Love For A Lifetime

OK, first off, I have some pics to share! I just downloaded my pics from my camera, so be patient with me - hehehe. Some are from last week :) LOL! First, here's my new purse. Yeah, I'm not sure what that pink thing is supposed to be, but it's attached, so I'm assuming it's supposed to be on there.

Actually, I just went and did a little research on my purse (there's a number inside the purse to search for), and I found some pics of it. You're supposed to tie that fabric piece in a tighty little bow. Who knew? And it retails for around $250. Holy crap! I'd NEVER pay that much money for a purse!!! Walk around with it when it was given to me for free??? Heck, ya! LOL!

And, heres a pic of Jimmy in his new Sunday Suit. Katy tried to sell them at the garage sale, but no takers. We decided that they'd fit Joe/Jim, so she gave them to me :) I gave her daughter 2 of my pairs of pants that I was getting rid of, so it's all good - LOL! Isn't Jimmy darling! (He got the bigger of the 2 suits)

And Joe. What a handsome boy!

Backtracking, a little. Here's a few pics of our garage sale. We did it on the walking path that's between Adela and Andrea's house. Aren't we tricky! And NO, the chair is not for sale. I think everyone that came by asked us that. We need somewhere to sit, people!

And my lovely treasures!

OK, now here's a few pics from Monday. We went to the other sprinkler park. My kids liked it MUCH better than the one at Kelly Park. Biggs Park takes the cake, apparently. It's shapped liked a little lagoon, and has 2 slides, a mushroom waterfall, and some sit-on animals that squirt water. What could be better???

Like my self-made panaramic????

Eme on the duck

Jacob in the mushroom

Jimmy on the little slide (he tried 3 times to go down the big slide, with me standing at the bottom, but he chickend out every time - hehehe)

Joe down the little slide

Tom down the big slide

Eme down the big slide

SPLASH!!! (It's Tom)

Jimmy with the tiger

See how much fun we had!!!

OK, so on to yesterday. We'd planned on waking up, cleaning the house, and going to the pool at 11am. BUT, it started raining. It was still warm, but it was coming down pretty hard there for a while. I called the pool at 10:30am (opens at 11am), but no one answered. I told the kids that it was closed - hehehe. We spent the morning cleaning and re-arranging.

Captain America and I decided that he'd get the kids' old computer room (too big for a closet, but too small for a bedroom - just an odd little room, really - no outlets, no ventilation, but a light). You should have seen him yesterday. He was almost giddy. He's in LOVE with his Man Room. I feel bad that it isn't bigger, but he's loving it. And it has a door. So he can escape every once in a while :) That's important for men, I think.

I moved the computers to the dining room, moved the hutch to the living room (and put all the DVD's, alphabitized, inside it), moved the couches around a bit, angled the TV dresser (yep, we're too cheap to buy an entertainment center, so we use a MASSIVE white dresser) a bit, and put all the books back on the shelves. I also went through the books, and got rid of about a box worth. Some were duplicates, some were just dumb, and some I could find the same information online. But, we still have 4 bookcases full of books. It hardly dented it - hehehe.

At noon-ish, Captain America came home for lunch. Our power promptly went out. Sigh. What a pain in the butt. The rain had stopped by then, and I'm not sure why we lost power. 5 times in 3 months. Dang! It came back on after about an hour. Captain America called housing to tell them about the situation, and see what the heck was the problem. Don't know if it'll do any good or not. We'll see.

I cleaned up till 2:15pm, then scurried around crazily to get ready for the "Sentsy party" at 2:30pm. We walked over there (boy was it warm and humid), 'cause it was only a few blocks away. Kids need the exercise, you know. Heck, I need the exercise.

Laurie had made a TON of food. Motzarella sticks, sliced burritos, potatoes skins with bacon, chips, crackers, goldfish, spinach dip, a TON of fresh cherries, fruit juice. Yummy, it smelled good. BUT, I'm doing well on my diet. No cheats in over 3 weeks. I smelled the food, and while it smelled good, I was fine with water. I'd eaten my crackers and apple on the walk over, and was physically full. Actually, it wasn't really even that had to resist the food. I sat right next to it the whole time even. Yeah me!

The candle thingys smelled really good. It's a wax melting system, really. No flame. No SUPER heated wax that could burn little people. I don't know, I kinda like candles. And the fire and flame. Call me old fashioned, I guess. And the power cords were kinds out of place on the pretty warmers. I did like their night light plug in warmers, though. Those were really cool. But they were $15.00 each, and that didn't include wax. Dang! The big ones were $30 each. The wax was $5.00, I think. I could have afforded the Air freshener for the car. It was only $3.00.

