Live Wholeheartedly

Posted in: Being Frugal, Budgeting, Family, gifts, holidays, Shopping on Sunday, March 14, 2010 at at 1:17 PM 1 comments    

This first idea...altered Starbucks Frappucino bottles...is one that is on my list to make for teachers, co-workers and our neighbors next year. Usually I do baked goods/candies for both our neighbors and teachers, but since I am swearing off most of my usual Christmas baking next year (a little sadly, because I do love it...but for good reason), to make it a little less stressful while getting ready for both Christmas and a vacation to Disney - these will fill in quite nicely, I think. Still homemade, unique and heartfelt :) Plus, we usually take our neighbors their gifts on the morning of Christmas Eve...since we'll not be there Christmas Eve I was trying to think of something we could give a week before that they would be able to enjoy in the week leading up to Christmas...I saw an idea on another blog using these for a hot chocolate gift "basket". The best thing is that although I won't want to fill the jars too far in advance, I can have them all decorated up and ready to fill wayyy ahead of time, so that all I have to do before I hand them out is fill the jars, which shouldn't take any time at all! I am also thinking of using the same idea but changing it up a little to be some sort of 'pamper' gift...something like homemade milk bath in one bottle, bath salts in one and shower scrub in the 3rd...then maybe leaving the 4th jar out and putting a scrubbie or something in the 4th section? Come to think of it that might make a good teacher gift instead of the hot chocolate...hmmm! Things to think about. I will have to figure out exactly who will get what kind before I decorate them but I have already started collecting the 4-packs of Frap drinks for this project. Who knows...while working on them the creative juices might get flowing and give me even more ideas for others on my list.

Here is a pic of the one another blogger made:

This cute set was made by http://pixelsnpaper.blogspot.com/. What an adorable inspiration!!

Another idea I am working on for my Sister in Law and her Hubby is an altered Family Scrabble Board. It will look something like this, although with different wording and their last name will be the "center" word that I build the other words off of:

Unfortunately, I saved this picture a long time ago and do not remember where I got it to give credit to the creative person who made this - but whoever/wherever you are - thank you for the beautiful idea!!

So far that is all I've found that I'm working on...except making fleece sleepmasks and pajama pants for my 4 kids that are Disney themed...I don't have any pictures of inspiration on those yet though because I haven't looked for patterns/ideas yet. I just know it's something I will be doing. I will post other ideas and pictures of my finished projects as I come up with them.

God bless and Happy New Year!
Mariah

Posted in: Being Frugal, Budgeting, christmas, Family, friends, holidays, vacation on Wednesday, December 30, 2009 at at 8:13 AM 0 comments    

I sit here at my computer, thinking about my blog and realizing it was almost this exact same time last year that I thought starting a blog back up was a great idea. Now here it is...a year later...and I've made a seriously pathetic number of posts so far. I started this blog as a way to remind myself to be motivated, be creative, be inspired...maybe even to help keep my goals. I still want this blog to represent that...and everything about life that I love so much - God, family, home, writing, crafting - living my life to the fullest. Enjoying every moment and hoping that I make the people in my circle feel as blessed as they make me feel.

There are reasons...or excuses...as to why I have neglected to post - we really have had a very busy and very productive (!) year. We went from a family of 3 to a family of 6 almost overnight. That all started about mid-year...right after we were licensed to be foster parents. We started on the fostering journey thinking eventually we might adopt a child, maybe even two that came into our care along the way. That all changed pretty suddenly when 3 little blessings came our way, and the only way I can describe how it all happened is that it was meant to be...pre-destined, pre-determined...God's plan for our life. Everything that happend was simply too unbelievable, too coincidental to have happened by some happy accident. These 3 kids were meant to become a part of our family, from the very beginning...all roads have led us here. I know this. So...now our happy little family of 3 is a happier, larger (and of course, busier) family of 6. The 4 kids we always dreamed of but knew we could never have...well now we have them. Life is good, God is amazing.

