Nooks and Crannies

I had such a productive day yesterday! Wednesdays are sort of turning into my "get the house really clean" days. I don't know why exactly, other than it isn't Monday and we don't have Summer Splash to go to. The kitchen is nice and sparkly, the living room is all put together-I even got all the nooks and crannies.  Usually it is the kids job to clean the living room because usually it is the kids that have made the mess.  The problem is that the kids are blind to about half the stuff they leave in the living room. Flip-flops, papers from church, metal balls from magnetix (that no one has played with in forever-so WHY do they keep turning up???), friendship bracelets, doll shoes, pony tail holders, origami...it all finds its way into the nooks and crannies of my living room. As of yesterday I also realized it finds its way behind the table that has the turtle tank on it.  Much easier to put it back there than put it away, right?? They also think putting it on the coffee table equals cleaning it up.  All of that stuff got cleaned out (and tossed-muahhahhahhaa), and the WHOLE living room got vacuumed-not just that area in the middle. I got the little edge thinga-ma-jigger and went along the edges and everything. I just want to sit in here and stare at it and dare a kid to put anything down. (Can I just stop here for a second and say that "vacuumed" is one of the most awkward looking words ever?-I swear I spellchecked it).
I also organized a couple of  deals using coupons in which we would get free ketchup and free cat litter yesterday. (By organizing I mean I read on a website "print this coupon and go to this store and you will get this-those are my mad organizing skillz).  It would have been free publix brand cat litter and free publix ketchup.  The people at publix knew NOTHING about these deals. Now I got this off of iheartpublix.com.  Obviously, these people love publix. They want to promote publix. They are not going to sabotage publix by putting up fake deals and sending you to the store to pick them up, only to be frustrated.  So-there WAS a deal. Maybe it wasn't supposed to start until today. That is entirely possible, though our ad starts on Wednesday from my understanding.  But, wouldn't you think, that the manager would know about the deal a day ahead of time? Even if he can't GIVE you the deal, wouldn't he be able to say "I'm sorry, that deal doesn't start until tomorrow" so that you feel justified-so that you don't feel like a crazy loon? My theory? The manager of publix is a crazy loon. (the phenix city publix, btw). However, we DID get some Five Alive, which is one of our favorite breakfast drinks that we can't get at Winn Dixie, so it wasn't a total loss.
After dinner I noticed, as I was cleaning up, that the floor was sticky. I blamed Daniel and the Five Alive-definitely not me and the cough syrup. It was time to mop anyway, so I gave the floor a good mopping. Problem solved.  This morning, I got up to get myself a nice cold glass of Five Alive and write to you fine people, and the SAME SPOT was STILL STICKY! I think these cats are having Five Alive/cough syrup parties in the middle of the night. Ahh well.
Today is going to be a beautiful day :)

Just another manic Monday.....or not.

Today goes down in history as the day the Legacy of Ladonia Cookbook was submitted for publishing!! I realized last night that today was the 27th, and I had to have everything to Morris Press by the 30th.  I went into PANIC mode.  This morning I hit the ground running to finish it up.  My alternate cookbook person, Marlana, and I were texting back and forth all morning while I got the forms filled out.  We had decided the first page would be a dedication page, with a picture of the original church building.  The next two pages would be the church history, and the last a poem. I went to the church website and looked at the church history.  It was...well..dry. All the facts were there, yes, but..it just needed something.  Marlana called Mrs. Eula Ridley and Mrs. Doris Davis, and they met me up at the church. They have been members at LBC for forever.  They told me so many cool little interesting things to add to the history. It was like spreading a layer of strawberry preserves over dry toast!
Shortly after lunch the cookbook was all submitted-the rest of the day was pretty much useless. We all laid around, watched TV and did nothing. It's nice every once in a while, but I am looking forward to a busy day of cleaning and cooking tomorrow because I didn't do it today. And that's good too :)

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Mondays will blindside you.

I was kind of interested to see what today would bring-after all since the whole premise is that Mondays are more interesting than other days, whether good or bad, I was hoping today would have SOMETHING go on to write about. It did.

I had a coworker named Mrs. Rajan when I was teaching.  She found out just before school let out at the end of May that she had stage 4 cancer.  Mrs. Rajan passed away this morning.

