Finding Christmas Money in a Tight Budget

We have lived on a tight budget for years. However, this year the budget is much tighter because of the costs associated with providing our daughter, Goldilocks, with mental health boarding home care. Our monthly co-pay after insurance is a fourth of our income. Last year I tried to supplement our grocery bill by eating out of our freezer to clear up Christmas money. While I saw the value of my plan, I hadn't thought of it soon enough to really stockpile. This summer I realized that, if we were going to have Christmas and extra heating bill money, I was needed to half our grocery bill each week from mid-November to Christmas. So, I made a real effort to add one extra thing to the freezer and one extra food item to the pantry each week. We will see how I did.

Week One ~ I spent $90 on groceries to start this week. I usually spend about $180. I hope that I do not need to buy anything more. Our groceries include food and household products. This week I needed a new mop head which set me back $4.70. I also am in charge of providing snack for Lego Club this month. I am feeding the 20+ kids a 3 oz. cup of Whole Grain Goldfish and a 3 oz. cup of grapes. We try to eat as organically as possible, and all of our meat is cage free and as grain free as possible. We eat very little organic dairy.

Menu Plan ~ 

Dinner

• Homemade chicken pot pie
• Chicken drumsticks with rice and salad
• Spaghetti with meatballs and peas
• Colcannon with diced ham and peas
• Pancakes with sausage and oranges
• Baked potato bar

Lunch

• Leftovers a few times
• Homemade bread and fruit salad
• Nut and veggie platter
• Cream cheese and cucumber sandwiches
• Banana bread with oranges and nuts

Breakfast

• Waffles with apples
• Oatmeal with apples
• Homemade pancakes with oranges
• Smoothies (frozen fruit and Greek yogurt) and toast
• French  toast with oranges

The only things I took from the freezer was a can of orange juice and a bag of smile potatoes which will supplement the kids' luxury liquids when they get bored of tea and cashew milk. We drink water with most meals and snacks.

Here is what our freezer looks like on November 17.

Right side of Freezer

Left side and top trays

If I don't need to spend any more grocery money this week, we will have saved $90. That money will pay some of the donation shipping cost on our Operation Christmas Child boxes and offset the cost of an emergency repair our furnace needed this weekend. The rest of the money for the furnace repair will come from switching cars with my husband this week. He drives much less than me and had almost a full tank of gas. 

Blessings, Dawn

Week 15 ~ Where Did the Last Five Weeks Go?

We are done with our third five week unit. I can't believe we have finished another five weeks! This past unit seemed to fly by extra quickly. I imagine the next five weeks will be even faster, since they will end on the doorstep of Christmas. We had our Show and Tell presentation for unit three last night. I am a bit deflated by it. The kids seemed confused about the material and just completely off their game. They did not make this homeschool mom particularly proud. However, I know one night is not a full reflection of the work we are accomplishing day in and day out.

Tom Sawyer has been "off" all week due to Halloween candy (which, for the kids' well being, now has been discarded). I thought I had given him enough supplements to counteract letting him have candy a few times, but I obviously over did it. He has been one red, hives covered, tearful, ADHD mess. I hope we will have him detoxed by the end of the weekend. I sure am looking forward to a week off to rethink a few things and get our holiday schooling off to a successful start.

Operation Christmas Child ~ It is almost collection time again. The dates for collection are November 17 - 24. Since next week is our week off and we have lots of plans, I decided to do our boxes now. We had almost no budget for Operation Christmas Child this year. We collected items year round for this event so we already had some things. I really need to make every dollar squeal this holiday season, but I don't want that fact to take away from our charity work. I have a friend who has worked at the sorting center for years, and she told me that used was okay as long as it was in excellent condition. I decided to go with that theory this year.

Little Red Riding Hood made lots of crafts at the Arts for Life table (at the hospital) this year. We took the ones that could become toys and used them for our boxes.

We also are ready to give away our Brio. Many of the trains were chipped and I was not able to resell them on Ebay. So the kids painted them with non toxic paint (acrylic) to make them safe and like new to send. We also had a large bag of Lego blocks that had been donated to us which we used in the boxes, and the hard candy came from their bags of Halloween candy.

We joined together with our favorite twins and put together seven boxes for Operation Christmas Child and two boxes for Meals on Wheels. We purchased cups, pencils, paper, toothpaste, soap, tooth brushes, and wash cloths from the dollar store. The total cost to us was $16.

