and groaning chagrin immediately departed and my school-girl giddiness took over. Wow someone cared enough to come in the middle of the night and risk stepping in Dog droppings to surprise me. Turns out around seven of my Twilight Obsessed Friends all got Fork’ed last night. So now there’s a big mystery Who-Dun-It being bounced around. I for one think it was amazingly clever and way cooler than toilet paper ever could be. I have the bestest friends Ever!

It got me thinking about Twilight again so I snuck off to the movie again this afternoon and guess what – It’s actually better the second time around. Maybe if I go again it will just keep getting better and better and better. Shhhh! Don’t tell Prince Erik.

O.K. I know you’re all sick of hearing about Twilight from me so that’s enough. I did get some other fun surprises today. Princess couldn’t wait to open this little treasure we got in the mail today from Faith of ‘Has Anyone seen my cape?’

She sent me one of her fabulous Etsy creations that I won on a contest on her blog. The surprise was not only did I get the cute Mommy and Me barrette that I picked out.

And she added the sweetest little Love barrette as a bonus.

Thank you Faith! The girls and I love them and I’ll have to get some more, soon. I'm thinking her 'Hope and Joy' barrettes are quite cute as well. Check out her shop sometime soon.

It was really my day for mail. I also received an early Christmas present from my brother Arrow and his wife. They sent me the perfect gift that I have to just totally plug –especially if you have a fire addicted pre-teen in your home. They remembered me blogging about how much I love, love, love scented candles but don’t get them anymore because matches are about as dangerous as markers around here. It’s not a risk I’m willing to make. So they sent me the next best thing.

Scentsy Wickless Candles!

This sweet plug-in has enough wattage in it to melt little wax cubes of delicious scent that can fill your entire home and camouflage the stinkies.

Prince Erik had it going when I got back this evening and it was the most welcoming gift to walk through the front doors and catch a whiff of ‘Vanilla Walnut’ instead of the customary ‘Smelly Diaper’ or 'Burnt Toast'.

Thank you, Thank you Bro and Family.

Last but not least – I did listen to your comments. I even fielded phone calls begging me not to take my scissors to (re-purpose) – and hack up the beautiful tablecloth I scored at the thrift store.

So it will remain a heirloom tablecloth and grace our family table as often as I can bear to leave it there – but never at mealtimes until we learn some table manners.

Such a great 'Happy Thought' Day. Thanks again to everyone who made it possible from pranksters to Faith to Arrow's family.

Smile a While Would Ya?

So I'm finally getting around to passing on a sweet award I got from Treasure Ann of Daily Life Daily Living. For some odd reason I make Treasure Ann Smile. Could she be laughing at the latest disaster my kids are creating or smiling with relief that her house isn’t going bonkers on her? I don’t know but I thank her profusely because I am indeed trying to smile more. And you know smiles are contagious, in a really good, non-germy, way.

So I’m passing on this sweet award to five people who make me smile on a regular basis! Hope you enjoy it ladies.

Of course there are the customary rules that go with the award. The recipients must display the following characteristics.

1. Must display a cheerful attitude. (not necessarily at all times–we are all human after all)

2. Must love one another

3. Must make mistakes

4. Must learn from others

5. Must be a positive contributor to blog world

6. Must love life

7. Must love kids or animals

And furthermore…

You know there’s always a catch.

Here are the rules for the award

1. The recipient must link back to the award’s creator (http://www.thebabblingsofmere.blogspot.com/)

2. You must post these rules if you receive the award.

3. You must chose 5 people to receive the award after receiving it yourself

4. You must fit the characteristics of the recipient of the award, as posted by Mere.

5. You must post the characteristics of a recipient.

6. You must create a post sharing your win with others.

7. You must thank your giver.

So seeing as I’ve already Thanked Treasure Ann. Thanks again.

Without further ado - Five people that make me smile.

Sara of Shower of Roses. Sara is as close to my blog twin as you could find. From six kids (some who like making movies to boot), a crafty heart, to even haveing the same wingchair in our homes, Sara a swell blogging buddy. Plus she shares some of my same addictions – like blogging and spending way too much time on the computer! So Sara thanks for making me smile on a regular basis.

Princess Mama at Down From The Door - Well she gave me one of my biggest smiles this week with a blog post dedicated to me stemming from one comment I made on another post.

One of the Things I love about Princess Mama is that she can smile when her kids get muddy. I think muddy kids is a given condition of most mom’s who live in the Pacific Northwest. Smiling about it means you have a happy soul. I love her photos and think she has the heart of a happy woodland nymph. So Smiles to Princess Mama.

