~This and That~

This is going to be one of those rambling type posts without much of a point but just catching things up around here since the blog has been so quiet lately.  After reading this post, you will know why it has been so very quiet here! 

Vacation Bible School

We are in the midst of VBS this week.  I’m not teaching this year but helping in music.  But to be a helper in music means that you must know the music.  So I’ve been spending a lot of time learning music and movements to teach to the children.  I love music so this is no problem whatsoever for me.  Actually, it has made me realize how much I love music and it is my form of worship.  I will be going back to the choir soon.  Anyway, no pictures…yet.  I’m sure I will have some at the end of the week! 

The Summer of Simplicity

After we finish VBS this week, our lives will slow down considerably for the rest of the summer.  We are going to be living a much more simple life this summer.  Some of this is due to wanting to get back to a much simpler way of life.  And some of this is due to finances.  I don’t know if I’ve talked much about it on here but we have had some major changes in our finances. 

My husband, David, was laid off last July from his job of 11 years.  He began working in October again but with a huge pay cut.  Recently, he started working with the original company again.  (They called him and offered a different position. :) However, we are still making much less than we have made in the past but the benefits are good (and that’s why he accepted the job).  Because of this lack of money, we’ve had to make some changes around here.  Normally, our children take swim lessons and this year some were going to do swim team but it was not in the budget.  They were a little upset and honestly, so was I that I could not give it to them.  So we took a look at the budget and bought this:

It cost less than half of what the swim team was going to cost us for four children and that was including the pool accessories and floatation devices for the two younger children.  It will serve us well this summer as it is all ready steamy hot here and will be that way until late fall.  Needless to say, my children said that this was better than swim team because they could swim anytime they want now!  We are enjoying our new pool!

The pool is one way that we are simplifying our lives because we will be home more. This move to simplicity is spilling over into other parts of our lives too and I am sure that I will write more of that over the summer months.

The Garden

The garden has become my sixth child!  I have been busy tending it with weeding, mulching, fertilizing, and watering.  I have started the second planting of some of the rows too.   I will write more about the garden soon as I have a lot to share about it!

This past weekend, I spent time changing out my flower beds on the kitchen entrance door.  I had originally thought that I would plant peppers there since my herbs are all ready on the front of the large garden.  Then I found out that the tomatoes I was going to place in the former cabbage row could not follow cabbage so I have made half of my flower garden a tomato garden.  Behind that I have planted more sunflowers and some tiny pumpkins that I hope will trellis some lattice that Dave will put there for me. 

 I also added some Black-eyed Susans and some trailing yellow flowers whose name I can’t recall and a pretty blue plumbago or something like that.  I’m hoping it has a country cottage look when everything is in bloom.   You might notice that our house looks a little weathered.  This is the west side of our house and it takes a sun beating so the paint on this side looks worse than the other sides.  But I’ll let you in on a little secret… I kind of like it.  It looks very country cottage to me.  I feel like I live in a little farm house in the city when I step out of my doors!

 I saw these beautiful plumbago flowers and could not pass them by.  They are the prettiest periwinkle blue.  This picture does not do them justice.

On the other side of my steps, I planted flowers.  I love color so it is sprinkled with purples, yellows, pinks, oranges, and reds.  I planted a lavender plant close to the steps so when we walk by, our legs will brush it and we will smell lavender as we enter our house. 

 

The House

We have begun the process of a thorough summer cleaning around here.  For us, the busyness of the school year keeps us from doing big cleaning projects so we will spend the summer getting things in order.  On the to do list:  declutter, simplify, and paint.  Right now, we are spending time everyday decluttering and thoroughly cleaning  the kids’ rooms.  I’m hoping that at the end of this week, we will be ready to paint their rooms.  Then I’ll be making new curtains.  After that, the kitchen will be placed in order before the canning season begins.  And I’m sure that there will be pictures of the process so stay tuned.

Weight Loss

Before I close out this post, I wanted to post what was going on with my weight loss.  I have missed my last two postings of my weigh ins but I have really good news.

I have lost five pounds.

I believe most of this is due to my working in the gardens and swimming with the kids.  It has been the easiest five pounds to lose because I’ve just been living a busy life and it just happened.  I am planning to add more workouts next week after we have finished VBS.  Hopefully, I’ll be on track to lose this weight by my 4oth birthday in August 2011.

Changes

One more thing before I go…there will be some changes around the blog.  I have been contemplating a name change and I finally have decided on a byline (or blog description) so I will be making some changes here soon.  There will be some decluttering of the blog too.  It won’t be anything big but just little stuff to reflect the changes that I am going through myself.

All right, I believe that’s all for today.  Thanks for reading all of that if you made it this far!  :)