Remembering 9/11

My dear Miriam Midkiff of AnceStories2 shares with us her thoughts on 9/11. She also asks a series of questions to get you thinks, so I thought I'd paste them in here and share my experience.

*How did you hear about the attacks of 9/11?

I was just getting up for work that morning and had gone over to turn on the TV while my coffee brewed just in time to see the second plane hit the second tower. I was horrified. I remember just standing there with my fingers up to my mouth. My husband had already gone to work and our son was still asleep. So I just stood there in silence and watched. Wow I hadn't thought of that in a long time. But I remember it as if it were yesterday.

*What did you do that day? Did you go to work or school, or stay home?

I did go to work. I had the privilege of a big screen TV to watch the news all day. At that time I was a portrait studio consultant. So we showed the images on a big screen TV which I sometimes watched the news on when I had nothing better to do. September really starts the slow time for about a couple months till it picks up for Christmas. So I really had almost no customers that day. Instead I set at my viewing room desk with a few projects going on the computer and watched the news all day.

*What were your feelings?

Mostly sadness. Especially when we began to find out the magnitude of the lives lost that day. I was horrified as I witness the plans hit the building. I can't say I was really scared. I mostly considered myself blessed that I lived in a part of the US that I didn't think they would really be interested in destroying. There isn't much significant that would affect the whole country on that magnitude her in Idaho.

*How has what happened that day changed your life in some way?

I'm not sure my life has really changed too much. Expect that maybe now I realize how important it is to write about my life and chronicle my story and that of my family just in case, God forbid, that some tragedy takes me away from my children. I really realized that tonight when I watched the children on Oprah today talking about the parents they lost and in some cases barely knew because they were so young. Even if I'm not here someday and my children are young, I at least have the peace of mind that they will know me and their father because of the stories I have done and the ones I'm still working on.

*What are your hopes for the future, in connection with this tragedy?

You know these days I'm just focusing on keeping my head above water with my own life and family. I don't think much about the future of the world. My life is enough to worry about. However, I will say that I would like to see our military men and women begin to come home. I feel they are fighting a loosing battle over there. They've have done a noble job and deserve all of our support, but I feel it is a loosing battle they are being forced to fight. It's time they come home.

Well there are my thought to Miriam's questions. So what are yours. Share with us how you felt, what you still feel, and what your future hopes and prayers are in relation to the 9/11 tragedy.

Tibetan Personality Test

This is amazing. Take this Personality Test you will be amazed at what it tells you about your personality. I was really amazed about what it told me about myself. It all fit right in place with my life.

I don't want to give any of it away, so with out doing that I can tell you that I found out the Family is the most important thing in my life, I have a Buddy personality, my hubby is cuddly (usually when he wants something....hehehe), my life is relaxing (usually the case except for right now), my true life friend is my best friend Dez, someone i really love is my mom, someone I will never forget is my brother, the person who is my twin soul is my mother-in-law and I can really see that, someone I will always remember for the rest of my life is my dad, now all of that about made me cry.

So go take your test and see what it tells you about your life and personality. Then please let us know (with out revealing the questions).

Picutres from the farm

Here are photos that I took on my parents farm related to my post about Bucking Hay. I of course am behind the camera all the time, but really who wants to see pictures of my big butt bucking hay.......hehehe. The kids are so much cuter to see in photos.

Bucking Hay

Well I got out of my office and got some fresh air today. My parents have a little farm out in Rathdrum. We often go out there and ride the horses and enjoy the fresh air with them.

My parents aren't to terribly old, but they are getting up there to the point that they are feeling their age. My mother though is living out her passion and dream. She has her own little farm. She has always loved to be outside getting dirty and taking care of animals. Growing up I was always surrounded by animals. I do enjoy them, and I would love to have my children raised with animals. But I just can't afford to give that to my children, and now that I have found my own passion (genealogy) in life I don't think I would have the time or energy to give them that, even if I could afford it. So taking my children out to my parents farm and exposing them to the responsibilities and labor of raising animals is the next best thing.

Our oldest has taken a real interest in the farm and especially the horses, so I really try to encourage that and I take him out there when I get the chance. I really need to find a 4-H Horse club in the area and see if I can afford to enroll him in that as I know he would love it. Our daughter has also become very attached to the horses. We have to watch her because at two years old she has no fear and does not understand the danger of a horse. All she knows is that she wants to ride. Or in her on words "wonna wide!"

Anyway I truly appreciate the fact that my parents bought this place and the animals so that I can expose my children to that experience which is so rare for children today. So many parents just let their children veg out in front of the TV playing video games and eating all day rather that getting out and getting some sunshine and other outdoor activities, just because it's the easy thing to do. Hey no one said it was easy to load up three kids and take them to Grandma and Grandpa's on my own, but once we get their and my daughter starts clapping at the beginning of their long drive say "ya Papa!" and then they all pile out of the car and plow Grandma and Grandpa down with hugs and kisses and then turn and run for the horses the first chance they get.,........ It make it worth every minute of getting them dressed, cleaning rooms, making beds, brushing teeth and hair and after an hour finally getting out the door. I would never trade those times for the easier alternative of popping in a movie and letting them veg out in front of the TV.

Anyway like I was saying before I got side tracked on that last thought. I appreciate that farm more than my parents may ever know (that is unless mom reads my blog again....Love you Mom). When I was there yesterday they mentioned that they had to bring in hay again. I knew with Mom's left shoulder in bad shape that it almost impossible for her to lift those bails of hay. So I told them we'd be over today. They said it was a great help especially for mom when we had finally finished five tons of hay, unloading and stacking. It wasn't too bad really. Dad did the hardest part, but mom rolled them off the top, I picked up or scooted the bails over to Dad and he lifted and put them on the stacks. It was good hard work. I enjoyed it for a change. I look forward to the next time I can help them. But for now I'm pooped and ready for bed. Between my asthma acting up a bit and my tired body, I'm done for the night.

Well here is a little preview of the wonderful weekend we had this past weekend. My parents only live about 15 minutes from me, but it was so nice to pack up for a weekend and take the kids to spend the night there.

Saturday we got to ride the horses and have fun, and celebrate the 10 year olds birthday. Then Sunday we were up and off to Greenbluff for the Cherry festival. We only visited a couple farms, but we had a lot of fun. I really love the pictures of the kids riding the ponies. I just hope some day we can get our middle boy over the fear of riding horses.

He came off of a horse that spooked with him last summer and since then he is so afraid to ride them. To say the least grandma and grandpa got rid of that horse and now they have another one. Cooper is a great horse. Our middle boy did finally agree to ride him. So we put a bareback pad on him and Grandpa started walking the horse. Well our boy began to slide down because the bareback pad wasn't tight enough. Cooper just stopped and looked back at him like "what on earth you doing down there?" Our poor boy was just holding on and not letting go, but that horse never flinched.

I'll have to go do that again soon. It's fun to get up early in the morning and go horse back riding with the kids. At least my oldest and my daughter love to ride the horses with a passion. Our daughter is always pointing at them say, "wanna ry, wanna ry" She's just so cute about it.

A Young Cowboy's Birthday

Well I'm really starting to feel old. As of tomorrow my son will be 10 years old. It's hard to believe that he is ten. It seems like just yesterday he was learning to talk and of course hasn't stopped since, lol.

I've been very busy working on some genealogy for a family for their family reunion. So I called up my mom earlier in the week and told her that by this weekend I would be so ready to get out of the house and do something and since my son's birthday was that Monday, why not we come over, spend the weekend with them, ride the horses and see what else we do.

So we showed up her Saturday morning. We all then went out to Rathdrum Days. It's a small little town and a small little celebration, but it was nice to get out of the house and go shop Crafter's booths at the local high school and park.

