I’ve been busy.

I’ve been writing more in the last 4 weeks then I have ever written in my whole life.

Just not on my blog. 

Wanna know where?

Courageous Homekeeping.

Most, if not all of you who have read my blog have probably already figured this out…but I have a new website!  Several months ago, I was hit with some stark realizations.  1. Women in our generation seem to want to get back to a “simple” life.  2. They are beginning to value (again) staying home with their kids instead of getting a j.o.b.  3. They are wanting to learn things like gardening, sewing, knitting, canning and how to live frugally.  4. Most of us were raised in a two-income family.  Our moms didn’t teach us how to do these things…so we need some help learning these skills.  And 5. An important aspect of our femininity is beauty..and almost no one talks about this.  It has become a secular subject.  But it is a Biblical subject and it needs to be talked about.

So…I decided to make a website.  I value marriage.  I value motherhood.  I value being a stay at home mom.  I value being a keeper of my house.  And it “just so happens” that I am married to a man who builds websites for a living.  Imagine that.  Iwant to help other women understand the value of these things as well.  They are important and often overlooked Biblical values.  And I have become passionate about these values and wanting to teach them to other women– so that they will understand better the value that God places on them and the jobs He wants them to do.  We will be talking about marriage, sex, parenthood, friendship, our roles, our value, as well as doing how-to posts and videos on subjects like canning and cooking and other homemaking skills.

I asked a couple friends of mine to help me with the project…help me come up with ideas and help contribute posts.  Along the way, I have also asked several other women to contribute posts about being a wife, being a mother, etc etc.  Very soon, we are looking at a very large, very strong community of women who share where they are weak and where they are strong, what God has taught them along the way, and help encourage and inspire other women to keep moving forward.  I am thrilled and excited to see where God is going to take this!  Because, really, this is God’s project and not mine.  This idea would have never occured to me, if not for Him.  Even if it had occured to me, I would have never tried to accomplish it, if not for all the things He’s brought me through in this last year.  Everything about my life is different than it was a year ago– and I am ready.  I am ready to swim in the River of God’s plan and will for my life like we heard in the sermon last Sunday.  (Ezekiel 47)  I am ready to let Him have complete control over my life so that He can accomplish whatever it is that He wants to use me for.  I am ready.

‘SPLASH’

Courageous Homekeeping- “Inspiring women towards Biblical and breathtaking femininity.”

So…there was about 2 of you I think that read my blog post a week or so ago…but at the end, I mentioned that I had a couple of announcements to make.  Well…this is one of them!  I have been asked to be a part of the Women’s Conference called Selahwhich is held at George Fox University as a breakout speaker.  I will be giving 2- 45 minute classes on how to do extreme couponing.  Crazy, right?  I know.  The conference will be held on September 25th and if you would like more information, you can go HERE.  The theme this year is Simplify: Discover the Biblical truth that less is more.  I’m nervous, but super excited to be a part of it.  I have a feeling that this opportunity is going to be a springboard for some big things that God is about to do in my life!  Registration is open to anyone who is interested…I’d love to see people I know there!

So, since there has been so much going on, I’m just going to write a little paragraph about everything that has been going on…then I will feel like I’m “caught up” and can proceed forward from that point.  Ready? 4th of July. I have decided that this holiday is probably one of my favorites.  It’s in the middle of Summer…nothing else surrounds it so it stands on it’s own.  It’s about family and freedom and BBQ and fireworks…and s’mores.  At least it is for me.  I love s’mores.  So we (well, I) decided that this year I wanted to have a 4th of July party.  Despite the fact that we were leaving on vacation 2 days afterward.  But since we live in Corbett just down the street from where the “famous” Corbett 4th of July parade happens, of course we have the perfect house for a party!  So we spent literally over a week cleaning up our yard, planting flowers, painting outdoor furniture, and laying a patio for our pool area.  But the work was SO worth it.  I am finally for the first time in the almost 3 years of living here, starting to be happy with how my yard looks.  It’s definitely not perfect, but it’s starting to be enjoyable being out there now and I’m so glad!  Anyway, we had the party and several people came and we had a blast.  Plan on it again next year everyone!

