"Does not stay on task"

We were supposed to be building the number 412. Instead, we ended up with this:

This girl deserves it!

My cousin Katie is pregnant with #4 and her sweet sister has nominated her for a virtual baby shower. The winner gets an amazing amount of really cool, really nice new baby stuff. Now a girl with 4 kids deserves to get the really cool, really nice baby stuff. And you can help her!! Click here and go vote! It's super easy so it won't take but a few seconds of your time. You get one vote per computer, so use any computer you have. Why are you still here? What are you waiting for? Let's help Katie win it!

Sigh

Sweet Hubby and I are getting ready to pay off our last credit card with our tax refund. That's exciting. We've been looking forward to doing that for a year.

But.

Then I go and have to have a root canal and two crowns. Grrr. So now we're about $1600 in debt again (not counting the cars and house). Thankfully, we were able to get a line of credit through the dentist's office with a low interest rate AND low monthly payment and we're thinking we can get it paid off with NEXT year's tax refund or Sweet Hubby's yearly bonus (that he's not getting this year).

*sigh*

One step forward, one step back.

Yay!

I'm so proud of myself. I've been menu planning for a while now, but I've got it down to a science and the last several weeks, I've been able to get a week's worth of groceries for anywhere between $75 and $90. That includes paper products (paper towels, TP, diapers, etc) and other consumables (dish detergent, laundry detergent, razors, vitamins, etc) and we don't eat out. I plan for all three meals for at least 6 days...one day of the week we might eat at my folks' or the IL's for dinner and we usually eat lunch with them at least one day on the weekend. So for 18 meals (I plan every meal and snack) for the five of us and a week's worth of snacks, I get out under $100. I used to spend so much more. AND we still ate out.

And what I'm really impressed with is that we're acutally eating pretty well. I've always complained that it's hard to eat healthy on a tight budget because the good for you food is so much more expensive. But with the menu planning, we're still eating fruits and veggies and whole grains and not too many convenience foods. We still eat boxed mac and cheese about once a week and the kids love their canned soups, but other than that, I'm cooking from scratch so we're eating well.

A family of 5 eating for under $360 a month...YAY!

An inside peek at the working of Zachary's mind

These are the random thoughts that came out of Zachary's mouth today over lunch (and they were indeed in this order):

"In the bible, it says God made me. If you get sick, you eat good food. If your body gets sick, you eat good food, not bad food. Like blueberry pie. That's good."

I don't think he's ever even had bluberry pie.

He's on a roll....

Stephen got a Backyardigans CD for his birthday. In one of the songs, the Backyardigans are pretending to be journalists on TV station in corn country. One character sings, "W-I-O-Wa, corniest station in the nation." But she's not real clear in her enunciating. So this is what Stephen hears, and then walks around singing (censored a bit to keep the weirdos out):

"W-I-O-Wa, h*rniest station in the nation!"

He also has a game with little worms. He thinks one of the worms has horns and he calls it....the h*rny worm.

Then yesterday morning over breakfast, this question fell onto my plate:

"Mom, how does God put the baby in your belly?"

Our new gallery, some t-ball and more!

It's been a busy bloggy day for me!! But I've been meaning to post some of these pics for a while (not the first one, because I just took it).

Check out our new "gallery" I just put up this morning.



It's simple, but I'm proud of it. The kids were so excited to have their art hung up. It's just yarn pinned to the wall and the art is hung with those little clothes clip-py things (I can't think of the word right now for some reason...). It's fun and it's a cute touch to the playroom.

Stephen had t-ball tryouts on Monday. He did GREAT. They had 3 batting attempts and 3 catch attempts. He hit the ball 2 out of 3 swings and caught the ball 2 or 3 times (I can't remember now).



And this is how I caught Marc-Adam the other day:



Now, I'm not sure if the stool was already in the kitchen or if it was actually up against the wall like that, but this is slightly scary to me. That kid is trouble!

And here's a cute one of Z. He just tuckers out sometimes and finds a soft place to fall.

Thanks

Thanks for all your kind words from this post. It really did help me feel better. Sometimes it's better just to know I'm not alone. Not that I want anyone else to feel this way, but it's comforting to know it's normal that I feel this way and it's not just because I'm crazy or because I really am inadequate. The feeling of isolation is the worst sometimes for me, so it helps that even though I still feel isolated, I'm not really alone.

It seems like I've been running on all cylinders lately. I used to go to bed at 9pm or so and get up at 7 or 8am. Recently, I'm lucky to get to sleep by 11pm or midnight. That was fine for a few days, but after a couple weeks, I really started to feel it. And it kinda feels like I'm on a hamster wheel...running and running till I'm out of breath and need some water only to look behind me and see that I've gotten nowhere--the house is still a mess, the kids are still fighting and Sweet Hubby's on his way home.

