Donation for the Mission to Thailand - Any Buyers...

I think that the past year has finally caught up to me. One minute I was working on pulling out decorations and then with the storm, I felt a bit dizzy, which made me take a few pills and sit down for a minute. 

The next thing I know, I am on the couch asleep in the dark and then it is noon the next day.  I don't know exactly how many hours I slept but I do know that I had dreams which doesn't happen when I am not sleeping comfortably or don't get into a deep sleep.

So, for the second time in a month or so, I apologize for the lateness of today's post. I had a few things to post today but think this is the one I will do as we are still working on raising the almost $4,000 required for Princess four to go to Thailand and do that service mission. 

She has about half of her 80 local service hours done and after driving 6 hours in snow storms and witnessing six accidents on our way, we made it to her overnight retreat Friday where they cut out things for Feminine Hygiene kits they will be taking with them when they go. 

PLEASE READ TO THE BOTTOM AS THERE ARE SOME GREAT IDEAS INCLUDED. This entertainment center is needing a new home. My dear friend Julie has been finding things to donate for the cause and lets us sell them to help with the trip. 

It is a THREE piece entertainment center or can be used as an entertainment center and the two side pieces go together to make a book shelf, curio cabinet or china hutch.

This item is SOLID oak. It is a strong piece of furniture. There are four shelves on each of the side units. There are holes so you could add as many shelves as you like.

There is a 32 inch SONY television that fits the large space in the entertainment unit center section which is included.

Each section is lighted in the bookshelf part.

If it were mine, I would paint portions black and distress it. I would change out the knobs and handles with updated ones and I would change out the lead glass section with mirrors or smoked or textured glass. Also I would probably take the two end pieces and make one bookshelf.

The set together measures 85 inches wide. 17 inches deep on the side units. 23 inches deep in the center unit and 81 1/2 inches high in the main unit. The side units are 76 inches high and they are 24 inches wide on their own without the main unit.

The TV does have a remote.
Wouldn't it be cute painted hot pink for a girls room or a dark color for a boys room and the toys could be displayed in the side glass section if you put in glass. Or, you could put a mirror in one side and peg board painted pink on the other and she could hang her jewelry from it and check out how it looks in the mirror on the other side! A boy could hand his baseball glove and bat on the peg board side. Put some cute new knobs and handles that match your theme on it. The bottom section could hide sports or dance equipment. 

This would be a great family room set as the lower sections would be great to hide game stations, kids toys or games. The kids can watch shows on the tv with video or dvd player and you wouldn't have to worry about the thing falling over. It is SOLID! The TV would look great in the unit if it were painted black as well. 

This SOLID Oak entertainment system is a beauty and we are hoping to get $400 for the set. I think even if it wasn't used for an entertainment center and you drilled a few holds in the TV slot and added some shelves, it would be a great wall bookshelf unit or curio cabinet.  (Take the idea above with the peg board and put it towards the back of the tv slot and then they wouldn't stick out so far and they could put knick knacks where the tv would go with the peg board back drop.) It would be fun to just hold games in a game room so they could all be displayed. There are lots of fun ideas as to how it could be used. 


Put it in your bedroom, change out the glass for mirrors and use the shelfs for shirts and sweaters, the bottom for jeans. etc.

So, make us an offer. Julie would love to get it out of her house before the new one arrives this week! If you have a friend that may be interested, give them our number or let them check it out in person. 

Thanks Julie (and hubby) for your continued love and support. I am truly blessed with many wonderful friends and family members. Who could ask for anything more? (Except Gershwin - Only old timers will get that joke) We are blessed!

Circle The Wagons... Friends To The Rescue

I have lots going on today but wanted to take a minute and tell you of all my blessings in the past few weeks. 

Last week, my income was cut in half. Life happens and I saw the writing on the wall but hoped that I could have faith that people will do the right thing but we have our agency.... 

With that, before knowing about the income issues, I signed two girls up for a week long summer religious youth retreat. I paid for them to go a few days before finding out about my income issue. Also, I had already committed to Princess four going on a service mission and her choir is going on tour and we still owed on that. 

We planned on doing fund raisers but I was hoping with the holidays over and some bills getting paid off that I could help her out. I had also started getting some dental work done feeling that things were finally calming down now that Princess 2 had surgery, no weddings in sight and Princess three set in school and doing well and no more missionary monthly payments. 

My Bunko friends are amazing. We were selling scarves as a fund raiser (Click here for that post) I make about $2.50 an hour to $5 and hour when we make them but it is more than I have at the moment but one Bunko friend gave her $100. Another paid $40 for the scarf. Others bought several. One friend donated $30 to her Jr. Prom dress fund. Well, that is a post for another day but we will be using the money for her service mission. 