So now, here I am...seemingly back to where I started. Right after Christmas, vowing next Christmas I will be more prepared, ready ahead of time and have made most of our family gifts. That didn't happen for this Christmas - but I am even more determined than ever to make that happen next Christmas. I realized this Christmas just how hectic it is and how fast it goes with 4 kids...so much faster than it went with just our daughter. I think I took for granted her first 11 Christmases, the calm, the time we were able to spend together just enjoying the season. Things sure went differently between work, therapy appointments, doctor appointments, shopping for more gifts than I've ever imagined buying for one occassion. And although next year we will also be busy, decidedly so, at Christmas...that is pushing me even more to vow that I will be 95% ready for Christmas by December 1st (5% reserved for baking which can't really be done that far in advance, haha). The reason we need to be ready so early? Because over the week of Christmas, to celebrate the first Christmas after finalizing the adoptions, we will be on a family vacation to Disney World! I am so excited about that...and want everything to go smoothly. The first 5 days of vacation will be spent at the parks, and the last 2 relaxing and enjoying each other. We plan to drive to the coast and spend Christmas Eve watching the sun set over the Gulf. So you see...I really do need to be more organized, more productive and more prepared for 2010. I have set several goals and I am hoping that I can see most of them to fruition.

Goals for 2010
Lose 5lbs (or more) per month
Continue to pay down debt
Save for and plan Disney Christmas Vacation
Work on Christmas gifts for 1 'family' ('family' here means any set group of people, ie teachers) on our list each month
Have all Christmas gifts made or bought by December 1, 2010

I will have to get creative and really push myself to make sure I meet these goals...usually I rely heavily on home-made goodies (candies, cookies, etc) as gifts for friends, family and teachers - however having to have all things made by December 1st that really will limit food gifts this year. I will still probably do a few things but I want December to mainly be un-scheduled and un-stressful, so I won't be doing very many food-gifts at all. I have come up with a few ideas though - I have a really neat idea for my Sister in Law and her husband...a "Family Scrabble Board" where you take and alter a scrabble board with scrapbooking supplies and use the tiles to spell out their names, and words that symbolize 'family'. I think it will be really neat. I also found an idea for altering Starbucks 4-pack Frap bottles...you can do so many things using scrapbooking supplies and a little paint and ribbon, they turn out so cute. I have seen ideas for hot cocoa gift sets using those (two bottles filled with hot cocoa mix, one with marshmallows, and one with peppermints) which is something I'm definitely planning on doing...the only thing I would have to do *after* December 1st on those would be add the marshmallows (wouldn't want to add them too early and have them get stale or clumpy...eww). I also make a killer chai tea mix so I am thinking I could come up with some ideas along those lines also, just have to figure out what to package with it. Maybe just some festive store-bought christmas candies? The one other idea I am excited about is making fleece pajama pants. I am definitely making them for my 4 kids, my SIL's 4 kids and also my cousins 3 kids. I might even think about making them for some adults on our list. I have tons of ideas saved in a folder in my e-mail, so I will be going through those over the next month or so to see if there are any good things to add to my list also. I'm pretty excited about this right now...I just hope that I can stay this excited/motivated about it! If I can, then I'm sure I will be more than ready for Christmas 2010 and our Disney Vacation well ahead of my December 1st goal :)

I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas. For me, although hectic and crazy, and except for a few not-so-great moments, it was one of the most wonderful Christmases yet.

God Bless and have a happy and SAFE New Year!
Mariah

Posted in: Adoption, Being Frugal, blogging, Budgeting, christmas, Faith, Family, Foster Care, friends, holidays, Prayer, Shopping, vacation on Monday, December 28, 2009 at at 8:47 AM 0 comments    

Obviously there has been a lack of activity on this blog for a while. It isn't that I have nothing to say - I have a lot to say...just very little time lately in which to say it.

I don't want to jinx myself by saying too much...but things are looking interesting on the foster/adoption front :) We are approved, and have been contacted about a sibling group that is up for adoption...we should know more in a week or so (I hope)!

