Before and After: 5 Minute Tidy

We are running late- we have exactly 15 minutes to get everyone dressed, out the door, and to storytime across town. That seems like plenty of time, but not when you have 3 kids going three different directions and a house to clean up quick.

Yes I said clean up the house quick.
It is my rule to keep the house looking nice for when my husband comes home. Some of you may think I'm crazy, he probably thinks the same thing too.
Since I knew that he would come home while we were still gone, we did a quick clean up. 

Here is a before and after of my 5 minute tidy.

Facebook Stalking: #UpsideDownChristmas

This came through my Facebook news feed.

  The picture was pretty, and I could tell it told a story.  I clicked it, listened to the beautiful background music as I read the words.  I then thought to myself "Yes, Yes, YES!"  Would you read it too, please?
#UpsideDownChristmas 

  Within our little family we had a Christmas Revolution a few years ago, and it has produced a multitude of blessings.   Here are a few, just off the top of my head.  I know there are so many more.

• Fewer toys to trip over on the floor
• Less hollering at the kids to clean up those same toys- multiple times a day
• Fewer dollars spent on meaningless things
• So more dollars may be freely given to charities in need.
• Less stress when the credit card statement comes and money is already tight from the increased heat bill during cold winter days. 
• Less time shopping, although it is one of my loves, shopping out of obligation is something I despise
• Less time bickering over discussing what is the "perfect" gift to give to give to relatives we hardly know, because we only see less than a handful of times a year. 
• Christmas day is spent playing games as a family, being together, enjoying each other.  It's not spent in separate areas of the house playing with our new "things" by ourselves.
• MORE TIME TO FOCUS ON JESUS.  He is the reason, for the season. 

  My hope is that someday all of our Christmas celebrations are *truly* about Jesus.  I love getting together with our families.  But when it becomes about "having" to get together {and no one ever has the time, so we're often just squeezing it in quick}, it doesn't feel like it's about Jesus at all.  That just feels like a burden. 

Please my friends, do not be burdened by Christmas.  Not in a materialistic way, anyway. 

Design on a Dozen Dimes: Ikea Shelf for Cars

I'll start with letting you know, this little project would've been cheaper, had we made the shelves ourselves.  That was our (my husband's) intention.

 

We were at Ikea back in the spring and I really wanted these Ribba Ledges. 

 I told my husband how cute they would be for books and cars.  I told him I wanted 2 for each kid.  To which he responded "No way, look at how expensive that would be.  I can make those way cheaper, and we already have the white paint". 

 

True.  But I know that well meaning man.  I knew by his tone that these shelves weren't getting made. 

Nevertheless, I agreed, like a good wife should.  Well, I made a deal really.  I think we may have even shook on it.   I told him that if the shelves weren't built by the next time we came to Ikea that I was going to buy them.

 

I won.. sort of.. I mean I got the shelves, but sure paid a lot more than I wanted to. 

We got these two long ones for the boy, then put a small one for books in my oldest daughter's room.

Homeschool: Binder

This cute binder was at Target, & happened to be with the 70 percent off school supplies.
It was sooo me, but I didn't really have a use for it.. I bought it anyway..
I have got to quit doing that.
Thankfully I was able to come up with an idea.
I'm using it to organize worksheets that I come across online or wherever.  I have it separated by which kid it's for and the subject. 
It's also a great place to put holiday worksheets that I print out ahead of time.
Because let's face it, scrambling to get Thanksgiving worksheets the week of Thanksgiving is just too stressful. Besides, usually when I do that I end up with something that really isn't the right age level, or the content I want to be teaching.  It's painful for all of us. Especially that overworked printer of mine.

Do your kiddos do fun worksheets for the holidays? If so where do you find them?

How do you organize random worksheets?

On The Cheap: Discounted Produce

Our grocery store has a rack of heavily discounted produce that is nearing the end of its prime.
A lady at church encouraged me that there are a lot of great bargains to be found on that rack.
I was skeptical, because when we moved here 8 years ago my husband told me  that food was rotten & for animals...
Bull honky, Mr. Awesome.
  Over the last month I decided that I am an animal! And even though he may not know it, he is eating "rotten animal destined food" too.

I scored almost 7 lbs of perfectly fine bananas for $1.33 rather than the regular price of $4.83.
We go through a good amount of bananas here, so this was a great find.
I've also gotten organic tomatoes for cheap cheap cheap.

I know it's only a $3 savings this week, but we are a family of 5 healthy eaters on one income and every little bit adds up!
If I had saved $3 a week on our groceries since we had moved here, I'd have over $1200 in my vacation fund.  Okay, so there's no vacation fund.  But it would be a nice chunk of change to spend on something fun.

*These bananas were promptly peeled, split in half & stuck in the freezer for smoothies.  Bananas are a great flavor neutralizer for smoothies so you can load the blender up with all kinds of goodies (kale, spinach, blueberries, strawberries, etc.) & enjoy!

How do you like to save on groceries?

Design on a dozen dimes: Framed Poster on the Cheap

This is something I did over the summer, but I think I forgot to share it. 

-Or maybe I already did share it, and this is a repeat... Any other bloggers forget what they've already blogged about?-

I ordered a Minnesota Twins, Target Field Poster off of Amazon for less than $10.  I'm pretty sure this frame came from the second hand store for about a dollar. 

This is for the boy's room.  It fit in nicely with his baseball theme.

  

 

Facebook Stalking: An Old Crush

Alright, this title is a little misleading.  I'm not truly a Facebook stalker, at least I think there are people worse than me out there. I hope.

Out of pure curiosity, I typed an old crushes name into the search box, to see where he's at now.

His profile picture shows that he's put on some weight.  No biggie... Me too... After all, I think we were 15 the last time I saw him.  What shocked me was his cover photo.  It shows that clearly he is a DEMOCRAT! 

Oh man, thank God that little crush never went anywhere serious!  hahaha. 

Lighten up people-  This post *is* true, and funny... and I'm sure you've been there too.  Feel free to laugh.