School went much better today. I got advice from a friend Sunday that some kids just shouldn't even start reading and math until 8 or older. Of course her kids are smart, as are all the kids of my other friends. Would be nice to have someone in my boat. But anyway, today we moved on in lessons, but instead of the 2 pages that went with the lesson...we did one. He did really well. I think the fact that he was threatened with not going to his field trip to the Everglades this week if he didn't pay attention in school, might have helped. 


I think...I hope I'm not jinxing myself in saying this...but I think he is getting the concept of numbers over 20. He did so well today. He acted like he understood it and I feel like we've made some progress. After about 45 minutes mind rest from his first math paper I brought out his second. He did it and did it well. Homeschooling success.


I am just so thankful he is grasping reading pretty easily. He knows more sounds than he knows names of the letters....but whatever. 

"Please pick your head up off the table" "You aren't going to find the answer staring off into space"  "No it's not 15, don't say 15 again."  


Have you ever had an experience that drove you to change everything about the way you think? I have, his name is Kaleb. My fourth born, he is 6 1/2. I have just started him in school this year because he refused to write his letters and numbers until the past 8 months or so. I learned early on in my homeschooling years that it is better for everyone involved if they start school when they are ready and not just because they turn 5. So most of my kids are a full year behind other kids their age. It bothers me and makes me feel like a failure of a Mother. But I can't help that their genes just aren't the smartest.


I have never had a child that paid so little attention. He is in and out of his chair, on his feet in his chair, half sitting half standing, laying his head on the table, staring at the ceiling, staring out the window, listening to the other boys do their school, paying attention to Ellie or Isaac, talking over me to tell someone else to stop distracting him...I give up. 


He wouldn't last one week in school. His teacher would have him diagnosed as ADHD in a heartbeat.(seriously he has like ALL of those symptoms) So why can't I? 


I am so anti medical intervention..I delivered all my children without so much as an Advil. I don't always give them the antibiotics that are prescribed for an ear infection. I've struggled with depression and anxiety for years, but I just couldn't ever take anything for it. It's just not me. But this child as pushed me to my breaking point. I just want to drag him into the pediatrician and beg him to make my child sit still. 


I just feel like I've paid my dues.  I've taught my children how to behave like civilized human beings. We can go out and I know they will be quiet and obedient. They aren't going to dart across the parking lot in front of your car. They aren't going to throw a fit at check out because I won't buy them candy. You can sit next to them in a restaurant and not even know they are there...mostly. 


I've successfully taught 3 children how to read and even Kaleb is doing surprisingly well. I've battled through teaching a very dyslexic child to read. I keep my children home because I feel that is what God would have me do...besides from hearing what friends deal with having their kids in public school it wouldn't be any easier. It's the sheer volume of kids that makes this so impossible. I can't give one child my undivided attention without distractions. I already make Ethan wait hours for my help because I have to spend 1-3 hours JUST DOING MATH with K. 


So what is the hang up right now in math to make me break down and post on my blog again? Double digit numbers. Not adding them, just learning them. I've never come across this before. Once they've learned how to count and write 1-20, the rest have just been easy. They just did it. Why can't he? Filling in a 100's chart is taking an hour. AN HOUR. It's not even missing ALL the numbers. And I keep telling him what comes next. 44, 45, 46...then it takes 15 minutes for him to write 47. The whole time crying hysterically because, "it's so hard". Finally he writes "47". "What comes after 47?" "46?" By now I just want to jump through the window. I don't know how else to make him understand. He can count by tens, he can look at a completed 100 chart and count them all without mistake. How can I make him understand numbers 21-100? We do counting tens and ones, tens place, ones place, trading pennies for dimes. 


Really the problem is our ridiculous system of counting. Who thought it was a good idea to teach numbers 0-9 one way and then start calling them something totally different sounding for numbers 10+. I mean really why would anyone think 10, 11, 12, 13 and 15 were a good idea? 

And all this while my 2 year old screams and claws at me for attention. And you people wonder why I don't want any more kids? 


Just come live a day in my shoes. 

A contest!

Not mine, but another blog I read. You can see the details here. 

A summary. Go to her blog, read the rules and follow them. She is giving away a custom boutique Pillowcase Dress or Peasant Dress to a lucky winner! The winner will have their choice of style, fabric and size.

Check it out! If you do please use my name/e-mail(cacplus5@gmail.com) as a reference so I am given another entry! 