Mrs. Rajan wasn't someone who sugar coated things. She wasn't one who was afraid to ask a question when she wasn't sure about something and she wasn't one who was afraid to share information either.  She was generous.

There won't be a funeral for Lalita Rajan.  She was Hindu, and they don't do that.  Tomorrow she will be cremated.  Next year there will be a new teacher in her room, teaching her students.

But on this day-I remember her.

Daddy

"Any man can be a father, but it takes someone special to be a Daddy." 

On Sunday, our church is having a special Father's Day breakfast to honor the men in our life. Our Ladies of Ladonia group (LOL) will be arriving very early to make sausage, eggs, biscuits, gravy..the whole works, to honor them. Bethany is SO excited about this. She is planning to be up at the church with me early Sunday morning to help. For her Daddy. Not only are we honoring all the Dads in our life at this breakfast, we are honoring the young men too.  Any male 13 and over is invited. Why? Because they will be Daddies one day, and the men in our church are starting the process of showing them how to do it in a Godly way.  As the mother of a teenage boy, I really love that. (He does too, but I think it has more to do with the sausage than the mentoring).

I am blessed to have two men in my life that I want to say "Happy Father's Day" to on Sunday, my husband and my father. I love and respect them both so much. I imagine that this blog will be full of references to Daniel, and I certainly am not slighting him, but today I am going to talk about my father. Tommy Smith is kind, funny, genuine, and dependable. He is quiet with a dry humor. He had our respect from birth. I remember a time when I was in church and I started laughing. You know church laughing? You just can't stop and EVERYTHING makes it worse? It was that kind of laughing. I was about 12 or so I guess.  I was laughing and laughing-the whole pew shaking. My mother kept whispering "shh!" "Emily!" "hush" and that was like pouring lighter fluid on a fire. I suppose my daddy had finally gotten enough, and leaned forward so he could look at me past my mother. Nothing was funny after that. That is all it took. His look.  Yet, this is the same man that, when I was told by my mama that I couldn't have any homemade ice cream for dessert because I had not eaten my veggies, wordlessly fed me spoons of it from his own cup. He saved all of his quarters from his pocket change for me when I was in college so I could do my laundry. (This may have had more to do with his desire for me to not bring my laundry home than any kind gesture on his part.) But the thing I will always remember most is something I wasn't even there to see.  My mother told me about Daddy visiting his father, my granddaddy, in the nursing home. Daddy went everyday. EVERYday. Granddaddy loved grapes, so Mama and Daddy and the people in the church kept him supplied with fruit and anything else they thought he might like.  As his visit with Granddaddy was winding down, he handed Daddy a dried up stem from his grapes.  He had been a wonderful gardener in his day, but part of his health issues had caused him to not think as clearly as he once did. He told Daddy, "now you take this home and stick it in your flower bed, and it'll grow." Daddy responded, "Yes, Sir" and took the grape stem.  When they got home he got out of the car and walked over to the flower bed. Mama said "What are you doing? That isn't going to grow."  He replied, "I know it, but tomorrow he will ask me if I did it, and I won't lie to him."   That is the respect he had for his father.  He is an amazing example to me. I pray I can honor him as much as he honored his father.

 Happy Father's Day, Daddy! I love you! -Brat.

Sick Days

Stay at home moms don't get sick days, huh?

Yesterday Daniel and I helped some sweet, sweet friends of ours move. We helped them move once before in the middle of an Alabama summer, and told them we would help them move again if they needed it, but never again in summer. Well guess what?  But, they are the kind of people that come and cut your grass for you while you're out of town at your mom's funeral. So when they ask for help, we're gonna be there if we can.

We got there yesterday morning to start helping and got home last night around midnight. You know that whole "I'm so tired I can't sleep" thing? I don't know who thought that up, but its a stupid concept and they should be flogged. Thankfully though, I wasn't asleep because my poor boy who started out he week with pink eye, then moved on to a sore throat/fever, came and knocked on my door around 4:00 this morning because he had an earache. Bless his heart, his Monday has lasted all week! I finally drifted off at some point after that.

Bethany had a girl scout trip today, so I set my alarm to get up for that-when I got up my head was pounding and my joints were telling me "we hate you." I knew I wasn't going ice skating and to Build A Bear with the girl scouts, but I still had to get Bethany there. She stood out in the cold wind freezing her tootsies off to sell cookies to go on this trip. Thankfully, the part of the girl scout law that says "be a sister to every girlscout" shone through and they came and picked her up.

