A year in review

In 2013 we are going to continue to work on paying off our debt, living within our means, and learning how to live frugally.

This last year we:

• Learned how to cook beans.
• Started buying a lot of thrift store items.
• Finished some sewing projects.
• Paid off debt allowing us to afford braces for two of the kids.
• Cash flowed college classes for two oldest girls.
• Cash flowed our home school supplies (after switching to homeschool for all the kids).
• De-cluttered our home making it more organized and peaceful.

In 2013 I want to continue all of the things we have worked on in 2012 and learn how to live more frugally paying off all our debt as quickly as possible and being able to pay for our kids missions and weddings.
I also want to lose 30 pounds.

I am so grateful for the experiences my kids have had this year. Carrie was able to take 2 classes at the community college, and she did really good. Katie took 5 classes and she did really good too. This year we have had so many amazing experiences here in Show Low.  I am so grateful for a Loving Heavenly Father who brought us here and enabled us to be here and to make some wonderful friends and do some great things.

We don't know how long we will live here. There is a good chance that we will be here at least one more year, but we are willing to see how things turn out. So grateful for a Loving Heavenly Father who knows more than we know about what we need.

Christmas this year was so nice. We worked really hard to get the kids gifts that they will like and take care of. I think we did a good job. There are a couple of gifts that we got that I think we could have went without, but overall I think we did a good job. Again, I am so grateful for good friends and family who helped to make this a great Christmas.

My son's Eagle project has four major parts and three of them are completed. The final part involves locating children who are in need to the clothes that he has collected and getting the clothes to them. It could actually be the most difficult part, but at least he is almost done.
I am so grateful for so much help and love from friends who have helped and supported us.

It Came and Went

How many times are we so busy that something comes and goes and we miss it completely. I had been looking forward to 12-12-12 for a while. I had no particular reason, I just thought it was cool. I wanted to be able to write it at least once on the actual day and think, that is so cool. Yesterday evening one of my kids mentioned it was 12-12-12. What, it had come, and now it was almost over. I still had a lot to do that evening and I didn't enjoy my "date." That is okay, but I ask myself, how many other things come and go and I am so busy that I don't take the time to ponder and reflect and enjoy the date.

Eco Nuts

I am washing my laundry with Eco Nuts for the first time today. I am happy to report that with the first load the wash smells clean and nice. Eco Nuts are actually soap berries and have been around for a very long time, but I didn't know about them until recently. I am excited to see how they come out of the dryer. I am not suposed to need dryer sheets.

Victories come in all sizes

My daughter called me and told me her father and I needed to go out on a date because he wasn't doing too well. I came home and my dear sweet husband of 18 years was definitely stressed. He made an odd request and asked me to rearrange the bedroom/office. Wow, I just don't hear that very often. I am pretty sure it was a cry for help. He needed a change in his work space. So the two of us dug in and de-cluttered, organized, shredded papers and made some major progress in his work space. I don't think that he will have any less stress Monday morning, but it feels like a victory tonight. And tonight I will take a victory no matter what the size.

I have just come down with the flu for the third time this winter. Since my kids are homeschooled I think that I probably pick up most of my germs from the grocery store. I am sick and tired of being sick and tired, so now I have more motivation to limit my trips to the grocery store. Blah!!!!

Today while reading one of my favorite blogs I set a new goal for myself. My new goal is to limit my trips to the grocery store to twice a week for the next month and if I can to reduce that down to once a week for the month of January.
By reducing my trips to the store, I can reduce impulse spending and will try to make my trips more planned, hopefully reducing our spending even more.
This is a gradual change that I feel is very important.

I just did the math for the first time tonight. I realized that my second daughter who wants to go on a mission was now going to be able to go two years earlier, but I didn't realize that was just 3 years away. Financially that means I have to make some hard decisions, but I am sure that it will all work out.

I can't close the lid on my trash can, and I still have another full day before the trash is dumped this week. We have been working hard to de-clutter our home, but I thought we had already made so much progress over the past few weeks that there was no way we would fill the trash this week. I guess I have a lot more to do than I originally thought I had. It has been a year long process and we are still working on it. I have been trying to simplify my life, and it is not as easy as I thought it would be. Howeve,r I am happier as I see the changes taking place.

A friend of my suggested studying the words of Isiah. I started to read it tonight. I understand why this is so important now. There is so much in his words that teachs us the importants of humility and repentance.
A really great website that can help us understand the words of Isiah is:
http://www.isaiahexplained.com/

Okay, so I found a picture of me on the internet. Honestly, this is me. This is my current personal struggle. I really hope that I can have the self-discipline to make the changes in my life that need to happen so that I can be healthier.

Two awesome sayings my sister shared with me:

Gratitude turns what we have into enough.

My favorite thing about my home is who I share it with.

Today is cleaning day. We are missing one of my daughters college textbooks, so as a result we are cleaning and de-cluttering. I just love it when I can walk into a room or space and it is cleaned, organized, and de-cluttered.

Later that day:
Didn't find the book yet, but we found 5 other items that were missing.