Yesterday afternoon, I had folded laundry, run to the store with the kids, read with the kids and then started dinner. I had spent a couple hours in the kitchen preparing dinner and getting ready for today. By the time dinner was finally done (and it was SO good!), I realized it was just about bedtime, so I gave the kids their sleepytime tea, cleaned up dinner quickly, got them dressed in jammies and off to bed (with an extra chapter in the book I'm reading with them and an extra snuggle since Daddy wasn't home). As soon as I was done with them, I sat down with the neighbor girl for an hour and a half to help her with her math. I was feeling good about everything I had gotten done, but I was feeling whipped. Sweet Hubby then comes home and I remember that I forgot to take his movie back to the Red Box...he wasn't happy. He then lets me know that I left his favorite jammie pants in the washing machine. I wanted to yell at him so badly, but I just calmly apologized and went back to focusing on helping the neighbor girl (I really should give her a better name than that) convert millimeters to meters. That's all I could do at the time.

So I'm trying to take it one task (or sometimes one second) at a time. I'm not sure if this is all because of my stage in life and my circumstances (which means it may get better at some point) or if it's me. I suppose it could be both.

Anyway, thanks again. I love my bloggy circle! Bloggy hugs all around.

Confirmed

I found another link concerning the issue in my last post. I don't even give my kids' SS numbers to their doctor or to our insurance company. They threaten not to cover the kids, but we've never had an issue. I don't trust the schools enough to give them that information and I certainly don't trust any third party they might give my kids' information to.

This is interesting...and scary!

And yet another reason to homeschool.....

I'll admit, I haven't checked around for myself to see if this is true, but this came from a reliable source on a homeschool e-mail loop that I'm a part of. The comment at the bottom that says "My Comment" is not actually my comment, but the comment of the person who posted it.

TRACKING KINDERGARTENERS

Texas school districts are handing over Social Security numbers, dates of
birth and other sensitive information about the state's kindergarten
students to a private software company without permission from the
children's parents. State education officials who set up the unusual
arrangement insist that the information is safe. But some educators and
parents worry about sending student Social Security numbers to a private
company hired to store kindergarten reading test scores. A privacy expert
says thousands of 5- and 6-year-olds are vulnerable to identity theft as a
result.

"I would hope that any company that had the financial future of every single
kindergartner in Texas would be put through the mill as far as security,"
said David Holtzman, a former security analyst who wrote the book Privacy
Lost. "This is more valuable than a million dollars in gold coins in the
bank." More than 350,000 children attend public school kindergarten in
Texas.

My comment: interesting number of kindergarteners. If those kids
homeschooled, we would double the number of homeschoolers in Texas, wow,
what a concept! Yes, feel free to forward to all your friends with
Kindgarteners.

The inner demons

I have to interrupt this usually light-hearted mommy blog to get a little serious. This probably is a little more than I usually would put "out there", but I've had it on my heart and on my shoulders to talk about it for a while. I'm probably going to regret it tomorrow, but I'm about to "get real" and talk about things that are quite personal to me, so if you can't take this kind of thing, feel free to move on to your next read.

I have this constant and insatiable need for encouragement and validation. I'll take it from just about anybody, but mostly I just want it from my husband--who doesn't quite get exactly what I need and why I need it, so most of the time, I don't get it from him. It's not his fault, and I don't blame him at all. It's just not in his personality. I feel like it's my fault and something I need to work out for myself. Why do I constantly need someone telling me that I'm great and fabulous and my kids are wonderful and it's all because of me and the messy house isn't important because I'm focusing on my kids and I'm smart and funny and on and on and on.....Why is that so important to me and why does my emotional well-being depend on it so much? Obviously, there's no one person on the face of this earth who's purpose it is to make sure that I'm feeling encouraged and validated and that I'm feeling emotionally stable. But it's almost like that's what it would take in order for me to finally feel good about me.

I feel like I just can't get a grip. Things will be going great for a while and I'll feel like I'm on top of things! and life is great! I'm great! and I can do this! But then one small thing happens and it all comes down and I'm no good at my "job", I can't do this, I'm such a loser, life sucks and no one really cares. Surely this can't be normal.

And then I beat myself up because I have in my mind all these things that I want to be and do and make better so that maybe I can move past the constant feeling of inadequacy. But then I do nothing about any of it. I see it all, wishing I would/could change it, but then I do nothing. Maybe it's because I know in my heart that I won't actually be able to accomplish it all. Maybe it's because it's not possible that I can accomplish it all. Either way, it doesn't matter, because it's not happening.

It seems like no one else has this constant struggle in life or within themselves. Or maybe it's just that no one talks about it. I just want things to settle down and be mundane for a while. I just want to worry about doing the laundry and finding the right curriculum and not what disappointment is next. I want to feel like I'm not always getting knocked down. I want to feel capable and adequate and like life is good. But I'm just not sure that I'll ever get there.