Fulfilled

Do you ever have those moments when you feel completely happy where things are at in your life? There are times when my cup runneth over- I'm homeschooling my kids, creating a profitable business producing products that I'm proud of, finishing a building that I can work out of, I have great friends and I have a solid relationship with the love of my life. I also have these moments where I am completely overwhelmed.

I really enjoy having my kids home with me. When their school work is finished, I feel like such a good mom. I've read with my kids, we've studied scriptures together, and I've helped them learn new things. Now in the middle of the school day, sometimes I want to pull my hair out and go hide in my room. My biggest worry is that I've taught them the things that will help them become productive, capable adults. It's hard balancing the needs of three kids at the same time, but we have slowly figured out a schedule that works for all of us. It's definitely been a big learning process.

My building is finally coming along. A friend of ours was kind enough to spend last week wiring the entire building for me. I'll be forever indebted to him for that! I also had insulation blown in the walls. I've had two quotes for drywall, but they were more than I am willing to spend. Tomorrow a man that we have hired on previous occasions to do odd jobs around the farm is coming over to give me a price. I hope it is reasonable. I've been spending a lot of time daydreaming about what I want the finished result to look like. I'm so excited to have a space of my mom that will represent me! My business is steadily picking up and I can't wait to have my own space to work out of.

I was up way too late last night finishing projects for church. I took a nap this afternoon but it's getting late and my words are starting to run together. Until tomorrow!

Summer fun

The kids and hubby are all in bed so I thought I'd take a few minutes and play catch up. It's summer time which is always a busy time of year for us. Junkin' is nonstop with auctions and yard sale season in full swing. My booth is doing great. I'm constantly working on projects to sale. I've discovered the joy of Pinterest. I've gotten so many ideas and tried so many things that I've pinned. Some of the things I've made are homemade granola bars, pedestal photo frames, a mason jar soap pump and chalkboard sayings. I have a million more things I want to make too. If only there was more time in the day...

In June, I managed to squeeze in a trip to Ocean Springs, MS with the kids. Anna and her family were kind enough to let us crash in their hotel room with them. It was fun to get away for a week. I absolutely love seeing the ocean. I think I could sit and watch it for hours. Our favorite part of the trip was going to Dauphin Island. The waves were crazy! And it's always fun to spend time with Anna and her kids. She lives too far away so I treasure anytime we get to spend together.

By the end of last school year, I had planned on enrolling Olivia in the Arkansas Virtual Academy. I just haven't been impressed with her middle school and she wanted to go back to homeschooling. Since Olivia is going to be homeschooled, Paxton wants to be homeschooled. And if Olivia and Paxton are going to be homeschooled, I'm not comfortable with Sawyer riding the bus to school alone. So I ended up signing up all the kids for the Virtual Academy. I attended the parent orientation where I realized that the Virtual Academy isn't going to be a good fit for our family. They don't refer to it as homeschooling but "home based public education". Their expectations are ridiculous and it takes the flexibility out of homeschool. So now I've been in a scramble to find curriculum for the kids for the coming school year. I have several homeschooling friends that have given me great advice. I must be a little crazy for adding such a huge responsibility to my plate. But I really feel like this is the best decision for the kids right now, and I'm excited to see where this new journey takes us.

Can I just tell you how upset I am about the death of Cory Montieth. What a tragic loss! Glee is one of my favorite shows and I just can't believe he's gone. I can't imagine the shock and sadness Cory's loved ones are going through. When they announced today that his death was the result of drugs and alcohol, it made my heart sink even more. It's so sad that his addiction ended up taking his life. I wonder what the future of Glee holds? How can the story go one without him?

I guess that is all for now. It's getting late and my bed is calling. Night!

One potato, two potato

Every year since Jody and I got married, I have tried to plant a garden. It starts off good and then goes down hill, usually around the time I go to Nebraska for the 4th of July. I swore I was going to plant an entire garden of sugar snap peas this years because they are the only thing we actually harvested last year. Well I haven't gotten around to planting anything this year. Call it being busy, call it laziness, call it admitting defeat- this year I just haven't got around to it. A month or so ago Jody mentioned that there were potato plants growing in the woods. He showed me where several potato plants had popped up in a pile of leaves we had dumped when we cleared them from our yard. Yesterday we decided to go see if the pototoes were ready to harvest. Jody started digging and out came some good size potatoes. Sawyer soon got in on the action and started pulling them up too. We ended up getting a bowl full. I've never seen fresh potatoes pulled from a garden so I was excited. Now I'm thinking maybe we should just dump seeds in the piles of composting leaves in our woods. It looks like they may not need my TLC to survive.

Here again

Wow has it been a while! The pictures in my side bar are so outdated. I can't believe how much the kids have grown!

This frugal farmer has taken the plunge and invested in satellite internet. One of the drawbacks of country living is the lack of options when it comes to internet. We have been living with dial-up for the last 12 years. It has driven us absolutely nuts, but I'm extremely cheap and did not want the expense of our only option - satellite internet. Well we have gradually been selling more and more online and I've signed up Olivia for an online school so we had to suck it up and take on the expense. I have to say it's been wonderful. I no longer have to run to town when I need to upload a lot of listings. It takes a fraction of the time to do anything online. Yesterday I added a router to our setup and now I can use my laptop and kindle wirelessly. Amazing!