Cindy of Being Cindy (Baldwin) has the most beautiful spirit. She’s a newlywed dealing with Cystic Fibrosis of all things. What I love about Cindy, other than her amazing poetry, and pictures, is how she deals with her challenges. With Faith, Grace and insight mostly found in someone who’s lived a lifetime. Cindy is amazing! And if Cindy can smile through adversity - so can I.

Cheri of Jack and Jill of Many Trades is one of the most crafty people I know. Cheri has lived through every homeowner’s nightmare, of having to basically gut your home because of water damage. She and her husband are doing the work themselves, they are that talented. So I smile because she gives me hope that I too can conquer my homes difficulties.

Mrs. Darling of Dishpan Dribble helps me smile because she constantly reminds me, through her posts, that no matter how dark things might seem there’s always reason to have Hope for the future if I’m doing what I know I should be doing. Thanks for the smiles!

Hope you all have a Smiley Day!

Cheesy Hot Date!

So I’m kind of glad I live in the real world occasionally.

So my husband and I went on our first date in, um, 7 months. I know we should go out more often but having a Bi-Polar child makes it hard to leave home. But seeing he sleeps like a log we decided that the midnight showing would be o.k. to try.

Prince Erik was bending over backward to show some chivalry by opening doors and getting me sugar to keep me awake all the while talking how we would go work out the next day. And he gets bonus points for being 1 of only 8 guys in the theater. They all looked like they were trying to get bonus points from their sweeties as well. I bet they would have all liked to have been watching the Bond film instead.

We got there two hours early, see I was a bit excited, and two of the five theaters showing a midnight showing were already full. Thankfully we did get o.k. seats.

I even pulled these together for us to wear.

Prince Erik says I'm much better than Bella and I'd take him over Edward anyday!



So what did this obsessed Twilight Mom have to think about the movie? There were many parts I really enjoyed. Jacob’s hot, the humans were so human, liked the scene with the Cullen’s trying to cook people food. So wish Alice and Jasper could have been given bigger roles. The baseball scene was fun as well.

I think my husband said it best when he said that this movie is a very close adaptation to the book. He found the books to be very, um, shall I say, Cheesy. Somehow reading romance dialogue in print sounds a lot better than hearing it.

There were parts of the movie where I giggled and smirked where I don’t feel I was meant too. There were some over the top characterizations by some of the actors, that just felt a little forced or too theatrical. Who can blame them because they were trying to portray intense flowery written ten page romance scenes from the book with just a singular look. And honestly, sometimes it didn’t quite work.

So what am I saying? I’m actually torn. I liked it and I was disappointed all at the same time. I’m tempted to go see it again to see if it plays better when I’m actually more awake. I wish I could give the cast and crew two different grades. A for Effort and C for Cheese. If you like that then you’ll like the movie. I really did laugh a lot, (not sure if I was supposed to) so I would say go ahead and go if you want a good laugh.

Honestly the Twilight World in my brain is much better and a Trip to Forks with my Prince would have been a dream-better date. But we can’t do that in one night so a movie will do for now.

So what did you think about the movie???

Now that I'm more awake - I do think that I would have enjoyed the movie a bit more had I gone with my girly friends. It's a total chick flick, and I don't think I would have been as embarressed if I had been hanging out with the females. I am glad I got a date out of it, though, because Heaven Knows I need to have a date with P.E. every now and then.

Thrifty Talent Treasure Decisions?

So I've been spending a lot of time in the local Thrift stores looking for things I can re-purpose. Sometimes I find other people's hidden talents and my jaw about hit the floor when I found this Beauty for $6.99. Usually I just buy the $1 sales on Monday. But this was screaming at me to take it home, from the second I saw it. Wonderfully fits my honkin big dining room table as well.

It's all hand embroidery and the backside looks almost as good as the front.

These small details just amaze me.

I just can't imagine the hours and hours someone lovingly put into this piece. It should have been a family heirloom.

So of course I brought it home. But my creative mind is spinning and there's this big decision I'm trying to make concerning this tablecloth. See I never use tablecloths in my home.

Why?

Well see I've bred a bunch of these here mini creative genius' creatures like me who can’t seem to get enough of markers...

Or pens, pencils, dirt and even dare I say mud...

And scissors. I won't tell you what past heirloom they snipped with scissors, but it wasn't pretty.

And then there’s the fact that the whole family has the table manners of a slew of messy barnyard animals.

So when I’ve used tablecloths in the past they basically have to be washed and spotted after every single meal. And I’m thinking that this work of art has seen the inside of a drawer more often than it hasn’t. If I keep it as a table covering it would continue to sit in the dark except for special occasions. Table runners fare much better in my home.

