Sigh.

We had a brief but nasty thunderstorm the other night, and my poor vegetable garden didn't weather it very well. My tomato plants, still in their wire cages, were flattened. I've propped them up and stabilized the cages with the help of some twine, but I don't know. I had to cut the cages off of two of them, and one plant is looking pretty wilted this morning. We'll see what happens - my fingers are crossed. There are a ton of little green tomatoes on the plants, and I'd like them to get the chance to ripen.

The peas aren't looking that great either. They're planted in a row, and over time, have grown and tangled themselves up with one another into sort of a snap pea hedge. The storm blew the "hedge" off of the netting that it was climbing, so it's all practically lying on the ground. I'm not quite sure what to do about that yet, but I have a few ideas. Again, my fingers are crossed.

The beans did okay, except that some of the tomato plants fell on them. I'm trying to keep them from being flattened as gigantic tomato plants flop around.

Umm.. Yeah.

So yeah. Hi. I'm back. Been back about a week... And I forgot to tell you something before I left! I made a website! WHEE!!!!! Guess what it's for. Saving VMK? Yup. If you go back to http://www.savevmk.com/ (Third link's the charm) My website link is on the UPDATES Column on the right. Or you can just use this link. http://www.freewebs.com/lizzy55707/But I'm still excited that about 25,000 PEOPLE GET TO SEE MY WEBSITE!!!!!!!!!!!!! Ok. Yeah. I don't think even our blog has that many viewers:) Umm, yeah, the blog has about... at last count... seven. Heh.

Already thinking about school supplies.

Holy cow, the kids go back to school in seven weeks. Whoa. It always shocks me how short the summer seems.

This means that in my house, it's time to start thinking about back to school stuff. You've probably figured out that I prefer to do things a little at a time, rather than put it off until I have to and get overwhelmed. That goes for big expenditures. And with three kids, school supplies turn into a big expenditure.

A few weeks ago, I got out the kids school supply lists for next year. We go grocery shopping every two weeks. Starting at the beginning of the June, I let each of the kids choose an item from their supply list. Thankfully, Wal Mart is thinking ahead too, and there is already one aisle devoted to trendy folders, notebooks, and stuff. Also thankfully, Justice is ahead of the game too - Elizabeth has her eye on a very cute bag there, that she just happens to need a new one of. I <3 Justice stores and their perpetual 20% off coupons.

School supply shopping is fun for the kids, with all the cool, colorful things that are available now. But if we do it all at once, we really have to scrimp and get plain everything to save money. When we do it a little at a time, it's easier to splurge a bit, AND it draws out the fun for the kids. Give it a try! It helps your wallet and your stress level, I promise.

K.I.S.S.

It's for Keep It Simple, *Sister*. Don't call me stupid, I can do that myself, thanks. [wink]

Back to the basics for me. Now that I'm home (Ooh, yeah - I'm Stay-At-Home-Mommying now!), I'd gotten all excited about having time to cook more, which I like to do. After a few weeks of fancy meals involving yummy delicacies that most adults would love, I finally got it through my thick skull that little tummies don't appreciate this stuff all that much.

So it's back to the basics for us: grilled cheese, spaghetti, tacos, fish sticks, that kind of thing. With the occasional battle over a chef salad when it's just too stinkin' hot to cook. I have very good intentions of purchasing and using this book. I got it from the library and read it, and it was REALLY good. But who know if I'll find time.

Anyway, I tend to do that in most facets of my life: Seriously over complicate things that are just no big deal. I'm slowly (SLOWLY. I'm so stubborn) learning to apply the KISS rule to more things. Let's see if the lesson sticks, or if I'll bury myself in lists and methods and intricate plans on how to simplify things!

Recovery and overdoing it.

So I get up in the morning and feel pretty good. Which leads me to believe that I'm all better and up for a full day. Then by noon I'm dead on my feet and spend the rest of the afternoon mostly asleep.

Sigh. The definition of insanity is...well, you know. And yet I keep doing the same thing day after day, and being all surprised when I'm exhausted.

Thank goodness that Kev is off work tomorrow and Friday.

Ow.

I had surgery last Friday morning, to take care of some minor complications from my hysterectomy back in 2005.

So pardon our quiet-ness lately. I'm tired and ouchy, Kev is extra busy taking over all of my regular responsibilities, and Elizabeth was at camp all last week.

Lots to tell, but none of us are really up to blogging right now.

We'll be back soon!

Quick cleanup

Kev mentioned before that I've been "doing a bang up job" of keeping things cleaned up around the house, since I'm home. So I thought I'd delve into that a bit, and tell him thanks for the kudos at the same time. Thanks honey!

See, the problem around here is one that I bet is pretty common. I tell the kids to go clean their rooms because they're a giant mess, right? So they walk into their rooms and see the giant mess, think "Woe, suffering, trauma, I can never get this mess tackled all by myself!". It's all downhill from there, with wailing and gnashing of teeth, and threats of punishment and garbage bags. No fun for anyone.

Then I think "Aw man, this house is a mess, I've gotta get it cleaned up." I stand up to get to work, and think "Woe, suffering, trauma...etc.". Yeah. There's slightly less outward wailing and gnashing, but it's still no fun.

So I tried a different approach. Now, I herd the whole family into the girls' room. Set the kitchen timer for five minutes. When the timer's going, everyone dives in and just picks up whatever they get their hands on. It doesn't matter if we get done, or if the room is perfect, we're just picking up for five minutes. When the timer beeps, we're done. Repeat for Alexander's room, then for the living room, then we stop.

That's it. Nobody has to pick up for more than 15 minutes, nobody gets overwhelmed, and I have some lovely cleaned off surfaces for dusting and vacuuming. There's also 110% less wailing and gnashing, which is always a bonus. You'd be amazed at how much you can get done in 5 minutes. Since there are five of us, each room gets almost a half hour's worth of cleaning every time we do this. It makes a huge difference.

Everyone in the family can do this - even the littlest ones can put toys back in their place.

One extra tip. I found it helps to put myself in the position of "supervisor/organizer/mayhem controller" during these sessions. I plant myself in the middle of the room and grab up armloads of toys, calling out things like "Alexander, Lincoln Logs! Catherine, Polly Pocket! Elizabeth, scrap paper!". The kids run to me, recieve their item, put it away and come back. It prevents a lot of "Mooom! I was gonna put that away, and she grabbed it!" and people crashing into one another.

We've found this to be a lot of fun. The kids turn it into a race against the clock, laughing and running back and forth, and it's not overwhelming because it's such a short amount of time.

Try it, enjoy.