Finally some sort of normalcy

So after two months I am finally feeling like I'm getting back to some sort of normalcy. I am now homeschooling both the girls. It's definitely been a rewarding experience albeit a challenging one. I am glad that I made the decision. It's taken me this long to get into a routine with it, but I finally feel like I have control of things around here.

Since I've got things running smoothly finally, I am purging my sewing room for the start of a new prosperous year and trying to make some Christmas money to boot.  Check out my listings on ebay. If you are on Facebook with me then you should check out the Custom Boutique Resell Group for some of my samples as well as some of the wonderful creations of my friends. I am slowly but surely listing off anything I no longer need or samples that have been just laying around. Check them out!

Homeschooling......ahhhh, where to start?

So since I've posted last, we finally decided it was time to actually homeschool our 13 year old. Our 10 old will likely follow next fall.

Today I am working on lesson plans and getting everything organized and ready to go with the start of next week. I am a little nervous but very excited to do this for my daughter. I think she will thrive in this enviroment and do very well. I am a little overwhelmed but my mind is over-flowing with ideas and things to teach her. I will likely be back with tips and resources for home-schooling Moms.

Wish me luck!

Our newest addition!

We lost our beloved Peanut in February. She had been our dog for 12 years and she is sorely misssed. We didn't want to replace her but we have had a longing to give our love to another puppy. A few weeks ago I finally gave in and allowed the search to begin for a new pet. Here is the newest addition to our family. His name is Max. He's almost a year old and we think he's the cutest the thing you ever did see. What do you think?

Help Angel Win Studio Time

Friday, September 10, 2010


Info for the Bench Studios Contest

The videos are up and the contest has begun. There is some great talent represented there. Check it out.



Here's the link to the fan page: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Monroe-NC/the-Bench-Studios/102283916477977



Angel's video is on either page 4 or page 7 depending on the format style you are using to browse the videos. Here's the link directing to it: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Monroe-NC/the-Bench-Studios/102283916477977#!/video/video.php?v=447310481848



Please vote for her and help her win studio time so she can record one of her original songs!



She posted a brand new video today talking about the contest and also sang a couple sneak peeks to some songs she working on including a brand new original she's working on. Make sure to check it out.

So sad

One of our good friends, Tom, lost his house in a house fire yesterday. Thankfully everyone is safe and no one was in the house at the time. We are sad for the loss of his home, security and of course belongings though. Here's some scary after pictures of the house.

 

Some great sites I found with sewing tutorials

I've been researching sewing sites for sewing tips and easy to follow tutorials for my sewing curriculum I am currently creating. I plan to start giving sewing lessons to local children in the near future.

Anyhow, along the way I am coming across some great sites. Even though they may not be what I am looking for I thought they might be interesting for some of you to check out.

http://sewing.about.com/od/adultclothingprojects/ss/jeanskirt.htm

http://www.allcrafts.net/f.asp?url=thimbleanna.com/tutorials/GoofyBagsHowTo.html

http://www.snazzorama.com/yetta/bag-tutorial.pdf

I'll post some more tomorrow as I am researching things.

Win a $10 iTunes giftccard

We just keep on trucking along and continue to promote Angel and get her name out there. The latest is a Facebook fan page. With over 500 subscribers on youtube and 106,000 total views it was time to branch out a bit.

Click here to check out her page: Facebook Fan Page for Angel

There are a few ways you can help us out with this.

1. You can like her Fan page
2. Share her facebook fan page
3. Suggest friends for her facebook fan page
4. You can put up a link to her blog.
5. Follow her blog (http://angelmariecur.blogspot.com/2010/07/win-10-itunes-gift-card.html)
6. You can embed one of her videos from youtube on your facebook page and encourage others to like it and subscribe to her AngelMarieCur's YouTube
7. And of course don't forget to subscribe to her videos on youtube yourself.

So I am going to do a contest to get this going. I want her facebook page to reach 100 fans and to increase her youtube subscribers to 1000 (Diane, thanks for the great idea).

Directions: Comment on this blog post, with a comment for each of the suggestions listed above. I will enter your name in a drawing one time for each comment that you post after I verify that you have completed the suggestion. Make sure to give me your youtube user name and links to your facebook page. You can email me privately as well if you don't feel comfortable posting that information publicly. Sewrtess@aol.com That is 7 possible entries into the contest. The prize will be a $10 itunes gift card.

**Note: your wall on facebook must be public for me to confirm that you shared and embedded the video.

Contest starts today on 7/15 and ends on midnight on July 30th

Check out Amada Photography

My best friend is a great photographer and she's been building her resume for some time. Recently she is working on starting a Bereavement Photograpy site. Check out her recent blog.

