Today

Our first official day of school! Finally. We have a table and enough stuff unpacked to make it doable. In all our years of homeschooling, this is the first summer break we've ever taken. It just about drove us crazy! Never again, I hope. We are all looking forward to getting back in the swing of things.

My in-laws are visiting. They are staying at Chaffee in their motor home and come and go as they like. Yesterday they came over and my FIL helped put the tables together while my MIL and girls made egg rolls. It was a big kitchen day. We had planned to have dinner at church, so I used the time to do extra cooking. We made bread, cereal, cookies, and egg rolls.

Still no church. That's a bit hard on Sundays b/c my heart is still at Alameda. So Sunday I sat through the sermon praying for them instead of listening ....easy to do b/c this particular church was SO similar. I'm praying for us to put aside personal preference and be sensitive to the Lord's leading.

On to today...

~Big beautiful wonderful storm! I do think I could sleep in all day and just listen to it. I missed the dramatic weather of the south. Open windows, cool weather, ahhhhhh...... reminds me a bit of CO (the cooler temps, not the storm).

~This morning I was reading in My Utmost For His Highest and the reading was 2 Sam 23:16..."Nevertheless he would not drink thereof, but poured it out before the Lord."

It talked about returning our blessings to God, sacrificed and poured out. I have been blessed beyond measure and it was a good reminder to hold everything/everyone with an open hand.

~I woke up this morning to find an accident left by a loose puppy. That guy won't be sleeping in the house again.

~We're ready to move ahead with changing some things about the house. The Mud Man is coming to take care of the wallpaper and we're shopping for new kitchen items and maybe flooring.

~I've been back long enough to see that couponing is just not as effective here as it was in CO. There's still a few deals, but they are few and far between. I've decided the best way to save money in FSM is to menu carefully and only shop once a week. That's my goal.

~We are studying joyfulness in our Character Sketches book. The first definition is..."providing brightness to those around me regardless of outward conditions". My 2yo is not very joyful these days. He likes things to go his way, and when they don't.....well, he's not very "bright" to those around him. He needs to stay close and work on obeying cheerfully.

~I'm still working on our new school schedule. I'm adding some new stuff and changing some things around. It's fun to see how we change every year. Every year the kids are older, they are ready for new stuff, we usually have a new toddler or baby, potty training, new jurisdictions, buddy change ups. It's all good.

~One of the new things for this year is a mid-morning snack during school. We did this a bit last year, but now I want to do it consistently. I've found that it needs to be easy and dry. Nothing wet or anything that requires any prep or clean up. Crackers or a homemade snack mix served on paper towels will probably be the norm. I've found that Aldi is a good place for that type of stuff.

~When I came home from the farm, Honey had bought me a new bread machine as a surprise! I had just about given up on bread machines since they don't seem to last very long in this house. It's been fun to put it to work. I didn't realize how much I missed it. It won't feed the family but it certainly is good to supplement. I made the big batch of bread yesterday and will put some of that in the freezer. I'll use the bread machine daily to just keep up with what we use during the day.

Today's meals...
breakfast - homemade cereal
snack - animal crackers and milk
lunch - leftover egg rolls
tea - watermelon
dinner - smothered chicken with rice, salad, and green beans