Saturday afternoon we came back and watched a movie while we waited for it to cool down. Then Mom and I decided to take the boys to the ranching store so I could get the 10 year old a pair of boots for his birthday. The prices of the boots weren't as bad as I expected so I also had room in the budget for a belt too. But of course the middle boy saw his older brother getting boots and he just had to have some. If Grandma hadn't been there he wouldn't have gotten any. He would have just had to wait to get any. But Grandma's always have a soft spot and she couldn't stand it. She bought him a pair of boots too, and told him the were an early birthday gift ( his birthday isn't until December), we'll see if that lasts.

Earlier that day the 10 year old also got an Aussie Cowboy hat from Grandma and Grandpa for his birthday. Now he was all set. Our Cowboy. I told my mom that I am glad that he chose to be a cowboy because he sure wouldn't like me too much if he decided on a Gothic , gangster, or any of those other looks that I don't approve of. I'm just not one of those parents that believe in letting their kids make all the choices. I am the parent and I will be the parent. I'm not their friend. But I am happy that we agree on the path he has chosen.

Later when it finally cooled off we did get out there and saddle of the horses. We all got to do a little riding. I'm so proud of my oldest. He is learning to take care of the horses and rides so well. I think I am going to look into a 4H horse riding group for him. I know he will love it.

Then today we all got up and went to Greenbluff in Washington for the Cherry Festival. It was nice to browse around the gift shops, but I didn't buy anything. When you live on a very limited budget, little shops like that are just so expensive for their crafts and food items. I know then can and prepare food products on a small scale, so the manufacturing cost for them are probably much higher than what it is for a big company like Kraft, Smuckers, and other big name brands. But gee $13 for a pound of coffee beans or $5 for a small little bag of pasta.

On the other hand it was fun and a great buy to pick our own Cherries. We went out on this big wagon pulled by this ancient tractor. We spent a good while picking cherries. When we were done we had twelve pounds of cherries.

Boy did that bring back old memories. Growing up in California my parents had a huge lot that had many fruit trees and farm animals like goats, chicken, rabbits, geese and my FFA lamb for the fair. One of the trees we had that I think all of us loved the most was a cherry tree. God I remember eating so man cherries that the next day I'd spent more time in the bathroom then I would back out in the cherry tree. Of course Mom would warn us that we were going to give ourselves a tummy ache. But do you think we listened, or course not. My brother and I had to have at least one tummy ache from the cherries every year to refresh our memory and remember that Mom did indeed know what she was talking about. I'll never forget that cherry tree as long as I live. It had so many great memories.

Well the 10 year old is one happy boy. The only thing that could have made his birthday better, is to have his dad home for it. But hopefully he'll be home in a few days.

What Are Men Good For?

Where I live, unfortunately, we have one open lot that they never built a home on to the back south side of us, then to the back east side of us are some storage units. My house sits and a strangle angle with five sides to the lot. If you have ever lived near either one you know what little pesky vermin can come out of them. That's right mice! Well for the most part I never had trouble with them in my home. But my neighbor did. That was until they tore down the old green house at the back half of the lot and started working on my yard. Now I have the little buggers visiting me in my home.

So I went and bought the good old fashion traps. Put cheese, bread, peanut butter or even a piece of a doggy biscuits (they ate up most of the small bag I had, so I knew they liked them). I'll be darned if the darn things didn't clean me off every stinkin' time and leave my traps empty. Well forget that. These guys are too smart, or I'm too stupid to get these traps to work.

So on one of my hubby's trips home he went to the store since he wanted some hearty meals while he was home to satisfy his craving for real home cooking. While he was there he picked up some of those trays with the real sticky stuff on them. I'll be darned if I didn't catch one the first night, then one the next and then ANOTHER a few nights later! No wonder they were driving me crazy. I thought I only had one of two in here.

At this point I know I have at least one more. I've seen it once and certainly heard it. Well this night I sure as heck heard it. I had reset the trap to be between the refrigerator and the cabinet, where I had caught two of the others.

I'm sitting down here talking to my friends and all the sudden i heard this loud, eerie screech and scratching. I thought maybe some wild cat (since we have some of those who use to like the greenhouse too) was being eaten by a coyote at my sliding glass door. At least that's what it sounded like. I had no clue!

I carefully crept up stairs to see what the commotion is all about. As I come up the stairs, turn the corner and turn on the kitchen light I heard it again and looked ahead and saw it. Oh my God the mouse had three of it's four feet caught, but he was still very much alive. He was using the free leg to brace on the floor and pull the other three legs. I didn't want to touch it since he was standing up and alive.

This was the moment that I wondered "Why the heck couldn't James be home tonight" He had taken a live one out for me when he was home. So I left it. What else was I going to do? I sure wasn't going to reach my hand between the cabinet and risk being bitten by a mouse!

I get up the next morning and that darn thing had freed himself and was gone. Now I'm probably going to have to buy a different kind of trap because I doubt he will fall for that one again.

With James gone I have been capable of doing a lot of things on my own. I've dealt with my own plugged up over flowing toilet that one of the kids blessed me with, I've done more little remodel projects around the house, selling the car by myself, take out my own trash and so many other things that are easy to leave up to the man to do. But that was one thing I was not going to do. I'll catch the little bugger later, but I was not going to retrieve that trap with a live mouse on it. Give me another toilet to plunge before I do that.

The Perfect SAHM Money Maker

I know I have neglected my poor blog, but it's been for a good reason. Now it's time to introduce it to you other Stay At Home Moms (and Dads). It's the world of freebie site trading.

Now I'm going to tell you right now this is no way to get rich, and is not a way to replace steady income. Don't quit your job to do this. But this can be a great way to supplement your income, SAHM can contribute to family income, pay off a bill or pay for a vacation. My point is it isn't steady reliable income, but it is a way to make some extra cash. You could make anywhere from a few hundred extra bucks a month to a couple thousand. It just depends how much you want to work at it.

There are two ways you can make money in this freebie trading industry. One is for beginners the other method is for more experienced traders.

Beginners Method

With this method you are being paid to try offers and go GREEN for the experienced traders. It's not too hard to do, but it can be overwhelming at first. The keys to being sucessful are to stay organized and do your homework.

So how does this method work. Well in a nut shell you agree to trade your green for say $25 on a freebie site. The trader you agree to work with will set the trade up in what ever forum you are working from (and I will talk about forums more later).

Then you will:

1. Sign into that site under your trader with their referral link
2. Provide your personal information (which must be accurate) to create you account and at that point you are YELLOW.
3. Then you will complete offers to obtain one full credit. On some sites you can get by with one offer to as many as six offers to get your credit. When you get your one full credit you are then GREEN.
4. Then you wait until your trader pays you. Payment times can vary depending on the method you and your trader agreed to. If the terms were payment on Green then you should be paid with in 24 hours of going green, but if the terms were on approval then you must wait until the trader receives approval from the freebie site to be paid and that could take a month give or take.

So if you did BMG Music for $13 and two $1 monthly subscription trial, you will have spent $15. Then after you trader pays you $25 via PayPal you will have made $10 profit and gotten three great offers that you might have done some day on your own, but with this you got paid to do them and made a little extra on top of it. Other times you may get to do a site where you make $35 for your green and only need to spend about $10 to go green for a $25 profit. All the while you are getting great product you might have baught on your own anyway and paid full price for.

Well that's going green in a nut shell, but there is a lot more to it than that. Which is why my partner and I have started a Newbie (new traders are refered to as Newbies in the industry) Live Online Training to teach others how to do this. It's a great way to get to know other fellow traders. It makes the online trading thing less scary when you know people by name and get to know a little about who they are. Right now Lori and I are in the process of putting together a website about our Newbie Live Training and when we finish I will update my blog.