So I’m a wee bit tempted to re-purpose it into a Sunday dress for Lea. I can totally see this in the skirt section of the dress.

And this on the corner of a matching bolero jacket.

I've visioned the whole lovely creation in my head. The colors would rock with Lea's hair as well.

I recently got permission from my mom to re-purpose some of her Cedar-chest treasures into dresses and baby blankets. Beautiful works of art that have been spending that past decades in darkness. I want to give them a new life because they are too pretty for mere pillowcases or dishtowels. And I think I could make something lovely and also something worth handing down to the next generation as well.

'But Fawndear, were you not just telling us how completely messy your children were. How would this dress survive being worn by one of them?' I know your thinking.

Dunno?

In the past they have treated Sunday dresses with a bit more care. But it would still be tempting fate. I'm good at that.

What Do You Think? Should I go for it or save this for Special Occasions tablecloth only?

Happy Thoughts

So I had a couple of downer weeks. Who cares? I had a pretty good excuse considering my house is revolting.

Turns out the scale cared. I avoided it while Carb loading on comfort food. Besides how much damage could two weeks do?

PLENTY!!!

Turns out all the weight I worked so hard to loose over the last 2 ½ months. Well it found me again – in only two weeks. No-Way! So I’m back to square UNO! I was ahead of Smiley in the Accountability Wager now I’m about 4 lbs behind. UGH!

My vice – Stress! I’m an emotional eater and I let the emotions of finances get to me. It was my biggest baddest bump since I started the whole Healthy Life stuff thingy around two years ago.

Kind of got me thinking about one of my favorite movies…

Wendy: You just think happy thoughts. They lift you into the air.

Hook: Alas, I have no happy thoughts.

Wendy: That brings you down!

Me: And in my case, if your down, you weigh a ga-zillion more pounds than if your light on your feet and happy. I've been more like Hook for a couple of weeks and my kids will agree with all my unpleasantness.

I really need this whole Thankful Heart Month and it has helped. Kind of makes me shutter thinking where I’d be without it. Give me Happy Thoughts!

So I'm happy to report that I met with my Young and Gorgeous Counselor this week and am pretty sure that I can jump start the whole Accountability to the Max thing back to life.

Bring on the Happy Thoughts. No I'm not giving up and I'll track every crumb of food between now and the end of the year. I will make my dreams come true.

In other Fawndear news - No thrilling before and after pictures.

More like before and after tidy pictures. I now realize that I need to find a new home for the T.V.

The Piano would look much better without the big black thing on top of it. I need to work on shelf clutter too. As well as Floor clutter.

It might still get really messy after just a normal hour of my kiddo’s in there. But there are reasons for spaces and I’ll try and keep them task oriented.

From the picture you can see I moved my sewing station out of the dining room and set up my Elf Station in the family room so I could keep a better eye on the munchkins while I’m working.

I’ve lined up all my $1 day thrift store sale finds (sheets, slip-covers, curtains, and tablecloths), and they are more than ready for me to turn them into nightgowns for my girlies, a Christmas Tree Skirt or two, aprons, and a few other odd and end gifts. Can I tell you I’m Too-Excited about the whole thrift thing.

So I’ve got a new goal – Christmas in $100 or less. Don’t know if it’s possible but I’m going to try hard. The only thing I’m not including is special food for Christmas Dinner and postage to mail gifts to family. Because honestly, I expect postage to cost more than what I’m spending to make the gifts in the first place. (Sorry I’m so cheap this year guys!) So I guess I should rephrase and say Christmas Gifts in $100 or less. Wish me luck!

So my Christmas Countdown for this week:

1. Finish presents that will need to be mailed.

2. Start working on all the sewing crafts.

3. Focus on Happy Thoughts!

It's Raining Hair, among other things.

So I think I need to lay off the Rain dancing for a bit. It’s been so much fun that I think I’ve inadvertently encouraged whoever is in charge of rain to send more because, well, there’s that crazy lady down there, dancing in the rain again. This last week we’ve had what they call the ‘Pineapple Express’ move through our area where the rain is super warm but also super heavy making for some pretty fun rain dancing but also some amazing flooding in our nearby valley. In fact, in the 11 plus years that we’ve lived here it was the second worst flood levels I’ve seen.

So the kids got a flood day off school today. Not a snow day, but a flood day. I grew up with days off for potato harvest and deer hunt, not flooding. I guess I should be grateful that they don’t have days off for critter hunting here. But what would people hunt? Probably moles, garbage lovin' raccoons, and a possum or two. Now I know why the deer are in the city more and more recently. It’s because you can’t discharge a firearm in the city boundaries. Those deer are pretty smart.