Our Show and Tell Night ~ As I stated earlier, the kids were not their best for this event. Tom Sawyer struggled with the writing of his report (in fact, Grandma typed and wrote a lot of it). They struggled to keep all of the details of the Civil Rights Movement straight and just seemed at times like deer caught in headlights. However, they got through it. For dinner, we had a traditional African-American soul food meal. We made 7-Up Cake (substituting organic lemon-lime soda), flavorful green beans, oven-fried fish, and mac and cheese.

Tom Sawyer's Physical Therapy ~ On a positive note, Tom Sawyer has stopped complaining about the mechanics of writing during the last few weeks. There have been almost no tears, and he is writing his dictations much more quickly. He has had many years of occupational therapy to help with his handwriting, but it has done almost nothing. Tom Sawyer has cerebral palsy, and his new physical therapist has stated that his core is so weak that she can't figure out why he hasn't been confined to a wheelchair. Having a weak core affects everything, including one's ability to write. So this new physical therapist has started working to strengthen his core. Now Tom Sawyer does daily core strengthening exercises, and it is reflected in his improved ability to write. Thank goodness for progress!!

Blessings, Dawn

First Day of November 2014

Snow on the first day of November in North Carolina!

Took a short trip to the library.

Tom Sawyer settled down with a new library book.

Dishes, laundry, and floor mopping -- they all happened.

Little Red Riding Hood moved the furniture around in her room again!

A movie for me while folding a mountain of laundry.

Week 14 ~ Halloween School

We had a fun week with a Halloween twist to our school time. We did the 3R's and our civil rights lessons (history) each day and then moved on with Halloween activities. Next week, I will be doing a special post about our studies of the Civil Rights Movement.

Science ~ We had fun with making slime and Eggsperiment (removing the shell from a raw egg with vinegar). The kids loved the hands-on science and were very pleased that I pulled off science three times in one week.

Slime is so much fun! We used Elmer's glue, liquid starch and liquid water colors.

This project takes a few days and has steps. The egg on the left was soaked in water and food coloring.
The egg on the right was soaked in corn syrup and food coloring.

Art ~  We carved pumpkins using a template this year.

We learned about Cubism and made portraits. We learned about Georges Braque and Pablo Picasso, the two artists who founded the Cubism period of art. Grandma then taught us how to make a portrait, explaining the proportions of the face. We then colored the face in with lots of colors. Lastly, we cut up the pictures and pasted them down in unique ways. The kids really enjoyed this project. I think this has been one of their favorite art projects this year.

Tom Sawyer (12)

Little Red Riding Hood (11)

Mine

Music ~ We did the latest Squilt lesson from Homegrown Learners. It was a Halloween-themed selection. We loved Toccata and Fugue in D Minor.

History ~ We watched a documentary, The History of Halloween (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-u9mWboWGbA), on Halloween. It is a five part series.

Field Trips ~ We attended our local homeschool Halloween party. The kids loved playing musical chairs. They played it over and over again, even though they were allowed to win only one prize. There were lots of craft tables, organic pizza, and donuts on a string. Some of the costumes were very creative.

Little Red Riding Hood as a witch, me as a 1950's girl, and Tom Sawyer as a steampunk character.

We also went trick or treating. There is one street in our town which closes down to motorized traffic. The people on that street really put on an amazing show. Some of the more memorable things this year were a man in a monkey costume who threw candy out of a tree, a bonfire in someone's yard to warm the Trick or Treaters, and a house that actually growled! It was very cold and rainy this Halloween, but we had a fantastic time. They are predicting snow overnight!!

My husband was the  "Son of Man," a surrealist painting by Rene Magritte.
Little Red Riding Hood decided to be a pirate because it was a warmer outfit than her witch costume.

Blessings, Dawn

A Day in the Life ~ A Busy but Typical Day

Our days are filled with a mix of doctor appointments, homeschooling, and out-of-home classes. I try to make sure that our mornings are kept free for home learning. However, the orthodontist is right across the street from where Tim goes to the brain injury day program, so we do like to get that appointment out of the way when we drop him off. All in all, this is a pretty typical, out of home day.

6:30 ~ I get up and get ready for the day. I wash the left over dishes in the sink and lay them on a towel to dry. I am finding it easier than I expected to live without a dishwasher. This is good since it is not on the top three list of needs to achieve in the next six months. Once the morning chores are done, I sit down to blog and find YouTube videos for our poetry tea breakfast until the kids start arriving in the room.

