My Moving Tips - Part One

Since we just moved I thought I would post the tips that were helpful to me for packing and organizing the move:

Create a "Moving Notebook": This was probably my number one favorite tool used for organizing the move. I had to refer to this book often and I just carried it in my purse so I always had it. Using a spiral notebook for information such as movers names and phone numbers, realtor name and number, new house address. Create running to-do lists in this notebook. Record your moving expenses in this book. I made my own little check list in here of things I needed to take care of such as, change of address with post office, get water turned on at new place, off at old place, transfer the electricity to the new house, etc. I wrote down our account numbers too so that if there was an issue at the new house and something wasn't turned on, I could easily access any information I might need. Keep this notebook somewhere easily accessible at all times your purse, the car, whatever works for you. Come moving day, if you need something just turn to the handy-dandy little book for help. **I also gave each room a page in my notebook and as I came across online/bloggy ideas for organizing or painting, etc. I wrote it in this book along with the blog or website name. As we are getting settled in the new house I figured I might need to refer back to some of these ideas!!

Get used boxes: Check with your local Freecycle or Craigslist for people getting rid of moving boxes. We found on Freecycle a guy who lived right up the street who had too many boxes and needed to get rid of them. It wasn't enough to do our whole house with but it was a start. Mr. Man also went behind some shops to get boxes. ULTA has great small ones for bathroom and book shelf packing!

Have a "GO BOX": I saw this over at Frazz Mom when we were preparing to move. I thought it was an excellent idea! Basically, when you are packing for your move have a medium to large size box and label it GO BOX. This is going to be the last box taken to the new place and the first box that you will open in your new place. My husband has re-named this our "Survival Box" because he says these are all the items you need when you move and you can't find the items because they are in 10 different places!

Frazz Mom suggested these items:

Toilet paper

Clorox wipes

Paper towels

Cell phone charger

Local phone book

Regular phone (land line)

Paper plates and cups

Towels

Light bulbs (Our new house didn't come with light bulbs in the light fixtures!)

Flashlight (Just in case!)

Snacks (Especially important for the kids!)

Tape

Scissors or box knife

Any tools you might need to assemble furniture- screwdriver, hammer, etc.

Here are some items I also added to my box:

Advil (moving hurts!)

Can opener

wash cloths

garbage bags

This box was extremely helpful. We pretty knew if we needed something that we could check this box first!! This was the second most favorite tool used during the move!

Give everyone a "survival bag": Each kid got a backpack and my husband and I each got a tote bag/brief case. In our bags we put things like the house closing papers, bills that needed to be paid, books we are reading, etc. This way we had our bags handy and could most likely locate things if we needed them. The kids got to pack books, crayons, paper, coloring books, a few toys. The bags kept them entertained at the old house during move time and at the new house while we were trying to get things unpacked.

Use color coding: Get yourself a permanent marker set - an assorted set that has blue, green, red, purple, black. Buy other colors if necessary. Use one color per room. As you pack boxes for one room, label the box using the color marker that you have designated for that room. I also colored a circle on the top corner in that color so that people helping us move just had to look for the colored circle, but you could also just use colored stickers. If you used stickers, you wouldn't necessarily need to use the colored markers.

On moving day, take a colored piece of paper (matching your marker colors) and color code your rooms as well. Hang the colored paper on the door, so that it is easily seen from the stairs or the hallway, wherever people will be moving the stuff (We used colored paper taped to the door) You know which room you plan to put your daughter in or which room is going to be the play room, but not everyone else will and they will probably will have a hard time remembering which room is which, even if you do tell them. So if they see a blue paper on the door they will put all boxes labeled with the blue in this room. It worked great and things moved from the truck inside much quicker.

**We realized after the move we did not have to go through the color coding. All we would have needed to do was label the boxes according to the room and then have a piece of paper labeling the rooms. The color coding was handy for all the miscellaneous boxes that people shoved in my living room because when I was looking for Lady Bugs stuff I just looked for all the boxes with the purple label. It worked well because the colors stand out.

Give each box a number and index it: As you pack you can label the box "kitchen - fragile", "master bedroom" or "play room", etc as needed but you can also give it a number. Using your spiral "moving book", create an index of the boxes. For each box give a brief description of what is inside.