On all other fronts, it's summer - so of course life is busy :) Weekends have been full of family, friends and lots of fun...weekdays have been full of work, work and more work (and a little fun thrown in for good measure!). Getting ready for school to start up again, getting the foster room finished...which it almost is! The interior is completely drywalled, taped & mudded...it's just waiting for a coat of primer and then paint. I am hoping to get to that Sunday (we'll be out of town this weekend, visiting the sibling-in-laws for my nephew(aka baked bean)'s birthday. My neices and nephews are all beans :) There's Kidney Bean, Baked Bean, String Bean and Pinto Bean, and they all fit their bean nicknames quite well in their own little way :) My sweet beans ;)

Speaking of the siblings-in-law...or my brothers sister & family if you rather...we have decided recently that we are going to take our 2 families on a Magical Family Christmas Vacation in 2010! Where, you ask? Well, of course, the only place magical enough to spend Christmas away from home - Disney World!! So, lookout Magic Kingdom...we'll be invading your village in about 16 months...give or take a few weeks :) Color me excited! I have already started perusing the Disboards, and creating our trip planning binder. Oh, and of course, getting some great tips on saving money for Disney over at Couponing to Disney! She's amazing!! So far our family has about $35 in savings so far (saving our change only) for the World...not too shabby considering we still have almost a year and a half to go - and that we're not 'officially' starting the saving until next year!

Ok - I think that's all for now! See ya real soon :)
Mariah

Posted in: Adoption, Being Frugal, Budgeting, christmas, Family, Foster Care, holidays, vacation on Thursday, August 6, 2009 at at 12:14 PM 0 comments    

We finally, after weeks of waiting, got the results from my dad's biopsy. The tumor was graded a 2, low-grade, benign tumor. While that is wonderful, WONDERFUL news - it doesn't erase the fact that there is a tumor the size of a golf ball in his brain...which will have to be dealt with. It's also a recurring type of tumor, so that will mean life-long monitoring to make sure they catch any new ones. But, it is NOT cancer. So...we're mostly back to normal. It's just a new kind of normal, where my dad has a recurring type of brain tumor. It's still weird to say, hard to imagine, and makes me sad to think of. But, it is NOT cancer.

On the foster care front, things are going. Not smoothly, mind you, but they are going nonetheless. We had our first training class on Saturday. We can only do the 3-in-a-row Saturday classes which are 7 1/2 hours long...so it's tiring and makes the weekend go really fast - but it is interesting and informative and so far we've met some great people.

On the way home from our first class, however, our van decided to suddenly stop shifting. It still drives, but only in one gear...so we were able to get it home and tonight will be able to drive it to the dealership - the manual says that this is a safety feature which automatically kicks in when something is wrong with the tranny so that it will still be drivable to get it to a service station. So, that's good I guess...maybe that little safety feature will help us not have to buy a totally new transmission. But, on the downside, no matter how much it costs to fix it has to come out of the money we were going to be putting in our foster fund...$200 that my mom and dad just gave us for our foster fund for an anniversary/birthday present, and another couple hundred from the extra paychecks at the end of May. I have a feeling most of that money is now going to have to pay for the van to be fixed. But, we have to have a vehicle - it's a non-decision. We will just have to really get with it and start listing on eBay (so far I haven't listed much of what I have), and hope that some of that stuff sells. We also have a yard sale coming up in June, which is town-wide, so that should boost the foster fund at least a little. If we could just sell those darned concert tickets, we would be able to build the bedroom...which is the biggest hurdle right now. That part we need to be done to be licensed. After that it is just finding beds & bedding, etc, which we can do with our extra paychecks in July (thank goodness for 5-pay months!).

Oh, and if anyone wants to check out my eBay auctions (they will be there soon, I promise!!), which will include girl clothing, plus-size women's clothing, and some miscellaneous items - my eBay user id is mom-n-michaela.

Thanks for stopping by - and thank you for the prayers for my dad - they definitely worked!