Well, since the munchkins were all out of school for the weather, I engaged myself in some more crafty stuff, because it was a rain day and all. I worked on another fairy portal for my friend who’s the biggest Disney fanatic I know, other than myself. So I tried to recreate Sleeping Beauty’s Castle in Disneyland.

I think it turned out o.k. and loved the detail of shingles on the roof, and of course I had to add some pixie dust.

Alas, I guess I wasn’t paying enough attention to my munchkins. Normally it’s little Hope that gives me the run-around. Not so today. This time around it was my-old-enough-to-know-better Princess.

Thankfully it didn't involve water like shown in the above picture. It involved something much more damaging - Scissors!

Apparently she decided that her bangs were too long and she wanted to look beautiful.

Then she walked up to me with a huge grin on her face and asked if she was beautiful. I tried taking pictures but they were mostly fuzzy like this.

But it looked like she had given herself a humdinger of a mullet cut and nearly taken the bangs out by their roots.

Oh, Heaven’s to Betsy! What next? So I made the mistake of saying that it was as short as a boys hair in places. That was a mistake because her face crumpled and she immediately started crying because she didn’t want to look like a boy.

So I trotted her off to the hair-dressers because I knew saving any semblance of her femininity would require someone more skilled with cutting hair than me with the hair clippers. All I can do are buzz cuts. Then in the magazines I showed her all the cute pixie cuts on girls, to show that short hair was indeed fetching on some females.

After all was said and done it looks like she still got a bad hair cut. I didn’t want them to even it up or her hair would have been less than an inch long in most places. So she got the layered Do. And all while she was talking the head off of the poor hair-dresser. Princess loves to talk and was constantly spouting off things such as…

‘What am I wearing,’ questioned Princess?

‘A Cape to keep the hair off you?’ replied the kind Beautician.

‘It’s like a hair slide park, you drop the hair on it and it slides right off,’ Princess would barely pause to take a breath and then go on giving everyone there a play-by-play analysis of which directions her hair would be sliding, interspersed along with little random nuggets of thought she would pull out of the air. Like talking about her 1st grade boyfriend, and discussing that she felt she would look like a pixie if her hair was colored blue and had sparkles in it. And maybe she could even spike it up. Wouldn’t that be cute?

Wow, I raise the rebels young around here. My six year old wants blue spikey hair. Needless to say everyone, in the establishment were cracking smiles left and right.

I then took her mug shot, to remind her that we made an agreement never to cut hair again until after she had been to Beautician School when she is Abners age. I think it looks kind of perky like her.

I really need to get my camera fixed so inside pictures don't always look so yellow. Here's mug 2.

So I realize that I missed the Christmas list for this week. But to be honest my house is trashed and I don’t think there’s a clean, uncluttered surface anywhere. I lose things if I set them down and I still haven’t found the truck keys which have been missing almost three weeks. So I’m going to take a couple of days off blogging to get down and dirty and try and give that clutter monster a good one-two punch. But when I get back I should have some scary before, and splendid after pictures for your perusal.

P.S. Before I forget. I'm Thankful that I don't have to spend tons of time combing Princess's hair while she whines loudly about how I'm-ripping-the-hair-out-of-her-head-cause-I'm-pulling-so-hard.

Zoinks - How to pick a Thing-a-ma-jig Winner?

There Really is no other way to do this. So this here Knucklehead will attempt to use your favorite (hmmm) words to announce the Marvelous winner of my alternate reality Thing-a-ma-jig Give-away. My English Teacher would be so Proud!



Zoinks, How to choose a winner? I know – I’ll just kick my Sugar-jets into gear long enough to go to Random.org to pick my splendid winner for me. Then I’ll sit back, throw on some Holiday music twinkle-ling with tintinnabulation (had to look the definition of this one up [The ringing and sounding of bells]). What you don’t hear is the sheer elation of my Yepperdoodle family who is just going to Love that I’m getting more of my clutter off the counter and sending it to… Ms. Mary Poppins herself – Treasure Ann, for her random word of Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious. So Huzzah for Treasure Ann! I Hope you enjoy your new Rock-On sparkles courtsey of Ethel.



And to all my commenters, blog followers, and lurkers I wish you all a most Wonderous and Blessed Day.

Toodles

Thankful for Our Veterans!

It seems like Veteran's day is another of those forgotten holidays. You know the holiday that has turned into more of a day for shopping sales or taking a day off work to play.

So I was talking with my kids last night about Veteran's Day and asking them how we should celebrate our veterans. A couple of my teenagers suggested we rent 'Call of Duty' for Wii and play it. I immediately shot that idea out of the air. No war playing games today! Ya think I would have taught my boys better by now. Guess I still have some work to do.

