Exciting December

We were able to go to my parents' house for two weeks in Iowa. I'm so thankful we were able to go! We had hoped to go in the Summer but it just never worked out, especially since we went to North Dakota for my Grandma's funeral in July.

Before we left I looked up the 10-day forecast to see if we should take our snow stuff or not and only one day had a "slight chance" of flurries, so we decided not to take it all. Well that was a big mistake! We got there on a Saturday and that Wednesday we were hit with a blizzard and my parents ended up getting several inches of snow. Not only that, the temperature never got above freezing the whole time we were there and it snowed two more times.

But thankfully my parents still had some snow things left over from when we were kids and since it was so cold, the kids didn't want to stay out too long anyway. Caleb went out the first day and pushed them on their sleds, and I went out the next day. We had a blast sledding, throwing snowballs, and we played snow tackle. We were exhausted by the time we went inside, though. And very grateful for the fireplace!

We weren't able to go to the zoo with my sister and her boys, but my mom did take the kids to the IMAX theater twice, and they went to the new aquarium, the jungle, desert, and the new pavilion. She has a lot of pictures of this, I just haven't gotten any copies yet! (hint, hint)

Other highlights of our trip were spending a day at my sister's house, seeing my younger brother and sister, surprising the kids with gifts on Christmas morning that they were NOT expecting, getting my hair trimmed and colored, and spending time with my parents. We had a good visit and I'm very thankful we were able to go! But it would be nice to go again this year.

A most exciting event!

After taking a loooooong, unscheduled, unwanted break from my 30 List I'm back! And this one is an exciting one. My friend Belinda Mooney has helped set me up to send articles to magazine publishers and with her tips and help I sold an article to two different ones! Here's a link to one of the magazines. If it goes to the first page, my article is on page 37.

My article is even in the Table of Contents, which I think is ultra cool. It's not just a side bit, it's an actual article! I'm pretty excited to get into this field of writing.

So there you have it, another one of my "30 Things To Do While I'm 30" is accomplished!

Our New Schedule

We are on our 8th week of homeschooling and by all accounts and purposes, it's going great. Everyone is still enjoying school and are still motivated. There's a little bit of frustration over new topics as we're starting to move past reviewing the last year, but overall it's going smoothly.

But we were having this horrible problem of a chaotic morning. It all starts because I am a night owl. I love the quietness of the nighttime, and I would go to bed after midnight every night if it didn't affect the next day. But it does, and we weren't waking up until almost 9am every morning. Which meant breakfast was close to 10am, school didn't get started until around 11am, and we weren't ready for lunch until 2pm. Which messed up nap-time, afternoon subjects, snack time, cartoons, and pushed dinner and even bedtime later, which then started the whole mess over again. That may work for some people, but I'm a traditionalist and I think lunch should be at noon, so it wasn't working.

Because of all of this, I decided to get serious and start a new schedule. I made a list of everything that needed to get done during the day, and divided it into "morning", "afternoon", and "evening" sections. Most of these things are pretty simple like meals, chores, naps, etc, usually happen around the same time everyday. Then I figured out how long each of these things should take, and kind of worked around set times like bedtimes, lunch (of course at 12pm), and favorite cartoons. Our kids love Wild Kratts and it's really the only cartoon they HAVE to watch everyday, so I wanted to make sure they were able to watch it.

I wanted to have set times for each subject because I found myself having a pile of workbooks to check, and by the time I checked something, they were already halfway done with another subject, and we were going back and forth from subject to subject, and I really didn't feel like they were grasping the concepts, they were just getting the work done. So with set subjects for set amount of times, they don't have to rush and make mistakes, and there's plenty of time to check work and fix mistakes that do happen. There's also not the competition of "I got done before you did!" and "What subject are you on? I only have one left." that breeds discontent and causes others to hurry and not concentrate.

So here is our daily schedule:
Carter Family Schedule
7:30- Wake up, Get Dressed, Read your Bible, Start Chores
8:00- Eat Breakfast, Have Family Devotions
8:45- Clean up breakfast, Finish chores
9:30-10- Handwriting
10-10:30- English
10:30-11- Math
11-11:30- Reading
11:30-12- Spelling
12:00- Lunch
1-2:30 Rest time
2:30- snack
2:30-4- Afternoon Session
Monday-Library
Tuesday- Art
Wednesday- Music
Thursday- Science
Friday- History
4-5:30- Free Time
6:00- Dinner
8:30- Anna and Elsa bedtime
8:45- Kayla and Lela bedtime
9:00- Noah bedtime
10:30- Mom and Dad bedtime

There are a few times on there can be moved or changed, depending on what we have going on (or what went on the night before), but for the most part, if we stick with this schedule, we will get everything done.

Sick :(

Well this is not what I was thinking when I wrote this one down, but I guess life has a way of changing plans!

This morning I woke up at 6am with intense stomach pain. I won't give you details, but I was very sick all morning. I successfully slept way past noon!

I don't know if it was the Taco Bell I had Saturday night, or the delicious BBQ grilled chicken I had Sunday afternoon, or if I just got a stomach bug.