The Real Money

It's great to make money trying products you'll enjoy, but inevitable at some point you will run out of offers to do. At that point it's time to jump the fence and be an experianced trader. Which is where the real money is.

Now it's your turn to train other newbies to go green and pay them for their green. This side of the fence I find a bit easier, but you still need to be very organized and willing to work. Now you will spend your time posting in the forums (which I will list next, I promise), responding to messages, and training newbies to go green. It's not for the lazy. It works best if you put some time and thought into it.

So how do you make money on this side. Well lets take for example the site that you went green on for $25. Now you need to choose a gift you want to work for. When starting out I recommend starting small. So let's choose the $150 via PayPal prize and you only need three referalls to get that.

Steps to Paying for Greens:

1. Post in the forum (I promise I'm close to giving you the list!) in the Trading Center. Make your title very catchy. If you can't get people to open your thread than it doesn't matter what's inside. But once they open it keep their attention with a great post. Let people know what you are working on, how much you are willing to pay (generally about 50% if good) for thier green, what your payment terms are, and anything else important for your traders to know.
2. When you get that first interested person, go ahead and do a Happy Dance! Then get to work. Chances are that person is a newbie and will need a lot of help. So first you communicate with them and find out how much they know about going green and make sure they know the definate do's and don'ts.
3. Once they are comfortable with all of this then you set up the trade in the forum (the list is coming up).
4. Then you wait for them to go green and probably help them when they get stuck.
5. Last of course you pay them when they have gone green, or you wait until you have all three of your referalls. Then you submit for approval, and if your terms were payment after approval then you would pay them at that point.

Now with this you can see that you are going to make a lot more money (though it's not alwasy stead). So if you went for the $150 prize and you paid out $25 for three referals to get that the you paid $75 and made a $75 profit. Chances are with only needing three referals you would be able to do that in about a week if not sooner.

To give you an example I started in mid February, but didn't get many payments until March. The first part of March I was doing greens. I did greens for about three weeks before I jumped the fence. In March I made about $200, April was my big month at about $1750 (about half going ot refs though), May was $480 (half in my pocket) and June well it was a bad month at $280. So you can see that this can give you some extra cash to help with the bills, but don't count your chickens before they hatch.

Freebie Site Forums

Free Lunch Room

This forum has grown quickly and has many traders in it. It's where I got started so it's special to me. They are currently making some improvements. You'll find me on there and all the forums as amyrebba and my partner as lekrtk00.

Freebie Trading Center

The newest and latest up and coming forum in the Freebie Industry. I know the gal who runs this forum. She needs help to promote this forum, but she's got a user friendly forum that I like. I've got high hopes for this one. This is my other forum that I trade on.

There are two more big forum out there. Personally I don't care much for them. They tend to attract a younger full of attitude generation and they are rather difficult to get started on. But for your information they are:

FreeiPodGuide

Anything4Free

So there you have it. An overview of what I've been doing with all of my spare time for the last few months. And now I need to make dinner so that I can be ready for one of our next Online Training Sessions.

Life has happened again.

Once again the title of my blog rings true in my life. I've not been blogging for a while because I've been dealing with life.

James lost his job back in March. We knew it was only a matter of time, but sometimes no matter what you do you just can't get prepared for something like that. The only way he was prepared is that he was already looking into changing his career completely. That's exactly what he did. The next day he was at Sage Trucking registering for his training.

Also if you read my previous posts you'll know that we had the awful experience of having the tires stolen off one of our vehicles, and we've not heard anymore from the Post Falls Police. Since I haven't done anymore work on trying to track them down, they haven't either. I've not heard another peep in weeks. I think it's strange that they know who the meth addict woman is that was seen with them. But their line is they can't prove that she was seen with my tires and therefore they can't issue a warrant for her arrest. Come on people does it take a rocket scientist to figure that one out? And I find it hard to believe that she hasn't been arrest since then for something else. Can you not question her? Oh well I guess I need to just move on and realize that Post Falls is becoming a big town and that crime is a big part of that. You just can't trust everyone in a big town especially when there is a problem with drugs in the area. I can't wait to finish the remodel on our place and sale it. The next time I buy a home it will be in a little town out in the middle of nowhere!

I've also been spending my time doing online freebie site trading to help supplement his unemployment until he got back to work. I've made about $2000 since March when I started this. Now it's turned into something larger than I ever imagined. I've now partnered with another gal and we are teaching online evening classes so people can learn how to green on freebie sites and get paid for it. Now we have other sites and forums wanting to sponsor us. I'll tell you all about it when we make it public. But I really have found a way to make money and help others do the same from home on the Internet.

No I haven't forgotten about my dream to become a professional genealogist. I'm still working on that too. Which I've gained three more new customers because people have found out on the freebie sites that I do genealogy research. So I'm doing both. It's great!

So now I'm officially a truck drivers wife. I do miss him and I know he misses me and the kids. On the other hand his back has hardly been bothering him at all. This is definitely a good change as far as his back is concerned and the pay is good. Hopefully it will help us get caught up on our bills.

My neighbor who has been promising to do my yard for nearly a year got started on it last weekend. We aren't done by any means, but we got started. The greenhouse has now been completely leveled and crushed in and the hole started filling up. But now I have the pleasure of dealing with a dirt yard and three children playing in it. Not fun! I sweep at least two times a day and mop daily. Yeah I know I'm being crazy, but I've never been able to handle dirt on my bare feet. I don't like the feeling.

Well that's pretty much what has kept me away for a couple month. Now I'm off to my parents to visit with my cousin and her family who came up for the weekend.

Post Falls Police Department NO Common Sense!

At this point I am fuming. What the heck are my tax dollars paying for. What for the Post Falls Police to tell us "we don't have enough evidence. We can't prove they had your property. We can't bring them in for questioning." It's a load of BS. We have gotten nothing but the run around.

So let me address each one of those pathetic excuses:

• We don't have enough evidence. Let's see I put our detective in touch with Liberty Lake Police department who have a witness that saw tires, matching ours to a T in the possession of a known meth addict. What they don't seem to get, and I'll give them credit they are police not car guys, but our tires are very unique. That's why they caught the attention of an employeee at Liberty Lake Altons. There aren't too many 15" rims with 8 holes. most 15" rims have 6 holes. Then add to that 38" SuperSwampers. They aren't the norm. I know that Chris saw our tires and the police won't do anything even though they know who the witch is that had them. YES THAT'S RIGHT, THEY KNOW THE WOMEN WHO WAS IN POSSESSION OF THEM AND WAS TRYING TO SELL THEM at Liberty Lake Alton's. How much more evidence do you need to at least question her?
• We can't prove they were your property. Again bring the witch in, question her, find out where the tires are or where she sold them and I'll tell you and show you pictures to prove they are my tires. But the police claim it's too hard to locate here because she is a meth addict and crashes at many different addresses. Give me her name and I'll find her, and I'll prove she has my tires!
• We can't bring them in for questioning. Are you kidding me. If you really wanted to get to the bottom of this you would.

WHAT YOU REALLY MEAN IS THIS IS A WASTE OF OUR TIME, GO FILE A CLAIM WITH YOU INSURANCE.

Well that's just not possible. That vehicle was on no op. It wasn't running so we didn't insure it. We aren't made of money. So we just lost a $2000 set of tires and the police department manage to come up with every excuse in the books.

But you know what's funny to me.