Instead I showed them this...



So a big Thanks to our Veteran's Today and Every Day!

Before and After the Insanity!

Insanity has been threatening to claim me this week. I happy to report that it didn't, but it was not from the lack of trying.

Remember last week when the Dishwasher and Dryer Broke on top of needing a major roof repair after I gracefully stepped through it. Well, I’m honestly laughing (yes, I am) because Mr. Murphy is piling up the home repair goodies on us. And it seems to me that he has very expensive taste because he is attacking the most costly sections of our home.

Could we possibly be living in…

The Monster House?

So this week, we investigated the Dishwasher problem and discovered some major wood-rot in both the floor, subfloor and on some support beams under the kitchen. In the spirit of my Thankful Heart Month - Let me stop right here and say that I’m Thankful that I will be the recipient of a new kitchen whether we were ready for one or not.

Then Prince Erik discovered that the freezer door was left open and this was the result...

Again I’m Thankful for a great husband who volunteered to defrost the old beast for me. It needed to be done and now it is. Check-off that To-Do!

So this morning my hubby went out to the garage to see how his frozen job had done over night, when he noticed that it was raining over the food storage. Raining indoors – that is. Seems we have sprung a new leak somewhere under the Master Bath Tub. Alas - No more baths. O.K. so who opened the flood gates because this is beyond ridiculous.

With that in mind – and it STILL being my grateful heart month – I’m thankful that our water bill will be smaller for the foreseeable future and that sometime after we fix the kitchen I will be the recipient of a new section of my Master Bathroom. Wish our favorite plumber didn't live two states away.

Wow, I feel like I just won the lottery in Lemon Houses.

Needless to say, we sat down and had a hard look at finances and I honestly shed a few tears and maybe walked around like a zombie for a few hours to boot. It isn’t anything we can’t handle but it will require that we live the whole Month of Needs Lifestyle for the next umpteen months to be able to cover these new expenses. I’m also looking at ways that maybe I can pitch in a couple of pennies here and there. You know I have the hardest time with budgets. They rank right up there with the taboo words like diet and goals. I have dreams instead. And I’m dreaming and praying that everything will work out. I know it will because God doesn’t give us anything we can’t handle – Right?

That being said, I heard somewhere that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again but expecting different results. So I'm trying several new things with money in an effort to gain control over it. I'm shoving the credit and debit cards into cold storage and experiementing with the cash system. And no you won't get a bucket-load of cash off me should you decide to rob me, so don't get any ideas. I just think that I'll be able to have a better grasp of the whole in-and-out cashflow stuff if I see it before my eyes.

Christmas will be very green this year as I’m making most of it. I’m set on what I need to finish for my little girls (Would love some suggestions on what I could make for electronic craving teenage boys). I'm still excited as all get-up about the excuses to be creative.

I had a great day yesterday and was able to finish getting my front yard ready for winter.

Princess, and Lea and our neighbor Ethel’s Daughter helped for a solid couple of hours, raking and pushing leaves, and washing sidewalks, while I mowed the lawn. So I'm thankful for their help because they volunteered to do it without a word from me.

I loved every moment spent outside. It’s my environment. Even saw some of my friends Bambi and Faline pass by within a dozen feet or so while we were out.

Another great thing about the week was that I put the Halloween decorations away and cleaned up my costume sewing mess in the dining room. So here’s the customary before and after pics.

So the before was really the aftermath of our Wizard of Oz costume tornado hit!

And After…

I know a bit simple but I’m digging simple right now.

The best and most wonderful thing about the past week was Princess.

Hope and I spent the day at Children’s Hospital with Princess undergoing tests as a follow-up for a condition discovered last year. A condition, which could have meant surgery, if not resolved. She had to be partially sedated for one of the tests which was hard to watch because it turned her into a glassy-eyed slobber girl. The equivalent of someone so drunk they can’t walk. It seemed to effect her more than the normal kid and took an hour longer than normal to wear off.

Hope, meanwhile, had the nurses eating out of her hand (thank goodness), but if I ever have to go again, I’m getting a sitter. Don’t know what I was thinking when I decided to take her with us?

Well, the tests were all very positive and her chances of a full recovery are splendid. No surgery needed! So we are super-duper Thankful that Heavenly Father has helped heal her little body.

Can I just say that I’m extra Thankful for all of the many blessings and miracles of Health that our family has had bestowed upon us in the past two years. It really gives me hope that we will handle the all our difficulties be they finincial, or mental.

So my heart is still happy because it's still Thankful!