Yellowstone.  Like I mentioned earlier, we planned to leave 2 days after our 4th of July party on vacation.  Now that I think about it- as sad as it is, I think this was the longest vacation that we’ve ever been on.  Ever.  We left on the 6th, drove 16 hours to Island Park, Idaho where we were staying and didn’t get home until the evening of the 14th.  That’s 8 days!  My mom’s family has a reunion every other year and different families take turns planning it.  This year my mom her sisters and my grandma planned everything.  They rented a big house for all of us to sleep in (5 bathrooms, sleeps 30) and so both my aunts and my grandma, most of my cousins and even grandkids came to sleep in that big house.  It was a blast!  During our time there we drove into Yellowstone on several occasions.  We were about 40 minutes away from the park.  What I never realized was how much driving was involved in the whole Yellowstone experience.  We had to drive there and drive between each geyser or waterfall or whatever we were looking at.  We would get out of the car, walk around and then get back in the car and go to the next one.  It was a lot of driving!  But it was beautiful.  I don’t think we saw everything, but we saw lots of different geysers where the water is so hot that it boils out of the ground…that was so fascinating to me.  We saw waterfalls and rivers and wide open meadows (which are my favorite) and we saw lots of bison, deer, some elk, a coyote, and even a couple brown bears which were Josh’s favorite.  We had a good time.  And amazingly enough we made it home with all 5 of our children.  It was touch and go there at the end of our trip.  We almost had to throw someone out the window.

After arriving home from Yellowstone on Wednesday night we had another whirlwind few days getting ready for Bryce’s birthday party (he turned 10 on the 13th….10! Can you believe I have a child that old? I can’t) AND the decoration day for VBS which was the entirety of Saturday.  Saturday consisted of heading to church about 10 am, starting the process of decorating my classroom, leaving about 12:30, heading to Bryce’s party and then going back to church to finish up.  Thankfully, Josh went with me the second time to help me with the decorations.  He’s a lot taller than me.

Monday morning began the week of VBS, which is always a very full and busy week.  This is my third year of teaching the 5th grade and I still love it!  The week for me consists of getting up around 6-6:30 am, getting myself ready to go, waking up the children, getting them all dressed, fed and ready to go, loading them plus all my teaching materials for that day up in the car and leaving the house  by about 8 am.  VBS runs from 9am to 12:30 and is filled with 20 minute blocks.  Every 20 minutes we line up and go to a new place for a new activity.  I’m surprised that I didn’t lose weight from all the running I did from place to place that week.  We usually leave the church about 1-1:30 and get home around 2.  At which point  I have 5 tired, cranky children that I need to feed.  Then I have to decide what I’m going to do for the next day’s activity and what I’m going to make for dinner.  Then it’s clean up, kids in bed and us in bed and start all over in the morning.  This year though, was the best year ever!  Our class was huge- 32 kids on Wednesday.  I had so much fun with the kids and one girl even asked Jesus in her heart by the end of the week!!  So it was all totally worth it!

Well, that fairly “sums” up my last 3 weeks.  At this point, I am just so happy to be at home and not have anything urgent that needs done or any place that I need to be. 

I will do better in the next couple weeks at catching up on other posts that need written such as Bryce’s birthday, my garden and a couple of exciting announcements coming soon…so watch for that!

The rules for using coupons are the most important part of the whole coupon process.  You know the verse in the Bible that says, the Truth shall set you free?  It’s the same with coupons….only the Rules will set you free.  Sort of.  Okay, that’s a terrible illustration.  But.  When you know the rules of how to use coupons, there’s a confidence that comes along with that.  First of all, it opens your eyes to what the possibilities are and second, it helps you know that what you are doing is correct and so it takes away any possible guilt you might feel for getting things for free.  I’ve heard people say that sometimes they feel bad because they feel like they’re stealing from the store when they get things for free or super cheap.  And you’re NOT!  Nobody is losing any money when you use coupons.  In fact, when coupons are used and accepted appropriately, EVERYBODY wins as we learned in one of the earlier posts.  So…are you ready??

Rule #1: You may use a coupon for each item that you are buying.  “Per purchase” means PER ITEM.

This is the rule that changed my life forever.  Literally!  When you read the wording on a coupon it generally always (with some exceptions) states that you may use one coupon per purchase.  I always assumed that it meant per transaction…but it doesn’t.  Each item you buy is considered a purchase.  If you are purchasing 10 bottles of lotion, you may use a coupon for EACH bottle…so you may use 10 coupons.  And you can use them all in one transaction.  Isn’t that exciting??

