I guess in this case, it’s actually a blog called A Penny Saved. I came across this blog because the author, Jen, seems to stop by our blog periodically. I love the blog format for deals over forums because I can subscribe via RSS feed and the posts come directly to my inbox. I love all the freebies and coupon money-makers she posts.
You’ll note that a lot of the samples require you to enter an email address. That’s where another one of my favorite sites comes in–Mailinator. Mailinator allows you to create a legitimate email address on-the-spot without any registration. Just enter <anythingyouwant>@mailinator.com in the email field. If the form requires validation, you can hop over to Mailinatorwhere they hold emails to your account for a couple hours. Then you can forget about the account and not compromise the security and spam-proofness of your normal email. Just remember that Mailinator accounts are not secure so don’t use it if you think private information will be sent to the email. Confused? Check out their FAQs.
That’s what I’ve been telling myself lately. I’ve been really (ok, that’s probably an understatement) annoyed at the mud factor lately. I think (ok, I know) it’s been compounded by thinking about our impending trip to the Mud Auctions (ironic, huh?). For some reason I was just not excited about three kids with nothing to do in 6 inches of mud.
I have a confession. I haven’t let my kids out in the backyard in over a month. First it was because the snow was too deep and we couldn’t even get our back door open (legit excuse I promise). Then it was because I was too lazy to dress them for snow play or go out myself (less legit). Now that most of the snow is gone, it’s because of the mud. We have our dream, flat, backyard which also means it will probably be muddy until June.
Today as I was driving along with the windows wide open and wearing flip flops. I came to the sudden realization that we almost completely missed five days of gorgeous weather because of my attitude about mud and how much extra work it is and how much it messes (literally) with my white carpets. I also remembered that I actually believe in sending my kids out to play in any weather because I believe it’s good for them, I don’t actually have white carpets anymore, and I have enough Zout to tackle the mess.
Thankfully I think tomorrow’s supposed to be equally gorgeous so I can redeem myself.
One of the springboard’s for this week’s Blog Hop was “tell us why ministering and serving others is worth the time and effort.” My brain’s a little overloaded these days and this pretty much tipped the scales so I asked my kids. When asked what serving was, Mia responded, “You do it to food” but PJ responded, “We can serve God.”
Shocking…we decided to explore PJ’s answer.
I love what he said next. “We serve Him to praise Him and to show we love Him.”
The next jump in logic was finding out how to serve God.
Matthew 25:40 makes it pretty clear–”whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.”
So serving others is also serving and praising God. That’s reason enough for me.
I was going to elaborate on how we are attempting (with lots of leaning on God) to raise children with servant hearts, but the kids are up and I’m out of time. So it will have to be a different post.
My best friend welcomed Baby Lily into the world a couple weeks early a couple weeks ago. I was visiting today and couldn’t help getting a few shots to add to her Daddy’s hundreds. These are my current favorite future-flip-flop-wearing feet But I’m not biased or anything.
I love sharing things I love. Mostly because things I love make my life easier, more peaceful, or just plain happier. What better place to share things I love than on my blog?
Today I was reading Ty a book. Hooray! Ty’s sitting through books. Oops. Sorry. Where was I? Anyway, I was reading Ty a book and I loved the illustrations, the way he could act it out, and the simplicity and repetitiveness of it. It’s called I Am a Backhoeby Anna Hines. We found ours at our local library but you can also pick it up at Amazon (or anywhere else I’m sure).
As I stood in front of the myriad of fish tanks at Petsmart today with the two little kids, I was glad (for once) that there were no employees around trying to be helpful. Ty and Mia were enthralled by the hundreds of fish swimming around in front of them. We were actually early (for once) and had plenty of time to make a 5 minute trip into the pet store for an aquarium light bulb into a 45 minute field trip. It also just so happens that Petsmart puts almost as much information up about their fish as our local aquarium so it really felt like a legit educational experience as we learned the names, preferred food, necessary tank sizes, life expectancies, and swimming depths of the fish.