Today, I woke to a call from a neighbor, friend and mother of one of my Bunko group friends. She asked if she could make some scarves for my princess to sell as she was going on a road trip this weekend with her husband and she could make them in the car. 

I had another Bunko friend buy two Cabela gift cards from me that Delta gave me for the trouble I had on my flights with my mom. (See that post here) She paid full price and bought some iTunes cards we hadn't used as we still have credit on there from a few years ago Valentines day. (See that post here) 

I was over helping my friend paint her new house today and got a call about something large that Princess 2 is selling. That will help in the Service mission front. 

I shared with my friends, how when one person shirks their responsibilities, God always steps in and helps me when I am serving. 

Princess 2 is doing so well cleaning our house of stuff and earning money for the service mission. 

I was sad this week to learn of a good friends death. She had no health problems that were visible and had a massive heart attack. I couldn't help think, once again, at how good people die and how there are some really horrible people in this world and why the good ones seem to be going. She is, and was, and Angel and will be missed. 

We took Princess two's new car into get looked at as we thought she needed struts or something and come to find out, the inside rim metal at some point bent towards the tire and was rubbing making the tire wear more quickly and could cause a blowout. I was grateful that it was only $10 to get it bent back. We were also able to fix a ding in her windshield. 

So many friends have gathered and circled the wagon (so to speak) in trying to help Princess Four go to Thailand.Thanks to all of you! You know who you are!

Would You Believe..... MP3 Hoarder

I spent another night and day clearing off computers. I finally got my old computer working right and cleaned it off making sure I had copies of all the pictures and documents that were on it as well as looking at all the ZIP drives disks that I have found all over in cleaning the house out.

The stuff on them was from 2002 but I did find some cute pictures. I was hoping to find some I lost a few years ago when my computer had to be wiped but missed out on those. There are a few years in the middle between camera film pictures and the better digital pictures that I lost. Perhaps I didn't really want to remember those days...

Anyway, it felt great tonight to be able to pack up the old computer, haul out that large monitor and know that it is going to a good cause. I still have one old laptop that I can't remember the password to get in so I will have to do some spy work to figure out how to get into that one. I know someone who would be good at that but he isn't around anymore so I will have to figure this one out on my own. lol

After clearing out the computers, I started work on another pile of stuff I had ready to sort through. I cleaned out all the electronic stuff about a week ago and pulled all the chords, wires, plugs and mp3 players together to decide what we can get rid of now that they are all together. I laughed at the stack of stuff. They aren't cameras, just MP3 players and mini video players. These two are quite sad. The photo viewer clip on the left, we never could get to work. The mini media player on the right has 128 megabytes of memory. It does video on a one inch screen. I don't think it would hold a full video. :-)

These little "clips" were actually quite good I thought. I bought three about five years ago. They hold about 6oo songs and are similar to the iPod mini clips. Not able to do much in the way of play lists but the sound was ok and I liked the size and that the headphones clipped on to the "clip" itself. It was also fun that there were four or five color choices they could use to change out.

They each had one of these. I still use one sometimes when I am in a tree pruning or something as I scratched the iPod working in the yard last year.

Four years ago, we got these "Element" players with a 2 inch screen and they have play lists with a touch type screen. They hold lots of songs and have a good battery life. However, as the name suggests, they aren't "elemental." I have never been able to get a movie to play on them. The screen is so sensitive that if you touch it once, it will flip through several screens and the menu and working screen is confusing and takes me several tries each time I use it.

This last one is a recorder and player. It has come in handy many times. In fact, I sent it to Princess Two just before she left to go to Taiwan so she could have a few of her favorite songs while she was there. She couldn't take her iPod because she couldn't have something with a screen. I guess they don't want the natives to get jealous or something. We had had this one the longest and it still works well and holds a charge.

I feel like I took a long trip down memory lane. I should pull out the cd players and walkman stuff. I think I only have one left that is in my Suburban. The suburban is so old, it only has a tape deck, so I used it to play my talk cd's when I drive long distances. I don't take that car on long distances much due to the gas consumption but when we do, we now listen to iPods instead.

The girls got the iPods several years ago on Valentines day (see the post about it here) and have never looked back or used the mp3 players again. Why would they? The iPod is so much further advanced. Things are progressing so quickly now. Can you believe that these things were the coolest five years ago? Now every 2 year old can use an iPod and cell phone to watch netflix or download an app.

It is nice to be saying "Goodbye" to so many things. I wonder where we will be in another five years... Will we look back at our iPads and think they are old as these things are now?....

The entire thing reminds me of people. Some are colorful. Some are square and "touchy." Some make lots of noise or just listen to you. Some you observe. Some have all the bells and whistles, yet don't follow through with their promises and let you down when they don't live up to their expectations. And some are mostly used for games. In the end however, they all work to some degree doing the same thing. Deep down, we are all the same with a few variances.