8:00 ~ Everyone is awake and around the table for breakfast. I put on a short biography of Langston Hughes for the children. We have studied him before, but he is mentioned several times in some of our civil rights books. I am happy to review him, since he is one of my favorite poets. We begin our poetry tea (breakfast) while watching several YouTube videos of his poetry.

• Mother to Son
• I, Too
• Merry Go Round
• Let America be America Again
• Thank You Ma'am

I find that a poetry tea is special if the food is different than usual. It does not have to be complicated. This morning we had cold homemade pizza, strawberries, applesauce and organic gummy bears.

8:50 ~ After our tea, Tom Sawyer brushes his teeth really well for the orthodontist. We take Tim to the day treatment program and arrive a few minutes early for the orthodontist. The orthodontist's waiting room is like a vacation for my kids. There are movies, iPads and video games for them to play with. They also have cookies and every kind of hot beverage imaginable. Tom Sawyer chooses green tea and settles down to a video game until his name is called. Once he is out of sight, Little Red Riding Hood and I sneak a cookie (Tom Sawyer can't eat them with his allergies). This appointment only takes a few minutes for them to adjust his hinge to the next level. They hope to have his jaw stretched enough to put braces on him by next March. He has been behaving awesomely through all of this, which is amazing, especially considering his extreme sensory issues.

9:40 ~ We are home again. We have a 20 minute free time while I make a few critical phone calls.

10:00 ~ We start school. I explain that we will be working until 12:00 and that we need to really concentrate this morning. We have less time than usual and we need to get through as much as possible. We do get through a fair amount. Of course, nothing is ever completely easy and a piece of Tom Sawyer's hinge falls back out of his mouth. I call the orthodontist who tells us to come right back to the office.

• Two chapters of F.W. Woolworth Five and Ten Boy
• Teaching Textbooks Math 5
• Language arts workbook pages
• Reading time
• Journal
• CNN Student News

12:00 ~  We run back to the orthodontist and get the piece put back on and tightened! Thankfully, they take us right back when we arrive. We return home.

12:25 ~ The kids do 10 minutes of chores (this is 20 minutes less than usual). They make the beds, dust the library and put away the dry dishes. I prepare a quick chef salad with biscuits for lunch. The kids have some free time while I make some more phone calls, rotate laundry and pack us up for an afternoon out on the road.

1:15 ~ We leave for an afternoon of out of the home classes. Our first stop is to Lego Club in the next town over about 25 minutes away. We only have Lego Club one time a month. I get the time mixed up and we arrive 20 minutes early instead of 10 minutes late. Thank goodness for a little grace.

2:00 ~ Little Red Riding Hood is one of the presenters today. She has her birthday Lego set with her and shows it to the group. The kids then receive their challenge for the month. They are to make a mosaic out of Lego pieces.

3:30 ~ We leave Lego Club to go to their dance classes. Thankfully, Grandma picks up Tim from his day treatment program so we don't have to squeeze picking him up into our travels.

4:00 ~ The kids are settled at the dance studio, and I head out for my power walk. I have my camera with me today, so I can combine exercise with two of my favorite hobbies ~ photography and exploring our city. I try to cover a few miles of walking during dance classes. I took pictures of a few interesting buildings on this outing.

The outline of this church in another building is curious to me.
I wonder what church this was and how it became part of this building?

I returned back from my walk in time to see the candy cane hoop dance. Nutcracker preparations are in full swing.


We returned home at 7:00 pm and had a quick dinner. An end to a great day.

Blessings, Dawn 

Week 12 ~ A Week of Birthdays and Learning

It was a birthday week around here. On Saturday Little Red Riding Hood attended a birthday party for one of the girls in our dance studio. It was a dance party complete with a DJ and 20 or so squealing girls. Little Red Riding Hood had a wonderful time!

Little Red Riding Hood is 11 ~ On Sunday my youngest turned 11! How the time does fly! She invited her three best friends to go roller skating with her. She also told Tom Sawyer he could invite one boy to "entertain him and keep him out of her girl business". It was a perfect amount of kids. Little Red Riding Hood wasn't really concerned with a theme this year so we went with balloons. We started out at home and had cake and presents and then went to the roller skating rink.