I only took the time to do this with my kitchen stuff - for one thing I didn't have time to do this with the whole house and for another, the kitchen is the one that I always find myself going "where is that can opener?" and I end up tearing open 5 boxes before I find it. (another reason I didn't index the whole house is because my SIL helped pack and I thought it would be rude to ask her to index for me..... I was so very grateful for her help!!)

For example:

#1.

Can opener
large cooking utensils
towels and napkins
coffee pot

#2.

dinner plates and salad plates

#3.

Glasses and coffee mugs

This way when you get settled in and need the can opener you are not shuffling through 9000 boxes all labeled "kitchen". This way you open one box for the one thing you desperately need, instead of 24 boxes before finding the ONE thing you needed at that moment. You can unpack the one box as you go along also.

Have a garage sale / donate unwanted items: We actually put a ton of stuff out for sale and made $200. We then took pictures of what was left and then donated it to the thrift store, we also got a receipt from the store for tax purposes. I stapled the receipt to the picture of what we donated. We plan to have another garage sale this summer because as we are unpacking we are finding things we don't need anymore.

Pack an overnight bag: Pack a suitcase for each member of the family or use a laundry basket. Make sure to have a couple outfits, pajamas, toiletries (shampoo, toothbrush, toothpaste, etc.) for each member of your family. This way you aren't rushing to unpack boxes after a long day of moving to find pajamas or toothbrush, etc. Make sure the suitcase or laundry basket is taken to the new house safely in a car (maybe even in the first load over) and put in a safe place at the new house, such as the master bathroom - just be sure it is somewhere that it can't get buried.

Last minute checks:

Check closets, cabinets and drawers for any items left behind.
Have a cell phone or leave a home phone available for any last minute calls that need to be made. Is the water shut off?
Heater / Air conditioner turned off or down?
Light switches all turned off?
Windows all shut and locked?

At the new house:

Check the hot water heater that the temperature is set correctly. Ours was set to vacation mode so it took quite awhile for it warm back up.

Check the temperature in the fridge. Again, ours had been turned down low since no one was using it for several months.

Here is a neat Moving Checklist that I found to be helpful. I also read through this Packing Tips list.

We are settled

Bwa ha ha ha.....snort..... tee hee.... ha ha ha ha... hee hee hee... ha ha

We are far from settled. We have all the stuff in the new house, but we are far from being all settled in!

It takes so much time figuring out what goes where. I finally started just shoving stuff in the right general direction and will have to move it around later.

We got all the beds set up and most of the kids stuff is in their rooms. I haven't got a system down yet for organizing the boys stuff. Lady Bug's room is pretty much done, but that is because she didn't have as much stuff to begin with!

The neighbor kids have already been over and introduced themselves. There are a couple of 4th grade boys that came over and my boys and those boys rode bikes all afternoon Sunday! That was fun for my boys!

I love my new house! It feels so good to be in the new house and getting back into a routine!

Crispy Mac - n - Cheese

If you want low fat/low cal.... stop reading now! This is far from it, but it is tasty! This actually isn't my favorite version, but my family loves it and asks for it often. The top layer of cheese gets crunchy (which I guess you could have figured out from the title...!)

Crispy Mac - n - Cheese

INGREDIENTS:
3 Tbls butter
12 oz extra sharp cheddar, grated
12 oz cheddar, grated
1 lb elbow pasta, boiled in salted water
1/8 tsp cayenne (optional)
2/3 c whole milk

Heat oven to 375. Use one tablespoon butter to thickly grease 9x13 baking dish. Combine cheese in a bowl. Set aside 2 cups for topping. Toss together pasta, cheeses, cayenne and salt to taste. Place in prepared pan and evenly pour milk over surface. Sprinkle with reserved cheese on top, dot with remaining butter and bake uncovered for 45 minutes. Raise heat to 400 and bake 15-20 minutes more or until crusty on top and bottom.

HAPPY HOMEOWNER

The realtor called and we can go pick up our keys and garage door opener from the title company any time we want to! YAY!!

Now, before you go raining on my parade I do understand that sometimes owning a home has its down sides too.... like when something breaks YOU have to fix it instead of calling the landlord and saying "The toilet broke. Please fix it."

I am just so ready to get settled and back into some sort of normal (whatever that is) routine!

YIPPEE!!!