1. Liberty Lake already knew who this woman was. She already has a reputation of meth use and suspect possession of stolen property. Have you ever heard "If it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, it must be a duck" So go get the dang duck and make her quack for Pete's sake.
2. We weren't the only ones robbed. The automotive shop behind us has been hit numerous times and yet he says the police department doesn't seem to do a whole heck of a lot for him either. On this last robbery he called them back to do finger prints. They told him they couldn't work with that. There were finger prints all over that car, especially above the tire wells.

Gee I wonder why insurance rates are so stinkin' high. Gee could it be because the police never spend much time or effort in looking for stolen property and at least bringing suspects in for questioning.

Not only that our crime rates really are high here in Post Falls and climbing. I wonder why. Like Dr. Phil says, "we teach people how to treat us" So what are the police teaching the criminals? It's okay to steal. You just make more paperwork for us. The victim will just file with the insurance and you can go support your nasty habit with their property.

I will say in defense of police officers. They can only do so much. It's the laws, judges, and prosecutors who think there isn't enough evidence to pursue a criminal, or issue a warrant. As far as I'm concerned that is ridiculous.

Well I guess I need to just make peace with the fact that we will never see our tires again because the Post Falls Police department doesn't have ENOUGH EVIDENCE.

Here is just one more thing I found while doing some research and digging into the amount of crime in Post Falls.

• 2001 had 1152 crimes and 1115 arrests 97% arrest rate
• 2002 had 1258 crimes and 1098 arrests 87%
• 2003 had 1485 crimes and 1096 arrests 73%
• 2005 had 1200 crimes and 882 arrests 73%
• 2006 had 1366 crimes and 957 arrests 70%

2005 & 2006 according to the Spokesman Review more than half were related to drug use. Yeah that wasn't brain surgery.

(sources: 2001-2003 Agency/County Information, page 176, 2003 crimes in ID & 2004-2005 Spokesman Review, "Post Falls Crime on the Rise, " Hope Brumbach, April 19, 2007)

See the trend there? Our arrests rate declines each year, but not because crime declines. In fact in all years except for 2004 it was higher than the previous year. So what does that tell you? They aren't arresting the criminals and cleaning up our town.

So how do we make a difference? By getting involved. Help out our police. Our detective didn't have to do all the leg work himself. I actually spent days on the phone following leads I got and then letting him know. The next time you have something stolen. Don't be lazy and just file with your insurance. Protect our insurance rates, and help the police catch the criminals. Make calls, visit pawn shops or any where else they may try to sell the property.

And for Pete's sake if you have drug users and especially dealers in your neighborhood, start a log of all the license plates that come and go and report them. Let's clean our town up. Get your neighbors involved in calling the police and reporting them.

Update on Stolen Tires

Heads up in Liberty Lake and Post Falls. The tires I listed in my last blog have been seen in Liberty Lake.

First let me say THANK YOU to the Alton's Tires stores. First I called around to many tire stores on Thursday giving them details of the stolen tires. I appreciate all of their help. But there were a few that stood out. Liberty Tires even offered to call a couple other stores for me to spread the word and there were others that agreed to spread the word. But Altons was the one that stepped up to the plate and hit a home run (sorry my son is in baseball this year. Momma in baseball mode here LOL).

I called one of the Alton stores in the Spokane area. I asked the gentleman if there was a way he could get the word out to all the stores since there were so many Alton's. He told me that he could give me a number at their head quarters and I could call and talk to a gal there and let her know so she could send out a fax. So I called her. She was at lunch, but about fifteen minutes later I got a call back from her. She gladly took all the details and said she would get a fax right out and wished me luck.

With in less than an hour I had a phone call from an employee at the Liberty Lake Alton's. Of course I was on the phone to all the other shops making calls and when I discovered the call they were already closed. So I called him back this morning. He told me that he had already called the police in Liberty Lake and gotten them involved. The news only got better when he told me they know who it is. They already had the woman identified. She is a known meth addict in the area. Like i suspect a true idiot that had no clue as to the full value of those tires and rims.

Which takes me to another shop. Before I had a chance to talk to to the employee at Alton's I had called and talk to a guy at Hilliard Tires. I wasn't even finished giving him the details and he knew he had seen those tires the day before. He told me that a couple had come in the day before trying to sell those very same tires for $500. His boss didn't buy them and they went on their way. He asked me to hold while he went to get his boss. Funny his boss didn't want to talk to me, but the guy came back and said that they couldn't remember anything about them. Even when I kept questioning him about even the color of the car or what the people looked like he was suddenly sorry, but no one remembered. Bull Shit!! Just the change in his voice I knew something was up that his boss didn't want me to know.

The next call was to Detective Beck at the Post Falls Police department, who has been great trying to help us. He then called Hilliard Tires. It's amazing how their story went from we saw them yesterday to "oh we must have been wrong about that. It must have been about two weeks ago." Like I said before Bull Shit (pardon my french, but at this point I'm fuming)!! The guy also told me to try Big Bubba's Custom Tires just two blocks from them because he was known for buying used tires and rims especially custom. So I did and he was surprised that whoever the people were hadn't come to him. I also had Detective Beck follow up with him and it appears he was genuine about that he really never did see these *&(*%$^. Which is strange if Hilliard sent them on their way that they didn't go on down to Big Bubba's. Then again I don't think Hilliard sent them on their way. I think they either bought them or knew someone who wanted that kind of tire and now they don't want anything to do with the police now that they know it is stolen property.

Anyway back to Alton's tires and Liberty Lake Police. I can't thank them enough. Now the police at Liberty Lake and Post Falls hopefully have enough to go somewhere with this. Liberty Lake Alton's you were the break we needed. Thanks pal, we couldn't have done it with out you.

So we are still looking, spreading the word and working with the police to locate these tires. I'm not going to just look the other way. I will find them, and if someone has purchased them not knowing they were stolen I wished you would be honest enough to turn them over to the police. This was stolen from a family that doesn't need this right now. James is going back to school to get his CDL and I just didn't need the stress of this. So any help would be appreciated.

Stolen Tires

I hope everyone in the Coeur d'Alene, ID and Spokane, WA area sees this. Share it with everyone you know who lives in this area.

Someone is going around a stealing tires and rims off a vehicles and from shops. Especially the hard to come by, expensive, custom order wheels. So if you have a fancy custom vehicle, lock it up!!!!

On Saturday April 21st my husband went by our shop to get something. Everything was fine, nothing missing. He locked up and came back home. That night they hit us.

Sunday we got a call that informed us that the tires and rims were gone from our Dodge Ram Charger. My husband was in the middle of making us dinner and hollered down to me, as I was still trying to remove our gluey mess from the hard wood floor, that he needed to leave the shop had been broken into. I'm thinking oh great that's all we need. Right now he is out of work so that he can go back to school for his CDL and start driving truck. We can't afford to loose the equipment that can help supplement our income if he finds any side jobs. So I'm thinking the worst, but at the same time going well there is always insurance on the equipment.

He calls a little later to tell me he is still waiting on the Post Falls sheriff and give me a update. They didn't get into the shop and nothing was missing from there. It was worse. They got our custom rims and supper swamper tires off of our Dodge Ram Charger that I had dropped in insurance on because we weren't driving it. It wasn't in the shop. It was parked out behind the shop! That was about a $2000 set of tires and rims. To make matters worse the shop behind us also had a Chevy Blazer almost on it's side where they had left it after getting the tires off of it as well.

So here are the details of what was stolen from both of us.

Ours: Super Swamper TSL Tires 38 1/2 x 14 1/2 x 15 on Bart Custom 15 x 10, 8 lug rims. Originally while outsides painted black.