You know what doesn't stink? 


Homemade fabric refresher. I LOVE the smell of fresh clean sheets and towels. But lets be real, who washes their sheets and towels EVERY day? Not me. My sheets get it once a week and towels twice. (switch between 2 sets of towels). But in between washings I want my sheets and towels to smell just out of the dryer.


I'm sure lots of you have bought or use Febreze. Am I right? I hate that junk. It smells so chemical. I hate chemical, which is why I make all my own cleaners. 


Are you ready for how simple it is? You'll slap your head and wonder why you've been wasting money on store bought garbage or worse living with stinking towels and sheets. :) 


Get a small spray bottle, add a teaspoon or so, I never measure anything, or your favorite fabric softener or laundry soap. Add a small "glug" of rubbing alcohol, several drops of your favorite essential oil, my favorite is lavender. Fill the bottle the rest of the way with water, shake and spray. I spray my curtains with it also. 


Your sniffer and the environment will thank you. 




Disclaimer - Of course laundry soap and fabric softener aren't very "earth friendly" so you can skip that step if you are especially environmentally conscious. 


Don't forget to pick up some lemon or sweet orange essential oils as well for your counter and wood cleaners. 

New chicks stink.

After losing our chickens we didn't want to start over again with chicks. We raised our other chickens from 1 week and 5 weeks. Five weeks isn't a bad starting place because they are old enough to go straight into the coop, although maybe not so much when it's in the 20s and low 30s at night. But chicks? Ugh. They stink.

We got our first batch of new chicks Saturday morning. They do nothing but poop and eat. Kinda like a baby with less sleeping. They NEVER stop peeping. It's non-stop until they are like 12 weeks old.

They spent the first night in the laundry room, but by morning the stink was creeping into the house, so they were moved outside to the garage. Right now the weather is mild enough that they can stay there and during the day we bring the cage out into the grass.

We got them off craigslist.com and they were called "dark brahma". Which would have been wonderful. Brahmas are one of the largest and a very sweet breed of chicken. Dark Brahma's are beautiful. We had to buy them straight run, which means male and female alike. It's really hard/nearly impossible to tell rooster from pullet at this stage. We got 15. Maybe 4-5 are actually Dark Brahmas or at least partially, thankfully they appear to hopefully be pullets.

The rest of the chicks are a big stinky mystery. They appear to be either Jersey Giants, Black Australorps a mix of the two and some mutts. Hopefully they will just lay some eggs in June!

It's been very busy around here. Saturday we woke up to all of our chickens dead in the backyard. We lost 13. No one locked up the coop that night and coons had their way with them. They were spread all over the backyard. I am still sick about it. They were our pets and we really miss them. They used to sit at the backdoor while I was on the computer and beg for treats. They would jump onto the outside window ledge to say, "Hi" to Ellie when she was standing there. It has been so quiet in the mornings without our Blackbeard greeting us with his morning song. And they gave us the most beautiful and yummy eggs. We only have 5 left, which we bought from my Sister and Brother-in-law when they moved. But since they've been here they only lay 1-2 eggs a day and we don't have a real connection with them. They are just chickens. We raised our others from babies and really miss them.

So Saturday was spent in town. We went to a pawn shop to raise money to replace our flock. We also had to do some other things, including part 2 of last Thursday's shopping. We got home around 4:30 and were having people for dinner. After dinner was cleaned up I had to go to my sister, Kelly's house to help her make her shopping list and print her coupons. I got home after 8:30pm. A busy day.

Sunday we were up at 5:20 and out the door for church at 7:00AM. We had lunch in town with some friends from church, left their house and got home with just enough time to heat up my casserole and head back out for our Life Group Christmas party. We got home after 8.

 We leave town tomorrow around noon and I waited until yesterday to even think about packing. Why do I always do that?

This afternoon I need to pack the things that came out of the laundry this morning and clean the house. I haven't wrapped any presents and I don't even have any tape. So I'll be trying elmers this year.

This morning I took my sister shopping. It was her first time using coupons. None of my favorite cashiers were there, but the one we got wasn't too bad. My sister did well and stayed way under her normal budget so I think she was happy. It has been fun to spend more time with her lately.

I didn't need anything today because I did all of this weeks shopping last week. But some new high value coupons were printing this week so I did get more. Four more boxes of cereal, 4 Mrs Buttersworth syrups, 14 boxes of pasta, 4 I Can't Believe it's Not Butter, 2 loaves of bread and 2 bags of turnip greens for around $7.

