Check out my friends post:
"So I have this crazy idea and wonder who might want to take part in it?? First I will start with the back story.
Growing up during the holiday season my mom was always teaching us to give back to others by doing random acts of kindness to strangers. Every year there was one act of kidness we did from buying food for holiday dinners, to giving ornaments out to strangers in parking lots, to paying for the person behind yous coffee. Even the years where things were tight my mom managed to still keep this going. Looking back I know see that she was teaching us you can ALWAYS find a way to help someone and make their holiday season a little brighter...." -hangingoutinparadise
To find out what her and her kids will be doing this Christmas checkout the blog post here:
http://hangingoutinparadise.blogspot.com/2011/11/25-days-of-giving.html
Sunday, November 20, 2011
Friday, October 21, 2011
Absent
I have been absent here for a week and a half and I want to apologize for the random disappearance. No worries I am still here and have not been kidnapped, well maybe my mind was... I seriously have had very little thought going through my brain or maybe too many thoughts and it shut down. See what I mean I just having rambling unproductive thoughts... seriously need some sleep I think. Yes... those angry birds have been keeping me up late again.
Actually I have been uber busy, I just started my selling Mary Kay (all those women out there looking to make a few extra bucks should talk to me ;)), my sister was in town to help me get started with the biz, I am helping with childcare with Teen MOPS ( awesome program by the way) and participating in MOPS, Financial Peace University by Dave Ramsey (my weekly reality check!), and our weekly Bible study... *wheew* I am exhausted just reading this, too bad I am not super mom.
Seriously, when do the super powers kick in? The other day I was sharing about how I hate to get up early and that I wished my kids would get up later with a girl who didn't have kids and she says to me," Oh, I thought you just happened when you had kids." I WISH! Wouldn't it be nice if when the baby was ejected it hit a switch and you became instantly filled with energy and looooved waking up at the crack of dawn?
If that switch was flipped all those dark circles under your eyes would be a thing of the past and you wouldn't need 6 pounds of makeup to manage it! Which is also why I started selling Mary Kay because all the concealer and anti-wrinkle creams that I need since having kids were making me broke. And yes, I do have wrinkles...
Pre Kids: ( notice the wonderful skin and eye brightness)
Actually I have been uber busy, I just started my selling Mary Kay (all those women out there looking to make a few extra bucks should talk to me ;)), my sister was in town to help me get started with the biz, I am helping with childcare with Teen MOPS ( awesome program by the way) and participating in MOPS, Financial Peace University by Dave Ramsey (my weekly reality check!), and our weekly Bible study... *wheew* I am exhausted just reading this, too bad I am not super mom.
Seriously, when do the super powers kick in? The other day I was sharing about how I hate to get up early and that I wished my kids would get up later with a girl who didn't have kids and she says to me," Oh, I thought you just happened when you had kids." I WISH! Wouldn't it be nice if when the baby was ejected it hit a switch and you became instantly filled with energy and looooved waking up at the crack of dawn?
If that switch was flipped all those dark circles under your eyes would be a thing of the past and you wouldn't need 6 pounds of makeup to manage it! Which is also why I started selling Mary Kay because all the concealer and anti-wrinkle creams that I need since having kids were making me broke. And yes, I do have wrinkles...
Pre Kids: ( notice the wonderful skin and eye brightness)
Post Kids: ( notice the bags and not the one I am carrying, oh and the super cute kids!)
My never ending battle of sleep deprivation and beauty... I have such a tragic wonderful life
So yes, I have been absent but that's because I suck at juggling and my brain is fried, so hang with my mortal self as I try to keep up with the super heroes out there!
Wednesday, October 12, 2011
Wordless Wednesday: Baby Blogger
She's thinking about starting her own blog, called " Through the Crib Slats."
Monday, October 10, 2011
Slow down...