The other shop: Tires and Rims both custom order fitting a 6 lug Chevy blazer. The rims were Centerline 20"

If you have any details on the rash of auto thefts happening along Seltice Way in Post Falls please call the police or if you have any information to help us locate the Super Swamper Tires please contact us through this blog.

The shop behind us told us that he had called the sheriff department back out to do finger prints because there were finger prints all over the side of the truck from them stealing the tires. The gal that came out said she couldn't work with the finger prints and didn't bother to take any. There's our tax dollars at work for you.

But we had a little better response on ours. The sheriff that came out took a flashlight that had been left behind by the thieves. No one ever said thieves were smart. They are usually stupid and will get caught eventually. Then today we had a detective call and talk to us some more about it. He was glad we had taken the time to put out fliers, and he would be looking into both thefts seriously. God I hope so. It just makes me made that people think they have the right to take things that don't belong to them. I've got a few names for people like that, but I'll keep this "G" rated.

So today we toted the two younger children around to all the tire shops, pawn shops and custom auto shops we could think of. We handed out fliers and talked to as many people as we could about what happened. We also found out that a shop on Hayden Ave in Hayden was recently broke into and tires and rims stolen there, as well as one of the shops on Government in Coeur d'Alene told us he has been broken into a couple times, even catching the kids one time. Yes the ones he caught were teenagers.

So if you live here in this area of Norther Idaho and Eastern Washington, be aware that we have a rash of auto theft related to tires and rims happening in this area.

Making Money Online

Over the last two months I have been immersed into the new world of Freebie Site trading to make money. It's finally starting to take off for me. No I'm not giving up on my Heritage Makers. That's still a passion of mine, but until that really takes off I have a back up income starting to flow.

Here is the idea.

• Freebie site offers gift in exchange for a certain number of referrals you send to their site to complete offers.
• Referral uses your link to go to the site. They complete how ever many offers they need to in order to get one full credit (some offers are worth 1/2, 1/4, 1, etc). When they get one full credit this is called going green.
• The trader that gives the referral the link, then sends off all of his greens to be approved. Those that stay green get paid for their green. Those that turn red, well you never want to go red. But if you follow the rules then you shouldn't.
• Eventually you get to a point that you can't do anymore greens for other people because you run out of offers you can do, at least for a while. At that point you are ready to become a serious trader. Which is where I am at. I now pay other people to go green for me. Then when I have the greens I need for a site I send off for approval and get my prize. Usually cash paid via PayPal, or some other gift that I would like to have. But is much cheaper to pay for the greens then to go buy the item at retail.

So how does everyone involved make money at this? Simple. You are paid by the person you do a green for, the site is paid for every offer you complete, and the offers get future business if only from a portion of the traders or for just the trial period. So everyone involved makes money. Oh yea and the person that pays you for your green gets the prize.

Here is an example I am just about ready to send off for approval on one site. My prize is $750. I needed 28 points to get that prize. I am paying my 28 point, $12 per point. They may not seem like a lot for the person going green for me, but they can do maybe two $1 trial offers and get paid $12. So they make a profit of $10. Not bad for an hour of work (at least for a newbie. More experienced traders can sometimes work faster and do more. So you make more as you gain more experience). Then when I get the approval that all my traders are good, I pay them. So I shell out $336, leaving me with a profit of $414. Not bad for three weeks worth of work from home with the kids and not paying for daycare. Not only that but I work several sites at one time.

My favorite Forum to work from is FreeLunchRoom. Come visit sometime. You'll recognize me. I use the same old user name amyrebba. So come visit. Find out how I'm now making money along side my Heritage Makers.

Lost ComputerS!

Yes that's right. I didn't just loose one, but I lost both of my computers to two seperate incidents. Oh I thought I was going to die. This has been torture. About three weeks ago my main computer froze up. Done! Dead! Gone! I wanted to scream.

My main computer was exactly that, my main files, photos everything! Everything I do to make money and maintain our life revolves around this computer. My Heritage Makers stuff, blogging, photos, genealogy research (not only my families history which took two years to find, but two other families I'm working on), my checking account, menus, calendars, and so much more. Almost all of it is gone.

The old photos of ancestors are fine. Most of them I had backed up by putting them on my Heritage Makers account, but photos from the last couple months are gone. Then all of my fliers, brochures, labels and anything else I designed up myself for Heritage Makers are all gone! Genealogy was a stroke of luck. I had created a CD with a gedcom file of my family and the two other families I was working on to take with me to the Genealogy conference in March. So I have that stuff backed up, but I've still lost some of the other things like files of research that cousins sent me electronically. I'm not even sure of everything I lost of our families because I had so much!

I even lost programs that I bought and downloaded, but can't find the code anymore. Now I've got to buy them again. This time I'm not downloading the programs. I will be buying packages with the CD so I don't have this happen again.

This has been a big painful learning experience. You should always back things up! So now I have an external drive and I'll reformat an old hard drive to back everything up on a weekly basis. I can't afford this again. I am still trying to recover things, and somethings I may never recover. I know many of my databases I will just have to recreate.

Then to make maters worse. Easter weekend I had my laptop sitting on the desk, my daughter in my lap and a cup of coffee by my laptop. I wasn't paying attention and we were playing for a bit. My daughter leaned back and her head hit my laptop. There went computer number two. That weekend I was with out either computer. I thought I was going to really die then. I was on the phone with someone later and I was laughing about it. They couldn't believe I was laughing about it, but what can you do, if I didn't laugh I was certainly going to cry. Especially since the last incident was a stupid mistake on my part. So I spent the weekend in the basement helping hubby with my office. But I kept wondering what was going on with people I had freebie site business with online. If they thought I had just skipped out on them.

It's amazing the things we can do now because of computers. But it's also amazing how quickly it can all fall apart when computers are lost.

So fellow bloggers and genealogist, if you don't hear from me for just a bit longer, bare with me. I'm still trying to recover from this loss. I now can get back online and blog again, but recovering data, reentering data, reinstalling software, and everything involved with reinstating my computer is very time consuming. But when I get this behind me I will be back and running again.

My Head is Throbbing and Ears Ringing

Well Phil from A Family Runs Through it and myself finally set up a time to meet. So we meet for lunch at the McDonald's for our children to play together while we visited.

We had a wonderful visit, his wife also came along. We talked about our blogs, our home remodels, our children, family photos and more. I really enjoyed the adult time to visit while our children played together in the play area.

One big mistake, though. I choose to set under the play area. One piece of advice, if you ever go to McDonald's during lunch and expect to carry on an adult conversation, don't sit under the play area! It wasn't bad for the most part, until close to two o'clock when a big group of people showed up for a birthday party.

They were a very strange bunch and started to make me uncomfortable. First I'm sitting there talking to Phil and his wife, when this girl I don't even know comes up and starts interrupting us and starts taking my kids toys off the table and wanting to look at them, one of which was my daughter play cell phone she brought from home. I had to take the phone back and just bluntly tell the girl to go play. It happened a couple times. Then as more kids showed up the noise level got to the point that we couldn't even hear each other even with yelling. So I started to gather things up to go.

Then I had a bit of a scare. Phil's wife caught my attention and asked me if the girl in this other woman's arms was my daughter. I spun a around and as soon as my daughter saw me she was trying to push out of this woman's arms for me. When I grabbed her the woman said something about she had a runny nose and she was just trying to help her. I didn't say a word to her. I was so mad I just grabbed my daughter and went back to my company and gathered up the kids and got out of there. The people just gave me the willies.