Mariah

Posted in: Budgeting, Faith, Family, Foster Care, Prayer on Tuesday, May 5, 2009 at at 12:24 PM 0 comments    

I should have known, before I hit "post" yesterday. I was having a down day, I really was. My faith was being overshadowed by doubt. I should have known better. I am still learning.

Today we called the Vet to see how much it would be to get the cats shots up-to-date. While my husband called, he also asked (for future information) how much getting them fixed would be. They gave him a quote, plus the quote to get their shots up-to-date. It really wasn't that much more (when you figure in separate office visits, etc.) to have it all done at once...but when my husband explained that we really could only afford to do the shots right now, what was *truly* necessary, the lady told him she could try to approve us for a Care Credit account. Now, I realize, putting vet/medical bills on a credit account is probably not the best idea - BUT, we were approved, and were approved for 0% interest as long as it's paid off within a certain number of months (which it would be). So, the cats are taken care of - one thing checked off the to-do list before turning in our application. The only other real obstacle in getting the paperwork turned in of course would be our physicals...which is now not an obstacle either because while perusing Care Credit's homepage - I see that there are doctors in our area that take it also.

So- although it isn't normally something I would do - putting medical bills onto a credit account, the 0% interest really makes all the difference. This way instead of putting our application on hold until we build up the money in our savings (we just started having $100/month direct deposited into our savings account), we can get it taken care of now and still pay it off with the money in the savings account...so I'm looking at it as essentially the same thing, however with a big bonus in that it won't delay our application process.

Now all we have to worry about is getting the Foster Home Fund built up so we can turn our loft area into a bedroom, but at least we have a little more time for that (I was told that it didn't matter in our state if it was officially a bedroom or not - so if that's true, while I still plan on turning it into a "real" bedroom, we can go ahead and get our license and everything before it's officially "completed"). I am still hoping however that we can sell those concert tickets and frame out/drywall the room before the end of May. That would be a big weight off of my mind!

Until next time - God Bless :)
Mariah

Posted in: Adoption, Budgeting, Faith, Family, Foster Care, Prayer on Wednesday, March 25, 2009 at at 12:21 PM 0 comments    

While filling out the forms in our referral packet - I discovered that all 3 of us will need to make Doctor appointments for wellness physicals. Normally, not such a big deal right? But, when you have no health insurance (long story), then it becomes a bigger deal. When you have no health insurance and are already tight on cash-flow - it becomes a slightly bigger deal. All in all it looks like it will cost us up to $450 for all 3 of us to get the physicals. I should have known that we would need this...I really should have. But when I saw "Medical Information Form" or whatever it said...I really assumed it would just be a family medical history we'd have to fill out.

We also are going to need to get our 2 cats to the vet to get their shots, as this needs to be done before the homestudy too. I haven't added that to our Foster Fund info at the bottom because right now, I don't have a clue how much that will be.

I am starting to wonder if we should have put this off (or if we still should put this off) until we A) have insurance and B) have more of this stuff actually at some stage of completion. I really didn't want to delay the classes and the homestudy but unless we can get some things on Ebay and sold soon, we may have no choice. Even more, I am wondering if all of these obstacles and roadblocks are popping up as a sign that we shouldn't be doing this, or if they're just part of a test that we need to pass to prove to ourselves that we can do it if we put our minds to it. I just feel we've come too far emotionally (it took so much for us to cross the bridge from *thinking* about fostering to making the decision to *do* it) to just throw in the towel. Plus, that seems like it would be such a totally selfish decision.

When it comes down to it, I think what we need right now is prayer, and a lot of it!

Until next time -
Mariah

Posted in: Adoption, Budgeting, Family, Foster Care on Tuesday, March 24, 2009 at at 12:15 PM 0 comments    

Well, we finally did get in touch with our caseworker, and made an appointment to go in and get set up for fingerprinting. We were there on time, she was not. We gave her our drivers licenses to copy, but then she couldn't get her computer to work so she said she'd have to do it later and mail us the paperwork (I guess they send us a scan-code which we take to a location that does our fingerprints). That was almost 2 weeks ago...no paperwork in the mail. I have to call her tomorrow to find out what is up with this.

