It’s summertime which means a time when I get to enjoy one of my favorite things to do…read. For enjoyment. Not just all the stuff I have to read during the school year. (We homeschool and I try to read whatever my kids also have to read so we can discuss it.) So here’s some great books I have read this summer:

1. Twilight
2. Eclipse
3. New Moon
4. The Host
5. A Bend in the Road
6. True Believer
7. At First Sight
8. Nights in Rodanthe
9. The Rescue
10. Preparing Your Son for the Other Woman
11. Checklist for Life for Women
12. Five People You Meet in Heaven
13. and then there’s this book on organizing that I misplaced….I think it was Confessions of a Happy Organized Family or something like that.

I talked to my sister yesterday. Remember when I went to NC last month to visit my sister and was able to watch my newest nephew’s birth? Well, she took him to the doc and in four weeks he has grown 3 inches!! He only gained one pound be could you imagine how much energy it took to grow that much? As a newborn? My babies were lucky to grow an inch!! My baby was 20 inches at birth, 20 inches at one month and 22 inches at two months. That two inch growth was the largest growth, all the other times were either half and inch or one inch at the most. Sometimes, he didn’t grow at all. And no one in our family is really tall. I guess it’ll level out.

Meanwhile my sister is having a wonderful time enjoying the baby and has an abundance of mommy’s milk. She has contacted a milk bank and is going to donate. The milk will go to preemies or adopted babies. I think that is awesome. I wish I had had that problem. Nope, I barely had enough. At least some little one will be blessed and I pray it will make the difference in the health of a newborn somewhere, someday.

Today I have to go thru my boy’s bedroom!!! They have almost no place to put clothes and every time I get started on this task, I get so discouraged that I just walk out. But while trying to find my youngest son a particular pair of jeans, I discovered quite a few clothes that he has outgrown. That gave me hope. If I can find enough outgrown clothes, then I can hopefully make more room for what actually fits them now. It’s unfortunate that they have to share a room with such a small closet. All of our previous houses they at least had two closets in their bedroom. (They’ve always shared a room.)

I also have to go deposit my daughters’ portion of the insurance payment, pick up some milk and vanilla ice cream, make a blackberry cobbler, take pics of it and post on my other blog,  pick up my daughter’s graduation pictures and we have our church’s midweek service tonight.

And sometime I still have to drive all the way to the Y to cancel our membership! I am just trying to wait until I have more errands that side of town to justify the drive.

First, I must apologize to all of my online fellow bloggers. I have been very, very bad about visiting others blogs. It all started about a month ago when we went on vacation and I fell into a slump. I got out of my schedule and rather, started a new schedule. I have replaced my computer time with reading. Which was a pastime that I used to enjoy but kids’ needs replaced that spare time. Spending a lot less time on the computer gave me that time back. But I miss my online fellowships and it has also showed in the amount of comments I’ve received lately. So, now I am trying to find a balance.

Which brings me to my new goal of visiting at least five blogs a day. I picked a few of my favorites from my blogroll to start off with. Between the Worlds was the first one I chose. I can relate to the struggle of homeschooling my children while everyone else was trying to win the lottery to get their children in the coveted charter schools. I even fell prey to it and put my own kids in lottery. Twice. Thank God they weren’t chosen.

Karen is running a contest that I think is beneficial to everyone…everyone wins. Well, not everyone will win the Starbucks gift card but I believe that everyone can benefit from learning from each other. All you have to do is share your 3 favorite things that you used this past year. I am assuming it’s all homeschool stuff. That’s what she did anyway, that’s what I am going to do and that’s where I am hoping to learn about new stuff!! Here’s my contribution:

1. My favorite thing that I couldn’t do without is my umbrella school. HomeLife Academy. We live in Florida and we choose the option to homeschool under an umbrella school. HomeLife is very supportive without being intrusive. We had already homeschooled for a long time before moving here so I didn’t want some third party coming in and changing everything we did. We had our first homeschool graduate this past month and she received a “real” diploma through HomeLife. It’s easy to do the record keeping online and I like that I can look back over everything even years later.
2. Teaching Textbooks - I put off buying this curriculum because it was out of my budget for the longest time. But after growing very frustrated because nothing else was working, I gave in and bought it. I love that the textbooks are written simply in conversation tone to the student. In fact, my kids rarely even use the cd’s. Math is finally making sense.
3. Paperback Swap - When we moved I finally admitted that maybe I did have too many enough books. Especially after carrying box after box and each one labeled “books”!! But I get attached to them and it’s so hard to pass them on. But with a brand new library that just opened I don’t feel totally desolate. I joined PaperBack Swap because it satisfies my need for new books when my budget doesn’t allow me to buy new books every week. It is so exciting getting packages in the mail and I can do free!! I exchange books that my kids have finished reading and in return, get books for their next reading level. I even get books that I want to keep forever on my library shelf. And it makes my husband happy to see me packing up books to mail out and get rid of….at least he’s usually not home when the mail arrives with more books. I just found Sparknotes on the site. They are fictional books that have the words you need to study for the SAT in them. The SAT words are highlighted someway with the definition in the margin. I ordered two and since I haven’t actually seen them yet, I can’t mark them as a favorite but without PBS I wouldn’t know about them. If you want to join, I get a free book if you do it from the icon on my sidebar. In fact today, I ordered a homeschool textbook.