Rule #2: You may usually use a $ off coupon for each item you are purchasing- Even on a free item.

Now- I have to say that this is a rule that is not always followed at the store depending on where you are shopping.  I know for a fact that Fred Meyer won’t let you do this… However- generally speaking, when a store is having a buy one get one free sale  you may use a $ off coupon for both items.  Because you are purchasing 2 items.  So you should be able to use 2 coupons.  Let’s do an example.  Say Albertsons is having a sale on All laundry soap.  The bottles sell for $6 and they are having a buy one get one free sale.  So you would pay $6 for the “first” bottle and get the second for free.  But, since you are purchasing 2 bottles, you may use 2 $1 off 1 bottle All coupons….which will take off $2 from your total.  Which means that you will pay $4 for 2 bottles instead of $6.

Now, here’s the tricky part- Like I said, not every store will do this.  Fred Meyer for example.  But I do know that Albertsons has recently changed it’s policy to include this issue and they say that you can do this as long as your coupons don’t exceed the value of the item you’re paying for.  So in our example above if you had 2 coupons for $4 off each bottle, that would mean that you’ve taken $8 off your total, which is higher than the $6 that you’ve paid for the first bottle.  Confused yet?

Rule #3: Stacking-  You may use a store coupon AND a manufacturer coupon for ONE item…but never 2 manufacturer coupons on the same item.

In my post about different types of coupons, remember how I talked about the difference between store and manufacturer coupons.  The beauty of these differences is that you can use them together!  So, if Rite Aid has a coupon in their ad for $1 off of a razor, and in the paper there is a manufacturer coupon for $2 off that same razor, you can buy 1 razor and get a total of $3 off.  Whoo Hoo!  But- you could not use 2 of the $2 off razor coupons for 1 item.  Nor could you use a manufacturer coupon for $2 and a different manufacturer coupon for $1 off  one 1 item.  Make sense?

Rule #4: You can usually use a Buy One Get One Free coupon with a Buy One Get One Free sale and get BOTH items free.

Did you get that??  Let me explain how this works.  If a store is offering a BOGO sale, the store is paying for one of your items.  Let’s say shampoo.  The store is paying for one of your bottles of Herbal Essence shampoo.  But if you have a manufacturer BOGO coupon for Herbal Essence shampoo, the manufacturer is paying for one of your bottles.  So, the store is paying for one and the manufacturer is paying for one.  When you take them both up on their offers at the same time, you get the item for free!  BOGO is my favorite!  To be honest, personally I have not tried this at any store except Rite Aid.  The Rite Aid coupon policy specifically states that you can do this…so I have felt confident enough to do this with the policy backing me up.  Other stores and/or checkers may interpret this differently and you may have to do a buy one get two free kind of thing.  But the reality is, this should work.

Rule #5: If you have a BOGO coupon OR a coupon that says buy X item and get Y item free, you may use that coupon AND a coupon for the first item.

A while back, Albertsons had a great promo on Ziploc bags…I won’t go into all of it, but here’s an example.  For each transaction let’s say I bought 2 boxes of ziploc bags, I used 1 BOGO coupon and 1 $.50 off coupon.  When you have a BOGO coupon, that coupon “sticks” to the second item that is “free”.  So the item that you are buying in order to get the free one can also have a coupon… remember, it’s one coupon per purchase.  You are purchasing 2 items, you can have 2 coupons.  This is also the case when you have a coupon that states something like, Buy Mission tortilla chips, get a dip for free.  The coupon is for the dip because it makes the dip free.  And if you have a coupon for $1 off of mission chips, you can use that as well.

This is a difficult coupon concept to both understand as well as for checkers to understand sometimes.  I had a particular instance at Albertsons where the checker was not going to let me do this.  I knew I was right and I (calmly and quietly) asked her to call a manager over to verify the situation.  It took some time to get it cleared up, but in the end I won because I was right.  =)

Rule #6: “Rolling the Cat”

“Cat” is short for catalina.  This rule is one of the ways you can get some of the best deals.  Like we learned in the last post, a catalina coupon is the coupon that prints after you pay for your transaction and certain items trigger the catalina to print.  So say the promo is that if you buy 4 boxes of Kellogs cereal you get a $4 off catalina coupon.  You can purchase 4 boxes of cereal (and use your manufacturer coupons), pay whatever $ for them and receive a $4 off coupon with your receipt.  Then you may go back and get another 4 boxes of cereal, use your manufacturer coupons AND the $4 off catalina coupon and get another $4 off coupon with your receipt.  You can do this over and over again.  Can you say, really cheap cereal??