On the upside, we did get our referral packet to the agency we will be working through. WOW...there is a lot of information to fill out. We are planning to work on that this weekend. We also already scheduled our fostering classes through them - set up for the first 3 Saturdays in May - we are on our way!! It's very exciting...but at the same time it's a little scary how fast things seem to be moving now that the larger agency has received our referral. We have to turn our loft area upstairs into a bedroom. It's an open loft right now, so we have to build a wall, and add a closet and a door. This is what it looked like the weekend after we moved in (my daughters bed and vanity were moved to her room after we painted her bedroom):



Like it is for many people, our money is tight right now. But we aren't planning on letting that deter our decision to become a foster family. We feel that since we finally have a home, we are ready to open that home to children in need and want to be able to do that as soon as possible. Without putting ourselves into hock and going into debt doing it, that is. So...right now our plans to fund the project, as well as purchase the other items we will need like beds, bedding, toys, etc., consist of a few different things (these are things we plan to do specifically to raise money for the things we need to do - in addition to just saving any extra money we can).

1) Grocery savings - we'll be putting back the money we save using coupons for our weekly grocery trips. Any amount under our normal weekly budget that we save is going into our "foster-home remodeling project" fund. For instance, our normal grocery budget is $60...if by using coupons we end up only spending $40, then $20 goes into the fund.

2) Ebay - we are going to be listing a bunch of items that we've outgrown or can no longer use on ebay. We'll also be listing any items we get as donations to list on Ebay (my mom is quite fond of finding stuff for me to list on Ebay and then refusing the money...so for now, when she gives us something to list I won't argue with her about that!). All of the proceeds from those auctions are going to go into the fund as well. To jump start our fund, we decided to take a gamble and purchase 4 concert tickets to Keith Urban and Taylor Swift that is coming up in June. They are great seats, and we spent about $400 on the 4 of them...my hope is to double that (the combo in concert seems to be pretty popular, and it is already sold out - so here's hoping someone wants to pay a premium for great seats), however if we make any profit at all it will of course be helpful. We figure the worst thing that can happen is we recoup our money and put that towards the fund - so it's really a no lose situation as long as we can sell them.

3) Garage Sale - The first weekend in June, our town has it's annual festival and along with that there are yard sales galore. In fact that might be the biggest attraction of the festival for some people. There are always lots of people out looking for a bargain. Our hope is to have the room finished (or at least funded and partially finished) by then, however hopefully we can sell enough to buy any items that we need such as furnishings or bedding that we haven't already aquired. We figure it will be a good time to sell any items we have that are too large to list on Ebay, or just aren't Ebay-friendly items, or any items that don't sell on Ebay after relisting one time.

I am going to try to set up a widget on my page that I can update with our goals, estimated costs, and to-date savings and goals met. We'll see if I can figure that one out - but don't hold your breath!

Love,
Mariah

Posted in: Adoption, Budgeting, decorating, Family, Foster Care on Thursday, March 12, 2009 at at 7:02 PM 0 comments    

I hope everyone else snagged some great deals as well!!

Happy shopping!

Love, Mariah

Posted in: Being Frugal, Budgeting, Kroger, Shopping on Thursday, January 29, 2009 at at 12:35 PM 2 comments    

The title is really appropriate, I think, because being thrifty really is an art. You have to really work at it and become skilled at it for it to really blossom. I would have to say, so far, I would consider myself a starving artist...just starting out but fully passionate about what I am doing.

I have taken up couponing - again. I have tried this so many times before, I have wanted it to work, but it just hasn't, or I lost interest because I didn't know how to use the coupons to their fullest benefit and so I wasn't seeing great results. It never was worth the time I put into clipping and filing. But now, I have found wonderful blogs like MommySnacks and $5 Dinners, among many others. I wanted so badly to see the results that they were seeing. I started doing a lot of research thanks to a friend named Google, and some posts on a couple of groups I subscribe to over at Cafe Mom, and found a TON of good information!

