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!

Found dog!

Don't I feel silly.  The last time I saw Chloe, we had come home from Mom's this morning.  That was around 9am.  So we just went outside to take a walk and I was getting some bug spray out of the van.  I opened the door and here comes Chloe.  She had been in the car all day.  She's lucky it was a cooler day here in Alabama. Very happy!

Something is fishy or we have terrible luck with pets.

When we moved into this house a little over a year ago, we brought our dog Princess, who looks like a yellow lab mix, and our 3 cats - Cotton, Lily, and Calico.
Cotton and Lily hate each other (even thought they are mother and daughter).  So as soon as we moved in, Lily moved to the woods behind our house and I see her about once a month scurrying through the woods. Cotton and Calico liked each other and hung out on either the front or back porch together all the time.
Then  about 5 or 6 months ago, I went to the pound in search of an inside dog.  Princess will NOT come inside without us dragging her while she shakes in fear.  So we found this cute little pug mix and named him Frodo.  He was not a puppy and such a sweet dog. I loved him.  Then one day he was outside and we never saw  him again.  Don't know what happened to him. Saw no trace of him, he just disappeared.
I waited a month or two and we went back to the pound and got a dachshund mix puppy and named her Chloe.  She has been more of a pain due to her scratching doors and whining at night. Thankfully we have a 2 story house with a basement and when she is in the basement we can't hear her in our bedroom.  I love that dog too.  And I haven't seen her since 8:30 this morning.  Which doesn't sound bad except that every time we open the door, she comes in, then if we open the door she shoots out, back and forth 100 times a day. Always ready to go in or out. 
About a month ago, I worked 2 days in a row and didn't notice until the end of the 2nd day that I hadn't seen Cotton or Calico.  Who normally are under my feet trying to trip me whenever I go in or out of the house. And 2 of Cotton's kittens had died, probably of dehydration/starvation.  One was still alive and we tried to save it with no luck. 
Never saw a trace of either cat. 
I don't know what is going on, but it is weird.
Princess is still here.  Lily has made an appearance a few times since her rival Cotton is gone.  I don't know.

Camping and Co op

The girls went on vacation with Aaron's parents to Pigeon Forge last weekend.
After this was already planned and hotels booked, our class at church decided to go on a camping trip about 3 hours away.  We decided to just take the boys camping and let the girls go on their vacation.
We had a great time. Aaron and I used to camp back when we first got married and lived in the mountains of NC.   We had not camped together since I was pregnant with Madelyn 13 years ago. 
We had a great time.  Pretty cheap vacation.  And now that we have camped with kids, we want to do it again.  It wasn't too bad.
The worst part was that it started raining at 9:30 Sat. night and rained almost all night.  Therefore, all of our stuff was muddy and wet. 
I think that our camping buddies from church also set a record.  Apparently, the campground doesn't have a limit on the number of tents on each campsite and they managed to fit 11 tents on 3 campsites.  We only had 2 on ours.  It was pretty crowded, but soo much fun getting to know everyone.
The boys did wonderful. I guess they were so worn out that they both slept great the first night, all night long.  We had 12 Boy Scouts as neighbors.  Not good.  #1 they took our soccer ball from our camp and we finally got it back the next morning when we saw it at their campsite. #2 they all got up at 6am and were SCREAMING at the playground next to our campsite.  Not just playing, but screaming, constantly. After about 30 min. one of the ladies with them finally told them to be quiet, and of course, they weren't.  BOO to this Boy Scout troop! But even the Boy Scouts didn't wake the boys up.  Then they took a 4 hour nap in the tent on Saturday afternoon. We let them sleep, thinking we would be up late Saturday night.  But then the rain came at 9:30 and everyone went to their tents. Even with the long naps, the boys went to sleep pretty quick.
The worst part was trudging to the bathroom every time the boys needed to go.
At one point, Ethan had hardly drank and Aaron had just taken him 15 min. before.   Well, we were eating lunch with our friends who shared our camping spot.  Ethan and Seth were sitting in their lawn chairs eating (Ethan apparently can't handle sitting at a picnic table with not back, since he fell so much we banned him) So Ethan comes and says he has to pee. Seemed like each time the boys got bored, then all of a sudden they have to pee. So I told him to wait, I would take him later.  Well, a few min. later I look over to Ethan sitting in his chair with a very concentrating look on his face.  I said "Ethan, what are you doing?"   He said "I'm Peeing".  And sure enough, he peed a river.  OOPS.
And the boys also got their first yellow jacket stings.  Ethan got it first right under the eye and started screaming.  Aaron saw him flick the bee away so he knew what had happened. About the time I picked him up, Seth got it on the back of the ear.  So he commenced to screaming. It wasn't funny that they got stung.  The funny part was that Seth's ear swelled up so big it looked like a cartoon ear.  unhuman.  Ethan's eye swelled some, but not near as much as Seth.
We went to our new co op yesterday. I think it went well. I also think as it grows and expands, it will get better.  I will probably write more later, but right now I am wasting dishwashing time.

