Barack Obama will be our next president. He won with an overwhelming majority of electoral votes and slightly over half of the popular vote.
I’ve once again proven to be a bad blogger but what can I say…….I’m sorry. Anyway… for those faithful few who are still coming in hopes of a post here’s an update on us. We’ve had a hectic few weeks!
I’m working a few mornings a week in Little Belle’s class at preschool. It gives us some extra cash, gets us a good discount and I really enjoy little ones so it seemed like a win/win situation. Only, I underestimated how hard it would be to teach your own two-year-old! My Little Belle is challenging at home but with others is most often angelic. She did great in mom’s morning out and does wonderful at Sunday school; however, she’s giving her mama fits at preschool. So, I‘m currently reading a book about toddler discipline in hopes of coming up with a good solution for us! All of the infant/toddler development I studied in graduate school is proving useless in the heat of the moment! On top of that Little Belle’s had a bad ear infection that makes her feel miserable and not sleep well.
And then there was this weekend……. It actually started Thursday night when we took Little Belle to the fair. She got stung and had an allergic reaction that made her hand swell to the size of a ten-year-old’s hand. We had to take her to the EMT station and get the stinger out. That was not fun for Little Belle nor mama and daddy! Then Friday night she started throwing-up and had a stomach bug until late Monday. And, as if that wasn’t enough yesterday she had a random spike of a high temperature. I’m not sure if it was related to the stomach bug or something else. We’ll just have to see how today goes!
We visited my mom this weekend and came home to two trees down in our yard. One of which landed on the back part of our house! There’s not much damage but it will take some time to get everything cleaned up!
Even in the midst of such a hectic time I’m enjoying life and thankful to be spending so much time taking care of my family.
Since fall is here and we are finally feeling some cooler weather I’ve been thinking about the changing of seasons. After a long winter the warmth of spring and summer is wonderful, but the same is true of the cooler weather of fall and winter. I love spring and fall because the mild temperatures make life pleasant and enjoyable. I’m not a huge fan of extreme cold (which we get very little of in GA) or extreme heat. However, I suppose we need the extremes to appreciate the mild. Such is true of life. The crazy and scary parts of life make us appreciate the calm and special moments. There is a time and a season for everything and I’m thankful God planned life that way!
We have a new grocery store in town, Fresh Market. I went to check it out last night and I was quite impressed. The store sells fresh regionally grown produce and meat. They also sell fresh baked bread and a very limited selection of processed food. The processed food they sell is organic. It was a bit pricier than Kroger (my usual choice for food shopping) but I’ll return for produce and meat I’m sure. And, I hate to admit it but I still cook with a lot of processed foods for convince so I’ll still need to do a lot of my shopping at Kroger.
Outside of the food they carry the store gives you a fresh cup of coffee and gives every child a bakery cookie for free with every visit. It’s worth the trip to just look around and enjoy a cup of coffee! Little Belle didn’t complain about her cookie either!
Before becoming a mom I prided myself in my neat and clean home. Even with a house pet my home was always ready for company with a quick vacuuming of the rugs. I don’t particularly like to clean but I LOVE to have things clean. For a while I had someone who I paid to-do major cleaning every two weeks and I could just keep up the everyday stuff. It was great. Life was in order. My house was tidy.
And even, for the first 10 months of Little Belle’s life I keep a pretty clean home. I had a cleaning schedule and did some major cleaning every day. It never pilled up and was most often very clean.
Now I’m lucky to keep the toys picked up, the clothes clean, the dishes put away and the floor sweep. My bathrooms don’t get deep cleaned as often as they should and lets don’t even mention dusting. I’m embarrassed to report I can’t even remember the last time my house was dusted. I try. I really do, but I always seem to fall behind. My current cleaning schedule is A) clean when it’s so filthy you can’t stand anymore B) clean furiously an hour before company is coming over.
It’s very hard to clean with a toddler because as soon as it’s put away it’s out again. And, just as soon as I start a major project she has a melt down and I have to stop in the middle. Honestly, I’m trying to come to terms with the mess. I keep reminding myself that Little Belle won’t be little forever and my house will be clean again. When it’s messy it drives me crazy but when it’s clean again I’m sure I’ll long for the days of a toddler mess. Life is just that way, isn’t it?
Since I’ve proven to be a slack blogger lately I thought I would write a quick update. We’ve all been busy bees in this household! I’m working part-time again, teaching a weight loss/fitness program at my church and helping with children’s choir. And, let me not forget my full time job, being a mom and homemaker! Little Belle has started preschool two mornings a week and is having fun! My dear husband is good, working both day and night at the church. 
Life is good!
Before putting Little Belle to bed tonight I read one of her favorite books, The Five Little Ducks. Quite honestly, this book has always bothered me. It’s a simple story about a mama and her five little ducklings who wander away. She starts with five, then only four come back, they leave again, then only three come back and this goes on until she’s left with no little ducklings. When none of the ducklings come back she goes to find them and eventually they all come home with their mama. The part that bothers me is that she doesn’t go looking for them until none of the little ducklings come back.