You may or may not have noticed I was MIA yesterday, if you did notice thanks! If you didn't well... We will just keep moving right along, my husband finally had a real day off yesterday so I wanted to make sure that every moment was spent together. Whether he appreciated me holding his hand while he used the toilet is waiting to be seen, just kidding I did not do that. Though I am rather clingy when he is home (geez, can't a girl miss her boy?). Seriously, I have thoughts of eating tying him up just so he is with me all the time, but than he takes a potty in the bathroom of the number 2 kind and I remember why I am glad he is at work during the day. I am feeling like this extra clinginess is because:
Life seems to be flying by right now and it is really freaking me out. When did my little girl start understanding English And when did my son learn that his hand is beautiful and that mommy plays way too much angry birds?
Son A finds angry birds everywhere and than informs me of it. Today he said after hearing angry birds mentioned on tv, " What they say Mom? Angry Birds like you?" and he also found an angry birds stuffed animal at the store, "Look Mom angry birds like you play!" Put the angry birds down and step away slowly...
Anyways I know that often forget to just enjoy life and appreciate the time together. So today was all about enjoying life and so this is what my family did today...
It was a fun afternoon... until we had to figure out how to get 2 mud covered little boys home. Having them take a mud bath had not been on the agenda, but we went with the flow and came home with some great memories.
* Reminder to self: slow down and enjoy life, you only get one.*
Friday, October 7, 2011
Frugal Friday: Reduce, Reuse, Recycle
Your probably wondering what the recycling motto could do with saving money?
First off reducing your waste, reusing packaging and recycling are just straight up good for you and the planet. That should be motivation enough or maybe this:
Okay, stepping off my podium now...And now for how recycling can save you money!
We (and I use we loosely since my husband think recycling is a waste of time but I am working on him) recycle about 90% of our trash, currently the bulk of our trash is diapers. Which yes if I was even more awesome and cloth diapered,we would be able to eliminate even more trash. But my venture into cloth diapering were just too much poop.
By only throwing away 10% of our trash we only have to change our trash bag every few days, which saves us a ton of money on trash bags which I think are way expensive. I re-purpose our dirty Ziploc bags as poopy diaper bags, which keeps the trash from smelling after a couple of days.
When I am working my Ebay business I re-use packaging from my own orders or the samples I received in the mail. About 75% of my packaging is re-used, which helps lower my shipping costs for me and my customers!
We have a reverse osmosis water purifier so that we can make our own purified water at home! This cuts down on trips to the store, plastic bottles, and cost less per gallon than store water. I also catch the "waste" water and and use it to water my plants (my mom taught me that one). This type of water purifier can be very expensive but we figured out that in two months we would have payed for the purifier anyways and since we will be drinking purified water for forever it was worth it to us. I also was able to get a really great deal from Natures Sunshine. Let me know if you are interested so you can be my referral : )
Another less commonly thought of way to save money and be green is an electric lawn mower. I discovered them while we were living in England and have become a huge fan now. There is almost zero maintenance: no oil changes, tune ups or break downs! The only thing you would need to do is occasionally have the blades sharpened! Ours plugs in to the extension cord, but you can get battery operated ones though I have heard they can be a pain with the recharging. We don't bag our grass so it's like getting free lawn fertilizer! We cut out lawn mower repair and fertilizer costs plus the energy it takes to keep emptying a bag. The ultimate green mower would be an old fashioned push mower, no energy use except your own which would = free workout, no gym membership needed!
You can check out recycle bank they offer points for recycling and and learning about recycling efforts, the point than can be used to get free stuff!
Another great site is earth 911, you can search for a local recycling center and they list all the products the centers will take.
All the little savings add up to a lot in the long run, plus the satisfaction I get from making the world a little cleaner makes it worth it!
Do you have any "green" ways to save money?
First off reducing your waste, reusing packaging and recycling are just straight up good for you and the planet. That should be motivation enough or maybe this:
Okay, stepping off my podium now...And now for how recycling can save you money!