sore

I exercise.  I know by looking at me, it is hard to believe, but I actually do.
I do it for health and  I do it so that I will be healthy for my husband and children.
I would do it to lose weight, but apparently that doesn't work for me.
For instance, a few months ago, for at least 6 weeks straight and it might have been longer, I walked/ellipticaled/exercised for 1.5 hrs a day at least 4 days a week.  Not one pound lost!  Not one!  However, towards the end of that 6 weeks, my triglycerides were down 30 points from a year ago.  They aren't really high now, but they were slightly elevated before.  And that was my only abnormal lab.
I had been doing the MOVE series off www.dailyburn.com .  This is a website I LOVE!. 
Joining a gym is out for us.  It costs too much money and I just don't have 2 hrs a day to devote to driving there, working out, extra shower, driving home, etc. and I know I just wouldn't want to leave the family every night to go work out, IF I could even fit it into my schedule.
I saw an article about a month ago and I don't remember where, so I can't link to it.  But it made a point that cardio is good, but you have to have weight training to build muscle to lose weight.   The article also said that if you go to a gym, the overweight people are trudging along on the ellipticals, treadmills, etc, while the ripped, thin people are on the weights. Hmm!  He did have a point. 
And when I was thin in college, I did lift weights, (in addition to playing every intramural sport, running, and going to the fitness center almost daily)
There is  a section on Daily Burn that is call Tactical Body Weight Training or TBT. Aaron had been doing these, but I hadn't.  It is an intense workout where you use your weight as the weight to build muscle. I have been doing it at least 4 weeks.  I could tell a difference in my arm strength after two weeks.  I can really tell a difference after 4 weeks.  Have I lost weight.?  Why no, of course not, that would be too typically human to exercise and lose weight. I have to be atypical.
But I do like feeling stronger.  My legs have always been my strongest.  Seriously, before I even started this I could do 10 squats with Aaron on my back.  And carry Aaron on my back up the stairs without breaking  a sweat.  ( I know, weird ways to occupy ourselves) He weighs 155.
But I can tell a difference with my legs too.
A huge plus that I was not expecting...
About a year ago, my calves, ankles and feet started swelling.  not too bad, and probably not even enough that a person that didn't know what my legs looked like before would notice.  But I noticed. It would be really bad after working 12 hour shifts. I know some of that is normal, to swell a little.  My doctor went ahead and did an Echocardiogram to rule out heart issues.  Heart was normal!  So she put me on this little diuretic pill. Which I did not want to take, but I do.
It was dependent edema, caused by gravity.   For instance, the week I had bronchitis, my legs were the smallest they had been in months. no swelling at all because I had been in bed and not on my feet.
Well, back to the benefit of this weight training exercises... I started noticing that my ankles and feet were smaller.  All this building of calf muscles is promoting better circulation in my legs and I have even skipped my pills a few times because I didn't need them. Soon, I expect I can throw that prescription away!
All this to say that I am sore.  I had a weird 2 day summer cold last week, couldn't exercise, then I worked 2 12 hr shifts, which exhaust me, had a headache one day and was just plain lazy another, which all ended in me skipping a week of TBT.  I started back two days ago. I hadn't lost all my strength, but OH am I sore.  But it is a good sore, that perhaps I will work out today.

Ministry

Aaron and I have a ministry out of our own home.  It is to raise our 5 children to be on fire for God.  To be more than church attenders and good people.  Our ministry is to school our children.  Our ministry is to raise as many children as we can.  Children who would have no hope without parents and a family.  I have realized that part of this ministry is to pay off our debt so we can adopt again, which requires me to work a lot.
At this time in my life, I have a lot going on. I realize that we could all say that. 
I have 5 children. 
I am homeschooling these children.
We are starting to get full swing into fall soccer.
And back to our ministry.  We both realized that with all this debt hanging over our heads....leftover from the adoptions, house repairs, and our car...that we can't adopt again or help any more children until it is gone.
Why, because I would have to work even more if we added more adoption debt to what we already have.  Probably full time, which I could get in 3   12 hour shifts a week, which leaves me exhausted for the rest of the week.   And very stressed out and irritable.  Aaron and I dream of how nice it would be for me to only work 3 days a month ( which is my minimum) and be home the rest of the time.  With time and mental energy to relax and enjoy life instead of stressing so much.  If we get rid of this debt I and fundraise for the next adoption, I should be able to work minimal hours.
Here we are to the point of all this...
I don't need another thing to stress about.  I don't need another responsibility.  And when I tell you nicely, that I don't want that other responsibility, don't ask me to do it again.  And when I tell you nicely again, that I am not taking over that other responsibility, don't call on a Saturday, put my husband on the spot (who was there BOTH times I said no) and wrangle him into doing it, thereby wrangling me into doing it.
Do you realize that I have 2  45 min sections of time every week, that I can sit down, listen to a Bible lesson, with people my own age, and mingle with Christians my own age and NOT have a child in my lap or trying to get my attention and distract me from worship and study.  THAT IS IT!  1.5 hrs a week for this if you count Wed. night and Sun. morning . 
Unlike all the retired people at church, all the people whose children are teens and can take care of themselves for a few hours, all these people could easily have friends over to their house for uninterrupted chat time or Bible study or supper.   We can't!  And I am not complaining that we can't.  I love a big family.  However, esp. on Sunday mornings, that 45 min that I sit in class without interruptions, after getting 5 kids ready for church and driving 20 min. is such a blessing to me.
And someone wants to take that away from me.  Ahh!
I know that it isn't as personal as I am taking it, but AHHH!!!.
So Sunday morning, instead of looking forward to going to worship and class, I had to pray and bite back bitterness and irritability.
That apparently, you can't politely tell anyone no.
I don't like this position I have been put in.  Someone asks nicely.  I, knowing that while we are paying off this debt, I am stressed to the max, that I can't handle 3 year olds on Sunday morning and I really do need that 45 min. class. So I tell him no.
The next week, because the teacher is late again, perhaps not showing up, he asks again, I tell him no again.
And then 2 weeks later, he calls the house on a Saturday, asking Aaron to fill in the next day, and being put on the spot, Aaron says yes. 
I don't know how to say NO again without being rude.  And I feel mad because I have been nice twice and he won't take NO for an answer and I know that next time when I am rude, then I will look and feel bad, when if he would just take NO for an answer I wouldn't be put in this position.
Seriously, what makes you continue to ask the person at church with the most kids to teach over and over when they say NO?