If I have learned something in my life that is your gut can tell you a lot if you just take the time to listen. I do listen to my gut. I may over react sometimes, but I'd rather over react in my children's best interest then not act at all. You know it is one thing to take a child by the hand if you think they are lost and walk them toward their mother, but it's another to walk around with someones child in your arms like she is your own. The more I think about it the more it scares me. There was just something that disturbed me about that woman when I first saw her. She was strange.

But fortunately Phil and I had been there visiting for about a couple hours. So we did have a wonderful visit. I am very excited about starting the stay at home parents group with Phil. I hope more will join us.

Thank God for my Laptop

I finally got my laptop fixed about two weeks ago. Which has been a saving grace, because my basement where my office was is a construction zone! I sure can't wait until my husband gets my office finished.

Then yesterday the unthinkable happened. My main computer crashed. I can't figure it out. I'm afraid it may have been a virus, but I don't know. I don't have a few hundred bucks to have someone come look at it right now. So I guess I'll be living off my laptop for now.

I'll be glad when all this remodel is done too. We still need to put down wood floors in the front room and hall. Then in the basement we need to install our windows to make that room a master bed room, so the oldest can have our old room. Then fix up the family room a bit. Last finish building my office. Then the remodel will be on hold until we can pay off the cards and save the big bucks to build the down stairs bathroom, expand the side of the house for the kitchen and remodel it, and remodel the upstairs bathroom. That's not to mention that we still need a show.

Some days I think we would have been better off buying property and building from scratch. I probably would have spent the same.

Head Wounds Sure can Bleed

We have had one very interesting day!

To start off with my Birthday was yesterday and I spent most of it here in my recliner with a nasty chest cold. I also was up most of the night coughing. So it was out of sheer exhaustion that I slept later than the kids this morning. My husband also wasn't feeling good, but still stayed up till 1:00 in the morning getting the hot water hooked up in its new place.

I finally crawled out of bed this morning, mind you I never do this. When the kids, especially the two year old, gets up I'm up! There is no hitting the snooze button with her. So to say the least I was happy and ready to scream when I got up and walked in to where the kids were.

My oldest had managed to make sure everyone had the biggest possible bowl of cereal. So much for that lasting another week.

Then I walked into the bathroom and wanted to faint. I had forgotten to put the bottle of children's Tylenol back into the medicine cabinet last night. The two year old had managed to climb up on the bathroom counter and got the bottle. She had managed to get it open and drink what was left. I ran for the phone, found the poison control number online and called it. The lady was very sweet. We even got a few laughs out of it. But there was only 1/4 of the bottle in there and she would have had to of drank more than half a bottle to be a real concern. So she just warned me that Jamie may get a tummy ache, but really should be fine. Well the little brat was fine all day.

Then Grandma and Grandpa came over for a visit and to help us out with moving this furnace from the basement to the boys closet, so it gives me more room for my office.

James hollered out the door to call our oldest home from playing with the neighbor girl. He started running home. Suddenly I hear my son screaming at the top of his lungs as he is walking up the porch, and his father is already telling me to get him a rag. So I grab a couple paper towels and run to see what the ruccas is about. Christopher is screaming and blood is dripping down the front of him. James quickly grabbed the paper towels and covered up his head. He didn't let me see it. He just said "He needs stitches. Let's go." Fortunate for us my parents were visiting, so they could watch the two younger ones. It wasn't until we were in the car that I truly got to understand what happened. The neighbors had pruned their trees and the end of one branch caught him just right and sliced the side of his head.

We get to the immediate care and he is still crying and letting out a few screams. Even as they were numbing and cleaning him he would let out whimpers or cry so hard he'd get worked up. The doctor kept asking, "am I hurting you?" Christopher would just tell him no he was just scared because he didn't want to get stitches.

At one point I had to set down. I hadn't eaten lunch yet so I was already shaky, but when I saw them lay back the flap of skin from his scalp to clean it............ It makes my head hurt to even think of it. Eleven stitches later it was finally over and we headed out. On his way out the nurse gave him a sucker. He was fine after that, that was until about an hour ago when the numbness started to wear off. Now his head hurts.

I about had a heart attach when I got the bill. My husband and son were already out in the car when I got done with that. I told James the amount of the bill, and he told Christopher "you better make the most of that sucker. That was a $300 sucker kiddo."

When we got home James jokingly pointed out to Christopher how he had now stained our new front deck. Oh well, the pleasure of having children. They have to leave their mark for you to look back on in old age and remember those moments.

I told James when I got home, "I think we need to put Justin in a bubble. He is the only one that nothing has happened to this weekend." James, Jamie and myself have been sick, Jamie drinks more than recommended dose of children's Tylenol, and Christopher slices his head open on a tree branch. Yikes what a weekend!

Spring!!

I am sitting here right now, looking out my beautiful bay windows my husband built me and enjoying the view. It's raining outside and making the grass grow green. I can't wait for the flowers to bloom. Then again I don't really have any flowers to watch bloom. That's another project.

I got the painting done in my front room yesterday. Now I'm ready to move the furniture out of here and start putting down the wood floor. I can't wait until these projects inside the house are done.

Then the weather should be nice enough for us to move outside and finish the siding, painting, and the yard this summer.

Daddy Did Great

I had nothing to worry about. I had my genealogy conference on Saturday. That same day was try outs for my oldest boy who we've entered into Little League.

The day before I was working to make sure that I had everything for the conference. Then that night I went over everything with my husband that would need to be done that day. Made sure we had directions where he was going. Made sure he was aware that they would need to get around early enough to go buy our son some cleats before going and everything else.

Well Saturday morning I was up at the crack of dawn. Got around, packed up, kissed my husband good bye and reminded him to put the meat I set out to thaw in the fridge later. I'm not sure that he really heard me, but he did take care of it.

So I had a wonderful day at the conference. Learned a lot. Meet a lot of great people and a few who are interested in Heritage Makers. On the drive home I'm wondering what I will see when I step in the door. Will my daughter be dressed in a hideous outfit. Will there be a mess, not that it maters with the mess of remodeling anyway or just what will I come home to. I was pleasantly surprised. I walked in to find them sitting in the front room together. Jamie is in a matching outfit, the house is as I left it that morning, and the hamburger meat is in the fridge.

So I asked my son how try outs went, and got the painful stories with a smile that said he still had fun. Then I asked my husband how he did with the kids. He told me that when they were shopping for shoes and at the game, the kids really were great. They had fun. But when they got home they drove him crazy. I couldn't help but laugh. "Now you see what I go through all day and why I want to start up a mommy group and get out of this house once in a while!" He just smiled, "yea I know. I don't doubt it."

Mommy Help! Final Report

Well the two week menu is just about over, and I'm ready to start planning my next one. It was a great way to make sure I had our meals planned ahead and that I spent less money.

Benifits:

1. Less trips to the store!!! Loved that!
2. Spent less money. (I spent a bit more on the initial grocery trip to restock my pantry with spices, pastas and such) I only made one more trip to the store and spent another $40. Compared to 4-5 trips, spending at least $40 each time on tip of the initial shopping trip.
3. Stayed very close to my budget.
4. Came home with everything I needed at the store. No coming home says "oops, if forgot to get..... &..... &........ That's never good. Especially when you spent your full budget.
5. Spent less time in the kitchen, trying to figure out what to make
6. Even complicated meals seemed less of a hassle since I knew how much time I would need for each meal, I could plan my day around it.

Downside

1. One day planning
2. One day shopping
3. One day packing and freezing

So as you can see the benifits made the planning well worth it. So I need to do my planning again today or tomorrow.

Bathroom Duty, UGH!!!!

Okay I know it's that chore that all of us hate! But it is the most necessary room, along with the kitchen, in a house to keep the cleanest. It is also the most germ infested room in the house. I was just cleaning the bathroom a while ago when I tought about this.

