Buddy Bench and Soccer.

Thought I would stop by to update while my homemade spaghetti sauce is cooking away, Dorothy is taking a nap, and Deanna is playing with her friends. I already got one of my reviews up today, picked up my papers for the coupons, and did a little shopping. 

Deanna is excited that one of her old friends from when she was in pre-school has moved back near us, so close in fact she can play with her almost every day, so now that they have rekindled their friendship they have been in and out of the house all day. Deanna's friend will be eating dinner with us as well as spending the night. Most of the time Deanna's friends get homesick and end up going home so time will tell if it works out. Either way she has another friend to play with. 

Soccer is under way in our area and the girls are glad to be back out there on the fields. 

Deanna is playing her last year on the Youth Team and will move up to playing for the school next year. I was very lucky to receive a pair of new Storelli bodyshield Leg Guards for her to try out for a company I work with.  So far so good. Will be doing a full review for them over on my other blog MarksvilleandMe in the next few days. 

Dorothy is excited as if you couldn't tell from this picture. Here she is getting ready to watch her bigger sister play her game. Her game was already done and over with. Sadly because of our prior engagements the girls missed two of their practices but should be ready this week. 

We had Open House at the school for both of the younger girls earlier this week and all went well. Deanna has a new to this school teacher who seems like he has lots of ideas to make learning fun for the kids. While we were meeting him (only one other parent besides myself was there) another teacher came in asking for me and low and behold it is one of my friends who teaches special ed as well and told me anytime Deanna needs help just let her know and she will be there to help out. 

Deanna's teacher asked if there was anyone I didn't know and I said I knew lots of people but certainly not everyone.at a sweet heart. I certainly feel even better knowing that I have another friend on the inside so I can keep abreast of all of the inner school happenings because if you don't ask, you do not receive when it comes to education for your child.

You may remember from last year that Deanna had three teachers and a pretty hard time during school because of all of the changes so I am hoping this year will be another good year like she had two years ago. 

Next it was onto Dorothy's classroom, and her teacher is great. I instantly hit it off with her and look forward to another rewarding school year for my youngest daughter. This teacher seems to have it all together and that makes me really feel good about the education my child receives. 

Being a parent is hard enough without having to worry about if your child is being taught right or not (don't get me going on common core), but I do like to know that the teacher is competent enough to teach my child what they are presented with. 

One thing that bothered me at the Open House had to do with the way the government tells schools what they have to do no matter how much of a bad choice it is for the students, and how easily even the Principle is pulled into spreading lies to parents who don't have the sense to know better really ticks me off. 

On a good note I think the best idea was a bench that the school has that is multi-colored that was placed on the playground. It is for children who can't find anyone to play with. Of course they are hoping kids take the initiative to go over and play with the child but if they don't the playground aides are supposed to help out.  I have seen them called Buddy Benches but now sure what our school calls them. Either way it is a great idea. 

Dinner is almost ready so off I go to enjoy dinner with the family but hope to be back on soon for another update.

Back to school in Marksville

The girls just finished their first two days of school. They have all been really excited and nervous at the same time to start school. They all have new teachers this year, Dorothy entered 2nd grade and is in the Rock Stars classroom, Deanna started 6th grade with a brand new teacher to our district. Dennise started her last year of school as a Senior and is looking forward to what her future will hold. 

I had a really nice letter from both of the younger girls teachers this week, and sent out emails to both teacher so that I can make sure they are on my contacts list. I look forward to meeting them during Open House.

Dorothy and Deanna start Soccer this weekend, which starts another year full of games to attend for all of the different sports they do. Thankfully so far Dorothy only does two sports, but Deanna is interested in a lot more and once she hits 7th grade she will have to make some choices between which ones she can do because some are played at the same time.

Deanna was not able to be in Choir this year because it would not fit into her schedule but I still have one more call to make to see if they can possible change a few things to accommodate her wishes. her favorite thing about being in 6th grade is that she can sit with whoever she wants to at lunch.

