Busy days in the crazy life

Wow, time can sure pass quickly. Jonathon's job is doing wonderful! What a blessing! With that comes a change in our household living. In the evenings, Jonathon puts together satellites for his next day's jobs, so we usually sit in the living room and sometimes the children help him put them together and other times we just stay out of his way as it takes up the whole living room when he starts this project. The boys love it though, with the noisy screw gun and all the various parts. Blessed to have this as part of our family's life right now. BUT we do look forward to one day not having to do this in our tiny little house. Maybe a special area (like a garage) for such assembling together of things. :)

Also, with some major van repairs (thank you Father for protection), and our computer at home deceasing, I haven't been able to get on the computer as much. Good for getting things done at home (especially with a special celebration coming up in March), but not so good with downloading pictures, keeping up this blog and reading other's money saving blogs, and staying on top of good freebies.

One freebie that I do want to share with you all is something that I have been doing for my brother's children's birthdays. It's called Hot Prints, and you can print one FREE photo book per month. Some of you may be saying, wait a minute, they are amish, why would they like a photo book. Well, we find pictures online of things they would be interested in and make it full of what they like. Benjamin got a horse book, and we just got Geneva's doll book in the mail, all ready for her birthday in March. What fun! They don't even charge shipping....completely free!

We just got our new computer tower delivered today, so I will be back to posting more of our families activities and our goal accomplishments. Oh, and I haven't forgotten about the giveaway. I was hoping to do it at the end of this month, but with the unexpected repairs of the van, we weren't able to follow our budget. Soooo, hoping for that next month. "Continue staying tune for that wonderful giveaway.

A Snowy, Sunny Day

Most everyone knows of the snow storm that swept our area. Yesterday we stayed on top of shoveling, so it didn't get to be so deep that it made it too difficult. And then Jonathon came home and got the tractor at the neighbors and plowed everything quite nicely. Should have just waited I guess. Oh well! I actually enjoy shoveling. There is something about being out in the crisp, cold air, making the body work at something that God sent down for us to enjoy. ENJOY!? Yep. Didn't He give us everything to enjoy? In years past, you wouldn't find too much enjoyment of the cold and snow in this house. This year has been quite different though. At the onset of the season, we realized that each complaint from our lips, displayed a lack of contentment on where God has us right now. What a difference it makes when we accept where we are, at the present moment, and we enjoy every minute of it even if there is something else we would much rather be doing than plowing snow and bundling everybody up til they can hardly move. Ha!

Josiah and Alegra got their school done quickly and after lunch bundled up and headed out to the blue sky and white ground. They both came in quite cold after getting snow in their boots and down their gloves, but what fun they have had.

And of course, Benaiah staying warm and happy inside. He gets so excited everytime he hears the door open, knowing that somebody fun is going to walk in.

On days like these, we take advantage of that glorious sunshine and warm air (despite how cold it really is out there). The air was truly warm standing in the sun. It made for a perfect winter clothes hanging day. My white laundry has really been feeling neglected lately with the lack of sun we have had. Not today! By the time I took this picture, the clouds started rolling in, but you can still see a peek of blue here and there. The sunshine is God's natural whitening agent for our laundry. It works wonders! And we are saving energy too by drying outside........

and inside too. We rarely use our dryer both in the summer and winter. It saves so much by just hanging it up. I am already producing heat with the woodstove, so why not make it worth the burn and dry my laundry too. Any place we can pinch a penny, we do. Sure it takes up half of our living space, but the children end up using it as a race course and run around it. And most of the time I do my laundry in the evening and by morning it is all dry and can be put away, so we don't have the hassle of it being set up and in our way.

Notice Diella on the couch reading? Yep, she is reading now, and what a great job she is doing! BUT, she takes f-o-r-e-v-e-r to do her lessons, so any suggestions anybody has out there to get her moving, would be much appreciated. = )

And the feeder that was in the tree is all eaten up, so all the birds are getting braver and coming to the window. Here, Papa Cardinal came while I was taking pictures, so I had to get him too. He is so beautiful with the white, snowy background.

I hope that you all are enjoying what God has sent down as part of His creation. We sure are and very thankful that the road crews have gotten roads cleaned up nicely around here too. That sure helps! Have a blessed and bright day!

Night of Goal Planning

Well, we had a lovely night out last night. Some friends had given us a gift card to Applebees, my mom gave us a coupon also, and some friends watched all of our children for us. Was superb having a free dinner with no children! We went through numbers, figuring and refiguring what income and outflow was possibly going to be. It's hard when you don't have a regular week to week check. When it can fluctuate, you have to just roll with it and adjust accordingly.

Oh, remember earlier I mentioned about life incidences? We had one of those before we left the house. We have been needing some back tires for some time and have put it off. Well, Jonathon finally got some and they needed mounted, but we didn't have time to do that yesterday. Well, upon getting ready to head out, he just happened (the Lord directing his head I'm almost sure of it) to look down at the worst tire, and he noticed that it was bulging. Everybody unloaded and he headed to Sturgis to get them replaced, praying all the way that it wouldn't blow. When he got there, he stepped out of the van and immediately heard hissing from the tire as air was pouring out. Thank you Father for your protection and getting him there before it blew! So, money that wasn't figured into our budget at this time, but certainly necessary.

Okay, onto the goals. We wrote a lot out which would be too time consuming and I do have to go through them and reorganize what I have written down. We are thinking that it might not be possible to completely have the house paid off, but pretty close. We figured that if by the end of this year, we could have $10,000.00 left to pay off, we would be pretty happy. BUT the ultimate goal is to reach towards having it ALL paid off, so that is what we are heading for.

I want to suggest some ideas to save. Check out some of my links to the right for blogs that will help you save money on groceries or everyday necessities. Hip2save and Moneysavingmom are my two favorites, but there are lots out there that want to help households save weekly, so take advantage of those blogs and the knowledge that those women share with their readers.

We are now in lock down mode, trying to save as much and spend as little as possible. It's a challenge and actually something that I enjoy doing. Not all women could handle it, but I am not one who needs much to be happy and really, I find great pleasure in making things work without having to buy something.

I also wanted to give you all a heads up to a giveaway I am planning to do in a month or two. Not sure of what it will be just yet, but I the plan is if we have stuck to our goals this month, then I will give something fun away. So, stay tuned to what it might be......