If I would’ve know how bloggable our morning errands would be, I would’ve taken my camera.
Why stop at fish? I thought. We moved onto small mammals, reptiles, and birds. We even got to witness the cleaning of a chinchilla cage. Who needs Keeper Encounters (or whatever they’re called at your local zoo). By the end of our visit, we knew that chinchilla’s like to live in same-sex pairs, eat Timothy hay, grow to be 10-12″ (not including the tail), and enjoy bi-weekly dust baths.
Have you ever run an errand that turned into a field trip?
I wish I was better at putting down on paper screen how many ways God has shown His faithfulness in our journey to get Grafted Families up and running. But I’m not. So you’ll just have to deal with what I have. I just posted an entry here at our Grafted Families blog about our last MNO.
Last Saturday was Discover Engineering Family Day at the National Building Museum in D.C. Being the engineers nerds that we are, we couldn’t think of a better way to spend a day (especially with Grandma and Grandpa in town).
I work in the field of engineering education and even I was impressed by the variety and number of activities for school-aged children that used everyday materials and taught an engineering concept.
We came home with lots of projects and ideas.
Too bad we didn’t have all those ideas during the blizzards a couple weeks ago.
With all the festivities, we didn’t even get to explore past the atrium. Guess we’ll have to go back. Seeing as admission is free, it even fits within the limits of the spending freeze.
I’ve had one of those days that leaves my head spinning. Patrick volunteered to take PJ to school this morning. To say PJ was thrilled would be an understatement. I think Patrick was just thrilled to have his car back and wanted a place to go since going to the “office” doesn’t require leaving the house any more.
I decided to bump up my weekly grocery run a day because we’re getting more snow tonight. Got a text that a friend got great and bad news at an OB appointment today. It hit really close to home for another friend who has been trudging through an extremely high risk pregnancy for the last 6 months.
The dishwasher has been leaking all week but finally got bad enough last night that the towels on the floor weren’t nearly enough to contain the water. When I came home my kitchen looked like a junk yard for spare dishwasher parts. I was distracted by the mess and stuff and a phone call and Mia was late to school.
Got a call while I was on my way home from taking Mia to school from a friend going through a one of those too-bad-to-be-true times of her life. The unfairness and cruelness of it all is really distracting me. Was so distracted that I called my MOPS leader to make sure she knew which led to a whole other conversation about petty church politics. Not sure to be sad or mad about that one. It’s not my church and not really my problem but having been a family member of a church staff person at a church with similar petty politics, it still makes me mad and/or sad. More mad I think.
Ty fell asleep on the way home but thankfully stayed asleep when I moved him inside. After he woke up, I realized I hadn’t showered this morning because I wanted to workout and shower when he was sleeping. Patrick fixed the dishwasher.
Mia came home looking like she’s been on the battlefield. A collision at school resulted in a bloody nose. We went after school to meet my friend in need. Got stuck in rush hour traffic. Was exhausted when we got home. Made the kids sit in the car and listen to music while I took a 10 minute power nap. Ty peed in his pants as he was standing on the stool trying to pull them down. I guess 2 hours is too long not to take him potty.
The laundry’s piling up but at least everyone has clean sheets.
Everyone’s watching Curious George while I take a shower and mark lots of emails I need to respond to. Speaking of George? Have you seen him? I haven’t since breakfast and I think it will make for a traumatic bedtime. This is why we’ve discouraged comfort objects.
Dinner time.
P.S. I totally stole MckMama’s idea for Stream of Consciousness posts and called it Ramblings.
We are an average family living on the east coast who just had the privilege of adopting a little boy from Korea. This is our attempt to capture our life as it happens for future reference and for out of town friends and family. We hope you enjoy. You can subscribe via RSS feed in the lower left corner or enter your email address in the box below for email updates. Contact ushere.
But I’m not biased or anything.
by Anna Hines. We found ours at our local library but you can also pick it up at Amazon (or anywhere else I’m sure).