Dorothy was finally glad to be able to wear her new clothes and meet her teacher. She was a little afraid she wouldn't have any of her friends in her classroom, but has had no complaints and really likes her teacher so far. She brought a bag home today that she has to decorate and return Monday with 4-5 things from around the house that tell something about her. We are including a picture of our family, but the rest  of the items she will pick herself. Will be interesting to see what she picks out. 

They also did a really neat project with different kinds of beads to make a backpack ornament. I will try to include a picture on a different post her bag is not accessible at this time. I love all of the neat things that the younger grades do with the children. She even said they worked on something to give to us already but she isn't sure when we get it. I am thinking on Open House or at the end of the year, depends on what the teacher has planned.

Dennise  the child who has filled our lives with music is now a Senior and with that comes a whole year filled with activities for both her and her parents. It really is as busy for the child as it is for the parent or guardian. She already brought home her BBQ tickets to sell for Home Coming. We have turned in Dennise's Senior picture, baby picture, her Senior Quote, and another picture she wanted submitted for flashback something. My husband is working on a project for the yearbook to hand in as well. And this is just the first two days of school. 

Dennise decided against getting her picture taken by the school and has submitted the one she took, although we really like another one that was taken better, I believe we still have time to change it, but in the end it will be her choice. 

 It just amazes me how all of my children enjoyed school through out the years, with only a few bumps along the way. Seems like yesterday I was putting our first born on the bus. It is hard to believe we will be seeing our third child graduate in 2015, along with all of her friends. It won't be long till our last graduates, and then our grand children after them. The times goes by so quickly. 

As for my husband who started back to college 2 days before the girls returned to school, did very well over the summer keeping himself on the President's List. I am very proud of him and can not wait to see him walk across the stage next Spring and then move onto his 4 year college. 

MarksvilleandMe wishes everyone a great year ahead in what ever area you are studying.  

Blondo

Originally written March 23, 2012

On one of the old sites I used to blog at they had writing prompts but since I wrote there the site is pretty much gone so I have been grabbing what I can see that I have there and bringing it over to this blog on different pages so keep coming   back for updates. 

For this week’s prompt, I want you to tell me about your very first (meaningful) pet. Everything you can remember, including its name, how old you were, what happened to it, any fond or bad memories you have, etc. Just anything that pops to mind. 

Also, do you believe it’s good for kids to be raised around animals? Why/why not? What was the most entertaining and/or endearing pet you’ve ever had? If you aren’t a pet person, why is that?

Blondo wasn’t exactly my first pet, but the first Pet I had a relationship with. My first pet was a Guinea Pig, which I only remember from stories from my parents, so Blondo will have to do.

One day at my Aunt and Uncles house one of their dogs attacked me and bite me in the face leaving a scar below my left eye. Sadly they had to put the dog down since I was the third blonde haired person it attacked. After this I became very afraid of dogs so as a gift to help me overcome the fear they gave me my very own puppy. I must have been about 5 or 6 when this happened.

Here is my Dog Blondo. His chain was heavy and his anchor was put in the ground I believe over 6 feet with cement and if he really wanted to get loose he could break it like it was nothing.

I fell in love almost instantly, and named him Blondo. Blondo was half Saint Bernard, and Half Labrador. He had the fur of a Labrador, but the size and strength of a Saint. He was beautiful and very protective of me. He was an outside dog that guarded our home, and then when we had our pigs, chickens, and turkeys he became their protector and friend. I say friend because one day he helped the pigs dig their way out of the pen, and when I got off the bus all you could see was that the pigs had gotten out and were running around.

Here is blondo in the spring before planting time, witht he chicken/turkey coop in the back, you can tell my father firmly believed in recylcing everything, his dog coop, and you can see a bit of the pig pens fence. This shows off his muscles the best I think.