One of my first chores as a pre teen was cleaning the bathroom. I guess my mom thought if I could learn to do that with out much trouble, then I would be just fine as a mother and wife. Which comes with cleaning up after the males in the family who don't quit hit their target, and no offense guys, but you really are not always perfect at target practice. It would also prepare me for cleaning up after my children when they get sick.

But there was one tip that my mom passed on to me for dealing with this nasty chore. Thank you Mom! She always told me that it was best if I waited until I was just ready to take my shower. Then clean the toilet and sink and then clean the shower while I was in there to take a shower. This way I could clean up imediately after cleaning in and around the iky toilet after the guys and clean the shower while I was in there so I didn't have to worry about getting my clothes all wet doing it.

It became such a pattern in my life that I never gave it much thought. Then for some reason I thought about how my mom got me started doing that. So if you are stuggling to clean the bathroom because it turns your stomach then take my moms advice to heart.

So thank you Mom, for all the wonderful things you did to prepare me for this sometimes exhausting task of wife and mother.

Mommy Help! Part 4

Freezer Prep Day

After completing the last step of preping the meals for the freezer I am exhausted. I symathize with women in the old days who had laundry Monday, bread Tuesday, and so forth. It's no wonder many women back then did not deal with obesity like we do today.

I spent the whole day in the kitchen cutting ingrediants, sautaing portions, mixing up breads and so forth. I had my list and I had everything writen in the best order, acording to the items that I could do at one time, or the methods and ingrediants needed. I all went very smoothly I must say. But God my feet hurt so bad when I finally got to sit down for dinner!

Then some how I managed to get a second wind, maybe it was the beer I decided to drink that took the edge off my painful feet. I got up and painted some more of my front room walls going under a major face lift right now.

If you decide to plan out your meals, budget, shop and then prep ingrediants for the freezer I highly recommend that you do it over three different days. The freezer day wore me out!

Now next month I plan to try and do 30 days of planning instead of two weeks. I think it will make my life much eaier.

Mommy Help! Part 3

Shopping Day

Yesterday I did my shopping. It took me about three hours for that as well. I ended up not changing my list much. I just took some of the premade frozen items like the hot pockets off of the list for lunches, instead me and the two at home will eat left overs for lunch. That'll work well.

Actually shopping day took me more than three hours. I was three hours physically in the stores, but I also spent another two hours before that shopping the adds.

The one list I used to create my shopping list allows me to put in the meal name and then in the different categories (dairy, meat, bread, etc) put in the ingredient and the amount. At the bottom of each column one row tells me how much I need of that ingredient for all recipes, then the next row I put in how much I have on hand, the last row calculates the difference. Then it creates a prepopulated list for each category that tells me how much I need. I really liked this list because every thing was broken down by department. So I took this list along.

But I still had one more list to create. The one with all the sales. I have another list that I have created myself. I created it in excel. It's pretty simple, but if anyone wants a copy just email me. Most of you know that Wal Mart, at least here, will match any competitors ad. So I have created a spread sheet where I list all items I need at the store, the next column I put the quantity I need, following that is (if needed) the store where I find the item on sale, the next column I put the sale amount or what I think the item will cost (anymore I'm getting pretty good at it), then the next column is a sum format that calculates the cost my how many I need to give me a total for that item. This column is helpful because when I get to the store I can also see what I budgeted for that items, and make adjustments if necessary. Many times I over budget on several items and a little under on another, so it tends to balance out that way. Then at the bottom is a final total so I have an idea how much I will be spending before I even get to the store.

Yesterday was the best I had ever done. Because of the first list that allowed me to write down every single ingredient and compare to what I have on hand I had a complete list, with nothing left out. Usually I would go to the store and remember items that I forgot to write down or I would get home and not have an ingredient and have to go back later.

So the first total I shared with you before was about $370. Way over the budget. I only had about $300 to spend. So right off to took off items I could do with out. I didn't make much difference, but some. Then I shopped the ads and created my ad match spread sheet. My new total was $353. So I went with it. I knew there were many items that I was over estimating because I didn't want a false sense of my budget.

So first was the Trading Company. I can't stand the so called fresh meats at Wal Mart. So I went and got the beef and chicken on my list. Also they have a better price (since no one else had an ad for milk) on their two packs of milk so I got milk, and they had a sale on a good whole wheat bread that I got there. My total there was right at $53.

Next was Wal Mart. I stopped and made a note on my list that I was $53 over to start with and had already spent that much. So I needed to keep my shopping at Wal Mart to under $250. So out came the calculator and pen. First I started with the more expensive items. I knew in order to make this work I would need bowls, freezer bags, and more seal a meal bags for everything I am going to prep and put in the freezer. Another problem with planning ahead and buying for two weeks is the fresh vegetables that go bad. So I will be preparing and freezing everything I can today which hopefully will make things easier for the next two weeks as well. Anyway to I found a large box of container for $10 and my seal a meal freezer bags for $19. Then there was Laundry detergent on the list. It was on sale for less than $17, usually it's more than $18! and then my husbands 3 cubes of Pepsi, again on sale for $5.99. Oh and don't forget the stinkin' diapers, generic brand for less than $11. So already I was just under $80. But I knew this was the bulk of my shopping cost.

Then I started getting everything else on my list. Yes I'm so cheap that I asked a very help (very rare at Wal Mart) Nathan in dairy to go back and look for their mild Cheddar for $4.76 that they were out of on the shelf. He came back and said they didn't have anymore. Then I showed him that it was almost $2 more for their mild of the same size. He picked up the mild and handed to me and told me to tell the cashier to match it and that Nathan said! That was the first time I had that happen. Thanks, Nathan. By the time I got to the register I had only three items to match. Sometimes I have about a dozen. But they seemed to be on top of the adds. Because when I left the house I had almost two dozen items from ads. It may seem like a lot of work, and sometimes feels like a waste of time, but on those days when they are not on top of the ads I really can save a lot of money.

Here's the kicker. I wrote my check for $250 and some change, and I was able to get everything on my final list. Most of my over estimating was in spices. You never know when you will be able to get the spices you need for fifty cents or $3. I had a long list of spices. This really was a major restocking of my pantry because I had done so poorly in my planning before that I didn't buy the stuff we could use for a long time and wasted our money on things that went fast.

Now I'm stocked and ready to start preping the food for the freezer, which will be my task today. So I will let you know how many misadventures I have in the kitchen today.

I don't' recommend doing all of this in one day. You will wear yourself out so bad. To keep your sanity and wits about you make this a three day adventure, menu and shopping list first day, shopping second day and then freezer and meal prep the third day.

Dumpsters and Grades

Some how I was never aware that dumpsters and school grades had anything in common. That was until yesterday.

My son came home very excited. He came running down the stairs to my office say "Mom! Guess What!"

"Yes son, what?"

"I got an 80% on my math test!"

"That's great! I'm proud of you!"

"Hey Mom? "

"What"

"What is an 80%?"

"I believe that would be a B"

As he is running up the stairs to get his homework finished I hear "YES! I KNEW I COULD PULL MY GRADES OUT OF THE DUMPSTER!!!!"

Hmmmm. That's a new one to me. I couldn't help but let loose a laugh. I was glad that he was already upstairs so I didn't embarase him. Then of course his dad and I had another laugh that night as we were discussing the days events before falling asleep.

My Newsletter

I'm trying something new. Please send this to your friends and share with other people. I am going to start a newsletter. I will be based on both of my blogs. So the subject matter will range from Genealogy, history, digital scrapbooking to stay at home parents, parenting, family and many other topics.

It will be a great way for you to get my blog material on a regular basis with out always having to visit my blogs.