So I set off on my couponing adventure about 3 weeks ago. 2 weeks ago was my first "official" coupon-shopping-trip. I saved some - not as much as I would have liked but I got a few deals and it intrigued me enough to try it for a second week. Of course - I had only collected about 2 Sunday's worth of coupons at that point (and the first of those Sundays I made the rookie mistake of buying only one paper! Gah!). So this week I forged ahead - and saw quite a bit more savings. Still, not as much as I hope to eventually, once I get really good at 'The Game', and have a few more Sunday's worth of coupons under my belt. But, good, nonetheless. I got a lot more groceries than I would normally have gotten for the amount of money I spent.

My shopping trip consisted only of Kroger this week - because I didn't see a lot of freebies elsewhere and I haven't gotten completely comfortable with the CVS or Walgreens game just yet. I am learning - but I wanted to tackle Kroger first because it's the store I do most of my weekly shopping at anyway. So...Kroger. As luck would have it, I live about the exact same distance from 3 different Kroger stores (one in a small town to the west of mine, and two in a somewhat larger town to the east of mine) - and while one town's stores might be only doubling coupons one week, the other's might be tripling them - as was the case this week! The larger town had the same sales, but were only doubling coupons. The smaller town's store was tripling them (up to 50 cents - making those worth $1.50!). So off to the smaller town I went - and I was able to get quite a few deals but I will just mention a few:

*Suave Shampoo & Conditioners - 10/$10 - I bought 6 of these using 3 coupons ($.50/2) - making them $.25 each! Not free, but close - and it is the beginning of my shampoo/conditioner stockpile! Total cost - $.25 each!

*Frank's Hot Sauce - $1.25 for the small bottle - these weren't on sale but I had $.50/1 coupons that I used to make them FREE - I bought 4 of these (my husband likes hot sauce). I still have some coupons left in case the larger bottles go on sale, but if not before they expire I will get more of the freebie smaller bottles if they triple coupons again between now and then. Total cost: FREE!

*Cottonelle Toilet Paper 4 packs - 10/$10 - I bought only 4 of these (because that's all I had coupons for) - but I had 2 coupons for $.50/1 - making those 2 packs free, and 1 coupon for $.50/2 - making those 2 packs $.25/each. Total cost: around $.13/each!

*Quaker Snack-size Rice Cakes - 10/$10 - I bought 2 (because that's how many coupons I had, plus they only had one flavor left) and used a $1/1 coupon on each, making them free! Total cost: FREE! **I got a rain check for these as they were out of several flavors, and bought more of these coupons off of Ebay, so once I get them I can stockpile some of these freebies!!

Plus, I haven't bought these yet - but last week's sale had 10/$10 on Suave deodorant, which I had a couple of coupons for (2 $.50/1 coupons, doubling them making the deodorant free) - so I got a rain check for them. Then I bought more of those coupons off of Ebay and once I receive those I will pick up a ton of deodorant for FREE also - so that will get my deodorant stockpile started! Now if I can just find a good deal on toothpaste, which I am almost out of, and a really good deal on some toilet paper - which we go through like water - I'll be thrilled!!

So, all in all, a good trip. I ended up getting $156.66 worth of groceries for $95.52 (not to mention earning my $.10 off per gallon of gas!). Not as good a savings as some who have been doing it for a long time, but I am still not as flush as those people on coupons, and I am still working on stockpiling...so once I have those things in place, I will be doing a lot better, I hope. But - even if I never do better than this, $60 worth of savings is SO much better than I have ever done before - so I am one happy, thrifty, not-so-starving "artist"!

Until next time - Love,
Mariah

Posted in: Being Frugal, Budgeting, Kroger, Shopping on Tuesday, January 20, 2009 at at 7:02 AM 0 comments