The house closing

So we were originally supposed to close on the 18th... then it got bumped to the 23rd....then on the 21st they called us and told us we would be closing at 3:00. At 9:00 am on the 21st I got a call from the lender that they wanted "the terms and conditions page of my 401(k) plan". It was now a condition of closing... you have got to be kidding me, right? Nope. It wasn't a joke. I told the lender that we were packed up and I certainly would not be able to find that piece of paper this late in the game. I asked why they waited until 6 hours before closing to make such a request and the answer I got was "ma'am. We are very efficient." Ok, but that doesn't answer my question why you waited until day of closing to ask for this?

I never did get an answer to that. But I scrambled and was able to get the Trustees for the 401(k) account get the paper to the lender for me. The lender had it by 11:00 am. So, I would assume that they should have had plenty of time to review that one piece of paper before closing at 3:00 pm. Well, naturally, I assumed wrong. At 1:30 pm our realtor called and said the lender is telling her they do not have time to review it prior to closing and so we should plan on closing on Thursday the 24th instead. ARGH.

All of us (the sellers and both realtors and then Mr. Man and I) rearranged our schedules to do the closing Thursday (today). Then at 3:00 Monday (the 21st) our realtor emailed us to say the lender said we can close now! I thought I was going to go through the roof. I told her I had now made work commitments and couldn't leave. The sellers went on over and signed the paper work and we planned to just go today (Thursday). At 1:00 pm yesterday my realtor called and asked if I could get off work to close at 4:00 .... yes, 4:00 yesterday! So, I made those arrangements and got there promptly at 4:00 pm.

The Closer comes in to the conference room and said she was having trouble downloading the documents from the lender so "It will be about 30 minutes. Is that ok?" We say sure because are so ready to be done with this!!! At 4:40 she comes in and we start signing, she told us we were signing everything but she needed us to know that there were 2 documents that, even though we were signing them, she was waiting for the lender to approve it. So, if the lender came back with changes we may need to re-sign just these 2 documents.

After we got everything signed, she checked her fax and sure enough the lender wanted some wording changed. She changed it and faxed it back to them. She had us sign the changed ones, although there is still a chance that the lender will want more changes. Yet, again I say Argh!!!

We could not get our keys last night because technically the deal isn't done. We are waiting this morning for a call from our realtor to know whether we go back to the title company to get our keys or whether we need to go back there to sign papers and then get our keys.

This has been a long, drawn out experience and I am ready for it to end! At this point if we can get our keys by Saturday when we have 7 guys and 3 trucks showing up to help us move, then I guess we will be fine!

Another tough life lesson

Spirit got into some more trouble yesterday.... although this time it was at school and it happened on recess.

He and two other boys were writing bad words -- and when I say bad I mean like real bad -- on a notebook that Spirit had brought outside with him. A teacher caught them and they got sent to the Principal's office. She made him write a letter to us telling us what he did and she photocopied the page of bad words for us to see.

When I got home from work I noticed Spirit being extra helpful and sweet. At first I thought nothing bad of it and just thought he was being sweet. Pretty soon his sweetness was overflowing so much it was starting to get real obvious something else was going on. Mr. Man and I kept looking at each other and finally at 8:00 Spirit said he needed to talk to his dad. They went in Spirit's room and closed the door. They were in there a long time. While they were in there I got Lefty and Lady Bug ready for bed and all tucked in to bed. About 40 minutes later, Spirit came out and got ready for bed, told me good night as if this were a regular night.

Mr. Man came to where I was reading and showed me the letter and the photocopy of my son's notebook. He told me Spirit was not allowed at school today unless we signed the letter. He explained to me what Spirit had told him of the events leading up to the letter. We have been having lots of talks lately that we all make choices, choices have consequences -- good choices have good consequences and bad choices have bad consequences. But we were not real sure what the consequences should be to this one. We wanted it severe enough to make the impression it needed to.

After lots of discussion we decided that he needed to write the principal and the teacher a letter of apology. He is also grounded and will not be allowed to go to a birthday party he was invited to on Saturday.

I wanted to impress upon him that maybe you should think about what the consequence might be before you do something. I explained to him this morning the consequences of his actions yesterday. He got teary-eyed, but never cried..... the tears just poured down his face. After breakfast he went to his room to get dressed.... he came out all dressed (even his shoes on, which is rare) and he also had a note he wrote to the principal and teacher. He asked me if it was ok to just write one letter and then asked me to read what he wrote:

Dr. Ms. H and Ms. E

I am sorry I wrote those bad words and made bad choices.

