Getting that tree up

Just thought I would get a few pics posted I will write about them later. The dog's name is Baxter and he was in the mood to pose so my son took his picture

Rantings from a frustrated infertile woman

I am going to post about my feelings today rather than bargains. It is very hard to understand why I can't get pregnant I mean I have one child. I also got pregnant with another one. I was not trying to even get pregnant with the child we lost so why now when we want it so bad am I unable to get pregnant?
I have read about so many women who are not even able to have one child. Should I just be happy that I have the one and go on with life? I mean he is 81/2 they would be so far apart in age. Yet this desire is still there. I wake up with it, I go to sleep with it, I tell it to go away, and it does not leave. It is almost like a hunger that eats you up inside. I really wanted a child before I had my son. I never imagined that I would still want another so badly. Secondary infertility is more common than many people think. The thing is that the feeling to have another child is not less when you actually have one.
Perhaps that is why I want another so bad. I adore my son I never thought parenthood would be so wonderful. He is an interesting, intelligent, and all around great kid. Who would not want another one? I also know that my husband is such a great father. He love our son, who is actually his stepson, my husband adores him and they do all the father and son things together. One of the things I know is that we could have 5,6,7,8 of our own kids and it would never change the love he has for Lars. That means so much to me.
This is going to be a hard week because I am in the two weeks wait they call it. The between ovulation and when you would find out if you were pregnant. So of course I will find out Christmas Eve if I am. The hard thing is that I am not going to be. I don't have the symptoms I have had before. If I think hard enough my body starts to feel them though. Oh yes I am a little tired. Oh my stomach is a little upset. I think that is what hard those whole two weeks I am constantly searching my body for hidden signs I may actually be pregnant.
I will not allow my disappointment to keep from having a great Christmas with my family or to take away from the true meaning of Christmas.
So now you have the rantings from a frustrated, infertile woman.
On a side note we got the tree put up last night and it looks great. I will try to post pictures of it tomorrow.

One great way to save

One of the ways I save a ton of money is this great method I started when my son was quite small. He was always in the same size as his age. If he was 4 he was in 4t. That is at least after the 1st year, he was smaller than his size then and it took a while to catch up. But after that it was pretty predicatable. This was especially the case with his shirts. So I do not normally buy for the current size or season. As soon as it hits Feburary I will begin to shop for his clothes for next winter. I will buy a size 9 or 10 since he is currently wearing an 8. I am able to buy many of his clothes that way. I do not normally shop at thirft stores for him because I am able to get his clothes even cheaper brand new. Last year I found Rebox Addidas and Nike hoddies for $4-6. I ask the sales person to leave the hanger on and I stick them in the back of the closet till it is time for him to wear them. I like this way of doing it. The only problem is that I cannot find jeans this way. I look but very rarley find them on sale. The other problem is that if I buy them used the knees are gone in like a week. I hate to see him wear them after that. So this works mainly for the shirts and when he was younger it worked for outfits. I have no idea if this will work for you but I love it and it has suited us well.
I also often update my clothes this way, but I just don't need as many. I wish it worked for my husband and to some degree it does, but with his job he wears t-shirts all year around so I am always buying them. I just thought I would share one of our frugal ideas.
I hope you are having a Merry CHRISTmas

Today's Bargain

I am so happy about the great deal I got to day. I love Flylady's calendar, but we are trying to use the money we have for Christmas so I had not gotten mine. Today I popped into Half Price books and there was a great similar calendar for less than $6. It has the big spaces to write daily appointments, and the stickers that give you a visual reminder of what is going on that day. Now, I still like Flylady's a bit better, but this is going to suit our needs quite well and a great bargain. I love that place.