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Mommy Help! Part 2

Well I got my menu and shopping list finished yesterday. I've done a menu and shopping list for two weeks worth. My husband gets paid every two weeks, so that's when I do my shopping.

The planning the menu process went rather smoothly, though it is time consuming. I think I spent about three hours on a two week menu. But I know as I do this more often it will be a faster process for me.

I my previous post I listed several sites to use for this process. I think I used almost everyone of them, and tried out the forms. I'm still trying to decide which forms are more efficient. I'll let you know that later.

After I was happy with the menu and decided that it fit my family I created my shopping list, and estimated the cost of the items I needed. At the bottom of the list I about had a heart attach when I saw the cost! $370 for two weeks of groceries! Now I know why I go over my grocery budget so much. Looking back I spend about $700-$800 a month in groceries, but I budget for only $500-$600 a month. See a problem with my math. This planning tells me something. I spend more because I make a hundred trips to the store and don't plan meals that fit my allowable budget. So I need to rework my menu to fit my budget. Back to the drawing board. Argh!

This is a good things though. If I can learn to plan in advance what we are going to eat and plan it to fit my budget, then I can accomplish a couple things. First I take the guess work out of "what are we having for dinner tonight?" I won't find myself opening the fridge and cabinet 20 times before I come up with something. Second, hopefully, I can get my grocery spending to fit the budget I can afford to allow for us. Though I got to admit that will be the biggest challenge. It is hard to feed a family of five on only $550, give or take, each month. Especially when I still buy diapers for Jamie and lots of Pepsi's that I can't get my husband off of.

If anyone has got any advice for shopping on about $550 a month for a family of five I could sure use the advice. I'll let you know how it comes out after I revisit the drawing board.

Mommy Help!

First I am still trying to form that group of Stay/Work at home Moms and Dads. I'm sure they are feeling the same as me; the need for adult conversation at least once a week. I've also joined a few groups of Moms and Dads online for support and great ideas.

I am a pretty well organized mom. I have calendars, schedules, budgets and so forth, but there has always been one very week area for me, COOKING! I hate always hated cooking and especially planning a meal. I enjoy baking from scratch, its the cooking a meal that gets me. Well yesterday I discovered some very helpful website and tools thanks to some other mommies in the support groups. These website and tools are great for ALL PARRENTS WORKING OR STAYING AT HOME!

So in my website favorites I created a file that says MOMMY HELP! Then I bookmarked most of these sites in it to use later. I've got to make the groceries I have right now last until the end of the week, but on Friday I will be planning out our menus and grocery list so I will let you know how helpful these website were for me. But for now you can check them out too.

By the way I've been both the Working mom and the Stay at home mom, so believe me I know these websites are useful for both. I sure wish I had known about them when I was a working mom. I can't tell you how many times I came home so exhausted and couldn't figure out anything I wanted to cook, even though I had a pantry full of food, and instead went and got fast food. It's no wonder this country struggles with obesity. Our mothers are over worked, stretched thin and under appreciated. And that goes for Working and Stay at home moms alike! Oh and yes Dads too.

So I hope you find these sites helpful and useful.

MENUS 4 MOMS This site looks like my favorite so far. This site sends out a weekly menu for you to use to plan out your meals for the next week and your grocery list. Also you get a daily reminder with useful tips and ideas of things to do that day to keep your home organized and together. I have subscribed for this one!

30 Day Gourmet If you like to take one or two days a month and cook many meals to freeze and then quickly rewarm for the month, this is the site for you. Many useful ideas, tips and helps on cooking and freezing meals for the month. As well as menus for this.

Mainly Mom Another fabulous website! This one has more than menus and meal planning templates, which are under RESOURCES. This one also covers budgeting on one income! My current project. This mom has done the same thing I did. She was a working mom with a career. She realized that the daycare values were not hers and the it wasn't right that her girls were eating more meals in the car than at home. I know how she feels. Though I miss the work place I have the peace of mind knowing that my children are better for me being home, even if that mean we have to do with out the things we want once in a while.

Saving Dinner You can use this site to get the free meals every month, but you can also subscribe to this for meals planned especially for your family. This is really great if you have picky eaters, someone with diabetes, food allergies and such in the family. This is the site for custom made planning for meals.

The Recipe Link Want many choices to choose from for each day of the week? This is a great site. With many recipes and meal ideas for each day of the week. You just choose the ones from the list that work for you and create your own meal plan from there. Recipes for every thing on the list, so if your not much of a cook this will be very useful. Even the most simplest recipes are listed.

I hope this is helpful to all parents our there looking for a little help in the food area. Here are some things to keep in mind. When you plan meals for your family you will save money and time, you will eat healthy, and I bet some of you will loose weight when this brings you to the table instead of eating your meals from the fast food chains.

Hockey, The Spokane Chiefs

I am so exhausted today from lack of sleep that I won't catch up on now that the kids are back home. But I thought I'd share my experience with all of you on the hockey game we were treated to last night.

A couple very dear friends of ours wanted to treat us to a hockey game. They are so into the game it's unbelievable. They always have season tickets. So this weekend the couple knew they wouldn't have his son so they wanted to take us instead.

We agreed and made arrangements for our kids in order to be with out them for the night. Mind you that isn't easy for us to do. We rarely, if we are lucky maybe three time a year, leave the kids with my parents in order to get away and have some fun. When we decided to be parents we agreed to do just that. We don't try to pawn our kids off on other people so we can go to the bars, movies, games and other adult things. So this was going to be a very rare treat. So we made the best of it.

Since we weren't going to have the kids, (And by the way Grandma and Grandpa were more than happy to take them. They enjoy it once in a while, just not all the time) we made plans to meet this couple early in the evening in Spokane and go out to dinner since this was going to be a later than normal game. So we went to the Olive Garden, downtown, where we waited more than and hour for a table. When we finally had enough of that we went and waited and snag the first table someone got up from in the bar. We barely left there in time to get to the game.

We get to the Spokane Arena, and I always knew the Spokane Chiefs were a big deal around here, but I didn't realize how so until I get in there and in the concession area it's wall to wall bodies trying to navigate to their sections, the concession stands, and other places. There are lines a mile long to get anything including drawing money out of the ATM. It was amazing.

Then we get into our section and get seated. The game got started a little late, which wasn't that big of a deal since we barely got there. So they go through their opening ceremonies and all. I got my camera out to take photos and before the lights came back on from the opening ceremonies for the game to begin I was approached and told by security that there were no cameras allowed unless you had a permit. That as far as I'm concerned that's a bunch of crap. I simply wanted to chronicle my experience (maybe put a few in my scrapbooks to share with the kids). but oh well, so I only managed to get a few dark pictures before I had to put it away.

The game began and like I suspected it gets brutal. No surprise there. It was actually fun to watch. Though it was disappointing that they lost last night on my first visit to see them.

But it was at the end that all the excitement began. They were down by a couple points. I swear someone gave these boys the green light because there was about a half dozen fights in the last couple minutes of the game. These boys were just wailing on each other. I couldn't believe it. What was even more amazing the officials just stood there with them and let them keep going at it. They would only break up the fights when they got each other down on the ground. I was just amazed.

Lets just say I'm still not a hockey fan, but it was an awesome experience. Yesterday we also registered our oldest son for the Post Falls Little League. Now that I can't wait for it to start because I'll be a fan of any sport my children are in!

Good Luck Spokane Chiefs. It was an amazing experience, but it's just not my sport to watch. I don't think I could even ever let my boys play the sport.

So anyway we went back to our friends house for a little while and visit more. We didn't get home till about 1:30 in the morning. I'm usually sacked out by then.