If I were an MP3 player, would I be useful, dependable, functional, colorful, sturdy and bring enjoyment to those I serve? I hope so

Recycle Copper, Jokes on Me - Part Three & 111 moment

If you remember a week or so ago, I posted on recycling copper. I did hours of work and only ended up with $1.25. Well, I still had a bag of wires that I hadn't taken the time to "strip" for recycling and so I took those wires over to the recycle place and guess what....

I spent NO time stripping the wires and ended up with almost twice as much cash in my pocket. 

As you can see I ended up with $2.20. Totally worth taking the wires over to the recycle place just not worth stripping it first unless it is the thick housing wiring. If you care to read about those two posts on Copper recycling, Here is part 1. Here is part 2.

I also got a check in the mail this week for a copay we paid for Princess two's surgery lab work that didn't need to be paid. Check out the check number..... Yep, 1111! Made both of us smile. 

Then, I was working on my checkbook and pulled out this receipt and check out the number of ones on it! 

That made me smile all the more. Tonight while I was cleaning out my car, I found a bag of jewelry findings that got lost under the fabric of the trunk liner last year. In it were the receipts as I was going to return them. 

Guess what date was on the receipt? Yep, 11-11. Guess what number was on the store number? Yes, once again 111.

Princess four said she found lots of coins at her competition last weekend and Princess 2 also found some. I found a car wash token. I wondered if that meant that I was going to win a car or that my car just needed a cleaning. :-)

Either way, I was happy with the refund, and the free money from the copper wires. Someone was replacing a dishwasher and gave me the wires for free with no work to me so that was free money. 

I am grateful that Heavenly Father continues to remind me to Trust in Him in so many ways. In case you are new to the blog and are reading this, I will post links about my 111 sign and my "In God We Trust" post about finding money. 

Hope you are seeing signs of his love for you as well.... If not, try looking at this post. "Knowing God Knows and Loves Me."

Dave Ramsey Challenge - Money Makeover

Over the holidays, my Father planned a workshop for all his married children and grandchildren. He decided to read Dave Ramsey's book "Total Money Makeover" after my brother suggested it to him.

My nephew and his wife read it just after getting married this last year and decided to live the way Dave suggests in his book. My nephew, in turn, bought a few copies and gave them to friends and family, including his dad, my brother. My brother, then spoke to my dad about it and they planned this "workshop" for our family.

My dad bought a case of the books (he has 8 children and about 10 married grandchildren.) He included a few adult grandchildren that aren't married in the workshop as well but made sure each married couple got a book.

My brother and my nephew made up a presentation with handouts and graphics to show in a basic format Dave's suggestions how to get out of debt. They would ask questions during the presentation and had people read to get everyone involved.

In the end, they gave us each a copy of the book and my family produced an incentive for each person to get the book read and get $1000 safety/emergency money on hand as step one. Once they have read the book and had a thousand dollar emergency fund, our family would match that money.

I used to love to read. But if you read my blog, you will know I am so busy with kids that if I sit down to read, I fall asleep. I did however, want to support the family in this and figured I could learn something so being resourceful, I called the local library and ordered the audio cd's of the book through the inter-library loan. After a few weeks, I figured the person I spoke with forgot to order it or perhaps they didn't have it. 

Imagine my surprise when last week, I got a phone call from the library. You won't believe where the book on audio came from.... Ohio. That is not my state or an adjoining state. Every time I have ordered something before, it has come from my state somewhere. I am amazed that they get it from anywhere in the U.S. and they mail it back and forth. There was $1 fee to rent it. I figure that was a great deal for me.

I listened to it while driving to Princess fours last drill competition this past weekend. I was able to listen to most on the drive and finished it up while working in the kitchen.

It is a WONDERFUL book that gives a useable way to get out of debt and retire comfortable. I think they should teach this class in high school so that kids don't go out and get into credit trouble right off which many do.

I realized that I am a bit more auditory when learning as I got much out of listening to it due to being able to hear the authors inflections and intentions where as when reading, there is much left to interpretation.

I HIGHLY recommend this book to everyone and especially those just starting out. By following these steps, you can be debt free in a few years.

I am so grateful to my dad for purchasing all the books and trying to give his children and grandchildren a new start. I am grateful to the person who shared the book with my nephew in the first place and to my nephew for sharing with his dad and his dad for sharing with my dad.

I kept having people come to mind while reading that could benefit from this book. I will be sharing with them soon.

I am grateful to Dave Ramsey for making the mistakes that brought him to the place where he figured out what it takes to "Make it" and then taking the time to share it in a book so that so many others can learn from his mistakes and successes.