Rule #7: Double coupons

I think I may have touched on this in my post about different coupons, but I’m blanking a bit on what I said.  But even if I already said it, it’s worth repeating.  Double coupons or “Twice the Value” coupons are put out by the store…the only stores that have them in our area are Safeway and Albertsons.  Safeway has them in every ad and they will double the amount of any manufacturer coupon up to $.50 up to 4 coupons per transaction.  Albertsons had double coupons that are generally only good from Sunday to Tuesday and will double the amount of any manufacturer coupon up to $1 and you can use 3 coupons per transaction.  A few things to note about double coupons:

*They are considered a store coupon.  So just like manufacturer coupons, you may only have 1 store coupon per item so you cannot use a double coupon and a store coupon on one item.

*Some coupons state “do not double” on the top.  What that is saying is that the manufacturer will not reimburse any more $ to the store than what is stated.  But it is up to the store whether or not to double that coupon.  Alberstons now will double coupons that say “do not double”.  Not certain about Safeway.

*At Albertsons if you have a coupon that is higher than $1, they will not double it.  They also will only double it up to the amount of the product.  So, if a product is $1.50 and you have a $1 off coupon and a double, they will only double up to $.50 so that you get the item for free.

*At Albertsons, the double coupons are each marked with a #1, #2 or #3.  Make sure that you do not cut them apart and accidently hand them 2 #3’s for example.  The register will beep and won’t take it.  For my own convenience, I do not cut them apart any more.

I could go on an on about double coupons as I have been doing a lot of researching on this subject in recent weeks.  But I’ll leave it at that for now.  I know that this post has a LOT of information in it.  If anyone has any specific questions, please leave a comment and I’ll either answer in the comment section, or if there’s a lot of questions, maybe do a question/answer post for my next one in the series.

“Life is not about waiting for the storms to pass…it’s about learning how to dance in the rain!”

While I’m talking about gardening, it seemed appropriate to mention some other areas that we’ve been working on.  This area here is a super ugly part of our house- but we’ve made it a little less ugly after working for several hours last weekend to get it swept, weeded and sprayed clean.  In a few weeks, hopefully it will look even less ugly  because after all the work we did, I c.r.a.m.m.e.d this dirt area with all kinds of flower seeds.  Tons of wildflower seeds, daisy seeds and some really cool orange flowers called Chinese Lanterns.  I can’t wait until they pop up!

This area here is by our storage shed come woodshed come chicken coop come woodshed again.  Whatever it is, and whatever you want to call it- it’s ugly. U.g.l.y.  Ugly.  I took out all the grass that was there and rototilled and then planted a couple rows of daisys there.  I’m hoping to replace a few of the sides that face the yard with lattice and have Morning Glories climbing up.  I’m hoping this will make it a little less ugly.

The girls have also been getting into gardening.  They are becoming super helpful by making use of their creativity and planting lots of sticks throughout the yard, as well as taking branches off of other plants and planting them.

This is the first year since we’ve lived here that our irisis actually bloomed.  I have threatened the girls with death to not touch my flowers.  These by some miracle seem to be the only flowers that are still attached to their stems.

The end part 2.  Now you all have a full account of every patch of dirt in our yard.  Aren’t you lucky?

Here’s a photo of the whole garden…what you won’t see from the close-up photos is in the front of all the markers, I planted herbs: Parsley, Basil, Oregano, and Thyme..and between each group of herbs I planted marigold seeds…both for a pop of color as well as they are supposed to be somewhat of a pest repellent.  We’ll see.

Just one row of onions.  I mean, how many onions can a family eat anyway?

And yeah…it looks like the potatoes haven’t been planted yet- because they haven’t.  I just realized last night that I could squeeze a couple more rows out of it and decided to do potatoes.  So what you see in this photo is really just dirt.  And the sign. =)

My favorite thing in the garden so far….they’re already getting flowers and everything.  Thankfully the rain hasn’t drowned them out yet.