As an only child and a mama of only one child I don’t know a lot about loving multiple children but I think I’ve observed enough mamas to know that you do. I think the mama duck should be disturbed when the first little duckling is missing. And, yes I know it makes the book flow and it is just story, but I want her to go find her first little ducking when he/she goes missing. So, from now on I will tell the story my way! Mama duck will go find each of her ducklings as they go missing because she loves them all sooo much!
Do you have a chore you just hate? I do! It’s unloading the dishwasher! My mama made me start doing this when I was young. And, I’ve recently found out it was because she hated to-do it too! Now that I’m home more I cook (or at least prepare) two or three meals a day, six days a week. That’s a lot of dishes and a lot of times to unload. It’s a never ending chore and has to be done 1-2 times a day here. Watch out Little Belle, this will be your first chore too. Now, I am thankful I have a dishwasher because the one thing I hate more than unloading the dishwasher is hand washing dishes.
I’ll admit that before I married my dear husband I didn’t care much about getting a deal. I bought what I wanted, when I wanted it. Whether it was on sale or not had nothing to- do with me making the purchase. Now, my dear husband is like that about some things but for the most part he loves a deal. When making major purchases (like appliances and vehicles) he prefers to get what you want/need the first time instead of having to upgrade later. However, we still wait for things to be on sale to buy. We’ve been married a little over six years now and he’s slowly converted me over to being a deal seeker too. Actually, I get so excited to get a deal and save money now that it’s almost like a high.
The risk involved with being a deal seeker is in buying stuff you don’t really need just because it’s on sale. I admit that I’m sometimes guilty of that but I try to keep myself in check. This week I’ve gotten some particularly great deals! I got a large box of diapers (126- size 4 diapers, to be exact) for $12.00. The regular retail price is $27.50. Pampers and Huggies are changing their boxes to be more eco-friendly so they have slashed their diapers in old boxes to get them off the shelves. The store had the boxes on sale for $14.00 and I had a $2.00 off coupon! I was so excited in the store I just kept telling the clerk what a great deal it was and how excited I was. I’m sure she just wanted me to hush!
And, today a friend called me to alert me of great 40-75% off sale at Dillard’s. She told me there were some dresses that “looked just like Little Belle”. It just so happened that I had just dropped Little Belle off at Mom’s Morning Out for a few hours and stopping by Dillard’s sounded much more fun than coming home to clean, since that’s what I had planned . I decided to run by there and chec out the sales. I bought myself a few things that I needed for very low prices and then I bought Little Belle a few dresses that were regularly priced at $55.00 for $8.00. Now, anyone that has seen Little Belle knows that I did not “need” to buy her these dresses since her GiGi buys her lots of clothes that keep her dressed like a princess, but I just couldn’t pass up the deal. The dresses are darling and I bought them in sizes that she can wear next year. I guess the dresses fall into the just buying them because they were on sale category but I suppose there are much worse things I could waste $24.00 on than dresses for Little Belle.
As I’ve said in many posts I’m really trying to make my lifestyle one that respects the beautiful earth we’ve been given. I’ve made lots of strides in the last 6 months or so but I’m still moving forward . My latest “green” endeavor is my clothes washing and drying. My washing machine went out and we had to purchase a new one so we decided to go with a energy efficient front loader. And, let me add that it’s awesome!!!!!!!!!!! The clothes have no excess water and they aren’t full of lint and hair like the old washer had a tendency to do. It also doesn’t have an agitator so no heavy clothes or towels get it off balance. And, best of all it should help conserve power which is good for the earth and our bank account.
The same week that the washer went out I noticed that my dryer wasn’t drying well. It was taking several times to get a load of clothes dry I thought it was just because the washer wasn’t spinning the clothes out. It turns out it was the dryer. Even with the new washer the clothes dryer is taking forever to dry a load of clothes. So we talked about and looked at a few new dryers and I suggested to my dear husband that we get a clothes line. I anticipated him shooting my idea down since the last time I mentioned this he just raised his eyebrows. Much to my surprise he agreed to give a try, at least temporarily! The one way to get my dear husband to agree to anything is to convince him it will save money. He loves to save money. I think even if we were millionaires he would save every penny he could. And, I should add that I’m very thankful for that trait since it’s kept us out of debt and allows me to stay at home with Little Belle!
It’s a bit more time consuming to hang them out but I really love the way the clothes smell after drying outside! And with this heat it isn’t taking but 10-15 mins to get a load dry. That’s much more efficient than even the best dryer! It’s also very nostalgic for me when Little Belle helps since I remember helping my mama hang clothes too. Little Belle’s been very sick and not enjoying much, but yesterday she had a blast handing me the clothes pins as I hung up the clothes.