Here is a link to a movie that is his story. Not that it was made about him but it parallels what happened in his life and by watching this show, you can get a good idea of what he went through.

The movie is called "Stand Strong" and is available for download through itunes or for purchase online or at Christian book stores. Here is a link to the trailer on youtube. 

I hope you enjoy it and take the time to read Dave's book.

The Ultimate Snowman - Grinch in a Fort - Part 3

You now get to see our wonderful Grinch snowman in a fort. He comes complete with mud snowballs! 

We hadn't planned on making a Grinch snowman. We thought we would just make a great snowman. However, we had so many "experts" working on it that it couldn't have been anything but wonderful. 

Princess five and I were the "fort Makers" while Princess number one took on special effects with a squirt bottle and some food coloring. 

Prince number 1 was the Facial Design specialist. 

I cut down some of the branches on the tree you see just behind the Grinch. I used those for arms. I thought it would be cute to have one up and one down rather than just both sticking out the sides. I also thought it would be cute to leave a "hand" of branches so we could have him hold something. 


If you were making a "Girl" snowgirl, you could put a purse on her, cute frilly scarf and a fun hat and sunglasses. 

We used the snow block makers for the fort. It worked better when the snow got packed in it rather tight. We then made a "Brick wall" for the "Grinch" to hide behind. 
 
 Make sure that you alternate the bricks so they don't fall over independently. It would be like stacking all the Lego's on top, one pile falls over if you don't stagger them. This gives the wall strength.

I suggested using black obsidian rocks from our "rock collection" in the front yard. It gave the snowman a mean look.  
 
Prince number one then took some of the bark in the front flower beds and made a mouth. It matched the sinister eyes. I don't think I would have ever come up with using the bark. 

Didn't he do a great job?

All that while, Princess one was taking frequent trips into the kitchen to put warm water into the sprayer and adding a drop or two of green food coloring in.  
 
She then started spraying the snow Grinch.  The darker she wanted an area, the more she sprayed it. 

So, to highlight the mouth and make it look open, she sprayed that area more. 
 
It wasn't until later we thought we should make the snowballs into "Mud" so we mixed a few colors in to make the snow look brown. 

We wanted the brown snowballs to stand out against the green of the Grinch and the white of the fort wall. When they were white, they weren't seen against the snow as you can see in the photos.
 
    I wish all the girls had been there and helped as I thought it would make a fun Christmas card photo for next year. Us with the Grinch. 

Funny and true story. While we were making our Grinch snowman, our neighbors had their grandchildren visiting. They drove past several times while we were making it. The kids kept pointing and you could see they were enjoying our efforts. 
 
After we finished making the Grinch our nieghbors took a walk with one of the younger boys. When he got to our house, he didn't look happy. The mom picked him up but I think it scared him. We were all sitting in the house playing a game and all started laughing when that happened.

We may have scared him for life. 

We put a hat on the Grinch just to show some holiday spirit but it got frozen to the man. Also, spraying the water on him made the outside turn to ice and he lasted a good long time. 
 
Well, the part that was left of him anyway. Some neighborhood boys saw him the next day when they came caroling and within an hour, we all felt the ground shake and ran up to see the top and middle section down. But the bottom section lasted a month before melting completely.   I think he would have lasted a good long time but boys will be boys.... 

One last thing, the eyes get hot and melt the snow so I don't think I would use obsidian again but other items may work better. Buttons perhaps. I thought it would be cute to have a yard or neighborhood full of different snowmen. One house with a cowboy, one with a Dr. One with a mom and kids, etc. Perhaps next year we will get the neighbors in on it.

The Ultimate Snowman - Grinch in a Fort Part 2

So, this really doesn't have to do much with the snowman as it does to show how much fun some of us had in the process. 

Princess number one started a snowball fight with Princes number one and then retreated to the house. 

Princess number two and three were being "grinches" themselves and wouldn't come out to play. 

They were so funny though, they sat in the window with their faces pressed to the glass watching us have fun like little sick kids in the old days. 

I sent someone in to get something and told them to take a photo without them knowing it as every time I looked up, they were staring at us out the window. 

I don't know if it was because I didn't do that with them while they were growing up or if it was because they wanted to be included and not miss it but really didn't want to get cold but I laughed picturing a little puppy whose master left them in the house while they went outside. They didn't leave the window until we had finished outside. 

You can see them from the outside as well as I took a picture of them peering out the window. 

What do you think? They tell me they were discussing how we would probably be mad that they didn't go outside. I am not sure why they would have thought that as we really had fun and we never asked them to sit at the window and watch and didn't force anyone to go outside.  

Monday, I will post the final product and, how we got it that way. It really was fun and I think it will become a tradition if there is snow over the holidays. 

Hint: Get a spray bottle ready, you will be needing it.......