From now on I will think before I do things.

I thought that was very good since I didn't tell him what he should write. I went to the school this morning and talked with the teacher and the principal. I sort of wished they had called me yesterday to tell me, but she said she wanted the kids to tell their parents so it would have a bigger impact.

Devotional Diapers

I saw this idea on Joy in the Journey which she posted as a Works For Me Wednesday post. She shared it as a quick baby shower gift and I was in need of a "quick baby shower gift" so it really caught my attention.

Here is Lady Bug after she helped put all the stickers on the diapers! She was quite proud of herself.

I purchased a basket that came with a liner. This was $7 at Wal-Mart. Then I had the ribbon so we wrapped the ribbon around the edge and tied a card on it that I typed up on the computer that says "Devotional Diapers: For the Mom with very little time". I printed up some quotes and scriptures on mothering, love, patience and kindness on address labels. Then Lady Bug and I stuck them to size 1 diapers. Then we placed all the diapers in the basket and also added a tub of baby wipes and a 3 pack of onesies.

It all came together so cute and the basket is re-useable as storage or whatever! It was a big hit at the shower!

Words her father was hoping not to hear

**EDITED - scroll to bottom**

This morning Lady Bug woke up earlier than usual so she was laying in our bed while Mr. Man and I were getting ready. As I came out of the bathroom I saw Lady Bug with her arms around her dad's neck and giving him a raspberry kiss on his cheek.

awwww, isn't that cute?

Then, she dropped the bomb that about sent her father into a heart attack "I do that to my boyfriend all the time!"

Her father responded with:

"WHAT? Are you kidding me? What boyfriend? What is his name? Does your mom know about this? When did this start?"

I said: "Honey, she is three years old. I think she is talking about her play mate Joshua. It is harmless."

He looked at me wide-eyed and very confused as if I were making light of his little girl "dating".

I was about to try to console him again when she decided to help me by adding: "I have lots of boyfriends."

That really sent her father over the edge and now he is threatening to buy some firearms. Not to use of course, just to have in the house "just in case."

I am still trying to get him calmed down and bring him back to reality. I think we are almost there. He was just not prepared to hear those words for say, oh, another 15-20 years! **Mr. Man asked that I edit this to add... he hopes never to hear those words! hee hee*

Kid-sized pepperoni calzones

I made these last weekend -- I have to admit this is not what I was going for (I was really hoping for more the pizza roll type things you can buy at the store), but these ended up being tasty, filling and very easy! The kids really liked them and even asked for them again for dinner one night! I made the recipe up as I went along. These are quick and easy to make which makes them an even bigger bonus!

INGREDIENTS:
1 can Pillsbury Grands biscuits (must be the Grands)
1 package of pepperoni (you will want about 6-10 pepperonis per biscuit)
small jar of pizza sauce
mozzarella cheese

Flatten out each biscuit so that it is thin like pizza dough. Spread about 1 Tbls sauce on each biscuit. Top with 1 Tbls (or so) of mozzarella -- eyeball the amount you want -- and then place pepperonis on top. It is ok for the pepperoni to overlap each other. Roll this up like a burrito and place it on an ungreased baking sheet - seam-side down. Bake at 350 degrees F for 12 minutes or until golden. *Check bottoms of rolls to be sure they don't get too browned. If they start to darken, the biscuits are done.


I served these with a bit of the sauce warmed up on the side for dipping. Yum!

Moving day postponed

The closing on our house has been postponed until April 23rd because the bank wanted original 401(k) statements instead of the ones we downloaded from the Internet.... Argh. So I spent some time on the phone trying to get these statements faxed to us because we have packed up any that we may have had, and finally got someone from my husband's company to get them for me. Of course, she didn't fax that day and then they came today and now the bank said it will take a few more days for them to process this paperwork. I think that is silly since they had the statements, they just weren't originals and to me a faxed copy isn't an original either so what is the difference?

Anyhooo, we are now closing during the week and will move in to the house on the 25th and 26th. ONE more week of living in chaos!