The end.

All these photos were taken June 1.  I’m gonna try and take new photos every week or maybe every other week.  Maybe it will  help me to be better about weeding too!

The first thing that I want to point out-  what I do is called “Extreme Couponing”.  This not- I repeat NOT what you probably used to think using coupons meant.  Most of you (if you’re like me) probably think of using coupons as clipping the coupons from the paper of those items that your family would normally buy and then taking those coupons (if you can even remember) with you to the store and buying those items in order to get a little bit off the retail price and maybe ending up saving $10-$15 off your grocery bill….If you’re lucky.  This is not what we’re doing here.  Extreme couponing is an entirely different ball game!  The two goals that I teach in my class are as follows:

1. When you buy items with coupons, you goal should be to be paying less for that item than you would if you went to Grocery Outlet or Winco to do your shopping.  Otherwise, we’re just wasting our time, aren’t we?

2. When you are able to buy an item for 75% off of retail price OR MORE, you want to STOCKPILE that item…meaning buy as much as your family will need/use in the next weeks/months until the next sale.  This way you will NEVER have to pay full price for anything.  For example: Say Heinz Ketchup goes on sale for $1.00 and you have a $1 off one bottle of Heinz Ketchup coupon.  Do the math- that means FREE KETCHUP!  So, if ketchup goes on sale like this 2x per year, how many bottles of ketchup should you buy?  Well, if your family goes through 1 bottle per month, then you should buy at least 6 bottles in order to get you through to the next time that you can get it for free.  Make sense?

I know that scenario probably brings up a lot of questions…some of them may be answered in this post, some may not….but hang in there cause eventually I’ll answer them!

Before we jump into what just happened in that scenario, let’s first talk about the different types of coupons and what they do:

This photo is a picture of a manufacturer coupon.  A manufacturer coupon should be considered cash in your pocket.  They are put out my the manufacturer of the products and most commonly found in boo inside newspapers.  When a manufacturer coupon is used at a store, it is then sent back to the manufacturer and the store is reimbursed for the amount of the coupon plus an $.08 handling fee…which doesn’t sound like a lot, but it can really add up.  Therefore, the store is actually making MORE money when people use coupons than when people don’t.  =)  The reason that manufacturers put out coupons for their products is because they want to intice you to buy, try and like their products.  It’s a form of advertising and they WANT their coupons to be used.  Some important things to note about a manufacturer coupon are the words, “manufacturer coupon”, the expiration date (a general rule is that you may not use a coupon that has passed the expiration date) and the bar codes.  See how it has 2 sets of bar codes?  That is the biggest indicator that it is in fact a manufacturer coupon.

A second type of manufacturer coupon is an internet printable coupon.  These are coupons that you are able to print right from your computer from various coupon printing sources.  Usually you are able to print 2 coupons per computer and each coupon has it’s own set of numbers and bar codes.  Word of warning- DO NOT make copies of these coupons.  Since each coupon has a unique number on it, when the store sends in the coupons to be reimbursed, the same number will only be counted and reimbursed one time…so if the store has been given copies, they will not be reimbursed for those copies.  Which means that you have stolen from the store.  It is also illegal and coupon fraud…so don’t do it.  Friends don’t let friends photocopy coupons.  =)

Alright- This is a photo of a store coupon.  A store coupon is a coupon put out by the store and generally found in the weekly fliers that each store puts out.  The goal of the store putting out these coupons is that they are trying to get business in their store. (Duh) You can tell a store coupon by the expiration date (usually they are only good for one week), the store logo and the bar code.  You will notice the difference between this bar code and the manufacturer’s bar code.  On a store coupon, there is only ONE bar code.

Another type of store coupon is called a double coupon.  Or “doubles” or “doublers” or “twice the value” coupons.  The photo above is a picture of the double coupons from Albertsons.  Each store has a bit different rules when it comes to double coupons.  But the basic idea is that the store will double the amount of any manufacturer coupon up to a certain dollar amount.  Word to the wise- when using the double coupons, you may use only 3 double coupons (or 4 at safeway) per transaction.  At Albertsons, the coupons are numbered #1, #2 and #3.  If you are doubling 3 coupons at Albertsons, they must be a 1, 2 and 3 coupon….they will make a fuss if you try and use 2 #3 coupons for example.  I never cut mine apart now for this reason…it’s too easy to get them mixed up.

