Weekend.

The weekend was okay, I suppose. The weather has been beautiful, beautiful, beautiful.  I've been very worried about my mom, so I have been down there at the assisted living facility every day trying to get her to eat and drink something.  They will not be able to keep her there and she may have to go to a nursing home if she does not start eating.  I've been in contact with the NP who is treating her quite a bit as well.  It is not physically exhausting, but the mental exhaustion from the worry makes me feel physically exhausted.  Every day I go have lunch with her and then I come home and want to sleep.  I've been trying to be more "in the moment" when I am at home and it does help with the stress/anxiety of it.  Last night, my family took a couple of hours and had a board game night.  Cosmo was all excited at first when we set up the card table, but he quickly lost interest in what we were doing and crawled under one of the ottomans and growled at himself for a while.  I guess that was more fun than watching us play Blokus, Masterpiece and Cover Your Assets.  :-P  

This and that.

The view out the living room window yesterday.  Yesterday was just breathtakingly beautiful.  I did go outside for a while, but I did not take my phone, so I took the picture after I got inside.
 

Most of last week was just recovering from staying at the hospital for 2 overnights.  I didn't get much else done.  I went to see mom pretty much every day just to make sure that she eats something, in order to keep her out of the hospital, hopefully, ongoing. 

We did finally work at the little store in town where my daughter and I are selling our crafts.  We made 70 dollars with our crafts and our table cost 60 so we didn't do all that great, really, for our first month.  We'll see if we want to continue.  I told her I'd do 3 months.   Tourist season is just now ramping up though, so maybe we'll do better in the future.  These pictures are of our display.  :-)  

We are continuing homeschooling in our relaxed style, which means that the boy does his lessons on his own and when he says he's done, he'll be done and we'll work on his transcript and get him ready for college.  He recently re-took the ACT and felt that he probably did better on it, so hopefully he'll get some good scores and be ready to go to college (not too far away :-P.)

Thanks everyone.

She's coming back to the assisted living facility today.  I am kind of in shock, but glad.  I expected her to be there longer based on something one of the nurses said.  It's weird to spend 12 hours a night in a hospital all of the sudden like that.  Please continue to keep her in your prayers, because she has been refusing food and drink and that's what got her in the hospital and we don't know how we are going to resolve it.

Prayers Please.

My mom is in the hospital, so prayers please.

Thanks.

Simplest Trick of All for Saving on Groceries.

Okay, here's my simple trick for saving on groceries.  I use coupons sometimes.  I go to the salvage grocery store sometimes (and when I do, I save money for 2-3 weeks afterwards at the regular grocery store) but the best/easiest thing I do, is just procrastinate going for a day or two.  I don't go once a week, but once every 8-9 days.   My grocery budget when we were both working, for 5 pets and 4 people, was 150 dollars a week and when I go, I pretty much fill up the cart/buggy and it ends up being right around this amount.  I do spend less when I do a meal plan, but it averages about this amount most of the time.  Some people like to challenge themselves and empty the pantry out over a month and save the money, but I like to have fresh fruit and dairy products, so I just put off going to the store for a couple of days.  I think I will challenge myself this week and try and go maybe 3 days past a week.   Yesterday would have been my grocery day if I went once a week, but we have plenty of food, so I think we can wait until Monday.

So here's 150 dollars a week going every 7 days  .... 7800 per year.

every 8 days 6843 per year.

every 9 days 6083 per year.

In the summer, Kroger kind of messes this schedule up because they have a promotion that if you shop on weekends, you get double gas points, so in the summer, I'll probably go every weekend.  Those gas points add up.

A while back, I got a full tank of gas for 1.49 a gallon.

:-)

Now that I look at this, I think I can do better and spend less.

My Helpers.

Cosmo and Freckles helped me make the bed this morning, by running around and around on it while I was trying to make it up and refusing to get down.  Didn't we get it nice and smooth?  :-P

Reading Schools On Trial

By Mikhil Goyal.   Everyone should read this book.

I painted a rug.

I had 2 little cheap Ikea rugs in my entryway.  I decided to paint them.  I actually did 2 but only one of them turned out really well.  On the other one, I made a mistake with the stencil.  I think it turned out cute.  Please ignore the scratches and dirt on the baseboard, the dogs go out this door and seem to always be racing each other and scrabbling for a foothold so that one can get out more quickly than the other and they scratch up the baseboard.  I'm planning to paint that when I get a chance.

It's weird being a full time housewife, now that I am unemployed.  I have not been getting as much done as I want to around the house.  I am not organized and I don't have a schedule.  I have been setting alarms on my phone every 20 minutes to keep me going, but I get distracted.  My mom has not been feeling well and that has been making me very sad and it's hard to feel energized about cleaning when you are sad.  I saw her today and she's better.  She started antibiotics last night, thank goodness.

As for homeschooling reports, we're almost done.  Youngest son is in the living room doing his German right now and in only a few weeks he will be finished.  I think he's probably going to get a job this summer and work one year to save up before starting college.  We'll see, I guess.

Making the most of my time.

I'm trying, while I am unemployed, to get my house cleaned up and with that in mind, I tackled the board game situation a little yesterday.  We sure do have a lot of board games.  I tried to talk the kids into letting me clear out all the homeschooling/office/craft supplies out of that cabinet and replacing it all with board games, but they are resistant to change and don't want to face the end of homeschooling any more than I do, so I am trying to figure out what to do otherwise.  So far, I've come up with having 2 shelves for them, one in the bedroom and the other one still in the kitchen cabinet.  We sure do have a lot of board games.

Today, I tackled our main storage area, my closet.  That is a nightmare and may take weeks.  I made a small dent in it today and will try to make progress throughout the week.  I just can't deal with doing it all at the same time.  I'd rather do a little each day and then switch to something else.  It doesn't help that  some of the stuff in there is from my mom's house and gets me all emotional.   :-p

April Fool!

If you've read this blog for any amount of time, you'll know that I love April Fool's day.  Maybe it's because I have an April birthday?  I don't know why, I just do.  It's a time to be playful.  I like to do pranks that just make you be surprised a little, nothing harmful.  Today, I have filled a couple of shoes with small balloons at the toes, put tiny balloons in the cabinets so that they will fall out when the doors are opened, put a bunch of them under an afghan on the couch in the hopes that they might pop when sat on and, my favorite for this year, put a fake, printed and cut out bug in the lampshade.  Yes, I do drive my family a little crazy, thanks for asking.  :-)