But, we'd just sat down during lunch and did the budget for July, and I knew that I had $15.00 for the week to spend on myself, and I didn't really want to lose $3.00 for an air freshener. Know what I mean? I wanted to save it for something fun and exciting. LOL!

Speaking of that, I'm REALLY excited about the budgeting thing. You start off listing all the money you get for the month, and go down the list, declaring what you need per item, and subtracting from the total income. When you get to the last item, you should have $0. It forces you to budget your money. I had enough to pay Jacob for babysitting each week, give the kids each a $2.00 allowance, budget for groceries, gas, entertainment, eating out, well, everything, really. It's been the first time in a long time that I had enough money to budget. Always before, we'd declare the bills that had to be paid, and we'd have $200 left over for the month. That doesn't even start to touch groceries. So, it was a different, and TOTALLY welcome experience! We even got out cash, and filled our little envelopes. Once the cash is gone, we're done spending in that category. I'll let you know how it goes, though! I got out my $200 for groceries for the week. I'm grocery shopping today :)

So, the party went well. Adela, Katy, Laurie, a new girl from church, and the hostess, um, yeah, her. What's her name??? She's from South Carolina, and has a thick Southern accent. Heather! That's it. Heather was the hostess. I took an order book, just because I might save up my $$$ and get one here in a few months. I'd like to have one for my kitchen. They do smell fabulous.

We came home at 5:30pm, and got here a few minutes after Captain America did. Since the kids ate food at Laurie's house, I just gave them a bowl of cereal for dinner. I know, bad mom. I didn't care, though. I'd been a long, hard day of cleaning. Cereal was right up my alley.

After dinner, we all headed out to Wal-Mart. We needed more white paint, a personal fan for Captain America for his "Man Room", contact solution for me (I was TOTALLY out), refills for the scented plug-ins (MUCH cheaper than Sentsy). We looked for a printer cartridge, but they were out of the one that I needed. Nice, eh? Wal-Mart is always out of the stuff that I need. How rude!

Captain America had to leave to go to a meeting, the the kids and I wandered around for a tiny bit longer. On the way to the front, the bakery had a dozen donuts for $2.00. Great price, eh? There were 3 with nuts, 3 with a white, thick glaze, and 6 covered in sugar. The kids were SO excited for Breakfast in the morning. Breakfast of Champions, baby! Donuts! Good thing I don't always feed my kids like this! hehehe.

After Wal-Mart, we headed out for the Dollar Tree. We drove around for about 15 minutes before I admited to myself and the truck full of kids that I didn't know where the Dollar Tree on our side of town was. So, we hopped on Highway 54, and headed to the NorthEast side's Dollar Tree. I knew right where that one was. Sigh. I know it was further away, but it was probably less gas than wandering aimlessly - hehehe.

I let the kids each pick out a swim item. Jim got a spiderman floaty ring. Joe got a water squirter. Jake, Tom, and Eme got swim goggles. They were pretty excited. We're going to the pool on Thursday, so they'll get a chance to try them out. I also got some little notebooks to record my cash accountings, and a little bag /purse to keep the envelopes in. It's the PERFECT size. I also got 2 bucket hats for Jim and Joe.

Back home, kids to bed, orgainzed the money/envelopes, typed up my budget, and started designing/blogging. Oh yeah, and I printed out my grocery shopping list. But the ink ran out 1/2 way through, so I had to hand write in the other half. Big pain in the butt. Curses on you, Wal-Mart, for not having my ink. hehehehe.

Today, Jacob has his GT testing from 8:15am - 11:30am. Holy cow! I sure hope I don't have to stay the whole time. I'll send him with the phone, and he can call when he's done. That way, I can go grocery shop while he's in his test.

Then, at 11am (yeah, I"ll be a bit late), the girls and I are going to Kelly Park. It's the 1st sprinkler part I we went to. I heard that they're giving away free lunch on Wednesdays. I'm all about free. Really, I am. And luckily, so are my friends - hehehe. It's good to have friends who are like yourself :)

Also, it's Scouts night. Busy, busy, busy. And, I only have 2 WordArt packs designed, so I'll have to find time to do the other 3 in between all of my going and doings. Oh yeah, we're having a HUGE 4th of July sale at the Orchard! Keep your eyes peeled for more info!!!

This WordArt request is from Henriette. It's the song from Titanic :) Hope you like it, girl! Click HERE to go to Scraporchard's gallery to download the ZIP file, and leave some love if you like my work!