Enough... Time for Some Laughs

While we are all physically fine in the aftermath of our car accident, emotionally a couple of us are not doing so well yet. Night time is the hardest time. That's when my mind turns on full force and sleep has not been abundant these past few days.

On top of dealing with these emotions my heart has just hurt so deeply for sweet Marsha and her family. But while it is hard to do, sometimes we have to make a choice to laugh, to smile.

So in order to start healing and getting life back to normal, I thought I would share one thing that brings so much laughter to our family. We LOVE LOVE LOVE the show The Gilmore Girls. The witty writing makes us laugh so much and we now use several sayings from the show in our normal daily conversations!

Let me give this little disclaimer though... there are a few scenes we skip over if our kids are watching with us, and there are a few choice words that we do not approve of but we do have a TV Gaurdian that blocks out those words. Gilmore Girls is not exactly a conservative show nor are the main characters Christian, but it is very well written and has brought us much laughter, and that has been a very good medicine for us this week.

So without further ado, if you haven't had the priviledge of watching any Gilmore Girls episodes, sit back and get ready to laugh. Here are some of the funniest clips I could find on YouTube. Enjoy!

Please Pray Again

We are going into our 7th year of homeschooling and for the last several years I have been friends with another homeschooling momma from Texas. Many of you may 'know' her.

Marsha is a wonderfully sweet, witty, beautiful mom who could always be found doting on her three little boys. Last night her 3 year old son, Christian (she refers to him as 'Dozer' on her blog) drowned in a pond.

Oh how my heart hurts for her and the rest of this family. After what we just went through it makes me hug mine all that much more because I know how close we came to planning funerals for our child(ren) as well. Please be in prayer for this family. I simply can not imagine the pain they're going through... thankfully.

Here are some links to a tribute to Christian, a news report, as well as Marsha's blog.

Cards or Correspondence can be mailed to:
David and Marsha Drews
c/o Rachel Harris
12830 N. Cypress Lane
Tomball, TX 77377

God Has Saved Our Lives Once Again!

As I was driving to the boy's first football game tonight a man on a backhoe pulled out into the road in front of me. Although I swerved to miss him the bucket of his backhoe ripped down the side of our van, tearing off the side sliding door! Thank GOD nobody was sitting next to that door!



But Baby Girl and Reece Cup were sitting on that side, Baby Girl beside me in the passenger seat and Reece Cup in the very back seat. I can't believe no one was seriously hurt! Baby Girl had cuts all up her right arm and hand, but unbelievably NO glass in her arm at all! Just one cut was a bit deeper and they used steri-strips on it. Reece Cup had some glass in his clothes and one teeny tiny cut on his hand, but nothing else. Princess and Handsome were untouched.



I am very sore... chest, back, shoulder blades, etc., and I'm sure tomorrow morning will be unbearable, but I can't complain. All X-rays turned out fine. My heartrate was 124 beats per minute when I got to the hospital and my blood pressure was 141/104(or something very close to that) right before I was discharged, but all that is back down now. (Below is a picture of my worst visable injury. We can't figure out how I got this, but it hurts like the dickens.)



There are SO many ways this could have been a much more terrible outcome. Had I hit him straight on, had one of the kids been sitting next to that side door, had it also taken Baby Girl's door off, had glass still shattered like it used to years ago instead of breaking into chunk-like pieces, had the backhoe been out just a few inches farther, had someone been coming the other way... I shudder at these thoughts because any of them mean one or more of my babies would be in Heaven right now.



God is so wonderful and I praise Him and give Him ALL the glory and honor for once again saving the lives of my babies!

I have more, but I really need to go be with my babies right now. They're all pretty shook up, so please keep them in your prayers. I'll post more tomorrow.

Creating My Own Price Book

In my on-going attempt to spend as little as possible at the grocery store I am considering taking Mrs. Momma's advice (thanks Heather!) and starting my own Price Book.

I have, on occasion, written down the price of something at one store, say Kroger, if I was going to Wal-Mart next because I knew that if I found it more expensive at Wal-Mart that they would price-match Kroger's price (or whatever store it was cheaper at). So in a way I've done something like this before. It just never occurred to me to keep a running list on several items. I know it will take time, but with a family of six (and two of those six being growing boys with ever-increasing appetites) and continual price increases I want to make sure I'm doing everything I can to be a good steward of what God blesses us with financially.

Do any of you have your own Price Book? Is it worth it? Does it help you save?

What Can I Cook?