Sunday was a perfect day for roller skating. It wasn't at all crowded, which was excellent for our little group of challenged roller skaters. Shall I say that there was a great deal of falling, tripping and generally ending up in dog piles? Thankfully, no one got hurt or even very bruised. They had pizza and spent about 2.5 hours skating and falling before all agreed they were exhausted and ready to leave. Their party favors were lots of glow sticks. What a great way to keep track of kids. My crew was all glowing in the dark roller skating rink.

Monday ~ Daddy had the day off for Columbus Day. Unfortunately, Little Red Riding Hood woke up with almost no voice. She had the beginnings of a cold which plagued her the whole week. We spent most of the day resting and doing calm school activities. We did manage a lovely nature walk that I wrote about here.

Tuesday Through Thursday ~ We spent the bulk of the week doing school at home. We canceled about half of our out-of-the-home activities because of Little Red Riding Hood's cold. Here is a list of our accomplishments:

• Teaching Textbooks 5 times this week
• Tom Sawyer went to his writing class
• Reading time 5 times this week
• Creative writing every day.
• Finished These Happy Golden Years  by Laura Ingalls Wilder
• Lots of Language arts workbook pages ~Little Red Riding Hood finished one workbook
• CNN Student News 5 times this week
• Watched The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman (This is an excellent documentary about an African-American woman who is 110 years old during the Civil Rights Movement. However, it is very graphic at times with a lynching, beatings, and slavery whippings.)
• We learned about desegregation of southern schools and read The Story of the Little Rock Nine and School Desegregation in Photographs and Little Rock Girl 1957: How a Photograph Changed the Fight for Integration.
• We learned about integrating the buses in the South during the Civil Rights Movement and read A Picture Book of Rosa Parks and The American Story: 100 True Tales from American History (The Walking City, The Montgomery Bus Boycott).
• Leaf Science ~ The kids separated the fall colors from leaves with rubbing alcohol and watched several videos on YouTube about why leaves change color. They also started making glycerin leaves.
• One Bible lesson and one spelling lesson

Friday ~ My husband turned 43 on Friday. What he really wanted to accomplish for his birthday and day off was going to an attorney to have a will drawn up. Previously, we only had a rudimentary Internet will. So we spent the morning in a lawyer's office drawing up a sweetheart will (which means you leave everything to your spouse). For dinner we had a surf and turf meal followed by a cake with a lot of butter and coffee in it. My husband was delighted.

Blessings, Dawn

Nature Study and the Great Outdoors

“It is infinitely well worth the mother’s while to take some pains every day to secure, in the first place, that her children spend hours daily amongst rural and natural objects; and, in the second place, to infuse into them, or rather, to cherish in them, the love of investigation..." Charlotte Mason

Have you noticed that children are playing and exploring the outdoors less and less these days? According to the American Camp Association, "Today’s youth are experiencing less free and unstructured outdoor playtime in nature than previous generations — devoting an average of just four to seven minutes a day in unstructured play time versus an average of seven and one-half hours each day in front of electronic media." What a shocking statistic!

There are so many reasons why children should spend ample time outdoors each day in a variety of weather conditions. Breathing fresh outdoor air is so good for children (and grownups). Once they are outdoors, they begin running, jumping and stretching their limbs. After a time, they start to investigate their surroundings. They find bugs, spiderwebs, flowers and new mushrooms to look at.

One easy way to encourage outdoor time is nature study. Doing nature study can be as simple as going on a nature walk to keeping a nature journal and conducting science experiments with what is found on a walk. We are very fortunate to live in a small city surrounded by mountains. Nature is a major attraction to our living environment. I realize it may not be so easy for those who live in large urban cities or dangerous neighborhoods. However, even a neighborhood walk or urbanized park can produce great finds.

Being outdoors helps children to realize that there is so much going on in the world besides media and having the latest gadget. Nature is always filled with new changes and things to see. There is plenty of excitement right outside the back door. Watching ants working can become an engrossing activity that is humbling. Who can complain about sweeping the floor or rotating the laundry after watching an ant drag a piece of food larger than itself for 30 minutes?

I love to watch my children wander in the woods within sight of a marked trail (I am a city girl born and bred)! Getting out into the woods away from all people noise is calming. I love the hustle and bustle of a city, but being in nature is a great rest to the eardrums. Sometimes we just stand still and close our eyes and talk about what we hear. I remember once as a child being at Indian camp and walking arm in arm blindfolded at night across a field. We heard so much that we wouldn't have noticed if we had been giggling and playing with our flashlights.

I hope you have the chance to get out into nature this fall and spend some time with your loved ones.

Blessings, Dawn