This one is appropriately named by the creator because they forgot to renew their hosting and last weeks Friday 5 could not get posted!
In the past month, what was your biggest OOPS? Gosh if you read my blog on a regular basis you know that my life is full of those!! The most recent biggest one is accidently setting my iPad on our bed in the camper and an unknown kid of mine left a scratch on the screen 
In the past month, what inspired you to let out your most heartfelt WHEW? I took Allie to go get Maddie from school this week and I thought Logan was still sleeping in bed and that Joel had the monitor on down in the basement where he works. Well Logan was not asleep and Joel did not have the monitor on. Logan was standing at the window saying hi to us when we got home 10 mins later. So he even figured out the safety knob cover on his door and broke out.
In the past month, what caused you to say, “HUH?” I say that all of the time as I am a blonde a lot of the time.
In the past month, what influenced the most ZZZZZZZZs? All of the yard and house work we have been doing around here!
In the past month, what was most GRRRRRRRRR-worthy? Being cooped up in the house with the kids on super hot or rainy days.
I really really need to spend some time going through my e-mail since I really haven’t taken the time to do that recently. I have been busy doing all of the little projects and getting stuff listed and sold on craigslist that my other misc mail has gone ignored. I am also finding that I am getting a lot more spam in my inbox so I need to start marking it spam again more regularly. I even got something about doing ajob search philadelphia. Yeah that is so relevant to my life and where I live here in MICHIGAN. It’s time to get my name off lists and spam things more often because I already have enough stuff in my inbox as it is.
So I had to run in the mall the other day because my phone was acting up. The entrance that Joel dropped me off at was the one by the tuxedo rental place. I saw this cute little boy in there trying on what must have been a tux for a wedding he was going to be in. It was just too stinking cute and made me wish that Logan would be able to have a chance like that. Maddie was a flower girl for my sister’s wedding and then Allie and Maddie were flower girls for my brother’s wedding. I was pregnant for both of those events for Logan. Since they are both married now I don’t think there will ever be an opportunity for Logan to be a ring bearer and wear a cute little tux. Granted that may be a blessing because he is such a wild man and all.
So at one point I got invited to be part of an at home study for the things you bought. As part of this study you would be shipped a Bar code scanner like the Motorola ls4278 one. From there you scan all of your purchases and then upload the data to the company. Somehow along the way though between the invite process and signing up my account was activated but I could not access it to finish the signing up process. I am sort of bummed as it would have been a fairly easy way to make a little side money for our family. Hopefully I can get the account deleted and start fresh here soon. I will let you know what I find out as soon as I know!
So yesterday when I found the car insurance renewal info and took it to Joel I found out where I had made the mistake. I apparently gave him some junk mail for life insurance rates. So now I am feeling even more lucky that I did not throw the car insurance stuff away somehow where the life stuff should have gone. If that is not a huge sign that my way of sorting and taking care of papers around here is not working then nothing will ever be big enough. Now I just need to get settled from all of the school papers coming in and get a new system in place before we start the new school year in the fall.
I was sorting through mail the other day and accidently put the car insurance renewal info into my pile and then stuck it in a much larger pile of things for me to deal with later. Joel takes all of the bill and what not type of stuff and takes care of them. Thank goodness when looking for something else in the pile today I saw it and got it to him. If it had been a normal sorting time it might have been a month knowing me. I really need to get a better set up for my stuff so that I can avoid this monthly sorting that I have to do because at some point I’m going to make a bigger mistake than missing using a coupon or other non important things!
So while we were camping this past weekend I was talking with a mom of one of Maddie’s best friends and I noticed her cutting watermelon on what looked like paper towel. Well it really was and it was the coolest thing because it was one of those types you find in a huge box that campanies use when they need something super durable and can do awesome cleaning as well. Who would have thought that while camping I would find a big desire to stock up on some industrial supplies for our camper. Now I just need to find the right place to go and get some of those because the idea of being able to do so much with those paper towels while camping is pretty sweet!!!!
Tonight we went down to Lansing because Joel surprised me with an iPad for our 10th Anniversary coming up in 20 days. It was the only place with in driveable distance that we could get one in the state of Michigan. So we took the chance to spend some time with Joel’s mom and had dinner with her. We went to Panera and man has it been a while since we had some yummy Panera. This place was a bit newer than our is and it has these really cool custom slipcovers over the back of the chairs. Makes me want to get my sewing machine out and make something similar for our chairs. The food was great as always as well! It turned out to be a great night and we had a good time. The kids are in bed for the evening and it’s about time to get that bad boy all fired up!
My mom recently left her job at the public school system she has been working for now over 14 years. She felt a huge calling from God for a huge career change. She felt called to go into Hospice work after watching my Grandma pass away and the awesome care we recieved from her hospice work. This past Feburary she got went through a medical assistance program and got her CNA. I could not be more proud of her and all of the great things this new path has lead her on. She just got a job offer for a great flexible position.
Well when I have lots of ideas and thoughts running through my head I find that often forget to put a final check mark on the mental checklist I always have going. I never even updated people on our finidings after having had the realtor here. We could do fairly okay on the market and if we had been prepared for this it would be a good thing…however you really have to have all of your ducks in a row ro make it worth it. We do not have money set aside right now for a down payment and it would be silly to walk away from a house and even though we would not owe anything we would only have a couple thousand from the sale. I would much rather go into our next house with a nice down payment instead. Plus we have a busy summer of things ahead of us. Honestly things here are not so bad that we are going to kill each other because we do not have enough space either. There is more than enough room for us and all of kids have their owns rooms and are happy. It may not be the most perfect set up at times but we are so blessed with what we do have and should stay in the content zone while things are good.
So who know what the long term plan is because as much as we say oh yeah lets look at things again in 2 years it’s hard to think about losing some of the great perks that we do have here in this house! Which then puts us back into the circle of what can we do here to make it what we want. The main thing of all things would be to find a way to give Maddie a real bedroom. If there is a way to make that happen then honestly that would solve most of the problems that make living here a con. If she had a bedroom that was not where it is now that could become an office for Joel and the Basement would offer better storage options again as well. We really love our location here in the Village of Spring Lake that allows us to walk to a lot of things and an awesome Bike path as well. Who knows but maybe in a few years that is when we will know what the right direction is for us. For now it seems that the path God wants us to follow is to remain here and to be happy with what we have now.
In the mean time we may make a few more tweaks along the way to make things better. One of the things that needs to be done is make the back porch a bit more inviting. It’s always so dirty and it make sitting out there so much of a chore at times to me. Maybe we can repaint it all get different type of gate that doesn’t allow for everything to blow back there and make our nice area so dirty. We could even get a new table set at some point with nice outdoor cushions on the chairs that give it more of a retreat type of feel. Some of the changes would be so easy and cost so little. I could probably work on a plan ahead of time so we know what we are looking at instead of just jumping into like I do so well.