Back to the basics

A long time ago, I went by the FlyLady system and it worked really well for me.  Since then, I've tried a good mix of different techniques for keeping my home.  Now, with the home I'm in now, it seems like doing things the FlyLady way makes a lot of sense, so that's what I'm going with, for the most part.  Mostly, I'm following the "zone" schedule, and maybe a few other things, but I have kind of developed my own way of doing things, now that I've been at this homemaking thing for awhile.   For instance, our weeks around here start on Sunday, not Monday.  Most of the time, Nick's work schedule is Sunday -Thursday, so that's what our whole family's "work week" is, including homeschool.  Although, we still tend to keep Sundays light.

Anyway, this week in my home, I will be working on the main bathroom, plus one other room.  I have decided that "one other room" is going to be the older boys bedroom.  The place is a disaster.  On the surface it doesn't look to bad.  On the surface.  You go anywhere beyond the surface, and it's scary.  I would say that is the one room in this whole house right now that needs a serious de-cluttering.  They have such a nice, huge closet that has so much organizing potential, but right now, no one wants to touch it.  So, as soon as I'm done with the bathroom, I'm rolling up my sleeves and going in!  I hope to be done with the bathroom tomorrow, so that I have almost a whole week to work on the boys' room.

So, in upcoming blogs, I hope to share routines being set up, more studies on joy, homeschool happenings, and fun things with the kids.

Menu for the week of 3/9/09

I meant to post this on Monday, but did not have it complete yet.    I'm sorry I haven't been on a lot lately.  I am trying to come up with a regularly posting "routine," so to speak, so I can better manage my time on here. 

Monday
Breakfast:
Breakfast sandwiches
Lunch:
Leftovers
Dinner:
Ground beef Romanoff
Peas (after I steam these, I add butter, Spike seasoning, dillweed, zest and juice from half of a lemon)
Bread and butter

Tuesday
Breakfast:
Bagels with cream cheese
Lunch:
Pizza
Dinner:
(Hubby made dinner tonight! *swoon*)
Fish
Corn
Dinner rolls
Cheese-stuffed oven pretzels

Wednesday
Breakfast:
Bagels with cream cheese
Lunch:
Leftovers
Dinner:
Leftovers

Thursday
Breakfast:
Cereal
Lunch:
Lime chicken soft tacos
Corn
Rice (we will use some from our Uncle Ben's flavored rice stash)
Dinner:
Chicken Divan
5-cup salad (a fruit salad)

Friday
Breakfast:
Egg sandwiches (my dad's famous fried-egg sandwiches...I will have to post a recipe sometime!)
Hash browns
Lunch:
Leftovers
Dinner:
Egg drop soup
Fried rice

I know it seems like we have lots of leftovers, and we do!  I tend to cook on the, um, heavy side, and my family doesn't seem to mind eating the leftovers until they're gone, so that's what we do.  Unless I purposely make extra to stick in the freezer.

Our school room

Someone asked on a board that I'm part of how everyone's school room is set up.  I thought I'd make it easier and put mine in a blog post with pictures.    We don't have a separate school room, but besides eating, our dining room is used mostly as a school room.  Here's some general shots...







As you can see, we have school-related things all over.    But it's mostly concentrated to this corner.

The bottom 2 shelves (of the book shelf on the left) are for encyclopedia-type books.  Then next shelf up contain the toddler toys and board books for Andrew.  The next shelf is chapter books for Vincent.  The first shelf contains books related to our current curriculum, plus dictionaries and easy readers.  On the very top is a basket containing markers, this year's binders holding Vincent's papers, an art case and a bunch of different kinds of paper/paper pads, and our globe.


The shelf next to the white cabinet contains art/activity supplies and our ant hill on the bottom shelf.  Andrew's puzzles on the next shelf up.  The next 2 shelves contain general books and books from previous years, plus pattern blocks and perler beads.  On top is a bucket of play-doh, a play-doh caddy, and our electric pencil sharpener, tape dispenser, and stapler.

The basket on the white cabinet contains general art supplies.  The stack next to that is all the books I need for the next school day.  The rest of the cabinet contains science or other kits and extra school supplies.