I also did my weekly CVS today, which is so much easier without the kids in tow. I was able to get: 2 Pantene shampoos, 1 Physicians Formula eye palette, 2 bottles of Listerine, 2 packages of Bandaids, 1 Theracare Heat wrap and a Schick Hydro 5 razer for around $5. And I left with $6 in ECBs. Not bad.

This will be my last post until after we get back into town.

Have a Merry Christmas!

My serger is here! If you don't know what a serger is, google it. Any good seamstress wants one. They aren't cheap. But last weekend we were in Sears and I spied a Kenmore for only $229. Seriously, google them, $229 is cheap and Kenmore is an amazing brand as far as sewing machines go. So I am hopeful that the serger will also be wonderful. I probably won't be able to get it out of the box until next week. But since we are going out of town on Wednesday, it might not be until next YEAR!

Stay tuned for TONS of new clothes for Ellie. Especially since I plan on taking a trip to Hobby Lobby while we are in Georgia. I just can't wait as long as it might take for ours to open here!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I have been waiting for Hobby Lobby since I've been sewing.

Tomorrow I will be going to Publix to finish my shopping for next week. I realized last night while laying wide awake in bed that I hadn't even thought about packing for our trip. So I don't think making a shopping trip the day before we leave is so smart. So we are going to make a family day of it and all go tomorrow. Can't wait to get my Ore Ida hashbrowns for $74 cents a bag!

Want to see what 2ish months of couponing has done for us? My inside kitchen pantry is where I keep all my organized food items. Like when I open a box of cereal it goes in the Tupperware. When I opened a can of breadcrumbs it goes in the Tupperware.

My stock pile pantry. It's in my, half of the garage turned laundry room/sewing, room. We got the cabinets on craigslist.com when we built the room. 

My fridge and freezer.

My ziplock stock pile.

My laundry soap, dish soap and dishwasher detergent stock pile.

My linen closet and under the sink stock pile.

I also have two chest freezers in my laundry room. One is filled to the top with pasta(didn't want bugs to get into it) quick fix meals and chicken, beef and pork. The other is partially filled with bread. 

I do have some help though. We get WIC, so that helps some with milk, juice, cereal, peanut butter and frozen veggies. I have been only using my checks when one of the items on the check is BOGO at Publix. Like yesterday I got BOGO cereal and juice with my WIC. So that is really helpful. I do still have to buy all of those things as well because the WIC is just a help, it doesn't fully supplement. 

I also have a stock pile of DIAPERS! 

I do use cloth diapers about 70% of the time. But I use disposable at night and when we are out. Also some of her clothes won't fit over cloth. So we use disposables for that reason sometimes as well. 

I have about a month of toilet paper stocked up as well. I would have another couple months stocked up, but someone had to get coffee last week on the way to church and the line was SO long that by the time we got the coffee it was too late to make another stop. And that was the last day that my coupons were good and that the sale was on. It was going to be good too. $4.23 per 12 pack of Scott Double Roll. 

You might notice that I don't have any cleaners or paper products stocked up. The reason is simple, I don't use them. The only paper product we use is toilet paper. We use cloth napkins and cloth "paper" towels. I've been doing this since Chad was laid off in 2007. I also don't use any cleaners, except bleach for my laundry and shower. I do all my cleaning with vinegar and baking soda. All very cheap and non-toxic. Yes, vinegar smells, but once it dries the smell is gone. I add essential oils and olive oil for cleaning and polishing my wood. Saves a TON of money.  

I'll tell you what, I used to laugh at people who "couponed". I thought that they MUST be breaking some kind of rules to actually be saving any money by buying name brand items and using a coupon. "Ha!" I thought, I can save way more than them by shopping at Walmart and buying store brand. Thank goodness I was brought to my senses. 

Back in the summer a friend of mine who is also on Facebook started posting her weekly sales receipt from Publix. At first I didn't pay much attention, still thought, "She has to be breaking rules of some sort and Publix with their excellent customer service is just letting her slide by so as to not cause a scene." After seeing pictures of her stocked pantry, fridge and freezer I asked her about it. She told me to check out www.southersavers.com. Wow. Who knew. I lived with one of the most coupon friendly stores right in my own town. The very store I so longed to shop at. Publix. 