 Daniel left for a meeting (looking not so spry himself)  and I went back to bed.  Now here is the "sick days" part.  When I called to to work, work kept going on, whether I was there or not. School happened. I just didn't have to MAKE it happen. I could lay in bed and know that it was taken care of. Here's the thing though. There are still dishes in the sink, and they don't look like they are going anywhere any time soon. There are still clothes to be washed.  There is still food to be prepared, because even though we feel like we've been hit by trucks, our stomachs are fine. The church cookbook stuff is mocking me from the corner.  No sick days. We need a union.  I need a substitute!
Thankfully though, no one here seems to care that the dishes are in the sink and they'll get taken care of soon enough. Daniel has already indicated that he'll be cooking dinner, and we all have enough clean clothes to last until tomorrow. All the recipes are in for the cookbook, and just a little more to do and several days to do it.  So I guess I get a sick day after all! :)

Couponing-oh my gosh!

Of course I have heard of couponing. I have seen pictures posted on Facebook of tons of stuff with the caption  "I got this all for $2.50," and thought, "great for them!"  I have heard my sister Amy talk about using coupons and stacking coupons and she sends me coupons in the mail for stuff she thinks I can use. (And I do appreciate it-so much-but truthfully, with some exceptions,  they have often wound up sitting in the envelope forever.) I know about TV shows that show "extreme couponing"-but I haven't watched them. I have heard my friend Alli talk about how she was getting a hang of the coupon system at Publix and saving a lot of money. I vaguely remember something about her getting some tortilla chips for a penny once and thinking that was a great deal.

And then-my eyes were opened. Tuesday night at our Ladies of Ladonia (LOL) meeting, I saw the light. Melanie Walker (AKA "The Coupon Lady") had been invited to talk to us about coupons. She began by giving all praise and glory to God. She talked about how God had enabled her, through the use of coupons, to provide groceries for two other families who were going through difficult situations-but her own family was in transition between jobs and wouldn't have a paycheck for a month!
She told us how she can spend $50 a week to feed her family of six. SIX! And they are eating healthy stuff-fresh produce, juice, etc-not Ramen noodles and bologna.  We spend over twice that to get Ramen noodles and bologna!! (it feels like it-not really-I really hate ramen noodles. *Shudder*) She gets her cleaning products-everything!
She began to break down exactly how things worked at different stores in the area: Publix, Target, CVS, and Walgreens.  I was so excited! I left there KNOWING that I can do this-not only that I CAN do this but the reason I can is through God's grace! I was so excited, so I called Alli on my way home from the LOL meeting. Alli, who took that awesome picture of the flowers to the right, was out taking more pictures. Dean was home.  He (amazingly!) was not interested in talking about coupons with me. Oh well, my glow was not diminished.  I never shop at any of those stores. BUT I have decided that if I play my cards coupons right, the trip into town will be worth the gas. I need to do some planning first,(and to look through that envelope of coupons Amy sent me again) but soon, Wednesdays will be my shopping days. It used to be my mop the floor day. I guess I will have to pass that chore on to someone else. Darn it!! ;)

Here are some links that Melanie Walker shared with us. You may find them useful also:
Southern Savers

i heart publix
Once Upon a Coupon

476 Mondays

Is it ACTUALLY 476 Mondays until Bethany is 18? no. That would involve more math effort than I was willing to put forth just to come up with a catchy title for my blog. Besides in a week it won't be accurate anyway-and I had clothes to fold. Ok, and an old episode of Lost to watch. But you get the idea.
Why Monday? Because Mondays are always interesting-whether good or bad, they are usually never boring. Take this past Monday for example.  Things were going along so well. I got the kitchen all nice and sparkly, the laundry was just about caught up from the weekend, dinner was on the stove. Within 30 minutes of each other Curt and Bethany both come in, him with pink eye and her with a 102 temp and a sore throat. Mondays like to blind side you. Thankfully, the boy's pink eye has improved somewhat(used teabags-seriously! who'da thunk it!).  Unfortunately, Bethany also shared the love and he now has a sore throat and fever on top of the pink eye-poor guy.I'm just hoping he doesn't share pink eye with the rest of us. In the mean time, I'm holding on to all the used tea bags. If we're gonna need them, it will probably be on Monday!