We (and I use we loosely since my husband think recycling is a waste of time but I am working on him) recycle about 90% of our trash, currently the bulk of our trash is diapers. Which yes if I was even more awesome and cloth diapered,we would be able to eliminate even more trash. But my venture into cloth diapering were just too much poop.
By only throwing away 10% of our trash we only have to change our trash bag every few days, which saves us a ton of money on trash bags which I think are way expensive. I re-purpose our dirty Ziploc bags as poopy diaper bags, which keeps the trash from smelling after a couple of days.
When I am working my Ebay business I re-use packaging from my own orders or the samples I received in the mail. About 75% of my packaging is re-used, which helps lower my shipping costs for me and my customers!
We have a reverse osmosis water purifier so that we can make our own purified water at home! This cuts down on trips to the store, plastic bottles, and cost less per gallon than store water. I also catch the "waste" water and and use it to water my plants (my mom taught me that one). This type of water purifier can be very expensive but we figured out that in two months we would have payed for the purifier anyways and since we will be drinking purified water for forever it was worth it to us. I also was able to get a really great deal from Natures Sunshine. Let me know if you are interested so you can be my referral : )
Another less commonly thought of way to save money and be green is an electric lawn mower. I discovered them while we were living in England and have become a huge fan now. There is almost zero maintenance: no oil changes, tune ups or break downs! The only thing you would need to do is occasionally have the blades sharpened! Ours plugs in to the extension cord, but you can get battery operated ones though I have heard they can be a pain with the recharging. We don't bag our grass so it's like getting free lawn fertilizer! We cut out lawn mower repair and fertilizer costs plus the energy it takes to keep emptying a bag. The ultimate green mower would be an old fashioned push mower, no energy use except your own which would = free workout, no gym membership needed!
You can check out recycle bank they offer points for recycling and and learning about recycling efforts, the point than can be used to get free stuff!
Another great site is earth 911, you can search for a local recycling center and they list all the products the centers will take.
All the little savings add up to a lot in the long run, plus the satisfaction I get from making the world a little cleaner makes it worth it!
Do you have any "green" ways to save money?
Thursday, October 6, 2011
Support The Troops Thanksgiving style
With my husband being a proud member of the Air Force the military and those serving overseas are always close to my heart, so when I saw this blog post today it caught my attention.
Basically the post is about sending Thanksgiving cards to troops serving in the desert and whether or not you are a "pretender or a sender" or in other words will you actually send a card or just say your thankful for their service.
As a family we spent three Thanksgivings and Christmas's overseas (Surprise! Not every troop that serves overseas is in Afghanistan. There are thousands of families that live all over the world because of their husband/ wives job in the military) and the holidays were an especially hard time being so far from family, plus the Brits (or an other country) don't celebrate T-day so it feels even stranger. I know the packages or cards sent from home always made the holidays a little bit warmer for us, so I want to pass that love along.
The aforementioned blogger is sending his cards to troop through "The Bert Show," I have not listened to the show but their site didn't seem offensive, I think they are broadcast in Atlanta, Georgia? What I know is they are sending cards to the troops for Thanksgiving and I want to help out! The kids all colored pictures, even "baby" C left her scribbles of gratitude, and I wrote a little note. My hope is the pictures will at least get a good laugh, if not encourage the men and women. Hopefully they will know that there are people who do appreciate them and everything they are fighting for because encouragement is essential to the moral.
My request of you is to consider sending a Thanksgiving note to the men and women who are out serving your country. Even if you don't support their mission you can support the human behind the mission.
Here is the website with all the information: http://thebertshow.com/the-bert-shows-big-thank-you/
Thanks!
Wednesday, October 5, 2011
Wordless Wednesday: Wash Wednesday
" Oh, look you built a tent!" "No, Mom it's a dog house for my dog ( aka son A)!" How could I be so dumb?
Our sheets and blankets get used all day around here so I have instituted Wash Wednesday. Washing sheets and blankets on the same day of the week every week helps me remember to actually do it!
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