I have been "couponing" since early October. I haven't spent less, I've just bought more. I wish I had before pictures of my pantry and fridge, but any of my family can vouch for me. I bought what we ate and by the end of the week there was NOTHING left. There were times I fed the kids a can of beans mashed up in a tortilla a called it a burrito. They loved it, but it isn't ideal to not have anything to feed your kids a day of so before shopping day. I would spend an average of $120 a week at Walmart and would hardly have any food. Then I would spend money at Sweetbay for meats for dinner(because they always had the best sales for meat) Last month we spent every last cent of our food budget(it's set by Uncle Sam thanks to this cruddy economy, but we stocked up on some meat and splurged on Publix subs at the end of the month. This month our budget has been reduced by a little over $100. I would have been terrified had this happened a couple months ago. But now I laugh it off because I don't need that extra hundred anymore. If properly rationed we probably have at least a couple months worth of food stored up. 

So is couponing for you? Ask yourself these questions: Do you like to have lots in your pantry? Do you like to save more than you spend? Are you willing to spend a couple hours a week preparing for your shopping day? 

Today I left my house around 11 and didn't get home until 4. But it wasn't a normal shopping day for me. I went to Walgreens, Publix, CVS, WIC(I realized I missed my day to pick up checks last week. oops), stopped at Beth's to drop off my cold stuff, went to a different Publix to use 3 WIC checks and my Purell rain check, a different Walgreens, back to Beth's, the gas station and finally home. Tuesdays are my shopping day  because Chad has school and I don't cook, so it's the perfect day to keep busy outside of the house to help the time pass. Had I had all of my children with me I would have only gone to Publix and home. :o) But Mom and Dad kept the 3 smaller ones today, which was a HUGE help. 

I don't usually "do" Walgreens. Even with all the websites I use it's much more complicated to coupon there. But, I have finally found "the" Walgreens to go to. Third times a charm, right? They were SO friendly, the store was clean and stocked, which is huge, because the other stores I've tried were horrible. 

There were some great deals at Walgreens today, so I really wanted to give it another shot. I started planning a few days ago, checked all my sites to see what the deals were, got my coupons together and started working on my transactions. You see to get the most out of Walgreens(and CVS) you can't just purchase everything in one transaction. You will be paying too much oop(out of pocket).  The thing about Walgreens is their rewards system, called register rewards, isn’t as simple to understand as CVS. If you get a RR(register reward) for buying an Olay product you can’t use it towards another Olay purchase. This is where your resource websites are really important. My favorite for CVS and Walgreens is www.addictedtosavings.com each Monday she comes out with a transaction scenario to get the most out of your weekly deals and to properly roll your RR. I am proud to say that today I used some of hers and all of my own! My total spent oop at Walgreens today:  $29.15. $16.38 of that was food, so actually our Food Stamps paid for it. Which is GREAT for us(or any of your who have them also) because from the food items I bought I received $10 in RR that I can use to pay for non-food items which has to come out of our own budget.  So I only had to spend $12.77 for all of the non-food items pictured and I think I have now made it to the $50 minimum for the Olay $20 rebate. After everything I walked out of there with $5 in RR that I have until December 28^th to spend, but they can’t be spent on a Mars brand product.  ;o)  Oh and I went to two Walgreens. My final transaction at the first Walgreens got my $3 RR for the diapers. The Walgreens I went to first didn’t have Pretzal M&Ms and I had $4 in coupons for them. So I went to a different one and was able to purchase them for only $4.26 oop and I got back another $5 RR.

I did REALLY good at Publix today. I spent $10.20 for my non-food items and $87.51 for my food items. That might sound like a lot, especially if your aren’t used to buying for a large family. But that price included 8 packages of boneless skinless chicken breasts. I also had to purchase creamer, which is over $5 for the large one pictured and I didn’t have a coupon. I would have spent another $63.45 between the two transactions if I didn’t use coupons.  Well, actually I wouldn’t have because I would have shopped at Walmart and starved my family.

My CVS trip this week was a quick run in for toothpaste. Not that I needed more, but it was a way to roll over my ECB(extra care bucks, CVS reward system) into a longer expiring ECB. I paid $1.85(used 2 $.75 off coupons and $2.99 in ECB) and left with $4 in ECB that don’t expire until into January.

So is it worth the time and effort? I guess if money isn’t an issue it’s not. But I still think I would do it because I really enjoy it.