On This Saturday

...I got up at 6:00am. Why? I guess in part because I am old and set in my routine. I wanted to sleep, but I was awake. I've made coffee and had breakfast and the kids are all still sleeping at just after 8:00am.

I'm sitting here thinking about what I want to do today. Of course, there are "have to do" things such as meals and laundry. Thankfully the grocery shopping is done and bills are paid (Thank you, Lord!). I hate spending my weekend doing those things.

I could also work in the garage. I could clean up the extra room. I could deal with paperwork.

But what I think I want to do is work in the youngest child's bedroom. We've had every imaginable room arrangement over the years. Currently, all the girls have their own rooms. Second born talked us into giving her the front room that has, over the years, been a homeschool room, an office (I believe it's intended purpose), and a play room. It doesn't have a door. We hung some beautiful curtains and she has her own space. It's small, but temporary. One day the oldest will move out and then the remaining girls can each have a proper bedroom. For now, second born is just happy not to be sharing with little sister. So we moved all the toys to little sister's room. She's the only one who still really plays so it makes sense. But when the older two were growing up I never liked having toys in the bedrooms. Bedrooms are hard enough to keep clean without adding toys.

The youngest and I made supper the other night. Hopefully, today's task will involve fewer knives.

So today I believe I will channel my younger mom self and get in there and organize. I used to make picture labels for the girls and put them on the toy containers. Then I would label the shelf where they belonged. There was no reason for them to not know where things went. I believe the youngest doesn't know how to clean her room because so many things do not have a place.

Also, there are many things that need to leave the house.

We watched a few Marie Kondo episodes last week and of her own accord, the youngest brought about 10 things out of her room and told me to get rid of them or sell them. This is huge, people!

But I've got to get her room under control. She has 137 baby dolls (maybe that's just a ballpark figure but it feels true) and they need a home.

A home where there is still room for the real human who lives in the room to sleep, get dressed, and play. Is that asking too much?

And also, I need to take some photos of items to sell in my eBay store. Last month, Steve and I listed a few items and with the money we earned I paid for this semester of co-op and will soon pay for our spring break camp we go to each year.

So, my eBay store needs some more stock and I have lots of it waiting in the garage.

Now that I've made my plan-of-the-day with you, I'll come back later and let you know how it all worked out.

Should be good for a laugh or two.

Signing off,

In Which I Have a Pain in the Neck

Well, actually make that two pains. I will tell you about each one.

1. An ACTUAL pain in my neck. 

Remember I had that horrible headache on Christmas day? well, it was Jan. 2 before I could get myself to my atlas chiropractor. She's so wonderful. I knew my atlas was out of place and I was right. It took 2 trips to get it back in place but my head hasn't hurt since. Headaches are so awful and they can truly be debilitating. I don't know how people live with them. I'm a little worried each time my neck hurts or I start to have a headache but I know there are other reasons for headaches and neck aches. It's not always going to be my atlas. I wouldn't even mind going to the chiropractor that much, but it's pretty far from our house. After having that much pain, I am very thankful to be pain free!

2. Cooking. And planning what to cook. And buying the food to cook. And cleaning up from the food we cooked. And doing it all again in a few hours.

So, some changes at husband's work resulted in some insurance changes, which resulted in us having to pay out of pocket for medicine this year. My husband has Type 2 Diabetes, which means his meds would cost us about $1,300 a month. Clearly, that's not do-able. So ever since New Year's Eve, we have been working on getting him off of some of his meds. 

The way I decided to do this was with Trim Healthy Mama. I know the plan. I know it works (I lost a lot of weight about 3-4 years ago BEFORE my dad died and BEFORE we found out our second-born daughter had food allergies. After that, I concentrated on learning to cook for her allergies and gained a lot back. Sigh) So we started THM and he is already off of his short-acting insulin! We are so happy about that! However, if the cost is not monetary, the cost is time. 

I am fixing THM breakfast and supper each day for him as well as planning and packing snacks and lunch. That's everything he eats, seven days a week. It's a LOT. Big deal you say? Perhaps you do that already. But there is never a time he can just grab some to-go food to give a break or just buy something at the convenience store when he's hungry. There is not a time for me to sleep in, either. This morning he did fix his own scrambled eggs and I got to sleep until just after 7. It was heavenly. 

It affects our lives greatly is what I'm saying. We have to go to bed earlier so we can get up earlier so we can do all the food things. 

The good news is that in comparison to all this meal stuff, homeschool is a breeze! We had our second day back today and its going fine. More on that later. 

I'm going to read a little now before I start cooking the next meal. 

P.S. I'm so busy I don't even post pictures on here! If you want to see what's going on with Project: Family, follow me on Instagram! 

Signing off, 

In Which We Institute the Winter Wellness Plan

Our youngest's bout with tonsillitis recently made me realize it was time to act like it was fall as far as germs are concerned, even if the weather does not know it's fall.

Today it was actually NOT 90 degrees. The girls and I went on a walk after lunch. It was very nice outside. I felt horrible all day, however. I mean, I went to bed at 10:30 last night, which is a very reasonable time. And still I managed to lay down at lunch time and take a quick nap. All day I just looked longingly at the bed. Finally when school was over, we ran by Sonic and I got a tea. Then we met some folks at the Internet Swap Spot at our local police station and sold some curtains I had listed on FB Marketplace. Then, because I didn't want to go home, we drove around a bit. The whole time I was sipping my tea.