A friend of ours offered to take the kids to her house this Friday night so that they will kinda get a break from the chaos. She said she'll take them to a movie and then dinner, etc. So that will be nice for them, and frankly us too.

Being a good loser

Last night Lefty and Lady Bug were "racing" from one end of the room to the next and who ever made it to the chair at the end "won". They raced 4 or 5 times and each time Lefty would get to the chair and say "I won, I won!" and Lady Bug would say nothing. But, then they raced again and Lefty made it to the chair first, of course, and he said "I won, I won!" and Lady Bug said "I losed, I losed!"

It made me giggle! I was glad she is young enough not to care who wins or "losed"!!

Pay Back stinks *evil laugh*

Remember my story about Spirit unpacking the boxes before our moving day and how frustrated I was and how Mr. Man said "He is a boy, it is expected."

well guess what???

Spirit unpacked some stuff that Mr. Man had spent time boxing up!! Oh man, he wasn't as forgiving as the day Spirit undid the boxes I packed! Oh I can not tell you how hard it was NOT to laugh! Mr. Man had carefully wrapped up a bunch of his collectibles and Spirit decided he wanted to look at them!

This time it was me leading Mr. Man out of the room and I said to him "It is ok. We will just wrap them back up. I think now is the time to sit all the kids down and explain why we are not going to UNpack any boxes until we move said boxes to the new house."

We sat all the kids down and explained and Mr. Man agreed to let the kids look at the collectibles when he unpacks that box at the new house!

I resisted temptation to rub it in Mr. Man's face..... it certainly was not worth it at this point. We all are so ready to get into routines again and get settled! This long transition has been hard on all of us. Even I was feeling a little "off" and I was weepy for no apparent reason. This morning I think it has to do with the chaos and I just need to get settled in again! Only 2 more days! Phew!

Lessons in Lying

Friday was the last day of the book fair at school so I took the boys in to buy a couple more (they had already been in once during the week with the class). I took the boys to buy more based on something Spirit told me. He told me that "dad said we could buy one more book, plus since it is buy one get one we can get the free one too."

We got to the school about 45 minutes before school started so that gave them plenty of time to look. We decided on 4 books (since it was BOGO), we paid and I took them to their classes.

Later that evening...

Mr. Man asked me why we bought more books. I told him that Spirit told me that dad said we could. I also told him how surprised I was that he was letting them get more books since we are trying to get all the stuff packed up for moving in one week. He told me that is not what he told Spirit. He said in fact, he told him he could not buy any more books. Apparently Spirit was begging for a "Hot Cars" book and Mr. Man said "IF that book is available you may buy that one and of course pick a free one, but you are NOT to buy any books if Hot Cars is not available." When we were at the book fair the Hot Cars book was sold out so Spirit chose a different book. I was completely unaware that his dad told him to only get Hot Cars.

So, I called Spirit into our room (**please note: at the time I called him into our room he was proudly reading his new books.....) As soon as I said "Can you tell me what dad told you about the book fair?" His shoulders dropped, his eyed welled up with tears.... He knew he was busted. B.U.S.T.E.D.

We had a long talk with him about lying, ya-ta-ya-ta-ya and then we took his books away. Mr. Man wanted to donate them back to the school library I encouraged him to just put them away and later we can return them to him.

Recipes

Here are some recipes I tried this week from other blogs. Each one of these was absolutely delicious and I highly recommend them:

Creamy Cinnamon Squares. Gourmet-Mom-On-The-Go had this recipe posted here, Gourmet Mom said they were better cold, I was too impatient to wait for them to cool and tried them warm. I will say, these were not as good warm as they were cold. I also removed them from the fridge and brought them to room temperature instead of eating them completely cold which was tasty.

Motherhood For Dummies had this awesome recipe for Slow Cooker Enchiladas posted here. It is delicious. The kids loved it and my husband loved it too. My husband said it needed to be spicier, which could be corrected with a spicier salsa, I used a mild salsa.

If you read at the bottom of the Slow Cooker Enchiladas recipe she makes some suggestions for what she is going to do differently next time and I agree with her, especially the one about adding some rice layers. Although, I want to say it was still very tasty as is and we didn't have much left overs.

Apple Pie Muffins. MotherLoad shared this recipe and it was delicious. And her post here shares a neat hospital hospitality idea using these muffins.