I am so happy that the last cooking goal I had was a success. In the process I learned a few things. Most important, it is too hot to cook the beans during the day, so this next time I am going to soak the beans during the day and cook them at night. Today I set a new goal with beans. This time I am going to try to cook baked beans from scratch. I am going to use the recipe found here.
Additionally, I decided it was time to learn how to add a link to my posts on my blog, and as you can see I learned how to do it and implemented it.
Also, I am gaining weight, and that is never a good thing, especially since I was hoping to lose weight. So my third goal for right now is to put in place a gym membership for me and my husband and possibly my daughter so that we can work out together.

Successfully cooked black beans from dry beans. That was my goal this week and I am so excited I was able to do it and that they tasted great. You can find the recipe here.
(beans in photo are not the beans I cooked)

Today my 7 year old son said, "Mom, can you cheer me." He was working on his math, and when I asked for more clarification he told me that he was going "too slow" and asked again if I could cheer for him. I love homeschool.

My goal for this week is to learn to cook some beans. I want to successfully cook a pot of beans from soaking them to a meal.

I don't "love" all of my trials and I really don't want to go through more (even though I am pretty sure that is part of the earthly package), but I want to acknowledge how very grateful I am for the many things I have learned through my trials and the blessings we have received through out trials. I can testify with Alma that the Lord had made our burndens light that we were able to bear them and at times we didn't even feel them upon our backs.

I do, however, LOVE the temple and I am incredibly thankful that we have one so close to us (about 25 min. away). Having one so close has made it possible for us to make the temple part of our lives. When I gave birth to Bridger I wasn't sure when I would be able to go again, but we are finding a way to keep this wonderful blessing part of our life. I believe that even if I can't make it there as often as I would like to go that others in my family can go and we can continue to be blessed by our temple attendance and continue to receive the blessings and promptings that come with lifes trials as we attend that sacred institution. I also want to mention one more thing here. I love the General Patron Assistance Fund. I am amazed at the faith of members of the church who sacrifice so much (sometimes for years) so that they can receive the sacred ordinances in the temple. And yet I am grateful that there is a way members of the church can attend for the first time quicker. Because of this program even if you give just a little, it can make a huge difference.

I love to see the temple. I'm going there someday. To feel the holy spirit. To listen and to pray.

My heart is full of gratitude tonight as I think of all the many blessing that I have been given from a loving Father in Heaven who loves me despite all my struggles and mistakes. I am so very grateful for the Atonement and the Plan of Salvation. I am so very thankful for my family and I hope and pray that as I go forward I can have the strength I need to put the tempations of this world behind me and stay on the path the leads to the fruit on the tree of life.

I have tried so hard to teach my oldest daughter everything she needs to know to be able to start a family of her own, go to college, and live on a budget. I walked her through her first two semesters of College and have started her into her third. She has 31 college credits and will have 46 at the end of the semester. I don't however know what she is going to do. Will she transfer to another school to finish. Will she stay at this school and finish. Is is time to get a job, start a family, or do something else all together. After a lot of prayer I finally received the answer that it is her turn to pray and learn what her next step is. I love her so much and I want her to be happy and make the best choice, but right now I don't know what that choice is. It is finally her turn to receive the inspiration.

I just love to homeschool. Today we have finished math, learned about reptiles, read Dr. Seuss, studied how grems are spread and reproduce, and it isn't even lunch yet.

I would love to make this my next project. I wonder if we could make it happen, what it would take, how much it would cost.

After a couple months of struggling with some "issues" with our budget, we are finally back on track. Now we are going to finally start a new program in our home this month.
How it works:
We have a set amount each day that we work with for our meals. If we get under that amount we get to put the extra cash (cash only for this project) aside for either bulk items or for family fun activities. This is because we don't actually have family fun activities in the current budget. Everyone in the family gets to help plan our spending for our meals. We will try it for a couple of weeks and then make changes as needed.

I am so grateful that no matter what happens tomorrow, I had today with my family.

I miss my husband so much. He does everything he can to provide for the family and very often that means picking up extra jobs. I find that I have to ride with him to and from some meetings just to have some time to talk to him. Ho Hum.

I am enjoying a few minutes of quiet as my four oldest are at scouts and Young Women's activities, my next four are watching Pete's dragon for the first time and loving it, and my baby is sleeping. I am so thankful for some cute clean movies that my family can enjoy.

I also love that the kids earned the movie by working hard to get their school work done.

What movies do you like?

I was paid a huge compliment from a teenage daughter today. She said that she realized that I am going to be very influential in the raising of her children as she will use so much of what she learns from me with her children. What a "huge" compliment she gave me. I love her so much and I am thankful to have her say such a wonderful thing about how she sees me as a mother.

Also, I want to say that I appreciate my husband sooooo much. There are so many times when I get to remind myself that he saves our family so much money. He will take old computers that people are getting rid of and take the good parts out and rebuild our old computers over and over and over again. Sometimes having so many "extra" parts drives me nuts, but over the years we have managed to work out where and how to store the extra parts. Plus, I try to remember that he saves us a lot of money, and we usually have more computers than our friends, and we don't pay a dime for them. Thank you hubby. You are awesome!!!