We have much more space than our old house, and we love it!  Things are so much better organized and accessible.  And I LOVE having the kitchen right there for our kitchen-type science experiments and lessons that involve cooking...don't have to walk through 2 rooms and around the corners anymore to go back and forth! 

So, that's our school area...works for us!

Some new house pictures-after the move

I finally got around to taking some more pictures now that we're settled.

Here's the front entrance.

A closer look at our nativity.

The bathroom near the boys' rooms.

The living room.  I had a picture that was more to the left that showed the fireplace and Christmas tree, but it didn't turn out...the dining room one did the same thing, so I will have to show those off later. 

My--yes, I said MY--kitchen.  LOL!

The counter is a little cluttered with Christmas treats at the moment. 

Here's a couple of views of the dining room that I DO have...the school section (yes, it needs a little organizing, even though we haven't started back with school yet LOL!).

And our china cabinet.

Moving on to the laundry room.  Excuse the mess...those boxes and everything are gone now.

The master bathroom.  If you walk in and go to the right, that's where our sink is.  There's cabinets under the sink.  Then, if you're standing at the sink and turn to look behind you, you will see a floor-to-ceiling set of cabinets/drawers, and next to that, a HUGE linen closet.  I love it!

Moving through the master bathroom into the master bedroom.

Hey, who's that?

Someone is up from their nap!  He must've heard the camera clicking and just had to ham it up.  Hello, Isaac!

After such a break of cuteness, why even bother with the rest of the pictures???  Oh, well...moving on to the backyard. Stepping out onto the deck.

Here's our shed, when you look to the right.

And to the left, here's the field/sledding hill where the kids play.

When I stepped outside the other night, I had to run back in and get the camera for this beautiful picture, just after sunset.  The picture totally doesn't do it justice...I swear the camera shrunk the moon (that puny little light just to the left of the tree branches).

In my next post, I think I will talk about routines that I want for our new home.

HAPPY NEW YEAR, EVERYONE!!!!!

Getting settled

I don't have pictures yet, but will try and get some up in the next week. 

We are getting settled and re-adjusted nicely into our new house.  Moving so much stuff was an experience and adventure for sure!  We have one more major area to get unpacked, and that is the master bedroom.  We ALL love this new house the Lord has blessed us with!  We just keep finding more and more things to love about being here.

Today, Vincent made some new friends.  I am so happy for him.  Nick took Vincent and Andrew outside to go sledding before dinner, and some other kids joined them.  Andrew ended up coming in the house fairly quickly because he was getting whiny about the cold, but Vincent stayed out until we had to call him in for dinner.  He had a great time, and he looks forward to more! 

Nick brought home a tree yesterday, and it's settling in our living room...we will hopefully get it decorated tomorrow.  Sunday we are having my parents and brother over for lunch.  Tomorrow I will spend the day getting the final touches done with cleaning, and hopefully will get some Christmas decorating done.  Then, the few days before Christmas, I plan on doing at least a little baking.  I cannot wait to put my new kitchen to good use...not to mention the apron I won from Mrs. Mo!  That's another picture I will have to share later.  We will be celebrating at my parents' house this year, but next year, we will be back in hosting action. 

Anyway, I will try and be back soon with some pictures, although it will be pretty busy around here in the next week.

Final update from the old house

Well, things are going better than planned.  Everything is set and we are closing tomorrow afternoon.  As soon as that is done, we take possession of the new house and will move our beds and necessities over there.  We will also pick up our washer and dryer on the way.  Saturday is the big moving day!  I will blog more after we get settled...I will most likely not be online much in the next few days. 

I hope you all have a wonderful week!

Moving update...some glitches, of course!

It's to be expected, right?  Our closing is not to happen tomorrow as planned.  They have not received one of Nick's employment verification forms, which was faxed to them, and they need a copy of my social security card, which I cannot seem to find.  I have to go apply for another, and they will take the print-off from that.  I went on Friday, but procedure was not followed (by the office, not me), and I didn't get everything I need.  Sooooooo, I went in today and took a number...there were about 60 ahead of me, and there were people there that had been waiting for about 2-3 hours.    I waited as long as I could, then Nick had to get to work, so we will try first thing tomorrow morning.  I'll get the paperwork I need, then we will head off to the sales office for the house to turn in what we need.  Hopefully, we will be able to close Wednesday or Thursday.  Nick says as long as we close by Friday, he will be happy.  He is not stressing, praise the Lord!  I was with the whole social security scenario, and I could tell my MS was trying to show through, but thank God I have calmed down since then.  I have taken some Excedrin for my headache, and I'm feeling much better...packing commences.   So, yes, if closing is any later than Friday, we will have a big mess on our hands.  We have a dozen or so people, some of whom have rearranged their schedules to help us move on Saturday.  Not to mention on Tuesday the inspector from the mortgage company is coming to make sure everything is cleaned up.  So, any prayers are definitely appreciated!