Stormy weather

It got very windy yesterday afternoon, then started raining and by night fall we had snow mixed with wind. It wasn't pretty!

I turned on the heater... and it didn't kick on.....I turned it up more.... it still didn't kick on. Then Mr. Man started looking at it and he said he thinks it is completely dead. D.E.A.D.

We watched the news for the weather forecast and we found out it is supposed to snow into Friday and be cold. Then the weekend start to warm up a little. Since we will be moving in a week we are not going to do anything about fixing the heater. We put all the kids in one room last night and put a space heater in the room. We only have one space heater so when we all got up and around this morning we moved the heater to the dining area so the kids could eat breakfast.

I borrowed two heaters from a friend so we can stay warm over the next few days.

Sometimes it feels like if it isn't one thing, it is another. Sheesh.

Unpacking already?

Here we are about a week away from moving. I've been packing and packing and moving right along on that task. I gave each child a backpack and we filled it with toys, books, crayons, coloring books, etc as sort of the "survival bag" for the week. Things were fine...until last night...I went into Spirit's room and there were 3 boxes with the tape ripped off. I immediately called for him. He came in and said, very innocently, "what?"

I asked why the boxes were torn open and he simply said (as if it were totally normal and expected for boxes to be re-opened BEFORE moving day) "I was looking for plain paper to color on."

I tried to maintain composure, but did not do a good job and Mr. Man literally had to lead me out of the room by the arm and tell me to calm down. Mr. Man then said the unthinkable "He is a boy. It's expected."

AAAAHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!

I know the ol' saying from my grade school days that "Boys are stupid" but come on. [side note here: I do not think my son is stupid. Did he think about what he was doing before he opened those boxes? no. He did not. He obviously did not think about how mad is mom was going to be either.] But, for Mr. Man to say "He is a boy"?????????? What is that supposed to mean? It is ok for Spirit to tear open boxes that I worked so hard to pack? Surely, Mr. Man does not think that????? ARGH.

Anyway, the boxes have been re-taped and I threatened to leave any box that is re-opened BEFORE moving day.

Music and Lyrics

Lady Bug was singing last night, this is her new favorite past time. She sings in the bath, she sings in bed, she sings in the car, at breakfast, at dinner, outside, she sings e.v.e.r.y.w.h.e.r.e. it really annoys her brothers, but her mom and dad love it!

Last night as I was getting her undressed for her bath, she was, of course, singing. She loudly sang the following little ditty:

My momma, my momma,

my momma is a girl.

My momma, my momma,

my momma is my momma.

My momma, my momma,

my momma.

Momma, momma, momma, maaaaawwwwwwmmmmaa!!!

Ggggiiiirrrrllllll, ggggiiiiirrrrllllll, girl.

I thought is quite lovely. The boys disagreed. Her father wasn't as impressed with that song either, but her momma was! I am convinced she will be the next big star.... maybe on American Idol one day!!

Strange predicament to be in...

I was standing here at my desk in my office building and realized that my shirt had come untucked. I have a sweater over the top, but this particular shirt hangs down too far so I like to keep it tucked in. So, anyway, I was tucking my shirt back in and my silver link-type bracelet got caught on the tag in my pants. So here I am with my bracelet caught in the back of my pants and I couldn't get it unhooked!! I was expecting a client at any moment and I couldn't easily walk around to find someone to help me! Fortunately, I saw a friendly face from next door walking to the restroom and I asked her to help me!

Sheesh! Talk about embarrassing! I am so glad I got it unhooked before the client came waltzing in to find me with my hands stuck down my pants! OR, even worse the client comes waltzing in to see some girl looking down my pants!!

Weekend

My weekend packing was pretty good. Mr. Man had to work Saturday, but fortunately it was nice outside and the kids were able to play outside all day. The neighbor kids were also out and at one point 8 kids were in my yard playing.

I got a lot done though. My living room, family room and dining room are done, with the exception of Mr. Man's desk. Spirit's room is totally done, except for clothes. We are actually going to take apart his bed in the next day or two and he can sleep on the floor (he said he wants to anyway...) Tonight, we are going to start in Lefty's room and if need be the boys can sleep together on the floor somewhere. I got each kid a "survival bag" and packed some toys, books, pencils, pens, crayons and paper to get them through this week. I will pack up my kitchen last thing.