I'm so thankful for my husband that he works from home (or near home anyway) and he was able and willing to take care of the kids while I was sick. He was a very good nurse. He also got the morning chores done, and helped the kids with their school! I am very blessed.

Maybe I'll have another opportunity to sleep until noon. Let's hope so!

And no, I don't have a picture. ;)

Bookshelf Re-do

Today I finished a project, I sanded and then painted this bookshelf for the girls' room. I liked it best after I sanded it, but the girls wanted it painted.

This is after I sanded it.

Me painting! I look lovely.

The finished product! It's not perfect, but Kayla said it was "awesome", so I'll be happy with that!

My first project on my "30 List" is officially done! Only 29 more to go.

30 Things To Do While I'm 30

I am not one for New Year Resolution or anything like that, but I got inspiration for this and I think it will be fun! Lately I've felt like my life is in a rut and I don't do anything outside of my comfort zone (i.e. facebook and ebay), and my normal daily routine. So this list will help me get out of what I'm used to doing, and start my 30's off with a bang! Some might be simple things, some might take a lot of planning, and some might be a little bit personal. But I'm going to try to accomplish them all! When I finish one, I'll make a blog about it. If I remember!

1. Get an article published by a magazine
2. Go on a second honeymoon with Caleb. Even just for the weekend.
3. Cut my hair short (yikes!)
4. Get my legs waxed.
5. Sew something for me that I will actually wear.
6. Read the Bible entirely.
7. Sleep until Noon
8. Whiten my teeth with peroxide.
9. Lose 15 pounds.
10. Paint a tree in Anna and Elsa's room.
11. Finish Lela's baby scrapbook.
12. Complete an online class.
13. Make a really fancy cake.
14. Ride a horse.
15. Go to a Branson show.
16. Remake a piece of furniture.
17. Read "Mansfield Park"
18. Read "Gone With the Wind"
19. Watch "Gone With the Wind"
20. See BranDee Nissen and go out for dinner.
21. Have a Girls Day Out with friends.
22. Make Green Bay Sweatpants. (I just got a really cool idea in my head for this)
23. Go to Omaha/my parent's farm
24. Go to the Henry Doorly Zoo with my sister Sarah and her boys.
25. Make needlepoint birth announcement for Anna.
26. Make needlepoint birth announcement for Elsa.
27. Get my Conceal/Carry license.
28. Eat sushi
29. Pay for someone's meal behind me at a drive-thru.
30. Enjoy every day, and be thankful for what I'm able to do!

The Simpler Life

There have been a lot of changes since we've moved to Missouri. Some are obvious like living in a house instead of a fifth wheel, or staying in one place instead of moving every few months. Having a steady, predictable income and taking care of a yard are other obvious changes. But there is one big change that I didn't really expect that came with moving here.

When we moved we found out we couldn't use our T-Mobile phones anymore, and now we have a basic Straight Talk phone that just calls or texts. At first it wasn't a big deal, although I knew I would miss my fancy smart phone that could run my life. But now after being without that necessary phone, I realize how completely unnecessary it was. Was it nice to be able to check Facebook at any moment? Yes. Was it fun to play games with friends? Absolutely. There were also a lot of other nice features that I used frequently. But I've discovered they weren't necessary and were probably distracting me more than I thought they were. Now I watch the cell phone commercials where a guy is walking through life staring at his phone and I think, was I that bad? The commercial is trying to tell you all of the neat things you can do while just walking down the street, or through the mall. But what I see now, removed from my former life of being that person, I realize how much that person is missing. Sure he's checking his email, updating his status, checking the weather, and finding the closest coffee shop all at the same time. But he's missing what's around him at that moment. And that's what I've discovered in our simpler life.

I miss two things about my smart phone: Pandora and Google Maps. But even those are not necessary, they were just nice.

Another area in our life that's simpler is the fact that we have very limited internet. And by limited I mean slow and unstable. In fact it took me 20 minutes and 9 page reloads to get this blog written. While this is really frustrating when I'm trying to search for something or just check Facebook, it also prevents me from wasting (yes, wasting) a lot of time on websites like blogs, pinterest, and countless other websites that are there just for perusing. And yes I realize I'm writing a blog I expect other people to read. But the fact is while those websites are nice and handy, they have the potential to be extreme time wasters! And not being able to go to those websites because it would take forever has really shown me that. Are they handy? Yes. Are they beneficial? Sometimes. Are they necessary? No.

Our life has also become simpler in our food. We live in a huge dairy and cattle community so we are able to get milk straight from a cow, meat from farm fresh animals, and eggs from farm chickens. We've also been given a lot of produce so we've learned how to can. There is a simple satisfaction in making a meal comprised entirely of ingredients that were grown or raised in a 30 mile radius from where you live. We aren't able to do every meal that way and we still make weekly treks to Walmart, but having those fresher options is really satisfying.

The fact is, we don't have a lot of luxuries that we used to have, and we've found that we don't miss them. We can spend an evening reading books or doing a family talent show. We can spend an evening cleaning up the yard to prepare for a storm. We can just sit and not have an electronic device in front of us and life will still go on. To be honest, it's nice. I like my simpler life.