So now I don't have an excuse to not blog regularly. So much is going on right now. Change is in the air, and I'm not a huge fan of change. Maybe some blogging will be a little cathartic.

Ramblings

We got our check from the Emporium today. The person who's idea it was to do a monthly paycheck is not a junker. It kills to put so much money into a booth and only get paid monthly. Needless to say, I was thrilled to see my paycheck. It's great to see my hard work paying off. And it's great motivation to get to work on more projects.
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I left Paxton home from church today with Jody. He was a mess this morning. Sunday mornings are usually rough for him, but this was the worst I've seen him in a long time. He locked himself in the bathroom before I left and, according to Jody, stayed in there for a while after I left. Maybe something was in the air. Several of the "special" kids at church were having a tough day too.
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I hope it doesn't offend someone that I called them "special" kids. I feel entitled since I have a "special" kid myself.
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We have our yearly tax appt on Wednesday. That means it's time for me to get all our paperwork together. I've been putting it off for a month. I'm running out of time to procrastinate. Tomorrow the paper sorting begins.
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Monday I gave up on having a clean house. Yesterday I decided to take it back from the animals. Today it looks like it did on Monday. Sometimes I wonder why I try.
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I'm getting a headache. I don't know what it is from. It seems like more and more things are triggers: MSG, peanuts, sunflower seeds, hormone changes,allergies. I'm wondering if it was the yummy strawberry mango smoothie I made earlier. That or the 5 cheese ravioli. It's crazy that all these things didn't bother me when I was younger. Getting older is so much fun.
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Now that I'm blogging again, there are a million things I want to write about. I owe Monica a huge thanks for getting me motivated to start blogging again.

New Year, New Plans

I can't believe it's already the last day of January in 2012. Where has the time gone?! It seems like the days are ticking by and there's never enough time to get everything done that I would like.

I've been battling crippling fatigue which hasn't helped. It suddenly occurred to me one day that my unexplained weight gain could be associated with the medication I take for anxiety. When I looked up it's side-effects online, I saw that another side-effect is extreme fatigue. Talk about a light bulb going off. I've started the process of weaning off of the paxil. So far it's going well. No crazy reactions. I'm praying it continues that way. I really hope my panic attacks stay away. I'm hoping to deal with my anxiety with a more holistic approach: healthy diet, exercise, magnesium supplements, etc. I will keep you updated on how it goes.

Jody has gone back to work for the owners of the company where he used to work. He's only working 30ish hours a week. The pay is good and the hours are flexible which allows him to continue junking. Our new booth at the Freeway Emporium is doing awesome. I have a section of our booth with my Big Fat Baby merchandise and it's been selling well. I put my name of the waiting list to get a room at the Emporium so I can have an entire area for myself. It's exciting planning and dreaming about how I want it to look.

The drawback to Jody's new job and the Emporium is that we only get paid monthly. We've managed to survive for 2 weeks with $10 in the bank account. Thankfully our frugals ways are paying off. I've got a friend to coupon shop with now. We meet once a week to cut coupons and then go shopping together to find deals. It is so much more fun having someone to bargain shop with. I can't wait until yard sale season so I can get new clothes for the kids and junk to sell in the booth.

I guess that's all for now. It's late and I should probably get to bed. The love of my life Jody gets the kids up and ready for school but Sawyer won't let me sleep in too late.

Making Changes

I quit blogging because I felt like my blog wasn't really a reflection of me. I wanted a new name and a new look. It's taken me for.ev.er to come up with a new blog name. All my ideas were already taken. I was sitting in front of the computer the other night and the name frugal farmer came to me. Amazingly, it was available. So this is my new home for now.

I should have lots of time to blog now. Olivia and Paxton both decided to go to public school this year so we're no longer a homeschooling family. It feels so different without them here all day. It was really hard for me to give up the control and turn them over to strangers, but they are both doing well in the school setting.

Sawyer is the only kid home now and he spends most of the day at Papaw's house. I've told Jody it's time to have another baby, but he is still in denial. Sometimes I think I must be crazy to want another baby, but I always have that feeling that someone is missing. I guess time will tell...

Speaking of more kids, my 12 year old niece moved in with us back in June. The story behind it is messy and depressing and I don't feel like going there right now. Gabi is here until at least June of next year and we will decide if we want to continue with the arrangement. She and Olivia butt heads a lot. I messed up birth order so it's to be expected, but it makes me sad. I'm hoping it will get better with time. *sigh*

On to more chipper news. The company Jody worked for shut their doors in the middle of the night and filed for bankruptcy in July. It came as a complete shock to everyone. I can't say it surprised us because of the business decisions that were being made over the last few years, but the way they went about it was wrong. Jody lost his vacation pay and health savings which equalled somewhere around $2000. That's a lot of money for poor folks like us. There is some hope that we may get some of the money back in bankruptcy court, but only time will tell. For now Jody is drawing unemployment and junkin. I don't know what we would do if he wasn't so resourceful.

My business is continuing to grow. I've set up booths at several different sales in the area and sell some of my items at a local store. Last week I signed on a partner. We are getting an embroidery machine and expanding our market. It's going to be an adventure and I'm excited to have a friend along for the ride.

I guess that's my life in a nutshell. I have so many things that I've thought about blogging. I'm excited to have a new place to share my thoughts.