One Pouring Cup Isn't Always Enough

     I am a wife, mother of 3 (that I homeschool), owner of 3 furry pets who shed a lot, volunteer for my husband’s job, volunteer for my church, and roughly 4 months ago became a caregiver to an elderly relative who now lives with us. All in all I consider myself a rather strong and resilient person who can handle a large amount of stress and responsibility. But sometimes I, like many of you, overdo it several days in a row. Sometimes I think I can do entirely more than I should. It’s not that I can’t handle it, I’m just going to pay a large price for it later.

Have I Told You Lately That I Love...

 My Instant Pot

     Our family moves a lot! Actually we've moved 9 times in 12 years and because of this we have a fairly strict 1 in 1 out policy when it comes to kitchen items and linens. My husband would most likely tell you this policy applies to the entire house but... I digress.

Play the Hand of Cards You Have

     About three weeks ago my mother-in-law passed away suddenly. While it was unexpected it also somewhat wasn't as her health had been declining for some time. The kids and I were already back home when it happened but my husband was not. He put in for emergency leave and was on a flight out within about 14 hours. There have been a lot of changes in all of our lives in the past three weeks. I think one of the best things I was told the following day was conveyed to me by my grandmother as conveyed by her sister-in-law. That is you play the hand of cards you have. You can't look back to previous hands or hands you could have received. You can't change what is, even when you want to. You simply pickup and deal with what is.

Just ask your kids, they'll tell you!

     We have been back home for a little over a week but had family staying with us last week and then I was diagnosed with bronchitis. This tends to happen about 50% of the time when my allergies get out of control or I get an upper respiratory infection; asthma is no joke people. Basically my lungs overreact (right now it's ragweed and wild fire smoke). I remember being a teenager and asking Dr. Tom "if I was going to outgrow this would we have seen signs by now" and being completely crushed when he said yes. At this point in my life it's just normal and that can be a bit of an issue. This past January I ignored it too long and ended up with walking pneumonia. I seriously thought I had a good grip on my asthma and not realizing how sick I was shook me. Needless to say I went to the doctor this time as soon as I realized it was starting to move into my chest and we were able to catch it early.

     You know there are a lot of other things in life like this. Things we think we have under-control but they slip up on us. Things

Travel Tips

This past week my 100 year old great-grandmother went home to be with the Lord and we had a wonderful funeral/celebration of her life. While her age would make you assume we were expecting this (and we kind of were) I still wasn't logistically ready. I mean, with kids it takes me an entire day to get home from where we currently live. And to really amp things up we got a puppy a few months ago and he was added to my car full. So off I drove across several states with 3 kids and a puppy. Some people might call me crazy, I'm fine with that! Her funeral was just 3 days after her passing which gave me only 1.5 days to pack/get the house ready for me to leave and 1 day to drive. Here are a few of my tips for traveling in the car with younger children.

Pantry Challenge Summary and Possible Upcoming Freezer Meal Session

     Last week my pantry challenge ended and while I did make some exceptions I actually feel pretty happy with how it went. Most importantly I noticed a large decrease in my grocery budget for those weeks. I feel like I didn't make as big of a dent in my pantry as my husband probably would have liked but by the end we were all done! We actually caved with about 2 nights left and ordered Chinese food after I had spent hours reorganizing/cleaning the girls rooms before playing room switch-a-rooney. I was PCS (a military move) tired, was ordering Chinese food, and didn't care. Thankfully my husband is pretty supportive and I'm sure his love of Chinese food didn't hurt my cause.

Mid-Week 2 Grocery Pick-Up

Mid-Week Grocery Pick-Up 

We were out of a few things we needed (toilet paper for one) and I needed to grab a few things for my kids' rooms at church. There is no picture because my youngest broke my phone/camera over the weekend. I'm only listing the actual groceries I purchased and not the few household items I also bought. I purchased all of this from Wal-Mart Grocery Pick-Up on Monday.

24 pack Coke Zero (exception)

Tomatoes

Cottage Cheese

Coffee Creamer

Italian Dressing (exception)

Feta Cheese

Flour Tortillas (fajita size)

Sandwich Bread

Cantaloupe

Grocery Total Before Tax $25.74

Week 2 Pantry Challenge Grocery Haul & Meal Plan

 I am a few days late getting this on here but I picked up my groceries at the beginning of my meal plan. I'm most likely going to need more tomatoes before my Thursday trip and will either pick them up Monday or have my husband get them on the way home from work. I also almost caved and ordered Chinese food after our garage sale Saturday but pulled it together and made a real pantry challenge dinner. The meal plan you see at the end is the same meals as my original but was re-organized to accommodate our crazy weekend (with the exception of the potato soup I simply removed). I chose to re-write it as I didn't think you'd want to see the arrows all over the original.

Meal Plan & Grocery Haul (Pantry Challenge Week 1)

Just a little housekeeping first... 

• My meal plan begins with Friday because I grocery shop on Thursdays; I dated the left hand column to help with any confusion. Sometimes I will switch meals around depending on how the day is going or any surprises that come up. 

Pantry Challenge May 2017

We are going to kick off being back to blogging with a pantry challenge beginning with tomorrow's grocery haul. We are very blessed with a large pantry in this new house and my husband would tell you that I have taken advantage of it's space.

My Currently Messy Pantry

April 2017 Update

Happy Monday All,
     If you look around the blog you will notice that the planners are gone. What started as a desire to simply fill a missing part of the planner market shortly stopped being a missing part of the market. When Syd's Sensible Solutions decided to stop selling planners all things Syd's Sensible Solutions stopped. We have been through a lot of changes since you heard from me last. My husband is still in the Army but I gained a nephew, we moved, my husband went to school for a year, he was promoted, we bought a house/moved again, and shortly after arriving my husband was gone for work for several months. He's been back home for two months and I finally feel I'm at a place where I can come back to the blog. You can expect to see a variety of thoughts on homemaking, attempting to be frugal, meal prep/planning, homeschooling, Army wife life, PCSing (an Army move), Change of Command, and some Jesus drawing everything together. Stay and read if it blesses you and have a wonderful day if it doesn't!

Thanks!
Syd