Amada Photography


You can also check out her fan page on Facebook. She's got some incredible pictures up. She specializes in candid pictures.

Amada Photography Facebook Fan Page


Well worth your time to check out both.

My Issabug is 13!

My lovely middle child just had her 13th birthday last week. We haven't celebrated just yet. We were taking her sister to camp on the day but we did take her out to dinner and then to a Ghost walk in Nashville. That was cool. She will have her big party this weekend.

To celebrate and show her off a bit I wanted to share some pictures that she has taken recently. I think there's a talent there. Enjoy!

Happy 4th of July

I hope everyone has a great day and takes the time to enjoy family and friends. Make sure to say a prayer of thanks for all of our freedoms and those that fought to give it to us.  We are off to church and to a family cookout.  Love these days we just hang out with family!!

Comment and tell me how you are spending your fourth.

Saving Money Rocks!

I am sure that most of us would agree with that statement, but often we get too caught up with day to day activities to spend the time it might take to find the best value. Or maybe it's impatience. For me it's a little of both. I am a DOer. Once I make my mind up that I want something I have a hard time waiting. However, Patience is a virtue and I am slowly but surely learning to be patient, scope out the deals, research the store circulars, look for coupons and coupon codes and save money doing it.

Since I starting couponing and looking for better deals I have not come upon even one area of my life that I cannot find a coupon or sale or some tip to save money. I have heard every excuse in the book for not couponing from people. The best are "Coupons usually only get you $0.25 off, you are just not saving that much money", and "You probably don't save as much money as your time is worth", and of course the best, "I just don't have time to coupon." This week I blog with the intention of busting all those myths in a 3 part series.

Part 1:

My Mom has always taught me the value of money and used the old adage "A penny saved is a penny earned." One penny saved here, a penny there, really can add up over time. The same principle applies to coupons. If you clip coupons and watch store circulars then you can save a quarter on 10 different items plus the savings from shopping sales and before you know it you have saved upwards of $5 on one trip to the grocery store. Over a month that adds up to more than $20 and over the course of a year that is over $240, and that is a conservative figure. I know that I save much more than that with one trip to the grocery store. When you add in all the other places I can save with couponing the savings really becomes tangible.

Here’s an example of some random things that I saved money on this month. This is not at all a complete list.

Season Passes to the Amusement Park: found an online coupon code that saved $15 per pass. That brought our family cost down from $400 to $325 for a total savings of $75

Reservations for a Hotel: shopped the discount sites for the best deal and found a 4 star hotel that normally cost about $150 a night and booked our room for $68 for the night. That’s more than 50% in savings.

Father’s Day Gifts: Took advantage of the great deals at Restaurant.com for gift certificates and gift cards. Used their online discount code as well and bought $55 worth of gift certificates for only $6.50 (savings of $48.50.)

Free Pizza: I entered a contest on the Coupondivas.com site and won coupons for 2 free Red Baron pizzas. That’s about $8 in savings.

Movies: chose the discount theatre on their special discount day. Their already discounted prices of $2 a person is $0.75 a person and then we took advantage of their Movie Meal pack and each kid had Popcorn and a drink for only $2.50 each. That totals $3.25 a person for the movie, popcorn and a drink as opposed to the standard movie ticket which is between $5 and $10 depending on theatre, time of day, age of movie goers and does not include refreshments. That’s a savings between $21.25-46.50 not including refreshments for my family of five.
Random coupons found this month in various places:

• Coupon for a prescription we use that saved us $20 on our regular co-pay of $30
• Coupon for a fast food place that gave us a price of $3.99 a combo up to 4 people no matter what combo they chose.
• Coupon for a local hair salon and got my son’s hair cut for $5.99 versus the regular price of $8.99


In total that is more than $250 in savings in June. That is the conservative figures for savings and that doesn’t even include my savings on groceries and or household supplies. It really does add up!

I love this letter written by another local Pastor to our Pastor, Pastor Steven Furtick of Elevation church.  We (the Elevators) had the honor of hearing Pastor Martin preach this weekend. Great Service! Here's the link to the letter, it's definitely a must read. - http://pastorjonathanmartin.com/uncategorized/letter-to-steven-furtick

I love CouponDivas!

I use the coupondivas website and youtube videos all the time when I want a great explanation of how to save or how to coupon at a particular store.  This particular video is really cute. She's giving you another great tip on finding coupons in the CVS store. Recently I won some coupons on the site for FREE Red Baron pizzas! She also has free printable coupons on the website. You really should check out Kitty's site at http://coupondivas.com//   Check it out!