When ever I was sick he would whimper for me and Dad would have to let him into the house so he could check up on me. He would bound up the stairs to be near me, but one thing he never learned to do was go down the stairs. We had to push him down the stairs every time, and he would slide all the way down. His fathers name was Dumbo or something like that, I guess he passed that along to his son. He weighed about 180 and was pure muscle.

Here is my Princess Goliath when she was still a baby.

  

When I was about 14 we were moving and we thought we were moving far away so we had to give him up to a farm family. I cried, he cried and shortly after we gave him up he died. He probably missed me. I know to this day I still dream about my beautiful Saint Blondo, and miss him today just about as much as I missed him then. 

Here is Princess with Dorothy, what a huge head she has.

  

Of course my dream has always been to have another Saint, and when we moved to where we are now, I had no idea that the dream would come true, but sure enough Princess Goliath came into our lives and 4 years later she is yet another beautiful Saint to bring happiness to my life. I love her as much as I loved my Blondo even though she gets into mischief from time to time.

For the second part of the prompt. I sure do believe in children being raised with animals of all kinds. I grew up on farms so we also raised our own food to eat, Steer, veal, chicken, turkeys, pigs, and all of the veggies we could plant. My father bartered for things like butter, smoked bacon, cheese, and things like that. I was also taught to live off of the land, as in we hunted for Raccoons, fox, and other animals and traded their skins in for money to pay for other things we wouldn’t normally be able to buy. I am sure most of my Christmas and Birthday presents were paid for in this way. We reused everything much different then the world today where if it breaks you throw it away and buy new.

I grew up knowing it was ok to eat animals but also that they could be your friends too. My vast knowledge of animals was handed down from my parents to me. I am glad they chose to let me have pets, it taught me love, compassion, and as they died it taught me to deal with death and losing a part of yourself with that, and most importantly the memories of good times to keep you going forward in life every day and not to give up. God gave man a wonderful gift when he let us rule over animals.

What was your first Pet? 

Back to School and Beyond

As always time gets a way from me, but honestly my blog has taken off and I couldn't be more delighted. I am ever thankful to my readers and I am currently working on two giveaways that will be starting soon. On top of that I have had reviews to do and more on their way for me to review. I love to write about my family as most of you can tell, and I love to talk, so writing is just natural for me to do. Now to just keep up with everything else in my life and I will be all set.

We have continued to do a little school shopping here and there. Deanna's book bag came in, just waiting on Dorothy's to come in. I did buy a few shirts for Dennise, and one for Deanna. I also love the Garanimal line so I picked up a few things for Dorothy as well.

We hope to make one trip to the mall for clothes in late August, early September to pick up a few things, but other then that we have ordered pretty much everything online, or picked things up here and there as we were doing our regular shopping.

I get a little excited for back to school even if we don't have much money to do a lot with, which happens to be right around now. Thankfully my husband's workman's comp is still coming in but his Unemployment is under a new coverage for him going back to college so now he has to have his teacher fill out a paper, she sends it to us in a email, we print it out, then we have to take it to a place where we can fax it back to unemployment, so the money does not come on time which has messed with our finances a bit, which always gets me a bit up tight until I remember to trust in God.

Thankfully I have had gift cards that I have collected from the beginning of the year from all of the sites I do and have been able to get quite a bit of what the kids have needed. As for school this month I have to pay for Soccer for Dorothy and Deanna, Dorothy needs new cleats and shin guards, as well as making sure that we have money set aside for the second day of school the day they will be taking the High School pictures. Why they can't wait a couple of weeks I have no clue, but this is how their school does it.

Dennise is a Senior and I remember most of the things we have to pay for from our other two graduating so as long as money keeps coming in we should be OK. My husband will be done with summer II classes soon and will begin his Fall Semester in College. Hard to believe next spring we will have two graduates in our house. My daughter Dennise from High School, and my husband from College. He does hope to transfer after spring semester...God willing. We are trusting in God that if that is what he is supposed to do everything will fall in place.

When my husband fell and was injured at work our whole world was turned upside down, and believe it or not most of it has been for the better. God is Good.