Super Savings Saturday

Well I got all of the above deals for a grand total of $ .11 Yes that is right 11 cents is what I paid for these things. Even better I did not even have to use and ECB's This is what I did:
I bought one pack of Energizer Max batteries on sale for $ 5.99
One canister of cookies for $2.50
One special marked bottle of Johnson Baby Wash $4.29
One bottle Garnier Conditioner $3.33
Total was 14.90
My total was off because the baby wash had a different price on the bottle. The cashier rang it up for the price on the bottle.
These are the coupons I used
One $5 off $15
One $5 off one package Batteries
One $2 off Johnson Baby product
One $1 off Johnson Wash product (Sunday insert)
One $1 off batteries (on the package)
Many of the coupons were emailed to me by CVS the others I found on http://forums.slickdeals.net/ and http://www.moneysavingmom.com/
This brought my total down to $0.11 I was thrilled about this because I went in to make a photo album but I had not saved the pictures right. So I just picked the good deals. The conditioner I just needed and the cookies brought my total up I could have searched for something to give me some more ECB's but DH was waiting in the car. I was very surprised when it did print out a $1 ECB since I had not gotten that one on purpose. CVS is so fun!

More of Getting it Done

Well today was pretty good with working on making my home a haven. especially since I still have plenty of time, but I have all ready got one load of laundry done, did my routine, and then worked very hard in the kitchen. Just since 2 P.M. All I have left in the kitchen is the table and all the things on it are sorted just to be put where they go. We have such a small house and so much stuff. While we are all on Christmas break I plan to sort and get rid of a ton of things. I can't wait. Until then I will focus on small parts of the house I can put in order. How fun I love it when the results are starting to show.
While I was working in the kitchen today I was trying to fit a few more food items into the cabinet. I was struggling to get it all in there in a decent order. While I was doing this i remembered what my son had to say this morning. He was telling me that there was a food drive a his school. I said "Yes, I saw the paper on it. Would you like to send something in?" He said "Well, do we have enough food to send and still have some?" I had to chuckle I then asked him if it ever felt as if we did not have enough food. He said "Well sometimes just before dinner I am so hungry I feel like we do not." I had to laugh I reminded him that there is always plenty of fresh fruit on the counter and that right now there are at least three different kinds to choose from and he can always have them.
I know that we have tons of food. I realise that this is just him expressing that he would like to have a junky snack before dinner. What I wonder though is how does this come across at school. "We just don't have enough food for us so we can't give any away." I think his teacher knows us well enough to know different I just wonder at times.
We are in the crazy search for a Wii but alas it seems there are none to be had. I should have thought about this earlier in the year. It is funny that Christmas comes each year and yet it seems to sneak up on me as if it was a new thing. I hope I learn soon. :)

My home a haven?

After some time of trying to figure out exactly what to blog about I have decided on somewhat of a focus. At this time I am trying to really make our house a home. We are also trying to live a more simple and frugal life style. To motivate myself I will share my progress and struggles here. But let me tell you a little about my situation.
I work each weekday morning at a school. I love my job. I am able to be done a noon each day so my main focus is still our home, this is really what I want to do I want to be a homemaker. I love my job though and want to find a way that these two things can be complementary.
One of the great things about my job is that I am able to take my son to his school each day and drop him off. We get to spend that focused time together each day and I don't miss any out of school time with him. I am also home by the time my husband gets home at 3. So in ways I have the best of both worlds.

Now I am focusing on making our home a very pleasant place to be in. One of the blogs I read is www.biblicalwomanhoodonline.com/blog.htm. There Crystal is challenging people to create a haven in their own home. This is what I am going to work on. Today I created a routine for when I first get home. I then attacked my kitchen and worked on picking up around the house. I also was able to spend sometime in prayer and plan dinner. I hope that tomorrow I am able to get a little more done. Today my husband was home sick and I had to run errands. Also things were slightly crazy around here since we had gone to relatives yesterday and had kind of dropped things when we came in. So today was a lot of picking up after the weekend. I hope that tomorrow I can really tear into things.
I also stopped and did some of the CVS deals for this week. I love it when I can go in and buy things we need spend only $1 out of pocket and get $10 back to spend later! :)