Teach me how to give Grace

I was recently in a position where I was becoming bitter and unforgiving with someone that had in the past been a good friend.  I found myself feeling slighted, unappreciated, and even judgemental about the mistakes that person had recently made.  I felt like my feelings and actions were justified because of that person's mistakes.
Then another friend simply pointed out that I seemed too quick to be offended by anything and everything that happened even when it probably wasn't intended that way in the first place. I started praying about the situation and this is what I realized.
God gives us grace no matter what our mistakes. He died on the cross for our every sin, giving us Grace and Mercy for even the crimes we have yet to commit. I realized that only our own actions and guilt hold us back because he's given us a never-ending Grace and forgiveness and that I must strive to be more like him. I must learn to give Grace to others and love them through their mistakes. Grace is not earned or rewarded for good behavior. In fact it is given in spite of bad behavior. So this weeks prayer I am praying is for the Lord to teach me how to give Grace to others and show them how to be more like Jesus.

Your Thoughts Define Me

May we call on our Father Lord in Heaven to find out who we are instead of looking to this messed up, twisted world to tell us who we are.

Taken from this blog:
http://jonathanhelser.blogspot.com/2010/05/your-thoughts-define-me.html

"Without any words she ran and stopped in front of me wearing the new dress she had picked out. This was one of those moments when time also seemed to stop in front of me. As she stood still and time stood still, I realized it was one of the greatest moments I would ever have as a Father. She was waiting to be defined by my voice. Her little heart was like clay waiting on my thoughts to shape her. So with everything inside me I looked deep inside her and said "Haven you look more beautiful right now that you have in your whole life."

Everyday for the next week Haven would put on her new dress and come find me. No matter what I was doing she would pause before me and wait for my voice to tell her again that she was beautiful. It was like her little heart was saying over and over to me "do it again daddy.... tell me who I am."

Identity is discovered through the voice we listen to. We have all been created to be defined by a Fathers voice. Every girl is made to hear those words, "You are beautiful" and every boy is designed to hear the words "well done." My words over Haven are but a shadow of the radiant thoughts that the Father in heaven has for her. Until we each have an encounter with our Father in heaven like my daughter had with me, we will spend our lives broken in search of our identity.

The Father is sitting in His favorite chair, just waiting on us to burst into his presence and say "Daddy, do it again, tell me who I am." "

What a week!

This last week of school for the kids is turning into a very hectic one.  Exams, Poetry Showcases, field days etc, all are keeping us busy. Now to add to things we've had a death in the family. My Great Aunt lost her battle with cancer and has left us. We will be traveling this week for the memorial as soon as the kids get through school. It's been a long day and I just expect more of the same as the week wears on. Keep the family in your prayers as we get through this week. I may not post much with all we have going on but will try to get back to it as soon as I can.

It's Thursday already!

This week has went by really fast. I guess it's due to the extended weekend with the holiday. Can't wait for this weekend to hang out with the family!

It's rained all week so it's been wet and we've had storms every night. But on a positive note my garden is growing like weeds. It won't be long and I'll have more produce then I know what to do with. I picked my first two strawberries this morning and I've already gotten a couple servings of green beans and spinach recently. Can't wait for all my tomatoes to come in!

I've been updating Angel's blog recently as well. I realized that she had been too busy to update since December so I am trying to keep up with things until school lets out. Then she should have the time to keep up with it herself at least over the summer.

Recently I have been feeling the pull to get more organized and focused. There are so many things I would like to do with my life and things I'd like to accomplish. I think at 34 it is time that I quit waiting on it to happen to me and I get out there and make it happen. So I will likely be posting on topics like organization, and goals, along with my normal posts about my family and Angel's accomplishments. One of the things I want to really start getting more focused on is Angel's charity organization, Angel of Melody, so you will hear about that too. And of course I still have plans to post on gardening and saving money with coupons. So all these plans should keep me busy posting for a while! See you soon!

I got a new camera for Christmas this year.  Photography has always been one of my hobbies and I finally got around to taking some pictures of my daughter and one of her friends to try my luck at headshots and a couple candids. Check these out and tell me what you think.

This was my niece walking with Angel and her friend.  Turned out really cute.

I thought this was neat. I know a lot of people are not a fan of feet, but I thought the shot was really cool.

Angel and her friend could pass for sisters. And I love how the picture turned out.

This one was kind of cool with the special effects.

And my favorite with my beautiful daughter!