YouTube & FlyLady Saved Us Hundreds of Dollars

First of all I might have mentioned this before but our dryer stopped working a few months back. We have been looking and looking and finally decided on one but then I didn't want to put the money out because we had a slow down of income. Like I said just when you get used to having money it stops coming in.

Anyways I have been Flying with the FlyLady and in one of the emails I received one of the customers were writing a review for a product which was the Dryer Lint Kit , but it got me to thinking. Let me do a search on Google to see if it is something that is easy enough for my husband to fix.

The first thing that popped up was a YouTube video for the very same dryer we have .




My husband did everything the Video said to do to test our dryer and sure enough it worked. He then got on Ebay and found the parts we needed for under $40.00 shipped. This has saved us hundreds of dollars. I am so glad we held off on getting rid of it and buying a new one.

I have found more good in the internet then bad, which is why I am still here.

Has a online search ever saved your money?

Back to school physicals and shopping have started.

Dorothy had her physical today. She is 6 1/2 and ready to enter 2nd grade. She is a whole 50 1/2 pounds and grew a whole four and a half inches. The Dr. said most kids her age average about two and a half inches in a year. We thought she would be short but who knows. I guess time will tell. 

While we were there Dennise saw the other Dr. to get new medication for her allergies. They have been giving her a ride for the money all summer long. Mine seem to come and go depending on where we are or what we are doing. So far I have gotten through with no medications.

My back is getting better just taking it easy just in case for a while. Hard to believe in a little over a month the girls will be returning to school. The vacations seem to go by too quickly. We have started out back to school shopping already. 

This week was underwear shopping, and we got a few notebooks that Dennise wanted for school. 

I do a little school supply shopping each week taking advantage of the great sales. I also take each week or every other week and pick up clothes for the girls. We did socks about two weeks ago. Next will be book bags if needed, and then shoes, followed by clothes. 

I think we have it down to one store to get Dorothy and Deanna's clothes from and one or two for Dennise depending on what we can find. We don't have as much money as we had last year so we have to be a bit careful with our spending. The girls are pretty adaptable so I am sure all will work out. 

Hoping to get a few things I need in the clothing department as well as new sneakers for my husband, as he is attending college himself. Learning is a lifelong process and something I always look forward to myself. 

How do you all do back to shopping? All at one time, spread out, early, or last minute? Chime in below. 

Saddened

Over the weekend we went to visit my parents grave site. My father died in 2001 and my mother shortly after in 2004. I was a bit upset to find their site looking a little worse for wear, so we plan to go back soon and tidy it up.

It is customary for us to drive past the last place they lived when leaving the area. When we went by it was like something hard dropped in my stomach. The trailer was gone, actually the whole trailer park was gone.

It was just another reminder that when you die the world goes on. Which bothers me a bit even though I know it is true, because to me a part of me stopped the day my parents died. A part of me was suspended in time, with the rest of my body going on.

It hit me quite hard and I shed a few tears. Dennis even said he saw the look in my face. It was like losing a part of them all over again. See when Dennis and I don't get a long I used to go to my parents and spend time with them, now if it is at night I take the car and drive past the places I lived with my parents. It soothes me, and when I feel better I am able to return to the house, my husband, and the kids. Rarely does it happen during the day but if it does I visit them at the grave site.

Which brings me to the last bit of being sad. I know how I was with my parents and how much I loved them, and how respectful I was of them. I also know how my husband is and was with his parents. I just don't understand how families today can just turn their backs on each other. I just can not put my mind around it. It sickens me.

I guess I was brought up right to love everyone always, be forgiving, talking things through, and always trying to help out when needed. I guess that is why I have always been the mediator, because I want everyone to get along always, which in a lot of ways makes me a door mat, but I would rather be more like Jesus in forgiving and loving people then to be sour, hateful, and spiteful.

Life is meant to be full of love, not hatred. So in leaving you tonight I pray for everyone to take a minute and see if you can turn that hate back around into a loving feeling. No one knows what tomorrow brings.