Finally, I want to thank my friend for teaching me how important it is to shop at thrift stores to save my family money. Just this month alone we were able to buy a lot of needed things for our family for pennies on the dollar by buying used at the thrift store. In addition she saved our family a lot more money by offering us used clothes from her own family. How very grateful I am for so much love and support from a friend who does all she can to help our family.

I do want to mention that I actually have been blessed with many great friends who support and love our family and a wonderful sister who is extremely supportive of me.

I am super excited about Family Game Night Tonight. It has been so long since we have had a family game night. I am going to try some new things too with the little ones so they can have fun while the big kids get to play. I think I would like to set up a slumber party area for them. Plus we need to have popcorn for everyone.

When I am pulled in a dozen directions at once, I try to smile and enjoy the moment. How very grateful I am that I have this time with my children. I just love having them home with me for their schooling.

Sometimes we all have days that we try to prepare for, but at the end of the day after all is said and done, we just couldn't deal with everything and we just feel a little overwhelmed.

Over the past few years I have probably watched 1 PG-13 movie that I thought was appropriate for 13 year old children and myself. Today as I read from Teachings of George Albert Smith I was challenged to "stay on the Lord's side of the Line." I realize that if I am to do so I must be a lot more careful in the media that I watch and allow to come into my home.
My new committment is to strengthen my home and myself by making sure that the media that comes into our home lives by the standards that the Lord would have us keep.
In this way I hope to have more balance in my home as I keep the commandments of God and have the blessing of the prompting of the Holy Ghost.

You can't have everything. Where would you put it?

I can only work on paying down my loan once a month. I can work on staying in my food budget every day, but I have also decided to work on a few other areas that will help make a difference. Yesterday I started cleaning out and organizing my closet/storage room. I realize that there are so many small areas that I can make a big impact. My focus is to get things put away, spaces organized, and surfaces cleaned off. Then I feel better, and everyone in my home feels better.
My goal is to carefully evaluate the things that we have in our home. I hope to organize the things we use, get rid of the things that we don't need or use, and find a good way to organize and store the things that we will probably use but aren't currently using.

I want to pay our loans off in 3 years (not 4) but we are going to need some miracles. I have been incredibly blessed over the past 18 years and I am sure that if we set our sights high we can accomplish great things. So if you see that I am posting that we will accomplish the goal in 3 years, its because I believe that if I believe I have a much better chance of hitting my goal.
In addition I would like to set goals for myself that I can focus on. It feels so good to set a goal and accomplish it, and since my financial goal is so very far away I want to work on other goals to keep things fun and interesting. So my next goal is to read a book. The Soft Reply by Barlow L. Packer.
So excited to be reading this book and working on a goal.

I have decided to be a lot more aggressive towards getting rid of our debt. My new goal is December 2016. I actually don't have all the details worked out for actually making it happen. However, I have worked out some of the details, and I am optimistic that during this journey Heavenly Father will help us reach our goal. Especially if I do my part along the way.  So very excited.

A while ago I posted:
We subscribe to the Dave Ramsey way of thinking and as we talk to a person here or there we find out that we really are weird. We are trying really hard to pay off all of our debt and live debt free. It seems like a good idea to us and it even corresponds with the teachings of the LDS church. We love the idea of being debt free. We have managed to pay off a lot of debt and we are currently working on the student loans that we have procrastinated for so long. Needless to say we beg our kids to realize that you don't need student loans to go to college, there is a better way. They seem to be listening. We sure do love them.

Richard leaves on his mission in 6 years and we are determined to get them paid in 6 years. I know if we are dedicated, we can do it, even if it means being weird for 6 years.

Since then we have not made any progress on our student loans, but I have determined that I am going to set money into savings every month even if we have to spend it. I am determined to be obedient to the counsel to set aside money for emergencies. Yesterday our car wouldn't start. It ended up being a car battery. The cost was $100. How grateful I was to have money in savings to pay for it.

Changing Education Paradigm

Baby Tucker

On memorial day we had a new addition arrive.

Spring Break

We were really hoping that we would be able to go camping some place close for spring break, since we do live in Arizona. However being in the mountains, you just can't plan too far ahead. However, we were blessed with good weather and got away for a quick camp out about an hour away from the house here in the forest.

Geocaching

We took the kids geocaching today. We told the little one we were looking for treasure boxes. They loved the treasures in the boxes. Orapun actually got nail polish in on the the boxes and thought she had struck gold. It was fun. At one point Dad said kids stay next to me, and Orapun turned around and said, "stay next to you." Then she promptly walked over to him and held his hand and walked with him. She is so cute.

Spring break

I am so excited for Spring Break! Hope we get to do some geo caching and hiking.

A walk on the rim

A look out at the rim

Michael

Leilani

Orapun

James and Michael

Lee and Michael

There is a path here that is half paved and half dirt. It is on the rim and you look out over a valley of trees. It is a beautiful fun and simple hike.