Soccer games, Co op, and Sunburns

We are taking a break from school.  Kids are outside, and I just ate lunch. It is still pretty humid and hot here today, but thankfully, our yard is full of trees and the shade they provide makes it a little cooler. 
We had a great day at co op yesterday. The way it is set up, each mom can leave their children every other week. I had planned on staying every week, since
#1 We are too far from our house for me to drop the kids off and go home. 
#2 I could go shopping, but we have no money just to go shopping for the fun of it.
#3 I really don't know the area well at all and what to do there. I actually take our GPS every time I go since we drive close to a big city.  If I were to come upon a wreck or detour, I would be totally lost without it.
Anyway, yesterday, Farrah (the mom I went to college with)  told me to leave the kids and get some time alone.  She needed me to finish the kindergarten class for her at 10:50, her daughter had a doctor's appt.   So I left and went to a library about a 1/2 mile down the road. I happened to bring my coupon stuff and ads from Sunday, so I found a table and sat down. I had uninterrupted coupon time for over an hour.  And it just happens that Kroger is having a good sale where if you buy 5 of a bunch of stuff (mix and match) each time you buy 5 of them you get $5 off.  I had lots of coupons for these things too, which made them even cheaper.  I am working 3 days in a row this week and had scarce amount of food, so I went ahead and went shopping last night.  Got home around 9:15pm.    I think the total before I gave them my Kroger card and the coupons was $260 and the total afterwards was around $171.  Hopefully that will last until next weekend. We will see. Of course I already see things I forgot, like coffee creamer and diet cokes, you know the essentials.
I had a dream last night that someone gave us an anonymous check for $99,000.  Oh well, it was a nice dream.  I was going to pay off our debt AND completely pay for our adoption, plus some leftover.
Natalie had 2 soccer games Saturday, Madelyn had one and Hannah had one 30 min. away.  Aaron almost always goes to the away games and I stay here with the others. He came back and was able to watch most of Natalie's 2nd game and most of Madelyn's game. Long story short, I was at the soccer fields from 10:00 until 1:00pm.  I applied sunscreen TWICE!  However, my pale, pale skin and 2 applications of sunscreen was no match for the sun.  I got a rather small patch of burn on my shoulder, but the worst was the tops of my legs and fronts of my shins.  Whew it was bad.  Still hurts to take  a shower and to touch.  The first day, anytime I walked or squatted, I think the skin over my legs stretched and hurt so bad.  So much so I really felt awful Saturday night and all day Sunday> don't know if it was related to the burn or not.  And this explains why I appreciate the beauty of the beach and God's oceans, but I do not enjoy going there.  It seems I cannot go there without coming home with a miserable burn, no matter how much I apply sunscreen. And...who likes to put lotion all over her body multiple times when you are hot and sweaty.  Give me the mountains and shade any day.   Thankfully, mom watched the boys during Natalie's first game, I left the big girls at the soccer fields and went the 3 miles to pick up the boys and come back and they sat with me during Madelyn's game. I ended up taking them home during the last quarter of Madelyn's game. We were in full sun and I was really not feeling well already.
Madelyn took all these pictures while they were outside a few minutes ago.  Painting the driveway with soapy water.

Our new Co-op is going well.  We have only been twice, because we did not meet on Labor Day.  The girls really seem to enjoy it and I think that since they are making friends, they won't be so forlorn about stopping the other co op.  Madelyn is the oldest kid being in 7th grade.   I taught the kindergarten and below class last week with a helper.  I think there were 9 of them. They were all well behaved.   Seth and Ethan both go into the kindergarten and preschool class and they have really enjoyed it too.  There are some cute little children there that the girls love playing with.  I am so proud of how my girls take care of little ones.
We are still working our debt snowball.   I really want to use the adoption agency we used last time.  This agency will be closing in the next year or two when it finishes the adoptions of all those who have signed up with them.  So I am really wanting to get the debt paid off within a year.  Without Aaron going on a fire, I just don't know if we can do it. Aaron makes a lot of extra when he goes on a fire.  He considered going on a marking detail.  If he did this, he would be gone about 16 day.  2 days travel there and back and 14 days straight of 12 hours shifts. Which would make extra money.  But we roughly figured out how much extra he would get and it is not much more if any more than I would make - working my 3  12 hour shifts a week.  In a perfect world, I could do my 3 12 hour shifts AND Aaron could go on a marking detail and we would make even more. However, we are in the midst of soccer season, which means someone is practicing every Mon, Tues, Thur, and Fri, from 5-7pm and sometimes 1 hr on Sat morning.  Now we are starting games some evenings and Saturdays.  Bad thing is, each game day, at least one of the girls plays in a different city, which if Aaron was out of town, would be impossible for me to be at one game and at the away games at the same time.  Soccer ends at the end of October.
Soccer also poses a dilemma for me getting hours in a work.  I normally would work Saturdays, but can't when the games start up.  Which makes it even harder to get my 2-3 days in. I have been considering getting a school day in on Saturday afternoons.  Since I won't be working that day.  I could also get a school day in on Monday afternoons too, after co-op. I do count co-op as a school day.  Don't know yet.  But I am not real stressed about it, since this is the very reason we start school in the summer time.  We are already on day 33.
I have not done so well on the grocery part of my budget.  I was so proud because the first 4 weeks we did this budget, I only spent $570 on groceries and our goal was less than $600.  I think I went over by only $5 the next two weeks and maybe $10-15 after that.  However, we still have 8 days left in our 2 week budget and I only have $25 left to spend on groceries and I really, really don't think we can make it on that.  I kept wondering how I did so well the first month. I figured it out... I had a freezer with lots of meat in it and lots of food in the pantry when we started, so in a way I started out very well stocked.  We have really pared that down now and so it is getting harder and harder. Especially with me working 3 days a week this month.  Easier meals means more expensive meals.  I really need to bulk up on casserole meals and then everyone can just eat leftovers while I am at work. Oh well, I will try not to beat myself up too awful bad... Even with going over budget by $5-$25 I think I still saved on average at least $300 month on groceries.
I did sign up for Dave Ramsey's TotalMoneyMakeover.com   I don't do the budget on there since we do 2 week budgets, but I do keep up with our debt snowball on it. It is pretty neat and calculates, with using only the debt snowball and not any extra payments, when your debt will be paid off.  That should change as you put in different extra payments. Right now it has us getting our debt paid off in Dec. 2016 which is way to far away. I am still shooting for next summer.  We'll see.  We did manage to pay $2000 off in August!