It feels good to be moving along on the right path and soon we can be settled again. Limbo stinks!!!

Creamy Topped Raspberry Salad

EDITED: originally I typed this recipe to say ".3 oz raspberry jello" -- I am not sure where the . (point) came in, but it should just say 2 pkg of 3 oz each raspberry jello

This is extremely quick to make and is a nice dish to serve to guests because it looks pretty (oh, and it tastes yummy too!) My family often requests this dessert.

Creamy Topped Raspberry Salad:
INGREDIENTS:
2 pkg (3 oz) raspberry jello
1 pkg (12 oz) frozen raspberries
4 oz cream cheese, softened
6 oz Cool Whip, thawed
6 Tbls sweetened condensed milk


Dissolve jello in 1 1/2 c boiling water. Add 1 c ice and frozen raspberries. Stir until ice melts. Put in freezer while you make topping. Mix cream cheese, cool whip and milk in a bowl. Spread topping over jello and refrigerate until ready to serve.

YEA! We aren't going to be living in a van down by the river!

The house we made an offer on accepted last night -- well, actually they countered and we accepted the counter offer!

Yippee! I am so excited. I will post pictures as soon as I can. The pictures from the MLS are not very good, so I am going to try to take my own and post here!

Lots of people have offered to help pack and move us which is such a relief. I already have been packing, but there is still lots to do. I plan to spend this weekend packing, packing, packing. The weather is supposed to be nice so hopefully the kids can/will play outside alot and let me pack. Mr. Man has to work all weekend which is a very good thing, because I can toss things out without him knowing!! He is such a pack rat!

Feeling very uninspired today

It rained all night so the sky is still gray and gloomy this morning. I woke up at 4:00 and couldn't go back to sleep. Not a whole lot exciting happening around my house lately. All that combined together makes for a very uninspired me!

We put an offer on a house and they have until 6:00 pm today to review it and respond. We offered full price, but asked that they repair the fence. The house is the right size for us, backs to a park and the school is within walking distance. I am trying not to get my hopes us on this one (we've been through this process before!), but it is hard not to get excited!

Well, I am off to find some more coffee and some chocolate! Maybe that will inspire me to write something of more interest!

Story telling

Spirit has gone into a phase where he wants to tell us stories -- stories about his day, stories about something he saw, something he learned, etc.

These stories tend to be painfully long for the listener. He repeats himself. When he mixes up a detail he starts the whole story over. If you ask a question or interrupt in anyway, he starts the whole story over again. If he thinks you aren't listening, he stops and waits until he thinks you are and then .... starts the whole story over again.

As I was reading A Mom's Life yesterday about "I'm Gonna Miss This" I was remembering saying those same words to myself many times in the last few weeks. I realize that there will come a day when talking to me or telling me a story will be a thing of the past. I realize that there will be a day when his busy life will interfere with telling me stories of his day or the exciting things he learned. I realize there will be a day when "I'm gonna miss this"

Mr. Helpful

Mr. Man is not known for his orderliness around the house. There have been times that I will leave his clean, nicely folded clothes on the bed (on his side of the bed) and instead of putting them away, he carefully places them on the floor to be stepped on. These will not ever, no not ever, be put away. I will eventually realize they have been stepped on one too many times and now just need re-washing.

Mr. Man has also been known to leave his dirty socks next to his bed and claim he thinks he can wear them again..... and that is when I put them in the laundry so he doesn't try it.

Last night, I laid out 2 of his shirts and a pair of his dress pants to mend on my side of the bed. I had also set the newspaper coupons on my side of the bed so that I could go through them and cut out what I wanted. I left the room for a moment and when I came back, the clothes were hung up nicely in his closet and the newspaper was gone.

I asked Mr. Man about it and he said he threw the newspaper away and hung up his clothes. I thought to myself: WHAT??

I didn't want to say anything because he was trying so hard to be helpful, but the clothes were there for mending and the newspaper for coupon cutting. So, I just chuckled and told him I was going to mend his clothes and cut coupons. He said very sheepishly, "I was just trying to help." I told him that I understood that and I wasn't upset. And I am not upset, I do, however, find it funny that I can't get him to put clothes away if I put them on his side of the bed but he is very clean about my side so I will start putting his folded clothes on my side and see what happens!!!