Monday, June 20, 2011

Sweet Summertime

It's been official for over a week now! I'm on SUMMER VACATION! This post is going to share a few things: VBS, my summer goals, and who knows what else!

I haven't really felt like I wasn't working because we had VBS at our church last week. It was a wonderful, tiring, inspiring week and I would do it all over again! Although our church has now been without a pastor for a year, and we had a rough start to the year after a negative vote for a potential pastor, I was so proud of the way so many members stepped up to do their parts this time. After no one else volunteered to direct, I bit the bullet. I discussed with Ronnie how I felt that I should direct, but all the excuses I had...I have two kids to deal with, I'll be hugely pregnant, I just have too many other things to do...and I ended up directing anyways. And am I glad that I did! My first obstacle was finding a program to use. Our church is strictly KJV and the company we usually use was not presenting me with a very good vibe. So I researched and found Bogard Press. This company is strictly KJV and they provide an excellent VBS that is complete and very useful. Thankfully, after I presented the new curriculum teachers volunteered immediately, then the leaders, then the craft director and puppeteers! I was so pleased with everyone's enthusiasm! The only person I didn't get was a music director, but since I have a loud mouth and don't embarrass too easily, I figured I would do it myself. All in all this VBS turned out wonderfully. The adults and kids were excited and everyone worked together. The Lord was truly lifted up at our church last week and I thank Him for all the blessings he has provided us!

Now that VBS is over for the summer there are so many things on my to do list. I decided that I should probably make an actual list somewhere so I can hold myself accountable. The only problem with my grand plans is that my blood glucose is high and my blood pressure has been jumping up as well so I am concerned that I may be bed rested sooner rather than later. Boo. But there are things I want to do.

School related:
-In July I have been invited to sit on a team to restructure the curriculum for World Languages in our county. I would really like to do this over the 4 days so we'll see how it plays out with appointments and such.
-In August I signed up for a full day workshop on Moodle. And by August I mean it is one week before my due date. I really would enjoy this workshop and would like to use it on my maternity leave, but I'll have to make it there first. We'll see what happens, I guess.

Kid related:
-I really want to continue working with Ethan with things that he has learned at daycare this past year. My goal was to have a schedule similar to Mrs. Martha's, but I'm pretty sure sleeping until 9.30 isn't helping me off to a good start. I'll have to work on this one.
-Ronnie and I know that a huge vacation is out of the picture this year. We're working on our debt free journey so we don't want to throw a huge chunk of money into a hotel or gas, plus we're saving all that we can to use while I am on maternity leave. We also realize that with all the things going on in our lives we don't have much time to vacation and then we don't want to travel too close to my due date. So our goal is to take the boys on some mini day/weekend trips in the area. We would like to take them to the Transportation Museum to check out the trains and to one of a couple of local museums that have cool dinosaur exhibits. We'll see how the trips go and how much walking I can handle.

Craft related:
-I have gotten out of the cloth diaper habit. And it makes me sad and mad. Sad because I love how cloth looks on Elijah's little bum and mad because I HATE paying for paper diapers that stink and go in the trash! So I would like to get the stuff to make him some covers and some for the baby. I also want to get some good prefolds like these.
-I want to get some scrapbooks finished...or started for that matter. I bought a groupon to order photobooks from a website so I'm going to start there.
-I'd like to try making vinyl decals. I've just been too cheap to buy the vinyl.
-I want to take more pictures, but I feel too crappy to do it. I am photographing my cousin's wedding next month and I really hope it goes well.

House related:
-I'd like to get this house situated the way I want it. I still need to paint the kitchen/dining room, laundry room, boys' bathroom and playroom.
-We want to put in an official walkway. But I can't decide how I want it to look. I've priced a couple of things and I'll need to come up with at least $500 extra in order to do this.
-We also want to take the carpet out of the living room and put in hard wood flooring. I found what I want, once again the money is the main issue. But at least I think I know what I want.

Finance related:
-Pay off my student loan! This will hopefully be checked off next week when I get paid! Yay!
-Start a snowball with the money usually used for the loan. I want to be debt free!
-Get better at using coupons and sales so I won't spend so much on groceries. This is especially hard now that I'm on a special diet.

That's all I can think of right now, but I'll update as needed. Hopefully I'll be posting lots more on the blog now that I have "more" time. :)

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