The final type of coupon that I will talk about are called catalina coupons, otherwise known as “cats”.  These coupons are the kind that come out of the machine and the cashier will hand you with your receipt.  There are certain types of promotions that go on throughout the year in different grocery (or other) stores that have a list of products that when you buy either a certain number or a certain dollar amount of those specific products, you will get a catalina coupon.  Sometimes a catalina coupon will look exactly like a manufacturer coupon…with a $ off a certain product.  But most of the time when you have these promotions in the store, when you buy those products, you will get a catalina coupon with a certain $ amount off of your next purchase.  And your next purchase could be anything in the store with a few exclusions!

So, now that you know what the different types of coupons are, here is a list of places that you are likely to find coupons.  And once you start training your eye to see them, you notice that they are EVERYWHERE!

Newspaper inserts

Online

Inside product packages- I can’t tell you how many times I’ve gotten something for really cheap or free and opened it to find more coupons inside!

In the mail

Back of receipts

In the store- There are ‘blinkies” (the little boxes that blink that spit out coupons located in aisles at the grocery store. “Tearpads” (also loacated in aisles, but they’re like a notepad and you tear the coupons off) Coupon booklets- found at either customer service or displays throughout the store. “Hang tags”- Just like it sounds, if the product has a neck, it might be wearing a necklace with a coupon. and “Peelies” – stuck on to a product in the store.  For these last two items, it is a very controversial subject as to whether or not you can remove that coupon without buying the product…some people think that it’s okay, others do not.  I would suggest that you do not…mostly because if you look at it from the other person’s point of view…it would be really frustrating to buy a product and not have the opportunity to use the coupon that was supposed to be there because someone was there before me taking off all the coupons…but that’s my opinion…It just doesn’t seem to follow the “Golden Rule” to me.

Magazines

Loaded on to your store loyality card

Ebay or other coupon clipping service-  Did you know that you can “buy” coupons on Ebay?  Technically, you are not buying the coupon, but paying for the person’s time to cut them and sort them and mail them to you.  This is an excellent way to be able to get a large amount of a coupon for stockpiling without having to buy 20 Sunday papers.  They are fairly inexpensive and I’ve “bought” coupons off of Ebay several times with great results!

Stay tuned for the next in the 101 series…the RULES.

Yesterday was quite a day.  I’ve just sat here staring at those words for a few minutes and wondering where to start.  I guess I’ll start at the beginning.

I woke up yesterday morning with the expectation that it was going to be a busy day.  It was Friday so the kids were all home (No school on Friday in Corbett). Plus I needed to go to the grocery store (with all 5 kids, which I generally try and avoid like the plague). Plus, we needed to go pick up milk (we buy raw milk and have to pick up every other week and it’s probably about a 2 hour round trip) Plus we were having company for dinner.  Let me just say that we LOVE having company for dinner. Love it. But of course, it makes extra work in trying to get the house looking presentable.  But it’s always totally worth it…which is why we keep doing it.  So, all that to say, it was going to be a packed and busy day.

When the girls came out of their room yesterday morning, Kynden wandered over to where Josh and I were holding her blanket.  She said something about there being blueberries on her blanket.  Which didn’t make any sense to me.  But Josh said, “oh no”.  He then explained to me that the night before (while I was gone) Adelynn had a hurting finger, which he tried to make feel better by getting some frozen blueberries out for her to hold on her finger.  And then he forgot about them being in their room.  The girls woke up and found the bag of not-frozen-anymore blueberries and then proceeded to smash and smear them all over their room.  All.over.their.room.  Josh offered for that to be his job after work, but I knew that there was not going to be any time for that after work…plus, I knew it would be harder to get the stains out after letting them sit and dry all day long.  I so wish I would have thought to take a picture of the destruction.  It was quite amazing.