Restaurant.com coupon code, get a $25 GC for only $2

Check out Restaurant.com for the Memorial Day weekend special. Now through 5/31 purchase a $25 gift certificate for only $2.  Just enter the promo code FLAG and then hit Apply. Just a great deal. And you can purchase them as gifts and hold them until you are ready to decide what restaurant you want to go to then send them to yourself.  

Here is some of the restaurants participating in our area:

Stool Pigeons Coop & Grill
Villa Antonio
Boneheads Grilled Fish & Piri Piri Chicken
Phil And Tony's Brick Oven Pizza
Fuel Pizza
Mucci's Italian Bistro
Genaro's Rotisserie

and many more.  The gift certificates are well worth what you are paying for them. My family and I tried Genaro's a few weeks ago. The food was to die for and we had no issues using our gift certificate. If you like trying some of the little privately owned places in the area then this would be a great opportunity for you. Check it out!

 

Couponing and Saving Money

I plan to go further in depth in these topics, but I wanted to just get you started by telling you the sites that I am currently using at home myself.

Here is my favorite site with coupon tutorials, printable coupons, and she even breaks it down and lists the best deals by store and tells you the best way to purchase the items. I would definitely check out her tutorials on cvs extra care bucks and walgreens register rewards.

http://www.coupondivas.com/


This site sells gift certificates (i.e. GC) for local restaurants at a discount ( usually $25 GC for $10) and they send out email newsletters with coupon codes for even better deals. The last three I bought I got for $2 each. ( $75 worth of GC for only $6) We used one at Genarro's and had no problems. The current coupon code gets you an additional 80% off their already low gift certificate prices (code: FLAG good through Monday 5/31)

http://www.restaurant.com/


This site we found out about when we went to the Joseph Sangle Financial Workshop at Elevation. This guy actually has two sites. Both are good with lots of tips on how to save money.

http://groceryfreak.com/couponing-101/
http://www.savingfreak.com/

While you are at it, make sure to check out Joseph Sangl's website and tools for budgeting and getting out of debt. His system is very similar to Dave Ramsey's but he offers all his online tools for free.

http://www.josephsangl.com/

And I am still here. Just never get on HERE! But I have been itching to write more so I am compiling a list of blog topics I plan to write on. I plan to start with my recent couponing endeavor. It's become an obsession of mine and I can't believe all the money I've saved recently or the free stuff I've scored. So watch for those blog entries!

I'm still here!

Still here, chugging along. Life keeps moving, ever changing. The kids are growing. Angel turned 15, is in driver's ed, probably going to get her permit here very soon. Alyssa has turned into a young woman before my eyes. She's actually taller than Angel now. Patrick is doing well in school and continues to teach me patience, lol. We are still attending Elevation and loving it. Life is challenging from time to time but God is good and I am enjoying my kids growing while I can!

Critisicm: Our Dis-Ease

I am borrowing some things (including my title for this post) from a website I recently checked out, http://lcsmithphd.com/Criticism.html. 

I have been thinking and praying about how I handle my children and how I speak to them. I worry about how my actions will affect them in the long run.  I have thought long and hard and I keep coming to the same conclusion.  No one feels good when you criticise them incestantly and offer no positive praise in it's place or along with constructive criticism.  According to Lawrence C. Smith Criticism is the vehicle for imposing our beliefs on others thus perpetuating the Dilemma of Mankind.  There is so much truth to this statement.  Everything that we read in the paper, see on the news, reality shows,  and so many other places is all about criticism.  We think we have the right to criticize celebrities, politicians, entertainers.  We criticize our children's teachers, our bosses and even our family and friends.  No one is safe from our righteous judgement.  And it's all so negative and self-serving.  Think about it...why do we criticise?  I believe the reason is to make us feel better about our selves.

So if this is all true, then what are we doing to our children by constantly criticizing them instead of offering positive praise to teach them how to behave?  While I have been praying about this recently I came across a bible verse that spoke to me about how I  treat my children.  "And you, fathers, do not provoke your children to wrath, but bring them up in the training and admonition of the Lord" (Eph. 6:4). This verse is better explained at this website  http://www.bible.ca/ef/expository-ephesians-6-4.htm.

So think twice next time you start to raise your voice at your children or voice your unwanted opinion about a person's choices.   Is that person open to receiving your constructive criticism? Is your reason for giving your opinion actually productive or self-serving? Will your children learn what you wanted them to learn or are they learning to be mean and spiteful?  A friend once told me that if I am getting emotional and raising my voice at my kids then I am losing control....then of course the kids are going to say things they shouldn't.  And the children losing control doesn't excuse me losing control.  So make a habit of staying calm and being clear about the consequences.  Then when everyone's calmer you can discuss what happened and what shouldn't have happened.