And I felt so much better when we got home. Was it getting out of the house? Or was it the caffeine? I think I know the answer. I've let myself get addicted again. Anyway, we'll see how I feel tomorrow and I won't wait that long to get a drink, if needed. Of tea, mind you.

So about that germ plan. Here it is, in a nutshell:

1. WASH HANDS WASH HANDS WASH HANDS
2. Take probiotics daily
3. Take elderberry syrup daily
4. Use Immune Strength essential oils
5. Drink lots of water

I'm allowing the older two girls to be responsible to do these things on their own. I'm not sure they've remembered today. I also need to make the elderberry syrup. My glass bottles came today. I ordered these.  I use these elderberries (affiliate link). I make the elderberry syrup using this recipe. And I make mine in my off-brand instant pot. I've been very pleased with it--and it's on sale right now! (affiliate link)

Immune Strength is Rocky Mountain Oils (not an affiliate link) version of Thieves or On-Guard (two other popular essential oil companies versions). I've been using their oils since back when the company was still called Native American Nutritionals. I did my research prior, and I've always been pleased. They are much more affordable than others and they work for us very well. Other brands are good too, but they are not possible for us financially.

Also, I am working to be sure the house--particularly the kitchen and bathrooms--stay clean! The youngest daughter will have the job of wiping down all the light switches and doorknobs a few times a week. I am not a germaphobe. But in the cold and flu season, we take some extra precautions. I definitely think you can over-clean your house, but we aren't there. (Not even close!)

We have a lot of fun things planned in the upcoming months and we want to all be able to enjoy them! And that reminds me, I wanted to make a chain so that we could tear off one link a day to count down to some of this fun stuff! Gotta get on that.

How does your family stay healthy?

Signing off,

From Higher Education to the ER

I'll cover it all in this post!

Our oldest daughter is finally going to be starting her higher education in the morning! Working out a life-plan with her has been challenging. What do you DO when you still live at home and yet haven't started school yet? What about a job? A job with enough flexibility to allow you the time to study and be with your family?

What she's been doing, while she waited to start school, is a lot of housework. Not sure she'll look back on it as the most fun chapter of her life, but it sure has been a huge help to me!

So we think we have a plan worked out for that now...and a lot of my friends will be quite happy with it, I believe. She's excited, I'm excited, Dad's excited. So I feel like we finally have her starting on the right path.

I'm glad she's still home anyway because over the weekend I was ironing a pile of Steve's dress shirts and it occurred to me that she doesn't know how to iron a man's dress shirt. I taught her to iron many years ago, but it hasn't been practiced enough. Also what if one day she is married and her husband needs his shirts ironed? (I know a ton of people who just send everything to the cleaners but that isn't always in the budget!)

So she learned to do that. And it's just nice that she's still here and there is still time to teach her little things like that for adulthood.

We have another field trip this week. I'm so happy that we are getting to go on field trips again after several years of not really going on many (because oldest needed to finish school and also we had a lot of therapy and tutoring appointments). However, it stresses me out a little to see another day of school not getting done. Last week's field trip was at least educational, but this week's is pretty much just fun. That's OK. There will be other days to do book work, right?

My oldest sister has been taking my oldest daughter on Friday night fun nights for awhile now. They will go get some food that we normally cannot have due to food allergies, and then watch a movie that we can't watch around here because of little eyes and ears. It's nice for her to get to go do something "big" and stay out late. So this last Friday night, sister picked up the 2nd born for her turn. And now this coming Friday, she is planning a daytime fun day for the youngest. She's a good aunt.
They feel special getting to do something by themselves.

Brave Aunt T and 2nd born at her birthday last year. 

So while 2nd born was out with her aunt, the rest of us RAN NOT WALKED to Whataburger and ate. Whataburger has soy in pretty much everything except their drinks and ketchup packets. So we never get to eat there anymore. It was so cheap! It made me realize how when we do go out, it costs so much more than other families because we have to choose allergy-friendly places and make substitutions that cost more. Food allergies stink.

Steve in the ER last year. I'll spare you his face. He looked miserable. 

Speaking of food allergies, one year ago yesterday we found out that my husband also suddenly had food allergies. We found out through the fun of anaphylaxis. It was an hours-long ordeal and it took us way too long to figure out what was going on. In the end, he ended up taking a ride in the ambulance.

A picture of his side showing the hives he broke out in once he arrived at the ER. 

After seeing that anaphylaxis is a very scary beast, we got Epi-Pens for both he and our 2nd born. She had been diagnosed 2 years prior, but we were under the (very mistaken) belief that her allergies "weren't that bad" and no doctor even offered an Epi-Pen nor suggested that we needed one. We are wiser today and they carry them everywhere they go.

Which is why, tonight, I made banana bread from scratch. Daughter wanted something sweet and it's so nice to know exactly what's in the food because I made it. Actually, it's on my weight loss plan, which isn't actually going very well. But I have lost 2 pounds in a month or so....so there's that.

Signing off,