A testimony

First of all, I just have to say GOD IS SO GOOD.  I have seen Him work many miracles lately.  Especially throughout this move, He has been so good to us.  There is no limit to His provisions.  It starts with our washer.  Actually, it starts before that.  We are moving because we lost our house.  I won't get into the long story about it, but let's just say it was getting to be too much for us to keep up on.

A couple of months ago, our washer broke down on us.  Finances have been so tight lately, not to mention, how could we justify even buying a cheap dryer in the classifieds when we were moving in a couple of months?  I put out a wanted ad on freecycle for one and prayed someone would respond.  Someone did, that very evening.  The next day, we had a working washer again.  It's a 2/3 size, but it works for us.

Next, going over the budget, we were wondering how we were going to come up with moving expenses.  We prayed about it and the next day an envelope from FedEx shows up at our door with a letter saying the mortgage company wants to work out a deal.  If we vacate by the date we are supposed to and leave the place in decent condition, they will cut us a check.  No strings attached whatsoever.  When we called the number to confirm, we found out the check is going to be more than we expected...much more...it will more than cover our moving expenses!

We went and applied for a loan for our new home.  Except for the foreclosure, our credit is pretty good and hubby's income is great, so we were able to get a very nice new manufactured home...see the photos below!  It includes my dream kitchen, and so many other things that will be sooooooooo much better for our family than where we're at now.  We got approved and the funds have fallen into place.  We close on it next Tuesday.  Although our budget is still pretty tight until things settle, it has improved greatly over the last couple of weeks.

The ONLY problem with our new home is that we have to provide the washer and dryer.  Which we have, but the home is set up for electric...we have a gas dryer.  And our washer's pretty small, but we would take it if we had to.  I once again put out another post on freecycle last week for a working electric dryer.  This time I got no responses, so we started checking out some classifieds.  We actually found some used sets and just dryers that were fairly cheap, and were prepared to buy.  It would really stretch our budget, but this is a need we have, so we were willing to move things around for it.  I just checked my email a little while ago, and someone actually responded to the freecycle post!  They have a full size working electric dryer AND a full size working washer that are taking up space that we can have!  I just started bawling.  God never fails to provide for our needs, if only we would ask Him.

These are the major things...there are also many little things in between that my Father has done for us!  I have seen him work in so many ways throughout this.  He is so good!  To HIM goes all the credit and glory!  Blessed be the name of the Lord!

Our new house part 2

Okay, here's a few more pictures of the kitchen (the kitchen, of course, is my favorite part!).


Here is the master bedroom.  That door leads to the master bath, which leads back around to the laundry room.  The 2 closets are on the same wall as the door, and there's another window to the right side of that wall...the bed will go in between the 2 windows.

Here's the room that will be Andrew's.  For some reason, we didn't get a shot of Vincent's room or the other bathroom.  The closets in all the rooms are huge!

Here's another angle of the laundry room (washer/dryer and cabinets off to the right).  That is our back door, which leads out to the deck.  The door on the left is the pantry (!).

Here's somewhat of a view of our deck/yard from one of the windows.  If you were to pan more to the left, you would see a baseball field....LOTS of running space.  And the boys are VERY excited about sledding...oh, and the apple tree...you can see it right next to the deck there.  We took our shoes off at the front door and couldn't go out on the deck, so this is the best view we could get for now.

Our new house part 1

We went out this morning and got some pictures of our new house.

Here's the front hall where you first walk in.

Here's the living room (see the fireplace!).  This angle is taken from the kitchen.

Here's the kitchen.


That's the dining room back there, then you take a right and go into the laundry room.


I'll post more pictures later...for some reason, I can't the previous/next feature to work on choosing photos here.