We are in the midst of family camp this week and it is AWESOME. There’s no way I can share with you all that is going on but here’s a song that has been such blessing to me.

After graduating from our Dave Ramsey Financial Peace University course, I am keenly aware of our financial situation and have goals in place. But I still need to stay reminded of it and stay focused. As soon as we receive our tax refund, we will pay off our credit card debt and finally be debt free.

So I headed over to see what my Bills IQ is. I scored a 87% which is a B. Not too bad. I also know the areas where I needed improvement even though I answered all questions honestly. And if I take the test in even a few more months, I expect to score better. And within a year, get an A!!

The places where I need help is, of course, paying off our two debts. Which aren’t that much really but in ratio to the line of credit and how much we owe, it’s more than half which brings down your score. And on the quiz the options of getting out of debt were out of debt and then the next level was out of debt in 1 year+, so I couldn’t mark a few months or so. Also, I need to save more money for our kids’ educations and investments. But we are following our plan and that means getting debt free first.

I would also like to go back to school and get my degree and go back to work. Of course, that means that I would eventually have to put my kids in school instead of homeschooling them. But by the time I would get my degree, and I would have to do it online or slowly, my older boys would probably want to go to school (for sports) and my baby would be old enough for kindergarten. At least our church has a great private school so I wouldn’t worry about any of them.

The key is to take one day at a time and try to keep our financial goals in focus.

This Friday, July 11, is National Cow Day. Chick-fil-a is offering a free meal to anyone dressed up as a cow. The meal includes an entree, side item and beverage. If you are too “chicken” to dress up, just accessorize with a cow patterned item and you will still receive a complimentary entree. You can read all about the promotion here and see if there is a location near you here.

This past year my daughter was prescribed eyewear. And we were introduced to the world of an abundance of frames. And pricey ones too! Of course, our insurance covered the smallest selection, none of which my daughter (or even I) liked. We agreed on a pair that was a little over $100. The pair that was first choice was almost $300.

After settling from shock, I realized there had to be a better way. Zennioptical.com is that better option. They even have selection of frames for $8, $9.95, $12.95, $15.95 and a large selection of $19 frames. The frames are stylish and you can get bifocal lens or progressive lens.

Zenni can offer such low prices because they sell their own manufactured lens directly to the customer.

OH, I couldn’t get out of bed this morning. We had a busy weekend. My hubby was off for the 4th so that means we had an extra long weekend. We got to cookout, go see fireworks, went over to some friend’s house, and even house hunted a little.

Our oldest daughter was in a wedding this past Saturday. She went out of state all by herself for the first time and I’ve been missing her like crazy. It’s hard when they are young adults to not still view them as your little baby. I heard it went well and I’m anxious to see the pictures. She leaves to come back home later today. Pray for  her safe return.

I just found out last night that one of our close friends was robbed at gunpoint last Friday night. He was working at a fireworks tent and I guess with it being the last night, the robbers thought there would be alot of money. I think the pick up had already been done and the guy only had a few dollars on him. They mostly stole fireworks and a few other things that were lying around there. But with them having a gun, it’s a felony if they ever get caught. Thank God he’s safe and the robbers didn’t get irate when there wasn’t a lot of money and do something stupid.

So now it’s Monday again and after a long weekend. I have so much to get done today. And only today. Because our family camp starts this week and we will be driving back and forth to the campgrounds Tuesday thru Friday night. And then next week is our other daughter’s camp. I doubt I will even have time to take her shopping before then. And I have mountains of laundry to do. And dishes. At least the dishes aren’t too many due to grilling out! But even after sleeping my body is still tired. I need to go juice and take my vitamins. Maybe do some stretching.

Oh, but I am excited. Our town opened a new library recently and it’s sooooo much nicer. I used to hate going to the library here in Florida because all the ones near me were so small. I mean, I honestly own almost as many books as they did. The new one isn’t full but its’ nice and big and open. And when they get in all the books they’ve ordered, it will be really nice. And close.

But before I can think of reading any more, I have to go clean….

Just wanted to wish all my fellow Americans a Happy Independence Day. Hope you get a chance to celebrate this day with your family and friends and remember what a blessed country we live in. Say a prayer for all of our troops and let’s not take for granted the freedoms we have. Remember, anything worth having is worth paying for and that includes freedom and the costs to acquire and keep it.