How helpful is this site?! You type in what ingredients you have on hand and it will give you recipes you can fix! This is an answer to prayer for this mom who finds herself at a loss many times, staring into the cabinets hoping something will magically appear for dinner.

Trying Out the Grocery Game

Due to a recent change in our grocery budget I thought I would give The Grocery Game a try. I had heard of it before but wasn't interested in paying someone to help me save money. However, with the price of so many food items going up, along with the gas prices and wanting to reduce my trips to the grocery store, I decided to once again take a look at what the Grocery Game had to offer.

Here's how it works. You type in your zip code and it shows you a list of stores in your area that are covered by the Grocery Game. For instance, here in my town Kroger, Rite Aide, and CVS are the stores I have to choose from.

For $10 every 8 weeks, which only comes out to $5.00 a month (aren't you proud of my quick math skills?), you can choose one store from your area list and you will be able to access a weekly list showing the store's entire list of sale items, both advertised and UNadvertised, including close-out items. Included in the list are any coupons out that match up to the items on sale and the final price you will wind up paying for each item.

For $5.00 more you can choose two stores and again, for $5.00 more you can choose to have lists from all 3 stores. So you'll be paying either $5.00, $7.50, or $10.00 a month (billed every 8 weeks) to have access to your favorite store's weekly sales and what coupons go with each sale item, if any.

I was still a bit skeptical until I saw that I could try it out, one store, for a month for only $1.00. What did I have to lose? So, since I already use Crystal's site for CVS deals and I have yet to start figuring out how the Rite Aid deals work, I chose Kroger for my month's $1 trial.

I am now toward the end of my trial and I've still not made up my mind whether I'm going to continue my membership. I will admit, the lists are exhaustive and very easy to understand and follow. There are several items listed that I would never have known were on sale. But I have found that in trying to follow the list and get 'good deals' I actually bought more things that I don't normally buy and wound up spending more without actually having things I could put together for a meal, thus defeating the whole purpose.

Maybe I just haven't given it the time I need to. I have been pretty pre-occupied this past month. I'm in the process of getting my coupons organized and filed as well as putting together several menus I can choose from so maybe the list will come in more handy when I'm better organized. I'll probably give it another month and see how it goes. I'll keep you posted.

Anyone else found a way to make The Grocery Game work for your family?

Don't Worry, Our Kids Aren't Left Behind Either

Let me start this out by saying that I am NOT a fan of "No Child Left Behind". I think there are many, many things wrong with it. Good intentions, but bad way to go about helping our public schools, which do desperately need help.

At the same time, I'm not a homeschool fanatic. While I wholeheartedly believe it's best for our family, I know it's not for everyone and because of this, I want to see our public schools do the very best they can do. We have lots of little nieces and nephews in public school and I want the absolute very best for them. We totally and completely support them and encourage them just as we do our own kids.

We have some really great public school teachers around here who I believe truly love their students and do the very best job they can do. However, when they're not given the money they need nor paid what they deserve and when they are required to teach certain things and certain ways, well, then they are limited in the job that they can do.

All that said, we, as homeschoolers, are in the minority. In our family, our church, our town, and obviously in our country. And anytime you do something that is 'out of the norm' you're going to draw criticism and 'helpful' advise. I have some concerned acquaintances who, every time I see them, talk about how I should put my kids in school.

So to be able to answer this 'advise' with a strong defense when needed I try to stay informed of how our local schools are doing. It's not always enough, nor do we always have the time to give the whole spill about how we feel this is how God is leading our family, how well our kids are doing, how 'socialized' our kids really are, yadda, yadda, yadda. And to be honest, with some people none of that makes a hill of beans difference to them. All they know is that we are doing something very 'different' and 'weird' and that we are 'hurting' our children. Some even think we feel we are 'better' than other families who don't homeschool! Oh how this is SO not true and really hurts our hearts.

Anyway, last weekend our town's newspaper had an article on how our local schools scored in the 2008 Yearly Progress Report for NCLB. Again, I am not a fan of NCLB, but if that is what our schools are required to 'live by' and measure up to then it's pretty safe to assume that this is how our schools are run, trying to meet the goals and requirements set forth by NCLB, whether they agree with it or not. Right? I mean, what school can afford to lose any amount of money? And to lose it because your students aren't 'measuring up'? What real choice do public schools have other than to do whatever is necessary to meet these 'goals'?

I won't go into all the details, but the schools that our children would be required to go to didn't do so well, and this is several years in a row that they have not 'met their goals' so they are now under certain restrictions.

I'm so glad we don't have to worry about all the politics of education our children. We just teach 'em and have fun doing it!