I watched a little video online about how to remove blueberry stains.  It said to soak in vinegar, and then pour boiling water over the stain.  And then my favorite part at the end with the very good advice of, “And next time, try not to be so messy.”  Thank you blueberry-stain-removal man…I will try and work on that.  Well, the vinegar I could do, but the massive amount of blueberry covering such a large surface area…I knew there was no way to be able to do the boiling water treatment like they showed.  So I improvised.  I shook all the remaining blueberries from the bedding and put them in the bathtub and then poured vinegar on all the stains as best I could and let that soak for 10 minutes or so.  Then, I filled the bathtub with hot water (and added as much boiling as I could) and several scoops of oxiclean.  And let that soak for about an hour.  The water turned yellow.  I wasn’t sure if that was good or bad.  I then washed everything in hot water with tide plus clorox for colors.  Amazingly enough, all the stains came out!  However, this took up a good two hours of my morning.  At this point, I called to ask if we could pick up our milk on Saturday instead of Friday…thankfully she said that was fine.

While I was waiting for the laundry, I decided that it would be best if I could make my dessert for the evening before leaving.  I wanted to do a cheesecake and thanks to my stockpiling skills, I had everything I needed.  So I went to work on that.  And in order to turn my day  into a joke, I later decided to top the cheesecake with blueberries.  Yummy.  I actually had Josh and Bryce convinced that I had swept the blueberries off the floor of the girls’ room and didn’t want them to go to waste.  Ha!

So, during a moment when waiting for the cheesecake to bake, I was sitting at the computer and Ellyanna came to me and told me there was “big water in the bathroom”.  Sometimes my children say things to me and in that very moment,  the significance eludes me.  I didn’t think anything of it for several minutes until I was up and the bathroom door was closed and the sink water was running.  I opened the door.  No one was in there.  The sink was running full blast.  Water had filled the sink, was pouring over the counter and the e.n.t.i.r.e. bathroom floor was covered with an inch of water.  The girls, I presume, had poured oxiclean into the sink drain…which got wet, but not wet enough to disolve, but wet enough to make a cement in the sink drain and clog it.  And then they turned on the water.  Oiy.  The boys and I grabbed things to start bailing into the bathtub…we did as much as we could and then covered the whole floor in towels.  Aka: load of laundry #3 of the day.  Bad news:  The water incident took up another hour of my busy day.  Good news:  The bathroom got really clean.

After I spent an hour cleaning the bathroom, I closed the door and ordered the children to not enter that room upon penalty of death….or something like that.

At this point, I’m absolutely certain that there is just no way that I am going to get the house looking presentable AND get to the store AND get dinner ready in any sort of timely manner.  So I texted Josh and asked him if he could just come home and be done working after his last meeting.  Which he did.

To make a long story a little shorter, most everything got done…our house still looked a little more real than not real…aka: not perfect.  And I’m okay with that.  I used to call myself a frustrated perfectionist.  But not so much any more.  I think now I’m a perfectionist at heart…but my standards of perfectionism have gotten lower with every kid that has been added to our family.

There were a few things that happened as a result of the two main disasters that were kind of small things on their own, but definitely a part of the overall day.

*The oxiclean ruined the “finish” on my bathtub. (Don’t laugh…when we moved in, our bathtub was stained and the finish was totally worn off…I know you can have people come in and refinish…but I knew that would be expensive…and if we ever wanted to spend that kind of money on our bathroom, we would probably just get rid of the bathtub all together and get a new one.  So my genius idea was to scrub it down and spray paint it.. It’s actually been almost a year and has held up fairly well…but the paint did not react well to the oxiclean…so there’s another project for me down the road.)

*My cheesecake got over done because I was so busy cleaning the bathroom that I didn’t hear the timer.  Kinda bummed about that.  But it still tasted pretty good.

*I melted something plastic on one of the stove burners.

*I had to buy bread for dinner instead of making it…which literally didn’t digest well for me I think because I’m so unused to eating large amounts of white flour…my body didn’t know how to process it.  At least that’s my theory.

*I couldn’t put the girls in their room to play in the afternoon…which works for them like an afternoon nap…sort of decompresses them and gives them some time to play on their own without a lot of stimulation…anyway, the beds had been washed but I hadn’t had time to clean the floor, so there was no way I was going to let them loose in there with the blueberries.  So by the end of the evening, they were melting down…which after the day I had, was not a welcome event.  Not that it ever is…but I had less capacity for dealing with it.

But our story has a happy ending.  Our company came and we had a great time with them!  And there was alcohol with dinner.

The End.